Blossoming Out of 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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Put Your Fibs Together and Blow!

People are usually very straightforward. While talking with someone, you have a good idea of what they’re thinking. And yes, it is very boring. That is why the title character Mark Whitacre as depicted in Steven Soderbergh’s The Informant! is cause for relief. The man has a two-track mind. His habitual expression is pleasant but blank. Just listening to his outrageous thoughts makes me wonder how exhausting it must be for him to keep a straight face. The thoughts — my God, the tangents! His brain must be covered with zigzag tracks. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad to read the thoughts of others, if only for the entertainment factor. Then again, Mark Whitacre is a rare breed. Only such a character — emphasis on character — could inspire such a perceptive and infectious human comedy that hides under a corruption scandal thriller.

In the mid-1990s, Whitacre is a rising — beaming — star at Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), an Illinois-based plant that processes corn into food ingredients and distributes them worldwide. He looks like a stereotypical businessman — a paunchy, rug-wearing, spectacled dweeb in a cheap suit. Why, he could just as soon sidle up to you with a grin that says “Say ‘Hi!’ to your family for me” or “I’ve got something really juicy to tell you!” Don’t get me started on his mustache. Listening to him talk about corn and the difference he makes in people’s lives, I can’t help but hear Jim McAllister self-congratulatory tone from Alexander Payne’s Election (1999) when he says, “The students knew it wasn’t just a job for me. I got involved!”

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Here’s Looking at You, Kid.

At first sight, the couple walking and dining throughout Paris appear to be lovers. We are mistaken. Daniel, a trim and fortyish intellectual with a voice like Patrick Bauchau (The Rapture, 1991), is played by Jeremy Herman, the writer of Hardly Bear to Look at You (2009). Stella is a pretty performance artist in her early twenties, played by Anna Neil. A few years ago, Neil starred in a short film called The Yacht (2006), which was written and co-directed by Herman. The other director who also starred in The Yacht was Huck Melnick, who directed his first feature-length film, Hardly Bear to Look at You.

If you are enjoying the giddy sensation of your brain spinning, keep reading.

Daniel, an artist as well a connoisseur of fine food and wines, acts as a mentor to Stella. It’s questionable whether Stella realizes she is his muse — Sylvia to Daniel’s Marcello. Wandering the streets of Paris, he takes her out to restaurants and bars. Their relationship is one of flirtation, but never becomes one as intimate as in Guinevere (1999), though the Audrey Wells film took a more lacerating view of such a coupling. Daniel and Stella sleep in the same bed without sleeping with each other. Upon the description of this May-August romance, Daniel is surprisingly more sympathetic because Stella is never a victim and clearly has the upper hand here. Any advance made by him is either encouraged or vetoed. Director Melnick makes no judgment calls here, but I wish that Daniel had been scorched at least once. His feelings toward her are genuine, so why not challenge him?

He is utterly infatuated with her. The first two minutes of the film simply watches Stella sleeping in the morning light. Great concentration is made to the movement of her feathery collar as she inhales and exhales. Somehow, this does not feel perverse; it is a form of adoration in the sweetest sense. Known to savor the strong tartness of an olive, Daniel commits a silent declaration when he slides an olive into his pants pocket. More obvious is the shot of his jean-clad crotch after he has asked (read: directs) Stella to climb up three flights of stairs to ask her something. He admits to her that he has had sex with a number of women, including prostitutes. Stella claims to having had just a few lovers, but we suspect otherwise, considering how flirtatious and often she runs into other men she knew way back when. Sometimes she is cruel while feigning tactfulness. Being too close to Daniel’s perspective, his jealousy is infectious.

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Grimm Girl

When I say “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” what is the first name that comes to mind? Tim Burton. Burton invokes visions of dark whimsy, and promises tours into a world that is distinctly his own. From the visual style and original story based on Burton’s illustrated book to his entire filmography coined a word that solely attributes to the artist and his world — Burtonesque. Hell, his name is in the title: Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. It takes a few more synapses in the brain to remember that Henry Selick was the film’s director. Selick made Jack Skellington come to life. Even the association of Burton as a producer blurs Selick’s accomplishment for his 1996 film James and the Giant Peach, based on the Roald Dahl novel. Finally, Burton is absent working on his adaptation of Alice in Wonderland due 2010. Selick is all alone here with the adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Hugo Award winning novel.

Coraline is Selick’s baby.

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A Punishing Character Study

One of the most painful moments in The Wrestler is when the doctor explains to Randy “The Ram” Robinson (Mickey Rourke) after his heart attack that he must not exert himself. The aging, muscular man is devastated and cries out, “Doc! I’m a professional wrestler!” The key word there is professional. He takes it seriously. It defines him. Being stripped of his identity, Randy feels worthless. He has never thought about the long term. His lost years of celebrity, drug use and promiscuity left him devoid of anyone who really care about him. Now, Randy is finally going to feel the emotional punishment he has spent his life numbing by punishing himself in the ring.

Why do I love Randy “The Ram” Robinson? Because after sleeping in the back of his van, he has the good spirit to humour the kids knocking outside his window with some horseplay. Because he is a good sport when he choreographs a wrestling match involving a staple gun being used on him. Because he really does love Cassidy (Marisa Tomei), that sweet woman who works at the strip joint he often frequents. Because he is a good sport when he choreographs having a staple gun used on him during a match. Because when Randy picks out a jacket with the letter “S” for his justifiably resentful daughter Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood), he really thinks she’ll like it. Because Randy hates himself for screwing up the good things that come his way. I can’t hate a man who already hates himself so much.

Mickey Rourke plays this character as if he atoning for sins for which he cannot forgive himself. Watch how Rourke has Randy force himself to smile and not cry when Cassidy swills the rest of her beer down. Sizing up Rourke, Marisa Tomei as Cassidy stomachs so much pain here, whether she exposes her body and is passed over by customers or how she just can’t bear to watch Randy punish himself. Back in 2005, Rourke played a brutish lug named Marv in the comic-adaptation of Sin City. That character’s dialogue and scarred face were the stuff of pulp. Marv is an extension to Randy, a very sad avenger who nurses romantic fantasies. The closest Marv gets to a confession is when he confides his trouble with love. “I couldn’t even buy a woman… the way I look.” Mickey cut a big slab of himself off that meaty character and named him “The Ram”.

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