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

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

If Beale Street Could Talk: Surges of Passion, Even from Behind Bars

Stephan James and KiKi Layne in "If Beale Street Could Talk"

A movie awash in potent contradictions—intimate vs. operatic, reserved vs. vivacious, hopeful vs. disillusioned, wrongfully accused vs. savagely victimized—If Beale Street Could Talk opens with a quotation from James Baldwin, who wrote the novel upon which the film is based. The selected passage, which discusses “the impossibility and the possibility” (more contradictions!), directs “the reader” to draw certain inferences from what follows. This is a curious instruction, given that what follows is not a book but a movie; we aren’t readers, we’re viewers. It also illuminates the challenge that Barry Jenkins has accepted in choosing to adapt Baldwin’s novel, the tricky task of translating spiky words on a page to the visual language of the screen. In making If Beale Street Could Talk, Jenkins is attempting both to pay homage to one of the 20th century’s most important authors and to imbue that author’s prose with his own distinctly cinematic voice.

Not having read the novel, I can’t speak to the veracity of the on-screen result. What I can say is that, for the most part, this moving-picture version of If Beale Street Could Talk walks the line nicely, capturing Baldwin’s frustration and rage while also functioning as an honest-to-God movie. There are times when Jenkins’ ambitions get the better of him, and when the sheer scope of his undertaking threatens to overwhelm the particular plight of his characters. Yet even when he struggles to corral his myriad ideas into a tidy package (and to be sure, the film’s lack of tidiness is part of its point), Jenkins flaunts a vigorous command of his medium, breathing bold and colorful life into a story that is, in some ways, fairly black-and-white. Read More

Holiday Gift Bag: Mary Queen of Scots

Saoirse Ronan in "Mary Queen of Scots"

Sure, Brexit is bonkers, but should we have expected anything else from England? As the movies of 2018 seem intent on reminding us, this is a nation with a thoroughly absurd history, a vast empire that routinely suffered internecine conflict and insurrection. After The Favourite showed us the ludicrous extravagances of Stuart England, now comes Mary Queen of Scots to take on the Tudors, when Catholics and Protestants were mortal enemies and Henry VIII cycled through queens like a hedge fund manager on Tinder. Of course, Henry died not long after Mary Stuart was born, but as this engrossing and enjoyable film relays, his spirit of monarchial chaos raged on. Read More

Roma: Maid in Mexico, Made with Beauty

A striking scene from Alfonso Cuarón's "Roma"

Early in Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity, two astronauts frantically attempt to propel themselves back to a docking station by way of a jetpack, their tiny white suits looking like stars that dot the infinite blackness of space. Early in Roma, Cuarón’s new film for Netflix, a man slowly pulls his car into a narrow garage, repeatedly rotating his wheels and pulling in his mirrors to avoid scraping the walls. As parking jobs go, the stakes here are rather less severe, given that the man is seeking to avoid minor property damage rather than trying to cheat death; it’s a scene about a Ford Galaxie, not, you know, the galaxy. But Cuarón’s camera captures the process with the same spooky intimacy, locking on the sedan’s boxy corners and bulky wheels as they swivel to and fro, searching for safety. The director’s craftsmanship never wavers, whether he’s chronicling explorers careening into space or cars rolling over dog shit.

In empirical terms, Roma is a smaller film than Gravity, Children of Men, or Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban; it doesn’t make heavy use of thriller tropes or special effects, and it doesn’t take place in dystopian or fantastical worlds where humanity’s very survival is at risk. But it shares with those movies a certain philosophical principle, the persistent belief that cinema is a tool for telling thorny, personal stories on a grand scale. In some ways, Roma is a low-key family drama, but if its narrative occasionally verges on mundane, its technique is never less than extraordinary. Read More

The Favourite: Sex, Blood, Revenge, and Other Elegant Things

Olivia Colman and Emma Stone in "The Favourite"

Done to death, the British costume drama is given new life in The Favourite, a wickedly funny, deceptively sad movie about the ruling and the ruled. Its period trappings—the hushed candlelight, the sprawling castles, the finery and regalia—may seem unusual for a film by Yorgos Lanthimos, but then, no Yorgos Lanthimos film is usual. Having previously turned his lacerating eye on a number of twisted scenarios in the present—perversely homeschooled children, oppressively romantic dystopias, magically vengeful teenagers—the Greek director now looks backward, bringing his inimitable brand of irreverent humor and piercing technique to bear on the stuffy, pompous palaces of Stuart England. The Favourite may carry the sheen of a proper prestige production, but nobody here is behaving themselves.

Except maybe for Lanthimos. Of course, bad behavior is relative; it takes until The Favourite’s final scenes before a cuddly animal is abused, which for this occasionally sadistic filmmaker qualifies as a form of restraint. But even as he continues shoving his characters into confounding, humiliating situations—here, a genteel carriage ride through the countryside can quickly morph into the involuntary witnessing of a crude sex act—Lanthimos remains cool and crisp with the camera. Working with cinematographer Robbie Ryan (American Honey), he creates a gorgeous atmosphere that luxuriates in the period’s obscene extravagances, even as he methodically subverts them. (Ryan shoots a number of scenes with fisheye lenses, an approach that subtly warps the corners of the frame yet somehow enhances its beauty in the process.) The production design is impeccable, while the costumes and wigs—designed by the great Sandy Powell, who won Oscars dressing other English monarchs in The Young Victoria and Shakespeare in Love—are marvelously ornate. Visually, The Favourite is supple and elegant, which makes it the perfect vehicle to tell a story of backbiting and debauchery. Read More