TIFF Review: YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER

Written and Directed by Woody Allen

Starring Josh Brolin, Naomi Watts, Antonio Banderas, Anthony Hopkins and Freida Pinto

Helena: I will not be alone. I will find love. I can rest assured.

If you’re watching an ensemble comedy where one man can’t stop obsessing about his attractive neighbour, where his wife can’t control her lust for her new boss, and where her father meanwhile won’t accept his looming death, trading in his wife of 30 years for a younger model, sending said former wife into the reassuring arms of a psychic, there’s a good chance you’re watching a Woody Allen film. There is a familiarity about Allen’s latest, YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER, that makes you feel instantly at home and keeps you comfortable throughout. The trouble with comfort though is that it doesn’t really bring anything we haven’t seen already, begging the question, why are we here yet again?

Comfort is ordinarily the enemy in an Allen movie. After all, if you’ve reached a place in your life or relationship where you actually feel comfortable, then there must be something terribly wrong. That said, how often do you meet Allen characters whose lives are all settled and lovely? The case here is no different. Set in London, every major character in this premise is at a place in their lives where they each feel unfulfilled and is longing for that next big something that will enter their lives and give them what they’ve always longed for – happiness. This being a Woody Allen film, I would not hold my breath if I were them. Still, Allen almost seems to be delighting in toying with them and his delight is certainly infectious. He may be exploring the same issues he has been for years now but in all fairness, these are the same issues most of us grapple with for all of our lives too. It doesn’t seem right to chastise Allen for not having understood love after so long. It’s not like I do either.

Allen opens and closes YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER with the same rendition of “When You Wish Upon a Star”. He may be allowing all of the little extensions of himself run amok with their fictional lives on screen but he almost seems to be suggesting that all of their issues stem from a desire for something more, that inherently negates what they all already have. Even the title itself promises that one day our wishes will be fulfilled but it also implies simultaneously that they can’t be right now as we have yet to meet this stranger. Perhaps it would be better if we got to know the strangers that are already in our lives; perhaps then we could want them there all the time instead of just when we’re at our best or worst. Maybe if we did, we might be finally able to get comfortable ourselves.

THE INTERNATIONAL

Written by Eric Singer
Directed by Tom Tykwer
Starring Clive Owen, Naomi Watts and Armin Mueller-Stahl


Louis Salinger: I want some fucking justice.

In times of economic woe, it is easy to paint the institution with money as the face of evil. I’m not saying there isn’t reason to do so, just that it’s simply easy to do. Enter Eric Singer and his “banks as murderers” idea for THE INTERNATIONAL, a thriller that lives up to its name but not the genre it belongs to. This is to say that while THE INTERNATIONAL certainly spans the globe, it doesn’t provide much in the way of thrills along the way. In fact, it is often quite measured, relying on lengthy stretches of dialogue just so that the viewer can make sense of its unnecessarily complicated plot. Still, there is talent and beauty everywhere you look on screen, so there are distractions aplenty to keep you reasonably entertained; unfortunately, there is just one scene that you will remember after the fact.


Apparently – now brace yourself; this may be hard to comprehend – banks should not be trusted. I suppose, telling this story at a time where most of the population fortunate enough to have money to put into a bank already smells something rank on the rise, will help most people buy this crazy notion. You may have already suspected something afoul with the banks but did you ever imagine that the world’s largest banks would be conspiring with every arm of government and every major corporation on the planet to control the world’s cash flow? It is truly mind blowing and by mind blowing, I mean ridiculously trite. So much so that it seems somewhat beneath director, Tom Tykwer, to pick this as his first serious foray into big budget Hollywood heaven. Tykwer, most famous for his groundbreaking picture, RUN LOLA RUN, infuses THE INTERNATIONAL with an incredible sense of visual style that would certainly make any conventional script into a winner. Well, it would if it weren’t a script about killer banks.


Tykwer does give us an explosive shoot out at the Guggenheim museum in New York City that will certainly go down as one of the most intense, and not to mention artful, action sequences to grace screens this year. The clear, straight lines drawn by the panes of glass hanging from the ceiling or the bullets cutting across the room are interrupted by the lucid flow of the winding stairs and the general chaos of the situation at hand. It is all so full and surprisingly lush, considering how monochromatic the whole setting is, but yet it is oddly simple in its intricacies. Alas, one great scene does not a great movie make. Perhaps had the principles of this one scene been applied to everything that came before and after it, the whole thing would be riveting. Instead, everything seems to be figured out before it is even explained, leaving nothing new to discover. Apparently, banks are not the bad guys we should worry about; writers are. (I should probably mention that I work in a bank by day and write at night.)

EASTERN PROMISES

Written by Steven Knight
Directed by David Cronenberg


Nikolai: Nice bike. How much do you want for it?
Anna: It has sentimental value.
Nikolai: Sentimental value … I’ve heard of that.

When it comes to films made by veteran Canadian director, David Cronenberg, certain promises are expected to be kept. The name promises something dark and twisted, something gruesome and haunting, something disturbing and seductive. Cronenberg’s latest, EASTERN PROMISES, certainly makes good on all these accounts and solidifies his new, more linear but no less disconcerting approach to filmmaking. Gone are the days of surreal experiments where fetishists get off on colliding cars and the ensuing scars or twin gynecologists playing patients for patsies. Now is the time for the Russian mafia in London to be given a human touch. No, now Mr. Cronenberg is not so concerned with being bizarre as he is with being blunt. As with his last masterpiece, A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, Cronenberg has made PROMISES into a straightforward story and morality tale, much to the dismay of film students everywhere. Fear not though, students. Accessibility does not make Cronenberg irrelevant. If anything, it means that brilliantly polished stories about the underbelly of humanity can be told without any unnecessary sentiment, allowing for them to be both provocative and bloody as all hell.


It rains just as much in Cronenberg’s London as it does in the real London. The rain ushers in the heavy yet steady hand of this director, whose work always seems to be weighed down by a looming sense of despair and discomfort. Still, though the viewer is pulled into a world where cutting the tips off of fingers and slitting throats is just as normal as a well-balanced breakfast, nothing is so simple as good and evil as absolutes. Like the sky the rain is falling from, everyone is surrounded by an ambiguous grey. Naomi Watts plays a mid-wife named Anna. On one tragic evening, Anna helps to bring a baby into the world at the expense of the very young, heroine-addicted mother’s life. She does not want to see the child fall into the system as the girl cannot be identified to find her next of kin so she makes it her mission to find the girl’s family before this can happen. It may all seem noble but her saintly act also serves to appease the pain she has felt since the miscarriage of her own child months before. She couldn’t save her baby but she can certainly try to help this one. Her search leads her directly to the door of the Russian mafia and this is where she meets Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen). At the moment, Nikolai is just the driver but he’s got hopes to one day be part of the real family. He would be perfect for the job as he is calculated and cold when he needs to be but then again not so as he also takes the time to encourage the slave sex-worker he’s just been with to find a better life. People are complicated; Cronenberg knows this and this is what gives EASTERN PROMISES its depth.


Though regular Cronenberg cinematographer, Peter Suschitzky, guides EASTERN PROMISES with a tranquil glide that sets the pace as both unnerving and engrossing, it is Mortensens’s performance as an aspiring mafioso with a nagging sense of compassion that is most memorable and moving. His face is harsh and guarded behind his dark sunglasses and beneath his slicked back, immaculately placed hair lies a mystery that is being heavily protected. His presence is daunting as he steps from a black town car, dressed to match, from his shoes to his gloves. He is naturally imposing and his icy composure and unflinching dedication to his superiors make him frightening without really trying. He is not so much trying to intimidate others into submission though but rather to keep them away. Yet there is something about him that inspires those around him to see a reason to trust him. Perhaps it is his reliability or perhaps it is just that you know once you meet him that you would rather have him on your side than on the other. Mortensen, working with Cronenberg for the second time after his tortured performance in A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, is transformed and nearly unrecognizable as Nikolai. And while his character is extremely guarded, he still manages to find himself in a very naked position before the film’s end, in what is a shocking and exhilarating fight sequence that finds Cronenberg, as God, going after Nikolai when he is at his most vulnerable. Proving himself to be a vengeful God, Cronenberg punishes his character for allowing himself to relax for three seconds to appreciate his success.


The fight sequence is already being heralded as one for the books that will be talked about for years to come. I have a feeling we will be hearing just as much talk about Mortensen’s performance, Steven Knight’s script and Cronenberg’s direction come awards season. After setting the groundwork with A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE (which I actually do prefer over EASTERN PROMISES just because it left me with more on my mind), the mainstream film community seems finally ready to reward one of its veteran contributors. If you’re going to sell out, I can’t imagine a better way to do it.

KING KONG

Written by Philippa Boyens, Fran Walsh & Peter Jackson
Directed by Peter Jackson

Writer's Note: My apologies for giving away the entire plot but c'mon, you knew it already.

Dance, human! dance! As King Kong watches Naomi Watts as Ann Darrow juggle, make funny faces, do summersaults, all in an effort to communicate with this giant ape who has taken her captive, he can’t seem to bring himself to accept her as the sacrifice she was intended. Laughter has bridged the gap between beauty and beast and allowed what seemed like a hopeless situation for Darrow become a comforting one. It is a pivotal moment that showcases the deeper meaning of King Kong, Peter Jackson’s three-hour epic remake. This twist of fate reveals Kong as sensitive, docile, misunderstood, a simple monkey trapped in a 25-foot ape’s body who just needed someone to listen, to look past the roaring tower of strength and intimidation to see the monkey within. It is touching, moving and perhaps most importantly a technical feat but it is pretty much all there is in terms of depth. Kong’s style may be impressive but its size and scope do not lead to substance while it’s grandeur leaves you thinking there has to be something more to this.

The first act presents Jack Black, trying as hard as he might to play a serious role as reputable film director, Carl Denham, who has a gigantic vision that frightens his producers. They gripe that his films run too long, that he may be ambitious but he can just as easily lose control of the budget. (By the by, did you happen to hear how expensive Mr. Jackson’s king Kong ended up being?) The parallels cannot help but be drawn and though his films deliver twice over at the box office, I feel a hint of cockiness here. Really, this whole storyline was completely unnecessary. Denham proceeds to steal film stock from his producers when he overhears they aren’t interested in backing him any further before boarding a ship, with both a sea and a film crew, heading to the undiscovered territory known as Skull Island. The boat ride is awash with subplots that get lost at sea and jokes that fall flat in the water. I felt like I was drifting.


Until finally, Skull Island is accidentally discovered. Once the crew sets foot on this eerie isle, the film grabs your senses and shakes them repeatedly. Jackson’s imagination takes to the screen as Darrow, Denham, Jack Driscoll (Adrian Brody) and the numerous other seamen fight their way out of one harrowing situation after another and another … and another! Tribe people who look like apple granny dolls with stakes through their noses and eyes rolled back in their heads make way for swamp creatures that turned my stomach over and over while I turned my frightened eyes away from the screen. The crew try to wiggle their way out of dinosaur stampedes and an ambush of legions of over-sized insects. All the while, they search for Anne Darrow with the threat of King Kong looming over all their narrow escapes.

Naomi Watts makes Anne Darrow, and king Kong itself, worth all this effort. She is luminous and charming as a vaudevillian actress who just wants to bring a little laughter to this troubled world. She communicates emotions as vast as fear, love, sympathy and hope through her eyes and body movements as her co-star doesn’t speak any language she might know. By the time she is atop the Empire State building with Kong during the iconic climax, her lips say nothing as her eyes scream her disgust for the brutality her fellow humans have shown this gentle creature.

As Kong struggles to hold on atop the Empire State, masses of people wait for him to fall. Their faces exude superiority, not the kind felt by the privileged but the kind felt by the entire human race that there is no other species above us. Suddenly, Jackson’s intentions shine through like the sunset of a CGI sky. As Kong falls from his perch, mankind can rest easy once again, having conquered its fear with violence and destruction and without having bothered once again to understand the unfamiliar. Luckily for Kong, Anne Darrow was there with love in her eyes before he fell.