Queen of Earth

Queen of Earth (2015)

Director: Alex Ross Perry

Cast: Elizabeth Moss, Katherine Waterston, Patrick Fugit



Last night, I watched Queen of Earth. This morning, the most surprising thing about Queen of Earth is how little online commentary I could find on it. For a movie that consciously refuses to offer concrete backstory and context and certainly doesn't offer a definitive climax or ending, there remains a dearth of summary and analysis on up-and-coming indie director Alex Ross Perry's "psychological thriller" about two female friends claustrophobi-sizing in a lake house outside New York City. One of my favorite activities after watching a movie is reading about it the next day, so I was disappointed to find little-to-nothing on this very strange film. And I wasn't about to waste my time perusing IMDB message boards.

So here we are. As Heath Ledger's Joker says: "You can't rely on anyone these days, you got to do everything yourself, DON'T we?"

Either Queen of Earth has very little to say, or a great deal, but either way it presents itself as constructed to evade interpretation. I worry that Elizabeth Moss's highly praised performance is the only thing people will remember this film by. I initially heard of Queen of Earth from publications praising Moss for her role as Catherine, a depressed, possessive, and possibly horror story-esque psychotically dangerous individual. I urge everyone to watch the trailer now. Watch it, and then ask yourself if this movie doesn't seem to be about an (insane) woman, Catherine, threatening and terrorizing her (sane) friend Virginia (Katherine Waterston) in a series of creepy and vitriolic phrases and gestures. Moss is a very excellent actor indeed; she's always been good. But I worry that the actress's intense "madness", displayed by frenetic, bug-eyed outbursts and little-girl giggles, actually inhibits the character of Catherine significantly.  In other words, are we viewing a somewhat reductive portrayal of a female character who is in fact quite nuanced and complex?

Alas, I am jumping ahead. Let's backtrack. For most of its duration, Queen of Earth is all about Catherine, even though its ending contradictorily suggests that both women are main characters. The entire opening scene features an uncut, close-up of Catherine's eye make-up streaked face as she mourns, realistically, as her boyfriend dumps her despite the fact that her father has just recently died. Immediately after this, we are transported to a remote lake house belonging to her close friend Virginia. As the two women make their way from the car to inside the house to Catherine's room, etc., Perry establishes a very obvious distance and distrust in the manner in which they interact with each other, not only through the actresses' brilliant tight-lipped reticence and mad-dogging stares, but also through a deliberately ominous,  Kubrickian one-key piano soundtrack. 

Most importantly, the distrust between Catherine and Virginia is demonstrated by filming them at odd angles in relation to one another. For example, one woman will look in one direction, while another will look in a completely different one, neither looking at the other nor following her gaze (see picture above for a prime example). Or, in a total Bergman Persona rip-off scene (I'll get back to that), the camera hovers over the two women from the top left as they sit in bed, rehashing stories of ex-loves, staring straight ahead the entire time in one, uncut eight minute-long scene. In other scenes, when they do look directly at one another while speaking, it's strange and intense, as if they are overanalyzing every minute detail and phrase with skeptical caution and resentment (as couples are wont to do). 

Adding to this distance and discombobulation, the story flips back and forth in time, and I suppose if Queen of Earth succeeds at anything it's that the director manages to continuously transport his audience back to one year prior, in the same lake house with the same characters looking the same (minus Moss's red lipstick), and not once are these flashbacks confusing. 

What we get from the flashbacks-- and here I am speculating-- is that Catherine used to be a lot happier a year ago most likely because she was still with her boyfriend and her father was still alive. HOWEVER, it's not as if everything was all honky-dory back then; in fact, the flashbacks reveal that the relationship between Catherine and Virginia was just as strained and dysfunctional as it is now, if not worse. Even though Catherine wasn't certifiably depressed back then, she was still a neurotic, uptight mess, indulging in heated, high-school-caliber arguments with Virginia in front of their boyfriends and freaking out when they leave a bunch of beer bottles behind. And I think this is the point: in the past, the presence of her boyfriend and the acknowledgement of her still-living father's success and legacy brought out the worst in Catherine in a different way from how it's brought out in the present, now that she is single and fatherless. 

Oh boy. That sounds a bit sexist doesn't it? Hey, I love calling out sexism in movies as much as the next guy, but I think it would prove counterproductive to dismiss Queen of Earth as some indie NYC hipster filmmaker's warped and male-skewed perspective of female anxiety. I do think it's a wee bit more intelligent than that.

INSTEAD, I'd rather call out Perry for blatantly ripping off Roman Polanski and others and  fooling 92% of critics on Rotten Tomatoes into thinking his movie's most unnerving scenes are entirely his own. Do I have to mention that the rotting salad is the rotting rabbit from Repulsion, serving as a symbol for the day-by-day disintegration of one woman's psyche as she's cooped up in a precarious dwelling unit? Or must I mention the upward-camera POV of a mob of monstrous assholes clawing and grabbing at the protagonist as he/she curls into a ball and screams, like at the end of The Tenant? 

I'm not saying that I'm the only person who has ever seen these movies and therefore the only person to have recognized Perry's source material; A.V Club and Slant Magazine both mention Bergman and Polanski in their reviews. Also, yes, I get it: the aesthetic of the film and opening/closing credits is modeled after these kinds of films from the 60's. What I am saying that where other critics refer to this as an "homage", I prefer to call it like I see it: A lazy cinematic attempt at a gradual, claustrophobic psychological thriller with supposed feminist commentary that is not thrilling at all and has absolutely nothing insightful to say about women whatsoever.

Also, what's the point of having title cards informing us of what day of the week it is, if the story is not progressing towards some inevitable conclusion?

One of the reasons Repulsion was brilliant is that the entire story built up to a "reveal" in the final frame: Catherine Deneuve's psychosis and subsequent murderous acts (that's right, at least there was legitimate murder in Polanski's movie!) was the result of her being sexual abused as a child by an older male figure, shown eerily in a photograph that was in the audience's view the whole time (You see the metaphor here? The audience neglected to acknowledge the obvious truth behind her fear of sex and overall psychosis just as the people in her life refused to acknowledge it).  

Queen of Earth provides no such answer as to why Catherine is the way she is, except for the fact she just is; no surprises, no jolts, no explanation. Here and there, Catherine's feelings of self-worth and delusions are limply attributed to her famous father's success and suicide, but the film refuses to take it one step further; the dead father plot contributes nothing to the character's torment or to the characters' lives in general. In fact, it most likely derives from the filmmaker's own experiences.

In other words, what is the point? Whoever suggested that ambiguous endings in movies are worthwhile clearly didn't know how to write a fucking ending.

That being said, Queen of Earth is worth watching for the hell of it, if only because the dialogue and acting is really quite good. It's not a terrible movie; it's just not worthy of 92% on Rotten.

Two final observations:
1) These women put new meaning to the word frienemy. As in, most depressing frienemies ever! The trick to having a frienemy is to never share living quarters with them, duh.

2) Nothing good ever happens at a lake house. I dare you to list one movie featuring a lake house in which things turn out great.

B-

Gone Girl

Gone Girl (2014)

Director: David Fincher

Cast: Rosamund Pike, Ben Affleck, Neil Patrick Harris, Tyler Perry

About a year ago, everyone lost their minds when Gone Girl came out. Do you remember? It felt like the most widely watched and discussed movie of the post-summer season had appeared out of no where,  prematurely hailed by critics and plebeians alike as the best movie of the year. To this day, I don't fully understand the hype of Gone Girl, except for three indisputable facts:

Fact #1: It is eminently watchable. Something about its dialogue and pacing doesn't get old. I've seen it maybe four times. I like to put it on while cleaning the house.

Fact #2: David Fincher directed it and its extremely Fincheresque.

Fact #3: We discovered after his divorce that Ben Affleck basically plays himself.* 

(*ok, fine, the last fact doesn't relate to Gone Girl 's popularity but I never miss an opportunity to rip on Ben Affleck.)

I think the principle goal in discussing Gone Girl should be to pick the story apart and determine what's really going on here. Because a lot is going on, and much of it is culturally relevant and topical, yes, but a lot of it is also misogynistic and superficially post-modern in the most nefarious way (yes, I know a woman wrote the book, so shut your mouth). 

The structure of Gone Girl is awkward, but there are three parts. 

The first part begins with Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) coming home on the day of his fifth wedding anniversary to find that his wife, Amy (Rosamund Pike) has disappeared in an apparent murder/kidnapping.  Police uncover evidence of the perpetrator having tried to mask a struggle, and they also learn that Amy was pregnant. We learn from diary entries and flashbacks that Amy met her husband Nick at a party in New York City (there's one weirdly unsexy scene involving sugar-fog) and after that, they fall hard for one another, get married and live happily ever after, until... BAM!, insert the Recession. After losing their jobs and enduring the tragedy of Nick playing video games on the couch all day, the couple leaves New York and moves into a mansion in a small town in Missouri to care for Nick's ailing mother. He purchases a bar with his wife's trustfund money because that's obviously such a good idea.

At this point we have't officially "met" Amy, except through her voice-over from her diary entries, and so we are stuck with POV's from Nick, his sister, the police, and the sort of small-town America in which pictures of a missing blond woman are blasted on billboards. We gradually begin to suspect Nick of being responsible for Amy's death and we also learn he's been sleeping with one of his young students, which looks very bad for him indeed. The first part of the movie ends with the police's discovery of a sexy playful scavenger hunt anniversary game that reveals more proof that Nick killed her, and then, the film cuts to the BIG (and only) REVEAL. Ready for it? Gasp: Amy staged her own murder.

What follows is a frenetic, confessional voice-over explaining everything in what is arguably the best scene of the whole film. Amy's voice-over changes its tone from soft and inquisitive to assertive and conniving. She explains scenario by scenario, intricately and brilliantly, how she was able to dupe everyone and frame her husband for her own murder. I don't have time to get into the deets, but it involved drawing her own blood by the liters, stealing her pregnant fake-friend's urine, and taking god knows how many months to pen a fake diary. Turns out Amy knew about the affair and was obviously miserable after leaving New York. What's cool about this-- in a series of rapid, "cool" Fincherian shots of Amy on the run-- is her totally believable and convincing explanation for her motivations: "Nick Dunne took my pride and my dignity and my hope and my money. He took and took from me until I no longer existed. That's murder." The dialogue is well-written and impressive. There's also a great line about her being "the cool girl" and doing everything that Nick liked, maintaining a size 2 while cold eating pizza and drinking canned beer. We can relate.

The movie could have-should have ended here, because after this, it appears to have no clue what to do with itself. In other words, it becomes a boring post-modern novel. Part II:

Amy befriends some rednecks at a motel and they rob her. Desperate, she contacts her crazy, rich ex-boyfriend, Desi (Neil Patrick Harris) whom she manipulates and deceives into taking her in, despite the entire country looking for her on national television. We see that Nick has hired a lawyer (Tyler Perry) and tries to clear his name or something (it's hard to remember because it's so inconsequential). Then... sigh. The most memorable scene. Amy has sex and kills Neil Patrick Harris as he bleeds all over her naked body, and then returns home to Nick, still all bloody (see pic above) and convinces everyone that her ex abducted her and she managed to escaped. She also realizes through Nick's TV-name-clearing performance that she actually does love him after all. She goes so far as to impregnate herself with his sperm from the sperm bank. Even though he's super pissed off and doesn't love her at all, he stays with her and THE END.

Whew. Do you see how exhausting this is? Do you see how its the narrative equivalent of googling an antonym for the word taut? First of all, the presence of the redneck motel robbers and Amy's obsessive ex-boyfriend is completely arbitrary and entirely forced. It is very clear that Gillian Flynn had no idea what to do with the story after revealing that Amy faked her own death. Desi becomes one of the most important characters in the movie, yet his importance is an afterthought, and the only reason the movie didn't completely fall out of the minds of its viewers is most likely because of his outrageously graphic sex-throat-cut death scene.

Secondly, who is Amy anyway? I have rarely seen such a poorly developed character in the history of anything, and therefore, it's intensely problematic that she's a female. Here me out. 

Let's say we believe in her character up to the end of the BIG REVEAL. I believed it! She becomes tragically unhappy after leaving her home city for a small boring town, is financially and fidelity-wise betrayed by her frankly idiotic husband, becomes dangerously resentful, and she's amazingly intelligent, so we root for her when she manages to successfully frame him and get away. But then things go downhill for her. I envision a different second half of this story in which Nick is left behind to rot in prison, and Amy never achieves anything in her life and is slowly reeled into a life of destitution and probably prostitution, even though she did everything right in life. OR, the story could have transformed into a pseudo-horror story in that Amy, having made the tragic mistake of committing a singular immoral and deceptive act, endures a series of violent and horrific misfortunes and outcomes because somehow, she cosmically deserves them. In other words, all the characters are bad and get theirs in the end.

Alas, no such luck. Instead, we get nothing that satisfies our sense of solid storytelling, as the plot betrays its own set-up. By the end, Amy is shown to be quite the little sociopath. And then she falls back in love with Nick. And even knocks herself up with his sperm. So she's either a sociopath or a bright, indecisive, yet scorned woman. Which one is it? She can't be both. Why would she go through hell and high water to ruin a man only to get back with him? Why does her character have to be so ambiguous? Oh right, because the book is post-modern drivel.

Speaking of which, my final point: what is the lesson here? What are we supposed to take away from this supposedly meaningful and culturally relevant film? Some possibilities:

1) Marriage sucks and is a sham.

2)The media sucks and is a sham.

3) Men suck and ruin women's lives. They are either lazy cheaters or obsessive and dangerous sex-maniacs. Therefore a woman should totally take revenge on them and become "independent" when the time calls for it. However, ultimately men are worth sticking with because, you know, love and babies.

4) Women are unpredictable and totally and utterly conniving and diabolical. 

Do you see the problem here? If the lesson involves the first two, Gone Girl says nothing new or original about two topics we have long known to be true. If its lesson is the third possibility, then its super sexist and doesn't hold together. 

No, I believe that what most people took from Gone Girl is the last lesson. This "psychological mystery thriller" encompasses every typical American man's worst fears: 

-You don't really know how to please your wife and will never satisfy her financially.

-She will become demanding and nag the shit out of you. 

-If you cheat, you will get caught and punished. 

-She will convince everyone you are physically abusive when you are not.

-Your wife is smarter than you and will "trap" you in the end, so you can never escape.

-If your ultimate sexual fantasy with your dream girl comes true, she will slaughter you mid-ecstasy.

-The baby is not yours.

This is what Gone Girl is really about, and I can't for the life of me tell if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Is it a satire? Is it just a fun movie to watch over and over again because Ben Affleck sucks in general and stands there stupidly and helplessly throughout? I know one thing for sure: it is not empowering for women from a female standpoint. But when has that ever stopped the masses from popularizing shitty and offensive art?

C+

Whiplash

Whiplash (2014)

Director: Damien Chazelle

Cast: Miles Teller, J.K Simmons, Paul Reiser






Whiplash is one of those perfect movies. It's a perfect allegory for artistry, becoming an adult, and giving one's entire life--body, love, and mind-- to one's craft. It brings up important questions about the mentor/protege relationship and whether unapologetically demoralizing training does indeed result in higher elevated art, contributing to humanity's overall progress. What makes this topic even more fascinating is that it's centered on an esoteric and therefore highly specialized and rigorous genre of music.

Whiplash is deep and complicated, obviously, but at its heart is a rather simple tale of failure and perseverance. We are constantly surprised. Even going in knowing the plot of the movie, we are continuously thrown for a loop.  We never really understand the full intentions or nefarious nature of famous composer Terence Fletcher (J.K Simmons) until the very end of the movie. When our young hero Andrew Neiman (Miles Teller) first trains with Fletcher--after Fletcher manages to fuck with him by telling him to show up an hour early  for class--Andrew foolhardily discloses his parents' divorce and his father's (Paul Reiser) failure as a playwright. Fletcher reacts as if he's one of those genuinely caring and supportive teachers, until, moments later, he pulls a Mr. Hyde, humiliating Andrew in front of the entire class (One of my favorite lines: "You are a worthless, friendless, faggot-lipped piece of shit whose mommy left daddy when she figured out he wasn't Eugene fucking-O'Neil!")

From that point on, we know Fletcher as the bad guy, continuously working our hero to literal near death and chipping away at his sense of self-worth. However, certain scenes demonstrate Fletcher's humanity and passion for what he does, preventing him from coming off as completely ruthless, such as when he cries in front of his own class after learning of the suicide of a former student, or when he soulfully plays a piano solo in a packed jazz bar.

In order to be the truly great musician Fletcher demands, Andrew must sacrifice everything in pursuit of that greatness, like breaking things off with a potential girlfriend to focus on his training. The physical toll of his work is amplified by the camera's calculating emphasis on his bloodied hands and sweat-soaked body, close ups of drops of blood and perspiration splattering on the floor. Andrew's overall physical degradation reaches its inevitable climax in a shocking and brilliant car crash sequence as Andrew rushes manically to attend Fletcher's performance on time,  calling to mind the climax of Scorsese's Goodfellas, when Ray Liotta's Henry drives around the city, paranoid and determined, in a cocaine binged panic, barreling straight for disaster.

However, not once do we doubt Andrew's relentless determination. Despite all his sacrifices, we understand that quitting is not an option for our hero. In one of the film's most brilliant scenes, Andrew adeptly and humorously shuts down his relatives for downplaying his craft during a dinner scene reminiscent of an Aaron Sorkin dialogue. 

The result of all of this is in a final scene that makes Andrew's defeat by Fletcher utterly devastating and heartbreaking. When Andrew finally realizes he has been duped by the vengeful Fletcher, he exits the stage and walks mournfully into his loving father's arms. This ending would have been sufficient, completely self-consciousness in its own tragedy, except it's not the ending. Andrew, in a stroke of capricious deliberation, returns back to the stage, playing over Fletcher's address to the audience, playing over everyone in fact, and ultimately proving himself one of the greats in what culminates in one of the finest cinematic music sequences and film conclusions of all time. 

Whiplash is extremely entertaining to the upmost degree; so entertaining it's nearly impossible to look away, look at your phone, get up to use the bathroom, even upon multiple viewings. It has one of the best soundtracks in recent movie memory, and its editing is so exemplary that surely it will be referenced in film school classes. 

At the end, we are left with a single unanswered question: Is Andrew's perseverance and subsequent success a result of his own determination, or a result of the cruel tutelage of Fletcher? Was Fletcher correct when he claims that the two most harmful words in the English language are "good job," and that our current culture's "everyone is great" teaching style deprives the world of the next Charlie Parker? 

The answer, I believe, lies in Fletcher's response to Andrew asking whether it's possible to go too far, and discourage the next Charlie Parker from becoming Charlie Parker. Fletcher replies, "No, man, no. Because the next Charlie Parker would never be discouraged."

Much like its subject matter, Whiplash is one of the greats.

A+

In Bruges

In Bruges (2008)

Director: Martin McDonagh

Cast: Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Ralph Fiennes

You are either someone who loves In Bruges, or someone who hates it, which explains the split, cut-and-dry reviews of Martin McDonagh's first feature-length directorial film. McDonagh's writing, especially his dialogue and situational humor, is characteristically Irish. And the Irish have a unique brand of irony mixed with cheery morbidity and gloom along with a recognition of nationalistic and cultural stereotypes and norms. 

In Bruges tells the story of two British assassins cast away to the beautiful Belgium city of Bruges after the more reckless of the two,  Ray, played by Colin Farrell, accidentally kills a little boy in a church while whacking a priest in a confession booth. We learn this later, of course; in the interim we find Ray gloomily following his partner, Ken (Brendan Gleeson) around like a depressed puppy who knows he's been bad. As Ken uses their assigned hiding place as a chance to "sightsee" and take in the medieval scenery, Ray inexplicably shits on everything, repeatedly referring to Bruges as the worst place on earth to be trapped in. It's a sentiment that doesn't make any sense and therefore comes off as unbelievable; that is, until you realize that Ray is one cocaine binge hangover away from blowing his brains out. The result of all this is a movie that feels surprisingly claustrophobic and a bit self-conscious and hackneyed, in the most wonderful way.

Part emotional drama/part comedy/part crime film, In Bruges comes off as odd and undefinable, which is exactly what makes it great. It's truly original, and the stellar, top-notch acting only helps elevate its seeming simplicity into complicated heights. 

Take, for example, the scene in which Ken and Ray peruse a medieval art museum. Ray is visibly horrified by one painting of a man being flayed. Why? An ostensible simpleton most of the time, perhaps Ray sees the gruesomeness of the procedure and is shocked as anyone would be. More likely, however, he recognizes the futility of certain people causing other people to suffer in completely arbitrary ways. This point is supported by Ray's appreciation of Bosch's painting of  the Christian Judgement Day ("All the others are rubbish, but this one is quite good," he says). The chaos, randomness, and demonstration of many malformed individuals hard at work, engrossed in their own individual tasks appeals to Ray because it's the only thing that makes sense to him: Our world is an amalgamation of individuals and events occurring all at once, oblivious to one another. In that regard, Ray finds comfort in the idea that his own sin continues to go unrecognized by billions of people on earth, alive and dead.

In addition to an obvious and hilariously offensive display of anti-Americanism, In Bruges displays horrific gruesomeness which permeates one's consciousness and can't be washed off.  It contains one of the most horrific suicide-by-jumping scenes in the history of film (I dare you to find a more gory and stomach-churning one), and I still haven't had the guts to actually fully watch Ralph Fiennes's Harry blow his own head off. 

But if you've read any of McDonagh's plays or watched any of his other films, you will find that the insanely over-the-top violence exists as an absurdist inevitability for his emotionally vulnerable characters. Even the toughest guys have a heart, and even the most intoxicated ones can't numb themselves enough from their own acknowledgement of a certain, destiny-ordained call to action.  

In McDonagh's world, violence is a given; it's what we chose to do around it, to self-actualize, that really matters.  In the end, it's the only thing that transcends human suffering and folly. Therefore, the deliberate and obvious interplay between violence and hilarity, McDonagh's trademark, is what makes In Bruges a one of a kind in 21st century cinema. 

A-