Amy Winehouse's brief, wild life

   Amy Winehouse may not have lived long enough for her considerable talent to mature. She was 27 when she died from alcohol poisoning in 2011. Her early demise makes Winehouse a problematic subject for a biographical movie. 

   Fair to say, Winehouse's life had only one act -- albeit a wild one.

   In some respects, Winehouse revivified a rock n’ roll cliche — lacing her stardom with an unholy triumvirate: sex, drugs, and alcohol. Her inspirations derived from sources as diverse as rapper Lauryn Hill and singer Sarah Vaughan. She didn’t want to be pinned to anyone's genre bulletin board.

   Defined by uncompromising independence and a powerful voice, Winehouse blazed bright; she was nominated for eight Grammys and won six of them. 

   Back to Black tells Winehouse’s story, serving it in jagged chunks that seem appropriate for a singer/songwriter whose Rehab can be read as an anthem of spirited defiance. 

   “They tried to make me go to rehab but I said, ‘No. No. No.’”

  The movie’s title — taken from Winehouse’s 2006 album of the same name — suggests dark currents. Winehouse’s journey toward oblivion centers on a startling and dynamic performance from Marisa Abela, who sings the movie’s musical numbers. No lip-synching here. 

   In this telling, Winehouse draws inspiration and affection from her grandmother, Nan Cynthia (Lesley Manville), a nightclub singer who functions as a mentor to Winehouse, a Jewish girl from North London who's often shown wearing a conspicuously displayed Star of David.

   Winehouse also receives support from her dad (Eddie Marsan), a dedicated father who tries to keep Winehouse on track, no easy job considering Winehouse went to great lengths to prove she was no Spice Girl pop star.  As is frequently the case with headstrong rebels, Winehouse clashed with those who wanted to shape her career.

  Much of the movie centers on Winehouse’s heated but disastrous relationship with Blake Fielder-Civil (Jack O’Connell). Blake charts his own course through the world of drugs.

   Credit O’Connell with generating the bad-boy charm that Winehouse found irresistible. Put it this way: Their relationship wasn’t the stuff of rom-coms.

     I can’t say “no no no” to Back to Black, probably because I’m too much of a sucker for courageously immersive performances, and Abela certainly gives one. But director Sam Taylor-Johnson, working from an episodic screenplay by Matt Greenhalgh, creates a movie that often feels so scattershot and confrontational you may want to push it away.

     By the end, that's what I found myself doing.

He wants to control ... well ... everything

Daniel Day-Lewis and Vicky Krieps play a challenging duet in director Paul Thomas Anderson's Phantom Thread, a movie about a tyrannical fashion designer.

In what he says is his last screen performance, Daniel Day-Lewis reunites with director Paul Thomas Anderson (Let There Be Blood) to play a fastidious clothing designer who plies his trade in London of the 1950s. Day-Lewis’ Reynolds Woodcock (I leave it to you to deconstruct the surname) dresses women in ways that tend to stamp them with an identity: his. He designs, measures and sews until every woman who wears one of his gowns becomes a perfect representation of one of his sought-after visions.

It’s impossible (and perhaps inadvisable) to watch Day-Lewis in Phantom Thread without considering Woodcock as the embodiment of a certain kind of meticulous artist. His creations can have flourish and sweep, but they are also marked by an attention to detail that goes beyond obsessive to touch the border of tyrannical.

For Woodcock, the dress eclipses the importance of the woman who wears it. He considers himself a visionary, but he works in the world of fashion where whim and shifting tastes can undo a reputation.

A bachelor when we meet him, Woodcock allows his sister (Lesley Manville) to keep his business on track. She’s a guardian and facilitator, the woman who takes care of all the details that Woodcock prefers to ignore. She knows that Woodcock requires space to create. A finely tuned instrument, he can be thrown off by the sound of toast that’s too noisily buttered or a vegetable that's not cooked to his exacting specifications.

Looking gaunt and composed with gray hair swept back to emphasize a steep brow, Day-Lewis takes the full measure of this unusual man, an artist for whom the external world poses constant threats to his powers of concentration.

In Phantom Thread, Anderson creates an intricately designed illusion: A small movie, Phantom Thread suggests big themes, even as it offers helpings of mischievous humor.

Initially, Anderson devotes the movie to establishing Woodcock’s world, a domain over which he exerts absolute control — until the arrival of Alma (Vicky Krieps), a waitress in a country restaurant where Woodcock happens to dine. Woodcock invites Alma to become one of his models.

Alma replaces Johanna (Camilla Rutherford), a model who became a little too demanding for Woodcock’s taste.
When Woodcock brings Alma to his home, he tells her that her imperfections — she cites her small breasts — are not problems, at all. She's the landscape on which the great Woodcock will create his next masterpiece.

Not surprisingly, Alma soon begins to test Woodcock’s patience. She may not be quite as manageable as Woodcock initially hoped. Krieps gives Alma an assertive edge, and it becomes clear that this relationship will take over the movie: Woodcock and Alma are locked in a kind of dance in which he tries to exert his control and she resists.

By this time, Alma is living in Woodcock’s home, working full-time as his model and muse. But she refuses to disappear when he’d prefer not to see her.

Now, as is the case with most movies, it falls to Anderson to make something out of all that he has set in motion — with restraint, wit, and the precision of an elegant camera. Even in a character study, the characters eventually must do something. Anderson must take the finely spun cloth of the movie and weave it into something whole and finished.

How you respond to Phantom Thread may depend on what you make of the twist that Anderson brings to the movie.
I’m prepared to listen to those who disagree, but, for me, as Phantom Thread began adding a twist to the atmosphere Anderson creates, the movie's spell was broken for me. Little more can be said without introducing spoilers, so I’ll simply say that Anderson eventually defines what either can be viewed as a perfect match or a relationship of intricately blended perversities.

The performances are all first rate. By now, we all have come to appreciate Day-Lewis’ ability to inhabit characters in ways that are thorough and commanding without being showy. Watch Day-Lewis create Woodcock's smile, easy yet tentative, almost as if the designer's face is engaged in a game only he understands. Like everyone else who values his work, I hope that Day-Lewis reconsiders his proposed retirement.

Krieps gives the movie’s most surprising -- and in a way -- most dominant performance. Alma's disregard for the high pretenses of art border on a form of bullying. She brings an insistent presence to Woodcock's carefully managed home.

Phantom Thread stands as an absorbing work that proves mildly unfulfilling, a beautifully designed garment that ultimately hangs in a rather small closet. Put another way, what builds novel-like expectations at the outset winds up feeling like a short story by the end.

But that doesn't mean I wouldn't encourage you to see it -- for Day-Lewis, for Krieps and Manville, and for Anderson's insistence on making movies suited only to his own singular taste.

'Maleficent:' A new take on an old tale

Sleeping Beauty for the 21st century -- beautifully crafted, but not always captivating.

Angelina Jolie can be positively wicked as Maleficent, an aggrieved fairy seeking revenge against the king who stole her wings.

Maleficent, of course, is the title character of Disney's reworking of the Sleeping Beauty story, a tale the studio told in a classic helping of 1959 animation.

With her cheek bones built to harrowing heights by make-up whiz Rick Baker, Jolie flashes predatory white teeth and keeps a cool sense of menace about herself.

She's striking and also a bit freaky looking in headgear that gives her a devilish pair of horns.

Director Robert Stromberg, production designer on movies such as Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland and Sam Raimi's Oz the Great and Powerful, creates an encompassing visual environment while telling the Sleeping Beauty story in a way that gives it a bit of feminist spin -- and provides us with the inside scoop on a story we thought we knew.

Early scenes introduce us to Maleficent as a child (Isobelle Molloy), a happy fairy girl who establishes a relationship with a human, a boy named Stephan (Michael Higgins).

Stephan will grow up, discover ambition, and steal Maleficent's wings, thus enabling himself to become king of the humans and forcing his childhood flame to turn toward evil.

The Sleeping Beauty of this tale -- Elle Fanning's Aurora -- is a smiling, blonde-haired girl who seems carefree and guileless -- and not nearly as intriguing as Maleficent.

Aurora's father, of course, is the grown Stephan. As king, Stephan (Sharlto Copley) insists on keeping his daughter away from the palace until after her 16th birthday.

To that end, Aurora is raised in a secluded forest cottage by three comically addled fairies (Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple and Lesley Manville).

All of this has to do with the vengeful curse that Maleficent put on Aurora at her christening: In a fit of icy rage, Maleficent condemned Aurora to prick her finger on a spindle at age 16. She'd then fall into a death-like sleep from which she could be roused only by the kiss of true love.

It's just here that the story takes an unexpected turn, about which a little must be said.

During her time in the woods, Aurora develops a relationship with the watchful Maleficent, and the movie raises a question that generates interest without much suspense: Will Maleficent stick to her guns or will she soften as she gets to know Aurora? How bad a badass is Maleficent really?

The tale seems to have been calibrated to maximize CGI: There are many odd-looking creatures, some of whom may a bit scary for the youngest kids.

Stromberg does a nice job with a character named Diaval, a crow that Maleficent transforms into a variety of different creatures, all of them charged with doing her bidding.

Some movies are pure stinkbombs; others are total winners; still others are decent in their way, but may not scale the intended heights.

That seems to be the case with Maleficent, a movie that engages fitfully and flies high at times. Beautifully crafted as it is, Maleficent doesn't consistently provide the desired level of captivation.

Mike Leigh on the curse of loneliness

Brilliantly acted and unafraid of pain, Mike Leigh's Another Year takes us to uncomfortable places.

Tom and Gerri are two halves of a London couple ensconced in an idyllic marriage. They seem to enjoy each other's company. They both work at productive jobs. He's a geological engineer. She's a psychological counselor. Their home exudes lived-in comfort, and, in their spare time, Tom and Gerri toddle off to their garden plot to grow vegetables. Did I mention, he cooks, and they never seem at a loss for a decent bottle of wine to enhance even the most rudimentary of meals?

Tom and Gerri occupy the center of Mike Leigh's quietly moving Another Year, a movie that takes us through four seasons in the lives of Tom, Gerri and the people who assemble around them. For all their contentment, Tom and Gerri are like a ship gathering barnacles of despair -- in the form of friends and relatives.

I've observed this phenomenon at close hand: One couple becomes a centerpiece in the lives of a variety of people. Many of these "satellite" folks measure their lives against the happy couple's apparent successes. Unlike recent American movies about couples -- Rabbit Hole and Blue Valentine, for example -- Another Year doesn't deal with crisis situations. The despair in Another Year is life-sized and cumulative, and seems to have grown in the well-watered soil of loneliness and desperation.

Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen play Tom and Gerri, two well-adjusted adults who treat their friends with acceptance, as well as with a bit of condescension. Their door seems always to be open, but Tom and Gerri also understand the inadequacies of some of their friends, showing slight traces of the superiority the self-possessed sometimes feel toward the maladjusted.

Early on, Leigh makes it clear that he's intent on assaying a particular kind of despair, the kind that closes in when people reach the brink of what has become known as "young" old age, the late 50s, say. To make the point, Leigh begins the movie with one of Gerri's co-workers talking to a woman (Imelda Staunton) who's suffering from terrible insomnia.

Staunton's Janet is advised to seek counseling, but you can tell from Staunton's grim expression that this woman doesn't want to talk and probe; she wants the blessed relief of unconsciousness. Staunton's character vanishes after that first scene, but she sets a powerful tone for what follows.

I don't mean to make Another Year sound like an ordeal; it isn't. A splendid ensemble cast creates characters that are recognizable and real. We could know these people. Maybe, in some way, we do. There's real pleasure in that.

Two of Tom and Gerri's friends stand apart from the rest.

First, Mary (Lesley Manville), a secretary who works at the same facility as Gerri. An annoyingly giddy manner masks Mary's depression. She's one of those women who never had much going for her, but was reasonably attractive. Now that her looks are beginning to fade, Mary faces the prospect of ... well ... no prospects. Mary doesn't talk; she prattles, and when she drinks too much wine -- which is whenever she drinks -- she inevitably embarrasses herself.

Stick with Manville. I believe that before the movie's done, she topples the walls of caricature and gets to something painfully real.

Then there's Tom's old buddy, Ken (Peter Wight). Ken shows up for a visit, looking like a walking prelude to a coronary. He smokes. He's almost always got a beer can in hand. Overweight and disheveled, he seems to be gasping for breath even when he's standing still. He's a wreck, and he makes an awkward play to connect with Mary, another wreck. She's too vain to admit that Ken might be the best that she can do.

Somehow, Mary has made Tom and Gerri's son Joe (Oliver Maltman) the target of a misguided flirtation. He's a lawyer, and he seems to have the same generally cheerful disposition with which his father and mother are blessed. He humors Mary. When Joe brings home a girlfriend (Karina Fernandez) to meet his parents, Mary's thrown into a tailspin. She's being ridiculous, of course, but for Mary, Joe probably represents a way into the happily-ever-after existence that Tom and Gerri seem to have found. When that door slams shut, she's sad and rueful.

As with all Leigh movies, plot seldom stands in the way of characterization and drama filters through the incessant drip of ordinary life, a backyard barbecue, an unannounced visit or an afternoon tea.

In the movie's final segment the tone shifts a bit: We meet Tom's brother Ronnie (David Bradley). Ronnie's wife has just passed away. His affliction is twofold: He's stricken with grief and unable to express it. It's difficult to believe that Tom and Ronnie derive from the same gene pool, but Leigh insists on bringing Ronnie -- a veritable mountain of gloom -- into the movie's home stretch.

Not everything in Another Year is fully realized. But the performances are outstanding, and Leigh dares to show us what happens to those unfortunate folks who realize that they've arrived at a moment in which life is as good as it's ever going to get -- and, sadly, it's not good enough.