Hong Chau

KINDS OF KINDNESS: disgustingly indulgent

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Photo caption: Jesse Plemons in KINDS OF KINDNESS. Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures.

Yorgos Lanthimos (Poor Things) probably enjoyed writing and directing his disgustingly self-indulgent Kinds of Kindness, but there’s no reason for an audience to waste three hours on it. There are three separate stories – equally bizarre fables in Kinds of Kindness. The same ensemble of actors play different roles in each of the three stories: Jesse Plemons, Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, Margaret Qualley, Mamadou Athie, Hong Chau and Joe Alwyn.

I like absurdism in cinema (see this week’s Mother Couch), but to SOME end; Kinds of Kindness is just an unremitting sequence of outrageously transgressive behavior in weird circumstances. Lanthimos has been quoted that we was exploring relationships and memory, but all we get is a torrent of provocations. So much is being thrown at the screen, including cannibalism, that, at least, it’s not boring.

  • In the first story, Jesse Plemons plays a corporate lackey who owes everything to his nightmarishly micro-managing boss (Willem Dafoe), who decrees what he wears, what he eats and drinks, when he has sex with his wife. He’s finally baited into saying “no” to th boss for the first time in eleven years, as his life dissolves.
  • In the second, Plemons plays a cop devastated by the disappearance of his wife (Emma Stone, a marine biologist on a research mission. When she is miraculously rescued, he is convinced that it’s not really her, but some malevolent double. There are two extremely funny moments in this chapter – a stunningly ineffectual psychiatrist and a riotously inappropriate home movie. And, then, there’s cannibalism on the menu.
  • The final episode involves a cult with a weird fascination for water purity that has sent out scouts (Stone and Plemons) in search for a prophesied young woman who can raise the dead. Stone’s character is kicked out of the cult, and she goes to great lengths to get back in.

Jesse Plemons is exceptional in each of his three roles, and he’s by far the best element of Kinds of Kindness. There’s isn’t a bad performance in Kinds of Kindness, just the finest of screen actors trapped in a bad screenplay. Margaret Qualley continues to act unclothed in what seems to me to be a high proportion of her films.

Lanthimos co-wrote Kinds of Kindness with Efthimis Filippou, as he did with his most off-the-wall work – Dogtooth, which I loved, and The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer, both of which I hated. (Filippou also co-wrote Athina Rachel Tsangari’s hilarious skewering of male competitiveness, Chevalier (which I REALLY loved). )

Unfortunately, Kinds of Kindness is really just Lanthimos’ exercise in devising outrageous behavior for his characters, just because he can. We don’t need to watch.

The most overlooked movie of 2020

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Brian Dennehy, Lucas Jaye and Hong Chau

The Oscars are coming up on Sunday night, so here’s a plug for The Most Overlooked Movie of the Year. I can’t think of a more authentic movie about intergenerational relationships than the charming, character-driven Driveways. I saw this modest little indie at Cinequest, and it’s one of the Best Movies of 2020.

Kathy (Hong Chau) and her nine-year-old Cody (Lucas Jaye) arrive in a small town to clean out and flip the house of Kathy’s late sister. Kathy and her much older sister had lost touch,and Kathy is surprised and disheartened to discover that the sister had become a hoarder, making the clean-up job monumental. The octogenarian next-door neigbor Del (Brian Dennehy) watches from his porch.

All three are facing life challenges. Kathy is a single mom trying to navigate a career change; now she has an unwanted chore and some guilt from not reviving the relationship with her sister. Cody is a sensitive kid who isn’t comfortable in many situations and who has an embarrassing reaction to anxiety. Del is grieving the loss of his wife and facing the loss of his independence. Things do not go as the audience expects.

Hong Chau in DRIVEWAYS

Director Andrew Ahn, by dropping subtle clues, lets the audience connect the dots about the characters and their back stories. We learn about the mom-son relationship when she discards a cigarette on the ground and he wordlessly grinds it out with his shoe. We learn about Del’s fears about his independence when he glances at an increasingly forgetful buddy.

Driveways is a three-hander and all three actors, Hong Chau, Lucas Jaye and Brian Dennehy are superb. 91-year-old character actor Jerry Adler is brilliant in a few very brief scenes.

This was the final performance for Brian Dennehy (scroll down to bottom for my remembrance). His performance – so remarkably genuine and subtle – in Driveways is award-worthy. Dennehy’s facial expression, in one fleeting moment, conveys Del’s profound regret about a mistake that he made with his own daughter.

Brian Dennehy and Lucas Jaye in DRIVEWAYS

Driveways played at Cinequest 2020 with an in-person appearance by Hong Chau, which I skipped because I sized it up as too sappy. I was wrong.

You know how children are drawn to some kids and not to others? Driveways perfectly captures the joy of making friends when a kid discovers another kid with common interests.

That authenticity is exactly what keeps Driveways from being corny. There’s not a hint of manipulation from Ahn. That’s why Driveways is that rarity, a recommendation from The Movie Gourmet that can be described as”heartfelt”.

Cody is as much the lead character as are the mom and the old guy. The Wife thinks that the movie is too slow for kids. But I’d give it a try and challenge the kids. It’s only 83 minutes, and I think kids will be drawn to the portrayal of a kid that is so real-world and unlike the stock characters spoon fed them by the likes of the Disney Channel.

Driveways is available to stream on all the major platforms.

DRIVEWAYS: authentic, heartfelt, brilliant

by
Brian Dennehy, Lucas Jaye and Hong Chau in DRIVEWAYS

I can’t think of a more authentic movie about intergenerational relationships than the charming, character-driven Driveways. It’s a modest little indie, and it’s one of the Best Movies of 2020 – So Far.

Kathy (Hong Chau) and her nine-year-old Cody (Lucas Jaye) arrive in a small town to clean out and flip the house of Kathy’s late sister. Kathy and her much older sister had lost touch,and Kathy is surprised and disheartened to discover that the sister had become a hoarder, making the clean-up job monumental. The octogenarian next-door neigbor Del (Brian Dennehy) watches from his porch.

All three are facing life challenges. Kathy is a single mom trying to navigate a career change; now she has an unwanted chore and some guilt from not reviving the relationship with her sister. Cody is a sensitive kid who isn’t comfortable in many situations and who has an embarrassing reaction to anxiety. Del is grieving the loss of his wife and facing the loss of his independence. Things do not go as the audience expects.

Hong Chau in DRIVEWAYS

Director Andrew Ahn, by dropping subtle clues, lets the audience connect the dots about the characters and their back stories. We learn about the mom-son relationship when she discards a cigarette on the ground and he wordlessly grinds it out with his shoe. We learn about Del’s fears about his independence when he glances at an increasingly forgetful buddy.

Driveways is a three-hander and all three actors, Hong Chau, Lucas Jaye and Brian Dennehy are superb. 91-year-old character actor Jerry Adler is brilliant in a few very brief scenes.

This was the final performance for Brian Dennehy (scroll down to bottom for my remembrance). His performance – so remarkably genuine and subtle – in Driveways is award-worthy. Dennehy’s facial expression, in one fleeting moment, conveys Del’s profound regret about a mistake that he made with his own daughter.

Brian Dennehy and Lucas Jaye in DRIVEWAYS

Driveways played at Cinequest 2020 with an in-person appearance by Hong Chau, which I skipped because I sized it up as too sappy. I was wrong.

You know how children are drawn to some kids and not to others? Driveways perfectly captures the joy of making friends when a kid discovers another kid with common interests.

That authenticity is exactly what keeps Driveways from being corny. There’s not a hint of manipulation from Ahn. That’s why Driveways is that rarity, a recommendation from The Movie Gourmet that can be described as”heartfelt”.

Cody is as much the lead character as are the mom and the old guy. The Wife thinks that the movie is too slow for kids. But I’d give it a try and challenge the kids. It’s only 83 minutes, and I think kids will be drawn to the portrayal of a kid that is so real-world and unlike the stock characters spoon fed them by the likes of the Disney Channel.

Driveways is available to stream on all the major platforms.