Melissa Leo.

Cinequest: THE ASHRAM

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Melissa Leo in THE ASHRAM

In the ridiculous drama The Ashram, a sullen guy seeks his missing girlfriend and follows her trail to an ominous cult in a Himalayan ashram.  When we finally meet the ancient guru, he turns out to be a real miracle-maker (as demonstrated by the cheesiest of special effects).

Here’s the biggest problem with The Ashram – it is populated by one-dimensional characters that we care little about.  As an Ashram resident, Kal Penn is sympathetic, but it’s clear that his character’s only raison de etre is to be the Nice Guy.   The leading man is Sam Keeley, who scowls his way through this story, occasionally adding in a furrowed brow.

The disappeared girlfriend shows up in flashbacks, played by the remarkably uncharismatic Hera Hilmar.  Last year, Hilmar helped sink the execrable The Ottoman Lieutenant, proving to be boring even while losing her virginity to Michiel Huisman; she only sparked interest from the audience with unintentionally funny line misreadings. I left The Ashram thinking that Hilmar must have the worst showbiz agent to get her in such horrible films; but then I realized that she must have Hollywood’s BEST agent. Think about it.

But the worst thing about The Ashram is its misuse of the great Melissa Leo, who plays the guru’s gatekeeper and chief operating officer.  Leo’s character ranges from unctuously evil to snarlingly evil,.  Her performance brought to my mind the Disney villainesses Cruella Deville and the Evil Queen.    Absent any hint of nuance, Leo is left to twirl her non-existent mustaches.

Director Ben Rekhi (from San Jose) gets two things right in The Ashram – the two perfectly evocative locations. The first is the city of Rishikesh, “Spiritualism Ground Zero” since the Beatles visited their guru there.  Bisected by a river with a long pedestrian bridge, Rishikesh is filled with seekers searching for spiritual bless and lots of “holy men”  willing to sell it to them.  The Lourdes of the Indian subcontinent, it just screams “money changers in the temple”.

The second is the setting of the ashram, in a lush mountain valley at the confluence of two dramatic rivers. The guru’s cliff-side cave overlooks the ashram in the valley, and there are spectacular Himalayan landscapes in every direction.

The dark whodunit story here might work as Young Adult fiction with better special effects.  But still, The Ashram is a wretched movie.  I attended the world premiere of The Ashram at Cinequest.  It is now available to stream from several platforms.

NOVITIATE: seeker finds grim slog

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Melissa Leo in NOVITIATE

In Novitiate, a young girl (Margaret Qualley) from a broken family finds comfort and stability in the Catholic Church  As a teen, she plunges into a spiritual quest and commits herself to becoming a nun.  As Sister Cathleen, she is looking for Love and Sacrifice, but she gets too much sacrifice and discipline from the abbess Reverend Mother (Melissa Leo).

Novitiate is set in 1962, and the order is severe, requiring silence and Grand Silence.  Unfortunately for the young wannabe nuns, the drill sergeant in this nun boot camp is a sadist.  Under the guise of discipline, there is self-flagellation, self-starving, walking on knees along the stone floors, and, worst of all, the “Chapter of Faults” group sessions of emotional abuse.  The Reverend Mother is a bully, so profoundly mean, so devout to the discipline and so devoid of love.

All of this is taking place as Vatican II seeks to update the Church, a movement that the Reverend Mother resists in every way she can.  She is afraid of losing both the routine she finds meaningful and her position of authority.

Sister Cathleen is on a romantic quest, where the romance is with a theoretical object, an ideal.

Because of Margaret Qualley’s performance in the lead role, we believe Sister Cathleen’s resolute commitment to her quest and the extremes to which it leads.  Melissa Leo has gotten Oscar buzz for her performance, and she is good in a role less textured than she has pulled off in Frozen River or Treme.  The best acting comes from Dianna Negron (Glee), as the promising #2 nun who leaves the convent, and from Julianne Nicholson as Sister Cathleen’s mother, who can’t understand how her daughter has come to this.

The story is one of unrelenting grimness and the film viewing experience becomes tedious.  Novitiate is by no means a bad movie, it’s just a long slog through Eat Your Broccoli territory.

Novitiate is the debut feature of writer-director Margaret Betts, who shows promise as a director of actors and as a visual director.  The film’s shortcoming is the story.

[SPOILER:  The Wife aptly pointed out that the girl-on-girl sexual action is entirely unnecessary in the scene where Sister Cathleen yearns for physical and emotional comfort.  There had already been a same-sex encounter between minor characters at the nunnery, and this scene, which is about the need for comfort as a relief from the all-consuming severity, didn’t need to go there.  There’s also an utterly gratuitous glimpse of Qualley’s nipples that is only prurient.  This is disappointing for a woman director, but, reading recent revelations from Salma Hayek and others, you never know if this wasn’t Betts’ idea at all.]

The Fighter

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The Fighter is an excellent drama, starring Mark Wahlberg as a boxer trying to succeed despite his crack addict brother (Christian Bale) and his powerful, trashy mom (Melissa Leo).   As one would expect, Bale nails the flashier role of the addict, deluding himself about both past glories and his importance to his family.  Leo is almost unrecognized under her teased hair, and is accompanied by a hilarious Greek Chorus of adult daughters, each trashier than the last.

The boxing scenes are very well done, and Wahlberg matches Stallone and Swank in making us believe that he is, indeed, a boxer. See my list of 10 Best Boxing Movies.