Brooklyn: Welcome to the United States. Now Start Your Life.

Saoirse Ronan, center, as an Irish immigrant in John Crowley's soaring "Brooklyn"

Brooklyn is a movie about an immigrant seeking a modest life on America’s rocky shores. In these tumultuous times, that alone makes it an interesting artifact. But while it is a thoroughly global production—it was directed by the Irishman John Crowley from a screenplay by the English writer Nick Hornby, adapting a book by Irish novelist Colm Toibin, and it is being distributed here by the American studio Fox Searchlight—it is not concerned with current political or social issues. In fact, it has little interest in contemporary complexities at all. On the contrary, Brooklyn—with its period setting, its classical warmth, its swooning simplicity—is proudly, almost brazenly old-fashioned.

That is a dangerous label to apply to a movie, one that suggests either snobbish nostalgia (“They don’t make ’em like they used to!”) or sneering modernism (“Old movies are so dated!”). But Brooklyn is neither a strained tribute to pictures of the past nor a wistful critique of the uncertainties of the present. It is instead its own creature: funny, tender, a little bit treacly, and entirely true. At its core, Brooklyn is about nothing more than a woman searching for happiness. Watching it, you will have no struggle finding the same. Read More

Inside Out: Sweet Emotions, and Sad Ones, Too

Five emotions wrestle with one another, and more, in "Inside Out"

At one point in Inside Out, the two main characters walk under a lettered archway that reads, “Imagination Land.” It’s a fitting marker, given that this movie is the latest (and nearly the greatest) offering from Pixar, that cinematic factory of innovation and ingenuity that has been delighting audiences for two decades with its inimitable blend of vibrant animation and smart storytelling. Also fitting is that the protagonists are named Sadness and Joy, as these are the two primary emotional responses that Inside Out deftly, generously evokes. You will undoubtedly experience pangs of sadness in watching this poignant portrayal of a child in crisis, struggling valiantly to process her swirling feelings of confusion, alienation, and loss. As for joy? That comes from everything else.

The ostensible hero of Inside Out is Riley (voiced by Kaitlyn Dias), a plucky, relatively normal 11-year-old whom we first meet moving with her parents from the ice-covered lakes of Minnesota to the bustling cityscape of San Francisco. Yet while Riley is the film’s chief human character, she is not its focal point. Rather, Inside Out takes us inside Riley’s brain to explore the workings of her emotions, which we discover are literal beings themselves, with their own bodies, minds, and temperaments. They include Fear (Bill Hader), a jumpy lavender fellow with a bowtie and a prominent proboscis; Disgust (Mindy Kaling), a greenish girl with wavy hair and perpetually rolling eyes; and Anger (Lewis Black, naturally), a squat and fiery hothead who regularly bursts into flame and whose color you can probably guess. Rounding out this fantastic five are, of course, Sadness and Joy; Sadness (The Office‘s Phyllis Smith, perfectly cast) is a rotund blue figure who wears oversized spectacles and shuffles her feet morosely, while Joy (Amy Poehler, ibid) is the yellow-skinned, cobalt-haired pixie who serves as the group’s perky, quietly flawed leader. These five personifications of feeling—exposed nerve endings made real—operate in concert (and occasionally in conflict), huddling over a gadget-laden control panel and helping to shape Riley’s experiences, her emotional reactions, and, really, her entire life. Read More

The king of the world shows us a magnificent new one in Avatar

Perhaps the most breathtaking moment in James Cameron’s Avatar – a movie that takes the breath from its awestruck audience with startling regularity – occurs roughly 45 minutes into the film. It introduces us to Neytiri, a blue-skinned warrior with amber-gold eyes and a supple 12-foot frame. Perched gracefully on a tree branch, Neytiri has spotted an intruder (who happens to be Jake Sully, our story’s hero), and she moves silently to eliminate the threat. Pulling her bowstring taut, she is poised to strike when, suddenly, something catches her eye: a wispy, jellyfish-like organism, floating delicately in midair. The ethereal life form drifts toward Neytiri, eventually settling on the tip of her arrowhead. Neytiri, for reasons unknown to us at the time, takes this as an admonition of her combative instinct; she lowers her bow, and Jake Sully is allowed to live a little longer.

This is a beautiful scene. It takes place in complete silence (with the exception of James Horner’s soft, reverent score), yet it constitutes a moment of both exquisite suspense (what will happen?) and slack-jawed wonder (just what are these creatures?), plus it effectively advances the movie’s story. But the scene is particularly noteworthy because it is possible – indeed probable – that none of what we see was ever actually filmed, instead constructed within the confines of a computer. (I use the word “confines” loosely, as Avatar suggests that any alleged boundaries of computer-assisted filmmaking may in fact be illusory.) Yet watching the scene unfold, I never for a moment questioned the authenticity of Neytiri, the tree branch, or the wispy creature. I was simply transfixed on what was happening, wondering who this Amazonian was and why she suddenly refused to kill.
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