PHILOMENA (2013)

Former correspondent and government spin doctor Martin Sixsmith (Steve Coogan) now works as a freelance journalist but struggles to find a subject that pleases his editor Sally Mitchell (Michelle Fairley) until Philomena Lee’s (Judi Dench) story falls into his lap. In 1952 a young and pregnant Philomena (Sophie Kennedy Clark) was sent to an Ireland convent. During her stay with the nuns she was worked hard as penance for her sin and to earn upkeep for her and her son. She looked forward each day to the one hour she was allowed to spend with her toddler. But even that was taken from her when a family adopted the boy, whisking him away without ceremony. For decades she never stopped thinking about and looking for him, despite the release she signed and the convent administration’s stonewalling. Now Philomena hopes Sixsmith can help find her lost son, and he, in turn, hopes to tell a powerful human-interest story. They begin at the convent, and the intervening years have not softened its intransigence. But the writer picks up a trail that leads to the United States, and it’s off to the colonies for the mismatched duo. The script by Coogan and Jeff Pope, adapted from Sixsmith’s book “The Lost Child of Philomena Lee,” mixes disparate styles and tones, from that of the oppressive Catholic convent life to that of a journalist exposing potential scandal to an odd couple road movie to a whimsical fish out of water story. However, the conflicting attitudes toward faith and forgiveness that Philomena and Sixsmith each apply on this quest bind these elements together. Her troubled past could readily turn any mere mortal against God or at the very least the Church, yet she remains a devout Catholic with an endless capacity to forgive. On the other hand he, a professed atheist, remains profoundly cynical about religion in general and the Catholic Church in particular. Yet through this journey they attain understanding and, perhaps, a reluctant acceptance. Under Stephen Frears’ sensitive, understated direction the film refuses to become sappy or overly sentimental, and Dench and Coogan give pitch perfect performances.

BLUE JASMINE (2013)

Every year writer/director Woody Allen proffers a new cinematic offering. But which one will we get this time – the romantic fantasy of MIDNIGHT IN PARIS, the bittersweet romance of VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA or the bitter cynicism of MATCH POINT? The answer lies between the last two, but closer to the latter. Jasmine (Cate Blanchett) has come untethered. We meet her on a flight from New York to San Francisco in the middle of a monologue with an older female companion. Based on the intimate details revealed we presume this is her mother or other close relation. They part ways, and it becomes clear she has been talking to a stranger. Jasmine is a recovering socialite set adrift from her life of luxury when husband Hal (Alec Baldwin) kills himself in prison after being indicted for securities fraud. For years she feigned ignorance of or turned a blind eye to any wrongdoing while reaping the benefits that came with immense wealth. Now, pleading poverty but with little indication of being sufficiently chastened, Jasmine moves into the cluttered Mission apartment of sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins), who, along with bitter ex-husband Augie (Andrew Dice Clay), numbered among Hal’s victims. When she isn’t working as a dentist’s receptionist or taking a class in interior design, Jasmine sulks in her room, drinks, and criticizes Ginger’s crass but well-intentioned fiancé Chili (Bobby Cannavale). Feeling down after losing her job, she grudgingly accepts a party invitation. There she meets lonely diplomat Dwight (Peter Sarsgaard), and soon the luxurious life to which she had been accustomed seems possible again. Allen has found his modern day Blanche from Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire” in Jasmine. Her denial has become so ingrained, so vital to herself and her self-image that the truth of her husband’s deception shatters her already fragile mind. Blanchett’s tour de force captures this losing struggle so beautifully that our schadenfreude turns to pity. Allen relies too heavily on coincidence, but his film is an apt reflection of our sadly misguided society that often equates material trappings of wealth and privilege with human worth.

AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY (2013)

Tracy Letts’ big screen adaptation of his acclaimed 2008 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, a family dysfunction comedy-drama set during a sweltering Oklahoma summer, has pedigree coming out its ears. Meryl Streep stars as Violet Weston, the sharp-tongued, pill-popping, booze-swilling matriarch suffering from mouth cancer, with Sam Shepard as her reflective, womanizing husband Beverly. When he disappears one morning, it prompts an unwanted reunion of the extended Weston clan. Julia Roberts plays bitter Barbara, whose marriage to Bill Fordham (Ewan McGregor) has its own fidelity issues. Juliette Lewis is unstable daughter Karen, whose low self-esteem pairs her with smarmy fiancé Steve Huberbrecht (Dermot Mulroney). More reliable daughter Ivy (Julianne Nicholson) keeps an eye on her mother but longs for the day when she can run off with secret boyfriend and first cousin Little Charles Aiken (Benedict Cumberbatch), who’s considered slow by his brash mother Mattie Fae (Margo Martindale) and guileless by his gentle father Charles (Chris Cooper). Abigail Breslin, as the Fordham’s daughter Jean, and Misty Upham, as housekeeper Johnna, round out the intimidating cast. Director John Wells tries to open the film up visually but is limited by a talky script that confines its major scenes to the Weston dining table. At least Letts’ dialogue tastes rich and substantial, albeit seasoned with an unsavory mixture of unsuppressed resentment and bile. The actors tear into this verbal red meat with the gusto of a starving horde, leaving little left. Once the carnage ends, the remaining bones offer scant meaning or purpose but for feasting itself. Streep and Roberts get the juiciest lines, while the remaining cast members (with notable exceptions in the excellent Cooper and Martindale) feel like high-profile cameos. Letts’ stage play clocked in at over three hours, while this film runs a slim two. Perhaps in excising so much Letts lost something vital in translation. And Wells seems unclear whether this is Greek tragedy or dark comedy, exacerbating the lack. Thus, despite all the strong ingredients, the final dish remains insubstantial and unsatisfying.

CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (2013)

Paul Greengrass is a director of kinetic action. The immediacy of his visual style in the second and third BOURNE installments gave equal momentum and tension to wonks in the situation room and agents fighting in the field. He used this style with devastating effect in the difficult UNITED 93, but it failed him in the clumsy, politically naïve GREEN ZONE. With a nautical setting and trademark handheld camera, Greengrass is on terra firma in his latest white-knuckle thriller. Based on the non-fiction book “A Captain’s Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALS, and Dangerous Days at Sea” by Richard Phillips and Stephan Talty, Billy Ray’s taut screenplay recounts the fateful 2009 encounter off the Horn of Africa between a small band of Somali pirates led by Muse (Barkhad Abdi) and Rich Phillips (Tom Hanks), captain of the Maersk Alabama. Though the filmmakers waste no time getting to the attempted hijacking and kidnapping, they offer insight into the day-to-day workings of the cargo freighter and also a glimpse into the desperation which drives the Somalis as they strive to appease violent, demanding warlords. The film’s first half establishes Phillips leadership abilities. He repels an initial attack but cannot withstand a second. Once the Somalis breach the ship, we watch with anxious admiration as our resourceful captain uses every available means to stop the intruders from gaining control of the vessel. Muse’s leadership qualities are those of a typical action hero: courage and tenacity. In the real world, however, these have their limits. The pirates must give up their bounty on the cargo, abandon the freighter via its lifeboat and take Phillips as hostage instead. The film’s second half chronicles the tense, close-quarter negotiations between Phillips, Muse and the U.S. Navy as the noose tightens inexorably on the pirates. Hanks’ performance is his best in years, and the remarkable Abdi matches him. Greengrass and Ray dare to provide a reason (not an excuse) for the Somalis’ actions. In doing so, they challenge us to understand and feel compassion for the pirates, which elevate the story’s foregone conclusion to one of human tragedy.

DALLAS BUYERS CLUB (2013)

In 1985 little was publically known about HIV/AIDS except that it was primarily a “gay disease.” Few outside the medical profession understood that the virus was transmitted via bodily fluids through shared needles and unprotected sex, regardless of proclivity. Imagine the shock Texas electrician and rodeo rider Ron Woodruff (a gaunt Matthew McConaughey) feels when he’s diagnosed with AIDS. This confirmed drug user, frequenter of prostitutes, and unrepentant homophobe hits grief’s denial stage running until library research confirms the accuracy of Dr. Sevard’s (Denis O’Hare) diagnosis. Meanwhile Big Pharma requests the hospital conduct clinical trials of the experimental drug AZT, and Sevard agrees despite skepticism from underling Dr. Eve Saks (Jennifer Garner). Woodruff wants to participate in the trial, but there’s no guarantee he will be given the drug. He turns to the black market to obtain AZT, but that supply runs out. In desperation (and near death) he travels to Mexico and comes under the care of Dr. Vass (Griffin Dunne), an expatriate who warns against AZT and gives Woodruff a series of supplements unapproved by the FDA that seem to help. Because there are many more back in the U.S. like him Woodruff makes a deal with Vass to sell the supplements in Dallas and enlists the help of Rayon (Jared Leto), a transgender patient of Eva’s, to spread the word and help run a buyers club. The demand is enormous and the results positive, and it begins to affect the AZT trials to the dismay of Big Pharma. Soon the FDA puts up roadblocks and the DEA threatens to shut the club down. McConaughey gives a physically demanding and ferocious performance, and Leto shines in his small but showy role. The familiar, pedantic script written by Craig Borten & Melisa Wallack hamstrings both, however. And Jean-Marc Vallée does neither the material nor the actors any favors with his heavy handed, obvious direction, letting poor Garner furrow her eyebrows in concern for much of the film. Woodruff’s true story is a worthy one, but it and the cast deserve a better vehicle than the one with which they’ve been saddled.

LEE DANIELS’ THE BUTLER (2013)

From humble origins as a sharecropper’s son, Cecil Gaines (Forest Whitaker) becomes a White House butler for numerous U.S. Presidents beginning with Dwight Eisenhower (Robin Williams) around the time he sent troops to enforce the desegregation of public schools. So begins director Lee Daniels’ entertaining and unruly odyssey of civil rights and race relations in America. Danny Strong’s shrewd, episodic script (based on Wil Haygood’s article about the life of Eugene Allen) drops in on major moments in history but shows them primarily from Cecil’s observations in the workplace and his personal clashes at home. As the Kennedy (James Marsden) and Johnson (Liev Schreiber) administrations grapple with racial violence in the South, Cecil and wife Gloria (Oprah Winfrey) worry about activist son Louis (David Oyelowo) and his involvement with the Freedom Riders. After the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. and with the Vietnam War’s escalation by the Nixon (John Cusack) administration, the close knit Gaines family begins to fray. Louis flirts with the Black Panthers, and youngest son Charlie (Elijah Kelley) heads overseas to fight for his country. Cecil also struggles for equal pay for the black White House staff, which includes Carter Wilson (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) and James Holloway (Lenny Kravitz), with a quiet, persistent campaign. The Reagan (Alan Rickman) administration finally agrees to the pay increase, but its refusal to denounce apartheid sows seeds of concern in the butler. The First Lady (Jane Fonda) invites the Gaines to attend a state dinner as guests, but it is readily apparent to them that their presence is more for show than a meaningful gesture. And shortly thereafter Cecil retires. With its unstable mix of domestic drama, history lesson, and self-conscious stunt casting, the film shouldn’t work. Yet it does, due in large part to rich, committed performances by the remarkable Whitaker and the surprising Winfrey. By limiting their story to snapshots of turbulent times viewed both up close and from afar, Daniels and Strong show us where we’ve been, how far we’ve come, and the distance that remains.

MANDELA: LONG WALK TO FREEDOM (2013)

Nelson Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 until 1999. In 1963 the apartheid government charged Mandela and others with sabotage and conspiracy to violently overthrow the government. They confessed to the sabotage and denied the rest but were convicted on all charges and sentenced to life imprisonment. This new film based on Mandela’s autobiography and adapted by William Nicholson avoids many screen biography pitfalls. Least compelling are the early sequences touching on his boyhood, his early years as defense attorney, his first marriage, his philandering, and his growing involvement with the ANC (African National Congress), which led to divorce. Once Mandela (Idris Elba) meets and marries Winnie (Naomie Harris), however, the film becomes more focused and takes on a greater urgency. His influence over the black population increases, but the peaceful demonstrations against segregationist policies yield only violent response. Mandela reluctantly turns to armed resistance by blowing up government buildings, which eventually leads to arrest and imprisonment. As Mandela campaigns for humane treatment during his 18 year stay on Robben Island, Winnie faces constant harassment by the government and is subjected to 18 months of solitary confinement. Upon release she becomes the face of the more militant ANC, and its clashes with the government increase in violence. Worldwide protests against apartheid spread in the mid-1980s, so government officials begin negotiations with Mandela, which lead to his release in 1990. While the film covers a vast swath of history, director Justin Chadwick keeps the pace moving while providing his sterling cast ample moments to shine. Elba gives a commanding performance that puts Mandela’s charismatic force on full display. Harris matches him by showing Winnie’s steel resolve and fiery resilience. Despite their subject’s importance to 20th century history, the filmmakers refuse to turn Mandela into a complete saint or sinner. More importantly they parse, and leave open to question, the ambiguous and treacherous line between armed struggle and terrorism.