Phoenix: Back from the Dead, But Something’s Off
Suspension of disbelief is typically a viewing requirement at the multiplex, not the art house. Superhero movies and science-fiction flicks are expected to stretch the boundaries of reality in ways anathema to dialogue-driven dramas and period pieces. Phoenix, Christian Petzold’s electric, implausible anti-love story, is the type of muted, modestly scaled film that you wouldn’t expect to ask audiences to take a giant leap of faith. But it does precisely that, hinging on a conceit that, if rejected, threatens to topple the entire enterprise. If you refuse to accept the cornerstone of Phoenix‘s vertiginous plot, you may struggle to find rapture in its supple technique and vast emotions. But if you surrender yourself, you are likely to become intoxicated by its smoky beauty and limitless longing.
I strongly urge you to try your best, though my urgings are insignificant compared to those of Nina Hoss. A German-born actress best known to American audiences as one of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s weary spies in A Most Wanted Man (and also the anchor of Petzold’s sobering Cold War film, Barbara), Hoss delivers a transcendent performance as Nelly, a concentration camp survivor who was shot in the face during the war (in a wise decision, the details of the shooting are never explained), and who begins the film wrapped in bandages. She’s returning to Germany with her friend, Lene (Nina Kunzendorf, perfectly crisp), in order to undergo facial reconstructive surgery. When the doctor asks Nelly whom she wants to look like, she demands that he return her to her original self. “You won’t look exactly the same,” the surgeon warns her, and the subtitles for that line might as well be accented in bold. Read More
Can a computer have a soul? Can a movie? Her, Spike Jonze’s breathtaking, devastating film about a lonely man and his sentient operating system, spends a good deal of time pondering the first question and, in the process, answers the second. But let’s not bury the lede here: This is a movie about a man who falls in love with a machine. No matter the miracles science has provided in the new millennium, this is a tough sell. Yet the unique genius of Her—beyond its remarkable and vast imagination—is that it acknowledges the absurdity of its premise while simultaneously committing to it with the utmost sincerity. The result is a film that’s often uproariously funny, playfully mocking its gorgeous self-made universe with wit and good humor. But Her also, through a combination of sublime technique and heartfelt storytelling (Jonze also wrote the script), offers acute insight into the dynamics of modern relationships: what it means to be alone, to be loved, to be depressed, to be happy. It’s a movie about machines that affirms our very humanity. And it makes resoundingly clear that even if computers may not have souls, some movies surely do.
“I’d like to think that there’s more to a person than just one thing,” Aimee Finicky says early in The Spectacular Now. I’d like to think she’s right. There is certainly more than just one thing to The Spectacular Now, James Ponsoldt’s swooning, touching third feature. Like Aimee, it refuses to be pigeonholed. This is partly because, in strict genre terms, it has no strict genre; instead, it melds elements of various tropes, making it not only a winning coming-of-age story, but also an earnest teen romance, a wistful family drama, and even a sobering study of addiction. But far more important than the multiplicity of the film’s form is the raw power of its content. The Spectacular Now is not one thing, because it is many things: spry and funny, sad and heartfelt, honest and scary, rueful and rewarding. It’s a movie that would make Aimee Finicky proud.