TIFF 2010: Blue Valentine

 

 Photo: Daemonstv.com (Davi Russo)

(Making up is hard to do.)

Starring Michelle Williams, Ryan Gosling and Faith Wladyka. Directed by Derek Cianfrance. 113 minutes.

Early in Blue Valentine, the Pat Benatar ballad “We Belong" comes on Michelle Williams' character's radio. At the time, I brushed the choice off as inconsequential and random, just another kitschy background track - the movie equivalent of muzak. As the story progressed, however, its lyrics haunted me.

In that song, Ms. Benatar says that while she and her lover "belong" together, more than often she finds herself crying alone because he "cuts [her] feelings to the bone." She doesn't want to leave him ("really") because she's "invested too much time" but she's not sure her love is still there. "Have we become a habit?" she asks under the thundering late 80s beat. "Or do we distort the facts?"

Those two questions, while never technically posed on screen, are the essence of the broken love story told in Blue Valentine. Cindy (Michelle Williams) isn't in love with Dean (Ryan Gosling) when they meet at her grandmother's funeral home (he's working at a mover, she's visiting). In fact, she's not even in like. But when her other boyfriend flakes out on her, and her life plan starts to crumble into irreparable pieces, she falls into his arms, hoping that his unrequited love might turn into something more. Something semi-meaningful.

In a romantic comedy, Cindy would grow to find Dean charming and they would get married and live happily ever after in a perfectly affordable bungalow. But this isn't a romantic comedy. In fact, it isn't even a romance. It's a tale of like-for-the-wrong-reasons, marry-because-you're-desperate and hate-because-you-never-really-loved. And it’s harshly beautiful.

Blue Valentine looks and feels like a great 80s indie song, with its succulent, shady cinematography and pre-90s grunge costumes, but it’s not. As Cindy reveals in a random presidential-naming sing-song (which includes Bush and Clinton), it’s meant to be modern. And with its Grizzly Bear soundtrack and late 20-something cast, it sort of is. But it deals with an issue that’s not so new, except the movies.

From the moment we see Dean and Cindy quarrel over their daughter's oatmeal in the opening, we know we're not in for a happy ending. What we don't know is how they got to this breaking point. Like tragically cynical, chain-smoking cousin of (500) Days of Summer, Blue Valentine gets to the bruised heart of its couple's story by alternating between snapshots of mumbled memories and present-day problems.

One minute the not-so-happy couple are tired and weathered-looking, arguing over a lost dog and checking into a sleazy, sex motel. The next they’re fresh-faced and almost-hopeful, running down empty streets and sharing secret talents. The pieces are jagged, and don’t seem to fit together at first, but over time, they form a complex candid of every hopeless romantic’s greatest fear: a love that never was, and never will be.

Gosling and Williams will smash your heart as the forever-quarrelling lovers and focus of this 12-years-in-the-making (seriously, studios were afraid of it) feature. We’ve seen them pour their souls into devastatingly gritty roles before – they both have gotten Oscar noms (for Half Nelson and Brokeback Mountain, respectively) – but this is a whole other level of heartbreak.

In the wrong hands, Cindy and Dean could become a melodramatic farce, an insincere portrait of a situation that is far too common, but more than often ignored. But with these two, they seem so real, it’s uncomfortable (their one-sided, non-rape sex scene will make your skin crawl). If love is, as Ms. Benatar says, a battlefield, they are landmines. Prepare for the aftershock. A-

TIFF 2010: 127 Hours

 

 Photo: Screenrant.com

(Under the shoulder boulder holder.)

Starring James Franco. Directed by Danny Boyle. 94 minutes.

These days, it's so common to see the words "Based on true events" sprawled across the bottom of a movie poster. And no matter how true that statement really is, we take the bait, hoping for some sort of semi-relatable thrill. But most of the time, we're just greeted with a harsh dose of barely-there reality. Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle's latest, 127 Hours, is a rare exception.

Based on the memoir, Between a Rock and a Hard Place, 127 Hours recounts Aron Ralston's struggle to free his right arm from underneath a boulder. In real time, Ralston spent, you got it, 127 hours, barely surviving on a small jug of water, a few freeze-dried meals and, in one low moment, his own urine. In reel time, we only spend 90 minutes with the mountain climber (or rather, James Franco). But that doesn't make his incredible story any less powerful.

If  Boyle is a mad film scientist, then 127 Hours is his Monster. Crafted using the heart and soul of Slumdog and the frantic look and feel of the main body of Trainspotting, it's a beautiful beast of a movie, both hard to watch - and forget.

127 Hours could have been as dry and lifeless as an abandoned canyon (I mean, technically, you're just watching a guy stand around for an hour and a half) but under Boyle's supervision, it's an awesomely emotional rollercoaster, plunging right into the heart of both Ralston's physical and psychological pain.  Boyle near-synchronizes our heartbeat with Aron's using brilliantly surrealistic hallucination scenes, sensory camera work, split-screen sequences and way-too-close-for-comfort POV shots. The detail work is so vivid, you almost feel as though you are Aron, which can be a bit too intense at times. Especially if you're a more squeamish film lover (a few people  fainted at the screening I attended).

But just when you think the pain and loneliness might send you over the edge, Boyle (who also co-wrote the screenplay) injects some deliciously delirious humour, like an over-the-top handy-cam scene or a self-consciously sarcastic soundtrack choice. But don't get blinded by the fun. 127 Hours is more serious than slapstick. Be prepared to want to cover your eyes at least once (spoiler, that really isn't a spoiler - he ends up cutting his arm off with a dollar store knife!) - and fight off I-just-witnessed-a-genuine-triumph-of-the-human-spirit tears.

Although Boyle's fierce filmmaking makes Ralston's story come to new-life, it's Franco's fearless performance that really makes it special.  Whether he's chatting up some lost hiker girls (Amber Tamblyn and Kate Mara) or himself, Franco's loud, yet breezy mannerisms make Aron seem effortlessly charming and fun. In the same breath (sometimes literally), he also makes us think he's a lost little boy, waiting for someone to swoop in and save him. Just wait for the schizophrenic "talk show" scene. It's both hilarious and heartbreaking.

It's doubtful Franco or Boyle know what it's like to be as lonesome as Ralston was during that near-fatal trip (and really,  how can anyone?).  But they really make you think that they do. And that is something you really can't fabricate. A-

TIFF 2010: Daydream Nation

     

Photo: Cinematical.com

 (The youth of the Nation)

Starring Kat Dennings, Josh Lucas and Reece Thompson. Directed by Michael Goldbach. 98 minutes.

When you hear the phrase “made by a first-time director”, you automatically expect amateur, false-feeling filmmaking. The same (sadly) goes for the words “Canadian film.” Daydream Nation can technically be attached to both those descriptions, but I swear, you wouldn’t know it.

Daydream Nation is a film about looking beyond expectations. Starring Kat Dennings, Josh Lucas and newcomer Reece Thompson, this homegrown, Michael Goldbach-directed dramedy is a full of pleasant surprises. With the warped wit of Juno, the look of a Wes Anderson flick (It’s all in the random mid-movie titles) and the bittersweet undertone of Donnie Darko, Daydream Nation comes across as slow-burning, hipster-lite mishmash of American teen movie traditions. In fact, save for an awkward Atom Egoyan reference, it's completely detached from shameless Canadiana.

The main character, Caroline (a whip smart Dennings) is both a bitch and a heroine - or rather, a non-suicidal version of Veronica from Heathers. And her story sounds creepy and cliched on paper – she has an affair with her history teacher (a way-grating Lucas) – but comes across as clever and even, comical on screen.The difference is, Caroline is not the helpless prey of a pedophile of a parental figure. She’s the instigator, the Mrs. Robinson to his Lucas' Ben Braddock.

In addition to the teacher-student shenanigans, there is a subplot about a serial killer in a white suit. We don’t get much info about, except that he has been randomly murdering girls young girls in Caroline’s hick town surroundings. It seems like a big part of the story at first, but it sort of fades in and out by the end, almost as though it was thrown in to amp up the quirk.

Like Caroline, or any of the strange residents of her way-small town, Daydream Nation is far from perfect. But it’s definitely thought-provoking. Well, for a teen movie. It’s somewhat of a modern-day Virgin Suicides - with its wispy cinematography and darkly funny tone (There’s even an ominous scene involving kids in gas masks).  Funny enough, that film was also by a young, up and coming director - by the name of Sofia Coppola. Let's just hope Goldbach is more Lost in Translation than Marie Antoinette when he grows up. B