Movie Review – Breathe

Director: Mélanie Laurent

Starring: Josephine Japy, Lou de Laage

Year: 2014

Melanie Laurent has now impressed me in three films: Inglourious Basterds, Enemy, & By the Sea.  This talented & beautiful French actress is the real deal, able to raise heavy emotion from the depths, bringing something special to the surface.  But acting is only a part of who she is as an artist, writing & directing quickly becoming passions as well.  Here in Breathe, Laurent creates a film all her own, her second attempt, the first being the minimally-seen The Adopted.  So far, she’s a better thespian than filmmaker, but there’s still time to hold out hope.  After all, the 33-year-old actress is just getting started, and I think her best is yet to come.  Next up is a drama based on a novel (Eternité) costarring Audrey Tautou (Amélie), so hold on to your hats.

Breathe is the story of teenager Charlie, her small problems, and how one new friendship can become a catastrophe.  Charlie lives with her mom in the suburbs, attends the local school, has a small group of friends, but is generally afraid; to open up, to come out of her shell, to talk to the boy she likes, to stand up to her irresponsible & absent father, to help her mother move on, to live the life that has been given to her.  But that all changes when she meets Sarah.  The new girl in town is brave, careless, rebellious, sexy, confident; everything Charlie is missing from her own spirit.  And when Sarah starts giving her special attention, Charlie has never been so happy.  It’s not until she gets to know some of the darker secrets of her new BFFs existence that Charlie begins to wonder if this change was a good thing after all.

Think Blue Is the Warmest Color but without the lesbians, the grit, or the length.  Basically, a toned down version of the same coming-of-age theme, but done in a softer style.  And also the story becomes a bit more of a thriller, where Blue keeps steady as a realism piece.  Which one was better?  I’d say they were about the same, at least as far as enjoyment goes.  Breathe is interesting, well-made, well-acted, but it lacks that magic X-factor that would set it apart from others.  It’s a little safe, a little typical, and doesn’t show any real genius.  Laurent is just starting out as a writer/director and I think we can feel her getting her feet wet.  The more she works the more she’ll have to say, and I look forward to hearing it.

My rating: ☆ ☆ ☆

Movie Review – The Jungle Book (2016)

Director: Jon Favreau

Starring: Neel Sethi, Ben Kingsley, Bill Murray

Year: 2016

As a big fan of the 1967 original, this newest version of The Jungle Book had to be amazing to impress me.  And I can’t have been alone in that either; though not the Disney Princess classic that first comes to mind, this film is still one of those stalwarts many of us grew up watching on repeat.  The songs, the characters, the perfect moments that we still quote to this day; there’s a lot to live up to if you’re brave enough to try your hand at a remake.  Jon Favreau wasn’t scared apparently, taking on this project though he’s more an actor than a director, attempting to build his resume on top of Iron Man and Cowboys & Aliens.  Give the guy some credit; he and team Disney built the picture, got both critics & audiences on board, and already have a sequel in the works.  But did it impress this old-school fan, and will it entertain you?

Mowgli the man-cub, raised in the jungle, part of the pack, but never too far from the roots of his species and their inherently destructive tendencies.  The story of Mowgli’s childhood is well-known; found by Bagheera the panther, raised by Akela the wolf, despised by Shere Khan the tiger.  Mowgli is growing up fast, and can no longer be kept safe in the jungle where not everyone is glad to house a human.  So he & Bagheera set off for the man village to find the boy a safe home, despite that very boy’s protestations.  Along the way, Mowgli will meet the infamous Kaa, the lovable Baloo, and the insane King Louie, finding out more about himself than he ever dreamed and more about the jungle than he ever dared to ask.

Impress?  Not completely.  Entertain?  Definitely yes.  So let’s start with a positive that is actually a veiled negative and say that the animation is impressive beyond a doubt.  The simple fact that these images can be made by humans, flashed before my eyes, and that my brain can hardly discern their reality is proof that something phenomenal is happening.  The animation was stunning, and not in a Pixar way, but in some form much more vivid & awesome.  But the reason I call this a backhanded compliment is that it was perhaps all that impressed me about this film.  The boy who played Mowgli definitely didn’t win me over; I kinda wish he had been animated too.  And the cheesy pack motto chanted under stirring music in the face of all odds; come on.  Combine the kid, the sap, & what I thought was unnecessary revamping of the original music and you’ve got a film that got under my skin far too often.

But, luckily, the animation wasn’t the only positive aspect of the movie, just the only stellar one.  The next biggest plus was the voice-over work.  I wouldn’t have guessed that these actors would be the perfect voice matches for these animals, but they somehow were and it somehow worked splendidly.  Ben Kingsley can be a little annoying & dramatic, but he was just right for Bagheera.  Bill Murray was both goofy & lovable, the epitome of Baloo.  ScarJo as Kaa had a surprisingly small part in the story, but it was creepy & cool.  And lastly, Idris Elba, whose performance as Shere Khan was uncanny, as was the animation of the tiger itself.  I hope I’ve been clear that, while not singing its praises, The Jungle Book succeeded in many areas; the visuals, the voices, even the nod to old Disney.  But it was far from perfect; the kid, the cheese, the unnecessary songs.  Taken as a whole, a bit of a mixed bag, but an enjoyable one nonetheless.

My rating: ☆ ☆ ☆

Movie Review – Dixieland

Director: Hank Bedford

Starring: Chris Zylka, Riley Keough, Faith Hill

Year: 2015

Hank Bedford has been a part of the crew for some pretty excellent films.  He was an assistant to the director for The Fighter, Out of the Furnace, and Foxcatcher, thought Dixieland marks his own directorial debut.  He also wrote the screenplay and is from the South himself, so at least he’s following that old chestnut; write what you know.  Though, hopefully, he doesn’t know this exact story, because it isn’t pretty.  Dixieland is a peek into a world most of us do not & never want to know, a life of poverty & crime that seems to have no exit.  That much the film gets right, transporting us into the boondocks and showing us the rough that’s driven there every day.  Otherwise, and as a film, most everything fails, establishing a good try but a fairly wide miss.

This is the story of a boy named Kermit, as odd as that sounds, and the state in which he lives & represents; Mississippi.  Kermit is a troubled young man, living in a trailer park, running drugs for his friends, beating up his mother’s suitors, and ultimately landing himself in prison.  When he gets out, he vows to keep away from that old life, that old crowd, swearing to his mom that he’s changed.  And perhaps he has, but a beautiful girl, a literal girl-next-door, needs his help, and Kermit is fixing to give it.  After all, in Pearl, Mississippi, what else is there to do but go to the strip club, go deliver drugs, and go lounge in the woods?  So Kermit makes money the only way he knows how, continuing a cycle that really never ended.

I can see some promise here from Hank Bedford, and perhaps his films down the road a few years will be the complete packages that Dixieland failed to be.  There were some definite positives; real interviews of people from the town lent credibility to the story, honest portrayals of the characters made it seem like we really were in the deep South, a glimmer of fine direction & cinematography made the movie at least enjoyable to view.  And the acting was …OK …never standing out as special, but then what can you expect from a no name guy, the daughter of Lisa Marie Presley, and an aging country singer?  They weren’t a strong cast, but at least helped their setting seem believable.  The main problem came from the film’s failure to mix the reality of the background with the melodrama of the plot, making the story look quite fake by comparison, making event choices abruptly and seemingly without reason.  An average love story set in an interesting place, Dixieland comes across as choppy & a bit amateur; better luck next time.

My rating: ☆ ☆