One Battle After Another (c) Warner Bros. Picture
Film: One Battle After Another
In Cinemas
Everything about the look and feel of One Battle After Another, the latest Paul Thomas Anderson film, would suggest the 1970s, which would be the auteur director’s second consecutive film in this era, but then the plot also hinges on a cellphone as well as starting a car with a fingerprint, so who knows. The film is very loosely based on the Thomas Pynchon novel Vineland, and the less you know about the plot, the more exciting and spontaneous the film will feel. Just using what was shown in the first trailer, the film focuses on Bob Ferguson (Leonardo DiCaprio, at his funniest), who in his younger days was part of the French 75, a group of revolutionaries (think Weather Underground) performing what was seen as terrorist acts against the government and big businesses that had policies they felt were unjust. Now, 15 years later, he’s the single father of a teenage girl, Willa (Chase Infiniti, an impressive film debut), whose mother Perfidia (Teyana Taylor) was also part of the group, and he gets a message that their lives are in danger, being pursued (Javert-style) by the Dickensian-named Army Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn, very committed to the bit). Bob enlists the help of Willa’s karate sensei, Sergio St. Carlos (Benicio del Toro, in his best role to date) and we follow how the paths of Bob and Lockjaw intersect. The film has many more themes and characters that I will not discuss, but just know, Anderson is talking about the political environment America finds itself embroiled in today.
One Battle After Another (c) Warner Bros. Pictures
I have always admired Anderson’s directorial authority in his projects, but this is the first time his style is in service to the story and not the other way around. There Will Be Blood is unmistakenly his masterpiece and Magnolia was the movie I admired the most, but One Battle After Another should be popular with the multiplex crowds, not just because DiCaprio is in it (although it helps), but because odd (but admittingly artistic) touches of a man sniffing gasoline or frogs raining from the sky or a white guy speaking in an exaggerated Charlie Chan accent (just for the heck of it) or people eating poisoned mushrooms are replaced by recognizably sympathetic characters and their motives. There are still some tonal shifts here that feel indulgent, but mostly this is Anderson’s most successful and entertaining film of his career. At two-and-a-half hours, One Battle After Another may still feel daunting to some who have been burnt by Anderson before, but this is the one to see, if just to see the magnetic Teyana Taylor become a star before your eyes.
Plainclothes (c) Magnolia Pictures
Film: Plainclothes
In Cinemas
Director Carmen Emmi’s debut feature, Plainclothes, takes place in the 1990s in upstate New York, focusing on an entrapment scheme by the local police to get closeted gay men to sexually expose themselves in a public bathroom to a plainclothes officer pretending to show them some interest. This is a tactic that goes back to the 1950s, when homosexuality was seen as a disgrace and a mental disorder, and there were no places for gay men to meet. Actual footage of men in restrooms in these situations recently resurfaced and are shown in the film. But in the 1990s, where gay bars are plentiful and gay rights are being fought for openly, why would this still be an issue? That’s where the real heart and message of this film is intriguing. These targets are closeted gay men, trapped by their mostly religious or conservative families, to live their lives as a lie. That is certainly the case with officer Lucas (Tom Blyth, who played the young Cornelius Snow in The Hunger Games prequel), who, because of his looks, has been chosen for these sting operations at a local mall. He is told specifically not to talk to or engage with the men. Instead, he should give knowing looks and linger longer than usual, then once the men expose themselves in a bathroom stall, runs out and lets another police officer arrest them. Unfortunately, Lucas himself is in the closet, and through a clever (if slightly overused) technique, his perspective is shown as if being filmed by those old cameras from the 1950s.
Plainclothes (c) Magnolia Pictures
One day, his mark is Andrew (Russell Tovey), whom he feels some attraction towards, and after signaling to his partner that the sting was a false alarm, Lucas plans to meet up with the married Andrew in private. While many gay indie films like Plainclothes deal with similar scenarios of a seemingly straight man finding the strength to escape the closet, Emmi’s film tackles the issue through the lens of institutions where homophobia is tolerated, like sport teams, the military, the church and in this case, law enforcement, which adds a tension to the plot that’s more intriguing than most. Blyth is suitably antsy in the part, especially when we see his close-knit family, held together by his loving mother (the wonderful Maria Dizzia). Tovey, as Andrew, has a trickier part—a man who has played the closet game long enough to be a sort of sympathetic mentor to a newbie like Lucas. The film falls into a few clichés of the genre, but it also has a few surprises up its sleeves to keep viewers on their toes. A strong debut.
Where to Land (c) Possible Films
Film: Where to Land
In Cinemas
Writer director Hal Hartley has been making films since 1989, with his first, The Unbelievable Truth, a masterpiece of Long Island indie filmmaking with idiosyncratic and deadpan dialogue and characters, making him a critic’s darling. His popularity culminating with his most ambitious film, Henry Fool (1997), resulting in a Best Screenplay win at the Cannes Film Festival. Hartley cast his early films with Edie Falco, Parker Posey, Martin Donovan and Adrienne Shelley at the start of their career and worked later with high-profile actresses like Isabelle Huppert (in my favorite film, Amateur), Sarah Polley, Aubrey Plaza and Helen Mirren. Now, in a time when indies (that are not horror films) rarely break through the box office din, Hartley has released his most ambitious film in years through crowd sourcing, and a little help from his famous friends.
Where to Land (c) Possible Films
Joe Fulton (Bill Sage) is a former romantic comedy film director living in New York, who decides to draw up a will, which starts him contemplating his own death as he reassesses the rest of his life now and where he will land. Aimlessly, he decides to work in a graveyard with Leonard (Robert John Burke) and this starts everyone around him to be alarmed by his end-of-life choices, including his actress girlfriend Murirl (Kim Staff), whom everyone calls the superhero; his overly sensitive niece Veronica (Katelyn Sparks), who fears her uncle’s mindset; his understanding ex-wife, Clara (Edie Falco), and a young man Mick (Jeremy Hendrix), a screenwriter who believes he may have a connection with Joe. Like Noel Coward’s Garry Essendine in the play Present Laughter, this extended family all end up in Joe’s apartment to do what Hartley characters do best: talk, philosophize, judge and (in one case) faint dramatically. His characters reliably say things like “Are you seated?” instead of “Are you sitting?” and it’s great to hear this familiar patter once again. At a slim 70-minute runtime, Where to Land feels like having gratifying catch-up drinks with an old friend. Also, any film with the great Kathleen Chalfant, in a cameo as Joe’s cigar-loving writer friend, is worth seeing. To be totally transparent, I did contribute to the film’s Kickstarter, but that’s because he’s Hal Hartley and I need to see where he lands.
If you want to comment on these reviews, please do so on my Instagram account. All reviews have their own post. And please follow to know when new reviews are released.
