Biopic

Mank: Citizen, Stained

Jeremy BeckReviews
Gary Oldman in "Mank"

There are two artistic geniuses wrestling for control of Mank, and neither of them is Orson Welles. The first is the film’s subject, Herman J. Mankiewicz, the co-writer of Citizen Kane, which has long been labeled the greatest movie ever made; the second is its creator, David Fincher, the director of a handful of masterpieces in his own right. As played by Gary Oldman, Mankiewicz (for his preferred sobriquet, refer to the title) is an intuitive creature—brilliant, yes, but also slovenly, undisciplined, and erratic. Fincher is none of those things, save brilliant. He is an impeccable craftsman, one who wields his tools with finicky precision and absolute rigor. The animating force of Mank—the fascinating dissonance that’s responsible for much of its power, as well as some of its shortcomings—is the inherent tension between its central personalities. This is what happens when an Order Muppet makes a movie about a Chaos Muppet.

The narrative of Mank is alternately gripping and muddled, but when it comes to technique, no amount of turmoil could ever overwhelm Fincher’s mastery. As a matter of sight and sound, his latest picture is a characteristic wonder to behold. Shot by Erik Messerschmidt (Mindhunter) in luminous black and white, its images nevertheless feel suffused with color and vibrancy, light and shadow playfully dancing with one another throughout the frame. (This is undoubtedly the most beautiful black-and-white Netflix release since, er, two years ago.) The costumes and production design meticulously recreate 1930s California without preening, while the score (from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, naturally) bubbles with percussive urgency yet never overexerts itself. In tone and texture, Mank feels both pleasingly classical and thrillingly new. (Fincher should probably cool it with the phony cigarette burns, though.) Read More

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Unpregnant, The Glorias, and Women Directing Women

Jeremy BeckFeatures, Reviews
Julianne Moore in "The Glorias"; Haley Lu Richardson and Barbie Ferreira in "Unpregnant"

The COVID-19 pandemic has ruined lives, crippled economies, and paralyzed entire nations, but what has it meant for the movies? The received wisdom is that 2020 has been a lost year for cinema, and there’s a degree of truth to that; I’ve lost count of how many major studio releases have been delayed until 2021 or beyond, and many other films—which ordinarily would have had the opportunity to chase eyeballs on the big screen—were unceremoniously interred in the graveyard that is VOD. But while it’s understandable to lament the movies that this year has taken from us, it’s also important to acknowledge those that it’s given us. The dearth of blockbusters created a cinematic vacuum that was promptly and happily filled by scrappier, less conventional titles: quirky comedies, chilling horror flicks, tender romances, robust actioners. And many of these movies came from a demographic that Hollywood has long neglected: They were directed by women.

Perhaps this has nothing to do with COVID-19; maybe 2020 was already shaping up to be the Year of the Woman even before the coronavirus reached American shores. Regardless of causality, it’s oddly invigorating to survey the year’s best films and to see how many were helmed by women, and with such variety. Consider: the quiet agony of The Assistant and the boisterous fun of Birds of Prey. The contemporary sadness of Cuties and the classical enchantment of Emma. The male friendship of First Cow and the female solidarity of Never Rarely Sometimes Always. (I dissented on both The Old Guard and Shirley, but other critics would surely point to them as well.) Women have always been making good movies, but their collective voice seems to be growing louder now, telling stories of ever-greater urgency and vitality. Read More

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Ford v Ferrari: Rounding the Curves, and Speeding Straight Ahead

Jeremy BeckReviews
Matt Damon and Christian Bale in "Ford v Ferrari"

In most European countries, James Mangold’s new movie is being titled “Le Mans ’66”, presumably in an effort to capture the interest of sports-car enthusiasts, particularly those familiar with the famous race that took place in France more than half a century ago. For Americans and other ingrates less versed in racing lore, the film is called Ford v Ferrari, a conveniently alliterative title that pays tribute both to our adversarial natures and our love of underdogs. The movie, which chronicles Ford Motor Company’s obsessive effort to dethrone the prestigious Ferrari from its perch atop the racing world, positions itself as a battle between American revolutionaries and the European establishment. The arts of improvisational creativity and scrappy resourcefulness are (ahem) pitted against the forces of entrenched authority and inflexible traditionalism.

The irony of this framing is that Ford v Ferrari, an unremarkable but by no means unenjoyable picture, is about as traditional as it gets. It’s a crowd-pleasing sports movie through and through, a by-the-book docudrama that embraces conventionality and avoids risk. Yet Mangold, a skilled craftsman whose prior feature was the decidedly unorthodox Logan, demonstrates that templates are durable for a reason, and he follows this formula (one?) with a gratifyingly light touch. He doesn’t so much steer you around the curves as trick you into thinking that the curves even exist, all the while quietly affording you the easy pleasures of the straightaway. Read More

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Rocketman: Breaking Hearts, But Not Molds

Jeremy BeckReviews
Taron Egerton in "Rocketman"

They say a great pop song can lift you up, but at one point in Rocketman, the audience actually levitates, their shared delight elevating them into midair. We’re at The Troubadour in 1970s Los Angeles, and the flamboyant piano player is treating the crowd to an exuberant rendition of “Crocodile Rock”. As he bangs the keys and belts out the tune—about him and Susie, holding hands and skimming stones—you too might find yourself propelled upward, borne on the dynamism of the music and the enthusiasm of the performance.

When are you gonna come down? Soon enough. Every so often, Rocketman—Dexter Fletcher’s occasionally extraordinary but largely straightforward new film about Elton John—taps into that spirit of joyous communion, the rapturous feeling of losing yourself in art. But gravity regularly gets the best of it, and when it falls back to Earth, it reveals itself as yet another product plucked from the biopic assembly line. John was a provocative and often dazzling performer, but underlying his on-stage extravagance was music with real originality and heart. Rocketman, by contrast, tends to feel like a magic trick; its presentation, however skillful and virtuosic, seems designed to disguise its inherent flimsiness and familiarity. Read More

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On the Basis of Sex: Fighting for Equality, Through the Law and Gritted Teeth

Jeremy BeckReviews
Felicity Jones as Ruth Bader Ginsburg in "On the Basis of Sex".

Last year, the documentary RBG attempted to honor the extraordinary life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, charting her path from able young mind to Harvard Law student to U.S. Supreme Court Justice to feminist icon to internet meme. It was a well-intentioned effort that suffered from the usual pitfalls of cinematic hagiography, struggling to compress 85 years of the life of one of the most important legal figures in modern American history into a tidy 98 minutes. On the Basis of Sex, the new Ginsburg biopic from Mimi Leder, takes a narrower approach, homing in on two key periods in its subject’s life: her challenges as one of the few female students at Harvard, and her early labors as a litigator striving for women’s equality. Where RBG’s impact was glancing—to borrow from Supreme Court terminology, it felt more like a syllabus than a full opinion—Leder’s film lands a blow with something resembling force.

If the boxing metaphor seems peculiar, bear in mind that, despite trafficking in bookish disciplines and legal arcana, On the Basis of Sex is essentially a sports movie. Its heroine, played with poise and pluck by Felicity Jones, is the proverbial underdog, fighting to rise through the ranks and topple an entrenched dynasty. Its villains, most notably personified by Sam Waterston as Harvard’s dean of students, are pillars of the establishment, wielding their superior resources—money, power, connections—to extend their unbroken streak of competitive dominance. There are triumphs and setbacks, eager rookies and cagey veterans, strategic coaching maneuvers and breezy montages. There is even a Big Game, with a climactic moment designed to be as suspenseful as the final jump shot in Hoosiers. Read More

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