Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Millions (2004)
Director: Danny Boyle
Scroll Down For: Being Julia & Million Dollar Baby
See January for:
Closer
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
Finding Neverland
The Aviator
See February for:
Male and Female
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Love
Sunrise
Ray
* Warning the following analysis contains a discussion of the entire film – including the ending.
Millions is in the same category of film making as Finding Neverland, a charming story about children told for adults and kids alike. However, with the magic of Finding Neverland still fresh in my mind, I must say Millions is a less charming, less successful attempt.
This is a film where the set-up is the most intriguing and enjoyable portion of the film. Two little boys and their dad have just moved to a new home and the boys are attending a new school. There mother has recently died and they are starting over. The younger boy, Damian, an innocent, earnest, lovable character, has a bag of money drop out of the sky (literally) onto his cardboard playhouse by the side of the railroad tracks. He takes it home and shares the story (and the money) with only his older brother, Anthony. Anthony is aware that the money is only good for one week because on New Year’s Day England is switching to the Euro, and Pounds will be worthless.
The most fun part of the film is the inter-play between the brothers who have very different ideas about how to use the money. Damian, who is obsessed with the lives of the saints, thinks the money came from god and he should do good with it. He has no shortage of good-deed ideas as he is visited frequently by saintly visions. Damian is charming rattling off information about St. Francis of Assisi (and many other saints), like other 6-year-old boys can rattle off information about airplanes or jungle animals. This obsession is both entertaining and heart-breakingly sweet as we discover his interest in the saints is a means to stay connected with his dead mother. He asked each saint who visits if they have met a St. Gwen (his mum). “She’s new you know,” he explains when they do not know her. A beautiful touch.
Anthony, by contrast, is financially precocious and materialistic. He uses the money to buy state of the art cell phones for himself and his brother, looks at a flashy condo as an investment vehicle and pays his classmates to be his personal valets, which means they drive him on their bikes and carry his school bag. Meanwhile he is infuriated with Damian for spending money taking all the homeless kids in town out to a pizza place for dinner and stuffing the Mormon’s mailbox full of cash when they say they are poor.
Two-thirds of the way through the charm runs thin and the story runs thinner. It is an extremely long run to the end from the moment the dad finds out about the money. There is the bad guy who, of course, comes looking for his stolen loot. A love interest for dad. A shopping spree.
In the climatic scene Damian burns what is left of the money as the police catch the bad guy in the family’s home. Damian also is visted by his mother who tells him not to worry, she is a Saint. And the closing tear-filled moment has Damian asking his mother what her miracle was: “Don’t you know? It was you,” she explains.
Dry your eyes. Roll credits.
Should you see it? Nah, go with Finding Neverland for a superior heart-warming kid’s story.
Scroll Down For: Being Julia & Million Dollar Baby
See January for:
Closer
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
Finding Neverland
The Aviator
See February for:
Male and Female
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Love
Sunrise
Ray
* Warning the following analysis contains a discussion of the entire film – including the ending.
Millions is in the same category of film making as Finding Neverland, a charming story about children told for adults and kids alike. However, with the magic of Finding Neverland still fresh in my mind, I must say Millions is a less charming, less successful attempt.
This is a film where the set-up is the most intriguing and enjoyable portion of the film. Two little boys and their dad have just moved to a new home and the boys are attending a new school. There mother has recently died and they are starting over. The younger boy, Damian, an innocent, earnest, lovable character, has a bag of money drop out of the sky (literally) onto his cardboard playhouse by the side of the railroad tracks. He takes it home and shares the story (and the money) with only his older brother, Anthony. Anthony is aware that the money is only good for one week because on New Year’s Day England is switching to the Euro, and Pounds will be worthless.
The most fun part of the film is the inter-play between the brothers who have very different ideas about how to use the money. Damian, who is obsessed with the lives of the saints, thinks the money came from god and he should do good with it. He has no shortage of good-deed ideas as he is visited frequently by saintly visions. Damian is charming rattling off information about St. Francis of Assisi (and many other saints), like other 6-year-old boys can rattle off information about airplanes or jungle animals. This obsession is both entertaining and heart-breakingly sweet as we discover his interest in the saints is a means to stay connected with his dead mother. He asked each saint who visits if they have met a St. Gwen (his mum). “She’s new you know,” he explains when they do not know her. A beautiful touch.
Anthony, by contrast, is financially precocious and materialistic. He uses the money to buy state of the art cell phones for himself and his brother, looks at a flashy condo as an investment vehicle and pays his classmates to be his personal valets, which means they drive him on their bikes and carry his school bag. Meanwhile he is infuriated with Damian for spending money taking all the homeless kids in town out to a pizza place for dinner and stuffing the Mormon’s mailbox full of cash when they say they are poor.
Two-thirds of the way through the charm runs thin and the story runs thinner. It is an extremely long run to the end from the moment the dad finds out about the money. There is the bad guy who, of course, comes looking for his stolen loot. A love interest for dad. A shopping spree.
In the climatic scene Damian burns what is left of the money as the police catch the bad guy in the family’s home. Damian also is visted by his mother who tells him not to worry, she is a Saint. And the closing tear-filled moment has Damian asking his mother what her miracle was: “Don’t you know? It was you,” she explains.
Dry your eyes. Roll credits.
Should you see it? Nah, go with Finding Neverland for a superior heart-warming kid’s story.
Being Julia (2004)
Director: Istvan Szabo
See January for:
The Aviator
Finding Neverland
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
Closer
See February for:
Ray
Sunrise
Love
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Male and Female
Million Dollar Baby
* Warning the following analysis contains a discussion of the entire film – including the ending.
Being Julia is a film about vain, ambitious and deceptive theater people; a film in which the performances are far better than the movie in which they are performing. Annette Bening is at the center of this remarkable acting assemblage. She plays, Julia, “the greatest living actress on the London stage”. The problem is she is aging (approaching 50), and exhausted with her work while simultaneous fearing she will soon no longer have good parts to play (as she tells, us there are few remarkable roles for older women). Julia’s energy and overall attitude toward her work and her life change, however, when she begins an affair with a (much) younger, adorning American. Julia sparkles in life and on stage during the weeks after the love affair begins.
Their relationship, though thrilling for both at first, cannot last. Julia is jealous and deceptive, while her young American lover, Tom Fennel, is cheating and deceptive. Their affair ends one evening when Julia confronts Tom with rage, fueled by ego and jealousy, after he returns from an evening out with a beautiful young actress, Evie.
(* The most serious flaw of the film is Julia’s reaction to the break-up. We are unsure if Julia is acting a part to get what she wants, which is Tom’s continued adorning attention, or if she is sincere in her emotions. We have seen her in previous scenes selfishly manipulate others with her performances, and she uses some of the same words to cajole Tom. If she is performing, a significant portion of the film (their love affair) has lost warmth and meaning. If Julia truly is devastated, the reaction seems all out of character (and out of proportion) for Julia. The uncertainty we are left with is worse than either possibility. )
As it turns out, Tom is not only cheating and deceptive; he is ambitious, hoping to become a player in English theater. He hopes to use his relationship with Evie to begin his climb. Further, Tom has the audacity, after coldly breaking their relationship, to ask Julia to get Evie her first major role in Julia’s newest play. Tom, we now see, is far more interested in building a career than any relationships. Further, Evie is just as ambitious. Her affair with Tom is the means for her audition with Julia. An additional affair with the play’s director, Michael (Julia’s husband), will advance her career in the company, she hopes. So by the last ¼ of the film we have a four-person entanglement of cheating, deceit and ambition – but all done with such lovely English manners you hardly realize how cruel it all is.
And then we get to the fantastic ending sequence. Julia, pretending to play nice, encourages Michael to hire Evie for a significant role opposite her in the upcoming play. It is a role that can make Evie’s budding career. Stardom seems on the way for Evie and her ambitious beau, Tom, until opening night. Julia has planned a diabolical scheme of revenge for Evie and Tom. Instead of playing Evie’s big scene as rehearsed, Julia makes up dialogue and is re-creating the play before the audience to make Evie look ridiculous. Evie, inexperienced and nervous to begin with, desperately tries again and again to return to the script. In the end she is a dear caught in Julia’s wicked headlights. In fact Julia’s improvisation is so hilarious as it makes Evie look ridiculous that the play is changed to keep the scene the same. Instead of a significant first role, Evie is under contract to play the fool opposite the woman she now despises for the rest of the season. A sweet revenge for Julia. Julia, triumphant, relishes her revenge and is reminiscent of Bette Davis’ Margo Channing in her most wicked moments in All About Eve.
Julia, for now, is triumphant over her younger rival and will remain the greatest actress of the London stage – at least for another season.
Should you see it? The final sequence alone is well worth the price.
See January for:
The Aviator
Finding Neverland
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
Closer
See February for:
Ray
Sunrise
Love
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Male and Female
Million Dollar Baby
* Warning the following analysis contains a discussion of the entire film – including the ending.
Being Julia is a film about vain, ambitious and deceptive theater people; a film in which the performances are far better than the movie in which they are performing. Annette Bening is at the center of this remarkable acting assemblage. She plays, Julia, “the greatest living actress on the London stage”. The problem is she is aging (approaching 50), and exhausted with her work while simultaneous fearing she will soon no longer have good parts to play (as she tells, us there are few remarkable roles for older women). Julia’s energy and overall attitude toward her work and her life change, however, when she begins an affair with a (much) younger, adorning American. Julia sparkles in life and on stage during the weeks after the love affair begins.
Their relationship, though thrilling for both at first, cannot last. Julia is jealous and deceptive, while her young American lover, Tom Fennel, is cheating and deceptive. Their affair ends one evening when Julia confronts Tom with rage, fueled by ego and jealousy, after he returns from an evening out with a beautiful young actress, Evie.
(* The most serious flaw of the film is Julia’s reaction to the break-up. We are unsure if Julia is acting a part to get what she wants, which is Tom’s continued adorning attention, or if she is sincere in her emotions. We have seen her in previous scenes selfishly manipulate others with her performances, and she uses some of the same words to cajole Tom. If she is performing, a significant portion of the film (their love affair) has lost warmth and meaning. If Julia truly is devastated, the reaction seems all out of character (and out of proportion) for Julia. The uncertainty we are left with is worse than either possibility. )
As it turns out, Tom is not only cheating and deceptive; he is ambitious, hoping to become a player in English theater. He hopes to use his relationship with Evie to begin his climb. Further, Tom has the audacity, after coldly breaking their relationship, to ask Julia to get Evie her first major role in Julia’s newest play. Tom, we now see, is far more interested in building a career than any relationships. Further, Evie is just as ambitious. Her affair with Tom is the means for her audition with Julia. An additional affair with the play’s director, Michael (Julia’s husband), will advance her career in the company, she hopes. So by the last ¼ of the film we have a four-person entanglement of cheating, deceit and ambition – but all done with such lovely English manners you hardly realize how cruel it all is.
And then we get to the fantastic ending sequence. Julia, pretending to play nice, encourages Michael to hire Evie for a significant role opposite her in the upcoming play. It is a role that can make Evie’s budding career. Stardom seems on the way for Evie and her ambitious beau, Tom, until opening night. Julia has planned a diabolical scheme of revenge for Evie and Tom. Instead of playing Evie’s big scene as rehearsed, Julia makes up dialogue and is re-creating the play before the audience to make Evie look ridiculous. Evie, inexperienced and nervous to begin with, desperately tries again and again to return to the script. In the end she is a dear caught in Julia’s wicked headlights. In fact Julia’s improvisation is so hilarious as it makes Evie look ridiculous that the play is changed to keep the scene the same. Instead of a significant first role, Evie is under contract to play the fool opposite the woman she now despises for the rest of the season. A sweet revenge for Julia. Julia, triumphant, relishes her revenge and is reminiscent of Bette Davis’ Margo Channing in her most wicked moments in All About Eve.
Julia, for now, is triumphant over her younger rival and will remain the greatest actress of the London stage – at least for another season.
Should you see it? The final sequence alone is well worth the price.
Sunday, March 06, 2005
Million Dollar Baby (2004)
Director: Clint Eastwood
See January for:
The Aviator
Finding Neverland
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
Closer
See February for:
Ray
Sunrise
Love
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Male and Female
* Warning the following analysis contains a discussion of the entire film – including the ending.
As I stepped from the theater my initial reaction to Million Dollar Baby was: “Why on earth would I want to witness this awful, awful story!?!” (Now that I am a few days from the brutality I would make the same statement, but I would remove the ‘!’, changing it to a question from a pissed-off question. This is the same reaction I had upon seeing Clint Eastwood’s previous film, Mystic River.) Sure, Million Dollar Baby is an extremely well crafted film telling a compelling story. Sure the actors interact wonderfully as an ensemble, each giving a great performance. But it is a brutally awful story – and as far as I can tell – it is a brutal awful story told for no good reason. Why do I say: ‘no good reason’? Certain films tell awful, tragic stories from which you can glean a purpose for its telling. I could not with Million Dollor Baby. It is not telling a true story (think The Pianist), it is not exposing an injustice in hopes of righting it (think Mississippi Burning), it is not a cautionary tale (think Wall St.). It is simply an agonizingly brutal story. So why would I want to see this?
Now to be clear, it is not a bad film. As far as its cinematic merits go it is a fantastic film, probably Eastwood’s best.
The first 3/4 s of the film is Rocky with a woman, Rockette if you will. Hillary Swank is Rocky and Eastwood and Morgan Freeman split the role of Mickey. Both men have seen plenty of brutality and tragedy over their years in boxing. Both men are bound forever by the awful fight in which Freeman’s character, Eddie Dupris, lost his eye. Eastwood’s character, Frankie Dunn, is still haunted by this event, believing he should have stopped the fight before Eddie was hurt so badly. Further, Frankie agonizes over not seeing his estranged daughter to whom he has written a letter a week for many years in hopes of reconciliation. Each letter is returned unopened. These two events, (and others hinted at but unexplored in the film) find poignant expression on screen in the creases of Eastwood’s weathered face.
Swank’s character, Maggie Fitzgerald, has seen 30 fewer years than Eddie and Frankie, but her 32 years have been filled with poverty and family dysfunction. Boxing is the only thing she feels good doing, she tells Frankie. And after repeatedly refusing to train Maggie, Frankie relents and takes her soaring to the top of the boxing world. The relationship between boxer and manager evolves beautifully into a surrogate father and daughter bond. This beautiful, slow emerging relationship is the triumphant of Million Dollar Baby. Add in Eddie as the wise, compassionate mediator between Frankie and Maggie and you have a heart-warming tale of three misfits finding new meaning in their lives through this unlikely relationship. Wonderful.
What would have happened in the climatic boxing scene if this were Rocky (or Rockette), is Maggie would have lost (a al Rocky) or won (a al Rocky II). Either ending (the bitter-sweet or sweet-sweet) would have satisfied; instead we get unmitigated, unnecessary awfulness. After being sucker punched after the bell by the vicious East German (no kidding) champ, Maggie falls, hits her neck on the stool and is paralyzed. The remainder of the film is agonizing, as we see Maggie hopelessly spiraling into depression as it becomes clear she will never move again or breathe without a respirator. Throw in scenes with her pitiless loser family and close-ups of bedsores and it all becomes unbearable. After suffering through this excruciating final act we get to the actual climax, Frankie granting Maggie’s final request by killing Maggie as she sleeps. Frankie absconds never to be seen again.
To be sure, the emotional impact of the final ¼ of the film is devastating and raw, but I must maintain, purposeless beyond eliciting agony in the viewer. Returning to my initial question: “Why on earth would I want to witness this awful, awful story?” Answer: “I don’t.”
Should you see it? If you think seeing a very fine film is worth enduring a brutally awful story.
See January for:
The Aviator
Finding Neverland
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
Closer
See February for:
Ray
Sunrise
Love
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Male and Female
* Warning the following analysis contains a discussion of the entire film – including the ending.
As I stepped from the theater my initial reaction to Million Dollar Baby was: “Why on earth would I want to witness this awful, awful story!?!” (Now that I am a few days from the brutality I would make the same statement, but I would remove the ‘!’, changing it to a question from a pissed-off question. This is the same reaction I had upon seeing Clint Eastwood’s previous film, Mystic River.) Sure, Million Dollar Baby is an extremely well crafted film telling a compelling story. Sure the actors interact wonderfully as an ensemble, each giving a great performance. But it is a brutally awful story – and as far as I can tell – it is a brutal awful story told for no good reason. Why do I say: ‘no good reason’? Certain films tell awful, tragic stories from which you can glean a purpose for its telling. I could not with Million Dollor Baby. It is not telling a true story (think The Pianist), it is not exposing an injustice in hopes of righting it (think Mississippi Burning), it is not a cautionary tale (think Wall St.). It is simply an agonizingly brutal story. So why would I want to see this?
Now to be clear, it is not a bad film. As far as its cinematic merits go it is a fantastic film, probably Eastwood’s best.
The first 3/4 s of the film is Rocky with a woman, Rockette if you will. Hillary Swank is Rocky and Eastwood and Morgan Freeman split the role of Mickey. Both men have seen plenty of brutality and tragedy over their years in boxing. Both men are bound forever by the awful fight in which Freeman’s character, Eddie Dupris, lost his eye. Eastwood’s character, Frankie Dunn, is still haunted by this event, believing he should have stopped the fight before Eddie was hurt so badly. Further, Frankie agonizes over not seeing his estranged daughter to whom he has written a letter a week for many years in hopes of reconciliation. Each letter is returned unopened. These two events, (and others hinted at but unexplored in the film) find poignant expression on screen in the creases of Eastwood’s weathered face.
Swank’s character, Maggie Fitzgerald, has seen 30 fewer years than Eddie and Frankie, but her 32 years have been filled with poverty and family dysfunction. Boxing is the only thing she feels good doing, she tells Frankie. And after repeatedly refusing to train Maggie, Frankie relents and takes her soaring to the top of the boxing world. The relationship between boxer and manager evolves beautifully into a surrogate father and daughter bond. This beautiful, slow emerging relationship is the triumphant of Million Dollar Baby. Add in Eddie as the wise, compassionate mediator between Frankie and Maggie and you have a heart-warming tale of three misfits finding new meaning in their lives through this unlikely relationship. Wonderful.
What would have happened in the climatic boxing scene if this were Rocky (or Rockette), is Maggie would have lost (a al Rocky) or won (a al Rocky II). Either ending (the bitter-sweet or sweet-sweet) would have satisfied; instead we get unmitigated, unnecessary awfulness. After being sucker punched after the bell by the vicious East German (no kidding) champ, Maggie falls, hits her neck on the stool and is paralyzed. The remainder of the film is agonizing, as we see Maggie hopelessly spiraling into depression as it becomes clear she will never move again or breathe without a respirator. Throw in scenes with her pitiless loser family and close-ups of bedsores and it all becomes unbearable. After suffering through this excruciating final act we get to the actual climax, Frankie granting Maggie’s final request by killing Maggie as she sleeps. Frankie absconds never to be seen again.
To be sure, the emotional impact of the final ¼ of the film is devastating and raw, but I must maintain, purposeless beyond eliciting agony in the viewer. Returning to my initial question: “Why on earth would I want to witness this awful, awful story?” Answer: “I don’t.”
Should you see it? If you think seeing a very fine film is worth enduring a brutally awful story.
