'Thirteen Lives' tells an amazing story

 

   Ron Howard's Thirteen Lives can be regarded as a procedural; i.e.,  a straightforward account of a story in which 12 boys and their soccer coach were stranded in a flooded cave in Thailand. 

   The event -- which happened in 2018 -- captured the world's attention as a team of divers combatted monsoon rains while trying to locate the boys and figure out how to extricate them from the cave.

   So, a procedural, yes, but one that tells an incredible story about a team of international divers and Thai Navy Seals who, after 18 days guided the boys to safety. 

   Difficult to begin with, the task became nearly impossible because the boys had to be equipped with diving gear that would enable them to breathe as the divers navigated treacherous waters and narrow passageways. 

   Howard introduces five divers played by Colin Farrell, Viggo Mortensen, Joel Edgerton, Tom Bateman, and Paul Gleeson. 

 Mortensen and Farrell receive the most attention as divers who don't always agree. The story also deals with tensions between Thai authorities, the Thai military, and the foreigners who arrived to help. 

  The Thai characters aren't especially well-developed but neither are the principal divers, who are given sketchy backgrounds. 

    The characters spend little time interacting with one another in ways unrelated to the rescue mission, so it's up to the actors to suggest deeper character traits. Credit Mortensen, Farrell, and Edgerton with doing as much as they can in this regard.

    Howard and cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom up the dramatic ante with rescue sequences that involve a decision that's best discovered in a theater, presuming you don't already know it. 

   The movie's underwater scenes must have been difficult to film but they tend to become slightly repetitive as divers make multiple trips through tunnels of the cave to save the boys.

    I expected an emotionally richer film from Howard whose filmography includes the gripping Apollo 13. He's working with a subject that seems firmly located in his wheelhouse but Thirteen Lives proves more resolute than inspiring.

   I don't think it's a spoiler to say that we know the outcome of such a well-known story from the outset. Aside from becoming international news, the rainy season rescue also is the subject of Rescue, a well-regarded 2021 documentary. But whatever its limitations, Thirteen Lives still has an amazing story to tell.

Performances elevate 'Hillbilly Elegy'

     What could be more uplifting? A young man overcomes poverty and a host of family issues that include his mother’s self-destructive bouts with addiction. Despite what seem like insurmountable obstacles,  this young man manages to attend college and obtain a law degree from Yale. He ascends,  yes, but he never forgets his Kentucky and Ohio background. Warts and all, he honors his family.

     That's the gist of director Ron Howard's Hillbilly Elegy, an adaptation of J.D. Vance's memoir about growing up among "hill" people who never quite shake their Appalachian roots.

      Howard's  "elegy" distinguishes itself with two strong performances. An unrecognizable Glenn Close plays the family's grandmother, Mamaw. Mamaw embodies the movie's survivalist virtues. Her husband was an alcoholic and her daughter Beth (Amy Adams) has destroyed her life with drugs while floating through bad relationships and lost jobs.  

     But Mamaw refuses to let Beth's son, J.D., throw his life away. She knows pain and suffering but she's as hard as an aging artery and Close turns her into an unapologetic battler.

     When everything else seems to be failing, Mamaw takes over. The wayward J.D. (played as a kid by Owen Asztalos), moves in with Mamaw. She lays down the law, a mighty act of will.

     For her part, Adams gives Beth the volatility that accompanies a life that's constantly spinning out of control. Beth's efforts at conducting something resembling normal life waver between comical and pathetic. 

      The movie shifts time periods, flashing back to the 1990s from the first decade of the 21st Century,  a stop-and-start again structure that can make the story feel longer than its one hour and 56 minutes.

     By the time J.D. heads to law school, he's being played by Gabriel Basso.  He also has an encouraging girlfriend, an East-Indian/American portrayed by Frieda Pinto. 

     On the verge of capitalizing on his law-school bona fides, J.D. is summoned home by his sister (Haley Bennett) because Mom has overdosed. Bennett's character, who married and remained in Middletown, Ohio, has exhausted her capacity to deal with a mother who seems irredeemable. 

     Far from perfect, Hillbilly Elegy, with a screenplay by Vanessa Taylor, calibrates Vance's story for multiplex audiences ready to devour a family tale that gives a full-throated endorsement to tough love, the kind that allows Mamaw to save young J.D.

    The storytelling can be uneven, but to ignore Hillbilly Elegy would mean missing a chance to watch Close build a character from the hard, gravelly soil of deprivation and to experience Adams as a mercurial woman who lights fires that threaten to torch everything her character touches.

Ron Howard's ode to a town that caught fire

     On Nov. 8, 2018, a raging fire destroyed nearly all of Paradise, Ca. Dubbed the Camp Fire, the conflagration resulted in 85 deaths and the destruction of 18,804 buildings.
     It's hardly surprising that director Ron Howard begins the documentary Rebuilding Paradise with compelling footage taken by those who were fleeing the blaze, in many cases leaving everything behind. Howard and his team do a terrific job of assembling the footage in ways that provide a feeling for an experience none of us would ever want to live through.
    As Howard's movie develops, issues begin to clarify. Climate change helped fuel the fire, as did the negligence of the Pacific Gas & Electric Company.
    But rather than make an issue-oriented film, Howard has chosen to focus on the courage and determination of those Paradise residents who were determined to rebuild their much-loved community.
    Rebuilding Paradise can't be taken as a definitive look at what happened in 2018. It would have been nice, for example, to hear a bit more about the wisdom of attempts to recreate idyllic small-town life in an area that's become fire-prone.
    Moreover, Howard doesn't dwell on Pacific Gas & Electric, showing a town meeting at which a company representative offers an apology. Erin Brockovich shows up, urging people to sue.*
   Still, there's enough sadness and anger among displaced residents to convey the monumental difficulties faced by those whose lives were uprooted; the movie's at its best when conveying the emotions of those who yearn to recover some lost portion of their lives.
     Howard introduces us to a town cop whose marriage takes a hit when he transitions to endless post-fire shifts. The superintendent of Paradise's schools desperately hopes to stage high-school graduation on the school's football field. A town resident who says that he reclaimed his wayward life in Paradise and is among the first to rebuild.
     If Howard doesn't fully engage the scope of the story suggested by the Paradise debacle, he certainly puts a human face on it. Rebuilding Paradise may not dot every "i" and cross every "t," but it takes aim at the heart. Let's face it: There are many worse targets.
*(PG&E eventually offered a $13. 6 million settlement.)

Bob's Cinema Diary -- 6/28/19: Pavarotti, The Quiet One and Framing John DeLorean

TWO DOCUMENTARIES AND A SEMI-DOC, ALL WITH SOMETHING TO OFFER.

Pavarotti

It doesn't make a great deal of sense to compare Ron Howard's Pavarotti to other music documentaries or even to great opera films: Howard has made a movie for fans. It's difficult to imagine that those who revere Pavarotti won't get their money's worth. Larger than life, Luciano Pavarotti was a mega-celebrity with of international repute. The only other time, I got to mention Pavarotti in a movie was when I reviewed (or more accurately "torched) his only big-screen appearance, a 1982 musical drama/comedy called Yes, Giorgio. Howard's film stands as a celebration of a man who seemed to embody a spirit that matched his ample physical girth. Most audiences will thrill, as did audiences at the time, to the Three Tenors concerts that packed stadiums when Pavarotti joined with Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras. Howard's documentary moves fluidly as it follows Pavarotti's ascent into the upper ranks of the history's great tenors. We get a taste for some of Pavorotti's excesses. He dumped his first wife for a much younger woman and perhaps overextended his reach by collaborating with Bono, whose laudatory remarks add to the generally positive atmosphere. Overall, Howard leaves us with the impression of a lusty man of great appetites. Pavarotti sometimes traveled with as many as 29 suitcases, one of them devoted to his favorite foods. But whatever you think of the man -- his personal life wasn't always exemplary -- it's impossible not to be stirred by Pavarotti's Nessun Dorma (from Turandot), his ear-splitting high "Cs" and the great ebullience with which he seemed to live. Was it all an illusion? Possibly but Howard's documentary reminds us that, at his peak, Pavarotti was an artist with, as he wanted us to believe, the soul of a peasant. If that was BS; it was BS of an irresistible variety.

The Quiet One

I don't suppose there could be two more different musical personalities than Luciano Pavarotti and Bill Wyman, the legendary bassist of The Rolling Stones. Ebullient and outgoing, Pavarotti seems a polar opposite of the reserved Wyman, a rock star who mostly eschewed the trappings of his very public life. Director Oliver Murray makes ample use of Wyman's collection of memorabilia to tell a story that deals with the musician's difficult childhood, with his approach to bass guitar and with his years with the Stones. Now 82, Wyman retired from the Stones to form his own band, Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings. Along with plenty of Stones' footage, you'll gain insight into how Wyman approached his work. He saw his role as a mixture of minimalism and close cooperation with Stones' drummer Charlie Watts. Murray overuses images of Wyman at his computer in a room the bassist devotes to his personal archives, collections of materials from his life -- musical and otherwise. The most revealing moments arrive at the end when Wyman becomes emotionally overwhelmed by recalling a meeting with one of his idols, Ray Charles. Even with its deficiencies -- length and occasional repetition -- The Quiet One probably qualifies as a must-see for Stones' fans and, perhaps, a less-compelling offering for casual enthusiasts.

Framing John Delorean

I could have done with re-enactments featuring Alec Baldwin as John DeLorean, but overall Framing John DeLorean -- directed by Don Argott and Sheena M. Joyce -- proves an intriguing look at an engineering genius turned entrepreneur, criminal and finally born-again Christian. Before setting out on his own, John DeLorean was a star at General Motors, having been responsible for the Pontiac division's hot-selling GTO, an early muscle car that GM's corporate sages initially derided. DeLorean overplayed his hand at GM, left the company and established his own car company. (The DeLorean, you'll recall, appeared in the movie Back to the Future and still crops up at gatherings of specialty car enthusiasts.) In 1973, DeLorean opened his plant in Northern Ireland even as the legendary "Troubles" raged. Despite government assistance, DeLorean couldn't make the company work, and the cars produced in Ireland didn't meet the high-quality standards DeLorean promised. In desperate need of funds, DeLorean was drawn into a cocaine sting operation but was acquitted after his attorneys mounted an entrapment defense. Shortly after, DeLorean became involved in a complex scheme that led to charges that he had embezzled funds from DMC (The DeLorean Motor Company). Although I found the re-enactments less than impressive, Baldwin's out-of-character observations about DeLorean can be interesting and it's equally intriguing to watch Baldwin being made-up to look like DeLorean. DeLorean's marriage (the third of four) to model Cristina Ferrare receives its share of attention and we also hear from DeLorean's two children. As is the case with many rogues, DeLorean fascinates as a risk-taker who, at times, really was the smartest guy in any room. But as is also the case with many such people, a mixture of hubris and an over-estimation of his ability to pull even dire situations out of the fire led to a sad end. DeLorean died in 2005.

Bob's Cinema Diary: 6/20/90 -- Walking on Water and The Fall of the American Empire

Walking on Water

In the documentary Walking on Water, the artist Christo oversees creation one of his signature works, a floating walkway constructed on Lake Iseo in the Lombardy region of Italy. Set in 2015, the movie follows Christo and his team through a massive undertaking that was taken apart only 16 days after its debut. In his first project since the death of his wife Jeanne-Claude in 2009, Christo navigates bureaucracies and deals with an array of technical and weather problems —- not to mention the frustrations of having the project nearly ruined by inadequate crowd control measures. Christo doesn't pretend that the work has great significance; his "Floating Piers" -- made from more than 200,000 polyethylene cubes -- seems an irresistibly playful creation, a kind of impromptu bridge that Christo covered with orange, water-repellant material. The movie is interesting as far it goes, providing views of Christo as an irritated creator tormented by organizational problems or as a grandfatherly figure talking to New York City school kids. Director Andrey Paounov's documentary falls short, though. We don’t get much by way of explanation about how all this was done, how materials were selected -- and in some cases -- even what materials were used. You may feel a little sorry for Vladimir Yavachev, Christo's nephew, the man assigned the unenviable task of trying to manage the project. Absent narration and interviews, Paounov leaves it us to make what we will of what we've seen. My take: Drudgery and physical labor can dominate the making of something that’s intended to be awe-provoking and fun. And, hanging out with the sometimes irascible Christo isn't always a picnic, either.

The Fall of the American Empire

Yes, that’s an awfully pretentious title for a caper movie about a delivery man (Alexandre Landry) who finds himself in possession of a stolen fortune and then must struggle to keep his windfall. Director Denys Arcand’s Montreal-based movie (in French with English subtitles) offers a medium-grade plot and a fine performance from Remy Girard as a savvy ex-convict who knows his way around the world of finance. Arcand, who also wrote the screenplay, sometimes forces his characters into on-the-nose speeches denouncing the flaws of a system in which money has become the sole measure of success. Add additional discussions about ethics and you’ve got the idea, a caper comedy that wants to say something about the moral bankruptcy of contemporary society. Well and good, but Arcand doesn’t seem to realize that a crisply told story (which this isn’t) would have done the job just as well as one that underlines its intentions. Audiences (myself included) have an insatiable appetite for caper movies, but while trying to justify itself as a social critique, The Fall of the American Empire too often fizzles. With Maripier Morin as a high-priced, sophisticated hooker who helps Landry's character overcome his naiveté.

'Heart of the Sea' quickly sinks

You'd be better off re-reading Moby-Dick than watching this lame attempt to explain the novel's inspiration.

Director Ron Howard's big whale movie slaps its enormous tail fins against a rising sea of Christmas entertainment, but produces only a dull thud.

Spread the blame: Lame dialogue, overly familiar characters and an unforgivably bland central performance are among the prime factors keeping the movie from attaining epic status.

One expected better because In the Heart of the Sea tells the story of the Essex, a Nantucket whaling ship that was destroyed by a huge whale in 1820. The crew of the Essex was stranded for months after their ship was wrecked in the southern Pacific.

If all this sounds vaguely familiar, it could be for two reasons: The story of the Essex reportedly inspired (at least in part) Herman Melville's masterwork, Moby-Dick.

Or perhaps you're aware of Nathaniel Philbrick's award winning nonfiction account of the Essex's tragic fate, also called In the Heart of the Sea and the principal source for Charles Levitt's soggy, cliched screenplay.

Howard frames his story with a visit by Melville (Ben Whishaw) to Tom Nickerson (Brendan Gleeson), the last remaining Essex survivor. With some prodding from his wife, a reluctant Nickerson begins to recount what happened to him and his shipmates some 30 years earlier.

At the time of the Essex's voyage, Nickerson was a cabin boy. Tom Holland portrays Nickerson in the movie's flashback scenes.

Howard makes a point of reminding us that in the early part of the 19th century, whale oil was the elixir that kept society's lamps burning, a bulwark of the economy and, therefore, a very big deal.

The movie's principal human conflict arrives early on. George Pollard (Benjamin Walker) lands his position as captain of the Essex because of family connections. He takes the job that had been promised to Owen Chase (Chris Hemsworth), an able first mate.

Our sympathies are meant to lean toward Chase, clearly the more competent and manly of this pair of antagonists. Besides, who wants to root for a legacy case who lands a job he hasn't really earned.

Cillian Murphy signs on as the Essex's second mate, but doesn't have enough to do, especially considering that Hemsworth's performance seems to consist mostly of looking ruggedly handsome.

Howard devotes considerable attention to the brutality and sometimes repellant demands of whaling. At one point, Nickerson is ordered to climb into a dead whale's blowhole so that he can retrieve buckets of oil, a job that's difficult to accomplish without losing one's lunch.

When the Essex finally encounters the heavyweight champion of whales -- the product of a team of CGI wizards -- the Essex and the movie are ready to capsize. A behemoth of a creature, the whale has a speckled gray body that's bigger than the Essex, but it's no Moby-Dick.

Once relegated to small boats, crew members struggle to survive, even resorting to cannibalism, the principal cause of the terrible guilt that burdens Nickerson in his intermittently presented conversations with Melville.

Melville took this story and made something towering, great and classic of it: Too bad he wasn't around to help with the script for Heart of the Sea, which leaves only intimations of what might have been in its otherwise forgettable wake.

Adrenalin and rivalry mix in 'Rush'

Director Ron Howard opts for excitement over subtlety in his Formula One movie. Why not?

Going to Ron Howard's Rush for subtlety is about the same as heading to a Formula One pit stop in search of contemplative silence. Working from a screenplay by Peter Morgan, Howard takes a no-nonsense approach to race-car competition, focusing on the two things Formula One drivers might emphasize themselves: intoxicating applications of speed and big-time expressions of attitude.

Howard builds his story around the rivalry between real-life drivers James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) and Niki Lauda (Daniel Bruhl), top competitors who made a major impact on their sport during the landmark 1976 season.

Hunt liked to defy death, party hard and take risks. Although he was hardly risk averse, Lauda was the more calculating of the two. Decidely less handsome than his counterpart, Lauda was known as "Rat" because his overbite supposedly made him look rat-faced.

For both Hunt and Lauda, driving seems less a sport than an obsession, an activity they had to pursue -- even if it meant, in Lauda's case, paying his way into the sport, something that earned the scorn of other drivers, at least at the beginning of his career. As played by Bruhl, Lauda isn't an easy man to like, but the views of others don't much faze him: He doesn't seem to care what people think about him.

When the story shifts away from the world of racing, it's mostly to focus on relationships between Hunt and Lauda and their wives, played respectively by Olivia Wilde and Alesandra Maria Lara. But Howard's less interested in personal relationships than in fulfilling racing-genre demands.

Cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle joins with Howard in an application of technique designed to put us in the driver's seat, to allow us to experience -- in vicarious safety, of course -- the thrill of high-speed driving.

There's some talk of the methodical way Lauda went about preparing his cars and a harrowing look at the accident that put Lauda in the hospital, perhaps because Hunt insisted on racing on a wet track at Nürburgring, the German Grand Prix.

Lauda had lobbied for the race's cancellation because of weather. Hunt, who was chasing Lauda in the standings for the Formula One championship, took the opposite view. According to the movie, Hunt blamed himself for the accident that almost killed Lauda and left him disfigured.

If you're schooled in the differences between Ferraris and McClarens, you'll probably get even more out of Rush, but be assured: Howard hasn't made a movie only for racing aficionados or wannabes. He's made a general-audience slice of entertainment that seldom spills the oil of complexity on its sleek, mobile surfaces.

No 'Dilemma' about this one: It misfires

What's wrong with The Dilemma? Well, just about everything.

One normally wouldn't expect much from a comedy released in the sluggish chill of January, but I hoped that The Dilemma might prove an exception to the rule when I noticed that it had been directed by Ron Howard. In movies such as Splash, Parenthood and Cocoon, Howard has shown a flair for comedy that's not afraid to add a bit of feeling and relevance to its laugh mix. * My advice: Call The Dilemma a mistake for everyone involved. Harbor no hard feelings, and move on. * This comedy about the ways lack of trust undermines relationships includes moments that are downright ugly -- a fight involving a baseball bat and an impromptu blow torch, for example -- and little that's either insightful or funny. * A paunchy looking Vince Vaughn plays Ronny, a Chicago man who discovers that the wife (Winona Ryder) of his best friend and business partner (Kevin James), is cheating. To tell or not to tell? That's the question that plagues Vaughn's Ronny throughout the movie, which also features Jennifer Connelly as Ronny's girlfriend. * Vaughn's glib shtick -- by now too familiar to be amusing -- puts James in the position of playing straight man. Ronny, a recovering compulsive gambler, and Nick, an engineer with confidence problems, run an engine design company. They're trying to sell their variation on an electric motor to Dodge, where an outspoken consultant (a wasted Queen Latifah) has been assigned to their case. * Comedies can, of course, be made about almost anything, including infidelity, but this one misjudges the value of its serious side and overestimates its laugh potential. * The movie's first scene poses a reasonably interesting question: Can we ever really know someone, even a spouse? I'm not sure I have an answer, but I think we can tell when a movie misses: The Dilemma definitely does.