IT'S COMPLICATED

Written and Directed by Nancy Meyers
Starring Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin, Steve Martin and John Krasinski


Jake: You know what they say, people in nursing homes with plants live longer than people without."

The title says it all. IT’S COMPLICATED, alright. The sad part is it isn’t nearly as complicated as these folks make it out to be. I concede that starting an affair with your ex-husband after he is remarried to the younger woman that broke up your own marriage would definitely qualify as complicated. I also agree that hiding that affair from your kids and the guy you just started dating makes it even worse. Just don’t ask me to feel bad for you though because it is only as complicated as you allow it to be.

Writer/Director Nancy Meyers knows what movie audiences want around the holidays. Her previous works (WHAT WOMEN WANT and SOMETHING’S GOTTA GIVE, to name a couple) have been big holiday hits and IT’S COMPLICATED will be no different. Albeit sometimes forced, it is actually quite funny at times. Meryl Streep plays Jane, a 50-something single woman whose kids have all left her very costly nest and who finds herself alone for the first time in her life. It isn’t long before her neurosis and several bottles of wine find her in bed with her ex (Alec Baldwin). The twosome are such talented actors that going along with all their antics often not only leads to hilarity but also character and insight, a rarity in safe fare like this. And let me just say that Streep should get stoned in all of her movies from now on. That woman is downright silly sometimes.


To get complicated, things need to get dirty first and IT’S COMPLICATED is far too clean to qualify. It’s like Hollywood’s take on the kinds of desperate scenarios indie film characters find themselves in. As they sit amidst all their perfect privilege and wealth though, their woes only come across as whiny. Funny, sure, but self-indulgent too.

RUNNING WITH SCISSORS

Written and Directed by Ryan Murphy

In 2002, author Augusten Burroughs published his memoir, entitled RUNNING WITH SCISSORS. It went on to find success and praise, as well as skepticism regarding its authenticity. The book chronicles Augusten’s formative years where he was sent to live with his mother’s psychiatrist and his family (the Finches) while she dealt with her manic depression. The book has a dry humour that refuses pity for Augusten’s numerous woes. Reading it brings about many laughs but at no point in time does it come across as a factual retelling of events. One almost needs to distrust the author to find his humour. To ponder Augusten’s perils as if they were plausible would plunge any heart into deep pain. So we laugh instead. That is after all what Augusten’s style incites. What is lacking in the book finds even less presence in the film. Purpose. You can tell your own story and you can embellish it all you like but if your journey doesn’t lend any meaning to my own then it becomes more useful in serving your own ego than enriching mine. Writer/Director Ryan Murphy’s translation segments Augusten’s book into a visual compilation of his favorite literary moments that lead nowhere and reveal very little about the man behind the memoir.

Bearing Burroughs’ weight is actor Joseph Cross. Cross plays Burroughs with a near-permanent face of silent awe throughout. He cannot comprehend how his life took such a bizarre turn. His youthful grin hints to his strong character while his conscientious eyes confirm his understanding that the path he has been forced upon will not lead to a fulfilling life. Augusten must bounce back and forth between his mother’s (Annette Bening) home and the Finch’s, where he is further bounced around from one psychological mess to another. Whether Augusten is sitting in the Finch parlor with feeble, subservient mother, Agnes (Jill Clayburgh) while she nibbles at dog kibble or passively accepting older daughter Hope’s (Gwyneth Paltrow) abuse towards her cat or hovering over a toilet bowl to observe the sign from God that has come in the form of Dr. Finch’s (Brian Cox) stool, he always looks lost. Going home doesn’t help either as what waits for him there is often just as outlandish but more so scarring as his mother’s psychoses could one day kill her or one day be his. As lost as he gets, at times joining in the mentally unstable fun, he never lets go entirely of the railing that has helped him maintain his balance all the while. Respectful but problematic as someone in his position needs to become mostly unrecognizable in order to find himself again, Augusten’s lines of sanity are much more blurred in print then on screen as Murphy does not construct any build in character, shuffling Cross around repeatedly as though his life took place in a pinball machine.


RUNNING WITH SCISSORS is both a dream and a nightmare for actors. It all depends on who you are and whom you’re playing. Bening and Cross get the most screen time by far. The rest of the cast drift in and out of the narrative, giving each of them very little time to make their mark. It also doesn’t help matters that everyone is playing a character with some degree of mental defect. As a result, Paltrow and Joseph Fiennes (as Augusten’s thirty something year old lover, Bookman) overact their characters into caricature. More veteraned actors like Clayburgh and Alec Baldwin (as Augustan’s father) have very little screen time but manage to subtly give humanity to their madness, making some of the most evident impacts on Augusten. Of course, Augusten is overshadowed by Bening as Deirdre. His mother needed to be the focus whenever she was in the room so it is only fitting that Augusten struggle for attention in a movie about himself. Thankfully, Bening delivers a performance that is as layered as her character is medicated, justifying the spotlight and delighting her audiences yet again.

The chemistry between the ensemble and a sundry soundtrack make RUNNING WITH SCISSORS reasonably enjoyable but it does not bring you anywhere near Augusten’s heart. A new hair style and a fashionable scarf are not character development. RUNNING WITH SCISSORS may amuse in its audacity but despite surrounding Augusten with psychologically damaging absurdities every step of the way, it fails to show any real insight into what made Augusten the man he became.

THE DEPARTED

Written by William Monahan
Directed by Martin Scorcese

This is it, folks. It’s the one you’ve all been waiting for. It is a true return to form, style and relevance. It has been all too easy, almost expected, to laud Martin Scorcese pictures with praise in recent years. The man has talent and has crafted some of cinema’s landmark films, from TAXI DRIVER to GOODFELLAS. The industry was naming his last picture, THE AVIATOR, the film of the year. That seemed exaggerated, an all too safe a thing to say. To name the same of his previous epic mess, GANGS OF NEW YORK, was even more absurd. There seemed to be regret for not crowning him king earlier for more deserving efforts. The later pity praise felt apologetic instead of congratulatory. The films themselves felt manufactured for mass appeal, devoid of personal involvement and often a courting of industry acceptance. This time is different. This time Scorcese feels concise and calculated, like a man with a purpose, focus. This time Scorcese has left his hopes for accolades behind him and engineered his own cinematic rebirth. This time Scorcese says goodbye to his past and embraces THE DEPARTED.

Borrowing its intricately woven story from the 2002 Japanese film, INFERNAL AFFAIRS, THE DEPARTED stars Leonardo Dicaprio and Matt Damon as moles infiltrating both sides of a war between the law and organized crime. Dicaprio plays Billy Costigan, a Boston State Policeman with a family history entrenched in crime. As he is trying to make a new name for his family, he is thrown back into the world he worked so hard to escape. Costigan will go undercover and make his way into the confidence of Boston’s biggest crime boss, Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson). Costello, meanwhile, has his own man on the inside of the Boston State Police, Colin Sullivan (Damon). Sullivan was brought under Costello’s wing when he was just a boy who was doing well in school. Both Costigan and Sullivan sought power. Costigan’s power lied in authority and changing his apparent destiny through hard work. Sullivan was seduced by a different kind of power. He still had to work hard but he had the muscle to back him up when he needed it. Dicaprio’s and Damon’s solid performances heighten the tension and make for insightful character studies. As Costigan, Dicaprio is anxious and unstable. Pretending to be a brute with nothing to live for and no reason to do bad other than it being his genetic makeup goes against everything he’s ever struggled with. His eyes flare up and his whole body flinches every time he is around intense violence; he never seems to get used to it. As Sullivan, Damon is a confident, cocky liar who gets off on how many people he’s fooling and just how well he is fooling them, from his colleagues on the force (a supporting cast consisting of Martin Sheen, Mark Wahlberg and Alec Baldwin) to his psychiatrist girlfriend, Madolyn (the relatively unknown and engaging Vera Farmiga). When it becomes apparent that both teams have been permeated, the game to catch the rat becomes tenser the closer each gets to figuring the other out. Amidst growing suspicion and fear of getting caught, THE DEPARTED becomes unpredictable and entrancing.


The surprisingly layered performance of Nicholson as Costello is one of THE DEPARTED’s best features. I expected that Nicholson could pull off a mob boss in his sleep but he brings experience and the effects of time to the role. Like one would expect, one doesn’t become a mob boss from being a nice guy. Costello is evil right through. He finds amusement in how a body slumps over to the side instead of forward when he blows a bullet through the back of her head. He has grown accustomed to getting everything he wants, to having no one stand in his way. To some extent though, he has grown bored and complacent with this lifestyle. He knows of nothing else but knows that alternatives exist. He seems to live his life appreciative of his position but with regret, or at least an awareness, that he did not make other decisions. When he speaks of Costigan’s father as a guy who could have been a big boss if he wanted to but didn’t, the acknowledgment alone highlights the power of choice. When he tells Costigan that he should go back to school, it highlights his own choices.

Something Costello is fond of saying is that “No one gives it to you; you have to take it.” It is a mantra for Costello and it seems like one for Scorcese as well regarding his approach to this film. Scorcese’s command of THE DEPARTED can be felt in the composition of each shot, in the energy of the omnipresent soundtrack and the grasp of the subject matter. Like Costello, Scorcese has been coasting in recent years; the results have been passable, at times solid, but always tired. THE DEPARTED announces Scorcese’s return to making affirmative choices again, and the right one’s at that.