Indie Movie Preview: August 2014

So far so good with my promise to keep up with my monthly movie preview series! (Let’s just ignore the minor detail that that means pretty much nothing, considering that this is only the second one).  We’re heading into the prime of the “dog days of summer;” and while there aren’t a whole lot of options at the theater this August to help beat the heat, I’m looking forward to five releases that may provide some respite. Here are the indies* lighting up the marquees this month!

First time here? Check out my July 2014 preview for an introduction to this series, wherein I also clarify what I consider to be “indie.”

What If

Release Date: August 1

Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Zoe Kazan, Adam Driver, Rafe Spall

What’s the story? The Boy Who Lived becomes the Man Who Loved as Daniel Radcliffe swoops into straight-up romcom territory in this story of a fellow who falls for his best friend, though she happens to be seeing someone else.

My take:  If the plot sounds predictable to you, I can’t disagree. But I’m looking forward to Radcliffe taking on a more “normal” post-Potter role in which he’s not blinding horses or being accused of murder. After graduating from the wizarding world of Harry Potter, he has stripped on stage in Equus, sprouted Satanic prongs in Horns, and dabbled in hipster-era debauchery in Kill Your Darlings; in short, he’s (only partly successfully) done everything in his power to render his wand-wielding days a distant memory. If you’re anything like me, you still find it challenging to see him as anyone other than Harry, even three years after the final film. But along with the character, the loyalty he inspired from me in that beloved series has also carried over since he said goodbye to Hogwarts. And so, whether I’m convinced by his performance in this film or not, I’ll be watching and rooting for it anyway.

The Trip to Italy

Release Date: August 15

Starring: Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon, Rosie Fellner

What’s the story? Four years ago, Steve invited Rob to join him on a journey through northern England to review the country’s finest dining establishments. This time, they’re taking their volatile bromance on the road again, driving and dining their way from Liguria to Tuscany in an exploration of Italy’s culinary and cultural treasures. 

My take: I haven’t yet seen The Trip, the much-loved 2010 precursor to this movie—though I’ve had it on my Netflix queue for the last two years, so my intentions are good! Yet, from the looks of it, that isn’t a prerequisite for enjoying the leading duo’s second excursion. Films focused on travel, food and friendship never really fail that miserably to begin with, and anything involving Steven Coogan (last seen in the extremely likeable Philomena) is probably worth watching. Couple that with his natural chemistry with Brydon, their shared gift for comedic timing, and the promise of many close-up shots of pasta, and I’m guessing The Trip to Italy will be one to remember.  

Frank

Release Date: August 22

Starring: Michael Fassbender, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Domhnall Gleeson

What’s the story? Aspiring musician Jon thinks he’s on his way to stardom when he joins a pop band. When he realizes that the group’s lead singer is a man who insists on permanently wearing an oversized, paper mache head, he begins having second thoughts. But at that point, he may be way too in over his own head to back out.

My take: The last time I saw Michael Fassbender on screen, he was ruthlessly whipping slaves into bloody submission as plantation owner Edwin Epps in 12 Years a Slave. I think it’s safe to say that Frank, with its kooky plot and deadpan humor, is a bit of a departure from that. Most intriguing is how, with that giant mask obstructing his facial expressions—which I would think are essential to effective acting— Fassbender might use other tools to deliver a convincing performance. If he can pull this off, it’ll be yet more proof of his limitless talent.  And from the film’s positive reception at this year’s Sundance and SXSW festivals, it looks like he can rest his case on that point. I’ve got to see this.

Love is Strange
Release Date: August 22

Starring: John Lithgow, Alfred Molina, Marisa Tomei

What’s the story? After over 40 years together, Ben and George finally get married. But their plans for happily ever are quickly botched after George loses his job; the couple is forced to sell their apartment and live separately until they can find a new home, all the while struggling with the adjustments of their host families and the woes of being apart.

My take:  Be it the ever-so-relatable “unforgiving New York real estate” angle, the unique handling of concepts like long-distance love and intergenerational family dynamics, or the rare focus on an elderly gay couple, there are plenty of reasons to be taken by the looks of this film. Known for stories that are less plot-driven than they are character sketches, director Ira Sachs has ably handled subjects like the hardships of marriage and homosexuality in previous films such as Married Life and Keep the Lights On. He therefore seems firmly in his comfort zone here, while seasoned actors like Lithgow, Molina and Tomei look poised to do those characters justice. From where I stand, this looks like a sensitive, reflective, and gently humorous look at love story gone slightly askew.

The Congress

Release Date: August 29

Starring: Robin Wright, Paul Giamatti, Harvey Keitel, Jon Hamm

What’s the story? A has-been actress, on the verge of becoming completely obsolete agrees to do one last job, but things become way more complicated than she anticipated when the project presents life-altering repercussions.

My take: My desire to see The Congress comes, more than anything, from the fact that I am utterly baffled by it. The trailer comprises a bewildering amalgamation of nostalgic references, futuristic effects, post-apocalyptic worlds, a dash of inexplicable animation, and some very blurred lines between fantasy and real-life. I wish I had a more cohesive explanation for it all. Considering that this movie is made by Ari Folman, the same man who gave us 2008’s Oscar-nominated documentary Waltz With Bashir, I’ll just trust that there’s surely a greater meaning behind all the enigmatic madness. The curiosity to discover it is enough reason to watch the film—well, that, and the fact that Jon Hamm is supposed to be lurking around somewhere in there.

Bobby Jasoos

“Female-centric films” are Bollywood buzzwords these days, and July 3rd saw the release of the latest of the ever-growing bunch, as the Vidya Balan-starring/Dia Mirza-produced Bobby Jasoos hit theaters.

Here, Vidya is Bilquis “Bobby” Ahmed—a jovial if not somewhat bumbling small-town girl with an ardent hunger to be the best crime-busting, crook-catching, puzzle-solving private eye around. Sure, she has no degree and zero field experience (unless catching a couple mid-make-out session in a secluded alleyway counts), but what she lacks in credentials she makes up for in spades with ambition.

Indeed, Bobby’s espionage dreams are much larger than the parameters that her traditional family or conservative Moghalpura society will allow for; her father, ashamed at his daughter’s impending spiral into spinsterhood, refuses to speak to her.  And while she’s got a steady stream of locals requesting her services for petty assignments in exchange for equally petty cash, Bobby isn't satisfied with digging up community gossip. So when the mysterious Anees Khan (Kiran Kumar) offers her lofty compensation to find a string of young women, Bobby will stop at nothing—not even silent treatment from dad—to emerge as Hyderabad’s #1 hardboiled detective. But the more lucrative her cases get, the more ambiguous their morality becomes, until Bobby fears that taking them on may have been a huge mistake.

The film starts off promisingly enough, with plenty of laugh-out-loud opportunities. Without a legitimate background in detective work, Bobby uses unconventional yet effective tactics to carry out her investigations: a collection of low-budget disguises, from a bearded and turbaned beggar to a buck-toothed palm reader, and a motley crew of bungling assistants providing some giggle-worthy exchanges, including her melodramatic gay sidekick Shetty and pal-cum-potential-love-interest Tussavur (Ali Fazal). A gaggle of supporting actresses, headed by Tanvi Azmi as Bobby’s aunt, provide an additional boost of both heart and humor. The first half also establishes some genuinely compelling set-ups for suspense, as Khan’s character and motives get increasingly murky.

That initial potential endures until the intermission, after which director Samar Shaikh appears to gradually lose grasp of the many lines he has cast as subplots. At some moments a love story, at some a thriller, at others a family drama, and at still others a comedy, the various genres being juggled simultaneously never find a way to coexist, rendering the film to become a whole lot of nothing much.  

There is an excess of irritating and illogical plot points that make Bobby Jasoos’s otherwise amusing script seem careless: for instance, despite being an aspiring detective, Bobby fails to inquire why, in the first place, she is being asked to find the girls Aneez Khan is looking for. We have no idea in which direction Bobby’s life is headed upon the film’s last frame. The climax is feeble; the denouement feels forced.

Vidya Balan can’t save the story’s seams from unraveling, but she is its saving grace as the equally headstrong and vulnerable Bobby. The film is a chance for her to boast her impeccable comic timing and prove that it takes not just talent, but an actress for whom vanity is a distant afterthought, to pull off the crazy costumes and expressions that she does with confidence.

Best of all, Balan is truly the film’s hero, taking on the actions and the personality traits that most Bollywood actors would: she’s swathed in salwar kameez, but strides the streets in orange sneakers. She hurtles through chase sequences, seeks out heated confrontations, dishes out verbal dhamkis, and teaches the meek Tassuvar to act more like a “tiger;” in fact, Fazal’s character is largely useless without Bobby around. While their chemistry isn’t quite convincing—the romantic subplot seems generally displaced and superfluous given there’s plenty else going on—the dynamic between Fazal and Balan when they banter is hilarious, making Bobby Jasoos one of those rare films necessitating the actress to boost the substance of her male counterparts.

Alas, not even Balan’s badassery can rescue the film from slipping through the narrative cracks. Well-intentioned but with way too many loose knots left at the end, Bobby Jasoos is a mystery all right--just not in the sense that the filmmakers probably intended. 

Begin Again

“Music can turn banalities into beautiful, effervescent pearls,” Mark Ruffalo’s character tells Keira Knightley’s as they perch on a park bench midway through Begin Again. An emotional choice of words, perhaps, but an accurate representation of the sentiment that permeates every scene in the film, given that its original title was Can a Song Change Your Life? I wouldn’t say Begin Again’s tunes are quite that powerful (I’m actually having trouble recalling their melodies now); however they do have a transporting effect within the story’s context, making it a lot easier to like the film while watching it than when you’re thinking about it later.  

I’ll admit up-front that I haven’t seen director John Carney’s debut film Once*, which apparently deals with similar subject matter. The comparisons ricocheting around critics’ circles lamenting Begin Again’s less innocent, more manufactured nature are therefore lost on me; for better or worse, I watched this one with eyes un-tinted by the rosy shadow of its predecessor.

Begin Again opens with Dan (a pitch-perfect Ruffalo), a once-flourishing audio label executive turned borderline alcoholic, deadbeat dad kicked out of the house by his wife (Catherine Keener), and general sad case. Sick of sifting through starry-eyed pop princesses and lame rock wannabes—“monosyllabic teenagers” as he refers to them—he hasn’t signed anyone new in seven years, leading to his ousting from the very indie record company he helped found.

Half a drink away from a total meltdown and slumped at a local bar, he's suddenly roused from his bourbon-induced haze by the acoustic strums of a guitar and a voice with the heart he's been searching for.

It’s the voice of Gretta (Knightley), a British singer-songwriter who’s in her own doldrums after Dave (a surprisingly sensitive Adam Levine), the boyfriend she followed to New York when he got a record deal, not only cheats on her, but—maybe an even greater offense—mangles the wistful ballad she wrote into a pop-ified remix for his own album.

As Dan and Gretta bond over their downtrodden states and their shared chagrin at the decline of originality in music, Dan convinces Gretta to take him up as her producer in what evolves into a platonic-with-room-for-interpretation relationship. When they can’t book a venue to record a demo, they take matters into their own hands, using the five boroughs as their studio in an ode to New York City as well as an unequivocal refusal to serve as another cog in the industry machine.

Thus, Begin Again embarks on a journey to celebrate the cathartic capabilities of songs unprocessed by commercial interests. From the local artists and neighborhood kids recruited as accompanists to the subway platform soundstages and the iPhone duct-taped to a tripod as a makeshift microphone, it's the music version of the organic movement. Doing all of her own singing, Knightley’s voice has an unexpectedly unique timbre that’s sweet and simple; honest even as the lyrics she’s singing try a bit too hard to hit that indie eccentricity.

At times during its resolute mission to adhere to the authenticity theme, Begin Again ironically gets in its own way. Dan bemoans the wittingly constructed persona of Bob Dylan while Gretta's sitting next to him in her own prototypical “starving artist” getup of grubby-chic cropped pants, an oversized linen sweater and a scruffy ponytail. Despite their reputations as indie scene darlings, names as prominent as Ruffalo and Keener somewhat deflate the film’s touting of an art-house spirit. And what more apt—or overwrought—setting for a movie about indie musicians than New York, one of the world's capitals when it comes to street performers and bar crooners with nothing but pockets full of dreams intertwined in their guitar strings? It’s an all-too familiar tune.

And yet, you can’t help but want to hum along to this tribute to the city, whether it’s Gretta singing her own material on a skyscraper's rooftop, Sinatra belting out “Luck Be a Lady” as Gretta and Dan traipse through Times Square, or Dooley Wilson’s rendition of "As Time Goes By” played against that glittering, inimitable Manhattan skyline.** Corny as the scene is, it’s easy to get swept up in the songs that frame it, lending truth to Dan’s notion that the right music can indeed brighten, transform, and imbue meaning into mundane moments. 

 Begin Again’s intentions are earnest: a call to put meaning back into music that seems to recently have strayed into superficial stadium pop, and a reminder of how songs that avoid that fate can make us feel. It’s a noble undertaking, not without a few beats that fall flat here and there. But set aside your jaded filters for less than two hours; you’ll see that the film does, more often than not, hit the sweet spot between naive mawkishness and cynical realism to achieve a lightly fairy-dusted, uplifting narrative. Begin Again may not serenade you into submission, but it’s an easy listen nonetheless.

*I know, I know. I'll get to it.

**which really isn't helpful for someone like me, for whom getting New York out of her system is a daily struggle.