Tom Hooper's The Danish Girl brings to light an often unasked question of love: When one person changes and develops dramatically, what role may her lover take on in remaining romantically engaged?
Indeed, as the film progresses, her husband, Einar Wegener (Eddie Redmayne), progressively grows to despise his designated gender, instead opting to dress and act as a woman and presume her new name, Lili Elbe. With the wavering support of her wife, Gerda Wegener (Alicia Vikander), Lili visits numerous doctors until she finds the one, Kurt Warnekros (Sebastian Koch), who will surgically remove Lili's male genitalia and construct female ones in their place.
10 janvier 2016
Reformulating Love
Scott McGehee and David Siegel's What Maisie Knew eloquently illuminates the farcicality of the childish notion of parental perfection while simultaneously redefining traditional roles for guidance and affection in the all-too-nuclear familial structure.
When Maisie (Onata Aprile) finds out that her parents are separating, her life becomes a growing faultline between her parents, Susanna (Julianne Moore) and Beale (Steve Coogan), with her nouveaux step-parents, Lincoln (Alexander Skarsgård) and Margo (Joanna Vanderham), respectively, as oddly placed lifelines when both of the raging tectonic plates that are her parents either rub against each other or drive away from the area altogether.
When Maisie (Onata Aprile) finds out that her parents are separating, her life becomes a growing faultline between her parents, Susanna (Julianne Moore) and Beale (Steve Coogan), with her nouveaux step-parents, Lincoln (Alexander Skarsgård) and Margo (Joanna Vanderham), respectively, as oddly placed lifelines when both of the raging tectonic plates that are her parents either rub against each other or drive away from the area altogether.
09 janvier 2016
To Care for the Self and for Humanity Itself
Destin Daniel Cretton's Short Term 12 is a story of growth borne from destruction and release in a nearly omnipresent tension.
The film details a few months in the work of Grace (Brie Larson), a director at a state-financed home for troubled teenagers, as she battles with her own painful past while guiding her kids, residents of the home, to overcome their abuse.
When someone new joins the group, the rambunctious Short Term 12 community meets a silence embodied by a confused, depressed, and introverted Jayden Cole (Kaitlyn Dever) who intentionally distances herself by lingering in her bedroom while the group joins together in games and activities. Grace quickly bonds with Jayden over their mutual history of depression and self-harm, even rolling up her own sleeves to show Jayden her history of cutting. And, when Grace's abusive father is reportedly released from prison, they begin to share one more treacherous trait.
The film details a few months in the work of Grace (Brie Larson), a director at a state-financed home for troubled teenagers, as she battles with her own painful past while guiding her kids, residents of the home, to overcome their abuse.
When someone new joins the group, the rambunctious Short Term 12 community meets a silence embodied by a confused, depressed, and introverted Jayden Cole (Kaitlyn Dever) who intentionally distances herself by lingering in her bedroom while the group joins together in games and activities. Grace quickly bonds with Jayden over their mutual history of depression and self-harm, even rolling up her own sleeves to show Jayden her history of cutting. And, when Grace's abusive father is reportedly released from prison, they begin to share one more treacherous trait.
Competing Empathies in a Wrongly Purposed Murder
Mark Herman's The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is a chilling tale of conflicting empathies and reconciling the pain of grief with the reality of unbearable, yet elongated, mass-murder.
After relocating from Berlin, a German family led by their patriarch, Ralph (David Thewlis), a highly regarded Nazi general in the early 1940s, settles a few miles from Auschwitz-Birkenau. Bruno (Asa Butterfield), the eight-year-old protagonist, eager to explore their new home and its surroundings, ignores his mother's wishes and hikes his way to the electric, barbed-wire fence outlining the nearby "farm," where he meets his new clandestine contemporary: Shmuel (Jack Scanlon), an eight-year-old Jew at the work camp.
After relocating from Berlin, a German family led by their patriarch, Ralph (David Thewlis), a highly regarded Nazi general in the early 1940s, settles a few miles from Auschwitz-Birkenau. Bruno (Asa Butterfield), the eight-year-old protagonist, eager to explore their new home and its surroundings, ignores his mother's wishes and hikes his way to the electric, barbed-wire fence outlining the nearby "farm," where he meets his new clandestine contemporary: Shmuel (Jack Scanlon), an eight-year-old Jew at the work camp.
05 janvier 2016
Drinking with Students: A Story of Hope
Pat Mills' Guidance is a dark comedy of rediscovering oneself amid a sea of confusion and denial.
David Gold (Mills), a 30-year-old unemployed alcoholic steals someone's identity, becomes a high school guidance counselor, and imbibes with his students in his short-lived career before escaping from the police, robbing a slew of tanning salons, and turning himself into prison as a new-formed man.
Intertwined throughout the scenes are audio overlays of his own inspirational tapes from a previous career, juxtaposing his own narration of his excellence, happiness, and positive decision-making skills with visual evidence of binge drinking and smoking alone. Thus, throughout the film, we see first-hand the denial and mistrust of others plaguing David's mind as he ignores his doctor's cancer diagnosis, fails to pay rent, and insists upon living without changing his habits, even if it means "cutting off" the rest of his family.
David Gold (Mills), a 30-year-old unemployed alcoholic steals someone's identity, becomes a high school guidance counselor, and imbibes with his students in his short-lived career before escaping from the police, robbing a slew of tanning salons, and turning himself into prison as a new-formed man.
Intertwined throughout the scenes are audio overlays of his own inspirational tapes from a previous career, juxtaposing his own narration of his excellence, happiness, and positive decision-making skills with visual evidence of binge drinking and smoking alone. Thus, throughout the film, we see first-hand the denial and mistrust of others plaguing David's mind as he ignores his doctor's cancer diagnosis, fails to pay rent, and insists upon living without changing his habits, even if it means "cutting off" the rest of his family.
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