George Clooney – Bitch Flicks

Notes from the Telluride Film Festival: Reviews of ‘The Invisible Woman’ and ‘Gravity’

Usually movies with such mainstream blockbuster potential are not portrayed at Telluride Film Festival. Telluride opts for more artistic limited release movies. But I suspect Cuaron’s credibility, including casting a woman in the lead over Clooney, made it a Telluride film.

Still from The Invisible Woman — Still from *The Invisible Woman*

This is a guest post by Atima Omara-Alwala.

The Woman Behind Charles Dickens: A Review of the Film The Invisible Woman

“You men live your lives, while we are left behind. I see no freedom where I stand!” yells protagonist Ellen Ternan at a Dickens’ colleague.

Ternan is the mistress of renowned English novelist Charles Dickens. And that sums up the movie The Invisible Woman. Ternan became the 18-year-old mistress to then 45-year-old Charles Dickens, who was at the height of his fame. Based on the novel of the same name, it accounts their life together, the scandal it caused, as Dickens was still married to his wife. While the film is meant to be focused on this torrid affair between Dickens and Ternan it, by extension, is a telling of the unfortunate status of women in the Victorian era.

English actor Ralph Fiennes, a celebrated actor of his generation (Schindler’s List, Quiz Show, The English Patient, The End of the Affair, to name a few) plays the larger than life Charles Dickens and Felicity Jones plays Ellen Ternan. Invisible Woman is the second film Fiennes directed after Coriolanus.

The Invisible Woman is sumptuous in its costumes and details of the Victorian era, but occasionally lacks in the chain that builds up to the affair. Ternan, whose family of moderately successful actors are good friends of Dickens, finds herself in his company due to a play he is building. You instantly see why Dickens falls for Ternan–she is young, spirited, and passionate about his novels and short stories. Jones’ Ternan does a good job in not overdoing the “fan girl” role, as that can cross over to creepy rather quickly. Her love and understanding of his books touches Fiennes’ Dickens perhaps because his wife doesn’t seem that invested in his work and Ellen is rather young and pretty. One also suspects her adoration soothes his ego. Chats of his works turn to meaningful conversations of life ,which pale in comparison to the awkward stilted and physically passionless relationship that exists between Dickens and his wife, Catherine.

Felicity Jones in The Invisible Woman — Felicity Jones in *The Invisible Woman*

Ternan finds herself at a crossroads in her relationship with Dickens, as her family realizes his adoration of her and her growing affection for him. While she hopes to become an actress, it is made clear to her by the women in her family that she is not good enough to survive in the profession. Since she has not too much formal educational training, any money to inherit, or other marital prospects, the best she can hope for is a relationship with Dickens, who cannot divorce his wife in Victoria era England. But can provide for Ternan. It is not a “choice” that thrills her, especially as she views Dickens’ callousness toward his wife–which includes but is NOT limited to a public letter in the London Times announcing he and his wife (unbeknownst to his wife) have agreed to separate (worse than texting your ex you’re through with them) and forcing his wife to deliver a gift meant for Ternan but accidentally delivered to her so (in Dickens’ mind) the wife can see for herself nothing exists between them.

I personally love Charles Dickens’ writings and thought he was quite the advocate for justice for the poor, but I was stunned at the sheer humiliation he put his wife through. You can imagine Ternan’s thoughts: if he’s that callous to the women who bore TEN of his children, how the hell is he going to treat me?

My biggest complaint was, while I saw a chemistry between Fiennes and Jones, the buildup was not always potent enough for me to think this was supposed to be the renowned passionate affair it apparently was. The timeline was fuzzy at times. Fiennes is outstanding per usual as the larger than life author, and Jones is an ingénue with promise who perhaps reached her limits in playing an older and wiser Ternan after Dickens’ passing, trapped in reflection and struggling to free herself from his ghost. Either way, go see it, if for nothing else to no more about this author and see another outstanding Ralph Fiennes performance.

Movie poster for Gravity — Movie poster for *Gravity*

A Brilliant Woman Hero: A Review of the Film Gravity

If you ever doubted a woman could literally reach for the stars, Sandra Bullock changes your mind in her performance as Dr. Ryan Stone, a brilliant astronaut who becomes a hero in Gravity. The film is directed by Alfonso Cuaron, who also directed A Little Princess (1995), Y Tu Mamá También (2001), and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004). Gravity is a 3D movie with George Clooney as Bullock’s co star. Clooney plays fellow astronaut, Matt Kowalsky.

Dr. Stone and Kowalsky, along with others, are in space on a mission when debris from a satellite crashes into their space shuttle Explorer, killing most of their crew. Dr. Stone and Kowalsky (on limited oxygen) must find a way to survive.

Sandra Bullock in Gravity — Sandra Bullock in *Gravity*

Bullock is wonderfully nuanced in her role as Dr. Ryan Stone and I can see why reviews coming back from Venice International Film Festival have her touted for another Oscar nomination. Cuaron portrays a complex, brilliant astronaut with a sad past who is driven by her work. With her male colleagues (particularly Clooney’s Kowalsky, whom she interacts the most with), she confidently holds her own in what she does. When the space shuttle is hit, and Dr. Stone–a less experienced astronaut–is sent flying into space in a breathtaking 3D moment, she is rightfully panicked. I worried she might become the damsel in distress that Kowalsky rescues, but Bullock does not take you into unnecessary hysterics. If anything, the 3D movie makes the audience more empathetic to how scary the reality of flying untethered into space is. The rest of the movie is an exercise in her using her mental and physical reserves to brainstorm her way out of hairy situations, while the debris still in orbit rotates back around every so often to threaten her survival. I found myself mentally cheering her on as I think all viewers–especially women–will to the end.

Atima Omara-Alwala is a political strategist and activist of 10 years who has served as staff on eight federal and local political campaigns and other progressive causes. Atima’s work has had a particular focus on women’s political empowerment and leadership, reproductive justice, health care, communities of color and how gender and race is reflected in pop culture. Her writings on the topics have also been featured at Ms. Magazine, Women’s Enews, and RH Reality Check.

Does ‘Gravity’ Live Up to the Hype?

Gravity survives on the merit of its spectacle. It’s beautiful, terrifying, and gripping. The characters, while feeling real, are underdeveloped. The story itself is one big metaphor for Stone’s journey into isolation and despair after suffering personal tragedy. It is an epic allegory about the journey toward life, toward connection with the earth. I couldn’t tell you what kind of card player Stone is, though, or what made her want to become a doctor. Her life is a blank because she’s not an individual; she’s an archetype.

"Gravity" Movie Poster — *Gravity* Movie Poster

Written by Amanda Rodriguez
Spoiler Alert

Alfonso Curon’s Gravity is primarily an experience. It’s an edge-of-your-seat survival tale set in the vastness, the darkness, the solitude of space. I was eager to review this film because I love sci-fi, and I love women in sci-fi flicks. I can take or leave Sandra Bullock (mostly leave her), but her performance in Gravity‘s opening sequence sold me:

It’s silent in space. Astronauts are working on the exterior of a space satellite. George Clooney as astronaut Matt Kowalski is floating about making pleasant conversation. We can hear the labored breathing of Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock). Her heart rate is elevated, and she’s not taking in the majesty of space because she’s too focused on her work, too focused on keeping herself under control. Dr. Stone is not an astronaut. She’s a civilian medical engineer who’s designed some special program that NASA wants to use. Trained solely for this mission, she’s fighting not to have a panic attack while perched outside the world, and then she is violently wrenched from that perch, from that narrow margin of the illusion of safety into…chaos.

Sandra Bullock as Dr. Ryan Stone desperately holds on as a debris storm destroys everything around her. — Sandra Bullock as Dr. Ryan Stone desperately holds on as a debris storm wreaks havoc.

No other film has communicated to me the desolation of space the way that Gravity does. Dr. Stone’s vulnerability and lack of awe translate into a visceral feeling within this audience member of the true terror and anxiety of being in space, the smallness of the human animal, and the rawness of her grip on survival.

Gravity‘s cinematography is stunningly beautiful. The film is shot with such a unique style, and its zero gravity environments faced so many challenges that the movie’s innovations are being lauded as “chang[ing] the vocabulary of filmmaking.” They used puppeteers for Christ’s sake! How cool is that? Some shots did seem indulgent, perhaps trying too hard to convey Cuaron’s metaphor. The best example being when Stone makes it into a damaged space station that still has air. She disrobes in slo-mo from her suit, and the exactness of her body’s poses are anime-esque in their echoing of the fetus in the womb and birth metaphors.

Though in booty shorts, Stone is never stripped to her bra & panties. — Though in booty shorts, Stone is never stripped to only her bra & panties.

I liked Ryan Stone’s vulnerability and her constant battle with blind panic (that she sometimes loses). It made her and her experience more accessible. It’s iffy whether or not Gravity, though, manages to be a feminist film. Gravity certainly doesn’t pass the Bechdel test, but to be fair, there are very few characters at all in the movie. The only personal detail we’re given about Stone is that she was once a mother who lost her daughter to a tragic accident. This irks me because it casts Stone as the grieving mother archetype. Boooorrriiiinggg. It too simply explains her unhappy adventure beyond the ends of the earth. It forgives her for being a woman who would give up familial ties to go into space because she, in fact, has already lost those ties. Because her loss consumes her, Stone’s despair and lack of connection, in fact, justify her trip.

Clooney's Kowalski calmly tows an oxygen deprived Stone to safety. — Clooney’s Kowalski calmly tows an oxygen deprived Stone to safety.

Veteran astronaut Kowalski is a bit too perfect, too in-control, and too optimistic. When we contrast his cool command with Stone’s panic attacks, freezing up, and bouts of giving up from which he must coax her, Kowalski seems like more of the hero. That leaves Stone to be the basketcase woman whom it is Kowalski’s chivalrous duty to rescue. Stone finally encounters a situation that seems unbeatable, and she resigns herself to death. She hallucinates Kowalski comes to rescue her and gives her the information lurking in the back of her memory that she needs to save herself. He is her savior even within her mind. Not only that, but as she rouses herself from her hallucination, she says something like, “Kowalski, you clever bastard.” This leaves open the interpretation to spiritual types that she may not have, in fact, hallucinated; instead she may have had a supernatural experience in which her friend’s ghost did save her life from beyond the grave deus ex machina style. Frankly, that is just poop. Either way, Clooney as the noble, infinitely calm and self-sacrificing astronaut dude is just spreading it on a bit too thick for my taste.

Kowalski helps a flustered Stone speed up her slow work.

Gravity survives on the merit of its spectacle. It is beautiful, terrifying, and gripping. The characters, while feeling real, are underdeveloped. The story itself is one big metaphor for Stone’s journey into isolation and despair after suffering personal tragedy. It is an epic allegory about the journey toward life, toward connection with the earth, which is a poignant, compelling story, but I couldn’t tell you what kind of card player Stone is or what made her want to become a doctor. Her life is a blank because she’s not an individual; she’s an archetype. If Gravity could have accomplished its visual feats, told its epic story about survival and rediscovering the self all the while giving us rich characters, I would have loved this movie. Instead, I merely like it for its grandness of vision and its ideas; I like it in spite of its tepid storyline and lukewarm characterizations.

The Descendants: Review in Conversation

The Descendants (2011)

Amber’s Take:

I went into The Descendants knowing only: George Clooney, land inheritance, and Hawaii. Had I even taken the time to visit IMDb and read the one-line synopsis (“A land baron tries to re-connect with his two daughters after his wife suffers a boating accident.”), I would have known a major plot element, and I might’ve been better prepared for it — and not as successfully manipulated.

The Descendants is a tricky film. You know the kind: you’re completely engrossed while watching (and I confess to being near tears for most of the film, blindsided by the emotional devastation of the situation), but once the spell of the theatre is broken, you wonder how the movie you watched is getting such astonishing praise.

The King family and their land.

That’s not to say The Descendants doesn’t have admirable elements. The film is visually stunning and offers viewers a pleasant surprise: a portrait of Hawaii (two islands specifically: Kaua’i and O’ahu) — a state of beauty and contradictions, extreme wealth and poverty, and a complicated history. Usually the Hawaiian Islands appear in film only as a vacation destination. Here, it’s something else. Not only is the setting the site of plenty of human drama, but it’s also a character in itself–similar to the role played by California’s Santa Ynez Valley in director Alexander Payne’s previous film, Sideways.

The film is also full of excellent performances, including George Clooney as Matt King, Shaliene Woodley as 17-year-old Alexandra, and newcomer Amara Miller as Scottie. I was shocked that Clooney didn’t win the Oscar for his performance, especially considering he’d already won eight awards for the role–including the Golden Globe–and is nominated for at least thirteen more (the film has been nominated for a whopping 65 awards). The relationships between the characters are easy and believable, even if Matt’s character suffers from the “unable to look past Actor George Clooney” problem. Alexandra is rare and refreshing teenage girl, and Woodley does a tremendous job with the role and with her character’s uneasy relationship with her parents.

The film’s biggest problem, a fundamental mistake that I can only see as entirely unacceptable, and possibly rendering the film an utter failure (are my thoughts on the mistake clear?) is this: the character of Elizabeth King. Other than a flash of actor Patricia Hastie joyously water skiing at the beginning of the film, Elizabeth spends the rest of the film in a hospital bed, wasting away until her death. That in and of itself is not the problem; Elizabeth’s physical presence is deeply unsettling, and the details of her medical condition (the clenched hands, the life-support equipment, and the gaunt face really got to me) are rendered with disturbing realism.

But Elizabeth’s presence and all this detail comes at a price to the story: with continual reminders of the tragedy, Matt King is basically forgiven all of his transgressions and unlikable characteristics. He’s unbelievably wealthy (not particularly sympathetic in the midst of a recession) and yet a penny pincher, he’s been a terrible father and husband, and the biggest dilemma in his life is how to divide up the massive wealth his family inherited amongst his not-as-attractive cousins.

Further, Elizabeth is an example of the sexist “Women in Refrigerators” trope. Anita Sarkeesian explains how this trope plays out in comics, television, and films:

Writers are using the Women in Refrigerators trope to literally trade a female character’s life for the benefit of a male character’s story arc.

Elizabeth’s tragic accident is the catalyst for Matt’s existential crisis…and nothing more.

Megan’s Take:

For me, I left the theatre thinking it was kind of meh. Yes, it was visually beautiful, I mean it’s Hawai’i, of course it’ll be gorgeous! And I loved the use of Hawai’ian music. But I didn’t really see what all the hype was about…except for the two daughters’ performances, especially Shailene Woodley as Matt’s rebellious (although what 17-year-old isn’t?) daughter Alex.

Shailene Woodley as Alexandra King

Absolutely outstanding, Alex stole every scene. The underwater scene blew me away. After Matt tells Alex that her mother isn’t just sick but dying, she sinks below the surface of the pool, weeping underwater…simply brilliant. Alex evoked so much pain and agony through her facial expressions and her body language, without ever uttering a word. She collapsed onto herself as her world began to crumble. Then she pushes against the pain and rage. For me, that heart-wrenching scene is hands down the best in the film.

I also found it really interesting that Alex realizes that she fights with her mother so vehemently yet she’s exactly like her mother. She rebels against authority and constraints, just like her mother. But Alex also resents her mother for cheating on her father. Mother-daughter relationships are so rarely depicted accurately on-screen. It would have been great if we could have seen more of their relationship in flashbacks. Alex appears to be the moral compass of the film. She has a zero bullshit meter and nothing gets past her. Even at such a young age, she’s like a parent to her father, telling him about the infidelity and advising him on how to handle her little sister Scottie (Amara Miller).

My favorite parts were the ones with Alex or Scottie or the two together. I loved when Scottie tosses the lawn chairs in the pool as Matt talks on the phone. There were a couple other humorous, and at times bittersweet, moments, like when Matt says, “Paradise? Paradise can go fuck itself,” Matt running in flip flops, and when Scottie calls Alex a “motherless whore” (not a huge fan of using the word “whore” but her delivery was flawless) and she accusingly points to Alex after Matt asks her where she learned to talk like that. But the film squanders these rare moments.

I would have preferred if the movie focused on the two sisters and their perspectives. Supposedly (as I haven’t read the book), Payne drastically reduced Scottie’s role from the book as he said he wasn’t interested in her character, wanting to explore Alex’s story. Sadly, the film isn’t really about either sister.

I felt like that was The Descendants’ problem. It never focused on what I wanted it to focus on (as if I’m the only audience that matters…ha!). The film glosses over issues of wealth/class and race/ethnicity, never really exploring these crucial societal themes. Additionally, a massive gender problem plagues the film.

Amber, it’s so interesting you mention Elizabeth and the “women in refrigerators” trope. I hadn’t even really thought about it while watching. But you’re totally right. It disturbed me how the film tried to dismantle her perfection. Elizabeth’s father tells Matt she was a perfect wife to him, not knowing about Elizabeth’s infidelity as the audience does. Her friends talk about her with such reverence as being fun and fearless. And of course no one is perfect. But I kept getting the feeling that the whole point of Elizabeth’s infidelity was to somehow excuse Matt’s bad behavior as an absentee husband and father (“I’m the backup parent, the understudy.”) Like well, see…he wasn’t that bad. At least he didn’t cheat on her like she did to him.

That’s what pissed me off about the film: its perspective and commentary on women. Matt bemoans, “What is it about me that makes women in my life want to destroy themselves?” As if the women in his life aren’t struggling with their own demons…it’s all how it affects him.

George Clooney as Matt King

Taking the “women in refrigerators” trope one step further, Jill Dolan at The Feminist Spectator talked about how dead or dying women facilitate men’s “self knowledge and redemption” as in the recent films The Ides of March and The Descendants. Even in her death, it isn’t really about Elizabeth. Or her grieving daughters, or friends, or family. It only matters how it impacts her husband, another role in which Clooney plays a man facing an emotional mid-life crisis.

It’s clear director Alexander Payne didn’t want to focus on the women in the film. I know it’s Clooney, and I love him. But it still irritated me that the movie ultimately revolves around him. I know, I know…big surprise. Another movie, an Oscar contender no less, revolving around an upper class white dude.

I think The Descendants would have been so much more interesting if told from Alex’s or Scottie’s perspective. But heaven forbid Hollywood focuses on the female characters.

So, Amber…what are your thoughts on the film’s gender roles and the interactions between the female characters? What do you think about the film’s statement on fatherhood and the relationship between fathers and daughters?

Amber’s Take:

I think Stephanie Brown does an excellent job discussing fatherhood in her Oscar review for this site. The movie’s two fathers (three if you count Brian Speer) are, in some ways, mirror images of each other: neither is particularly involved in family life, and neither seems to know his spouse or children well. Though I haven’t quite figured out what to make of Elizabeth’s mother’s absence-by-Alzheimer’s, the fact that one adult woman was fridged and another imprisoned by dementia shows at best real disinterest in women’s relationships (and hostility at worst). Perhaps the relationship between the two daughters was sidelined for similar ideological purposes.

Regardless of what we might want the movie to be about, or focus more heavily on, we’re stuck with the hero coming to terms with being a father and making what are perhaps the first serious decisions in his life: embracing his family and role as father, and keeping the land inheritance in the family (you could just say he kicks the can down the road, avoiding a decision, too). However, I think you’re spot on when you say the film couldn’t figure out what it was about (it’s not just you!).

Judy Greer as Julie Speer

I think that it’s a film that wants to be about many serious things, all while not bumming us out too much with its weight and seriousness. In this turn toward comedy–perhaps to avoid Terms of Endearment qualities, a comparison I never considered before reading Brown’s analysis–we see the subjects of inheritance, the accidental nature of being born into certain families, and ethnicity diminished, and we also see the women diminished. Not just in Elizabeth, or her mother, or the relationship between the two girls, but also in a minor character: Julie Speer (played by Judy Greer). There are two moments with this character that have stuck with me in the weeks since I saw the film. The first was the strange and unsettling forced kiss from Matt, a message from him about her husband’s infidelity and an outlet for his anger, the latter of which felt all about violation and…property. The second is the moment in the hospital when Julie first encountered the woman who had fallen in love with her husband. The film didn’t allow her an earnest confrontation; the moment was turned comedic by Matt interrupting–essentially denying her the kind of catharsis she might’ve needed. What makes this moment particularly egregious is that Matt, immediately after, was permitted a sincere, emotional, cathartic moment with her.

At almost every turn in the film, a woman was not permitted full autonomy. Except for Alex, who was permitted to be a full, complex character. What does it mean for a teenage girl to be the moral center of a story–of this specific story? I haven’t figured it out yet, but it surely doesn’t make up for the indifference and hostility toward the other women.

Megan’s Take:

I completely agree with you that having a female as the moral compass or center of the story definitely doesn’t negate the message of hostility to women. It’s a common theme as films often bestow strength and autonomy to teen female characters, as if they’re not comfortable with adult women possessing strength and wielding power.

I also agree with you about Julie Speer. I too was annoyed and I couldn’t shake the feeling that she was surrounded by men using her: her unfaithful husband Brian and Matt King and his invasive kiss. While it was incredibly uncomfortable to watch her scream at the woman who caused her pain, ripping away that opportunity felt equally cruel.

Alex is the only female character allowed autonomy. But all of the women in the film must control their emotions and behavior. Alex possesses the most freedom as she speaks her mind freely. But she must rein in her drinking/partying and hide her pain and anger, crying underwater. Scottie must stop taking pictures and saying inappropriate things to people. Matt forces her to talk to her mother to grieve. Julie must control her emotions. Elizabeth is not only chastised but vilified in absentia for her reckless actions of drinking and infidelity.

The patriarch, Matt King

While the women have their actions and emotions policed, none of the men do. Elizabeth’s father punches Alex’s friend Sid. Sid makes ridiculous comments and is ultimately rewarded by Matt coming to him for advice on his daughters. Brian Speer is fearful when he meets Matt, but it doesn’t seem like he faces any real consequences for his actions. Matt King does have to “grow up” and finally act like a father. But he’s free to behave however he chooses, following the man who had an affair with his wife, grieve however he chooses, choosing whether or not to retain his family’s land. Matt tells his daughters, even Julie how to grieve.

What message does it send that women, both as children and as adults, must stifle their emotions and urges?

Tying all the pieces of the film together – the women denied their autonomy, erasure of discussions on race and class, revolving around a male protagonist – it reinforces white patriarchy. Not patriarchy in the sense of fatherhood but rather male privilege and female oppression. Yes, Matt King evolves into a more loving and attentive father, a bittersweet transformation. Yet I can’t help but feel the underlying theme implies men can do whatever they want, be whomever they choose, while women should not only listen to the needs and heeding of men, they are punished if they don’t.

Amber Leab is a Co-Founder and Contributing Editor to Bitch Flicks.

Megan Kearns is a Bitch Flicks Contributor and Founder of Opinioness of the World.

The Descendants: Oscar Best Picture and Indie Spirit Best Feature Nominee

The Good Patriarch: The Descendants, directed by Alexander Payne

This is a guest post from Stephanie Brown.

The Descendants is a movie about patriarchy, about husbandry and fatherhood as verb and action rather than noun and abstraction, about stewardship and responsibility. It implies that being a responsible and engaged and aware man is the key to being a responsible citizen and human being. It’s an important film that is very much of the current zeitgeist, but its ease and perfection and touches of comedy (very much like the persona of George Clooney himself) may mean that its depth is missed amid the excellent casting and the light touch of director Alexander Payne. The film is based on the book of the same name by Kaui Hart Hemmings, who was raised in Hawaii by her mother and step-father.

In The Descendants, Clooney’s character, Matt King, is the key decision maker for his family’s trust. Their family has lived in Hawaii for generations, part native Hawaiian and part white. They own a large undeveloped tract of land on Kauai. As the movie begins the family is in the process of selling the land to a developer and the group is poised to profit handsomely. His many cousins, also heirs, are portrayed as decent people, “good guys” who like to drink and hang out: contemporary landed gentry, enjoying their wealth and comfort in paradise. As decision maker for the fate of the fortune for a whole slew of cousins/subjects scattered around the islands and mainland, Matt is aptly named “king,” and he is affable, fair and aims to please. At the same time his wife, Elizabeth, has been in a water skiing accident and is now in a coma. Like many fathers and husbands, he is not very involved in his children’s lives and doesn’t know them very well, and is not really that knowledgeable of his wife’s life either. Soon after he retrieves his older daughter from her private boarding school (she is drunk when he finds her) to return home with him, he discovers from her that his wife has been having an affair. The movie is about the slow unfolding of this secret that has been kept from him by friends and family, and the slow strengthening of his bond with his daughters, especially his oldest daughter, Alex, played by Shailene Woodley. It’s a great performance by Woodley, who is utterly believably as an intelligent and strong but betrayed and angry teenager. She alone knows the exact nature of both her parents’ flaws but is powerless to make them change. Instead she causes problems as school and acts bratty and disagreeable. She is also shown schooling her younger sister in teenage survival skills, and while her methods and language are crude, one knows that this is likely the only practical advice the younger daughter has gotten from anyone. The movie is taken up with a road trip of sorts, actually jaunts between islands and neighborhoods therein, with Alex, the younger daughter Scottie (Amara Miller), and Alex’s friend Sid (Nick Krause) providing the comic relief. Matt and Alex search for and find the man with whom Elizabeth has had an affair and end up awkwardly befriending him and his wife (Matthew Lillard and Judy Green) as they move toward the conclusion—to finalize the sale of the land, and to see if Elizabeth will live or die.

Recent radio ads for The Descendants are comparing it to Terms of Endearment. I’m not sure Alexander Payne’s subtly crafted movies, Election, About Schmidt, and Sideways, while critical favorites, have become all-time-favorite-movie blockbusters in the way that Terms of Endearment has. I’m betting that the strategy of this comparison is to try to push it into the blockbuster box office realm. Will it ‘play in Peoria,” though? The Descendants does have an emotional death scene, where George Clooney says what is in his heart to his comatose and dying wife, but, like Payne’s other films, scenes such as this are restrained and Clooney’s soliloquy never veers into melodrama. By this point in the film, I didn’t like the wife and I was not sorry to see her die. I did not feel that the scene’s intention was to make me cry in an emotionally cathartic way. I don’t think the comparison between films works, and I think viewers who are expecting a Terms of Endearment will be disappointed. They may, however, see the powerful film that it is and come away awakened by its point of view. Think of the difference between Jack Nicholson in Terms of Endearment and Jack Nicholson in Payne’s About Schmidt. Schmidt’s character’s sad, reticent and somewhat baffled personality is naked and embarrassing to his daughter, and it’s a fine and restrained performance from Nicholson, who, like Clooney, is a masterful comedic actor. Both have elastic faces and trademark voices, and Payne’s direction keeps them true and honest in these depictions that move from comedic turns to profoundly honest portrayals of wounded American men.

The Descendants has many facets, touching on wealth and its effects on people and the history of the islands of Hawaii themselves, among other things, but to my mind, the most interesting theme in the film is the examination of fatherhood and manhood that is revealed via the relationship of Elizabeth to her father, Scott Thorson, played with frank ferocity by Robert Forster. Like a God, like Thor, Mr. Thorson has thunderous opinions and never wavers in them. We also know that he is wrong and pigheaded and the kind of person who is impossible to live with. He is certain that his daughter was a perfect wife and mother and that her accident could have been prevented if only Matt had bought her a safer boat to use rather than have her rely on her friends’ boats. Like his daughter, Mr. Thorson’s wife is shown as non compos mentis. She is in the throes of dementia and unaware of her surroundings. I do not think this is a coincidence. The only way to endure a man like this is to retreat into silence and passivity symbolized here as states of dementia and coma. His wife never speaks but she smiles. Mr. Thorson is an archetype of a Korean War-era father, all manliness, certainty and uncomplicated self-assurance. He has indulged his daughter and rejected his son—and he is not fond of his son-in-law. It is also clear that Mr. Thorson does not even know his daughter beyond superficial platitudes that he can shout about her being a good wife, mother and athlete (that she might be too much of a risk taker is ignored). He extols that she was a faithful wife when she was not. His fulsome praise has probably inflated his daughter’s ego and created a monster. Mr. Thorson is the figure of a crippled manhood that can exist only by rejecting deep feelings and hard truths about people, a style of fathering that may extol specialness, but rejects complexity and imperfection. Matt resembles him, unfortunately, in his own benign neglect of his children. Matt, whose style is more graceful and contemporary than Thorson’s, is of the generation that seeks to be seen as a “good guy” like his cousins—happy to take a profit and enjoy life, happy to live as a detached “back- up” parent (as he calls himself) who can easily just not pay much attention and not see any pain and suffering his children are feeling. They live in paradise and are quite wealthy, after all. It would never occur to the cousins or Matt to preserve the land for future generations; it is seen as inevitable that it must be sold and profit shared today. Benign neglect.

In the end, Matt decides not to sell the land but to preserve it. It is not a popular decision with the cousins. It is, however, the right decision. Matt uses his power for the first time and he risks not being popular, affable, or liked, and he is not. That is what it means to be a father and a steward and a patriarch, however. It means thinking about the future beyond current gain and comfort. It means thinking of future generations, accepting responsibility and using it reasonably and well. It means choosing not to be part of the rather dissolute landed gentry and not encouraging your children in this direction either. As I watched the film and saw him choose to preserve the land for future generations, it occurred to me that this decision would not have been believable if the film were released ten or twenty years ago. I don’t think I myself would have agreed with the decision. I would have thought, development is inevitable so why not let these decent people profit from it? But it has been released in a very different economic and social climate, where we are questioning the realities of profit and gain run amok. What is the result of all the wealth that we acquired and lost in the last twenty years? The culture tried to live like landed gentry. We exported our jobs and we exported our pollution in order to create our crap without regulations, and we sought to live like the cousins, expecting a good deal to come our way and to continue to come our way. The Descendants got me considering these truths. If one is a patriarch, one should accept it and be a responsible one. One should father and husband as a verb. And that goes the same for matriarchs and mothers and wives. If Mr. Thorson was our father, we need to wake up and pay attention and change the traits that resemble his. We need to be stewards of our families and of the earth for our descendants.

I was talking to friends one night and I mentioned that I had seen this movie and Lars Von Trier’s movie Melancholia during the same weekend, and that I liked both of them. Von Trier gets at the gnawing dread that I think we all feel about the world being destroyed. I felt grateful that an artist had made this film, because it forced me to think about my own hopelessness in the face of that destruction. But I added that I felt that The Descendants was just as powerful of a film and just as profound, even if the tone is lighter. In the last scene, Matt and his two daughters are shown sitting on a couch together, eating ice cream and watching TV. We can hear the movie’s narrator, Morgan Freeman, and after a while one realizes that they’re watching March of the Penguins. As my husband pointed out to me as we walked out of the theater, the male penguin is the one who cradles the egg, who protects it and keeps it safe from danger until it hatches. Like the father who has learned to father in film.

Stephanie Brown is the author of two collections of poetry, Domestic Interior and Allegory of the Supermarket. She’s published work in American Poetry Review, Ploughshares and The Best American Poetry series. She was awarded an NEA Fellowship in 2001 and a Breadloaf Fellowship in 2009. She has taught at UC Irvine and the University of Redlands and is a regional branch manager for OC Public Libraries in southern California.

Animated Children’s Films: From the Archive: Fantastic Mr. Fox

This review by Amber Leab was originally published in 2010.

After hearing repeatedly that Fantastic Mr. Foxis Wes Anderson’s best film, I gave it a try. I’m not the biggest Anderson fan—I generally find his aesthetic too precious, his characters over-privileged bores, and his daddy issues repetitive and tiresome—but it seemed to me that stop-motion animation might be the ideal medium to capture his intentions.

And, before I say anything else, let me say that the look of the film was great. It was fittingly retro and playful for (an overgrown man-child like) Anderson and (the all-style-no-substance preferences of) his ideal audience. The style, however, isn’t enough to garner the near universally-glowing reviews Fox has received. If you look at the film with anything other than squinty eyes and plugged ears, the problems are immediately evident.

Mrs. Fox. Meryl Streep voices the only female character in the entire cast. Okay, there’s a love interest to bat her eyelashes at the boys, but I don’t even think she had a line. Not only is the lone female character a wife and mother—seen cooking and husband-scolding more than any other activity—but also is a waste of a talented actress. Commenter gmarv on A.O. Scott’s NYT review puts it well:

Note to Wes: if your one female character (wife + mother) is supposed to be a professional artist, could you at least show her working during the DAY in her STUDIO, not cooking all day and painting outside at night with her kid and husband sitting around her?

It’s disappointing that this film incorporates Dahl’s lack of interest in women (that veers close to misogyny). I guess it’s not that much different from other Wes Anderson films that way…but with a little more imagination it could have been so much better.

“Lack of interest in women” seems to put it mildly. Anderson’s films do typically have problems with—and lack of (interest in)—women (the topless intern from The Life Aquatic comes to mind). But, not a single one of the creatures in the big plot to save the Fox family could have been female? Seriously?

While I’m not typically a stickler for accurate adaptations, Amy Biancolli of The Houston Chronicle points out some poignant changes from Roald Dahl’s novel:

1) In the original, Mrs. Fox was complicit all along. 2) Mr. Fox never went on the wagon. 3) Mr. and Mrs. Fox had four cubs, not one little nutcase, and Dahl made no mention of a yoga-bending super-nephew. 4) I’m pretty sure the point of the story wasn’t Mr. Fox’s flagging self-esteem or his strained relationship with his son. But this is cinema in the time of Oprah, when Reductio ad navelgazing is the inevitable narrative arc.

Wouldn’t Mrs. Fox have been so much more interesting and dynamic if she hadn’t been the domesticating, shaming force in the man’s (and boy’s) life? If she actually remained a person after marrying and having a child, who struggles with being a “wild animal” too? The tiny (ha) complication of keeping Mrs. Fox complicit would have done wonders for the story.

Wouldn’t it also have been great if Anderson—who, despite all my negative comments, does have directorial talent—had changed course just a little bit and not made a movie about a strained father-son relationship? Talent grows only when it’s challenged, and perhaps that’s why I keep giving Anderson another chance. After Fox, though, I’m not sure he gets another shot.

Beware ‘The Ides of March’

How many times will that title be used when discussing The Ides of March? I couldn’t resist.

Directed by George Clooney and opening this weekend, Ides is a political thriller centered on a presidential candidate’s press secretary. And SCANDAL.

This is the kind of movie that gets Oscar buzz. What kind of movie? Clooney-directed political statement? Story about power and political corruptions? Sure, maybe. There’s precedent for that. White-male directed movie about powerful white men, and politics, with a dash of sexy lady and serious lady? Definitely.

Watch for yourself:

Now, as I haven’t seen The Ides of March, or read much about it yet, I could be totally wrong. Marisa Tomei as Black Glasses Serious Reporter could be the center of the film, the only person in Ohio (or the national press) with enough smarts and courage to investigate the SCANDAL. The movie could completely center around her work to uncover and expose the SCANDAL (although she gets one or possibly two lines in the trailer). My snarky “sexy lady” comment could also be completely off base; Evan Rachel Wood’s character in the trailer might claim to not be able to tie a tie, and might joke about being a “lowly intern” just to cover up her power. Right? RIGHT?!

You might scoff at my annoyance specifically with this movie, because politics in the United States is dominated by white men, and women don’t have much power in the political game, so in that sense, the movie is “realistic.” But you can’t look at this movie (or any movie) in isolation. Judging from the trailer, Ides follows a well-established pattern for Serious Movies That Become Oscar-Nominated Films (see our reviews of Oscar-nominated movies from 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011 for some examples), or, Important Movies About Important Things (read: not things that particularly involve women).

Instead of seeing Ides of March this weekend, I want to watch a political thriller in which women take center stage. Give me some ideas.

Best Picture Nominee Review Series: Michael Clayton

Best Picture nominee Michael Clayton (2007)

This is a guest post from Robin Hitchcock.

Michael Clayton seems like an unlikely Best Picture nominee: a legal thriller that I would have sworn was adapted from an airport novel if I didn’t know that it was nominated for Best Original Screenplay. Can’t you see yourself reading this plot description on a dust jacket while you half-listen to gate change announcements? Michael Clayton is the fixer for the elite Manhattan law firm Kenner, Bach & Leeden, making the deals and greasing the wheels for the tough cases that need to go away and stay under the radar. But when he’s sent to clean up the mess when his firm’s legendary attorney Arthur Eden goes off his medication and starts sabotaging their defense against a billion-dollar toxic tort class action, Clayton is reunited with his long-dormant conscience… and it might cost him his life.

It’s a film completely lacking in the epic trappings or topical social commentary usually characterizing Best Picture nominees, especially back in 2007 when the field was still only open to five films. Sure, it has a slick look, dashes of symbolic pretension (sorry, I have no. earthly. clue. what the horses mean) and an over-the-top and sometimes offensively unrealistic portrayal of mental illness, but it seems a more likely contender for heavy basic-cable rotation than for Best Picture.

Except for the part where it is really, really good.

Tilda Swinton’s phenomenal, Oscar-winning performance as Karen Crowder, general counsel for the toxic tort defendant United Northfield and villain of the story, does much of the work of pulling the film into the prestige league. It’s the best kind of supporting acting: a tremendous richness of character is developed in a few short scenes, leaving an impression so great it is hard to believe she doesn’t appear in more of the film.

Swinton demonstrates incredible control, imbuing characterization into the barely perceptible twitches of individual facial muscles. [It’s worlds apart from Tom Wilkinson’s scenerey-chomping (but also nominated) performance as the unbalanced Arthur, which makes that character seem even more out of place in the film.] In one of my favorite scenes, Karen awkwardly contracts with a hit man with a light-voiced forced professionalism that gives me flashbacks to my worst phone interviews, while reading over a stolen memorandum held in a hand stuffed in a plastic bag. She seems so comfortable with her improvised evidence-prevention, and it stands in such strong contrast with her hesitant negotiations, that we learn a great deal about what lines this character has already crossed that have brought her to the point of contract killing. Even Swinton’s HAND can act, when it’s hidden away in a plastic bag.

It’s a terrific performance in a rich role, but unfortunately some of that richness of character is rife with sexism, or at least relies on the sexism of the audience. We first see the character breaking down in a bathroom stall, pouring sweat broadly staining the pits of her conservative blouse. Her first dialogue is anxious practice for an interview discussing her recent promotion to general counsel as she dresses in the morning. Karen sits on her hotel bed in a practical nude bra and slip, posture slumped enough that some rolls of fat form on her midsection. Rarely is a half-dressed woman so de-sexualized in Hollywood film, and that captures our interest, but only because it relies on our presumption of sexist exploitation. So much of the complexity of the character is derived from our sexist expectations of what a cold-blooded corporate killer would be like and the “feminine vulnerability” (a phrase woefully common in reveiwers’ discussions of Swinton’s performance) of Karen Crowder. Swinton’s performance is strong enough to transcend this and actually earn the mantle of “complex villain”, but it is nevertheless problematic from a feminist perspective.

And my brow furrow deepens when I consider the only other female role with any meat to it—Anna, one of the class action plaintiffs (played by Merritt Wever). Anna is a young, painfully naïve country girl, and her “purity” draws a deep love from Arthur, who calls her “God’s perfect little creature.” Arthur’s love for Anna inspires his crusade to expose U/North’s guilt. [Sidebar: As a lawyer, I hate hate hate when characters are portrayed as heroes for betraying their clients when they find out they are guilty. That is not heroic. It is unethical and WRONG. I’m looking at you, Perry Mason! And Matlock, you oughtta be disbarred! /rant] So: female character that only exists to provide motivation for male character? Check! But why stop the sexist cliches there? Anna is flattered by the (creepy and grossly ethics-violating) attention that Arthur gives her, even after he strips down and professes his love to her while she is being deposed about HER PARENTS DYING OF CANCER. She accepts the plane ticket to New York he buys for her even though she’s never been farther away from home than Milwaukee, and has to lower her voice to an awed whisper when she recounts that the ticket cost eight hundred dollars. Anna’s simplicity and innocence stands in start contrast to Karen’s ruthless professionalism, creating an unpleasant dichotomy where the dumb, docile country mouse is “God’s perfect creature” and the professional, competent city mouse is Pure Evil. I doubt this message was intentional, but it still grates. The lesson is that passing the Bechdel test (Michael Clayton flunks on the second prong) not only appeases us feminists but helps avoid undesired inferences of sexism.

Despite these shortcomings, I thoroughly enjoyed Michael Clayton. The movie is worth watching just to bask in the awesomeness of Tilda Swinton’s performance, which truly is one for the ages, but it’s got plenty else to recommend it as well. It’s gripping, good-looking, thought-provoking, and hey, George Clooney’s face is on screen like 90% of the time.

Robin Hitchcock has a card in her wallet that proves she’s an attorney, but she practices writing more than she practices law. You can read her series of reviews of wedding movies at her blog HitchDied and her reviews of everything else at The Double R Diner.

The Flick Off: Fantastic Mr. Fox

Note to Wes: if your one female character (wife + mother) is supposed to be a professional artist, could you at least show her working during the DAY in her STUDIO, not cooking all day and painting outside at night with her kid and husband sitting around her?

It’s disappointing that this film incorporates Dahl’s lack of interest in women (that veers close to misogyny). I guess it’s not that much different from other Wes Anderson films that way…but with a little more imagination it could have been so much better.

While I’m not typically a stickler for accurate adaptations, Amy Biancolli of The Houston Chronicle points out some poignant changes from Roald Dahl’s novel:

1) In the original, Mrs. Fox was complicit all along. 2) Mr. Fox never went on the wagon. 3) Mr. and Mrs. Fox had four cubs, not one little nutcase, and Dahl made no mention of a yoga-bending super-nephew. 4) I’m pretty sure the point of the story wasn’t Mr. Fox’s flagging self-esteem or his strained relationship with his son. But this is cinema in the time of Oprah, when Reductio ad navelgazing is the inevitable narrative arc.