Ron Howard’s Eden

In the 1930's, the Germans had a nasty habit of fighting with their neighbors. That was even true of the small colony on Floreana Island in the Galapagos. Would-be philosopher Friedrich Ritter and his partner Dore Strauch only had six neighbors, but they fought with all of them. The feuding took a scandalous turn that stoked decades of controversy in the German press and spawned three films. One was a French TV movie adapting a Georges Simenon novel transparently based on the case. The second was the classy “true-crime” documentary” The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden. This is the third. Director-producer Ron Howard recruited a famous cast, but like previous filmmakers, he shows strangely little interest in the Germany the Floreanans had expatriated themselves from in Eden, which opens Friday in theaters.

Strauch believes Ritter will save the world with his manifesto, but to contemporary ears, it sounds like a warmed-over fusion of Nietzsche and Rousseau, at least before he goes a little crazy. Heinz and Margaret Wittmer are the next to arrive. The couple seems to have an inkling of how bad things will get in Germany. They also believe their ailing son Harry will benefit from the tropical climate. The Rittmer’s instinctively look down on their square, middle-class neighbors, but they grudgingly start to respect the Wittmers for doggedly scraping out a home for themselves.

Unfortunately, “Baroness” Eloise Bosquet de Wagner Wehrhorn lands several months later, along with her two himbo lovers. She has grandiose plans to build a beach resort, but she is ill-prepared for the conditions she finds. As the self-dubbed Baroness’s supplies dwindle, she and her men set their eyes on the Wittmers’ supplies, making them a direct existential threat to the family. Yet, Ritter probably hates her even more, because of the way the Baroness needles his vanity.

Screenwriter Noah Pink offers explanations for the deaths on Floreana, but in real-life (if such a thing still exists), the truth has yet to be established beyond a shadow of a doubt. That is a large part of the story’s appeal. Regardless, despite its ultimate uncertainty, The Galapagos Affair is a much better film, in part due to a more sophisticated vibe (suggesting comparisons to Michael Bradford’s White Mischief). In contrast, Howard aims more for the overheated tone of an old school primetime soap opera. Frankly, he and Pink frequently neglect the mystery/thriller elements, focusing instead of the island’s festering jealousies, sexual power games, and [not-so]-micro aggressions. Consequently, it is often grabby, but in a lurid kind of way.

Jude Law is certainly fun to watch shamelessly chewing the scenery as the arrogant and wildly self-important Ritter. Daniel Bruhl anchors the film, portraying Heinz Wittmer with dignity and intensity that it maybe does not fully deserve. To her credit, Sydney Sweeney so thoroughly transforms herself into the hardscrabble Margaret Wittmer, a perpetually offended wokester could watch the entire film without getting “triggered”—at least not by Sweeney and her “good jeans.”

Firebrand: The Story of Wife #6

Henry VIII was rather fickle in his affections. Just ask Thomas Cromwell, before Henry had him beheaded. That happened to two of his wives too. Old Cromwell never lived to see Henry’s final marriage to Katherine Parr, but she certainly takes his example, and those of her predecessors, to heart. Parr intends to keep her head on her shoulders and hopefully spur the Protestant Reformation further in Brazilian filmmaker Karim Aïnouz’s first English-language feature, Firebrand, which opens Friday in theaters.

Parr is not exactly happily married, but Henry VIII sort of left her in charge as regent while he was off, trying to lead his army. Unfortunately, his swollen, infected-looking leg ulcers forced him to return—and Parr must pretend to be happy to see him.

Of course, she isn’t. In fact, Henry’s return is rather ominous, especially considering his loyalists’ alarm regarding her “radical” Protestant inclinations. Rather rashly, she visited her “firebrand” evangelist friend Anne Askew. She even donated a necklace given to her by Henry to support her radical activism. Suddenly, she needs her allies to get it back. It is almost like the film turns into The Three Musketeers Part I, but without the swashbuckling.

For the most part, Firebrand unfolds like a decent BBC/PBS Masterpiece historical, once it finishes announcing its revisionist, feminist intentions. The history is hit or miss, but the intrigue is grabby. Aïnouz and screenwriters Henrietta & Jessica Ashworth fully capitalize on the historical ironies of Tudor history, culminating in the eventually ascension of the moderate-to-mildly progressive Elizabeth I.

Perhaps most memorably, Firebrand presents Jude Law as you have never seen him before: a puss-leaking, flatulent bag of diseased flesh. There is absolutely nothing romantic about his portrayal of Henry VIII. Instead, he plays him like the sickliest Bond villain ever. The film is mostly just okay, but this is some of Law’s boldest work ever.

Genius: Maxwell Perkins Edits Thomas Wolfe

Maxwell Perkins fostered the development of Twentieth Century American literature like no other, as the editor of Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sherwood Anderson, Dawn Powell, and James Jones. He always made his p&l’s editing Taylor Caldwell, but the “Perkin’s touch” also guided his literary luminaries to bestseller status. Perhaps none of Perkins’ bestsellers were as unlikely as Thomas Wolfe’s Look Homeward, Angel and of Time and the River, nor were any of his other professional dealings as tempestuous as those with the Southern Modernist. Their storied editor-author, surrogate father-and-son relationship is dramatized in Michael Grandage’s Genius (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

The Great Depression is in its early days, but Perkins’ world remains untouched. He lines edits during the day at the prestigious publishing house Charles Scribner’s Sons, returning to his quiet home outside the City in the evenings. Thomas Wolfe hardly seems to have noticed the current state of affairs either. The garrulous writer seems to live in his own little world, financially maintained by his formerly married lover, Aline Bernstein. Thanks to her support, he has completed an intimidatingly long manuscript that has been rejected by nearly every house in New York—but not Scribner’s.

Much to everyone’s surprise, Perkins agrees to buy what was then known as O Lost, but he insists Wolfe trim some of its girth. The novelist is amenable in principle, but he will fight for every phrase and passage. It will be a difficult editorial process, but it yields Look Homeward, Angel—and the rest is history. While still enjoying the success of his first novel, Wolfe delivers his second, the even more ambitious and unruly Of Time and the River, which will make the editorial give-and-take for his first book look like child’s play.

It looks somewhat odd to see the definitive American book editor and three of the greatest American novelists of the Modern era played by three Brits and an Australian, but at least that spares us the spectacle of little Leo DiCaprio trying to fill Hemingway’s shoes or Ryan Gosling moping about as Fitzgerald. First and foremost, Colin Firth has the perfect urbane sophistication and Ivy League reserve for the patrician Perkins. Jude Law can get a bit theatrical as Wolfe, but the novelist’s Walt Whitman expansiveness is hard resist unleashing. Regardless, he develops some nice master-apprentice chemistry with Firth.

Dominic West clearly has a blast chewing the scenery in his brief appearance as Papa Hemingway, but it is Guy Pearce who really gives the film some tragic heft as the Zelda and alcoholism afflicted Fitzgerald. Similarly, Nicole Kidman’s complex portrayal of the difficult, desperately possessive, but not unsympathetic Rubenstein will probably be overlooked or unfairly discounted. However, Laura Linney is grossly under-employed as Louise Perkins.

Screenwriter John Logan’s adaptation of A. Scott Berg’s biography, Max Perkins: Editor of Genius actually shows an understanding of how the book business worked in the 1920s and 1930s. Unlike The Girl in the Book, there are no misuses of publishing jargon to make industry professionals wince. It is also a classy period production that even includes an era appropriate jazz club sequence, featuring appropriately swinging Jools Holland Big Band sidemen (Kenji Fenton, Winston Rollins, and Chris Storr).

Frankly, it is just refreshing to see a film that believes Wolfe’s prose is worthy of feature treatment. It is a highly literate film that respects American culture and the circumstances that shaped it. Recommended with affection for those who admire and re-read Perkins’ stable of authors, Genius opens this Friday (6/10) in New York.

Black Sea: Salvage this Film

It should have been a routine, but highly profitable salvage job. Thanks to Russian military adventurism in Georgia and Crimea, Ukraine, the whole rights and permissions thing is now considerably trickier. As a result, a disgruntled submarine captain will lead an off-the-books mission in Kevin Macdonald’s Black Sea (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Cap. Robinson has just been down-sized (or as the city of Detroit says, “right-sized”) by his buttoned-down corporate marine salvage firm. Finding little work for a disgruntled submarine skipper, Robinson is up for a caper and one of his former colleagues has one. It turns out, while the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was still observed by both sides, Stalin agreed to loan Hitler millions in gold (as one socialist to another). However, the German U-boat carrying it home was sunk and Germany invaded Russia shortly thereafter. For decades, it lay forgotten at the bottom of the Black Sea. Eventually, the company struck a deal with the Georgian government to salvage it, but the operation was put on hold when the Russians starting paddling around like they owned the place.

With the help of a mysterious funder, Robinson will recruit a crew to sneak down there and get it. To make things unnecessarily complicated, half the crew must be Russian—so they can talk to any Russian torpedoes that might be launched at them? Acquiring an old Russian sub that is more like a barnacle with a periscope, Robinson’s team heads out to sea, but tensions quickly rise. Daniels, the transparently villainous financial go-between, is particularly alarmed when Robinson announces each man gets an equal share once their backer gets his forty percent. Wouldn’t they be tempted to bump each other off to get a bigger slice of the pie? Still, you might think they would need a minimum contingent of crewmembers to keep the sub seaworthy. It turns out that number is nine.

Frustratingly, Black Sea has a very intriguing backstory, but screenwriter Dennis Kelly jettisons it almost immediately. (Nevertheless, the new reels playing underneath the opening credits make it look like Stalin will be played by Ben Mendelsohn.) Instead, he channels B. Traven, cranking up the class warfare and seafaring naturalism. Treasure of the Sierra Madre is a worthy film to emulate, but he leaves way to many holes in the narrative.

Mendelsohn’s Fraser, the diving specialist is a case in point. Half the time he is a reckless psychopath, but he serves as the ostensive voice of reason nearly just as often. Similarly, if he were really primarily concerned with saving his own skin, would he really let loose a bunch of mutinous chaos while they are navigating a shallow canyon? That just seems like needlessly perverse timing.

It is a shame Kelly’s narrative clunks and clangs along, because Jude Law is terrific as the salty Robinson. It is rather remarkable how convincingly he shows Robinson’s class resentments metastasizing into paranoid psychosis, nearly deconstructing the entire film in the process. Even though his character makes no sense, Mendelsohn is always enjoyable to watch chewing the scenery, as is Ben Wheatley regular Michael Smiley, who is reliably flinty and acerbic as Robinson’s crony, Reynolds. However, fans of Jodie Whittaker should not expect much, because she only fleetingly appears in flashbacks as Robinson’s ex-wife.

Partially shot on a vintage 1967 Foxtrot Soviet sub (one of only four such surviving vessels), Black Sea looks great and feels appropriately claustrophobic. Unfortunately, the narrative repeatedly undercuts everyone’s best efforts. There is just little too much message-making and not enough attention to action-details. An ambitious disappointment, Black Sea opens this Friday (1/23) in New York.

Keira Knightley as Anna Karenina

Anna Karenina won the game of Russian birth roulette.  Born into privilege, she initially enjoyed all the benefits of her well structured life, but lost everything due to a reckless love affair.  Such was the price of offending Russian society at a time when it was trying to act French.  Notions of  social role-playing have now inspired the hyper-stylization of Joe Wright’s take on Tolstoy’s classic Anna Karenina (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Everyone is playing their socially expected role you see, so why not set Anna Karenina in a creaky old theater?  From time to time, Wright will break away from the stagey confines, particularly when checking in on Levin, the rustic landowner and long suffering friend of Karenina’s ne’er do well brother.  Of course, there are also trains, like the one taking the title character to Moscow, where she hopes to provide emergency marriage counseling for said brother and his justly aggrieved wife Dolly.  It is sort of pleasant trip spent in the company of the Countess Vronsky, whose cavalry officer son meets her at the station.

The mutual attraction between Karenina and Vronsky are immediately evident, only intensifying at an eventful Moscow society ball.  Having thrown over the plodding Levin in hopes of landing Vronsky, Dolly’s younger sister Kitty is deeply hurt when the officer ignores her in favor of the married Karenina.  Spooked by the prospect of scandal, she hastens back to St. Petersburg and her husband Karenin, a progressive but culturally traditional government official.  As everyone should know, Vronsky follows her—and so does scandal.

There have been enough movie and television treatments to support a lengthy compare and contrast session.  In many ways, Tom Stoppard’s adaptation is quite distinctive, establishing a strong contrast between country simplicity and urban hypocrisy, while finally giving Levin his due.  However, Wright’s stylistic conceit is far too distracting, taking viewers out of the story time and time again.  The theatrical device is not even particularly original, having been used to greater effect in Manoel de Oliveira’s Satin Slipper, Louis Malle's Vanya on 42nd Street, and several Shakespearean films.  Frankly, it is a rather baffling aesthetic choice, considering the whole appeal of a novel like Anna Karenina is the big messy sweeping grandeur of it all.

Nonetheless, there are several outstanding performances in Wright’s film, especially from his lead, Keira Knightley.  It is hard to think of anyone else with the same brittle beauty and aristocratic bearing, who can convey burning self-destructive passion and guilt-ridden anguish with comparable power.  Yet, the real surprise of Wright’s Karenina is Jude Law’s performance as Karenin, the wronged husband.  Even though he looks considerably younger than the Karenin described in the source novel (about twenty years older than his wife), Law creates a deeply sympathetic portrait of a fundamentally decent man, trying to act accordingly, despite the painful embarrassment of the circumstances.

In contrast, the casting of Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Vronsky is a head-scratcher.  In truth, Wright lets his Vronsky off rather easily.  In previous versions, Vronsky is something of a shallow cad, but here he is more or less a dumb kid who fell in love too young, but that creates a host of dramatic problems.  Essentially, Anna Karenina is supposed to fall for Vronsky, because he is manlier than her husband, not vice versa.  What she sees in this Vronsky is hard to fathom.  I got stuff in the fridge that looks older than Taylor-Johnson and I’m not ready to throw it out yet.

Granted, Wright’s visual approach lends itself to some dramatic transition shots, but it never lets the film settle in and put down roots.  Watching it makes one wonder what the director had in mind.  Perversely, it is like Wright elicited award caliber performances from Knightley and Law, but then deliberately undermined them the postmodern theatricality and a maddening case of miscasting.  There is room for some experimentation when tackling Tolstoy, but it should serve the interests of the picture.  For instance, Sergei Solovyev’s relatively recent Russian production of Anna Karenina was considerably more expressionistic than traditional costume dramas, while staying true to the novel’s tone and story. 

It is a shame Wright had to be so showy, because there is quite a bit of good stuff in Stoppard’s screenplay and the mostly impressive work from the accomplished ensemble cast.  Recommended mostly for Knightley and Law’s diehard fans, Wright’s frustrating Anna Karenina opens this Friday (11/16) in New York at the AMC Loews Lincoln Square.