Paramedics: burnout and skill

 

   Movies about paramedics don't exactly roll off the Hollywood assembly line, but we’ve had a few. Remember Martin Scorsese’s Bringing Out the Dead, a 1999 movie that waded into lurid New York City territory with Nicolas Cage playing a burnt-out paramedic?

  We’ve also had nonfiction entries,  including the BBC series Ambulance and Honorable But Broken: EMS in Crisis, both of which can be viewed on Amazon Prime.

  Because paramedics engage in high-stress work, their lives bristle with life-and-death dramas in which their skills constantly are tested. Dealing with a body that has been pried out of a wrecked automobile doesn’t exactly qualify as an activity most of us would consider part of a dream job.

     In Code 3, Rainn Wilson plays Randy, a paramedic teetering on the edge of burnout. Set during the course of a single 24-hour shift, the movie teams Wilson with Lil Rel Howrey, who plays Randy's ambulance-driving partner.

     Laced with rueful humor, a series of California-based episodes put Randy through physical and emotional challenges as he wonders about the meaning of his life. Can he make a real difference in a job that’s constantly overwhelming?

    Aimee Carrero portrays Jessica, a trainee thrown into the mix. Uncorrupted by over-exposure to tragedy and untarnished by the cynicism of veterans, Jessica approaches her job believing she can help.

     Director Christopher Leone, working from a screenplay credited to him and Patrick Pianezza, a former paramedic, draws on the real-life experiences of those who ply the paramedics trade. Safe to assume, then, that we're watching reality-based drama.

     Some of the movie's tension arises from recurring conflicts between the paramedics and the staff of an already-packed emergency room where sick, wounded, or drugged-out patients are transported.

    Dr. Serano (Rob Riggle), a smug emergency room doc, makes no attempt to conceal his disdain for paramedics, viewing them as nuisances who add to emergency room glut. Overdone? Maybe, but every movie seems to need a resident jerk.

     Yvette Nicole Brown portrays Shanice, the harried supervisor of the city’s paramedics. She insists that Randy finish his shift, even though he’s landed a lower-stress job with an insurance company and plans to leave the EMS world.

      Office veteran Wilson gives Randy a convincing mix of skill and loathing, sometimes breaking the fourth wall to talk directly to viewers. The rest of the cast is equally game.

      Individual calls made by the paramedics — including one in which they're attacked by a shotgun-wielding woman — are compelling, although the story's overall arc feels predictable, which means Code 3 seldom feels freshly imagined. A richer story would have helped.

     Code 3 gets its points across, and it makes us grateful for those who toil in fields few of us would want to till. That's almost -- if not quite -- enough.

 

Bob's Cinema Diary: 9/17/20 -- 'Blackbird' and 'The Nest'

The Nest

Director Sean Durkin returns to the screen after a long hiatus. His last movie was  2011's Martha Marcy May Marlene. With The Nest, Durkin travels back to the 1980s for a look at a marriage struggling to survive the upheaval of a transatlantic move. Jude Law  (as Rory) and Carrie Coon (as Allison) star as a husband and wife who have fallen off the same page even before they move to London. She loves their suburban life in the US. He’s too ambitious to be content. She runs a riding school: He's a commodities trader. Rory and Allison have two kids: a daughter (Oona Roche) from Allison's previous marriage and a son (Charlie Shotwell) from the couple's current marriage. Not only does Rory drag his family across the ocean, he soon runs out of funds. He vastly overestimates his ability to persuade his London boss (Michael Culkin) to merge his company with an American firm, a development that ensures that Rory won't be able to  afford the Surrey estate he impulsively rented for the family. Late in the movie, a taxi driver asks Rory what he does for a living. "I pretend to be rich,'' says Rory, who by this time has entered a state of dejected realization: The rungs on the social ladder he's climbing have begun to collapse. As the horse-loving Allison, Coon embodies the emotional volatility of an '80s woman who doesn't always listen to her better judgment. Initially charming, Rory refuses to acknowledge his limitations and, in Law's hands, reaches a state of hollowed-out desperation. Durkin, who has no interest in feel-good sentiment, courageously brings his movie to a conclusion marked as much by exhaustion and defeat as by anything that might be called reconciliation. 

Blackbird

There are few more familiar dramatic conceits than this:  A family gathers for a special occasion only to have soul-wrenching secrets revealed. Blackbird follows such a traditional map but adds a disturbing twist. Mom (Susan Sarandon) is dying of ALS. In response, Sarandon's Lily has decided to end her life. She wants to see her family one more time before drinking the lethal concoction that will enable her to avoid a nightmarish end to an otherwise fulfilling life. As the story unfolds, director Roger Michell introduces us to Lily's family: daughters played by Kate Winslet and Mia Wasikowska and a husband portrayed by an underutilized Sam Neill. Winslet's Jennifer arrives at Lily’s seaside home with her husband (Rainn Wilson) and teenage son (Anson Boon). Lindsay Duncan turns up as Lily's best friend.  Christian Torpe's screenplay boasts finely wrought moments that are well-executed by a fine cast, tense encounters between the sisters, for example. But the screenplay adds a few reveals too many and even a cast this strong can't always compensate for a lack of dramatic crackle. At the same time, Michell eventually finds the emotional power and the deep sadness that accompanies Lily's decision; just because it's the right choice for her doesn't make its irrevocability any less harrowing.