Enough Said (2013)

Who would have guessed that Julia Louis-Dreyfus and James Gandolfini would have such great chemistry? Nicole Holofcener, that’s who.

Eva (Louis-Dreyfus) is a single mom and masseuse. She attends a party where she meets poet Marianne (Catherine Keener) who becomes a client and then a friend. After the party, Eva starts dating Albert (Gandolfini). Despite Albert not fitting into her preconceived categories of good looking, she is attracted to him and they have a lot of fun. As she gets to know Marianne and hears about Marianne’s issues with her ex-husband, Eva begins to second-guess her relationship with Albert, his bad habits and his overflowing belly.

Eva is also preparing for her only child’s departure to college across the country in New York City. She is contemplating her ex-husband and what initially drew her to him because he is a man with whom she couldn’t share a laugh. Her best friend Sarah (Toni Collette) and Sarah’s husband Will (Ben Falcone) are frequent companions and we are privy to their marital foibles.

Enough Said is a feeling person’s romantic comedy. The story develops well, pulling us into a spiral that will leave several people scathed. It rolls up its sleeves and digs past the surface into the relationship dynamics and struggles affecting new couples, couples who’ve been together for a long time and friends. It poses questions about what is appropriate, the complications relationships present and the cracks that surface. It also showcases the differences between men and women’s thinking and problem solving.

I liked the ending. My companions did not. I would love to go on and on about it but that would ruin the ending for you. Go forth and enjoy this delightful offering and note it is one of Gandolfini’s last films.

Writer/Director: Nicole Holofcener

Country: US

Genre: Comedy

Run time: 91 minutes

Scale: 4

Secrets & Lies (1996)

Mike Leigh is a master at dissecting the dysfunctional family. He fills a cauldron with sadness, regret and shame. He gives it a swirl, adds a man as peace-keeping patriarch among three women seeking solace but with simmering recriminations. He serves it up, introducing us to the Purley family.

Factory worker Cynthia Purley (Brenda Blethyn) and her nearly 21-year-old daughter Roxanne Purley (Claire Rushbrook) bicker as Cynthia tries to forge a closer relationship. Roxanne pulls away, horrified her mother wants to meet her boyfriend and talk about birth control. Cynthia is estranged from her brother Maurice Purley (Timothy Spall) because his wife Monica Purley (Phyllis Logan—you’ll recognize her as Mrs. Hughes of Downton Abbey) isn’t fond of Cynthia. Monica suffers cutting disappointment at not being able to conceive while Cynthia has been fertile under less-than-ideal circumstances.

When photographer Maurice drops by unexpectedly after nearly a year to see Cynthia, they snap back into their relationship and we learn about the deep familial wounds and strong connection they share. Maurice decides to throw Roxanne a 21st birthday party.

Add to this already volatile mix a young African-American woman Hortense Cumberbatch (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) who comes calling for Cynthia, claiming to be the child she gave up for adoption when Cynthia was 15 years old—a secret that will be unleashed and create upheaval in the Purley households.

Secrets & Lies is a classic that holds up 17 years later. The dialogue is rich with characters deflecting questions and offering more in non-answers. The movie rolls like a play. It beckons the viewer to join the characters in their sadness, anger, frustration and humor. The viewer readily obliges because it’s a well-made movie.

Writer/Director: Mike Leigh

Country: UK

Genre: Drama

Run time: 140 minutes

Scale: 4

Smashed (2012)

I gravitated to Smashed because it co-stars Aaron Paul of Breaking Bad fame. I also wondered if a movie called Smashed would deliver a serious or ironic portrayal of addiction. Would it overpromise and under-deliver?

Kate (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) oversleeps and wakes up, hung over and soaked in urine. She and husband Charlie (Aaron Paul) realize Kate has peed herself as they awake in the wet spot. Kate readies herself for work, taking a swig of beer as she showers and nipping whiskey before entering school to teach her grade schoolers, who are equally cute and aggressively nosy. When Kate suddenly pukes, missing the trash bin, her students are disturbed and horrified. They pummel her with questions, including whether she’s pregnant. To move along quickly, she affirms them but this white lie is the first complication in a series of events that stand to separate Kate from the two things she loves—her husband and drinking.

Kate and Charlie go out. They drink to excess. Kate wakes up on the street the morning after offering a stranger a ride, drunk driving and smoking crack. After another one of these nights, Kate tells Charlie she wants to slow down. This is not music to Charlie’s ears—drinking is what bonds them. She takes the advice of a fellow teacher and pal Dave Davies (Nick Offerman) and attends an AA meeting. She attempts sobriety and enlists the help of Jenny (Octavia Spencer), another AAer, who becomes her sponsor, but can she get clean and keep her husband?

I loved Smashed. I sought it out for Aaron Paul of Breaking Bad fame but the movie belongs to Winstead (a nearly unrecognizable Ramona Flowers from Scott Pilgrim). Smashed is honest, funny, sad, hopeful and sad again. Charlie and Kate’s relationship isn’t maudlin or sentimental. Megan Mullally, as Principal Barnes, in a non-comedic role takes some getting used to. For Parks & Recreation fans, we also get Offerman in a very un-Ron Swanson-like role (no whittling).

Smashed is the indie film for the addiction section of your DVD collection. It deserves a watch, two, even three. I was riveted watching a couple who are so in love with one another until one of them ends the relationship with the bottle.

Co-writer/Director: James Ponsoldt

Country: US

Genre: Drama with funny moments

Run time: 82 minutes

Scale: 4

Savages (2012)

It’s Oliver Stone. The setting: Laguna Beach, California. The colors are saturated. I can feel the splash of the water and the hot sand. There’s O (Blake Lively) and her boyfriends Chon (Taylor Kitsch) and Ben (Aaron Johnson) in a functional love triangle—the men are like brothers and she is lover to both.

Ben and Chon cultivate and sell one of the strongest pot strains in the world at 33 percent THC. This puts them in the crosshairs of the Tijuana cartel, who offer/compel the two an 80-20 deal (in favor of the dudes) to go into business. Ben and Chon are happy making their lesser millions and refuse the deal. The cartel is relentless. Ben, the philanthropic one, suggests they give up the business. Afghanistan war vet Chon won’t agree, on principal alone. Cartel queen Elena (Salma Hayek) demands the guys be her worker bees.

The trio plan to scamper across the world and live quietly, leaving no breadcrumbs. Before they take action, the cartel with the help of a double-crossing DEA agent Dennis (John Travolta) kidnap O. Savages is the story of getting O back.

Sounds good? There are several problems. The story isn’t original. It goes on a convoluted path that takes eons to conclude. The ending isn’t bad but by that time, I was super annoyed with the whole lot. And, they are an impressive bunch: Benecio Del Toro as Lado, Hayak and Esteban Reyes (oh wait, that’s Demián Bichir from Weeds playing the same character). I liked Hayak as the female helming the cartel. Savages heads in possibly redeeming directions a few times but they are red herrings, never going deep with any of the characters. You get fed what you should think of all of them and they end up puddle-deep and flawed in uninteresting ways. The story could have done better with O and Elena. It was ripe for transference and countertransference what with an ignored daughter and an ignored mother, respectively. Savages lacks tension. Considering the double crossing and guns, it makes little impact on the nerves. You know from the beginning that the trio will never betray one another. Albeit a unique and strong detail, it makes for lousy suspense.There’s narration by O’s character through the movie that didn’t work.

I didn’t hate it but I can’t say I liked it without stating the caveats. In the end, it got an extreme eye roll.

Director: Oliver Stone

Country: US

Genre: Drama

Run time: 130 minutes

Scale: 2.5

Pariah (2011)

Pariah is a young adult coming-out tale. The moving story is told with documentary-like realism. It takes an unflinching look at the difficulties faced by teenagers coming out as gay to reluctant-to-accept parents.

Alike (Adepero Oduye) isn't confused about her sexuality. However, she has been dressing in pink and semi-fluffy to appease her church-going mother Audrey (Kim Wayans). She leaves the house with a hidden change of oversized clothes, her doo-rag and baseball cap with which she becomes her true self she can be once away from home. Audrey wages her low-simmer battle to keep Alike girlie and away from bad influences, like her best friend, Laura (Pernell Walker), a lesbian and Alike’s main support. Audrey doesn’t accept the unspoken truth about Alike. As she puts it, “God doesn’t make mistakes.”

Wayans is terrific as the overbearing, pushy mother. There were moments when I expected her to launch into the comedic Wayans territory. She’d make a certain face and, I’d waited for her trademark berserk expression.

Meanwhile, Audrey and Alike’s father, Arthur (Charles Parnell) are in marital discord, which makes Audrey focus on Alike to avoid the bigger issue she’s dodging. Alike's close relationship with her father saves her from complete parental alienation; that is, until she tries to come out to him.

Writer/director Dee Rees creates a confident teen character in Alike, who tries to be true to herself and keep her parents. Her solid network of lesbian pals and an influential teacher keep her moving forward. It’s heartbreaking to see her parents deny her in her efforts to be honest. Pariah depicts the harsh realities that occur after some teens come out to their families. I’ve read about teens being kicked out of the house and shunned after coming out.

In Pariah, Alike's biggest ally is herself. With her excellent grades and good friends, she creates options for herself. Sadly, life doesn’t always present bankable options like those that open up to Alike.

Great indie film. Check it.

Writer/Director: Dee Rees

Country: US

Genre: Drama

Run time: 86 minutes

Scale: 4

The Help (2011)

The Help introduces us to three spritely ladies in 1960s civil-rights-era Mississippi: recent college graduate and wanna-be writer Skeeter (Emma Stone), Aibileen (Viola Davis), an African-American maid who’s been documenting her life since the death of her son and Abilene’s best friend, Minny (Octavia Spencer), a feisty maid who pushes the segregation boundaries. The rumblings of change are about to disrupt all three of their lives.

Skeeter lands a job as a household tips columnist but is thirsting to write something meaningful. Maintaining her friendship with her best friend, Hilly (Bryce Dallas Howard), is becoming more challenging, as Hilly is increasingly cruel and pushy. Charlotte (Allison Janney), Skeeter’s mother, is worried about Skeeter’s single status. Skeeter quietly begins a writing project from the perspective of “the help.” Her clandestine meetings with Aibileen yield disturbing tales about what really happens in Elizabeth Leefolt’s (Ahna O'Reilly) house while Aibileen is raising Elizabeth’s girl, Mae Mobley.

Skeeter’s writing yields interest from a New York editor but she’s pushing Skeeter for content sooner than she can get the help (besides Aibileen) to open up. They’re reluctant for fear of retribution and losing their jobs. Can Skeeter get the information needed to bring to light the ugly tales of segregation?

Minny is fired after using the “whites-only” toilet at Hilly’s house. She goes to work for the black sheep of the community, Celia Foote (Jessica Chastain), who has been trying to break into the Southern belle bridge clique after getting knocked up by and marrying Johnny (Mike Vogel), Hilly’s ex-boyfriend. Minny gets her revenge on Hilly for firing her. It will have you rethinking pie. Minny and Celia make a funny duo. They do a lot of cooking and talking. As an aside, corn pone is mentioned a lot. I had never heard of it and had to look it up (it’s an eggless cornbread typically fried).

The Help is enjoyable. Stone, Davis and Spencer are standouts. The rest of the actors are excellent. If you like it, you might consider reading “The Help,” the 2009 novel the movie is based upon by Kathryn Stockett.

Screenplay writer/Director: Tate Taylor

Country: US

Genre: Drama

Run time: 145 minutes

Scale: 4

Jodaeiye Nader az Simin (A Separation) (2011)

The 2011 Oscar winner for best foreign film, A Separation opens with a couple requesting a divorce. Simin (Leila Hatami) is leaving Iran as planned. Nader’s (Payman Maadi) father has Alzheimer's and he won’t leave him behind. We don’t get details about their lives before they could look at one another without contempt and communicate without screaming, but we get idea it was a decent marriage. Now, their issue is what to do about Termeh (Sarina Farhadi), their eleven-year-old daughter? Does she go with her mother or stay in Iran with her father? The judge orders Termeh to decide.

Once Simin moves out, Nader hires stranger Razieh (Sareh Bayat) to care for his father while he’s at work. Razieh brings her young daughter to work. Giant problems begin immediately.

Each character has his/her quandaries. Nader’s father doesn’t speak, but the drama surrounds him. Razieh is conflicted, burdened and trying to do the right thing but knowing what that is becomes extremely hard. Termeh is often the adult, holding her parents to the moral code with which she’s been raised.

A Separation takes on perspective, desperation and tradition. The cultural differences, especially around legal matters and customs, are fascinating. Judges are in the vein of Judge Judy, prisoners are handcuffed to easygoing guards and the legal system operates with loose norms related to evidence collection and witness testimony.

This movie is not filmed in the omniscient point of view where we know what all the characters feel/do/expect. It pits perspective against honesty and asks tough questions. You will interpret the situation and nothing that happens is predictable. In the end, I re-watched nearly the whole movie again to try and get those missing bits. You are left contemplating a lot. Impressive. See it.

Writer/Director: Asghar Farhadi

Country: Iran

Genre: Drama

Run time: 123 minutes

Scale: 5

Friends with Benefits (2011)

We were flanked with the trailers, interviews and dates with the military folk. Did this saturation make me expect more?

Justin Timberlake was okay in The Social Network. After watching Friends with Benefits, I realized that Justin Timberlake is like George Clooney—he doesn’t act as much as play himself.

Head-hunter/recruiter Jamie (Mila Kunis) scores big when she convinces Dylan (Timberlake) to relocated to NYC from LA to take a job at GQ. The two hang out and become BFFs. They have a discussion about having sex sans strings and voila, it’s a friends-with-benefits arrangement. They seem to pull this off for a good long while. During this love fest, we also learn why both Jamie and Dylan are a mess in the relationship department.

Here’s the real mess—Friends with Benefits is lackluster. Even with some the quirky and heavy-hitters like Patricia Clarkson, Jenna Elfman, Emma Stone, Richard Jenkins, Andy Samberg and Shaun White (the snowboarder), this movie still manages to fall short. Even Kunis, who is enjoyable in comedic roles has a hard time. Her lines are read with knee-jerk speed and without authenticity. It takes on too much. Some of the sub-plots were interesting but there are too many doors opened, not enough time (despite being long for a rom-com) and the ending wraps too conveniently.

Director: Will Gluck

Country: USA

Genre: Romantic comedy

Run time: 109

Scale: 3

Margaret (2011)

I wanted to love it. Had no doubts that I would. Then, I saw it and everything changed.

The first hour wasn’t bad. Then, Margaret led me into perplexing tangents that dead-ended and left me disappointed and cold (the theater was freezing). It was a meandering mess that held me hostage for 2.5 hours.

New York teen Lisa (Anna Paquin, you know she will have at least one topless scene) is on a quest for a cowboy hat. While out and about, she witnesses a traffic fatality. Feeling complicit, she sets out to do right by the victim. As she gets more vested, the situation creates emotional turbulence. Her mother, Joan (J. Smith-Cameron), a stage actress. is having problems relating to Lisa’s increasingly explosive reactions. Joan starts dating Ramon (Jean Reno). Their budding relationship is boring and painful to watch; I didn’t understand the point of it. Even Joan seems uninterested. Lisa becomes increasingly desperate as she loses more control in her quest to do The Right Thing. Lisa’s father, Karl (director Kenneth Lonergan) is selfish and unsupportive. He’s just one more unlikeable character in this parade of many.

What happened? Margaret needed focus and editing. The story took on more than it could resolve, resulting in an unsatisfactory experience.

Director: Kenneth Lonergan

Country: USA

Genre: Drama

Run time: 150 very long minutes

Scale: 2

Fish Tank (2009)

Fish Tank is celluloid rawness. Fifteen-year-old Mia (Katie Jarvis) busts onto the screen gulping alcohol from any bottle she can get her hands on, head-butting a former friend for no apparent reason and trying to liberate a neglected horse. The moment her party-girl mom’s one-night stand catches her dancing in her council estate kitchen, Mia’s life changes.

Mia lives in a den of hostility with her younger sister Tyler (Rebecca Griffiths) and their critical mother Joanne (Kierston Wareing). The three are foul-mouthed and rage-filled. When Joanne’s new boyfriend Connor (Michael Fassbender) starts giving Mia the attention she’s starved for and encourages her dreams of being a hip-hop dancer, she puts her fury aside. She lessens her missions to chaos and destruction in lieu of the dancing, especially when a big audition comes her way. Just as it appears she’s getting on track a huge betrayal derails her. You don’t cross Mia Williams unless you are ready for her wrath. The dance scene shared by the three ladies at the end is priceless. A great movie without this scene but their connection utters the feeling they don’t state.

Brutal, cutting, unsanded—Mia is an animal I didn’t want to release. Get comfortable on the edge of your sofa for the maelstrom from which you won’t be able to turn. In the end, I was upset with Mia’s choice; I wanted her to return to school and expand upon her awakening. She’s a fighter but where will she end up? This is a genuine ending but I’m still mad at her for leaving.

Andrea Arnold also directed the brilliant Red Road (which was meant to be the first in a trilogy using the same actors).

Writer/Director: Andrea Arnold

Country: UK

Genre: Drama

Run time: 122 minutes

Scale: 5

Blue Car (2002)

Meg (Agnes Bruckner) discovers her blossoming talent as a poet in AP English. It gives her respite from her duties as stand-in mom at home to her mentally ill younger sister as her single mom works to make ends meet since Meg’s father abandoned them.

The pressure gets to neglected Meg as her sister Lily (Regan Arnold) cuts herself, won’t eat and obsesses about morbidity. Meg finds solace in the attention of her English teacher, Mr. Auster (David Strathairn). She wins a contest and a chance to go to the regionals. As he mentors her writing, she develops feelings for him. I hoped that Blue Car wouldn’t go “there” to the realm of the student-teacher affair. You see it coming but for a long time, it looks as though it will be averted until it comes crashing.

The distance between the two girls and their mother grows. Meg hides more as tragedy strikes the family. She is determined to get to the regionals which leads to the movie’s crescendo. Meg’s brooding and sadness saturate the screen. I loved the process where how she writes her poem Blue Car. The way we are there with Meg’s emotions and reality is the strongest aspect of Blue Car. In need of attention and love, Meg she puts all her hopes and dreams in her teacher’s basket. He takes advantage of this, but she is metamorphosing. She has become a writer but Auster isn’t who she believed him to be. The ending brings her to a new understanding of how she fits in the world and what she needs to stand on her own.

Writer/Director: Karen Moncrieff

Country: USA

Genre: Drama

Run time: 96 minutes

Scale: 3

Californication (Season 3) (2009)

This season kicks off horrifyingly bad. Hank’s immaturity and obnoxiousness are off the charts. Yet the ladies continue to swoon. The lack of storyline is disappointing. What makes it different than soft porn? The show hasn’t changed, you say, but the storylines have lame-ified and it’s just a lot of screwing. Hank’s idiocy is eye rolling. He’s a joke as a professor and no one gives a crap. It isn’t until Karen returns from New York that Hank shapes up one percentage point. Question is, will this man-boy ever get sorted? Will the edge this show used to possess return?

What about Charlie and Marcy? That situation has digressed (I didn’t think it possible). Rick Springfield plays a dirtbag. How did he think this role was a good move? Why would he want to sully his image by portraying himself as a cokehead narcissist? Kathleen Turner as Charlie’s new boss is repulsive. Like a testosterone-fueled humper, she won’t lay off Charlie. She is so unlikeable that when she has her few moments of redemption, the deficit of likability is stacked against her. Becca is the only sane one. She finally hits her rebellion while running the Moody fraternity house.

This season jumped the shark. I felt dirty after watching it. What’s in store in Season 4? The last few episodes with Mia were the best because now, Hank has something to lose: the world may get proof of the depths of his depravity. How is Karen so calm about his parade of sex parters? How is she comfortable bare-backing with him? She’s aware of several of them and knows these are only a fraction of the whole. It’s this point that keeps me wondering why she would flip over Mia. She was underage, she was nearly her step-daughter, but I’m not convinced. Even with the bevy of guest appearances (Peter Gallagher, Ed Westwick, Eva Amurri), I was underwhelmed.

Winter’s Bone (2010)

The first time I watched Winter’s Bone, I didn’t go gaga, despite its many nominations and awards. Upon second viewing, I recognized much more of its artistic achievements.

Seventeen-year-old Ree (Jennifer Lawrence) cares for her two young siblings, Sonny and Ashlee, and her mentally absent mother in their Missouri Ozarks backwoods home. She is constantly teaching the kids self-sufficiency—spelling, hunting, cooking. Then, Jessup, her meth-cook/drug-dealer father, turns up missing. As an absentee father, his disappearance isn’t atypical, but no one has seen him and he’s put up their house as bond. When the bailsman announces that Ree has one week to find Jessup before the house is seized, she refuses to accept they will be left homeless. Tenacious, she faces off with extended family where the code of honor revolves around silence. The women fiercely guard their men, similar to how castles are protected and visitors are vetted to prove they are worthy to face the king. In Winter’s Bone, the king is Thump Milton (Ronnie Hall).

(Spoiler Alert: Read at Your Own Risk!)

The set design, social commentary on poverty and glimpses at the backwoods world create suspense. The story isn’t without flaws. Jessup misstep was not his daughter’s fault. Why do they take so long to come around to helping her? Also, in this community where snitching is the ultimate betrayal, would Jessup commit this wrong? I don’t buy it. To face 10 years in the slammer is nothing to shrug at, but to go against the explicit norms upon which this clan is built would seal his fate. Desperate situations beget desperate choices, but this detail is believable as presented. Based on the novel by Daniel Woodrell, it would be worthwhile to see if there is more to support this plot point in the book. As an aside, I greatly enjoyed the banjos and guitar that provide a respite from the gloom.

Lawrence and John Hawkes as her uncle Teardrop are excellent. Her Ree is tough and resilient among the folks who could kill her in an instant based on her challenging their pride alone. His Teardrop is torn between his divided loyalties. By the end, Ree has covered miles of backwoods on food, been beaten and bloodied and made to participate in acts she will never forget.

Co-writer/Director: Debra Granik

Country: USA

Genre: Drama/Thriller

Run time: 100 minutes

Scale: 3.5

28 Days (2000)

I’m guilty of saying bad things about Sandy. Things like, makes lame movies, bad actress, annoying. I liked Speed but didn’t love what seemed like the same shtick (a la Aniston) over and over. It took The Proposal for me to come around. Once this happened, I watched (at PIC’s urging) and enjoyed Practical Magic, rewatched Speed and saw 28 Days.

Before I nitpick, Sandy cannot help but be funny but she also has dramatic range.

28 Days is a drama that cannot make up its mind whether or not it’s a comedy. Drunk party girl Gwen (Sandra Bullock) ruins her sister’s Lily’s (Elizabeth Perkins) wedding. She must enter rehab or be imprisoned. She reluctantly goes to rehab and of course acts out, insistent she doesn’t have an addiction.

This rehab isn’t portrayed particularly well—it’s lax, naïve, no hold barred—drunks come and go for visits, drugs enter, no one is searched after leaving the grounds, people fall out of windows. Yet, there are some good parts. The flashback scenes showing Gwen and Lily’s childhood are hard to watch as is the wedding scene fiasco. I recoiled many times. Gerhardt (Alan Tudyk) another rehab client is hilarious. He brings comedic lightness as does Gwen’s roommate Andrea (Azura Skye) and her love of the Santa Cruz soap opera.

This isn’t a great movie, but I enjoyed it for Gwen’s turn as she starts to come out of her haze, reassess her relationship with alcoholic boyfriend Jasper (Dominic West) and begins rebuilding her relationship with Lily. It’s also got a fantastic cast: Viggo Mortenson, Steve Buscemi, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Reni Santoni (Poppie from Seinfeld), Diane Ladd and Margo Martindale.

Director: Betty Thomas

Country: USA

Genre: Dramedy

Run time: 102 minutes

Scale: 3

Hanyo (The Housemaid) (2010)

Hanyo grips and doesn’t let you turn away. Immediately, you know that new housemaid Eun-yi Li (Do-yeon Jeon) is in a strange home with peculiar people when she starts alongside the seasoned older maid Byung-sik (Yeo-Jong Yun) who’s worked in the home for years.

Eun-yi Li is seduced by her new employer Hoon (Jung-Jae Lee) and the two begin an affair. By day, she tends to his pregnant wife, Hae-ra (Seo Woo), and daughter, Nami (Seo-Hyeon Ahn). By night, Hoon pays Eun-yi clandestine visits (always with wine bottle in hand). While the young maid is enjoying her double-duty, the older maid is not keen on her apprentice’s extracurricular activities. She plays both sides—loyal to her employers but knowing them, what they are capable of and telling Eun-yi to be careful. When Eun-yi gets pregnant, Byung-sik betrays her. Eun-yi faces the wrath of Hae-ra and her mother, who proves to be shockingly vengeful in her efforts to get Eun-yi to terminate her pregnancy.

The commentary on socio-economic differences is at the forefront in this horror thriller, reminding Eun-yi she is worth little, if anything, but never giving us much to understand what her life was like previous to this job, except that she shared a tiny place and bed with an equally fiscally strapped pal. The set design is brilliant—the stately home as a cold prison. In a scene eerily similar to the balcony fall in The Omen, you are foreshadowed for the climax. The characters are disturbed and you will be too. The final scene is a neo-Adams family mishmash.

(One seemingly unresolved detail: Hoon and his mother-in-law congratulate Byung-sik on her son’s new post as prosecutor. Her reaction to Hoon Goh is anger. Why? Was her son Hoon Goh’s brother? That would bring this story full circle.)

Writer/Director: Sang-soo Im

Country: South Korea

Genre: Thriller

Run time: 105 minutes

Scale: 3

Whip It (2009)

Whip It is about tradition versus choice and plays like a romantic comedy until you figure out that, at heart, it’s a coming-of-age mother-daughter story. Adapted from the 2007 novel Derby Girl by Shauna Cross, Whip It is a Hollywood film veiled as an independent.

Small-town (Bodeen, Texas) teen Bliss Cavendar (Ellen Page) veers off the Blue Bonnet Southern Belle path to find her roller derby alter ego in neighboring Austin. She reveals her electric blue hair at a pageant, upsetting her mother, Brooke (Marcia Gay Harden) who’s got her heart set on her daughter joining the “club” she so badly coveted for herself.

Bliss becomes intrigued by derby. She talks her best friend Pash (awesome awesome Alia Shawkat) into going to a derby event. Once there, Bliss is smitten. Because mama won’t approve, Bliss lies to attend try-outs. She makes the Hurl Scouts team and becomes Babe Ruthless. She starts lying about attending an SAT class but instead attends practice, goes to parties and meets a boy.

Whip It isn’t focused on the girl getting the guy, but instead on the girl discovering her core self and what drives her. The camera angles place you in the middle of the action with singular details, like the glittering skate disco ball, the Oink Joint aprons and the Squealer. The hits, the racing, the uniforms are exciting. You get a crash course in derby rules and even a food fight. The movie with its Portland, Oregon feel has its slow moments but they don’t linger.

Alia Shawkat as Pash, Bliss’s best friend, is excellent. Kristin Wiig as Maggie Mayhem is underused but delivers a few good lines. Juliette Lewis as Iron Maven is clichéd but she’s peculiar enough to be noticed. Jimmy Fallon plays the sleazy announcer with relish. Andrew Wilson, as Razor the Hurl Scouts' coach, is superb (and my favorite Wilson brother). Daniel Stern as Bliss’s dad is bumbling. They connect keeping each other in line while quietly united against mama’s dictatorship. The relationship between Bliss and her mother is believable and difficult. Harden makes the postal carrier uniform fashionable. Bliss’s love interest Oliver (Landon Pigg) is FLAT. He’s adorable, sweet and way too good to be true especially for a lead singer. The music…first-rate sounds weave through the scenes and into that part of you that can’t resist sense impression.

This one is for the ladies. It’s Drew Barrymore’s feature film directorial debut (in 2004, she directed Choose or Lose Presents: The Best Place to Start about American youth and why they tend not to vote) and worth seeing.

Director: Drew Barrymore

Country: US

Genre: Drama, comedy

Run time: 106 minutes

Scale: 4

Black Swan (2010)

The Black Swan delves into the cutthroat world of ballet—exposing its dark underbelly while showing the demise of a ballerina's mind.

Nina (Natalie Portman) is a ballet dancer who lands the ‘role of a lifetime’ as the Swan Queen in her New York City dance company’s production of Swan Lake.

Now that she’s got the coveted role, the pressure has only just begun for the fragile Nina. The production director, Thomas (Vincent Cassel), is driving her. He’s sure she can perform the White Swan, but pushes her to become a seductress as the Black Swan. As she’s struggling and working hard to gain his approval, he’s degrading her while also putting on the moves. The pressure to be perfect nags at her. Then, Lily (Mila Kunis) joins the company. Now, Nina has a competitor trying to befriend her in an environment where everyone is ready for the chance to replace her.

This movie attempts to overthrow you mentally. Always intense and shot in first person perspective to put you into Nina’s head, be ready for jostling camera angles (a la Blair Witch Project). As you acclimate, you become Nina on the path to mental breakdown, absorbing her illness, schizophrenia or whatever ails her. You accompany her to the toilet to puke, to her weigh-ins (where the already thin dancer is pleased to have slimmed down), on her grueling rehearsals to witness Thomas humiliate her in front of her peers. Portman is exceptional in her depiction of the emotionally brittle Nina. Hershey delivers as her smothering mother, herself a former ballerina living her failed dreams through her “sweet girl.” Winona Ryder’s Beth, the replaced “old” ballerina is well played, but unintentionally funny. I couldn’t shake the Heathers melodrama flashbacks in a few of Ryder’s scenes. Her acting is so over the top, it’s darkly comedic (be warned though, she has one scene that while over-the-top is extremely disturbing). I like Kunis but is she worthy of best supporting actress nominations? She acts the same as she did in Forgetting Sarah Marshall and toned down from her role in That ‘70s Show but she doesn’t possess range. Compared to Nina, her character isn’t believable—an accomplished ballerina who desires the starring role but eats burgers, stays out clubbing and pops Ecstasy the night before a day of arduous rehearsal. (Admittedly, it’s difficult to know what is happening versus what is imagined, but it left me dubious.) And, for a movie about ballet, there’s little dancing.

You must see this psychological thriller because like it or not, it will rattle you. If you feel nothing, you will simply add this to a string of events that don’t impact you and people will silently pity you.

Director: Darren Aronofsky

Country: USA

Genre: Thriller

Run time:  106 minutes

Scale: 4.25