Period Piece

Little Women: Sisters, Suitors, and Other Nightmares

Jeremy BeckReviews
Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Saoirse Ronan, and Eliza Scanlen, in Greta Gerwig's "Little Women"

I keep thinking about the ink smudges. Greta Gerwig’s new adaptation of Little Women is a film of boundless beauty, full of ravishing sights and sounds: bright hoop dresses, handsome estates and gardens, Alexandre Desplat’s piano, Timothée Chalamet’s cheekbones, Saoirse Ronan’s eyes. But amid all of this delicate loveliness is a writer who cannot seem to scrub the stubborn streaks of pencil lead from her hands. The primary hero of Louisa May Alcott’s novel, Jo March is the perfect embodiment of Gerwig’s creative spirit—not just because she’s a talented and intelligent artist, but because her work seems to bleed with feeling. Little Women, Gerwig’s second feature following the lightning bolt that was Lady Bird, is a surpassingly elegant movie. It’s also stained with life.

Jo (Ronan), an amateur playwright and aspiring novelist, is one of four mostly grown sisters; the others (in descending order of age) are Meg (Emma Watson), Beth (Eliza Scanlen), and Amy (Florence Pugh). You probably already knew this, seeing as Alcott’s book is beloved, and has previously been transferred to the silver screen four times, with Jo being played by personalities as varied as Katharine Hepburn and Winona Ryder. And so, the question that initially hovers over this incarnation of Little Women—the same skeptical inquiry that lurks beneath any new adaptation of a repeatedly staged classic—is why it needed to be made, why it stands out. Several decades having passed since I’ve read the book or watched any of its prior re-imaginings, I am perhaps not the ideal critic to answer this question. But I have seen this one, and I can say with some confidence that you should herald its arrival not with cynicism but with gratitude. The reason to see Gerwig’s movie isn’t that it rejuvenates old tropes or interrogates long-held assumptions or introduces a literary landmark to a new generation, even if it may very well do all of those things. The reason to see it is that it’s wonderful. 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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Jojo Rabbit: Consider the Nazi, Through Childish Eyes

Jeremy BeckReviews
Taika Waititi and Roman Griffin Davis in "Jojo Rabbit"

The rise of the Third Reich is such a blight on the world’s history, it’s no wonder we keep making fun of it. Sure, there are plenty of sober cinematic reconstructions of the era, so many that the Holocaust drama has practically become a genre unto itself. But the genocidal horror of Nazism is so obscene, so incomprehensible, that unless you’re Steven Spielberg, it can seem impossible to confront head-on, like staring into a black sun. Maybe it’s better to approach this unspeakable atrocity askance, to attack its ugliness and brutality not with outrage and solemnity, but with cleverness and mockery.

Or maybe it isn’t. Certainly some viewers will take umbrage at Jojo Rabbit, Taika Waititi’s comedy-drama-satire-coming-of-age-whatever, which is set in Germany in 1945 and which unfolds with an impish tone that, while hardly seditious, is decidedly less than utterly respectful. I’m not here to tell you what you can and can’t get mad about, but I will suggest that this awkward, weirdly sincere movie is too eager and silly to be truly offensive. Its parodic vision of Nazis as bumbling stooges feels like an appropriate portraiture, not so much trivializing evil as acknowledging its senselessness and banality. And so, my problem with Jojo Rabbit isn’t that it tries to be funny. My problem is that it isn’t funny. Read More

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Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: To LA, with Love

Jeremy BeckReviews
Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt in Quentin Tarantino's "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood"

During one of the many enjoyably languorous stretches in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, a woman buys a ticket to a movie. Told that the price is 75 cents—one of a million quaint signifiers that this film takes place in 1969—she haggles with the ticket taker, asking if she might receive a discount on account of being in the movie. After proving that she is indeed the picture’s third-billed actor—and after posing for a photo next to its poster—she gains free admittance to the theater, where she skittishly sinks into her seat and dons a pair of giant hoop glasses, eyes darting around the crowd in the sweet, vaguely desperate hope that her fellow patrons might appreciate her performance.

The woman is Sharon Tate, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, the bold and beautiful and surprisingly moving new film from Quentin Tarantino, is in some ways about her grisly murder at the hands of the Manson Family. But it is also very much not about that. It is, more principally, a movie about its maker’s love of movies. And while, physically speaking, few would confuse Tarantino with Margot Robbie—the actress who here plays Tate with fizzy, wistful adorability—it’s possible to view Tate as a surrogate for the director, a man who takes immense pride in his work and who also craves validation for his craft. Read More

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The Aftermath: He’s a Good German. Or at Least, He’s Good-Looking.

Jeremy BeckReviews
Keira Knightley in "The Aftermath".

Quality acting may not be able to make a bad movie good, but it can certainly make a silly movie less silly, and more watchable. The Aftermath, James Kent’s sober and strenuous adaptation of Rhidian Brook’s novel, is in many ways unpersuasive, with clunkily conceived characters, overly decorous presentation, and dubious politics. But its performances, particularly those of Keira Knightley and Jason Clarke, are exemplars of craft and commitment. With elegance and poise, they take a soapy, soggy romance and lift it into the realm of juicy, entertaining melodrama.

This is nothing new for Knightley, who has made something of a career out of elevating prestige period pieces with her cut-glass precision and simmering feeling. Just last year, she applied her considerable talents to Colette, helping turn what appeared to be a stodgy biopic of feminine awakening into a bawdy, sexy romp. Unfortunately, The Aftermath lacks Colette’s sense of impish fun; nor does it move with the same directorial alacrity that Joe Wright brought to his excellent collaborations with Knightley (Pride & Prejudice, Atonement, Anna Karenina). It is instead decidedly tasteful, with a gentle score, a lacquered production design, and a profound fear of offending anyone. Read More

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