Julianne Moore

MAY DECEMBER: a seat-squirmer of a psychodrama

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Photo caption: Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman, in MAY DECEMBER. Courtesy of Netflix.

Todd Haynes’ May December is both absorbing and unsettling. The TV actress Elizabeth (Natalie Portman) has been cast in a movie to play a real-life person Gracie (Julianne Moore) who,20 years before, had been embroiled in a tabloid scandal. that made her notorious. To research the role, Elizabeth visits the hometown of Gracie and her husband Joe (Charles Melton) to meet them and other people touched by the scandal. I’m not going to spoil that original scandal because Haynes unspools the story so skillfully; it’s a jaw-dropper.

Right off the bat, we notice two things. First, Elizabeth and Joe are both 36 years old, and Joe’s wife Gracie is much older. Second, although Joe and Gracie’s home and family seem very vanilla, Gracie’s behavior is a little off.

Haynes is known for visually rich, female-centered melodramas like Carol and Far from Heaven. This is far more psychodrama than melodrama.

As we and Elizabeth see Gracie with her children (the youngest are graduating from high school this week), she seems a little more than just a socially awkward bossy mom. She can act like a bossy mom with her husband, too. It’s not long before she veers from oddball quirks into the indisputably inappropriate.

As we consume news, we occasionally ask ourselves, What kind of person would do THAT? Or What kind of person would even THINK of doing that? Some people have a blind spot and feel no shame for something shameful they’ve done, justifying their own behavior and firmly seeing it as misunderstood by others. May December is a movie about such an abnormal personality, and the carnage she has wreaked.

Julianne Moore keeps us squirming in our seats throughout the film. Portman, who initially brought the story to Haynes, is equally superb in a role that grows from reacting to Gracie’s dysfunction into her own issues with boundaries. Both Moore’s and Portman’s performances are awards-worthy. Cory Michael Smith is also outstanding as Gracie’s son from an earlier marriage. It’s a vivid and memorable performance.

Casting director Samy Burch wrote the screenplay, her first feature, from her own story co-written with Alex Mechanix. Burch’s pacing in revealing more and more of the backstory is the key to May December’s effectiveness. When she drops in some exposition, it meshes with the behavior we’ve already seen from Gracie. Burch gives Gracie a couple stunning lines and Elizabeth has a killer line, too. When a characters say, “This is what grown-ups do“, it’s devastating.

Incidentally, for those who find the story farfetched, it is clearly based on an 1996 occurrence in Burien, Washington.

May December is in theaters, just before it streams on Netflix on December 1.

MAGGIE’S PLAN: Julianne Moore sparks a rom com with a twist

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Ethan Hawke and Julianne Moore in MAGGIE'S PLAN
Ethan Hawke and Julianne Moore in MAGGIE’S PLAN

I only saw Maggie’s Plan because The Wife DRAGGED me to it, but I was surprisingly entertained by this amiable romantic comedy.  A typically floundering mumblecore Millennial (Greta Gerwig) finds herself in an affair with an older man (Ethan Hawke). When she awakens to his relationship-killing self-absorption, she decides the ease the breakup by handing him back to his overachieving ex-wife (Julianne Moore).

Hawke, of course, excels in playing the unreliable man (Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, Boyhood, Born to Be Blue).  Gerwig (the reason I didn’t want to see this movie) is not nearly as annoying and tiresome as she has been to date in her career. But it’s Julianne Moore who really elevates Maggie’s Plan, along with Bill Hader and Maya Rudolph, who are hilarious in supporting roles. Aussie Travis Flimmer shows much promise in a very minor, but eye-catching role.

It all adds up to an amiable and satisfying rom com with a fresh twist.

MAPS TO THE STARS: biting Hollywood satire and Original Sin

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Mia Wasikowska and Julianne Moore in MAPS TO THE STARS
MAPS TO THE STARS

David Cronenberg’s Maps to the Stars is funny, dark and disturbing, but is ultimately unsatisfying.  The disturbing part shouldn’t surprise us, Cronenberg having been responsible for the exploding heads in Scanners, the auto accident sexual fetishes of Crash (1996) and the nightmarish druggy hallucinations of Naked Lunch.  But Cronenberg’s most recent A History of Violence and Eastern Promises have been very accessible, albeit with striking violence.  Maps to the Stars lures us in with a brutally witty show biz satire, and then clubs us with the most twisted family violence.

John Cusack and Olivia Williams play a rich Hollywood couple who had unknowingly committed their unique form of Original Sin, which has resulted in two damaged and dangerous kids.   Julianne Moore plays a needy and neurotic movie star grappling with middle age and her own family heritage.  These are people who take astonishing privilege for granted and treat their minions in contempt.   They react to the most even the most horrific tragedies by assessing how it will affect a book tour.  Cusack’s faux-shaman-to-the-stars ponders fixing the worst possible PR disaster by going “on Oprah and pulling a Lance Armstrong”.

What makes this such a nasty show biz satire, is that the eveil doesn’t just come from the Hollywood suits.  Here, the talent and the creatives are just as biz-oriented – always focused on box office, their fees, and cut throat competition for the next career-enhancing and remunerative gig.  There is very smart humor and lines like, “You know, for a disfigured schizophrenic, you’ve got the town pretty wired”.

Brilliant as always, Julianne Moore is a very good sport here (even with a fart gag).  The most memorable performances are by the very underutilized Olivia Williams (The Ghost Writer, Hyde Park on Hudson) – always teetering with desperation just under the surface – and Evan Bird, a monstrous teen star who isn’t to blame for how he is.  Cusack and Mia Wasikowska are also very good.  I just can’t figure out the appeal of Robert Pattinson, who is in this move to be a love interest, and doesn’t add anything special.

Although there’s a lot to enjoy about Maps to the Stars, it just doesn’t pay off. There’s very disturbing violence, some involving children, and sending up Hollywood foibles with the level of sickness in these characters, just isn’t worth it.

Maps to the Stars, after a blink-and-you-missed-it theatrical release, is available streaming on Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.

STILL ALICE: Julianne Moore gleams in pedestrian drama

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STILL ALICE
STILL ALICE

Julianne Moore will win this year’s Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of a professor faced with the early onset of Alzheimer’s in the otherwise pedestrian disease drama Still Alice.  Moore’s character is a brainiac who is by nature a hyper-achiever, so the disease strips away both her memories and the identity that she has striven to mold for herself. Of course, once she receives the diagnosis, she harnesses both her brainpower and drive to prepare herself and her family for the eventualities.  It’s a breathtakingly brilliant performance, with never a false note, as we see the professor slipping from the occasional memory lapse to the ravages of dementia.

The movie’s strongest scenes are those when she is floundering with the as yet undiagnosed affliction and when she tells her family about her diagnosis, with a particularly wrenching implication for her kids. Disease movies present a challenge for any filmmaker – how can the grimness of an irreversible and progressive illness be leavened by moments of redemption and humor so it’s not too painful to watch? And here, Still Alice falls short – the redemptive moments, most particularly a corny speech before Alzheimer’s advocates, just seem phony and manipulative. And the story walks right up to the edge of a better ending and then steps away.

The supporting cast, including Kristen Stewart, are all okay (although Alec Baldwin seems a bit checked out). All in all, there’s not much else here. But Julianne Moore might be enough.

Don Jon: guffaws and self-discovery

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Joseph Gordon-Levitt wrote/directed/stars in Don Jon, the story of a Guido whose pursuit of a stunning hottie (Scarlett Johansson) is stymied by his porn addiction.  With help from an older woman (Julianne Moore), he recognizes what will really make him happy.

It’s just a light comedy, but Gordon-Levitt has a very smart take on romantic comedy – one that takes some unexpected turns until a moment of self discovery.  Gordon-Levitt is getting good parts (Inception, 50/50, Looper, Lincoln) and big paychecks (The Dark Knight Rises), so he doesn’t have to write his own stuff – but I’m glad that he gave us Don Jon.

Tony Danza is pretty funny as the Guido dad.

DVD of the Week: Crazy Stupid Love

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Crazy Stupid Love is an altogether very satisfying romantic comedy starring Steve Carell as the middle-aged sad sack who has been dumped by his longtime wife (Julianne Moore) and comes under the tutelage of uber lounge lizard Ryan Gosling, who in turn is falling for Emma Stone.   Lots of laughs ensue, leading up to a madcap climax in Moore’s back yard, before the film slows down for the last 20 minutes.  But, it’s plenty funny (and not many romcoms are these days).

Gosling, who earned indie favorite status playing tortured/damaged characters,  is great here as the guy who can melt any gal in a bar with stunning ease and speed.  Emma Stone is always good in comedies.  Lisa Lapira shines as Stone’s wingman, and Analeigh Tipton is excellent as Carrel’s babysitter.

Crazy Stupid Love: Gosling, Stone shine in romcom

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Crazy Stupid Love is an altogether very satisfying romantic comedy starring Steve Carell as the middle-aged sad sack who has been dumped by his longtime wife (Julianne Moore) and comes under the tutelage of uber lounge lizard Ryan Gosling, who in turn is falling for Emma Stone.   Lots of laughs ensue, leading up to a madcap climax in Moore’s back yard, before the film slows down for the last 20 minutes.  But, it’s plenty funny (and not many romcoms are these days).

Gosling, who earned indie favorite status playing tortured/damaged characters,  is great here as the guy who can melt any gal in a bar with stunning ease and speed.  Emma Stone is always good in comedies.  Lisa Lapira shines as Stone’s wingman, and Analeigh Tipton is excellent as Carrel’s babysitter.

Chloe and Nathalie

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Amanda Seyfried and Julianne Moore in Chloe

Chloe is a 2010 sexual thriller that is recently available on DVD.  It’s about an attractive and successful middle aged couple.  The wife has reason to believe that the husband is having an affair.  To make sure, she hires a beautiful call girl to tempt the husband.  In increasingly sexually charged meetings, the call girl reports back to her with explicit details of a torrid affair.

Chloe is a remake of the 2003 French Nathalie, where the couple is played by Fanny Ardent and Gerard Depardieu and the call girl by Emmanuelle Beart.  Now you would think that watching the mysteriously sexy Fanny Ardent become sexually obsessed and the smokin’ hot Emmanuelle Beart describing and acting out sex would be pretty darn interesting.  But Nathalie is dreary and heavy – even laborious to watch.  Despite excellent acting by its three stars, Nathalie is a failure.

Chloe is directed by one of my most admired filmmakers, Atom Egoyan (Exotica, Sweet Hereafter, Adoration) and his movie is paced much more crisply and compellingly than is Nathalie.  Julianne Moore and Liam Neeson play the couple and Amanda Seyfried plays the callgirl, and they are every bit as good as the French stars of Nathalie (and I prefer Neeson’s performance to Depardieu’s).  But Egoyan tries to spice things up even more with two new plot developments at the very end.  Because he had already made a superior version of the story, those developments are unnecessary and instead work to cheese out the film.

The Kids Are All Right

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Annette Bening and Julianne Moore play a lesbian couple with teen kids.  The kids find their sperm donor sire (Mark Ruffalo), who invites himself into the family.  This is not what the moms had in mind.  Laughs and tears ensue.  It’s a smart dramedy with excellent performances, especially from Bening and Moore.  Bening certainly deserves an Oscar nod.  Mia Wasikowska is great as the daughter; she starred as Alice in Wonderland earlier this year and looks to have a great career ahead.

Because this was the most anticipated indie of the year. I had been expecting something more profound – and it’s not.  It’s a crowd pleaser and a good date movie that’s worth seeing, but not the game changer that I had been expecting.