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August 6, 2009


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2009-08-06

Nothing comes for free

It's supposed to be a movie about a high-class call girl, but The Girlfriend Experience is really about money and what it does to the human psyche

B-

THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE
August 7 & 8, 12 & 13, Cinematheque

Further cementing his reputation as a journeyman director with no fixed genre to speak of, Steven Soderbergh's latest - after Che, the remarkable four-hour film-event-that-should-have-been - comes an incisive, chilly glance into the world of high-price escorting during North America's current commerce woes.
Starring real-life porn star Sasha Grey, the film digs deep into the professional and personal lives of Chelsea (Grey) over the course of five days leading up to the 2008 presidential election, when the words 'recession' and 'maverick' were plastered all over newspapers and television screens.
Chelsea maintains a trendy New York loft with her personal trainer boyfriend, Chris (Chris Santos), but soon strays from her comfort zone in her line of work by taking up with a visiting L.A. screenwriter (Timothy Davis) for a weekend. Her boyfriend isn't happy with the idea, but his own atypical work - with an all-expenses-paid trip to Las Vegas - helps soak up any of the pain.
Time and time again, Chelsea's patrons bring up the state of the economy, recommending stocks and gold as solid investments while they begin to disrobe. The implication is obvious: the money situation is so bad that even Chelsea's clientele can't focus on sex with a paid-for woman.
Hijacking the narrative momentarily, as an escort message board critic attempting to barter his way into Chelsea's panties in exchange for a positive review, is former film critic for Premiere magazine (and current esteemed blogger), Glenn Kenny. The ploy backfires on Chelsea, but once again, you can't help but wonder if Soderbergh's canny casting was meant to draw an illusion to the way critics have drubbed his more experimentally minded works in the past. (The director has even been quoted in the press stating that he doesn't see any difference between his Hollywood gun-for-hire projects and Chelsea's $2,000-an-hour encounters.)
The director provides the events in a disjointed narrative (similar to a technique used on The Limey), switching back and forth from insecure moments spent with Chris, to being on her work 'dates,' to an intimate lunch with a colleague, to narrating the events of her days while cruising New York City in an expansive limo, to being grilled by a journalist (Mark Jacobson, an actual writer for New York magazine) who wants to know the inner Chelsea.
Chris isn't put out to pasture, either, as Soderbergh clues us into the way the trainer sells his work ethic by including a number of scenes of him dealing with his superiors in the hopes of more financial consideration.
That very topic - the myriad ways we're all selling ourselves to accrue more money and what that can mean for our spirits when the economic begins to break down - is the key to unlocking the riddle that is The Girlfriend Experience.
— Aaron Graham

Taking 'bromance' to the next level

Humpday is a surprisingly heartfelt tale about two bros who go where no bros have gone before

B-

HUMPDAY
Now playing

Spontaneous off-the-cuff delivery may be one of the more difficult feats to achieve in film, and yet Lynn Shelton's genial Humpday accomplishes the task with ease. Chalk it up to the fact that only a rough outline that DIY actors (and directors themselves) Mark Duplass and Joshua Leonard used instead of a finished screenplay.
Depicting a macho one-upmanship between Ben (Duplass), a domesticated white-collar married man, and Andrew (Leonard), his scruffier, itinerant pal, Humpday chronicles a cockeyed dare between these two straight men to compete in an amateur porn contest - with each other.
Arriving on Ben's doorstep from Mexico City is long-time friend Andrew, a freewheeling type who considers himself much more artistic than he really is. Ben's good-natured wife, Anna (Alycia Delmore), isn't fazed by the idea of this visitor showing up late at night, but she is concerned the next evening when the two spend an inordinate amount of drunken time at a hedonist's paradise with a bisexual (Shelton), met earlier in the day. Much harmless carousing and partaking in pot transpires, but when a contest involving the best locally produced porn tape is mentioned by another partygoer, both Andrew and Ben begin to run wild, digging on the idea of making an "art" film in which they have sex with one another, potentially blowing the minds of viewers while likely picking up the trophy in the process.
The next day, Ben rejects Andrew's offer to get out on the deal, and despite an inability to tell his wife about their X-rated exploits, still wants to go through with the film. Ultimately, Andrew winds up unknowingly bringing this last fact to Anna's attention, leading to a series of revelations and a protracted last act where the two friends try their damndest to get it on.
While dealing more with preconceived notions of sexual identity than the merits of fluid sexuality, Humpday has several laugh-out-loud moments. Director Shelton's point-and-shoot aesthetic works well for the material, following the conflicted, disbelieving faces of Ben, Andrew and Anna through the film's series of uncomfortable revolving-door scenarios. Portrayals of relationships that feel lived in - Anna's doffing of her pants to mount her husband while she's ovulating; Ben and Andrew's friendly clutching and chest-slapping - help a great deal.
In the end, it's the friendship between these two bros who dare to go where no bro has gone before that's appealing, not the porn they create; their relationship even inspires an unlikely heartfelt moment in the final minutes.
— Aaron Graham

Julia fares better than Julie

Meryl Streep is a delight as culinary icon Julia Child, but the ususally charismatic Amy Adams isn't given much to work with in this uneven picture

JULIE & JULIA
Opens Aug. 7

If you're a foodie, then perhaps you'll delight in this split narrative that dovetails the humble beginnings and early '50s exploits of cooking show host and author Julia Child (played by Meryl Streep), and the self-exploration of a real-life, modern-day devotee who used her tome Mastering the Art of French Cooking to both find herself and jumpstart a career as a writer (played by Amy Adams).
If not, writer/director Nora Ephron's latest may be a tough slog.
Julie Powell, an employee for the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, begins her blog in 2002, with the year-long mission to prepare every recipe in French Cooking in 365 days. She's not expecting to feel such a connection to Child (who was still living at the time), and her sense of self-discovery is enormous, even if her frequent freak-outs put a strain on her marriage with Eric (Chris Messina), her otherwise compassionate husband.
Adams isn't given much to work in her story; a tired romantic yarn. She tries her hardest to keep from being submerged in the shtick that Ephron's been mining since When Harry Met Sally, but the usually luminous actress comes off looking like a pale imitation of Meg Ryan.
Streep is more effective in her portrayal of the brash Child, even if it seems at times to be little more than simple impersonation. It's when her sister (played by Jane Lynch) storms Paris with a similar vivacity, that you realize the Child family was an animated bunch.
The love story between Child and her foreign diplomat husband Paul (Stanley Tucci) is a revelation. As depicted in the film, their relationship was one of compatibility and a shared sense of humour: on Valentine's Day, they send postcards with photographs of themselves canoodling in a bubble bath.
Contrasting and comparing events from Child's life with those of Powell's, Ephron strains to come up with an emotional link between the two. If we see a moment of self-doubt for Powell, expect to see a paralleling incident for Child, which makes for stunted and predictable drama.
Near the end of the film, when we learn of Child's contempt for Powell's blog, it's almost like a confirmation that Powell's portion of the story is otherwise useless.
Ultimately, the discordance between both tales is too difficult a task to navigate. The result in an uneven mishmash with only scattered moments of charm.
— Aaron Graham

Little orphan evil

12-year-old Isabelle Fuhrman's unsettling performance isn't enough to save this predictable thriller

C-

ORPHAN
Now playing

In the hierarchy of treacherous tykes, Orphan's beady-eyed nine-year-old Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman) is more like Macaulay Culkin in The Good Son than the demonic Damien in The Omen series. She's not pre-possessed by some unearthly force - she's just evil.
Upscale parents, Kate (Vera Farmiga) and John (Peter Sarsgaard) are currently raising two children - preadolescent Daniel (Jimmy Bennett) and youngster Maxine (Aryana Engineer) - and can't shake the recent loss of a stillborn daughter. Adding to Kate's emotional turbulence is her guilt over a drunken mistake on a frozen pond near their home that resulted in Maxine losing her hearing.
So, the parents shuffle off to an orphanage, agreeing to raise the gifted, seemingly well-behaved, Russian-born Esther, who paints accomplished artwork and plays Tchaikovsky on the family piano.
But it's not long before Esther begins to act erratically. First, she pushes a bullying classmate off of a playground slide. Then, she enlists Maxine to help her clean up the murder of inquisitive Sister Abigail (CCH Pounder), a nun who, while finishing paperwork on the adoption, began to suspect Esther's mysterious past.
Mother's intuition eventually kicks in for Kate, leading to predictable permutations of the Why Won't Anyone Believe Me? plot, as she endures endless protests from her husband who doesn't witness the problems with Esther firsthand.
The unsettling performance by 12-year-old Fuhrman is a winner, unlike so many child performers who tend to overact in devilish roles like these. The rest of the performances, including Farmiga, who previously dealt with raising a malevolent boy in the little-seen, direct-to-video Joshua, are believable and succinct.
As directed by Jaume Collet-Serra (the House of Wax remake), there are enough chair-grabbers and pulse-raising moments to sustain nominal interest but, at close to two hours and with every member of the family put into jeopardy, the stakes can only be raised so high before you cease to care any longer.
A last-minute revelation, kept well hidden in the promotional materials and theatrical trailers, gives Orphan a much-needed boost - but by then, it's too late.
— Aaron Graham

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