A writer inherits a very large dog

  When I first learned that the writing/directing team of David Siegel and Scott McGehee had adapted author Sigrid Nunez's novel, The Friend, for the screen, I reacted with a mild shudder. Smart, moving, and mired in grief, Nunez's novel seemed an unlikely candidate for a move.

   Fortunately, the filmmakers capture enough of Nunez's tone to elevate a slender story while avoiding the kind of cheap sentiment that could have trivialized Nunez's work, which, simply stated, focuses on the bond between a woman and a dog.

    The Friend revolves around Naomi Watts's portrayal of Iris, a college writing professor who's coping with the suicide of her mentor and one-time lover, a writer of some repute. Iris's grief begins to sharpen when she inherits the author's Great Dane, a 180-pound creature named Apollo.

    Like many New Yorkers, Iris lives in a tiny apartment that's ill-suited for a large canine companion, even one with a touching soulful gaze. Watching Iris walk a Great Dane makes for an arresting sight, even though the aging and arthritic Apollo hardly can be called rambunctious.

    Bill Murray portrays Walter, the author Iris regarded as an invaluable confidant. Walter forged the connections that led Apollo to Iris. His decision can be read as an ironic act of cruelty or as a jolt meant to shake Iris from the torpor that has stalled work on her second novel.

   The directors employ first-person narration from Iris to capture a bit of Nunez's spare prose as they work their way through a series of episodes. Iris fights with her landlord about a no-dogs-allowed policy. She meets with one of Walter's three ex-wives (Carla Gugino) and with his daughter Val (Sarah Pidgeon), a student who's working with Iris on an attempt to turn Walter's correspondence into a book.

    Watts skillfully portrays Iris's hesitant but growing attachment to Apollo. Though limited to brief flashbacks and a fantasy sequence, Murray proves convincing as an unapologetic womanizer who's keenly aware of his many flaws and betrayals.

   Ann Dowd helps rounds out the cast as Iris's neighbor, a woman who's allergic to dogs. Felix Solis portrays the super in Iris's building, a kindly fellow who’s tasked with delivering ultimatums from the landlord. 

    Late in the story, Tuesday (Constance Wu), the last of Walter's three wives, offers to take Apollo off Iris's hands. Iris quickly realizes that Tuesday won't tolerate an animal that can't respect her highly refined choices in furniture.

    Tom McCarthy plays the psychiatrist Iris consults in her increasingly desperate search for a solution to her Apollo problem.

  Though less precisely honed than Nunez's foray into the literary world, Siegel and McGehee's movie does a better job of translating her novel to the screen than Pedro Almodovar did with The Room Next Door, his adaptation of Nunez's What Are You Going Through -- at least that's how it struck me.

   You may never have wondered what it might be like to have a 180-pound dog dropped into your life, but The Friend will give you an idea of how much upheaval such a bulky intrusion can bring — both literally and metaphorically. 

    If I were looking for an alternate title for The Friend, I might consider this one: “Chamber Piece with Very Large Dog.”

Women kick butt in 'Gunpowder Milkshake'

 

     I didn't think that I'd be even a little impressed by another violent comic book of a movie that makes the phrase "over-the-top" seem understated. 

    Credit director Navot Papushado with making a movie that boasts a strong female cast and blasts its way into summer with gusto, style, and a surfeit of butt-kicking pleasures.

    The movie begins when an assassin (Lena Headey) shares a milkshake with her 12-year-old daughter. Crosswise with her employer, an outfit known as The Firm, Mom flees.

     The story then leaps ahead 15 years and the daughter (Karen Gillan) -- now a young woman -- has gone into the family business. She, too, works for The Firm,  taking assignments from Nathan (Paul Giamatti), an "executive" who consults with a board composed of men cut from corporate cloth. 

    Gillan's Sam, who hasn’t seen her mother since that fateful day at the diner, attracts trouble when an assignment puts her at odds with the evil Jim McAlester (Ralph Ineson). A furious McAlister vows vengeance because his son was among Sam's victims.

    You needn’t know much more about the plot which quickly lands Sam at a “library” where three women (Carla Gugino, Michelle Yeoh, and Angela Bassett) lend weapons to a select clientele. They know Sam's mom, who once was a fellow "librarian."

   As the story unfolds, Sam finds herself looking out for Emily (Chloe Coleman), an eight-year-old whose father had the misfortune of being shot by Sam. Realizing that she probably shouldn't have shot Emily's dad, Sam takes the kid underwing. Emily starts referring to herself as Sam's "apprentice."

    Emily also insists on reminding folks not to shortchange her age: She's actually eight and three-quarters.

    Papushado understands that movies such as Gunpowder Milkshake live or die with their set pieces. For the most part, he delivers.

    Among the best action: Sam engages in combat after her  hands have been paralyzed by a fiendish doctor (Michael Smiley). To up the preposterous ante, Papushado has Sam battling three thugs who are stoned on laughing gas.

    As the story barrels along, Emily receives what might be the wildest driving lesson in movie history, sitting on Sam's lap as the movie burns rubber in a nifty sequence that takes place mostly in a parking garage. Where else?

    Gillan makes a strong impression and Gugino (bookish), Yeoh (reserved), and Bassett (censorious) give brief but pointed performances that don't disappoint when the chips are down. 

    Reminiscent of the best of old-fashioned Hong Kong-style action and lots of other predecessors, the movie's finale pits the women against what seems like a legion of angry men.

   Clever and engaging, this wild goof on exploitation cinema is lifted by a kick-ass female cast that easily could turn up in a second helping. Worse things could -- and probably will -- happen at the movies.

Forget Mars, this one dies on Earth

The Space Between Us mixes teen romance and sci-fi -- to no apparent avail.

A teen romance decorated with sci-fi frosting, The Space Between Us builds a mush-minded scenario around an effort to colonize Mars, a planet Hollywood never seems to tire of abusing.

After some sketchy initial storytelling about how a colony on Mars has been established, the movie introduces us to 16-year-old Gardner Elliot (Asa Butterfield). Gardner is the only human ever born on Mars, a distinction that stems from the fact that his astronaut mother, was pregnant when she landed on the Red Planet. Mom didn't survive childbirth.

Like any teen-ager, Gardner craves contact with age-appropriate peers; he wants to visit Earth so that he can pursue a relationship with a young woman (Britt Robertson) with whom he's been carrying on an interplanetary version of Skyping.

In addition, Gardner never has met his father; the boy's search for Daddy becomes another thread in a predictable tapestry that mixes budding romance and fish-out-water cliches when the lonely, soulful Gardner gets his wish and lands on Earth.

The movie's adult cast includes Carla Gugino as Kendra, the woman who raised Gardener on Mars. Gary Oldman portrays Nathaniel Shepherd, a cheerleader for extraterrestrial living, who runs a company called Genesis Space Technologies. The Mars colony is Nathaniel's brain child.

Because he has spent his entire life on Mars, Earth's gravity threatens Gardner's biological system, so much so that if he remains on Earth, he could be doomed. Ready for a metaphor? Gardner's heart has become dangerously enlarged.

Before Gardner begins to fade, he and Robertson's Tulsa race around the country in variety of cars they steal, apparently without repercussion. The feisty (and annoyingly brash) Tulsa becomes Gardner's guide to Earth-bound living, as well as his love interest.

Director Peter Chelsom's (Hannah Montana: The Movie and Shall We Dance) doesn't create a seamless fit between teen-movie scenes and images of spaceships, the colony on Mars (dubbed East Texas) or any of the movie's other mildly futuristic touches.

Neither credible nor fanciful, The Space Between Us travels the vast distance to Mars and back, but winds up going nowhere.

'Match' makes its way to the screen

In Match -- a film based on a play -- you'll find meager attempts to disguise the fact that the material is better suited to the stage. Despite a few stabs at opening the drama, Match remains far too theatrical to work as a movie. Taking over the part Frank Langella played on stage, Patrick Stewart portrays Tobi Powell, a famous ballet dancer who -- after an injury -- has become a fabled instructor at Juilliard. Tobi's life is shaken when he's visited by a couple (Carla Gugino and Matthew Lillard) who purport to be doing research on dance history. Written and directed by Stephen Belber, who adapted his own play, the movie's multiple hidden agendas and twists never feel entirely credible. Stewart makes the most of a showcase role, and Gugino and Lillard do their part, but absent the spark of live performance, Match seldom bursts into convincing life.