She Said

Director: Maria Schrader
Starring: Carey Mulligan, Zoe Kazan, Patricia Clarkson, Andre Braugher, Jennifer Ehle, Lola Peticrew, Samantha Morton, Molly Windsor, Ashley Judd, Zach Grenier, Peter Friedman, Tom Pelphrey, Angela Yeoh, Keilly McQuail, Mike Houston, James Austin Johnson, Gwyneth Paltrow 
Running Time: 129 min.
Rating: R

★★★ (out of ★★★★)

Maria Schrader's She Said doesn't give any false illusions as to what it is or pretend to be some kind of escape from reality. This much is clear in an early scene from 2016 when we hear Donald Trump (voiced by SNL's James Austin Johnson) screaming at a reporter about the leaked Access Hollywood tape. The fallout from that would be minimal, if nonexistent, serving as a reminder that those in power say what they want only until the public decides they've heard enough. But this isn't about him, at least not directly. Rather, it's the jumping off point that emboldens those investigating Harvey Weinstein, whose sexual abuses stand in a category of its own. 

The film depicts how Weinstein bullied and silenced victims into staying quiet for decades, with a lot of help along the way. And while it's easy to see how he got away with it in this context, what's most ironic about that Trump scene is how it might might be the film's only sensationalistic moment. In showing very little, Schrader tells a lot, with a tone similar to classic investigative journalism procedurals like All The President's Men and Spotlight. Based on the 2019 book widely credited for igniting the #MeToo movement, it's full of uncomfortable, disturbing testimonials from Weinstein victims that's direct and no-nonsense enough to be mistaken for a documentary. 

Schrader keeps things moving while Screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz takes a practical, fact-based approach, both making as formidable a team as the two leads driving this story. It may not be everyone's idea of edge-of-your-seat suspense and there are only so many different ways to hear about Weinstein removing his bathrobe and demanding a massage, but it happened. So, as sickeningly repetitive as it is to hear, the survivors lived this, and listening to how it permanently altered them provides plenty of unexpected tension. For those who appreciate films that get into the nuts and bolts of print journalism, there's a lot to respect, as the most salacious of stories is presented in a sensibly straightforward style that doesn't pull punches.

It's 2017 when New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor (Zoe Kazan) receives a tip from actress Rose McGowen (voiced by Keilly McQuail) regarding an alleged sexual assault she experienced at the hands of Miramax head Harvey Weinstein when she was 23. After speaking with other prominent actresses who refuse to be named for fear of career ramifications, Kantor enlists the help of fellow Times reporter Megan Twohey (Carey Mulligan). Together, they uncover a trail of allegations, hush money payments and settlements linked to Weinstein over the years, but face an uphill battle, with many of the women having signed NDAs that prevent them from talking. 

Digging deeper with each new interview with former employees and assistants, an alarming pattern emerges, along with the possibility of a massive cover-up that extends far beyond the Miramax offices and into the legal realm itself. With the full support of Times editors Dean Baquet (Andre Braugher) and Rebecca Corbett (Patricia Clarkson), Kanto and Twohey move forward despite mounting pressure threats against their sources. Undeterred, they work to get these women heard and expose Weinstein's crimes, whatever the cost.

As strong as Mulligan and Kazan are separately in their scenes, they're even better together, entirely believable as reporters with differing personalities and tactics sharing the same goal. Twohey is the  more seasoned and aggressive of the two, reflected by her cynical, somewhat hardened nature. In contrast, Kantor is a deer in headlights, struggling to persuade sources to talk to her and go on the record. But as the investigation wears on, we see how their styles compliment each other, especially when circumstances call for one to rein the other in.

Kantor's empathy and likability proves to be an asset in dealing with the victims while Twohey's strength lies in navigating legal obstacles that derailed all previous attempts to nail Weinstein. Both actresses hit these notes perfectly, especially Mulligan whose character is all business, even while emotionally collapsing under the weight post-partum depression. She convincingly plays Twohey as if uncovering the truth is not only a mission for justice, but an escape that could make her feel full again. It's obvious how personal this is for both, with Schrader trusting the actresses to show it and leave the telling to the victims. Balancing this with the strategizing taking place within the Times' offices, she impressively showcases the processes that surround an investigative undertaking of this magnitude. 

In devastating turns, Samantha Morton and Jennifer Ehle play ex Weinstein assistants, one of whom sacrifices her career to protect a friend while the other's traumatic sexual assault is dredged up at the worst possible moment. As powerful flashbacks show their days at Miramax, both are now forced to contemplate the potential ramifications of coming forward and reopening deep emotional wounds. But Schrader avoids tastelessly recreating the assaults, instead detailing the events that led to them and its lasting psychological impact.

Even if we only hear Weinstein (Mike Houston) yelling over the phone and briefly catch sight of this loud brute at the end, it's still more than enough for him to make the worst possible impression. Braugher is particularly good in his scenes handling him, as he and Clarkson give probably the two most overlooked performances, credible every step of the way as practical but fair editors. And while famous Weinstein victim Gwyneth Paltrow does make a vocal cameo as herself, Ashley Judd appears full-on, essentially retracing the actual steps she took to come forward and expose him. 

Schrader clears all these creative hurdles in an unfussy manner since anything less could cause a serious, real-life topic to come across as the type of tabloid smut this film's rallying against. Still, it's impressive how thorough the script is in presenting exactly what happened and how. She Said finds a comfortable middle ground, neither a condescending lesson for viewers already familiar with journalism's inner workings or a bore to those who aren't. That we know the end result of Weinstein's trail of terror hardly dampers the proceedings, only further establishing it as a morality tale better suited to the big screen than most suspected.     

John Carter

Director: Andrew Stanton
Starring: Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins, Samantha Morton, Mark Strong, Willem Dafoe, Mark Strong, Thomas Haden Church, Ciaran Hinds, Dominic West, Bryan Cranston, Daryl Sabara
Running Time: 132 min.
Rating: PG-13

★★★ (out of ★★★★)

I really don't care how much money a movie makes or what it costs to make it, though it seems many in the media do, holding it up as a testament to its creative worth. Of course, it's nice for the people involved and the studio releasing it when their project cleans up at the box office, but just because an expensively made movie is a financial flop doesn't make it an artistic failure. Any more than it's necessarily a success if it rakes in the dough. In this era of sequels, prequels, remakes, reboots, Twilights, Transformers and Marvel movies, just about the only argument that can be made in favor of a relationship between quality and cost is an inverse one. Yet somehow, Disney's John Carter, a fun, spectacularly silly throwback adventure that has its heart in the right place has become this symbol of Hollywood greed and corporate avarice because it didn't recoup its high price tag. Really guys? You're gonna attack THIS?

Far from the Waterworld-sized debacle it's been touted as, JC is actually an intelligently told fantasy fable featuring a likable protagonist, an incredibly strong female lead and great visual scope. It's also a bit of a mess, albeit a fascinating one. The plot's too convoluted with about three or four different timelines and villains, and a more streamlined screenplay would have resolved some lingering issues, but that's the extent of it. Its worst crime just may have been being based on Tarzan author Edgar Rice Burroughs' 100 year-old series of stories that inspired the likes Star Wars, Superman, Flash Gordan and Avatar, but arriving onscreen last, unintentionally making it look and feel derivative when it's just late. With just a little tweaking, this really could have been a huge deal. And with his first foray into live action, longtime Pixar director Andrew Stanton certainly does a smoother job fleshing out a world and navigating intraplanetary politics than Lucas did with his prequels, as faint as that praise may seem. But it isn't faint, as more sci-fi adventures could stand to be as fun as this.    

After a brief, poorly placed prologue on Barsoom (A.K.A. Mars) that plays as a strange cross between Return of the Jedi and 300, we're informed of the death of John Carter (Taylor Kitsch) of Virginia, a Confederate Civil war Captain who left nephew Edgar Rice Burroughs (Daryl Sabara) a diary explaining the circumstances that eventually lead to his death. It flashes back years earlier to the Arizona territory where Union Colonel Powell (Bryan Cranston in a blonde wig and colonial garb!) arrests him, but he escapes, leading them both to a cave where Carter is confronted by a Martian Thern named Matai Shang (Mark Strong) and transported--via a mysterious medallion--to Barsoom, where he's discovered by a Green Martian Tharks and their leader Tars Tarkas (Willem Dafoe). With his new ability to jump incredible heights and perform superhuman feats, Carter's unwillingly thrust into the middle of a bitter feud between rival cities Helium and Zodanga, with the evil Sab Than (Dominic West) plotting to end their war by marrying the headstrong Princess of Helium, scientist Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins). Rescued by Carter, she promises to get him home and with the help of Tarkas' daughter, Sola (Samantha Morton) and a lizard dog named Woola as they embark on a treacherous journey across the Red Planet.

While the plot's way too complicated and at times unfocused, but for a film of this scale it's surprisingly deep, with the meat and bones of the story working really well and clear care put toward character development. Despite seeming to take a library's worth of Burrough's stories (supposedly it's mostly adapted from just one, The Princess of Mars) and attempting to jam it into a single overplotted feature, it's a shock this isn't harder to follow. I'm usually no fan of extensive CGI and think it's criminally overused, if not outright ineffective in most films, but the effects here are fairly realistic-looking.Yes, the entire budget is right up there for everyone to see on the screen, but at least desert vistas actually look like desert vistas. I hesitate in describing the Tharks as resembling Jar Jar Binks (which they kind of do) since they're more crisply rendered with a mixture of CGI, motion capture, and make-up, and not nearly as annoying, possessing identifiable traits that serve the narrative. Lizard dog Woola looks so real you'll want to take him home, while the pair of giant white apes Carter tangles with in a gladiatorial showdown recall the monstrous wompa Luke faced off against in The Empire Strikes Back.

The story does lull and lag in places (particularly the middle portion) while spinning off in a few different, sometimes problematic directions, but there was never a moment when I didn't care about what was happening or lost interest Carter or Dejah's predicament. Taylor Kitsch is solid as the lead, if kind of a blank. Then again, a blank hero is called for in this situation. This isn't the kind of movie that rises or falls with his performance so trying to pin the imaginary "blame" on him is pointless since any actor could have been plugged into the role with the same result. Whether he should have taken it is a different discussion altogether, but I'm glad he did regardless of the fallout because at least it's a start. He'll survive this and hopefully move on to edgier work, which is where his strength more likely lies. But all things considered, he did really well. Parts as memorable as Tim Riggins on Friday Night Lights don't come around every day on the big or small screen, so we may have to wait a while for him to find something comparable.

As tanned, tribal tattooed warrior princess Dejah, Lynn Collins is a real find in her first leading role. After co-starring in a handful of smaller, underseen projects without really registering much, she sure registers here. Her character is strong, beautiful, independent and intelligent, representing exactly the kind of lead female role we need more of in adventure movies. Collins is more than up to the task, never making her feel like a damsel in distress. If there were any justice she'd be a huge star off the back of this film. Instead, being in her mid-thirties, she may not even be given another opportunity at this level again. That's a shame and a sentence I should never have to type, but a chilly reminder of how Hollywood works. Give Disney credit for casting a mature woman in a woman's role instead of a kid in hopes of reeling in teen audiences. Now doing THAT would have been greedy, not to mention detrimental to the film.

If John Carter's guilty of anything it's over-ambition both in terms of visual design, and in telling a more involved story than was necessary. Not much of a crime from where I sit. That overreaching is especially evident in convoluted, twist-laden ending, which takes a bit to come into focus, but pays off in a satisfying finish. Much like Disney' unfairly maligned Tron: Legacy, it's a family film, but PG-13 and not made exclusively to sell toys. It's closer to an old school sweeping sword-and-sandals fantasy epic than a superhero movie. Of course, no one knew what it was. But Stanton did, and his slavish devotion to the source material is a creative plus that alienated confused audiences unfamiliar with "John Carter From Mars," but found it difficult to get psyched for a film simply titled, "John Carter." Knowing how it concludes, the title change does actually make sense, working best under the assumption they'll be a sequel. Barring a sudden resurgence on DVD, that seems unlikely, but not out of the realm of possibility. I wouldn't mind seeing one, or revisiting this because at least it dares to be different. It mostly succeeds. With untested stars and an ambitious story, John Carter takes chances. And when movies like that stop being made, then we're really screwed.

The Messenger

Director: Oren Moverman
Starring: Ben Foster, Woody Harrelson, Samantha Morton, Jena Malone, Yaya DaCosta, Steve Buscemi
Running Time: 113 min.
Rating: R

★★★ (out of ★★★★)

The Messenger presents itself as a film exploring the war in Iraq without a political agenda and from a completely objective viewpoint. It even takes a similar character-driven approach as The Hurt Locker in choosing to narrow its focus. Whereas The Hurt Locker followed a bomb diffusion unit into the line of duty, this film trails two men assigned to the Army's Casualty Notification service at home, given the thankless task of alerting soldiers' families of their deaths. It's obvious this scenario greatly increases the chance for emotional button pushing and there's no mistaking that The Messenger very clearly has an agenda, no matter how well hidden (and it's pretty well hidden).

Can an impartial film ever be released on this topic? Doesn't just deciding to bring a project like this to the screen imply that that some kind of stance has already been taken? Possibly, but this one did as good a job as possible in making me not think about that because I was so absorbed in each of the notification scenarios, as difficult as they were to sit through. These scenes of family members reacting (each so differently) to the news and witnessing the circumstances surrounding them is compulsively watchable in a fascinating, yet disturbing way. It's at least an aspect of the war we haven't seen depicted yet and had the entire film focused just on those it would have been perfect, but unfortunately the script loses its way a little in the third act by trying to pile too much on. Still, thanks to mostly good writing and two excellent performances, it's one of the the stronger efforts dealing with the effects of war at home.

The "Messenger" of the title is Staff Sergeant Will Montgomery (Ben Foster), who after returning home injured from Iraq, is partnered with the abrasive Captain Tony Stone (Best Supporting Actor Nominee Woody Harrelson) and must learn the ropes of this thankless task. Angry and traumatized from his experiences in Iraq, Will doesn't jump out as the ideal candidate to be informing families that their loved one died in combat but it's actually for that reason that he's the ideal candidate. The most fascinating aspect of the job is how it takes a certain level of emotional detachment and strength of character to deliver the news, as well as handle the inevitably unpredictable reaction to it. There's a specific protocol that has to be followed that seems cold and contradicts everything you'd want to do in that situation, but in hindsight may be the most effective method of relaying the tragic information. The very qualities we'd expect would make someone good at this (like sensitivity) are actually a recipe for disaster and a few of those disasters are narrowly avoided during Will's initiation. We find out what happens when the "N.O.K." (next of kin) isn't home but someone else is, why it matters where the messengers park their car and that using the words "died" or "killed" is mandatory.

These scenes are the ultimate test for an actors playing the next of kin, as well as for Foster and Harrelson. If you really think about, what scenario could possibly be a bigger acting challenge than this? As a father who has the exact nightmare of a reaction we've been fearing since the start of the film, the great Steve Buscemi reaffirms why he's one of the best actors around today in a span of barely three minutes. But it's widow Olivia Pitterson (Samantha Morton) who ends up being the most difficult recipient to watch, mainly because she almost appears to be taking the news well (or as well as can be) compared to everyone else. Of course, "well" only means differently and that's what initially draws Will to her. At least, we think. One of the smartest aspects of the script is how we're not given a clear-cut explanation for the attraction and are left to ponder for ourselves why these two damaged people have forged such a connection and whether it's morally right that they have. It helps that Morton has never been better than in this, with her casting an against-type choice you wish studios would have the guts to make more often. The relationship really doesn't go anywhere and maybe the whole point of it is that it can't. Still, it doesn't generate much excitement and results in long takes that give the film a familiarly self-concious "indie" feel.

As the running time wore on I was never bored but found myself wishing the whole film centered on just the notification scenes. Everything involving Tony's alcoholism and womanizing and Will's emotional scarring from the war just isn't as interesting or truthful as what came before. The acting and writing is way too strong for it to play as cliche but it doesn't get to that real, raw place the earlier scenes did. In showing how victims' families react to the news I gained insight I didn't have but when the focus shifted to Will and Tony it almost felt like the script was forcing insight on me I had already gotten (sometimes poorly in other films) and didn't need any more of. A sub-plot involving the distance that grows between Will and his engaged ex-girlfriend, Kelly (Jena Malone) could have been more of that but isn't because Malone is an actress capable of doing a lot with minimal screen time and it results in the film's most unintentionally truthful (if totally sensationalistic) scene involving a laughable toast by her clueless fiancee.

Foster has already proven in films like Alpha Dog that he can command the screen with ferocity but now he shows us he can do the exact opposite and give a muted, more quietly intense performance in a character driven drama and still hold the audience's attention with just as much precision. This performance seals his standing as one of his generation's most promising actors and had it not been such a competitive year in the lead actor category he would have definitely found himself among the five nominees. Harrelson (strangely resembling and sometimes channeling a young Robert Duvall) is just as strong in the most fully realized dramatic role of his career and an impressive close to a year that also saw him give a great comedic turn in Zombieland. Another less-skilled actor could have easily made this character a walking stereotype.

First-time director Oren Moverman's script may have issues but the two actors share such great chemistry that there are long stretches where you hardly notice. Ironically, had it taken a procedural approach in focusing on the notifications all the way through (much like The Hurt Locker did with bomb diffusion) and developed the drama organically from it, the film would have played even better. But wanting to like the movie more than I did isn't exactly a backhanded compliment. It's at least intelligently written and performed, showing a needed restraint that's been lacking in some of the awful, heavy-handed issue pieces this genre has produced the past few years. That this, The Hurt Locker and Brothers were all released in the same year and each took a different take on the war without resorting to the usual shameless tactics can only be seen as an encouraging sign. The Messenger would easily rank second best among them.