Odd on the surface, perhaps, but “Heaven,” the film that Tykwer has made
from a Kieslowski script, proves how much the two filmmakers have in common.
Written before Kieslowski’s death in 1996 and intended as the first of a
trilogy, “Heaven” is a mystical tale of two souls, joined in love but divided
from society, seeking redemption and understanding before they pass to another
plane.
Cate Blanchett, one of the great actresses working today, is mesmerizing as
a British schoolteacher living in Italy who accidentally kills four people
while avenging her husband’s death. Giovanni Ribisi, who looks like an angel
in Italian Renaissance paintings, plays the Italian police officer who falls
in love with her, springs her loose and escapes with her into the Tuscan hills.
Tykwer directs with long takes, spans of silence and a deep sense of
celestial awe. He imbues the young lovers, significantly named Philippa and
Filippo, with a spiritual glow and timeless beauty. They’re creatures of fate -
- martyred by purity — and could easily be transposed to any century.
The problem with “Heaven” rests in unresolved ethics. Philippa had intended
to kill only one man — the drug pusher she holds responsible for her
husband’s death — but the movie lets her off the hook for the four murders
she inadvertently committed.
Blanchett’s character doesn’t transcend the mundane world, as Tykwer’s
luminous images suggest; she merely abandons her responsibility.
Advisory: This film contains nudity and brief violence.
– Edward Guthmann
‘ABANDON’
Drama. Starring Katie Holmes, Benjamin Bratt, Charlie Hunnam, Zooey
Deschanel, Melanie Lynskey, Gabrielle Union, Gabriel Mann and Fred Ward.
Directed and written by Stephen Gaghan. (PG-13. 99 minutes. At Bay Area
theaters.)
Take an interesting subject (the social/academic/job pressures faced by
college seniors), center it on a cute, compelling actress (Katie Holmes),
write a plot that involves a slew of men who’ve loved and abandoned her, and
give the film to a successful screenwriter (Stephen Gaghan) for his first
directorial effort, and what do you get?
You get a disjointed movie with uneven acting and too many scenes that defy
belief. You also get (and these are the movie’s strengths) a visually
arresting movie set at an Ivy League campus that features a lineup of quirky
characters. Many of these characters are under suspicion by a police detective
(Benjamin Bratt) investigating the disappearance of a student named Embry
(Charlie Hunnam) who was once in love with Holmes’ character, the aptly named
Katie.
The rich, brash and handsome Embry may have sneaked back on campus and may
be trying to kill his former paramour. Katie is haunted by visions of him.
She’s also haunted by memories of her father, who left her when she was a
little girl, and she is overcome by all the romantic attention she receives.
Even her psychotherapist is interested in her, and it’s clear Bratt’s
character would like to sleep with her if he had the chance.
A breakdown seems inevitable, though outwardly, Katie seems to have it all:
good looks, above-average intelligence, handsome suitors, a group of close-
knit friends and a post-graduation job offer that goes only to elite students.
Appearances are deceiving. Let’s just say the pattern of behavior in “Abandon”
leads to a jolting climax that seems disingenuous. Gaghan may have won an
Academy Award for his screenplay of “Traffic,” but no one will take home an
Oscar for “Abandon.” That’s OK. Some movies are exercises in escapism, and
this movie is no more and no less than that.
Advisory: This film contains violence, strong language and sex scenes.
– Jonathan Curiel
‘MERCI POUR LE CHOCOLAT’
Drama. Starring Isabelle Huppert. Directed by Claude Chabrol. Written by
Caroline Eliacheff and Chabrol. (Not rated. 99 minutes. In French with English
subtitles. At the Opera Plaza, Shattuck in Berkeley and Rafael Film Center in
San Rafael.)
Few actresses are better at conveying duplicity than Isabelle Huppert.
Effortlessly, her face settles into a mask of glacial well-being, her delicate
bones and ambiguous smile hiding the malice beneath.
French director Claude Chabrol, Huppert’s collaborator on five previous
films, knows exactly how to use that mask to its best advantage. In “Merci
Pour le Chocolat,” an elegant study in perversity, he casts Huppert as Mika
Muller, a Swiss chocolate-company heiress and wife to a respected concert
pianist (Jacques Dutronc).
Mika’s life is superficially perfect: riches, brilliant husband, splendid
estate in Lausanne overlooking Lake Geneva. The movie opens with her second
wedding to Andre; the first, when Mika was 18, ended in divorce. In between
Andre married Louise, who died in a car crash but gave him his 18-year-old son,
Guillaume (Rodolphe Pauly).
Huppert sketches Mika in minimalist strokes. “I’m always meddling,” she
admits, a mild allusion to her wickedness. Did she poison her husband’s ex-
wife, and what does she plan for Jeanne (Anna Mouglalis), the beautiful young
pianist who suddenly appears, saying she may be Andre’s daughter.
“Merci Pour le Chocolat” has a restraint and rigor that we don’t see in
commercial American films, the kind that a director creates when he has no
interest in sentimentality or in soliciting the audience’s favor. Huppert, so
breathtakingly evil in this year’s “The Piano Teacher,” is Chabrol’s ideal
actress: happy to explore the dark and woolly corners of human nature, bold
enough to be despicable.
Advisory: This film contains sexual situations and mature themes.
– Edward Guthmann
‘BELOW’
Thriller. Starring Bruce Greenwood and Olivia Williams. Directed by David
Twohy. Written by Darren Aronofsky, Lucas Sussman and Twohy. (R. 104 minutes.
At Bay Area theaters.)
It’s World War II and we’re patrolling the Atlantic on the Tiger Shark, a
submarine stalking Nazi U-boats. The captain dies in a freak accident, a rigid
lieutenant (Bruce Greenwood) assumes command and weird things happen that
suggest a haunting.
Is there an “Alien” on board the sub? Or is the crew merely suffering from
claustrophobia and hydrogen narcosis — a condition induced by breathing too
much hydrogen — and hallucinating those eerie sounds, those fleeting visions
in the shadows?
Director and genre-mixer David Twohy (”Pitch Black”) combines elements from
horror, supernatural and battle pictures, and displays a strong gift for
visual dazzle and inventive shots. Case in point: The camera looks through a
periscope at Greenwood’s blue eye and finds the object of his vision — a huge
battleship — reflected.
Twohy captures the fierce, mounting tension of men trapped underwater —
and amplifies the tension when a British nurse (Olivia Williams), rescued from
a torpedoed hospital ship, comes on board. But Twohy’s overwrought, comic-book
theatrics work against him, as does the hokey script that he, Lucas Sussman
and director Darren Aronofsky (”Requiem for a Dream”) all fiddled with.
The dialogue, heavy on sarcasm and puncturing insults, never captures the
World War II period but sounds ridiculously anachronistic.
Williams, who has to endure a slug in the jaw and an onslaught of sexist
slurs (”Brillo pad,” for starters), holds her own while Greenwood, summoning
the moral rectitude with which he played JFK in “Thirteen Days,” clenches his
jaw and conjures Robert Stack.
Advisory: This film contains violence and raw language.
– Edward Guthmann
‘WELCOME TO COLLINWOOD’
Comedy. Starring Sam Rockwell, William H. Macy, Jennifer Esposito, George
Clooney. Directed and written by Anthony and Joe Russo. (R. 86 minutes. At Bay
Area theaters).
Every time George Clooney appears as a wisecracking safecracker, “Welcome
to Collinwood” becomes the high-spirited goof it’s supposed to be. Maybe
that’s because Clooney’s presence elicits memories of another, better ensemble
heist comedy, “Ocean’s 11.”
Clooney and “Ocean’s” director Steven Soderbergh produced “Collinwood,” a
likable but meandering picture about a gang of criminals from a hardscrabble
Cleveland neighborhood who plan a pawnshop job. Clooney acts with the
exuberance of walk-on in his brief scenes, leaving the heavy lifting to a cast
of indie stalwarts that includes Sam Rockwell, Jennifer Esposito, William H.
Macy and Luis Guzman.
The actors give it a go, but filmmakers Anthony and Joe Russo never create
a cohesive film. Instead, “Collinwood” seems like a series of sketches, with
caricatures instead of characters: a washed-up boxer who turns to crime
(Rockwell); a prisoner in penguin stripes (Guzman) and a skull-capped
photographer (Macy) who totes a baby in some scenes and a plaster cast on his
arm in others. The abundant costumery sometimes gives the movie a vibe of a
“Clue” cast reunion.
But “Collinwood” also has a sweetness about it. Based on the 1958 Italian
film “Big Deal on Madonna Street,” the movie also resembles those Depression-
era tales of decent but down-on-their-luck criminals. Macy wants in on the
heist because he can’t afford his wife’s $1,000 bail. That’s desperation.
As the failed boxer, Rockwell (”Charlie’s Angels”; “Box of Moonlight”)
shimmies and jives and reinvents every formulaic scene he occupies. He’s got
real chemistry with Esposito, who plays a maid who could lead him to the
pawnbroker’s cash. Rockwell and Esposito usually have to steal scenes in other
people’s movies, but here they get to be romantic leads.
Only Guzman seems the slightest bit menacing. As the angry, double-crossed
brains of the outfit, he throws some electrifying fits but doesn’t stick
around long. Macy, as a dead-broke guy with a wife in prison and a baby to
feed, is the gang’s earnest conscience.
“Collinwood” seems innocent enough to have been made in the 1950s, except
for its liberal use of the “F” word. The picture also throws around plenty of
movie-criminalese, using terms like “bellini” (an easy, big-payoff job) and
“mullinsky” (a fall guy). This conceit will distract much of the audience but
might resonate with senior citizens who spent time in the pen.
Advisory: This film contains raw language.
– Carla Meyer
‘JONAH: A VEGGIETALES MOVIE’
Animation. Co-directed and written by Phil Vischer and Mike Nawrocki. (G.
87 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.)
Why should you keep an eye on a movie about singing vegetables? Because it
will be interesting to see what kind of dent this makes in the movie market.
In a limited release last weekend “Jonah” took in a tidy $6.2 million. Now it
is showing on more than 1,000 screens, with a premiere in Northern California
and the Northeast.
Pretty impressive for an unabashed primer on what the production company
calls “biblical values and . . . spiritual growth.” Can this kind of overt
religious message make waves in today’s popular culture? It’s possible.
Shooting for the post-Barney crowd, the studio has concocted as jolly a bunch
of veggies as you are likely to encounter. Kids will enjoy the wisecracks and
foolishness, and the big musical production numbers are toe-tappers — or
would be if the veggies had feet.
But it must be said that if you weren’t expecting it, the religious themes
are a bit of a surprise. After about 15 minutes of cheery slapstick from Bob
the Tomato and Archibald Asparagus, we are abruptly thrust into the story of
Jonah, “prophet of God.” Sample lyric from one of Jonah’s tunes: “Don’t eat
pigs/ Don’t eat bats/ Beetles, flies or gnats.”
Or what about when the crew of the pirate ship plays “Go Fish” to learn
which of them has made God so angry that he has called up a terrible storm?
Those unfamiliar with Jonah’s story from the Bible may find that confusing.
On the other hand, in a moment that captures the jokey tone, Jonah loses at
“Go Fish,” and says he will have to throw himself overboard. “Oh, you don’t
have to do that,” says a crew member. “We have a plank.”
In short, if a big musical number like “Praise the Lord, He’s the God of
Second Chances” doesn’t put you off, this will be an enjoyable choice for
younger kids. Certainly, there is nothing wrong with the message of giving
people a second chance and forgiving mistakes.
– C.W. Nevius
‘FORMULA 51′
Action comedy. Starring Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Carlyle, Emily Mortimer
and Meat Loaf. Directed by Ronny Yu. (R. 92 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.)
Samuel L. Jackson has a work problem — an overwork problem, to be precise.
The man makes so many movies that half of them are bound to stink, and even
that percentage may be generous. That brings us to “Formula 51,” a raucous,
violent comedy about a man who invents the ultimate party drug.
Jackson, wearing a wig of long, tight dreads, plays Elmo McElroy, a kilt-
wearing, golf-fancying chemist who develops P.O.S. 51, a euphoria-inducing
drug he calls “a personal visit from God.” Having burned his stateside boss
(Meat Loaf), Elmo flies to Liverpool for a $20 million score, trailed by a
professional hitter (Emily Mortimer) with a sniper rifle.
Enter Felix (Robert Carlyle), a soccer-crazed, expletive-spewing lackey who
works for the local crime boss and hates Elmo on sight. Smell the franchise?
It’s the “Rush Hour” formula: ludicrously mismatched thug and outsider trade
insults, jockey for power, slam each other’s country.
When Felix buys an order of greasy fish-and-chips for Elmo, for example,
and calls it “our national dish,” Elmo turns up his nose. “More like a
national disaster,” he spews, and tosses the mess out a car window. Americans
littering foreign soil is an ugly image, but “Formula 51″ couldn’t care less
about something as trivial as cultural respect.
All the humor is hostile here — all of it delivered with punched-up, fist-
in-your-face intensity. A gang of skinheads holds up Elmo, calls him “monkey
boy” and demands his wonder drug. So he feeds them a doctored concoction that
makes them double over in agony and soil their pants.
Poop jokes? Is that what Jackson, one of the best actors around and
executive producer of this movie, has descended to? It isn’t simple bad taste
that “Formula 51″ deals in, but a total vacuum of feeling.
Advisory: This film contains nudity, raw language, excessive violence and
gore.
– Edward Guthmann