A cop caught in an entrapment game

 Set in 1997 -- before gay liberation and law reforms -- Plainclothes focuses on a young Syracuse, NY police officer assigned to vice squad duties. His job: hang around malls and entice gay men into bathrooms where they’ll soon be arrested for indecent exposure, lewd  behavior, or indecency. Tom Blyth plays Lucas, the young cop who lures men into restrooms and then bolts as his fellow officers race in to make an arrest. The twist: Lucas is coming to grips with his own gayness. The situation spawns a complex drama about Lucas's struggles with his conscience and with his blue-collar family, which isn't exactly gay friendly. Blyth ably captures the conflicts tearing at Lucas, who's also in the midst of separating from his wife. A key story component arrives when Lucas develops a relationship with a man (Russell Tovey) he refuses to arrest. Tovey's Andrew teaches Lucas to operate on the sly, introducing him to a world in which homosexuality often involves men leading double lives. Maria Dizzia, as Lucas's mom, and Gabe Fazio, as one of his uncles, make the family dynamics real, if not always pleasant. The film also deals -- albeit briefly -- with Lucas's relationship with his fellow officers. I thought it would be interesting to tell this kind of story from the perspective of a straight man whose conscience begins to nag at him. That's probably another movie, though. As it is, Lucas's story serves as a reminder of what life had been like for many gay men before society began to change.

Christmas Eve with a large family

 

Movies about families gathering for holiday celebrations tend toward nostalgic recollections or satirical pokes at low-hanging fruit. Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point takes a different approach, although it’s not clear what that might be. Employing a teeming ensemble of actors, the movie  chronicles an evening in the life of a large Italian-American family: kids, teenagers, adults, and what’s left of an older generation. Absent a central character, director Tyler Taormina turns his Long Island-based movie into a heap of asides that feel as if they may have been drawn from personal experience. Homage is paid to family tradition, but the teenagers eventually slip away, seeking the familiarity of a world their parents don’t understand. A packed soundtrack (from Sinatra to The Ronettes) seems keyed to evoking smiles of recognition. Set in the early years of the 21st century, the movie also includes mother-daughter tensions and disagreements about whether it’s time to move mom into a nursing home. Perhaps to solidify its indie cred, the movie casts Michael Cera and Gregg Turkington as two cops who sound dissonant comic notes. If you attend this densely populated party, look for performances by Maria Dizzia, Tony Savino, and Francesca Scorsese.  To summarize: The movie resembles a Christmas meal at which everyone overindulges. Put another way, all of this gets to be too much. Enjoyable in bits and pieces, Christmas Even in Miller’s Point did for me exactly what a real evening like this might have accomplished. Halfway through, I was ready to go home.

A teenager meets her older self

 

     If you could go meet an older version of yourself, what would you want to ask? If the question intrigues you, you may find amusement in My Old Ass, a fantasy movie in which an 18-year-old (Maisy Stella) meets herself when she's on the brink of turning 40.

     Aubrey Plaza plays the older version of Stella's Elliott. The older Elliott appears when the younger Elliott drinks hallucinatory tea made from mushrooms. 

    Stella and Plaza don't look alike, but director Megan Park dodges the issue, focusing more on emotional dynamics than appearance. 

     For me, the main attraction here is Plaza, who has evolved into an interesting actress. But Plaza's presence in the story is limited by a plot that focuses mostly on young Elliott.

       Teenage Elliott identifies as gay, but develops an increasingly affectionate relationship with Chad (Percy Hynes White), a young man who's spending the summer on a nearby farm. The relationship occurs after the older Elliott warns her younger self not to fall for anyone named Chad. 

     As Maisy discovers the world of gender fluidity, she wonders what her attraction to Chad means; the movie suggests that people don't always know who they are or who they might become.

    Stella portrays Maisy as a young woman trying to find her footing as she prepares to leave her Canadian home, a cranberry farm where she lives with her mother (Maria Dizzia), father (Alain Goulem), and two brothers (Seth Isaac Johnson and (Carter Trozzolo). 

   The film includes a big reveal, and Park easily shifts to sentiment without allowing the film to become cloying. Ultimately, My Old Ass overcomes Elliott's more annoying tendencies and delivers a message about gathering rosebuds before reality creates its inevitable ambush. 

   Deep? Not really, but the message nicely fits a  slender piece of work.

   A footnote: For many, the idea of viewing a 39-year-old ass as "old" might seem a stretch mark too far. 

Generations mix in 'While We're Young'

A semi-sharp comedy of manners from director Noah Baumbach.

There's a point during Noah Baumbach's While We're Young when one of the characters, a frustrated documentary filmmaker, refers to himself as an old man. Even as a comparative statement, it's a stretch. Played by Ben Stiller, the "aging" documentarian is in his mid-40s.

For those of us for whom the mid-40s long ago have slipped into (or perhaps out of) memory, Stiller's statement may prompt involuntary snickers.

But then Baumbach, 45 himself, isn't necessarily interested in actual aging. Among other things, his movie is about losing touch with the promise of youth. What happens when one realizes that the salad days are over and even the most exotic dressing can't put the crisp back into life's lettuce?

It's a potentially rich subject for a director who has been making films since 1995's Kicking and Screaming and whose filmography includes The Squid and the Whale, Margot at the Wedding, Greenberg, and Frances Ha, as well as the upcoming Mistress America.

With age 50 in sight, does Baumbach worry about reaching his full potential?

While We're Young can be seen as a zeitgeist comedy set in New York City, a place where success and failure tend to exist in dramatic counterpoint.

When things aren't going well, New York is an easy place to feel small and failed. That makes it an ideal spot for a character played by Stiller, a self-conscious sad sack who's flirting with defeat.

I had a conflicted response to While We're Young. I didn't care much about the concerns of its principal characters, a middle-aged couple (Stiller and Naomi Watts) and a couple still in their 20s (Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried).

At the same time, I found some of Baumbach's observations about these characters to be amusing and, on occasion, pointed.

Baumbach spends a good deal of time playing with generational styles and tastes, sometimes flip-flopping them between his middle-aged and the still youthful characters. The older characters, for example, are Google obsessed; the younger ones don't Google because they take pride in not knowing things. Why bother?

Stiller's Josh hasn't come close to fulfilling his potential. He's been working on his second documentary for 10 years, and can't get beyond a six-hour, sleep-inducing rough cut.

Watts' Cornelia frets about being childless. She works as a producer for her father (Charles Grodin), an acclaimed documentarian who's at a stage where he's receiving lifetime achievement awards. He's the worst possible father-in-law for Josh, a constant reminder of what Josh hasn't accomplished.

Driver's Jamie and Seyfried's Darby latch onto Josh at a film class he's teaching. Gradually, the tables turn, and Josh and Cornelia begin clinging to this younger, free-spirited duo.

Jamie's so unconcerned about being hip, he's actually hip. And unlike Josh, he's far too young to fear making fatal mistakes.

For her part, Darby dabbles with entrepreneurial craft projects: She makes ice cream.

Watching Josh and Cornelia try to turn back the clock can be amusing -- in a painful sort of way. They attempt to keep pace with the younger couple, most ludicrously at an Ayahuasca get-together where everyone ingests a psychedelic brew before barfing out inner demons.

Baumbach sticks fairly close to the surface as he allows these characters to reveal their inner preposterousness, Cornelia's laugh-out-loud foray into hip-hop dancing, for example.

It's not entirely surprising to learn that Jamie may not be living in the moment as much as he pretends to be, a development that dominates the movie's third act.

The story pretty much derails when it gets caught up in ethical issues involving a documentary Jamie is making (yes, he's a filmmaker, too).

While We're Young proves entertaining enough, but its many small observations don't add up to anything bigger.

By the end, I found myself wondering whether the plights of these self-absorbed characters could have been reduced to one perceptively amusing New Yorker cartoon. Put another way, I had a few good chuckles, and quickly turned the page.