Movie Reviews
Review: Does Brendan Fraser give a great performance in ‘The Whale’? It’s complicated.
When the digital camera seems to be at Brendan Fraser in “The Whale,” what does it see? It sees a person named Charlie who weighs 600 kilos and is slowly expiring from congestive coronary heart failure in a colorless Idaho residence. It additionally sees a well-recognized Hollywood face hooked up to a most unfamiliar physique, enacting the type of dramatic, prosthetically enabled transformation the film trade likes to slobber over.
You may discover these two photographs to be of a bit — an intuitive fusion of performer and position that reaches for, and typically achieves, a state of transcendent emotion. Or chances are you’ll discover them grotesquely at odds: the character whose each groan, wheeze and choking match means to encourage each empathy and revulsion, and the actor whose sweaty dramatic exertions are calculated to elicit reward and applause.
Let’s render that reward the place it’s due. There’s extra to Fraser’s efficiency than his exertions, simply as there may be extra to Charlie than the corporeal shock worth that the film frontloads him with: The opening scenes discover him frenziedly masturbating to homosexual pornography on his sofa, then doubling over with searing chest pains. It’s rather a lot for an actor to come back down from, however in a grueling chamber piece that tends to wield a dramaturgical cudgel, Fraser makes an attempt, and largely achieves, a symphony of unusual grace notes. He reveals us Charlie’s struggling, but in addition his sweetness; his grief, but in addition his good humor.
He laughs simply, although additionally with nice problem. He can mope and rant, however caught on the proper second, he’s an out-and-out charmer, a affected person listener, a superb storyteller. He teaches a web-based faculty writing class, hiding his overweight body from his college students (his webcam’s damaged, he tells them), however giving full voice to his love for phrases, his eager understanding of the pleasures and potential manipulations of language. His favourite piece of writing is an essay on Moby-Dick — the precise whale of the title — that he usually reads or calls for that somebody learn to him, a tool whose ludicrous backstory Fraser nearly makes convincing. And after some time, as doorways slam, stress mounts and Rob Simonsen’s rating broods and surges, you may really feel a curious tingle of recognition. Charlie, in any case, is a personality in a Darren Aronofsky film, which suggests he’s destined for a crucible of struggling that, nonetheless emotional and non secular in nature, exacts its most grievous torments within the flesh.
That’s to not counsel that he’s kin to the tortured performers of “The Wrestler” and “Black Swan,” who pushed their athleticism to brutish extremes, or the strung-out children from “Requiem for a Dream,” even when Charlie is aware of the ache of a special type of dependancy. The variations lengthen past the truth that Charlie is generally immobilized, solely often rising from his sofa to stumble, with a walker, towards the fridge or the toilet. (At occasions the digital camera, wielded by Aronofsky’s common collaborator Matthew Libatique, virtually appears to mock Charlie, transferring round him with an ease and agility that he can’t muster.) There’s additionally the truth that, in distinction with most Aronofsky characters, Charlie is born of one other author’s creativeness: Like quite a lot of research in confinement, “The Whale” relies on a play, this one written and tailored for the display by Samuel D. Hunter.
However whereas we could also be confined with Charlie, we aren’t alone with him. “The Whale,” straining to each honor and break freed from its supply materials, unfolds over a number of consecutive days, throughout which Charlie receives a collection of tourists. Their common appearances directly modulate the drama and expose its artificiality, none extra clearly than Thomas (Ty Simpkins), an earnest younger Christian missionary who turns up at Charlie’s door at a seemingly opportune second. He’s there to save lots of this man’s soul, and in addition to facilitate a load of exposition regarding Charlie’s late accomplice, Alan, whose premature dying hastened his personal downward spiral. Thomas can also be there to harass Charlie’s tough-loving greatest pal, Liz (an exquisite Hong Chau), a nurse who stops by each day to deliver him meals, examine his vitals and nag him to take higher care of himself. She is aware of that Charlie doesn’t want faith; he must go to the hospital.
Hong Chau within the film “The Whale.”
(A24)
However Charlie refuses, citing a scarcity of medical insurance and the final hopelessness of his trigger. Which doesn’t imply he has nothing to dwell for, judging by his concerted latest renewal of ties together with his 17-year-old daughter, Ellie (Sadie Sink). Nearly 9 years in the past, Charlie deserted Ellie and her mom, Mary (a briefly seen Samantha Morton), to be with Alan. {The teenager} who now sits earlier than him is greater than a resentful youngster; she’s the personification of spite, vindictive and verbally abusive. Sink’s emotional ferocity is spectacular, however Ellie, as written, quantities to at least one indignant word struck with relentless, finally misapplied pressure. As a personality, she’s about as delicate because the ultra-dim lighting — not simply realistically dim however fastidiously, oppressively dim — that suffuses Charlie’s residence, an all-too-literal embodiment of his internal darkness.
“You’d be disgusting even should you weren’t this fats,” Ellie snarls on the man she refuses to acknowledge as her father. And her ugly phrases discover a painful echo within the query that Charlie at one level asks Thomas: “Do you discover me disgusting?” It’s a query the digital camera appears to foist in flip upon the viewer, most emphatically when it reveals us Charlie, in a depressing fury, devouring and vomiting up a complete pizza. It’s unsurprisingly disagreeable to observe, not least as a result of Aronofsky appears to be shoving the digital camera in Charlie’s face with one hand whereas wagging his finger at us with the opposite. His query may immediate your personal: Is that this uncooked, unvarnished scrutiny of a tough topic tilting into exaggeration, even exploitation? If we’re disgusted by what Aronofsky reveals us, is that our fault or his?
Or is it Fraser’s? I’m reluctant to counsel it, and never simply because I’m as fond as anybody of an interesting, long-underappreciated actor returning to prominence, after a number of years’ absence, within the trade that made, broke and allegedly abused him. However I’m additionally reluctant to fall into the default crucial sample of lauding an actor for what works a few film or a efficiency and blaming a filmmaker for the whole lot that doesn’t, particularly because it simply feels just a little too straightforward. Film performances are sometimes extra collaborative achievements than we (or actors themselves) care to confess, and a efficiency as reliant on exterior wizardry as Fraser’s — on the unusual, seamless alchemy that welds an actor’s expressive instruments to an array of digital and prosthetic tips — doesn’t come into being with out a director’s agency hand on the wheel. What’s good and dangerous concerning the efficiency is unquestionably the accountability of actor and director each.
Sadie Sink in a scene from “The Whale.”
(Niko Tavernise/A24)
The film’s crudest moments, those during which Charlie’s physique is handled as not only a matter-of-fact bodily actuality however a dare-you-to-look-away spectacle, have already raised respectable questions and accusations of fatphobia — a debate that tends to come up each time a Hollywood actor packs on some synthetic kilos. Typically this sort of transformation is finished for comically villainous impact, whether or not it’s Colin Farrell’s Penguin in “The Batman” or Emma Thompson’s imposingly evil Miss Trunchbull in “Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical.” However do these prosthetic encumbrances really feel kind of low cost when utilized to somebody like Charlie, who isn’t a violent caricature however a sympathetically drawn human being? Is the grindingly self-conscious realism of a film like “The Whale” a extra empathetic gesture or a crueler, uglier one?
To return to the query on the outset: When the digital camera seems to be at Brendan Fraser in “The Whale,” what does it see? I believe it sees a superb actor giving a well-meaning, erratically directed and infrequently touching efficiency in a film that strives to wrest one thing uncooked and truthful from a narrative that’s all bald contrivances, technological in addition to melodramatic. But when “The Whale” is a bizarre conflation of the unflinchingly sincere and the unbearably phony, Charlie’s personal sincerity is simple: “Inform me the reality,” he says and reiterates on a number of events, whether or not he’s urging his college students to write down from the intestine or partaking Thomas in a genial theological debate. As he demonstrated in his latest “Noah” and “mom!,” Aronofsky is a skeptic who’s extra keen than most to satisfy God midway.
And God, on this film, absolutely has rather a lot to reply for: hypocrisy, homophobia, despair and suicidal ideation, for starters. But when we will consider God as synonymous with goodness, and I believe we will, then he additionally appears to show up extra usually than anticipated — not simply when Thomas comes thumping on the door with a Bible in hand, but in addition each time Liz returns. Hong, not for the primary time proving herself a film’s secret weapon, provides maybe “The Whale’s” most interesting, least compelled efficiency. Whether or not she’s scolding Charlie, passing him a meatball sub or snuggling subsequent to him on the sofa, Liz lays naked her uncertainty: Ought to she be attempting to save lots of her pal or making his final days as joyous as she will be able to? It’s OK that she doesn’t know. It’s sufficient that she sees him and loves him — and extra absolutely, finally, than the film round him can handle.
‘The Whale’
Rated: R, for language, some drug use and sexual content material
Operating time: 1 hour, 57 minutes
Enjoying: Begins Dec. 9 at AMC Burbank 16; AMC Burbank City Middle 6; AMC the Grove 14, Los Angeles; AMC Century Metropolis 15
Directed by Tushar Hiranandani (‘Scam 2003: The Telgi Story’), Srikanth is an adulatory and simplistic biopic of Srikanth Bolla, the first international visually-impaired student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) who goes on to be the founder of Bollant Industries, a recycled packaging paper company, with prominent investors like former president APJ Abdul Kalam and Ratan Tata. It’s a great premise, one that required a deeper and nuanced study, but the makers decide to go for a derivative telling, laced with scenes which are desperate for claps and hoots.
It’s also told in a numbing linearity. Srikanth’s father, as mentioned earlier, ultimately doesn’t end up burying him after discovering he is blind. Growing up, the boy shows signs of genius. He can orally solve for X, he submits his answer sheet in an exam before everybody else, he can outsmart even those with sight in a chess game. But when Srikanth is denied the Science stream in Higher Secondary, he decides to sue the Indian education system.
After a courtroom scene that can put ‘Damini’ (1993) to shame, Srikanth wins the case. He also gets selected for the Indian blind cricket team but has to abandon his dream of wearing the blue jersey, to follow the bigger dream of studying at MIT. He finds love, comes back to India, meets an investor, starts Bollant, is labelled ‘God’ by the differently abled, becomes a megalomaniac, realises his follies and ultimately finds his way back home.
Returning to the big screen after his starring role in the Barbie movie, Ryan Gosling stars in The Fall Guy — an action-packed tribute to stunt performers in the movies.
Gosling plays the role of Colt Seavers — a stuntman who “gets blown up, shot, crashed, thrown through windows and dropped from the highest of heights, all for our entertainment. And now, fresh off an almost career-ending accident, this working-class hero has to track down a missing movie star, solve a conspiracy and try to win back the love of his life (Emily Blunt starring as Jody Moreno, director of the movie) while still doing his day job. What could possibly go right?”
Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt
(Universal Pictures)
The Fall Guy includes the movie industry’s first-ever film credit of Stunt Designer, received by Chris O’Hara, president of Stunts Unlimited, and who is renowned as a Stunt Coordinator and second unit director. The Stunt Designer moniker goes beyond the traditional title of Stunt Coordinator (an official Screen Actors Guild credit that is also recognized by the Directors Guild of America). This credit represents a new benchmark that accurately reflects “the high-level artistic contribution of world-class Stunt Coordinators like O’Hara. These are artists who do more than coordinate the logistics of stunts; they design and create them.”
“Stunt Designers are the creative architects behind fight scenes, high falls, and more, and deserve to be recognized for the creative leadership of their contributions,” said David Leitch, director, blockbuster filmmaker and a former stunt coordinator.
The fall guy on a vehicle-mounted arm.
(Universal Pictures)
The Fall Guy was originally a TV series from the ‘80s. It “was a reflection of that era, celebrating the cowboy spirit of stunt work,” director David Leitch says. “Back then, stunts were about sheer toughness, fearlessness, and guts. While there were tricks of the trade, these stunts still came with a lot of pain. My journey in the stunt world began during the transition from this old-school era to the modern era where stunt work began embracing new technologies and practices. As I entered the industry, visual effects and special effects were starting to revolutionize the stunt world. Wire rigs, the removal of those wires via VFX and other innovations were transforming the way stunts were performed. While shooting The Matrix, I had the opportunity to witness the cutting edge of technology and the collaborative efforts that were shaping the future of stunts. For me, it was natural to embrace both sides of stunt performing—the old-school toughness and the evolving world of visual effects. So, now, with The Fall Guy, I’m paying tribute to my early career journey as a stunt performer. While we incorporate some nods to the role of visual effects, the film maintains a raw and practical element in every stunt. With this film, we aimed to deliver action that was true to the spirit of the stunt community by incorporating techniques that have become somewhat of a lost art.”
THE FALL GUY, directed by David Leitch
(Universal Pictures)
The cannon roll was a particularly spectacular stunt featured in The Fall Guy. “Stunt double Logan Holladay broke the Guinness World Record for cannon rolls in a car with eight and a half rolls.”
These days, sequences like the Alma/Colt chase sequence, in which a garbage truck dragged Ryan Gosling on a spinning bin through the streets of Sydney, Australia, included a thrilling scene on the iconic Sydney Harbour Bridge that “would normally be done with blue screen,” but “the team decided to film the scene entirely practically” — old school.
Jan Wagner in the theater lobby.
(Jan Wagner)
Another exciting stunt was a jaw-dropping 225-foot car jump, “performed by seasoned driver Logan Holladay in a specially designed vehicle, crafted for practical, in-camera authenticity that could handle such an extreme leap. At the apex of the jump, the truck was close to 80 feet in the air.
Other wild stunts included a boat jump, a high fall from a helicopter, numerous fights, fiery explosions and much, much more. Multiple costume variations were required “to address the complexity of action scenes.” Oh, and be sure to stick around for the credits to see a cameo that you will not want to miss. Thumbs up!
To see a trailer for The Fall Guy and to purchase tickets, visit the official site at: https://www.thefallguymovie.com.
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Copyright © 2024 by Jan Wagner – AutoMatters & More #838
By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer
Posted: May 10th, 2024 / 12:29 PM
THE COFFEE TABLE (LA MESITA DEL COMEDOR) movie poster | ©2024 Cinephobia Releasing
Rating: Not Rated
Stars: David Pareja, Estefanía de los Santos, Josep Riera, Claudia Riera, Gala Flores, Eduardo Antuña, Cristina Dilla, Itziar Castro
Writers: Caye Casas & Cris Borobia
Director: Caye Casas
Distributor: Cinephobia Releasing
Release Date: April 19, 2024 (theatrical); May 14, 2024 (DVD/digital)
THE COFFEE TABLE (LA MESITA DEL COMEDOR) has been variously described as a horror movie and a black comedy. It doesn’t conform to the conventional notion of either of these genres. Rather, it is one answer to the question of what we get when the framework of a farce is placed around an almost literally unspeakable tragedy.
THE COFFEE TABLE has a horrific incident (imagine one of the worst things you can think of; this may or may not be worse than that) that propels what would otherwise be a familiar comedy plot. The tension between these two things keeps us riveted.
In the opening moments, we see María (Estefanía de los Santos) in childbirth. It looks extremely painful.
The rest of the film takes place over the course of a single day. María and her husband Jesús (David Pareja) and their baby son Cayetano are at a furniture store. The salesman (Eduardo Antuña) is pushing them to buy a glass-topped coffee table.
Jesús seems to want the coffee table primarily because María hates it. According to him, she has made most of the choices in their relationship, including when to have a baby (they’re middle-aged, but he wasn’t sure) and what to name the child (Jesús thinks Cayetano is a bad name, with a worse namesake).
The salesman guarantees that the coffee table will change Jesús and María’s lives. He’s just doing his spiel, but he turns out to be absolutely right.
To be clear, THE COFFEE TABLE isn’t a cursed-furniture movie. There’s nothing supernatural of any kind going on here. For that matter, there is no onscreen violence, and relatively little gore. It’s just that it has a confluence of events that most filmmakers wouldn’t dare present.
The actors are all excellent, surprising us within expectations we may have for their characters.
While this is perhaps not the main thrust of THE COFFEE TABLE, director Caye Casas, cowriter Cris Borobia and actor Pareja create a powerfully authentic portrait of severe depression. We feel Jesús’s inability to connect with those around him; he’s barely able to see or hear them through the weight of his pain. While in some movies, this kind of thing can be extraordinarily dull, in THE COFFEE TABLE, it’s mesmerizing, because we compulsively need to know what’s going to happen.
THE COFFEE TABLE should come with some trigger warnings. One is for people who, having experienced severe depression themselves, may find its accurate depiction awakens a sympathetic response that is not easily dismissed when the film ends.
The other trigger warning unfortunately is a massive spoiler. Perhaps the best advice to viewers who are serious about such cautions is that they should avoid THE COFFEE TABLE altogether. For more daring prospective audience members who want to see a well-made film that is certainly unique and never boring, THE COFFEE TABLE is the real deal.
In Spanish, with English subtitles.
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