THE DESCENDANTS (2011)

In ELECTION (arguably his best film) and CITIZEN RUTH (an overlooked gem) director/co-writer Alexander Payne achieved merciless satire without sacrificing the deeply flawed characters’ humanity.  And while SIDEWAYS lacked a satirical tone, it cut its characters little slack yet remained compassionate.  Following this evolutionary path, Payne’s latest film (adapted from Kaui Hart Hemmings’ novel by Payne and Nat Faxon & Jim Rash) retains its humanistic tendencies but lets its characters off the hook.  George Clooney stars as Matt King, a Honolulu real estate lawyer and absentee husband and father who acts as trustee to his family’s pristine acres on Kauai which must be sold off by law.  As various cousins gather to vote on which developer will purchase the land, Matt gets a wake-up call when his wife Elizabeth lands in a coma after a boating accident.  Because the prognosis is negative and both spouses have a do not resuscitate clause in their living will, Matt must become full-time father to precocious 10-year-old Scottie (Amara Miller) and troubled teen Alexandra (Shailene Woodley) while preparing family and friends for the worst.  So the news that Elizabeth had been having an affair in the months leading up to her accident only adds to Matt’s burden.  His search for the adulterer leads him to Brian Speer (Matthew Lillard), a realtor who could gain from the sale of the King family land.  The film’s voiceover exposition is off-putting, but Payne soon finds his storytelling rhythm and allows his fine cast breathing room.  Clooney gives a relaxed, understated performance, while Robert Forster makes a welcome return to the big screen as Elizabeth’s gruff father.  Judy Greer is terrific as Speer’s guileless wife, and Woodley shows exceptional nuance in what could have been a single-note role.  Still one can’t help but feel that Payne has given Matt a pass.  Though Matt acknowledges his shortcomings in voiceover, his comatose wife never gets the opportunity to confront him or to defend herself.  And while this allows for a happier ending, the film’s final family portrait does not ring true.  Perhaps Payne has gone soft.  I hope not.  I miss the Payne who practices tough love.

THE LINCOLN LAWYER (2011)

We first meet defense attorney Mick Haller (Matthew McConaughey) on his way to consult with one of his repeat offenders while bail bondsman Val Valenzuela (John Leguizamo) pitches Louis Roulet (Ryan Phillippe) as a wealthy potential client who’s been charged with assault.  Money talks to our Mr. Haller.  And though Roulet already has a lawyer (Bob Gunton) and an overprotective mother (Frances Fisher), Haller takes the case, convinced that his new client has been framed despite evidence gathered by prosecutor Ted Minton (Josh Lucas).  But he and investigator Frank Levin (William H. Macy) soon discover that Roulet is not as innocent as he claims and may be implicated in a murder that Haller persuaded incarcerated former client Jesus Martinez (Michael Peña) to plead years back.  Further complicating matters, Haller becomes the target of a fresh murder investigation headed by grizzled Detective Lankford (Bryan Cranston).  Marisa Tomei (still underused but better served here than in CRAZY, STUPID, LOVE.) rounds out the cast as a prosecuting attorney and Haller’s ex-wife.  Michael Connelly’s novel gets a crackerjack adaptation by John Romano, who gives even minor characters rich textures and sharp dialogue to relish.  The plot is smart without being convoluted and never resorts to tired heroics or manipulative melodrama.  Brad Furman’s direction displays a vitality and verve reminiscent of the American film renaissance of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s (with able assistance from cinematographer Lukas Ettlin and composer Cliff Martinez).  The casting is near perfect.  Pretty boy Phillippe has never displayed much range, but when used well (as he was in Robert Altman’s superlative GOSFORD PARK) you can forgive much.  Here Phillippe’s inability to act works to the film’s benefit.  McConaughey, on the other hand, has held promise since Richard Linklater’s DAZED AND CONFUSED.  With this performance as a lawyer with his own slippery version of ethics, he has found a film and a role that delivers on that promise.  This sharp, modest thriller will surprise you with its reliance on the old-fashioned virtue of crisp storytelling.

SHAME (2011)

Michael Fassbender gives a fearless, riveting performance as Brandon, a sex addict in New York City.  We first meet Brandon between various anonymous sexual encounters as he wanders naked through his fastidious apartment pursued by a recurring female voice on his answering machine.  We initially believe the voice to be a spurned paramour but learn it belongs to his sister Sissy (a marvelous Carey Mulligan), who turns up in his shower uninvited.  Despite clear discomfort at the proposition, Brandon agrees to let her stay on the couch until she finds her own place.  And his workplace provides little solace as Brandon learns his laptop has been taken away to remove a virus.  When he asks out co-worker Marianne (Nicole Beharie) and finds he respects her, he is unable to perform sexually because he has never associated sex with respect.  While Brandon uses sex to avoid real intimacy, Sissy mistakes sex for real intimacy and drives away her suitors as effectively as her brother’s detachment.  Brandon’s philandering married boss David (James Badge Dale) seduces Sissy and returns her to the apartment for consummation.  Soon Brandon’s boundaries begin to collapse, leading him on a night of self-destructive debauchery that earns the film its NC-17 rating.  Director Steve McQueen and co-writer Abi Morgan do not make judgments, they merely observe.  The only character to make a moral judgment in fact is sleazy boss David when he comments that Brandon’s virus-infested laptop is “filthy.”  Nor do the filmmakers delve into the siblings’ history, though it’s clear their childhood was an emotional train wreck to judge by the toxic codependence.  The writers’ only stumble is in overplaying Brandon’s night of degradation by including an out-of-character homosexual encounter.  Otherwise McQueen’s touch is artful and restrained, and he elicits top-drawer, award-worthy performances from both Fassbender and Mulligan.  One can only hope the more prestigious award organizations see past the strong subject matter to honor two brave, unflinching portrayals.

THE BIG YEAR (2011)

In the past director David Frankel has proved himself an adept cinematic journeyman who crafts solid entertainments with heart.  In THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA he had the riveting Meryl Streep to energize the proceedings, and with MARLEY & ME he had, well, an adorable dog.  So the pleasures should be threefold with Steve Martin, Jack Black and Owen Wilson headlining THE BIG YEAR.  Sadly, that is far from the case.  The film follows a trio of avid bird watchers (or birders, as they prefer to be called) during the course of a Big Year, a calendar year in which birders catalogue on the honor system every species of bird they spot or hear.  Martin plays Stu, a business owner escaping the rigors of his demanding job.  Office drone Brad (Black) seeks meaning in breaking the Big Year record.  His unfocused career reaps financial support from his mother (the delightful Dianne Wiest) and skepticism from his father (the gruff Brian Dennehy).  Meanwhile Bostick (Wilson), a competitive birder who holds the elusive record, works as a contractor when he isn’t abandoning his wife Jessica (an appealing Rosamund Pike) for his ornithological obsession.  Black is completely miscast, and Brad’s perfunctory romance with fellow birder Ellie (Rashida Jones) is as convenient and as it is unlikely.  But for his few scenes with the underused JoBeth Williams, a better-cast Martin comes off as preoccupied rather than present.  The amiable Wilson fares best, but even he seems constrained.  Frankel’s pacing is brisk but devoid of energy, like the condensed version of a film that lacks detail and color.  However, if all things avian fascinate you, Howard Franklin’s genial, risk-averse script (inspired by Mark Obmascik’s non-fiction book) may provide 90 minutes of diversion.  The rest of us, however, will watch the unfolding film dissipate like morning mist until there’s no memory of what was just seen.  We feel neither offense nor engagement, merely a sense of befuddlement and lethargy.

MONEYBALL (2011)

Bennett Miller’s first feature since the superlative CAPOTE looks and feels like a great game of baseball:  elegant, leisurely paced, with flashes of excitement and splashes of nostalgia.  How apt that the film’s subject is America’s favorite pastime, specifically General Manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) and his Oakland Athletics’ rebuilding season of 2002 after their top players depart for richer free agent pastures.  As team scouts bandy about names for replacements, Beane questions their approach, arguing that the A’s meager budget can’t compete with that of large-market teams like the Yankees.  He discovers his muse in competing consultant Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), an economics major who champions a statistical formula to help determine a player’s value.  Beane promptly hires him.  They implement this new system for recruiting, derisively dubbed “moneyball”, and meet stiff resistance from their scouts and Manager Art Howe (Philip Seymour Hoffman).  Steve Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin based their richly observed screenplay on the book by Michael Lewis (who also wrote the book upon which THE BLIND SIDE was based) and a story by Stan Chervin.  The dialogue snaps, and the actors savor each word.  Pitt has rarely appeared so comfortable in a character’s skin, with an easy grace reminiscent of vintage Redford or Newman.  After establishing himself as the amusing oddball kid in crass comedies, Hill matures his stock character before our very eyes, revealing warmth and humanity behind the numbers cruncher.  Hoffman provides solid support, as does Robin Wright as Beane’s estranged wife, while Kerris Dorsey has an unaffected charm as Beane's 12-year-old daughter.  With only three films to his credit (the documentary THE CRUISE being the other) director Miller has reached the first ranks of filmmakers.  He understands the romance of baseball and of film and fuses them gorgeously here (with the help of unfussy cinematography by Wally Pfister).  The end result is the baseball movie equivalent of nirvana, and I, for one, never wanted to leave.

CONTAGION (2011)

Director Steven Soderbergh and writer Scott Z. Burns transform the infectious disease thriller from overwrought melodrama (see 1995’s OUTBREAK as an egregious example) into a tense kaleidoscope of the global society’s reaction to a pandemic, focusing primarily on the CDC’s efforts to find and implement a vaccine and the emotional fallout in patient zero’s immediate family.  Shortly before Thanksgiving Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow) returns from a Hong Kong business trip via Chicago (and a brief affair with an old flame) to husband Mitch (Matt Damon) in Minneapolis, while carrying a deadly virus along with her baggage.  After Beth collapses in seizures, dying shortly thereafter, head of CDC Dr. Ellis Cheever (Laurence Fishburne) sends colleague Dr. Erin Mears (Kate Winslet) to the scene to contain the virus’ spread.  But people start dropping in Hong Kong, Chicago and across the northern hemisphere at an alarming rate, and panic soon begins to spread, thanks in no small part to paranoid, muckraking blogger Alan Krumwiede (Jude Law).  While WHO agent Dr. Leonora Orantes (Marion Cotillard) searches for the pandemic’s source in Hong Kong and CDC’s Dr. Ally Hextall (Jennifer Ehle) works tirelessly on a vaccine, the military and the Department of Homeland Security entertain the notion that this may be a terrorist attack.  In contrast to the film’s large scale, both in geography and character, Burns’ script remains economical and controlled.  Soderbergh mutes the hysterics throughout, finding small, quiet moments that hit hard despite (perhaps because of) this restraint.  His frequent collaborator, editor Stephen Mirrione, maintains a relentless pace but never sacrifices speed for clarity.  The assembled all-star cast is a true ensemble and hit their physical and emotional marks with precision, but Winslet, Damon, Fishburne and Ehle are standouts.  Soderbergh has been categorized, sometimes justifiably, as a cool, detached filmmaker.  But here his objective tone works, and the film insidiously gets under the skin.  Those hoping for a hyperbolic entertainment may be disappointed, but the rest of us will likely be washing our hands obsessively for days afterward.

ATTACK THE BLOCK (2011)

If you were left dispirited (as I was) by the cynically sentimental SUPER 8, you will find reason to rejoice in this lean, nifty “B” horror movie from writer/director Joe Cornish.  Set in present day South London, the film introduces a gang of teen hooligans led by Moses (John Boyega) as they rob nursing graduate Sam (Jodie Whittaker) of her purse and jewelry.  A crashing meteorite that contains an outer space alien interrupts the robbery.  Armed with knives and bats the boys attack and kill the creature (it’s the size of a large chimpanzee) and carry the corpse back to Wyndham Towers, a large tenement building where they each reside (along with, as we soon find out, Sam).  In the penthouse flat of local weed-grower Ron (Nick Frost) the gang discusses where to sell their trophy.  The reverie is interrupted by a shower of meteorites around the block, portending a fresh batch of invaders.  Emboldened, the boys storm down but discover instead a pack of black-furred aliens the size of Saint Bernards with sharp, glowing teeth and bad tempers.  Cowed, they retreat to the Towers, doggedly pursued by the monsters.  Director Cornish playfully toys with genre conventions -- at times honoring them, at other times turning them slyly on their head -- while writer Cornish shows genuine affection for his not-so-wholesome teen characters.  His clever script acknowledges their faults without judging or absolving and provides subtle social commentary that could have been written by George Romero in a more lighthearted mood.  Thanks to an engaging cast, we, too, become fond of this ragtag band of underage thugs, which raises the emotional stakes once the monsters start biting.  Resembling a teenage Denzel Washington, Boyega has a soulful gravitas that commands attention.  He, along with the appealing Whittaker, ground the often-chaotic proceedings.  Meanwhile Alex Esmail, as the aptly named Pest, and Luke Treadaway, as perpetually stoned amateur zoologist Brewis, provide the film’s largest helpings of comic relief, a task normally delegated to Frost (whose performance here is subdued).  In his promising first feature Cornish ably delivers ample scares and generous laughs.  I look forward to his next film.