Still Walking
Rating: ****½
A family gathers to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the accidental death of the patriarch’s favourite son. As they dine and share their memories, they also stir up unresolved conflicts, buried resentments and dashed expectations.
Still Walking beautifully illustrates how rituals might define the meaning of family, but they can’t resolve differences within it.
Director Hirokazu Kore-eda (Nobody Knows) examines with delicate and bittersweet poignancy the intergenerational issues that both divide and bond families.
- Kevin Courrier/For Metro Toronto
The Brothers Bloom
Rating: ****
Anyone who saw 2005’s fantastic indie film Brick knows that filmmaker Rian Johnson can take an entirely inconceivable premise and turn it into something very cool.
In The Brothers Bloom, he does it again making a funny, suspenseful and tender movie about two con-artist siblings coming to terms with a lifetime of foster homes, stunningly elaborate cons and the void caused by living a “written life.” With stellar performances and a keen visual storytelling sense courtesy of Johnson, this flick is a pure pleasure to witness.
- Steve Gow/For Metro Toronto
Me and Orson Welles
Rating: ***½
The unpredictable Richard Linklater’s latest project is a sugary sweet slice of nostalgia. The tween-approved Zac Efron stars as a high schooler with dreams of acting, who unwittingly finds himself appearing in Orson Welles’s infamous production of Julius Caesar.
Efron is pretty bland and Claire Danes is wasted, but the movie is really about Orson Welles, and whenever he is on screen the film bursts to life.
Christian McKay plays the infamous thespian/director and his performance is a stunning act of mimicry that perfectly captures the personality of the great artist.
The film itself is slight and fun, but it’s elevated to a higher level by a single amazing performance.
- Phil Brown/For Metro Toronto
The Lucky Ones
Rating: **
Many of the Iraq War movies of the last few years, good (Redacted) and bad (In the Valley of Elah), have been angry, anti-war polemics.
The Lucky Ones deals with troops coming home in a more conventional, life-affirming manner. Tim Robbins, Rachel McAdams and Michael Pena are wounded soldiers returning to heal physical – and emotional – wounds.
As they travel the countryside, from St. Louis to Las Vegas, director Neil Burger (The Illusionist) sets them on the road to recovery with highly predictable results.
- Kevin Courrier/For Metro Toronto
Les Plages d’Agnes
Rating: ***
In recent years, director Agnes Varda (Le Bonheur, Vagabond) has turned away from making compelling dramatic features into creating fascinating documentary essays about issues that interest her (The Gleaners & I).
In Les Plages d’Agnes (The Beaches of Agnes), though, she turns the lens on her own life. Even at the age of 80, Varda demonstrates a youthful and innovative approach in examining the effects of time and memory on both her work and her thoughts about the people she’s loved.
Les Plages d’Agnes is a personal picture postcard about the passion of art and the pain of loss.
- Kevin Courrier/For Metro Toronto
35 Rhums
Rating: ***½
Director Claire Denis’ films draw on mood and atmosphere rather than conventional storytelling. Sometimes the lyricism in her work is entrancing (Vendredi Soir), while in others, the experience becomes so opaque and languid (The Intruder) that you get lost in narrative riddles.
35 Rhums (35 Shots of Rum) falls somewhere in between. The picture mostly explores the loving relationship between a father and daughter where mutual devotion has put their life on hold.
When certain events shake that bond, they’re forced to confront unfinished business in their past. Denis sketches in the personalities of the people so suggestively that before long you may feel your patience being put on hold.
- Kevin Courrier/For Metro Toronto
24 City
Rating: ****
Jia Zhangke is China’s most elegantly contentious filmmaker, and 24 City is perhaps his subtlest provocation yet. The film examines a half-century’s worth of social and industrial upheaval through intimate interviews with the people who lived it, but sharp-eyed viewers will catch a few well-known Chinese actors giving testimony alongside factory employees. This blurring of the doc/narrative line expresses the difficulty of definitively putting history onscreen — a gesture that speaks both to Jia’s audacity and his humility.
- Adam Nayman/for Metro Toronto
Che: Part 1
Rating: ****
Split into two films after a mixed reception at Cannes, the first part of Steven Soderbergh’s epic bio-pic of Che Guevara is the movie audiences would expect. The film is about the revolutionary’s triumphant victory in Cuba told in the hyper-realist aesthetic that the director first employed in Traffic.
The movie combines the harsh realities of fighting in the Cuban jungles with a 16mm recreation of Guevara’s infamous speech to the UN. It’s a powerful ode to the cultural icon with a stunning lead performance by Benicio Del Toro.
- Phil Brown/for Metro Toronto
Che: Part 2
Rating: ****
This second chapter of Steven Soderbergh’s ode to Che Guevara is an indispensable companion piece to the first film. Shot with a more subdued style and colour palette, the movie is about Guevara’s failed attempt to spread the revolution throughout Latin America. This film expands on the first with all of Che’s best qualities working against him, leading to a tragic downfall in Bolivia. The two chapters should play as one epic 41/2-hour whole. But that would be commercial suicide, so audiences will get two theatrical releases instead.
- Phil Brown/for Metro Toronto
Il Divo
Rating: ***
This Italian biopic has a lot of style — enough to earn filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino the Jury Prize at Cannes this year. But unless you’re familiar with former Italian prime minister Giulio Andreotti and his accusations of collusion with the mafia, you’ll be lost watching this slick-looking drama. An action-packed opening and a stunning performance from Toni Servillo might make it worthwhile.
- Steve Gow/for Metro Toronto
Adam Resurrected
Rating: **
There was a time when Paul Schrader was one of the most important filmmakers in America. Adam Resurrected is the latest disappointment by the Taxi Driver scribe, starring Jeff Goldblum as a former clown and holocaust survivor struggling to deal with his past and his sanity. Goldblum delivers a solid performance, but Schrader’s direction and use of symbolism are about as subtle as a sledgehammer to the face, and just as enjoyable.
- Phil Brown/for Metro Toronto
Pride and Glory
Rating: ***
Gritty and dark, but occasionally lacking some of the gravitas it purports to have, Pride and Glory works well enough as an examination of corruption, morality and honour.
Led by solid performances by Ed Norton and Colin Farrell, the film provides some decent intrigue but at times feels contrived.
Although with plenty of blood and F-words to go around, it's not enough to sink it.
— Raf Brusilow
