markaaron-97974 Reviews

Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce (2014–2018)

Season 5 starts strong with formally innovative episode--aspiring writers take note

[8/10 · 16 June 2018]

"Girlfriend's Guide to Divorce" has been something of a guilty pleasure for me. I see its flaws, I get its limitations, I sometimes find its characters just too trying, and sometimes I'm just plain bored. But just like the characters who find Abby, the lead, lovable despite her all too apparent flaws, I've stuck with it and mostly enjoyed it. It's just "off" enough to be interesting.

The opening episode of season 5, the final one, has rewarded my dogged fealty with one of the best written season openers I've ever seen. It does everything you would want an opener to do--deal with the exposition in an interesting and innovative way, remind you of why you've been watching by reestablishing the characters and their storylines, but most importantly, setting up new directions for the show to go in order to justify yet another season. There's so much packed into this episode, so much is thrown at the characters (and us)--major life changes occur and major new conflicts are set up--and it pulls it all off with aplomb.

How do the writers pull this off? By using a formally innovative approach. Form is the way a story is told--the way it's structured, the way it's approached, in effect, the way it's composed.

This episode jumps around in time (something that's become very trendy and gimmicky these days and often doesn't really work) but in a very precise way and it also shifts the point of view among the main characters (This, in the writing biz, is called polyphony). So we have time-shifting and polyphony. (Only gifted writers need apply).

It opens at a glamorous media event complete with a red carpet and the whole gang's there. But then we see Delia in distress and Abby, Jo , and Phoebe drop everything to come to her aid.

Then, immediately we jump back to six months earlier. And Abby's in bed with--oops, no spoilers here, you'll have to watch to find out. We then go through the highlights of the previous six months of her life leading up to the glamorous media event. Step and repeat with each of the other main characters in turn. There are even a few of the very same scenes (where all the main characters are present) in each of the character's 6 month highlight reel so we eventually see that scene through each character's POV, and each time we learn something new.

Finally we circle back to the beginning and we're at the media event and now understand what's going on for each of the characters and why Delia is in crises mode.

But before this is fully resolved we jump to the next day (the present) and major life changes occur, new conflicts occur, new storylines develop and a new season is set up. And we've hit the ground running.

In one episode we see all this and somehow it all makes sense. This is great writing. Clearly, Girlfriend's Guide is going out in style.

Futuro Beach (2014)

In "Praia do Futuro" every picture tells a story.

[9/10 · 9 June 2018]

An award-winning screenwriter once told me the secret to his success. It's knowing and never forgetting the essence of film (and this holds true for directors, actors, cinematographers, make-up artists, and production designers as well).

Simply put, "A movie is a story that's told with pictures. Pictures that move." Every line, every shot, every scene, every setting, every prop, should be informed by this.

Few films exemplify this as well as Karim Aïnouz' "Praia do Futuro." Ainouz has said, "For me film is time, space, and sound distilled in a moving image."

It's also, you can see clearly from this film, about bodies moving in time and space and within architecture.

(There's one memorable scene of muscular lifeguards training on the beach and then running into the sea that's right out of poet Walt Whitman's "I Sing the Body Electric.")

Every shot, every scene in this spare, visual style of storytelling is a work of art, which shouldn't be surprising as Ainouz came to film making in a roundabout way, leaving Fortaleza, Brazil (where the opening of "Praia do Futuro" is set) to study architecture in Brazil's futuristic capital, Brasilia. He then studied fine art in New York, took up painting and photography, only to finally study film in graduate school at NYU. He sees himself primarily as a visual artist.

This is a film about fear and courage, about risking it all. It's also about displacement and freedom. But, unlike Hollywood films, it never spells anything out. These ideas are dealt with elliptically and obliquely and usually through movement and visuals rather than through dialogue. The protagonists move through water and dance and speed-race motorcycles through breathtaking scenery and they make passionate, sensual love.

If you like things spelled out for you and wrapped up with a bow this is not the film for you. Much of what happens, happens off-screen. Characters don't talk about their feelings or reveal much through dialogue and the ending is cryptic. But pay attention: It's the visuals and motion and actions that reveal everything.

And about that ending--there is some actual "telling" rather than showing in the end (don't worry, it's not a spoiler) and it's so emblematic of the film I'll cite it here. As we see two motorcycles disappear into the gray mist on a twisting, turning German autobahn, Donato, in a voice-over, addresses his brother, the one he'd abandoned eight years earlier when he left Brazil for Germany.

"There are two types of fear and courage, Speed. I act as if there is no danger. But you know that everything is dangerous in this endless sea."

"Praia do Futuro" invites you to take a swim, take a risk, try your luck. It doesn't promise a happy ending, but it doesn't preclude one, either.

Beyond the Walls (2012)

Outside the Walls (the correct translation of the title) there's not much freedom

[8/10 · 4 June 2018]

According to the director, this is his "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg", a film about what happens when a madly-in-love couple is forcibly separated by a bad turn of events. But it's really much more than that.

It's about the power dynamics in a relationship, and how they shift over time. It's about dominance and submission. It's about making choices. It's about freedom or the lack thereof.

What keeps it from being overly ponderous (though it does raise lots of questions) is way it focuses on the specifics of a rather dysfunctional relationship between a needy, waif-like, seemingly helpless young man desperate to be taken care of, and a seemingly more together toughened-by- life older man who at first doesn't take him seriously but then falls hard for his boyish, coquettish charm.

And then they're separated and they and we discover that they're not entirely who they seem to be and everything shifts.

The cinematography is suitably gritty and sharp, while the acting of the two leads is superb. These are very flawed characters but we don't care and we fall in love with them anyway, the way they fall in love with each other.

The ending is realistic and a bit sad, but not tragic. We all come away a little wiser, but just a little, as this is not Hollywood, after all, thank god.

Eyewitness (2014)

Norwegian Noir Thrill Ride, so much better than its US remake "Eyewitness"

[9/10 · 29 May 2018]

Hitchcock often set his dark thrillers in beautiful, bucolic settings in order to starkly contrast them with his explorations of their dark underbellies. What better setting, then, than affluent,socially advanced, peaceful, stunningly beautiful Norway for these story tellers to do the same. Yes, there's something rotten in Norway.

It all starts with a violent crime accidentally witnessed by two teen boys who keep their mouths shut in order to hide the fact that they were there to have sex. But they've been seen and this puts them in danger and sets off all kinds of twists and turns and reverberations, especially since one of the teens is the foster son of the police officer in charge of investigating the crime.

But this is a character study as much as a procedural drama so that along the way we are exposed to a prickly cast of characters who we get to know and care about despite their many flaws which are highlighted by the dilemmas they are facing. They're pushed to their limits.

With excellent acting, great production design, updated Noir atmosphere, the many twists and turns of the plot and the constant sense of impending danger, this thriller grabs you and runs you ragged much like it does to the characters.

Paradise in Heart (2014)

An allegorical tale of lust, love, passion, betrayal and freedom, beautifully told.

[9/10 · 3 May 2018]

Even though this is a Vietnamese film, we're in John Ford country. Stunningly shot in a beautiful rugged, semiarid region of Vietnam, this is a modern day Western telling an allegorical tale that enchants and seduces and surprises and ultimately moves you to tears. It's unlike anything you've ever seen before.

Take an escaped prisoner on the run, an isolated goat farm in a beautiful setting with a nurse and the strange wealthy, young man, mysteriously ill, that she cares for, drench with sensuality and eroticism, and you get a fever dream of lust, love, passion, betrayal and redemption and one of the most interesting love triangles in film history.

Complex, nuanced, with superb acting and stunning cinematography and an original script that takes you for a ride, if you ever run across this film, which is available in an English subtitled version titled "Paradise in Heart", don't hesitate to watch it.

Champions (2018)

Champions, by ep. 7, finally gets in the game, but is it too late?

[7/10 · 29 April 2018]

After a wobbly start, this series is beginning to find its footing and actually be funny, while at the same time finding some heart.

It's done this by letting Michael actually be a kid, albeit a precocious one, and letting Vince actually exhibit some character growth. And by letting Matthew be Matthew. The humor relies less on glib one-liners and more on the situations they find themselves in.

But it sure took the writers/producers a while to figure this out and I fear they may have lost the audience.

Good Girls (2018–2021)

By episode 9 the already wobbly wheels with threadbare tires fell off the bus

[3/10 · 25 April 2018]

A series that started out very uneven, careening, in search of a steady tone, in search of believable characters, in search of plausible plots, just finally ground down into the dirt and stalled out making episode 9 one of the most excruciatingly painful hours of TV ever made.

This is about as bad as TV writing gets and that's saying a lot. The characters spend most of the episode just whining and whining and whining, mired in preposterous plot lines.

They're not taking back their power, they're wallowing in self.-pity

Nothing in this series rings true. The characters are not only unlikable, far worse, they're boring. And not real. And maybe even repulsive. The plot holes and implausibilities pile up.

This series should be called Bad Writers.

The Edge of Seventeen (2016)

Exploits then trivializes serious mental disorders

[1/10 · 22 April 2018]

Nadine is the kind of "unlikable" character that critics love (her mother is a close second). It means that this is serious cinema that challenges you because it's so unpleasant to watch (wanting to watch something enjoyable is so plebeian.).

She's abrasive, rude, obnoxious, unstable, attention-seeking and indulges in dangerous, even life-threatening behavior. Some might even call her toxic. OK, so far so good. Handled skillfully this could be the making of a compelling film, but the filmmaker also wants John Hughes style cuteness to leaven the harshness (and perhaps increase the box office). It doesn't work.

Nadine lives in a world of teenage suburban privilege--great schools, stylish homes with pools, all the electronics a kid could want--,but lacks the one thing she desperately needs: a complete neuropsychiatric work-up.

That no one around her sees the seriousness of her mental condition and gets her the professional help she desperately needs is the real story here. But that wouldn't allow for the John Hughes style ending.

Personality disorders are no laughing matter and aren't solved by clever plot points.