Niels Arestrup

DVD/Stream of the Week: YOU WILL BE MY SON

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YOU WILL BE MY SON

Niels Arestrup (A Prophet, War Horse) stars as the owner of French wine estate who places impossible expectations on his son, with lethal results. The poor son has gotten a degree in winemaking, has worked his ass off on his father’s estate for years and has even married well – but it’s just not enough for his old man. The father’s interactions with the son range from dismissive to deeply cruel.

The father’s best friend is his longtime estate manager, whose health is faltering. The son is the natural choice for a successor, but the owner openly prefers the son’s boyhood friend, the son of the manager. The first half of You Will Be My Son focuses on the estate owner’s nastiness toward his son, which smolders throughout the film. But then the relationship between the sons turns from old buddies to that of the usurper and the usurped. And, finally, things come down to the decades-long relationship between the two old men.

Deep into the movie, we learn something about the father that colors his view of his son. And then, there’s a startling development that makes for a thrilling and operatic ending.

It’s one of several good 2013 films about fathers and sons, like The Place Beyond the Pines and At Any Price. (This is also a food porn movie, with some tantalizing wine tasting scenes that should earn a spot on my Best Food Porn Movies.)

You Will Be My Son is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Tunes, Vudu, YouTube and GooglePlay.

DVD/Stream of the Week: YOU WILL BE MY SON

by
YOU WILL BE MY SON

Niels Arestrup (A Prophet, War Horse) stars as the owner of French wine estate who places impossible expectations on his son, with lethal results. The poor son has gotten a degree in winemaking, has worked his ass off on his father’s estate for years and has even married well – but it’s just not enough for his old man. The father’s interactions with the son range from dismissive to deeply cruel.

The father’s best friend is his longtime estate manager, whose health is faltering. The son is the natural choice for a successor, but the owner openly prefers the son’s boyhood friend, the son of the manager. The first half of You Will Be My Son focuses on the estate owner’s nastiness toward his son, which smolders throughout the film. But then the relationship between the sons turns from old buddies to that of the usurper and the usurped. And, finally, things come down to the decades-long relationship between the two old men.

Deep into the movie, we learn something about the father that colors his view of his son. And then, there’s a startling development that makes for a thrilling and operatic ending.

It’s one of several good 2013 films about fathers and sons, like The Place Beyond the Pines and At Any Price. (This is also a food porn movie, with some tantalizing wine tasting scenes that should earn a spot on my Best Food Porn Movies.)

You Will Be My Son is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, Vudu, iTunes and Xbox Video.

DVD/Stream of the Week: You Will Be My Son

by
YOU WILL BE MY SON

Niels Arestrup (A Prophet, War Horse) stars as the owner of French wine estate who places impossible expectations on his son, with lethal results. The poor son has gotten a degree in winemaking, has worked his ass off on his father’s estate for years and has even married well – but it’s just not enough for his old man. The father’s interactions with the son range from dismissive to deeply cruel.

The father’s best friend is his longtime estate manager, whose health is faltering. The son is the natural choice for a successor, but the owner openly prefers the son’s boyhood friend, the son of the manager. The first half of You Will Be My Son focuses on the estate owner’s nastiness toward his son, which smolders throughout the film. But then the relationship between the sons turns from old buddies to that of the usurper and the usurped. And, finally, things come down to the decades-long relationship between the two old men.

Deep into the movie, we learn something about the father that colors his view of his son. And then, there’s a startling development that makes for a thrilling and operatic ending.

It’s one of several good 2013 films about fathers and sons, like The Place Beyond the Pines and At Any Price.  (This is also a food porn movie, with some tantalizing wine tasting scenes that should earn a spot on my Best Food Porn Movies.)

You Will Be My Son is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, Vudu, iTunes and Xbox Video.

You Will Be My Son: a good movie with a great ending

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YOU WILL BE MY SON

Niels Arestrup (A Prophet, War Horse) stars as the owner of French wine estate who places impossible expectations on his son, with lethal results.  The poor son has gotten a degree in winemaking, has worked his ass off on his father’s estate for years and has even married well – but it’s just not enough for his old man.  The father’s interactions with the son range from dismissive to deeply cruel.

The father’s best friend is his longtime estate manager, whose health is faltering.  The son is the natural choice for a successor, but the owner openly prefers the son’s boyhood friend, the son of the manager.  The first half of You Will Be My Son focuses on the estate owner’s nastiness toward his son, which smolders throughout the film.  But then the relationship between the sons turns from old buddies to that of the usurper and the usurped.  And, finally, things come down to the decades-long relationship between the two old men.

Deep into the movie, we learn something about the father that colors his view of his son.  And then, there’s a startling development that makes for a thrilling and operatic ending.

It’s yet another good 2013 film about fathers and sons, like The Place Beyond the Pines and At Any Price.

(This is also a food porn movie, with some tantalizing wine tasting scenes that should earn a spot on my Best Food Porn Movies.)

DVD of the Week: Sarah’s Key

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Kristin Scott Thomas stars in another French film, this time as a journalist tracking the story of a girl during the WWII roundup of Jews in France.  Her probe of events almost sixty years in the past becomes more and more personal, and profoundly entangles more and more people.  It’s a compelling story, and no actor can portray intensity and doggedness better than Scott Thomas.  Co-stars Niels Arestrup (A Prophet) and Aidan Quinn.

Sarah’s Key: an investigation becomes unexpectedly personal

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Kristin Scott Thomas stars in another French film, this time as a journalist tracking the story of a girl during the WWII roundup of Jews in France.  Her probe of events almost sixty years in the past becomes more and more personal, and profoundly entangles more and more people.  It’s a compelling story, and no actor can portray intensity and doggedness better than Scott Thomas.  Co-stars Niels Arestrup (A Prophet) and Aidan Quinn.

Movies: Best bets for late July

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You can see trailers and descriptions of upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.

Beginning on July 22, in Sarah’s Key, Kristen Scott Thomas stars in another French film, this time as a journalist tracking the story of a girl during the WWII roundup of Jews in France.  Co-stars Niels Arestrup (A Prophet) and Aidan Quinn.

Also on July 22, 1970s cult director Monte Hellman presents Road to Nowhere, just after he turned 79 on July 12.  His signature is the hard-edged road movie.

On July 29, we’ll have another showcase for Brendan Gleeson (In Bruges)  in The Guard,  an Irish dark comedy about a lowbrow cop happening upon an international drug conspiracy.

On August 5, we’ll see The Names of Love, in which Sarah Forestier has gotten great buzz for her performance as a flighty lefty Frenchwoman who seeks to educate and convert conservatives by sleeping with them.

Here’s the trailer for Sarah’s Key.

 


Farewell (L'affaire Farewell)

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Emir Kusturica

Farewell (L’affaire Farewell) is mostly a riveting Cold War espionage film, with an unfortunately off kilter secondary story that doesn’t belong in the same movie. The main story is based on fact:  a senior KGB colonel becomes dissatisfied with the stagnant corruption of the Soviet Union and decides to bring about revolutionary change by leaking Soviet secrets to the West.  To avoid detection, he chooses to pass the secrets in plain sight to an amateur civilian, a midlevel French corporate manager in Moscow.

The Russian lead is played by Serbian director Emir Kusturica, who gave good acting performances in The Good Thief and The Widow of St. Pierre.  Kusturica is outstanding here as the canny and world-weary master spy, and he carries the film when he is on-screen.

The French lead is played by French director Guillaume Canet, who directed one of my recent favorites,  Tell No One, and played a villain in that movie.  Tell No One is on my list of 10 Great Movies You Missed in the 2000s.  Niels Arestrup  (from The Prophet, this week’s DVD choice) is excellent as the French security chief.

The spycraft, the complex Francophile character played by Kusturica (code-named “Farewell”), his struggling family life and the attempts by the amateur Frenchman to keep his head bobbing above water combine for a compelling story.

So far, so good.  But then the film tries to tell another story – the geopolitical impact of Farewell’s leaks.   And the tone of the film switches from the serious spy tale with serious consequences to its main characters to not-so-dark comedy.  Suddenly, we see Fred Ward broadly playing Ronald Reagan as if in a Saturday Night Live skit, Philippe Magnan as a somber, one-note Francois Mitterand and Willem Dafoe lacking any kind of gravitas as a CIA chieftain.   Fortunately, although this mini-farce distracts from a good film, Kusturica’s character and his performance maintain the movie’s worthiness to see.