Downton Abbey's very fond farewell

 

  There are at least two ways of looking at Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale, the culmination of two previous big-screen efforts to repackage the long-running TV series for multiplex audiences. Six seasons on PBS encompassing 52 episodes evidently weren't enough to sate the appetites of those who like their soap operas burnished with caustic wit and class differences as manifested in the aristocratic Crawley family and the servants who toil on their behalf.

  Never my cup of tea, Downton Abbey nonetheless accumulated legions of fans under the guidance of Julian Fellowes, a writer who developed Downton Abbey as an outgrowth of Gosford Park, another series that ran on PBS.

   The late Maggie Smith appeared in both series and in Downton movies as the beloved Dowager Countess Violet Crawley, whose wit sometimes curdled into sarcasm. Fair to say, Smith became the face of Downton Abbey.

   Although Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale leaves the door ajar for the series to continue beyond the 1930s, it serves as a farewell tour for its characters, themes, and, most importantly, grand appointments in set decoration, costumes, ladies' hats, and fine jewelry.

    About those two ways of seeing The Grand Finale: 

    First, Grand Finale can be regarded as the fondest of possible farewells for beloved characters and the actors who play them, a major helping of well-crafted fan service designed to ease devotees into a Downtonless future.

   If you’re in this group, you may wish to stop reading here because I'm about to shift gears.

    Let's pause for a bit of business, though: The roster of Downton actors includes: Hugh Bonneville as the Earl of Grantham, Elizabeth McGovern, as his countess wife, Cora, Michelle Dockery, as Lady Mary Crawley, Laura Carmichael, as Lady Edith Crawley, Charles Carson as Mr. Carter, the butler, Sophie McShera, as Daisy Mason, a kitchen worker en route to becoming head cook, and on and on and on through a teeming roster of roles.

    Paul Giamatti has been added to the latest edition as Harold Levinson, Lady Grantham's wayward American brother. Another newcomer, Arty Froushan, appears as Noel Coward. Alessandro Nivola plays Gus Sambrook, the self-proclaimed genius entrepreneur who helped Levinson squander a good deal of the family fortune.

    For the record, Dominic West reprises his role as Guy Dexter, the smiling film star who worked his way into the previous film.

    Now, about the second way of regarding The Grand Finale. Fond farewell? Yes. But this example of fondness easily and often becomes saccharine, sentimental schmaltz decked out in top hats and formal ware. 

   The movie also is marked by gently presented social conflict. Winds of social change are rocking Britain: the decline of the aristocracy, the rise of the middle class, long-standing convention abrading against modern attitudes, and the emergence of Lady Mary as an independent woman.

    No sooner does Grand Finale open than Lady Mary’s recent divorce turns her into a social pariah who eventually must be reabsorbed into the fabric of Yorkshire life.

   The family also brushes against the shady money ethos represented by Sambrook's Americanism, greed dressed up in an attempt to become part of the aristocratic wallpaper.

   All of this is accompanied be emergence of a new form of status: celebrity. Coward's reputation as a playwright and actor, trumps (you'll pardon the expression) nobility; he ignites the enthusiasms of both the rich and of their loyal servants.

    All of these conflicts are stated obviously and each is resolved without too much ruffling of anyone's ascot; i.e., the script leaves no loose ends dangling, politely closing the book on every potentially fraught page it opens. Rather than gathering force, the winds of change flutter like a soft breeze.

   The movie even borrows a line from T.S. Eliot's The Hollow Men. Upon confronting the London apartment that will replace the grand London house the family sells to meet expenses, Lord Grantham coos,  "This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper." 

   Giamatti and Nivola stand out like mismatched pieces of a jigsaw. Maybe that's the point. Americans don't easily fit into a world built for anglophiles.

   And with 49 credited roles in Grand Finale, it's a small miracle that director Simon Curtis saves Fellowes' screenplay from hopeless confusion.

     Even for those of us who aren’t enthusiasts, there are pleasures to be found in watching horses race over beautifully tended green downs or in the familiarity of the Grantham home. Anna Robins' costumes underscore the series' ongoing  commitment to pleasing the eye.

     Moreover,  Dockery gives the movie the spine it needs without making too much fuss about it.

    And, yes, the movie finds ways to honor the late Smith for her role in the series. Of course, it does.

    Make of it what you will, but for me, the whole Downton business ended with neither a bang nor a whimper, but, if you will, with a sigh. This lavishly appointed addendum gracefully drifts into the soft embrace of a cultural comfort zone.

 

   

   

   

Trying to freshen an old formula

    

Paul Hunham might be the most hated teacher at Barton Academy, the fictional New England prep school where much of The Holdovers takes place. Caustic with his students, many of whom he regards as certifiable idiots, Hunham could be the subject of a movie entitled, "Good Riddance, Mr Chips" -- at least as far as most of Barton's students are concerned. 

  Director Alexander Payne focuses The Holdovers on one of Hunhum's dreariest assignments; he's asked to supervise students who, for various reasons, must remain at Barton during Christmas break. 

  Staying at the school when everyone else is enjoying family and friends seems like punishment for those who must endure reduced heat at the school, less-than-festive meals, and the notion that elsewhere great times are unfolding.

   In part, The Holdovers functions as a showcase for Paul Giamatti, who brings a dose of Scrooge to the holiday season, presuming Scrooge had been interested in classical education and the Peloponnesian Wars. Giamatti, who starred in Payne's Sideways, wrings plenty of bitterness from a role that feeds him a steady, if slightly repetitive, stream of nasty dialogue.

   Although a group of boys begins the Christmas break under Hunham's care,  David Hemingson's screenplay contrives to reduce their number to one (Dominic Sessa). Sessa's Angus Tully becomes Barton's last abandoned student. His mother and new stepfather want to spend their holiday vacation alone. 

   Angus stews in his own bitterness, a bright kid who's willing to stand-up to Hunham and who, we know, from the outset eventually will establish a relationship with a teacher who needs to have his humanity revived -- at least partially.

    The school's cook (Da'Vine Joy Randolph) also remains at Barton. Randolph provides deeply felt support as a woman burdened by the loss of her son -- one of the school's few Black students -- to the Vietnam War. The story takes place during the 1970s.

     Payne spices a predictable arc with attempts at variety, a Christmas party thrown by one of the school's employees (Carrie Preston) and a trip to Boston that Angus wants to make to escape the stir-crazy Barton confines, for example.

      Credit Payne with keeping the movie from choking on Christmas corn. He tempers a happily-ever-after ending with revelations about Hunham, whose life has sad underpinnings that raise issues about rich preppie entitlement.

       Although there's plenty to enjoy here, The Holdovers suffers because of a length (two hours and 13 minutes) that seems excessive considering that some of the scenes feel over-extended and the movie, like its characters, sometimes seems to be looking for things to do rather than unfolding organically.

         Still, Giamatti and Sessa hold up their end of the bargain, and Randolph brings a credible sense of pragmatism to a role that easily could have become a cliche. She shows how much emotional dimension a supporting actor can add to a narrowly focused movie that tells a story that, for Angus, may become an oft-told anecdote in his successfully evolving life.

Movie can't match its serious subject

 Amanda Seyfried stars as a children's book author trying to cope with severe depression in A Mouthful of Air, a movie based on a novel by Amy Koppelman. Koppelman also directed the movie and wrote its screenplay. As a look at depression that can lead to suicide, Mouthful of Air falls short on insight and dramatic heft. Seyfried portrays Julie Davis, a doting mother and children's book author who lives on Manhattan's Upper Westside with her devoted husband (Finn Wittrock). Julie's mother (Amy Irving) offers help after Julie attempts suicide, as does a concerned psychiatrist (Paul Giamatti). A scene in which Julie's sister-in-law (Jennifer Carpenter) accuses her of selfishness has some power, as does the occasional tension that develops between Julie and Wittrock's Ethan. Julie's second pregnancy and a move to the suburbs has everyone walking on eggshells around the fragile Julia. Although the movie has a tough ending, it seldom digs as deeply as its subject demands. Animated examples of Julia's work don't help either.

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.

They want to have a baby

Director Tamara Jenkins returns to the screen with Private Life; Paul Giamatti and Kathryn Hahn make the trip worthwhile.

In Private Life, Paul Giamatti and Kathryn Hahn play a married couple who have spent years trying to have a baby. As a couple in their 40s, they're facing a difficult reality; their lives are beginning to lose all traces of youthful promise.

Clever, smart and entertaining, Private Life provides the perfect vehicle for director Tamara Jenkins to return to the screen after more than a decade. Jenkins' The Savages (2007) featured Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney as adult siblings trying to cope with a demented father.

In this outing, Jenkins turns her attention to a frustrated New York couple we get to know well, and who are so life-sized you feel as if they might live next door, providing you live in New York’s East Village.

After so much failure, it seems logical to wonder why Hahn's Rachel and Giamatti's Richard want to bring a child into their lives. The answer, as I’ve suggested, may lie in the fact that they're an attractive couple who seem to have reached their career limits.

The theater company Richard runs isn't going to make him rich or famous. Neither is the pickle company he operates to keep bread and butter on the table. Rachel's trips to Yaddo, a prestigious artists' colony, haven't pushed her to the top of the literary world. Richard and Rachel still live in a cramped apartment where the upstairs neighbor plays music that booms through the floorboards.

A child might mark Rachel and Richard's last way to leave something tangible behind but their lives have degenerated into a series of injections (administered by him), ovulation-cycle watching and visits to specialists. And, yes, Richard and Rachel also are in the process of trying to a adopt.

Striving for pregnancy has begun to look like penance for undisclosed sins or, at very least, a full-time job.

The movie's plot finally leads the couple to consider using Richard's sperm to fertilize a donor egg. Because Rachel would carry the baby, a donor might represent the closest the couple can get to biological reproduction.

Richard often turns to his brother Charlie (John Carroll Lynch) for money; Charlie's wife (Molly Shannon) is sick of hearing about Richard and Rachel's problems, another source of low-key tension.

Once an initially reluctant Rachel agrees to use a donor egg, it falls to Charlie and Rachel's daughter Sadie (Kayli Carter) to become the donor. Sadie has left college to move in with Richard and Rachel. An aspiring writer, Sadie thinks Richard and Rachel are "cool,'' a conclusion only a 25-year-old could draw about a couple that's suffering from the kind of life exhaustion that shows up just before the skin begins to wrinkle.

Jenkins writes with wit and Giamatti and Hahn create characters who are intelligent and credible.

You don't have to have had any experience with the difficulties of getting pregnant to enjoy a comedy that is saved from charges of urbane preciousnesses by Giamatti and Hahn. They're each blessed with the ability to create characters who are believably self-aware and who never push us so far away that we can't appreciate their full, rich and often annoying selves.

Emma Bovary arrives on screen -- again

Though not without its virtues, this Madame Bovary falls short.

The story of a blossoming woman stuck in a lifeless marriage in a provincial French backwater certainly has the potential to speak to modern audiences as both an early feminist drama and a biting social critique of bourgeois narrowness.

Begin there in thinking about the latest adaptation of Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary, a semi-successful attempt to transfer Flaubert to the screen.

Bored and filled with inchoate romantic longing, newly married Emma Bovary tries to divert herself with wanton material acquisitions (fine dresses and fancy furnishings) that mire her in debt. She also engages in affairs that she hopes will provide an escape route from her country-doctor husband, a decent fellow of simple tastes and limited ambition.

There's no faulting the production values that director Sophie Barthes brings to the task of adapting Flaubert for the screen. Working with cinematographer Andrij Parekh, Barthes creates the feeling of isolation and monotony that awaits Emma on the dawn of each day, the numbing emptiness of life at the bottom rungs of the middle class.

Given the standard of her time, Emma is supposed to be happy to have a husband and provider, but she's reluctant to resign herself to a compromised existence far from the civilities of Rouen, the city that beckons and taunts her with its opera and high culture.

The screenplay by Barthes and co-writer Felipe Marino must make omissions and condensations, and although I haven't read Madame Bovary since college, it struck me that Barthes and Marino have done a defensible job of focusing Flaubert's story for the screen. Flaubert devotees may disagree, particularly when it comes to the omission of Emma's child.

In this edition, Emma Bovary is played by Mia Wasikowska, who -- I think -- only intermittently fixes our attention. Some reviewers have pointed out that Wasikowska is perfect for the role because she makes no effort to elicit our sympathies. Still, Wasikowska's performance can be seen in as a study in only sporadic connection.

Employing a variety of accents and styles, the supporting cast acquits itself well enough.

In a generally subdued atmosphere, Rhys Ifans stands out as Monsieur Lheureux, a merchant who senses Emma's vulnerability, sells her as much luxury merchandise as possible (on credit) and then pushes her into a ruinous, debt-riddled corner.

As Charles Bovary, Henry Lloyd-Hughes plays a character who, by definition, is a bit of a cipher. Ezra Miller portrays Leon, a youthful law student who falls for Emma. Under different circumstances, he would have made a good match for her.

Emma initially rebuffs Leon. She does, however, have an affair with the disreputable Marquis d'Anderveilliers (Logan Marshall-Green). Of course, Emma expects too much of the relationship.

Paul Giamatti brings his usual avidity and a bit of grubbiness to the role of Monsieur Homais, an ambitious pharmacist who pushes Dr. Bovary into performing a supposedly ground-breaking operation on poor, club-footed villager. The operation, of course, does not go well.

Not without its virtues, Madame Bovary dwells on Emma's suffocating provincial surroundings, perhaps to emphasize that the constraints of her rote existence have alienated her from her natural self.

If Barthes succeeds in creating a plausible 19th century environment, she also manages to dull the movie's edge. The damp streets and uninviting interiors aren't enough to carry the day.

By the end, I felt as if I were re-familiarizing myself with elements of Flaubert's plot without penetrating the agonizing and acutely observant heart of a great story.

Never boring, but not brilliant either

George Clooney's Ides of March wallows in fashionable cynicism.

Here's some shocking news: Politics can be a dirty business -- full of betrayals, double dealing and unholy bargains. If that comes as a surprise to you, you've probably never read an American newspaper, but this widely held and fashionably jaundiced view permeates George Clooney's The Ides of March, a story about a governor who's trying to win an Ohio presidential primary.

Clooney directed, co-wrote the screenplay and plays Governor Mike Morris, an idealistic liberal who's not afraid to admit that he's not a religious man. Clooney donned many hats to make the movie, but he's not its star. Instead, he cedes the spotlight to Ryan Gosling, who portrays Stephen Myers, an ambitious but idealistic campaign worker and political hotshot who works for Morris' more-seasoned campaign manager (Philip Seymour Hoffman).

Based on Beau Willmon's play, Farragut North, The Ides of March resembles Clooney's previous directorial efforts -- particularly Good Night and Good Luck and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind -- in its snappy intelligence.

Never boring and full of intriguing moments, Ides of March gets its best work from a terrific supporting cast: - Paul Giamatti (as the campaign manager for the opposition); Hoffman (as Morris' veteran campaign manager); and Evan Rachel Wood (as a flirtatious young intern working on the Morris campaign). Gosling is at his best before the script turns the tables on his character, forcing him to decide whether he's going to wallow in the dirt along with the rest of the pols or keep his self-respect.

Clooney's Mike Morris isn't much of a character; he's a kind of walking position paper, and the script --- predictably, I think -- contrives to find ways to challenge Morris' status as a liberal icon. The central plot twist is best discovered in a theater not in a review, but I found Morris' inevitable act of hypocrisy to be less than shocking, an obvious attempt to evoke an incident with which we're all depressingly familiar.

And by the end, it seemed to me that Ryan had adopted a kind of single-minded approach to his character that might have benefited from some shading.

But what surprised me most about The Ides of March is its hermetic quality. The movie lacks the infectious bustle and noise of a campaign; it's fine when the exchanges between characters tend toward intimacy, but it misses the rambunctious excitement of politics. The movie resembles a tune that's all melody and no harmony.

That's not to say that Ides of March is a bore; it's not. The best thing about Ides of March is watching its various characters jockey to prove who's most in the know. Still, it felt to me as Clooney & company never allowed the story's cynicism to bubble urgently from its core. I enjoyed Ides of March, but couldn't entirely shake the feeling that Clooney was playing a game that had been rigged from the start.

Wrestling with a crummy economy

Win Win may pull a few punches, but that doesn't stop it from being an entertaining little movie.

Win Win is a soft comedy about hard times, but -- and this could be the movie's saving grace -- it's neither soggy nor overly sentimental.

Writer/director Thomas McCarthy (The Station Agent and The Visitor) builds his story around Mike Flaherty (Paul Giamatti), a small-time New Jersey lawyer who represents elderly clients. A sour economy has put the pinch on Mike. He has no money to fix the boiler in his building, and he's worried about how he'll make ends meet at home.

Mike, as you might gather, is not the world's luckiest man. Witness: He serves as the volunteer coach of the local high school wrestling team, which has a record woeful enough to match an economy that has been pinned to the mat.

McCarthy mixes realistic observation and sports-movie tropes as he explores two major plot developments. In the first, Mike arranges for one of his clients (Burt Young) to be placed in an assisted living facility. On the verge of Alzheimer's Young's Leo Poplar needs help, but Mike's behavior in this matter may not be exemplary.

In a related development, Leo's grandson Kyle (Alex Shaffer) shows up for a visit. When Kyle's drug-addicted mother was ordered into rehab, Kyle fled his Ohio home to escape Mom's abusive boyfriend. Because Kyle is unable to live with his grandfather, Mike decides to look after the boy, an act of ... let's say -- semi-altruism.

Why not full-bore altruism? As it turns out, Kyle was a champion wrestler back in Ohio. Should he enroll in the local high school, he just might help reverse the fortunes of Mike's downtrodden team, a prospect that buoys Mike's sagging spirits, as well as those of his assistant coach (a dour Jeffrey Tambor).

McCarthy assembles the ingredients of a standard sports movie, the kind that builds toward a triumphant finale with high-fives all around. Happily, he takes another tack, focusing on the ways in which Mike's decisions impact those around him, as well as on Kyle's search for an adult he can trust. Kyle's the kind of kid whose young life has been riddled with disappointment.

Shaffer, who had never acted prior to Win Win, offers a believable mix of sullenness and openness, and Giamatti again proves a master of the art of hangdog expression, coupled this time with a sneaky bent for pragmatism that sometimes leads him astray.

The supporting cast includes Amy Ryan, bracing and true as Mike's down-to-Earth wife, and Bobby Cannavale, a little over the top, as a wealthy friend of Mike's who's trying to get past the pain of a divorce and who sometimes acts the buffoon. Cannavale, who worked with McCarthy on Station Agent, provides comic relief -- although he never struck me as especially funny. Melanie Lynskey portrays Kyle's mother, a woman who shows up just when things seem to be progressing for her troubled son. She insists that Kyle return to Ohio with her.

McCarthy wraps things up in a way that's satisfying, perhaps because the ending is only slightly attenuated. There may be a few loose ends, but we get the feeling that things probably are going to work out for everyone involved.

Win Win uses a depressed economy as the starting point for a drama that can be accused of pulling a few punches, but compensates with characters who are life-sized, plausbile and appealingly ordinary. Admirably, it also refuses to surrender to the most obvious sports-movie cliches. It probably sounds condescending, but I mean no disrespect when I say that Win Win is a nice little movie.