hometown life in one efficient stroke—to Alaska, that last frontier for woodsy dropouts. In Oregon, her car breaks down, and so does everything else. A self-righteous grocery-store clerk busts Wendy shoplifting food for her yellow Lab, and the dog is lost by the time she’s sprung from jail. Like director Kelly Reichardt’s earlier Old Joy, Wendy and Lucy is a compact road movie about dead ends. Its coming-of-age story tours small kindnesses, brief terrors, and modest revelations in the course of a scrupulously unsentimental journey.
milk HHH
Sean Penn, JoSh Brolin
FOCUS FEATURES, R
Biopic about a gay icon plays
things a little too straight
Gus Van Sant’s portrait of San
Francisco politician Harvey Milk
clunks along as the squarest
movie he’s ever made, a result
of the director investing more
emotion in the martyred idol
than in the bleeding man.
Dictating his biography at his
kitchen table—didactically
connecting the dots—Penn’s
hero flashes back to his origins
as an activist in the ’70s, when
gays were getting murdered
in the streets of the Castro and
demagogues were defaming
them nationwide. He thrice
runs for office and loses, but
his supporters cheer him to
keep scrapping along in words
reserved for biopics: “You’ll be
the first openly gay man elected
to major office in the U.S.!”
The considerable allure of Penn
and his costars—including
James Franco as a neglected
boyfriend and Brolin as an
unhinged rival—can’t quite
fight the power of those
thumping statements.
like Boogie Nights’ Dirk Diggler and Raging Bull’s Jake la Motta at their prideful worst, the hero of Darren aronofsky’s sensational fourth film hulks around the screen like a slab of beef well past his sell-by date. in the ’80s, randy “the ram” robinson—the nom de guerre of robin ramzinsky—was a tanned titan of the pro-wrestling circuit. twenty years later, all the sweet dope has to show for it is a malformed ego, a lumpy mug, a schedule of bush-league bouts in high school gyms, and a look-alike action figure stationed, like a plastic Jesus, on the dashboard of his van. in keeping with the movie’s wit and pathos, the ride is a Dodge ram. randy sleeps in it whenever he’s locked out of his trailer home for missing the rent.
the gloom of the drama never feels ponderous because of the verve of its telling. Before one new Jersey fight night, randy’s colleagues plan out their body slams with the comic earnestness of entertainers everywhere. (“Don’t work his leg,” advises one. “everybody does that. Work his neck.”) after another, the ram—exhausted by an opponent whose gruesome act relies on a staple
randy will die if he doesn’t hang up the tights, but he has little else to live for—even if he can still catch a showbiz buzz working at a deli counter, slinging egg salad and charm. can one person replace a crowd? tomei is the smart-cookie
lap dancer randy falls for, but she draws a line between performance and life in a way he cannot. evan rachel Wood is the estranged daughter you hope against reason randy will do right by. rourke plays his big lug with the sensitivity of a guy who knows his way around the brutality of need. randy was a contender, but he coulda been an everyday hero. the thrill and poignancy of The Wrestler is in seeing him count himself out.
wendy and Lucy
HHHH
Michelle WilliaMS, Will Patton
OSCILLOSCOPE, NOT YE T RATED
a drifter looks for her dog,
finds herself instead
Could the heroine’s namesake
be J.M. Barrie’s Wendy Darling?
Williams’ androgynous looks
suggest a scrappy Peter Pan in a
blue mood, and the character’s
predicament marks her a Lost
Girl at loose ends. She’s driving
from Indiana—a raw phone
conversation with her relatives
evokes the crumminess of
Defiance HH½
Daniel craig, liev SchreiBer
PARAMOUNT VANTAGE, R
true story of brotherhood
and bravery rings false
If it is the season for Oscar-
baiting prestige films, then it is
time for high-minded Holocaust
dramas. This year’s most promi-
nent one packages the true tale
of the Bielski brothers—Poles
who spent World War II battling
Nazi collaborators from the
Belarussian woods—as a parable
of resilience tucked inside a
feel-good revenge film. The
surliest Bielski (Schreiber) joins
with Soviet partisans in guerrilla
raids. The gentlest one (Jamie
Bell) marries a graceful maiden
at improvised forest camp led by
the oldest and noblest (Craig). As
directed by Edward Zwick (Glory,
Blood Diamond), Defiance rarely
fails to choose familiar corniness
over complicated assessments,
and its gunfights have been uni-
formly sanitized—a cop-out for
a movie that makes noises about
examining vengeance and suf-
fering. Still, Craig’s rugged head
honcho looks mightily gallant in
the saddle of his white horse.
Slumdog Millionaire in Slumdog Millionaire, a Bombay orphan tells his life story to investigators who suspect that a nobody like him must have cheated to succeed on india’s Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Director Danny Boyle guides the Dickensian melodrama with a thrust that’s been his signature since Trainspotting, abetted by composer a.r. rahman. the Bollywood veteran’s arrangements of sultry sitars and propulsive drums rub against clanging subcontinental pop to give this exuberantly ridiculous tale a sublime energy.
CLOCK WISE FROM TOP LEFT: NIKO TAVERNISE; PHIL BRAY/COURTESY FOCUS FEATURES; ISHIKA MOHAN
References:
http://www.filminfocus.com/focusfeatures/film/milk/
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