ALL IS BRIGHT: THIS AIN'T NO BROMANCE

It's a rough world out there.  And returning after a long absence is a difficult proposition.  How appropriate is it that Phil Morrison's less than prompt follow-up to his 2005 indie hit Junebug concerns itself with a man attempting to find his bearings, both familial and internal, after having his life interrupted by a long stay in prison?  In many ways, Dennis (Paul Giamatti), the protagonist of All is Bright suffers under far less steep expectations than Morrison does here.  No one expects anything from Dennis; in fact, his wife, Therese (Amy Landecker), has completely written him off, telling their young daughter that he died, rather than bothering with the messy truth about his incarceration.

The film picks up shortly after Dennis is released from prison.  What's his first move?  He returns to his rural, French-Canadian home where he's swiftly informed both Therese's lie and her involvement with Dennis' former best friend and partner-in-crime Rene (Paul Rudd), who Therese plans to marry once Rene's wife grants him a divorce.  With nowhere else to go, Dennis tracks down his romantic rival at a local bar, tries to beat him up, and (naturally?) ends up joining his Rene in an annual trek down to New York City to set up a seasonal Christmas tree selling business.  Yeah, this IS a Christmas movie...bet you never saw that coming.

If the plot sounds convoluted, rest assured, this film, like Junebug, doesn't grind too heavily on plot mechanics.  Instead, Morrison and screenwriter Melissa James Gibson treat these characters as people, albeit ones that sometime stray into situations just a smidge over the line separating the real from circumstances of a cartoonish nature.  When All is Bright sticks with its primary motif of two losers holding a predictably bad hand, it's at its best, resembling at times a modern update on a flavor of male camaraderie rarely portrayed in film since Elaine May's Mikey and Nicky (a bromance, this is, thankfully, not).  But, on the few occasions when the script pushes Dennis and Rene to act like people trapped in an indie comedy, the film stumbles, drops focus, and feels oddly flat.

All is Bright is unlikely to enjoy the same strong word of mouth leading to a slow-building success that Junebug did.  It's just not a film designed to register with a broad audience.  The characters aren't that likeable, nor is the action all that identifiable.  But it is a movie that deserves a chance from fans of quietly observant, character-driven cinema because, for each slight misstep that it contains, there's a charming counterpoint hidden just around the corner. 

All is Bright is currently available for viewing on VOD platforms such as Amazon Instant Video & iTunes.  The film opens theatrically in October.

Remember to find and "like" us on our Facebook page.
Subscribe to the blog's feed here.

SUBMARINE -- It's sink or swim out there

There's an age at which the fantasies of youth drain away and what we're left with is cold, wet reality.  To a great extent, Richard Ayoade's directorial debut, Submarine is completely wrapped up in one person's struggle to hang onto the fantasy after having caught a glimpse of the dour reality.  That individual is Oliver (Craig Roberts), our protagonist in a film that often comes off like a thematic successor to Wes Anderson's Rushmore cross-pollinated with the love child of Hal Ashby and the French New Wave (imagine Truffaut's characterizations meshed with the editing strategies of Godard's first films).

What this looks like in practice is a film that shifts seamlessly from the whimsy-driven heights of Oliver's fertile imagination to the harsh truth of living with parents (Sally Hawkins and Noah Taylor) on the edge of separation.  Ayoade cleverly uses the parental strife as a comparative device held up against Oliver's own budding relationship with a classmate named Jordana (Yasmin Paige); the latter being the primary focus, while the former provides the context for our young hero's romantic missteps.

And Oliver makes mistakes aplenty...a refreshing amount of them, actually.  As a result, the plot line dodges becoming a completely standard exercise in boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back mechanics, precisely because of how realistic Oliver's missteps appear in a movie that repeatedly darts in and out of the actual.  This is one confused kid and the film's structural looseness ably reflects Oliver's shambolic thought process, both literally via voice over and in the busy flow of the onscreen action.

Given that this is his first feature, it's tempting to label Ayoade a neglected genius who has arrived fully-formed on the scene.  But, as an actor and writer, he's been kicking around the biz for some time now.  Fans of British tv have likely come across his work on The IT Crowd, The Mighty Boosh, Snuff Box, etc.  He's also racked up more than a handful of directing credits for television, including "Critical Film Studies," a strong candidate for the best episode of NBC's Community.

It doesn't take long to discern that Ayoade's been waiting to sink his teeth into something with a bit more scope than sitcoms can offer.  And stretch out, he does.  This is a mature work that still makes plenty of room for non sequiturs and a woozy imbalance, projecting the uncertainty of youth.

That's not to say that Submarine is a perfect film, mind you.  It's a coming of age story and we've seen a lot of these elements played out on screen before.  It's also yet another display of adolescent male psychology, which had me wondering how the film might play out if it were more invested in Jordana's point of view...or if it were her story altogether.  Gender-bias and familiarity aside, it is the spark with which these well-worn bits are assembled that make Submarine fresh and worth recommending.

Bonus: 
I thought I'd go ahead and link a couple of clips from Ayoade's other work.   

Here's a bit from The IT Crowd:

Ayoade on The Mighty Boosh:

And, finally, Part 1 of 2 of Ayoade's episode of Community (fans of My Dinner With Andre and Pulp Fiction need to see this):

 

Remember to find and "like" us on our Facebook page.
Subscribe to the blog's feed here.