Movie Review: "Youth"

Youth (2015)

R

3.5 Stars out of 5

Director/Writer                 Paolo Sorrentino                             
Cinematography               Luca Bigazzi
Music                                   David Lang

Michael Caine                    Fred Ballinger
Paul Dano                           Jimmy Tree
Jane Fonda                         Brenda Morel
Harvey Keitel                     Mick Boyle
Rachel Weisz                      Lena Ballinger

 

“Keep true to the dreams of your youth.”            Friedrich Schiller

“All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages.”     

                                                                                    Wm. Shakespeare, As you like it (Act II, Scene II)

 

If a person walked into a theater to see Paolo Sorrentino’s 2015 film, “Youth”, a movie starring movie veterans Michael Caine, Harvey Keitel and Jane Fonda, based on the title alone one might well expect to see a film dedicated to issues at the “end of the road”, that is those last stages of life where one is still capable but quite definitely past the arc of one’s career. However, it seems to me Sorrentino has another purpose in mind for this movie, and that is an exploration of “identity”, an identity that stands independent of age. A priori, one might have expected the Schiller quote shown above to be a guidepost to this movie, but in point of fact, Shakespeare’s quote comes much closer to the truth. Sorrentino has written and directed a movie that is superficially about life in Shakespeare’s seventh (st)age, but he really seems to want to talk about the reality of the adult stages. What acts do we put on as we move through life, and maybe, just maybe do we ever become aware it is all just an act when we come to that final scene?

An American film goer raised as we have been on Hollywood endings might have hoped/expected that the two lead characters, Fred (Michael Caine) and Mick (Harvey Keitel) when they reached their personal endings would have gained some wisdom, or at least some perspective beyond the narrow purview of their own lives; but this movie would leave one largely disappointed in that respect. I suppose there is verisimilitude in writing two such self-focused characters, inasmuch as most of us suffer from the same malaise. Still…it would have been nice to have one character, even a minor one display a little knowingness about life and where each one of us fits into it – surely, such people exist? Instead, the viewer is treated to two protagonists speaking constantly in platitudes, platitudes that carry the appearance of wisdom but are actually simply banalities designed to pass from one of life’s minor moments to the next.

This move/play is staged in an exclusive Swiss resort, high in the Alps. It is peopled by guests that largely tend to the very aged, and certainly to the very wealthy. Music fills this stage and is used marvelously in the opening and closing scenes – in fact, these two scenes alone are worth watching the movie, most especially the moving operatic singing of Sumi Jo coupled with the artistic camera-work covering her performance at the movie’s end. The camera-work directed by long time Sorrentino collaborator, Luca Bigazzi is simply brilliant. Bigazzi under Sorrentino’s direction takes the camera from facial close-ups framed by significant background scenery to classic cinematic “mis en scène” of juxtaposition - consider well the two aged men in the pool staring in amazement at a nude Miss Universe (Mădălina Diana Ghenea) as she enters the pool, completely oblivious of their presence, let alone their stares (see a family version of this scene below). Added to these scenes are camera shots of various guests as if they were simply (and nothing more) “still life paintings”, and also the grand exterior shots of “heavenly” views of the skies as backdrops to the characters that are so close to entering Heaven in a more real sense.

 

 

The story centers on a retired composer (Fred) and his lifelong friend, a movie director, Mick. Their children have married: Lena (Rachel Weisz) is Fred’s daughter and manager, Julian (Ed Stoppard) is the nattily-dressed but caddish son to Mick. During their stay at the resort, Mick and Fred have the opportunity to interact and watch (mostly watch) their fellow guests. These guests include an American actor, Jimmy Tree (Paul Dano) preparing for his new role (as an aged Adolph Hitler), a very aged and ill due to obesity (I guess) retired Argentinian soccer hero, Diego Maradonna, and an extremely aged and silent couple of dining companions. That Fred and Mick split their time watching and analyzing their fellow hotel guests leads the viewer inevitably back to the concept of an “audience at a play” that will during the intermission, self-consciously spin their “informed “ opinions to all around them, as well on every minor event in their individual lives.

Fred is the true master of these platitudes and metaphors, despite the fact that at one point he will label Mick as the “magician of metaphors”. It is really Fred that for the most part spouts non-stop metaphors of “wisdom”.  He will pass through what’s left of his life commenting in meaningless sayings, meant to pass as his learned wisdom, or maybe to cover up his hidden pain. This mindless commentary is itself (cinematically speaking) Sorrentino’s metaphor for the way we live our lives, hardly differing from an actor reciting his lines. He adds to this message by having Mick guide a group of his writers working on a new movie starring Jane Fonda (oops, aged Marilyn Monroe stand-in, Brenda Morel). These self-important little writers will as characters mouth their suggestions to Mick for ending his as yet un-finished play. Each one is clearly written by Sorrentino as an archetypical character: the intellectual writer, the funny writer, the female writer, the writer in love. They are all so shallow, it is painful watching them speak lines in the movie. And how does Mick finally end his movie? Well with a melodramatic death that happens off-stage is all I’ll say, but it does provide one of the movie’s two twists. However, the twists are not the point, it is actually the manner in which each of the characters in the movie play people that are playing characters in real life (if that tortured sentence makes any sense).

The weakness of Sorrentino’s movie is at times one of its strengths, and that is the style he has chosen to employ throughout the movie. It seems clear that minus the circus props and characters, Sorrentino reaches at certain times for a very Fellini-like feeling. He uses this very effectively on two occasions: when he has Fred, wandering in his thoughts and fading memory, crossing a narrow bridge above a large pool, and where Fred must pass closely to the statuesque Miss Universe. It goes without saying the rising waters reflect not just his physical image but more closely Fred’s sense that he is drowning; he’s losing it. The second occasion is a comparable scene where an almost equally confused Mick (following his argument with his diva Brenda and where Mick proclaims his own identity as a brilliant director of women) sees arrayed on a hillside every woman he has ever directed. They are all there, even the previously recalcitrant Brenda, though now lacking the 1 inch thick shellac of make-up he last saw her in. These were good uses of surrealism, but Sorrentino over-does it. The sense of surrealism suffuses the entire movie. For example, what is the purpose of having Paul Dano dress as an octogenarian Hitler, except to make a pointless point about shock value; or maybe to allow Dano his moment in this movie to prove how good an actor he is?

Everything else aside, the acting is the best reason to see this movie. For the most part, professional critical attention has focused on Caine, and with good reason. Long lauded as one of the best actors we have had for the past 40 years or so (ever since “Alfie”, 1966), Caine has shown time and again how capable he is of dissolving into his chosen character. Additionally, Fonda and Dano also have their big emotional scenes, and both do an excellent job. But the highest movie plaudits for this movie belong to Weisz: her scene of her anguish at her husband’s infidelity, her anger at Fred for his distance during her childhood, and most subtly her remorse as her father finally explains his refusal to direct an orchestra any more in his most famous piece, Simple Song. Her range of emotions in her acting is just awesome.

In the final analysis, this movie is most definitely not for everyone. The over-use of surrealism is the only reason I do not give this movie a perfect score. Almost everything else screams for such a score: clever imagery, great music and cinematography, some of the year’s best acting (the lack of Oscar nominations notwithstanding), and finally the clever way Sorrentino weaves two important parts of life as themes into the story. Even if the deeper point of identity is ignored in this film’s narrative, it is a compelling movie just for the depicted views of how each of us looks at ourselves in life’s mirror. This is definitely a movie for adults eager for a story about difficult subjects and told in a manner that demands thoughtful appreciation from the audience.

Movie Review: Love and Mercy

Love and Mercy (2015)

PG-13

4.0 Stars out of 5

Director                                Bill Pohlad
Writer                                   Oren Moverman and Michael Alan Lerner
Cinematography                 Robert D. Yeoman
Music                                    Atticus Ross

Elizabeth Banks                  Melinda Ledbetter
Paul Dano                            Brian Wilson (1960’s)
John Cusak                          Brian Wilson (1980’s)
Paul Giamatti                      Dr. Gene Landy
Graham Rogers                  Al Jardine
Kenny Wormald                 Dennis Wilson
Jake Abel                             Mike Love
Brett Davern                       Carl Wilson
Erin Darke                           Marilyn Wilson
Bill Camp                             Murry Wilson

 

The standard bio-pic for musicians is such a tried and true formula: happy obscurity, struggle into early success, rising success/initial drug and/or alcohol abuse, severe substance abuse/faltering career, intervention, relapse or two/decaying career, final redemption and minor career recovery. It happens every time. Well not every time, “Love and Mercy” is the exception that may prove the rule. The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson’s story as depicted in “Love and Mercy” definitely hews to a different, not necessarily refreshing musical career path. “Love and Mercy” is a definitely different examination of a musician’s life, but it is also most definitely not an easy film to watch. Painful is a much better one word description of Brian Wilson’s musical and personal life.

Director Bill Pohlad and writers Oren Overman and Michael Alan Lerner have written and adapted a screenplay that compares the life of Brian Wilson in the mid-sixties (well played by Paul Dano) when his musical genius was coming into full flower to his life in the mid-eighties (equally well played by John Cusak) when Wilson lived under the complete control of his psychologist, Dr. Eugene Landy (ominously played by Paul Giamatti). During the sequence in the eighties, Brian meets a Cadillac salesperson, Melinda Ledbetter (played by Elizabeth Banks). Cusak portrays Wilson as a very diffident, halting individual, afraid to make any move that would meet with the disapproval of Dr. Landy. His first meeting with Ledbetter is presented in a manner to emphasis his helplessness. She is naturally confused but attracted to him, perhaps because of his evident need. As they become more involved with one another, his mental problems and subservience to Landy becoming increasingly clear. These scenes interspersed with scenes from the sixties are squirm-inducing they are so painful to watch. Cusak’s depictions of Wilson as little more than a husk of a man are heart breaking.

Interleaved with the evolving relationship between Cusak and Banks in the eighties is a second, separate evolution of Brian Wilson, this one as a young man in the sixties. Early in the sixties scenes is a panic attack experienced by Wilson on an airplane. It is but the beginning of a singular path for Brian away from the Beach Boys, his two brothers (Dennis and Carl), cousin (Mike Love) and friend (Al Jardine). Following the panic attack, Brian asks for and receives permission to withdraw from a planned tour in Japan. While the rest of the group is touring, Brian begins an experimental phase in rock music that has been critiqued by music critics as singular. Brian institutes the use of session musicians to create a “sound” that is as instrumental (no pun intended) to the overall musical effect of the group as the lead singer. The movie emphasizes the painstaking and driven manner in which Brian works with various session members, leading them and pointing them in the direction he wants and can hear in his mind; it is as if Pohlad wants the viewing audience to imagine the inner workings of a modern composer, one that might be on a par with any of the various musical geniuses down through recent history. A priori, I would have thought depicting this process would be as uninvolving as watching someone write a letter, but in fact Pohlad achieves this film’s highest point of artistry in conveying the process of layering various tracks of music and of getting the various musicians to achieve a kind of perfection (to Brian’s ears) on each of those tracks.

The sixties sequence is brilliantly paired and interleaved with the eighties sequence via some inspired film editing. In the sixties, we watch Brian grow and achieve a kind of apotheosis in his music, even as his life and mental stability spiral down and out of control. Paired up to the sixties, the sine wave of his life turns positive as he slowly leaves the mental trough that he has lived in under the control of Dr. Landy. According to the film, Melinda’s love and concern for Brian coupled with his slow movement away from Landy permit Brian to finally regain some independence and certainly better medical care. The movie strongly implies much of this late in life success comes as a result of Melinda’s intervention. A careful examination of Brian’s life from sources other than the movie would strongly suggest the movie has greatly simplified these two decades in Brian’s life. In fact, the movie implicitly suggests that after the mid-sixties, Brian achieved very little for the next two decades;  a quick review of the albums released by Brian in solo efforts, collaboration with other artists and with the Beach Boys would clearly indicate, nothing could be further from the truth. He remained busy right up the present day.

If unlike me you are a Beach Boys fan, you might enjoy the musical interludes where brief renditions of their various hits and a few of their non-hits are played. However, this is a movie about a composer, his path to the various end products of his efforts, not so much about the musical final products. If you are interested in watching how modern music can be created in a studio by adding one track to another, and how musicians are asked to work through multiple versions of a piece of music until the man driving the process is at last satisfied, then this could be your movie. But mostly, this is a movie about a man that is a musician that has is life derailed by drugs and some personal mental issues that were likely exacerbated by those drugs. There are other actors in the drama of Brian Wilson’s life (a demanding father, a fellow member of the band that wants to go in another musical direction, a bad doctor and a loving second wife), but to my eyes it seemed mostly a tragedy of a life with no clear reason for the tragedy. Was it mental illness, drugs, an abusive father, or some combination of these and other factors? I found this to be the biggest flaw in the movie – what was it that ailed Brian the most? In any event, if you enjoy dramas that are intricately edited, professionally acted that depict the rise and fall of a gifted artist, then this is definitely your movie.

One final point, besides the inspired parts of the movie showing Brian in the studio, a second part that is substantially moving is the end credits. As they roll, the audience is presented with a view of the actual Brian Wilson in the early 2000’s playing his music to an audience. One can easily see that still extant mental struggle of this now not-so-young man as he stares out into his audience, but even more clearly evident in his face is what seems to be some new found joy in playing his music for his fans. The song he plays: Love and Mercy.