The Family Tree

Low budget Panamanian film by active local film maker Jorge Ameer who also wrote and stars in this, The Family Tree is a strange blend of a Hallmark movie and something a lot more unconventional given Ameer’s gay activism.  

The main character Victor Gardel (Keith Roenke) is the son of a rich man whose main interest is working at an animal rescue centre.  He has not committed to being gay but relationships with women are not working out and he has one close female friend Alina (Anais Lucia), a dress designer of some hideous concept outfits.

One night, he offers a lost man Roy (Michael Joseph Nelson) a bed for the night, the latter is subsequently mugged and gets to stay with him and a relationship develops.

  Later Roy moves on to Alina and then an event occurs that cements the three of them.

It could have been worse and given the unlikely story it actually turns out better than expected.  The acting is reasonable and the script just about passes.

The production values however are very poor with much of the film shot in dark light and with muffled sound. Editing is needed with a whole central section on the fashion show being pointless and irrelevant. We see a tiny bit of Panama also but much of it is distant, which is a shame as we could be promoting a new source of cinema.  On the whole I would give this a pass, especially the kitsch opening credits.

1 star plus

I am Woman

A biopic honouring the life of Australian singer Helen Reddy, who found fame in the US and sang “I am Woman”, the anthem for the women’s rights movement. Directed by Unjoo Moon, wife of cinematographer Dion Beebe, this is a very straightforward movie with no special features.  

The slim story is given some more flesh by focusing on the Equal Rights debate and contrasting this with her home life in which husband, Jeff Wald, says he is sympathetic to women’s rights but does little to prove it.  

In some ways Helen’s life mirrors those of Tina Turner and Linda Ronstadt, whose documentaries we’ve seen this year.  Both those women had to blaze a trail in the face of male skepticism.

  Tina had to deal with male jealousy and violence which Helen also suffered a little of and Linda kept being told she couldn’t do things and proved the men wrong. So, the message is good I guess.

Tiffany Cobham-Hervey is a find as Helen and convinces all the way through.  

Danielle Mc Donald has a typical antipodean directness as Lilian, the journalist friend and Evan Peters does what he is expected to do as the coke-snorting Jeff. 

 Some nice songs but a sense that this was quite a low-budget affair means that we don’t really have any showstopping moments whether it be on-stage or off.

3 stars

Hard Paint

Acclaimed on the LGBTQ circuit, this second feature by two young Brazilian directors takes place in Porto Alegre, depicted here as a rather cold, anonymous concrete jungle where neighbours can be seen silhouetted in their windows but seldom make any real human contact.

Pedro (Shico Menegat) is a young man with problems.  He has a court case for violence pending, even though he was the victim of bullying in it, his mother is dead and his sister, who is his main support is heading north for a new job.  

Pedro earns his money on internet where he appears on a sex website painting his naked body with fluorescent paint. On screen he is much more confident and relaxed than he is in real life and he scrapes a living in this way.  

Along comes Leo (Bruno Fernandes) who is also a webcam performer and aspiring dancer. The two of them hook up but Leo insists on following his professional dream which means he will leave town.  

Everyone always seems to leave Pedro.  There is not much more to the story.  It is basically a character study of a shy young man today not dissimilar to thousands if not millions the year over. 

 Glauco Firpo films the movie in dark grainy shades and conveys the alienation of this city life today.  It is not a great movie but it has plenty of authenticity and some quite moving moments.  Menegat gives a very solid debut performance.

3 stars

Babyteeth

This Australian film surprised me with its´ class and style, especially given that it covers rather tedious ground relating to teen cancer victims. Milla is a Sydney 16 year-old who has cancer.  

She meets Moses, a 23 year-old addict and drug dealer on a station platform and a romance begins much to the horror of her parents who are a psychologist and former concert pianist respectively.  

As we follow the family through Milla’s worsening condition and the burgeoning romance we also get a look inside the other members of the family who all have issues being brought to light by this situation.

Based on a stage play by Rita Kalnejais, Shannon Murphy transports it to film in a very impressive way.  The use of hand-held cameras and music help deliver us to Milla’s world and her half childish, half-adult way of seeing the world.  All of the main actors give strong performances, especially Eliza Scanlen as Milla.  

She has a repertoire of looks that surprise the viewer and hint at levels of desire and pain below.  What is more, she comes across as clearly the daughter of her parents, especially her mother (Essie Davis) who has similar mood swings. 

 Ben Mendelsohn does some of his best work in years as Henry, her father and Toby Wallace as Moses

and Emily Barclay as the pregnant neighbour shine.

Murphy includes some excellent scenes, including one in the school bathroom when a classmate asks to try on her wig (full of tension) or the initial dinner when Moses meets the parents.

Babyteeth may not be film of the year but it has a quality and assuredness that is not found every day and not surprisingly walked away with many Australian film awards.

4 stars plus

Ossan’s Love: Love or Dead

A Japanese comedy that is preceded by another film and a series so some of the backstory was unfamiliar to me.  

Full of farce and slapstick, we meet Haruta (Kei Tanaka) who returns to his Tokyo real estate company after a year abroad.  

He is supposedly back to make amends with his boyfriend Maki but the latter has been headhunted by another company planning a big real estate development on the coastline of Tokyo Bay.

Haruta’s boss also has the hots for him but suffers amnesia in an accident and every attempt of Maki and Haruta to get back together seem thwarted by bad luck or others interfering.

Well, the first half is pretty bad and neither convincing nor especially funny but in the second half there is a hostage drama and the film becomes a sort of spoof on big action movies and it actually improves somewhat.  

This and the gay theme running throughout the film (most of the main characters are gay) make it at least an interesting departure from the usual Japanese film we see.  

Tokyo also looks like an urban sprawl best avoided.  Not the worst but not worth a repeat either.

2 stars

In the Heights

Much hailed Broadway musical from Lin Manuel Miranda, and predecessor to Hamilton.  As a film, it works with the action largely set in Washington Heights, a Latin neighbourhood in New York.

The action takes place in a hot summer complete with power blackouts and the stories, albeit somewhat flimsy involve the dreams of the locals – to get a better job, to become a legal resident, to move back to where they came from, to start a business, to see their children go to university.  

The cement, if you will, is the sharing nature of the locals and the Latin (Caribbean) dance music that makes you want to get up and dance. 

As a musical there is little to fault.  

The tunes are catchy, the stars have talent and there are several big choreographed numbers in the street or even in a swimming pool.

We can follow the stories fairly easily even though there seems to be an overdose of optimism throughout and very little of the negative aspects such migrants might find living in the US.

  I guess that safety in numbers in their area makes it easier for them than if they were a real minority in say, the mid-West.

If I have a criticism it’s that at 2 hours 20 minutes, it’s a bit too long and it could have come in at just under 2 hours with no real loss.

While Anthony Ramos as the wonderfully named Usnavi is a good lead and

Melissa Barrera and Leslie Grace are OK as the young female leads, the moments I liked best involved Olga Merediz as the Grandmother Claudia,

Jimmy Smits and Marc Anthony as a wasted father, along with the cameo by Lin Manuel himself as a shaved ice seller.

A solid decent musical without bringing my house down.

4 stars plus

Love or Whatever

Absolutely inconsequential gay movie from LA dating from 9 years back. Corey (Tyler Poell) is a sort of nerdy psychologist whose boyfriend Jon leaves him for a woman.

Pizza delivery guy Pete (Joel Rush), who is not only very hunky but better than Heidi is ready to step into the breach but Corey can’t believe such a stud would be interested in him. One of Corey’s nutty patients ends up being the woman John left him for and Jenica Bergere is about the most convincing in this role. 

 Kelsey, Corey’s sister runs an LGBTQ coffee bar which is approaching bankruptcy but is a key meeting point.  The sister (Jennifer Elise Cook) is one of those people best experienced in small doses.  

I know the intentions are good here but Rosser Goodman and her team fail to produce anything very convincing, authentic or new.

1 star plus

Emily in Paris (series)

A wet start to the spring here and what better than some escapism that has been a big hit on Netflix. EIP is about a young social media manager suddenly gets transferred to the office of a French partner. Emily doesn’t speak French, has never been out of the States but has masses of self-confidence.  She ends up in a Parisian PR agency and is pretty universally hated at the start.  

By the end of the series, her relentless cheerfulness, confidence and some good luck see her both succeed at her work and start to live a more French lifestyle.

The series, developed by Darren Starr of “Sex and the City” and “Beverley Hills 90210” fame, is a marketing dream.  Paris and its famous landmarks, fashion, food and the US/France divide backed by cruisy French music and multiple references to social media, it has it all for the young modern viewer.

  The HD photography, the outfits both lead women wear, etc, etc, – there is always something to watch.  And it is watchable in a light and low-froth way.

Emily is played by Lily Collins, daughter of Phil and in the line of the fresh-faced American ingenues that we regularly get.  She holds the centre of the movie well enough especially since her character is not very interesting.  

Her friendly Mindy, played by Ashley Clark is similarly unreal but of more interest (runaway daughter of a Chinese zipper baron). Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu plays Emily’s nemesis Sylvie and while she is not world beating, she has a good line in arch stares, sharp cutoff lines and a suitably slouchy models walk.

  Then you have your other typical characters: the potential lovers, the office colleagues, the mad and flamboyant designer, the rebel American film star….

So, at the end of the day, is it any good?  It is a slick show, perceptive of the modern social media trends and also those in art. The scripting is fairly basic.

But the main issue is that it is also laden with every cliché about the French, whether it be how you should drink wine or deal with tradesmen.  Sickeningly so.  There is also a tremendous sense of the American way being the right way and that the rest of the world should better cotton on.

  Although one senses that they are trying to cast Emily as a girl who is learning a new culture, the feeling is that in the end, she will continue to speak English and hammer away at anglicising everything simply because she is too scared to handle situations where she doesn’t speak the language.  Netflix have got themselves a new venue though and a potentially franchise.  Shame it is pretty unauthentic.

2 stars

Another Round

Much celebrated and prize-winning Danish drama from Thomas Vinterberg, this film is a sort of paean to alcohol and a warning at the same time.  Especially relevant as it comes from a culture with alcohol issues, thanks in part to the climate there.  

In this work, we see 4 male teachers in their 40’s and above who work together at the same high school.  In many ways they are stuck in a rut and in the case of the lead character Martin, he is getting complaints about the standard of his teaching.  

When the youngest of the 4 men has a birthday party, the group gets drunk and comes up with an experiment – namely to prove Scandinavian scientist correct when he postulates that humans need a top up of alcohol to fully function.  

It all sounds very dubious but they start scientifically and record their findings as they go through their work day sipping vodka from water bottles.  

The initial results are positive and the men find themselves liberated and able to inspire others but when they ramp up the experiment and get absolutely plastered, things start to fall apart in their families and in their workplace.  

Despite the debacle, it does not mean a complete stop to drinking and the men slowly inch back to drinking because it does seem to provide something that frees them and pushes them in a way that nothing else does.

So, the story is fairly slim and predictable. Clearly, the message is for us to look at the role of alcohol in our lives and especially the positive effects as well.  But given the Danish culture I also suspect that the highs that they get from drinking can be found in other countries through other actions: sport, dancing and music.  

Danes are not renowned for their ability to emote and be open to others and surely alcohol is an effective lubricant to do this and to forget or deaden pain as well.  Its limited effectiveness can be seen in the darker second half of the movie which I found hard to watch in places.

Mads Mikkelsen lifts this film to another level.  

He is such an interesting actor to watch, not only for his face and cheekbones but for an ability to show in his body what he is feeling.  Thomas Bo Larsen, Marie Bonneville and the rest of the cast give good support but overall I found this film to be a solid interesting effort rather than a classic.

  It is definitely appreciated for tackling a new and difficult subject and for being open-handed and not moralistic about matters.

4 stars plus

Los Sonámbulos

The Sleepwalkers is Paula Hernandez’s return to directing after a break and is a fairly typical tale of a family coming apart during a holiday weekend visit to their country house where widowed Gran is ruling the roost.

  The focus on this film is on the relationship between Luisa (Erica Rivas) who is married to Emilio (Luis Ziembrowski), one of the sons and their daughter Ana, about 14 and played with slightly petulant innocence and confusion by Ornella d’Elia.

Other family members include Sergio and Ines, siblings of Emilio, and Sergio’s 3 boys which include Alejo (Rafael Federman), a somewhat precocious young adult who has been away for some time.  Ines is also struggling as a new mother and there is Hilda, the family maid.

What I liked about the film was the mood Hernandez creates, the tension of hot summer days, the not-so-nice side of nature (prickly plants and biting bugs, humid heat, etc), the magnifying glass being placed on women in a world where men get away with things and women seem more servile and the acting of Rivas and d’Elia.

  Pedro Onetto’s soundtrack is also underpinning without intruding.

What I found less convincing was the rather clichéd script.  Yes, the lines are what people say but one expects a little more from an artist than the same old lines. 

 The handheld camera effect wears a little after a while.  Mostly used to give us the sense of eavesdropping, of having just part of the whole reality, we do get the in your face emotional moments but by the end I wanted things to open out.

I also wondered if the ending invited us to review the film more than simply the tale of a family falling apart and more as the advice that eventually women need to get out of relationships where their choices are not respected.

  It seems to be saying that duty leads us to stick with people and set-ups that do us no good.  But is it so?  I felt the film needed a coda in some sense as this family will never be the same.  

Rivas does very well in the lead and Federman impresses as a rather creepy young man, too full of himself.

3 stars