Movie/TV Reviews

The Hours

Susan Granger’s review of “The Hours” (Paramount Pictures)

Depression, disaster and death mark Stephen Daldry’s superbly crafted chronicle of a single day in the lives of three repressed, fearful women from different eras who are emotionally touched by Virginia Woolf’s insightful 1923 novel “Mrs. Dalloway.” As the complex tripartite story opens, writer Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman, almost unrecognizable with a prosthetic nose) drowns herself in 1941 in Sussex, England. A flashback then explains who she is, how she was moved from London by her doting husband (Stephen Dillane) and why she chooses suicide. Meticulously intercut within her cerebral tale are two other profiles. In 1951 in Los Angeles, there’s emotionally – and sexually – unfulfilled Laura (Julianne Moore), housewife/mother of a young son (Jack Rovello) and pregnant with her second child, who is obsessed with making a birthday cake for her husband (John C. Reilly) when she learns about the upcoming surgery of a friend (Toni Collette). In contemporary Manhattan, there’s Clarissa (Meryl Streep), an editor nicknamed ‘Mrs. Dalloway’ after the heroine “always giving parties to cover the silence,” who is preparing a celebration for her former lover (Ed Harris), a poet dying of AIDS. A visit from his ex-lover (Jeff Daniels) evokes poignant memories, despite her serene lesbian relationship with Sally (Allison Janney) and the support of her daughter (Claire Danes). David Hare’s atmospheric melodrama, based on Michael Cunningham’s Pulitzer Prize-winning best-seller, is blessed with exquisite performances and seamless cross-cutting between historical time periods. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Hours” is a contemplative 8, seriously asserting, “Someone has to die so we will value life more.” Borrowing from Almodovar, it’s “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.”

Susan Granger's review of "The Hours" (Paramount Pictures)
Depression, disaster and death mark Stephen Daldry's superbly crafted chronicle of a single day in the lives of three repressed, fearful women from different eras who are emotionally touched by Virginia Woolf's insightful 1923 novel "Mrs. Dalloway." As the complex tripartite story opens, writer Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman, almost unrecognizable with a prosthetic nose) drowns herself in 1941 in Sussex, England. A flashback then explains who she is, how she was moved from London by her doting husband (Stephen Dillane) and why she chooses suicide. Meticulously intercut within her cerebral tale are two other profiles. In 1951 in Los Angeles, there's emotionally - and sexually - unfulfilled Laura (Julianne Moore), housewife/mother of a young son (Jack Rovello) and pregnant with her second child, who is obsessed with making a birthday cake for her husband (John C. Reilly) when she learns about the upcoming surgery of a friend (Toni Collette). In contemporary Manhattan, there's Clarissa (Meryl Streep), an editor nicknamed 'Mrs. Dalloway' after the heroine "always giving parties to cover the silence," who is preparing a celebration for her former lover (Ed Harris), a poet dying of AIDS. A visit from his ex-lover (Jeff Daniels) evokes poignant memories, despite her serene lesbian relationship with Sally (Allison Janney) and the support of her daughter (Claire Danes). David Hare's atmospheric melodrama, based on Michael Cunningham's Pulitzer Prize-winning best-seller, is blessed with exquisite performances and seamless cross-cutting between historical time periods. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "The Hours" is a contemplative 8, seriously asserting, "Someone has to die so we will value life more." Borrowing from Almodovar, it's "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown."

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Rabbit-Proof Fence

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Rabbit-Proof Fence” (Miramax Films)

Cinema is a provocative medium and, every now and then, a film comes along that not only entertains but elucidates important social issues as reflected through the microcosm of one human story. Australian director Phillip Noyce (“Patriot Games,” “The Saint”) probes a dark period in his country’s history, set at a time when a 1,500-mile barbed-wire rabbit-proof fence was under construction. White men involved in this project often mated with Aboriginal women, resulting in half-caste children who were forcibly taken from their mothers in a cruel attempt to assimilate and, ultimately, breed “the coloured problem” out of existence. These children became known as The Stolen Generation…and this is a true story of three little girls who were forcibly taken from their mothers in 1931 in Jigalong, Western Australia. The heroine is 14 year-old Molly (Everlyn Sampi), whose silent resilience resonates and propels her younger sister Daisy (Tianna Sansbury) and cousin Gracie (Laura Monaghan) into running from the internment camp, then following the fence through the harsh Outback with a fierce determination to find their way home. The reprehensibly misguided, racist villain is A.O. Neville (Kenneth Branagh), Chief Protector of the Aborigines, who dispatches a tracker (David Gupilil) and several officers after them. Christopher Doyle’s stark, bleached photography is awesome, as is Peter Gabriel’s score, utilizing indigenous rhythms and instruments. But Christine Olsen’s script lacks raw dramatic tension; the outcome is a foregone conclusion; and there’s so little character development that the bereft mothers have more emotional impact than the trio of girls. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Rabbit-Proof Fence” is a realistic, compelling 8, a bold triumph of the human spirit against overwhelming odds.

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NICHOLAS NICKLEBY

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “NICHOLAS NICKLEBY” (United Artists)

Perhaps part of the greatness of Charles Dickens’ stories is that they can be reinterpreted in so many ways. In this surprisingly lighthearted version, writer/director Douglas McGrath (“Emma,” “Bullets Over Broadway”) focuses on the realities of Victorian life, particularly the extended family, defined as a group of beloved people, chosen one by one. As the story begins, the Devonshire family of 19 year-old Nicholas (Charlie Hunnam) is left penniless when his father (Andrew Havill) dies. When they appeal to their Uncle Ralph (Christopher Plummer) in London, he maliciously sends Nicholas off to work as a teacher at the decrepit Dotheboys School while his mother (Stella Gonet) toils as a seamstress and his sister Kate (Romola Garai) is forced to “entertain” Ralph’s lecherous cronies. Dotheboys (as in “do-the-boys”) turns out to be a wretched hovel where illegitimate or unwanted urchins are beaten and starved by nasty, sadistic Wackford Squeers (Jim Broadbent) and his cruel wife (Juliet Stevenson). Nicholas befriends Smike (Jamie Bell), a crippled orphan, and they run away together to seek their fortunes and – aided by Newman Noggs (Tom Courtenay) – wreak revenge on cold-blooded Uncle Ralph. En route, Nicholas joins a colorful, campy theatrical troupe (Nathan Lane, Dame Edna, Alan Cummings) and falls in love with a winsome – if destitute – wench (Ann Hathaway). While this version is fast (130 minutes) and funny, the character of Nicholas has been reduced to one-dimensional geniality, losing his cool only once when a cad corners and gropes his innocent sister Kate. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Nicholas Nickleby” is a startlingly sweet 7. And look for Douglas McGrath’s introduction to the new Penguin edition of Charles Dickens’ “Nicholas Nickleby.”

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Max

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Max” (Lions Gate Films)

When I heard there was an exhibition of Adolf Hitler’s paintings in Williamstown, Massachusetts, I was stunned. (I’d always thought he was a house painter.) Now, writer/director Menno Meyjes (writer of “The Color Purple,” “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”) speculates that Hitler was so frustrated in his futile attempts to break into the trendy art world that he founded the Third Reich instead. The story begins in 1918 in Munich, where two German soldiers who survived the W.W.I siege of Ypres meet. Max Rothman (John Cusack), a Jew who lost an arm in battle, has become a successful avant-garde art dealer. In the sketches of fervent, young Adolf Hitler (Noah Taylor), Rothman sees a promising, unique kitsch. But developing his work takes dedication and patience, two qualities Hitler lacks. Rigidly puritanical with neither family nor friends, Hitler flounders until he discovers his talent for oratory. “Politics is the new art,” he exults, pouring his malevolence into rhetoric. “Anti-Semitism is the ideology of those who feel cheated,” Max counters, and the rest – as they say – is history. The script has problems: when Rothman’s mistress (Leelee Sobieski) inquires, “What do you see in this man? He is the most horrible person”…so does the audience. Filled with Teutonic symbolism, Hitler’s paintings are mediocre, at best. John Cusack is pitch-perfect as Rothman, while Australian actor Noah Taylor captures Hitler’s hateful, deluded bitterness. Ironically, however, Taylor lacks the hypnotic charisma as a performance artist that made millions of people follow this monstrous madman into the nightmare of W.W.II. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Max” is an invigorating, provocative, audacious 8. Surely it’s the most nerve-rattling, controversial film of 2002.

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Roger Dodger

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Roger Dodger” (Artisan Entertainment)

First-time writer/director Dylan Kydd tackles Sex, the City and Successful Seduction with this comic, acerbic portrait of a glib, arrogant Manhattan bachelor introducing his dorky 16 year-old nephew from Ohio to the intricacies of casual sexual conquest. Roger Swanson (Campbell Scott) is a sleazy, cocky, misogynistic advertising copywriter who believes he knows everything about manipulating women, bragging, “Words are my stock in trade.” (He got his “dodger” nickname as a child who could talk his way out of sticky situations.) His impressionable nephew Nick (Jesse Eisenberg) is a novice at the seduction game and eager to lose his virginity. Yet as he escorts Nick on an enlightening, all-night excursion, Roger realizes he still has a lot to learn about what women really want. Campbell Scott (“Dying Young”) deftly succeeds at humanizing a sad, sordid, repulsive fellow, while Jesse Eisenberg (brother of child actress Hallie) conveys an innocent honesty in his awkwardly relentless search for sex. As Roger’s boss and soon-to-be ex-girlfriend, Isabella Rossellini is wisely restrained, while Jennifer Beals (“Flashdance”) and Elizabeth Berkeley (“Showgirls”), as the female foils, offer some surprisingly candid sex talk. Notable for writing witty dialogue filled with trenchant, if perverse, psychological observations, Dylan Kydd juxtaposes photographer Joaquin Baca-Asay’s frantic, fast-paced hand-held camera work with slow, verbose, intimate encounters, and the ending is artfully ambiguous. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Roger Dodger” is a scathing, disturbing 6. Along with Campbell Scott’s memorable characterization, I suspect it will be remembered as Dylan Kydd’s distinctive debut that will serve as a creditable calling-card for future ventures.

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Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” (Miramax Films)

Do you remember – in “A Beautiful Mind” – when schizophrenic John Nash Jr. had the hallucination that he was recruited as a spy for the CIA? This dark comedy asserts that Chuck Barris was also conscripted during the Cold War – think of “A Beautiful Mind” on an acid trip. Creator of TV’s “The Dating Game,” “The Newlywed Game” and “The Gong Show,” Chuck Barris (Sam Rockwell) re-invents himself periodically – and, this time, he’s enlisted as an independent contractor by a sinister agent (George Clooney) to participate in secret cloak-and-dagger assassination missions with a beautiful, if lethal, overseas operative (Mata Hari-like Julia Roberts). In one, he inventively hides microfilm in his anus. Of course, none of this is known or even suspected by his longtime love (ever-giggly Drew Barrymore). Written by Charlie Kaufman (“Being John Malkovich,” “Adaptation”), inspired by Barris’ unauthorized autobiography and directed by George Clooney, it’s like a preposterous Hollywood in-joke with celebrities popping up in goofy, sycophantic cameos. (Marie Bertrand, the Montreal bartender who was Clooney’s on-location squeeze, gets a pivotal scene playing a bachelorette who unwittingly rejects both Matt Damon and Brad Pitt.) Barris’ real-life contemporaries Dick Clark, Jim Lange and Jaye P. Morgan lend deceptively authentic commentary to his “downward spiral of debauchery,” along with skilled lighting by cinematographer Newton Thomas Siegel, Stephen Mirrione’s editing and a memorable soundtrack. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” is a cynical, ludicrous, self-indulgent 3. One saving grace: George’s late aunt, Rosemary Clooney, warbles “There’s No Business Like Show Business” at its conclusion.

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25th Hour

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “c” (Touchstone/Disney)

Set in post-9/11 New York, Spike Lee’s newest film revolves around convicted drug-dealer Marty Brogan’s (Edward Norton) last day of freedom before he goes upstate to prison for seven years. Marty’s not a bad guy; he’s just made some wrong choices, and now he’s forced to examine them, along with his relationship with his two childhood buddies: Frank Slaughtery (Barry Pepper), a hard-edged Wall Street bond trader, and Jacob Elinsky (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a nerdy, underpaid high-school English teacher whom Frank calls “a whining malcontent.” Filled with self-recrimination, his widower father (Brian Cox), a retired firefighter who tends bar on Staten Island, wants him to escape with a new identity to a small town somewhere, fantasizing what would happen if he did. The wild card is his sexy Puerto Rican girlfriend, Naturelle (Rosario Dawson), who may have been the one who tipped off the DEA – at least according to the narcs and hulking Kostya Novotny (Tony Siragusa), Marty’s bodyguard. But who actually did? Edward Norton convincingly embodies the fear within conflicted Marty, and now-grown Anna Paquin (“The Piano”) scores as Jacob’s manipulative, sexually aggressive but underage student. Adapted by David Benioff from his novel, the not-very-plausible, character-driven story has sharp dialogue, flashbacks that explore the past, and cynical monologues filled with profanity. In one, Marty rages in exasperation against the rich, the poor, blacks, gays, cops and Osama bin Laden. And, as always, Terence Blanchard’s signature music underscores Spike Lee’s intentions. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “25th Hour” is a gritty, depressing yet powerful 8, particularly when you’re helplessly staring at the ruins of the World Trade Center at ground zero.

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Moonlight Mile

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Moonlight Mile” (Touchstone Pictures/Buena Vista)

Two narrative threads are woven here: 1) dealing with grief and 2) living a lie. The story, set in 1973, opens with a funeral in a small Massachusetts town. JoJo and Ben Floss (Susan Sarandon, Dustin Hoffman) are mourning their murdered daughter whose fiancŽ Joe (Jake Gyllenhaal) wanders aimlessly. JoJo reacts angrily to condolences (“Why don’t they think before they spew?”), while Ben buries his pain in his work. Dazed and confused, Joe has moved in with his would-be in-laws and agreed to join Ben in commercial real estate. Briefed by their attorney (Holly Hunter), they’re are awaiting the gunman’s upcoming trial. But there are pesky details to deal with. Like the wedding invitations which Joe must retrieve from the local post-office. That’s where he meets quirky, wise-cracking Bertie (scene-stealing Ellen Pompeo), who runs a neighborhood bar owned by her fiancŽ who’s been M.I.A. for three years in Vietnam. You can guess what happens when these two lost souls meet, but Joe is also grappling with a dilemma. The Flosses don’t know that he’d actually broken his engagement to their daughter just days before she was shot and that he’s staying with them partly through a feeling of guilty obligation. When that secret is eventually revealed, there are aching, affecting, illusion-shattering moments for Sarandon, Hoffman and Gyllenhaal. Writer-director Brad Silberling was inspired by his own experiences following the 1989 murder of his fiancŽe, TV actress Rebecca Schaeffer, so the grief rings true, although a subplot involving a proposed mall seems perfunctory. Songs like the Rolling Stones’ “Moonlight Mile” imbue the soundtrack with nostalgia. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Moonlight Mile” is a bittersweet 7, a meditation on love, loss, grieving and moving on.

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Sweet Home Alabama

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Sweet Home Alabama” (Touchstone/Disney)

If one defines a movie star as an actor/actress whose presence can carry, even elevate, a mediocre movie, Reese Witherspoon is definitely a movie star. In this romantic comedy fantasy, she plays Melanie Carmichael, an aspiring New York fashion designer who’s ardently pursued by Andrew (Patrick Dempsey), the handsome, wealthy son of the Mayor (Candice Bergen). But when she accepts his Tiffany-tinged, ultra-romantic proposal, she doesn’t tell him that there’s a slight complication: she’s still legally married to Jake (Josh Lucas), a laid-back loser who for seven years has refused to sign divorce papers. Determined to rectify this oversight, she returns Pigeon Creek, Alabama, where she discovers she still hankers for small-town beer-swilling Jake and his baying bloodhound, particularly since he’s become a success in the glass-blowing business. Problem is: writer C. Jay Cox and director Andy Tennant (“Ever After”) not only opt for a predictable plot and clichŽ stereotypes (Southern yokels, Manhattan snobs, gay fashionistas, country-bumpkin parents, deep-fried rednecks, arrogant Mayor) but they also have made Melanie into a thoughtless, cruel, selfish bitch who ruthlessly manipulates her well-meaning parents, kind friends and Andrew who, after one soul-searching lapse, is basically a good guy. Only Reese’s impeccable comic timing and abundant charm keeps the getting-your-values-back concept afloat. It’s also a curious twist that in “Legally Blonde,” Reese’s character went from dumb bunny to smart cookie and, here, the reverse is true. Candice Bergen is funny, yet she did the same edgy character in “Miss Congeniality.” So on the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Sweet Home Alabama” is a frothy, amiable 7 – thanks to the irresistible charisma of Reese Witherspoon.

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Spirited Away

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Spirited Away” (Disney/Buena Vista)

“For people who used to be ten years old – and people who are going to be ten years old,” says Hayao Miyazaki. If you saw “Princess Mononoke” (1997), you’ve glimpsed Miyazaki’s extraordinary animation. If not, you’re in for a treat. This time, the Japanese master has concocted a surreal, fanciful “Alice in Wonderland”/”Wizard of Oz”-like tale of an apathetic ten year-old girl, Chihiro, who is preparing to move to a new home and new school. Instead, she finds herself in a bewildering, vivid, enchanted world where she must work for Yubaba, a nasty witch who runs a hot-springs bathhouse frequented by Japanese gods and spirits, in order to break a spell that has turned her parents into snorting, squealing pigs. On her adventurous journey to self-discovery, this sulky, spoiled child must face her fears and conquer unique challenges as she’s guided by Haku, an enigmatic boy/dragon with magical powers. Supervised by Pixar’s John Lasseter (“Toy Story”) and Kirk Wise (“Beauty and the Beast”), “Spirited Away” is dubbed into English with Daveigh Chase (“Lilo & Stitch”) as the heroine, Jason Marsden as Haku, Suzanne Pleshette as Yubaba/Zeniba, Susan Egan as tough Lin and David Ogden Stiers as the six-armed furnace-tender Kamaji. (Purists can also see the English-subtitled Japanese version.) At 2 hours and 5 minutes, it’s longer than most kids-flicks but children seem to devour the fanciful eye candy – like a massive stink monster and an ocean-skimming ghost train. To say that Miyazaki’s intelligent, painstaking, hand-crafted anime, drawing from Eastern religions and Japanese legends, is magical, dazzling and brilliant is an understatement – just watch for a win at Oscar-time! On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Spirited Away” is an incomparable, ingenious, inventive 10. Don’t miss it!

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