When The Price Is Dead Right

Nightfall. It is calmest before the storm as five hearses roll up the hillside carrying five fresh victims. Very much alive for now, they have all been invited by that eccentric millionaire Frederick Loren (Vincent Price) for his wife’s party… at the House on Haunted Hill. How he spoils her! To make the night more interesting (for himself), he has decreed that the guests will win $10,000 each if they last until morning locked inside the spooky mansion. They needn’t worry about losing by default of death since the money will then go to their next of kin. That Frederick… always thinking ahead.

The guests are strangers to each other as well as their host. More interesting that way. They include a typist and wallflower named Nora Manning (Carolyn Craig), the confident pilot Lance Schroeder (Richard Long), the psychiatrist Dr. David Trent (Alan Marshal), the columnist Ruth Bridgers (Julie Mitchum – Robert Mitchum’s sister!), and the owner of the house Watson Pritchard (Elisha Cook Jr.) who is visibly frightened beyond his wits. He goes on and on about their imminent doom by the housed evil. Why go in? They all need money, you see.

Just upstairs held up in her room forever freshening her face is Annabelle (Carol Ohmart), Frederick’s scheming wife. Annabelle insists that it was not he who married her, but she. She also makes no secret of the fact that she loves only his wealth and wants it all for herself. Actually, Annabelle is just wife #4, but what’s most alarming is that those last three wives are dead. Frederick knows of Annabelle’s infidelities and can’t prove them. They’re a perfect match because Annabelle is smart and can hold her own. Frederick would surely agree she is a worthy opponent. Oh, how they love implicating their petty torments on one another! It is their mutual hatred that makes their relationship so strong.

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The Elegance and Dread of an Equation

Nawal Marwan is dead. She is survived by her twin children Jeanne and Simon, both in their late twenties and living in Montreal. They sit before the notary Jean Lebel (Rémy Girard) who had employed Nawal (Lubna Azabal) as his secretary for years. He has always considered them all to be a part of his family. The room is still and unbearably quiet. As he reads Nawal’s final will and testament aloud, Jeanne (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin) and Simon (Maxim Gaudette) are disturbed by their mother’s final request. She wants to be buried naked facing the ground without a headstone to identify her. Where did this self-loathing come from? Jeanne keeps her composure and listens. Simon goes berserk over how cold and insane their mother was. He will not respect her wishes.

Professionally bound to secrecy about Nawal’s mysterious past, Jean emphasizes how grave this situation is: “Childhood is a knife stuck in the back of your throat. It cannot be easily removed.” Nawal will only accept a dignified burial on the condition that Jeanne and Simon accomplish a mission to redeem her. Two sealed letters lie on the notary’s desk. One is addressed to their estranged father whom they’ve thought was dead. The other one is news, a long-lost brother who was named “Nihad of May”. Their task is to find and then deliver their letters to them. Simon refuses to participate. After some soul-searching, Jeanne sets off to discover what regrets her mother had kept silent.

We cross back and forth between the divide of Jeanne’s daunting search and Nawal’s past. It is striking how much the two women resemble one another. Their determination and resolve is matched by their ethereal, solemn beauty. Their paths are separated only by decades as Jeanne follows her mother’s footprints in Lebanon from the North to the horrors in the South. For every startling chapter that closes on Nawal’s life, Jeanne comes much closer to solving the mystery. The question of ever figuring it out turns into another one supplemented by a great reluctance akin to rolling over a rock to expose the maggots underneath.

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Stuffed and Moving

Do you feel your greatest talents are being squandered? Like there is no demand for your gifts and all you can do is struggle with jobs you should never have had to perform? At the end of the day, your real work lingers in a foggy distance, incomplete. Time passes quickly. You feel drained, stuck in a hole underground, looking out to make your mark and redeem yourself. This is how Mr. Fox feels. In this disarmingly charming (and quotable) film by Wes Anderson, as the fable goes, Mr. Fox risks the lives of others to use his talent for stealing chickens.

For a couple of years (twelve fox years), Mr. Fox has been married to the love of his life, Mrs. Fox (Meryl Streep) and father to their prepubescent son Ash (Jason Schwartzman). To do this, Mr. Fox swore never again to risk his life stealing food from the murderous farmers who rule the land. His modest income as an opinion columnist — another detail not of, yet worthy of Roald Dahl — doesn’t stop Mr. Fox’s ambitions of moving from his modest foxhole underground to live in a more upscale neighbourhood — a large, healthy tree. Because working for a newspaper lacks the thrill of chicken burglary, Mr. Fox jumps off the thieving wagon when he finds a new partner in crime in Kylie (Wally Wolodarsky), a soft-spoken, pudgy — but gutsy — little possum.

Cocksure Mr. Fox is forever young — cocky and sure of his invincibility — and takes everything for granted. While on a crime spree, he shows more interest in how the latest fox trap works than his own safety. Brimming with confidence, Mr. Fox tends to hog the spotlight. Watch him turn the attention back to him during a toast over a sumptuous banquet. Part of the fun is committing his forbidden theft under his wife’s nose and then watching her enjoy his catch.

He doesn’t give her powers of observation much credit as he stores his loot in plain sight — not to demean her on purpose, mind you — he’s just full of himself to the point of obliviousness. Mr. Fox shares a slyness — minus the malevolence — with Mr. Grinch. He’s so crooked that he could straighten a hill. Oh, and he loves calling his schemes “Master Plans”!

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Blossoming Out of Brutal Child Abuse

The odds are against Clarice “Precious” Jones (Gabourey Sidibe). How does she find the will to get up in the morning and go to school? It seems as though everyone is either punishing her or ignoring her. At 16, she is pregnant for the second time by her scumbag father. Her self-esteem is all but destroyed by her vicious mother (Mo’Nique). She is illiterate, but not stupid. As a poor African-American woman living in Harlem in 1987, her options are limited. If incest, racism, sexism and classism weren’t enough, Precious is also targeted for being obese. She can hardly bear to face anyone let alone speak in a guarded whisper. Her pain is so definite. Society and her parents have failed her, however, Precious is still holding on.

We never pity her because anyone would be devastated if struck with her afflictions. What fascinates me still is that Precious takes the time to brush her hair nicely and wears necklaces. She obviously has a fighting spirit. This is her rebuke to all who vilify her. It may be a small one, but it’s there. She is going to look her best, dammit. Her only other refuge is to fantasize. In a harrowing scene, she remembers how her father raped her in her bedroom one night. Her mother watches from behind the door frame with timidity and — oh dear God! — jealousy. It is so horrible that the ceiling cracks and in a faraway place, Precious walks up a red carpet to her own premiere looking gorgeous for the adulated crowd. Perhaps, I shouldn’t be so astonished to find Precious putting on such a brave front. People are notoriously stubborn to survive personal attacks.

The case of Precious is really about how deadly living in a toxic family is. It is also about how body image can ruin self-worth, which is a grave factor all by itself. However, the worst thing happening to Precious is the abuse she receives from her parents. An overweight and mentally-struggling person can still be happy with the support of loved ones. Precious is unloved and can only go so far alone.

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No Free Passes

One of the many things Lone Scherfig’s An Education gets right is show how wisdom comes suddenly. Take Jenny (Carey Mulligan, who is simply wonderful), a schoolgirl who at 16 is the brightest in her class, and fancies herself mature, sophisticated and wise. She actually does know a great deal and sometimes she is right on the money. Feeling restless and stuck in the straitlaced, lushly coloured town of Twickenham, London circa 1961, Jenny yearns for novelty and passion. This is two years before four guys from Liverpool would have turned her disillusionment on its head. For now, she sings along with her Juliette Greco LP (Sous Le Ciel De Paris) amongst other French singers in her bedroom. Those reminded of the Mario Lanza craze of Pauline (Melanie Lynskey) from Heavenly Creatures (1994) should take comfort that they are not alone. When she decides to allow herself to be courted by a 35-year-old named David (Peter Sarsgaard), know that David isn’t the only one with ulterior motives beneath the designs to woo. But she still has so much more to learn. For starters, to stay away from baddies like David.

Jenny studies vigorously in hope of going to Oxford where she can escape the mundanity of her middle class upbringing, “I’m going to talk to people who know lots and lots.” One rainy afternoon, she comes across David, who looks smart, is exceedingly charming, and drives a burgundy Bristol sports car. He offers her a ride. Eventually, she accepts. He looks harmless enough. What does David do for a living? “Property. A little art dealing. Selling this and that.” Where did he study? “I went to the University of Life. I didn’t get a good degree there.” Plus he’s Jewish, an exotic find as rare as well… Bristols! From there, Jenny is instantly smitten with this well-to-do gentleman and renegade. Jenny is so indifferent to her country and wants very much to enjoy France. To such a bored Brit, Jenny thrives to consume the cool French delights of cigarettes, Jazz and the French New Wave — Resnais, Goddard, Truffaut and Varda.

Her father Jack (Alfred Molina), a middle-class immigrant, has little sympathy for her appetites. He goes on about financial realities, forever dwelling on practicalities and studying. When Jenny considers taking a year off from school after graduating, her father asks, “What for?” This is a time where a woman’s education meant finding a suitor, not a career. Jenny is good at playing the cello, however, Jack dismisses that strength as something she’ll put aside in the working world. He is even more tough on the boys she brings home. Softening the blow is her mother Majorie (Cara Seymour) who has different ways of being both knowing and clueless as her husband. Understand that they are truly proud of their daughter and love her so. They just make the mistake of making her future sound like work when it ought to be celebrated. No wonder Jenny is attracted to David, he can open high end doors and afford her expensive things like idealism.

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