Fast Train to Hell

I'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020) - Kaufman The film starts out with Lucy/Lucia/Amy? (Jessie Buckly)'s narration. She's met her current boyfriend Jake (Jesse Plemmons) about 6-7 weeks ago (she doesn't exactly remember when?), but she is already contemplating dumping him. She agreed to go on a road trip to his parents who live in a rural farm. It's a long ride during the snowstorm. Does Jake hear her thoughts? He looks over frequently and asks if she said something. She likes him. He is shy, quiet, introverted but intelligent. She needs that. And they have a lot in common. She is a physicist and a poet and a painter and a waitress who needs to get back to the city to take her shift after the dinner at the farm. They have a lot of things to talk about - poetry, films, Cassavettes, David Foster Wallace... 

The awkward meeting with the eccentric parents (David Thewlis and Toni Collette) who seem to be growing old and young as the night progresses, lending more to Jake's inner life. It seems pretty clear that Lucy and Jake are the same person and Lucy, however three dimensional she is, is a fantasy character of Jake, who himself might or might not be an old janitor at a high school which he was once a student of. Lucy is smart, assertive in her thoughts, a multi-talented brainiac who is pretty enough but not pretty-pretty - those girls in his high school who shunned him and bullied him. 

With talking animated pigs, dance sequences and Oklahoma!, I'm Thinking of Ending Things is filled with idiosyncratic moments very much like Kaufman's other films. But they can't overcome the film's overwhelming sense of existential dread. Kaufman's neuroses are in full display from traumatized, friendless high school years, consuming books and movies and becoming a reference of a person. Even Lucy, however quirky dreamgirl she is, is just a composite of whatever he got from books and painting and movies. It's a pity that we only see Lucy in the confined space the whole time. I do like Jessie Buckly the actress a lot. But she has given very little to express herself, unlike, say Clamentine from Kaufman scripted Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Jake is a frustrated, extremely insecure man. Even his fantasy is considering dumping him. He sees all the niceties and family life lies. As he accepts a Nobel Prize, and give a speech from some cheesy Hollywood movies and sing a song from Oklahoma! on stage in front of his family and friends who are wearing heavy makeup, I'm Thinking of Ending Things is not Fellini's 8 1/2. It's not celebration of life. Life is a fast train to hell. I mean heck.

Guilt Trip

Guest of Honour (2019) - Egoyan

Harkening back to his former glory days, writer/director Atom Egoyan (Exotica, Sweet Hereafter) makes a comeback of sorts with Guest of Honour with a stellar lead performance by a veteran British character actor David Thewlis. The film slowly and seductively unfolds a story of guilt, childhood trauma and vengeance in that unmistakable Egoyan style.

It starts with beautiful Veronica (Laysla de Oliveira) meeting a local priest (Luke Wilson) to arrange for her dad's funeral. She is there to lend him some insights to what kind of man her father was for composing a eulogy at the service. She doesn't have much to say about her dad, Jim (David Thewlis), except he took good care of her pet bunny, Benjamin, whenever she was away. The last time she was away was quite a while, because she was in prison for something she didn't quite commit.

With the film alternating between present and flashbacks, we meet Jim, a nebbish health inspector, widower and former restaurateur, as he visits various eateries, zealously enforcing by-the-book health regulations. His matter of fact, cold approach lends at times lively and almost comical situations, countering the film's more grievous subjects. At home, he leads a lonely life, with an enormous 15 year-old white rabbit whose entire life span determines the approximate time elapse for the film.

Technology has always been played part in Egoyan films. Now it is the use of cellphone in the age of sexting and online harassment and videotapes. Veronica gets into trouble for not handling unwanted attention well while traveling as high school band leader, chaperoning horny teenagers from concert halls and venues to hotel rooms and back and forth. A prank on a creepy and aggressive bus driver who has crush on her triggers Veronica's deep seeded guilt conscience about her boyfriend's suicide when she was a teen.
And it all stems from her childhood when she witnessed Jim holding hands of her music teacher while sitting next to her dying mom at her music recital.

If you think above plot description is way too convoluted, it is. The plot of Guest of Honour is way too overwrought to be profound or even plausible and encumbers its big reveal at the end. Many of its intriguing parts – the bus driver, the horny student, a rabbit's foot keychain, rat droppings and even Jim's profession are all ill served and sacrificed for its intricate plotline.

But there are also some brilliant moments in the film: as it is customary in Egoyan films, there is an all out, uncomfortable public confessional with big emotional display. In Guest of Honour, it takes place in Armenian restaurant, managed by Anna, played by frequent Egoyan collaborator and wife, Arsinée Khanjian. Inebriated Jim is supposed to give speech as a guest of honour and Jim spills out his intentions for killing the bus driver whom he sees as responsible for ruining his daughter's life. The scene highlight's Thewlis as a gifted, dexterous actor and places him alongside the Egoyan pantheon of memorable fellow British actors, namely Ian Holm in Sweet Hereafter and Bob Hoskins in Felicia's Journey, both indulged in brilliant confession scenes of their own. Scenes with Jim visiting Veronica in the jail are also wonderful. Their encounters are sometimes accusatory and resentful, but there are also great and tender father-daughter moments and mutual understanding and shared grief.

Guest of Honour might not be the best thing Egoyan has made. But with David Thewlis's affecting and measured performance, it comes close to his heydays of filmmaking in the 90s.

Guest of Honour opens virtually through Kino Lorber's virtual platform, Kino Marquee on 7/10.

Diluted Vision of Dystopia

Zero Theorem (2013) - Gilliam





Gilliam is at it again, with diminishing results each time. This time, in his candy colored dystopia, it is Qohen (Christophe Waltz), an antisocial number cruncher in a google-like mega coporation. He longs to work at home because he is waiting for that faithful phone call which will tell him what to do with his life. Otherwise, life is all for nothing. We are all going to be sucked up into the black hole. The prez of the company grants his wishes and assigns him to solve zero theorem, a herculean task to prove that everything sums up to nothing. Qohen falls for tantric telepathy specialist Bainsley (scrumptious Mélanie Thierry) who turns out to be a hired sex toy by the coporation. But she develops a feeling for our hero. You know where it's going.

His morsels of visual ideas, controlled chaos are all there and they are fun at times, but they alone can't really sustain a 2 hour movie. This is watered down version of Brazil. The tragedy of a common man is only in the periphery of Gilliam's lackluster vision, so there is nothing at stake. This futile endeavor has cameos by David Thewlis, Matt Damon, Tilda Swinton and Ben Whishaw.
Zero Theorem opens nationwide on 9/14.

Leaks

The Fifth Estate (2013) - Condon

There should be a rule in Hollywood that forbids making movies about current affairs that are less than 5 years old. With a grand, manipulative soundtrack, The Fifth Estate is everything I hate about Hollywood biopic. There is absolutely no exciting way to portray computer based info war in films, so Condon and Co. resort to very unhip, breezy 'text across actors' faces' style. Then there is the fake Argo suspense involving Libyan family (friends of concerned State Department employee played by Laura Linney) crossing the border after Bradley Manning's Wikileak of the Pentagon papers. There is a scene where Linney character dismisses Manning as "a 22 year old kid who has mental problems" even. I could give too shits about Julian Assange's private life. He could really be an egotistic rapist people make him out to be. So what if he was? It seems Condon and the screenwriter of the film don't care about anything. Is the film for transparency in our Gov't? Is it saying Assange was reckless man who put people in danger? Is it supposed to be a commentary about a new era of information age? The only good scene is near the end where The Guardian editor in chief played by David Thewlis and Wikileak's former cohort/friend Daniel Berg played by Daniel Brühl talking about the impact of Wikileaks. Benedict Cumberbach and the rest of the cast do a great job. But with its muddled message and by-the-numbers Hollywood filmmaking, only thing general moviegoing public would take away from the theater is this: Assange is a creepy asshole. Ugh.