1922 is the latest Stephen King adaptation to come out this year and the second to be released and distributed by Netflix. Directed by Zak Hilditch, the film follows the James family as they endure internal fighting in 1922, leading to father Wilfred and his son Henry (Thomas Jane and Dylan Schmid, respectfully) murdering Arlette, the family's unloving wife and neglectful mother. Without getting into spoiler territory, the rest of the film details the effects the murder has on the family, leading to complete misery.
In a year in which It was very good, Gerald's Game was very good, and The Dark Tower..... was a movie, I think 1922 takes the cake and is also one of the better King adaptations of the past 30 years, maybe all time. While I don't think the film holds a candle to King's best adaptations, I do think it is easily on of his ten best.
All of the performances here are terrific, especially Thomas Jane. Jane was previously in another King adaptation The Mist and now returns to give the performance of his career. Even though his character is a cold blooded murderer, Jane is able to give his character s strong level of likability and sympathy. Dylan Schmid's performance as the son Henry was also great, especially considering his role had to have the most range associated with it. Schmid has to go from innocent quiet farm boy to selfish mean spirited in the blink of an eye, something a young actor like himself pulls of quite convincingly. To round out the cast is Molly Parker as the cold Arlette. Parker is also fantastic here as she is terrific at playing such a soulless, selfish, unlikable character. She's so unlikable that it doesn't surprise me that the two guys wanted her dead.
The atmosphere of the film is also terrific as the film feels very eerie and tense throughout. This is a combination of the directing, the solid musical score, and the setting. A horror film set on a mid American farm is nothing new, but the reason for that is because it can be so effective. With the score, it sounds eerily similar to The Shawshank Redemption (ironically another King adaptation), except there is something much darker and sinister going on with it. You can just tell listening to the music that something bad is going to happen. I think the score played a big part in making the film as good as it was. Finally is the directing by Hilditch, who clearly had a good vision for the story and what he wanted to bring to the table. Instead of directing it as a straight horror film, Hilditch decides to film it more as a drama-psychological thriller that definitely helps to distinguish itself from other King works as well as the other horror films to come out this year.
The final thing I strongly want to focus on here is the fantastic themes of the film. Even though what Wilfred and Henry do is completely wrong, they still do have actually decent reasons. Not only is Arlette the definition of a woman you don't want to be a mother or wife, but she was going to uproot the family to the city, destroying Wilfred's livelihood and ruining Henry's relationship with a farm girl which clearly is more than just a fling. On top of all of that, neither character is inherently a bad person. That all said, the murder destroys their lives as Wilfred begins to slip into madness and Henry life is ruined as he falls down a path of crime. What makes this all the much better is that they both get away with it in the end. It really is great to see a movie that deals with murder and is bold enough to say that maybe going to jail isn't the worst consequence of murder. This is all summed up by Wilfred at the end of the film with his final lines being, "In the end, we all get caught." He might not have been caught by the police, but he was caught in a much darker, moral way. So many films romanticize murder making it look like nothing. This is a film that decides instead to show what murder might actually do to someone psychologically.
It is a horrible thing to take another human being's life, something that is against every human law this Earth has ever had. It is never okay, even if you have the "best intentions." Murder is something you'll have to live with for the rest of your life, behind bars or not. To my future child, it is never okay to kill someone, no matter what. To finish with a quote from Clint Eastwood's Best Picture Winner Unforgiven: "It's a hell of a thing, killing a man. Take away all he's got and all he's ever gonna have."
Anyways, if you get a chance to check it out, I highly recommend it, especially with Halloween just around the corner.
Showing posts with label Molly Parker. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Molly Parker. Show all posts
October 29, 2017
September 23, 2017
Small Crimes. What would you give to start fresh?
Small Crimes is a 2017 crime thriller dark comedy directed by E.J. Katz and starring Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Robert Forster, Gary Cole, Jacki Weaver, and Molly Parker. The film follows Waldau's Joe, a corrupt cop who is released from a six year prison sentence for attempted murder. As he tries to rebuild his life, his past pulls him back to his old ways. As Michael Corleone said in The Godfather Part III: "Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in."
To me, Small Crimes' biggest strength is the cast of the film. Coster-Waldau was fantastic as Joe, making a character who should by all accounts have been despicable sympathetic. I felt for Joe and really felt like I understood his character. Molly Parker is also great as Joe's girlfriend Charlotte. She seemed very real and was probably the most likable character in the film. I really felt bad for her when bad things happened to her and was happy for her when good things happened. The rest of the cast, which is made up of mainly character actors, is also great. Every performance in the film was top notch and fit perfectly for what the film was trying to do.
I also want to give a lot of credit to the dialogue of the film written by writers Macon Blair (I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore.) and Katz himself. Not only was the dialogue smart and snappy, but it helped make the characters seem real. Also, the writers and actors perfectly and seamlessly created chemistry between these characters, making their connections feel strong and not forced. I really believed Joe and Charlotte's romance just as I really felt the three way tension between Joe, Robert Forster's Joe Sr., and Jacki Weaver's Irma.
Another major strength of the film is the editing. The film is absolutely perfectly paced, never feeling slow nor rushed. The film is given time to develop characters and plot lines, but not too much time to where they become stale. The film also never felt choppy as if parts of the film were crudely cut out for runtime reasons. For the entire hour and a half of the film, I was interested and completely oblivious to the outside world.
The final huge strength I want to mention is the question the film poses. While on the surface the film seems relatively straight forward, a question constantly arises throughout the film: is it possible to forget the past and go forward clean? Joe constantly remarks about how he wants to start fresh, however it seems that as often as he mentions this another problem arises, forcing him to not accomplish what he wants. What's really interesting about this is that I'm not sure if the film ever provides a concrete answer to the question. Personally, I don't think that is lazy filmmaking; I think it is thoughtful filmmaking that wants the audience to decide for themselves.
While I clearly very much enjoyed the film, it did suffer from a few problems, mainly a confusing tone and a sloppy and overused plot.
For the most part, the film has a very darkly comic tone to it, similar to films such as Pulp Fiction. The end, however, is incredibly dark and tragic, which feels very out of place with the rest of the film. I do think that this was done intentionally as I've seen Cheap Thrills, another film by Katz that also has a confusing tone. That all said, I don't think it worked. This is a technique that is done often and rarely works and personally, I don't think it worked here.
The major problem with the film, however, is the plot. First of all, it's all over the place. Like The Discover, the film introduces random new plot threads well over half way into the film. The film also has about one hundred different engines all going at once, which sometimes made the film a little hard to follow. The biggest problem with the film, however, was just how cookie cutter the plot was. From the former felon who wants to live a good life to the "bad" dad with a heart of gold who wants to see his children to "if you don't kill so-and-so, you're going to prison," the film reuses plot threads that were redundant fifteen years ago. Of course, almost everything has been used in Hollywood at one point or another and the great films are the ones that can make these plots feel fresh again. Small Crimes does try valiantly, however it was just in vein.
Overall, I think Small Crimes is a very solid film and one that I would give a recommendation to others about. Of all the Netflix Original schlock out there (*cough* Adam Sandler *cough*), this is definitely one of the hidden gems. If you enjoy crime thrillers or just want to watch a solid film under two hours, I would definitely check it out.
To me, Small Crimes' biggest strength is the cast of the film. Coster-Waldau was fantastic as Joe, making a character who should by all accounts have been despicable sympathetic. I felt for Joe and really felt like I understood his character. Molly Parker is also great as Joe's girlfriend Charlotte. She seemed very real and was probably the most likable character in the film. I really felt bad for her when bad things happened to her and was happy for her when good things happened. The rest of the cast, which is made up of mainly character actors, is also great. Every performance in the film was top notch and fit perfectly for what the film was trying to do.
I also want to give a lot of credit to the dialogue of the film written by writers Macon Blair (I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore.) and Katz himself. Not only was the dialogue smart and snappy, but it helped make the characters seem real. Also, the writers and actors perfectly and seamlessly created chemistry between these characters, making their connections feel strong and not forced. I really believed Joe and Charlotte's romance just as I really felt the three way tension between Joe, Robert Forster's Joe Sr., and Jacki Weaver's Irma.
Another major strength of the film is the editing. The film is absolutely perfectly paced, never feeling slow nor rushed. The film is given time to develop characters and plot lines, but not too much time to where they become stale. The film also never felt choppy as if parts of the film were crudely cut out for runtime reasons. For the entire hour and a half of the film, I was interested and completely oblivious to the outside world.
The final huge strength I want to mention is the question the film poses. While on the surface the film seems relatively straight forward, a question constantly arises throughout the film: is it possible to forget the past and go forward clean? Joe constantly remarks about how he wants to start fresh, however it seems that as often as he mentions this another problem arises, forcing him to not accomplish what he wants. What's really interesting about this is that I'm not sure if the film ever provides a concrete answer to the question. Personally, I don't think that is lazy filmmaking; I think it is thoughtful filmmaking that wants the audience to decide for themselves.
While I clearly very much enjoyed the film, it did suffer from a few problems, mainly a confusing tone and a sloppy and overused plot.
For the most part, the film has a very darkly comic tone to it, similar to films such as Pulp Fiction. The end, however, is incredibly dark and tragic, which feels very out of place with the rest of the film. I do think that this was done intentionally as I've seen Cheap Thrills, another film by Katz that also has a confusing tone. That all said, I don't think it worked. This is a technique that is done often and rarely works and personally, I don't think it worked here.
The major problem with the film, however, is the plot. First of all, it's all over the place. Like The Discover, the film introduces random new plot threads well over half way into the film. The film also has about one hundred different engines all going at once, which sometimes made the film a little hard to follow. The biggest problem with the film, however, was just how cookie cutter the plot was. From the former felon who wants to live a good life to the "bad" dad with a heart of gold who wants to see his children to "if you don't kill so-and-so, you're going to prison," the film reuses plot threads that were redundant fifteen years ago. Of course, almost everything has been used in Hollywood at one point or another and the great films are the ones that can make these plots feel fresh again. Small Crimes does try valiantly, however it was just in vein.
Overall, I think Small Crimes is a very solid film and one that I would give a recommendation to others about. Of all the Netflix Original schlock out there (*cough* Adam Sandler *cough*), this is definitely one of the hidden gems. If you enjoy crime thrillers or just want to watch a solid film under two hours, I would definitely check it out.
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