I like
Julia Stiles; always have. I'll watch pretty much anything she does. In
The God Committee, she plays a heart surgeon who, on her first day on the transplant committee, is assigned to the role of deciding which of three possible recipients should get the single heart which is available for transplant. The decision is complicated by kids, life choices, disposition, behavior, and of course substantial donations to the hospital. I won't tell you what they decide. I will tell you it's not a spectacularly-done film. It's a bit heavy-handed. But it is a very interesting question to discuss, which I wish there had been more discussion of, rather than some of the other plot twists and turns. There is an ethical twist with one of the characters at the end which I didn't expect.
In
The Face of Love,
Annette Benning plays a lonely widow who happens upon a gentleman who is the spitting image of her deceased husband (both played by
Ed Harris). She fills the hole in her heart with this new man, but can't introduce him to any friends or family, for obvious reasons. Her decision to date her late husband's doppelganger is, I suppose, just an extreme extension of something that's true of a lot of people: they have a "type." For some folks, it's a physical characteristic: hair color, body type, height. For others, it's a more of a characteristic or personality trait, such as a sense of humor. But often if you look at people's dating history, you can start to make out their "type." That -- having a type -- doesn't seem weird. But dating your deceased husband's long lost twin does. Where on that spectrum are you crossing the line?
As a play on the above idea, try this one on for size. Torn is the story of the family of Alex Lowe. Alex was a high alpine climber. He died in 1999 while on a climbing/skiing expedition in the Himalaya. I'm not going to say much about what goes on with his family, but if you read the synopsis of The Face of Love, you can probably make an educated guess. And you would be right. This movie is made by one of Alex's sons. It's a surprisingly thoughtful look at a really complicated psychological and emotional thing that happened.
After the Rain is only okay, as a movie. But I saw it not too long after my grandparents died, which gave it a certain amount of gravitas that it probably would not otherwise have had. A young man with a terminal illness faces the end of his life -- sometimes gracefully, sometimes not. There's not much plot; it's really just the sweet and sad story of how he deals with what's facing him, and how the people in his life see their relationship change as he nears the end.
I loved
Together. Initially, I was concerned that it was too soon for a COVID lockdown movie; that just happened, after all. But I'm going to give this one a pass because ... well, just because. I liked it. They did a good job with it. Here are some of the things I liked:
James McEvoy. The occasional talking directly to the camera. Lockdown-specific things, like not getting a haircut. Witty (and sometimes not-so-witty) banter between two obviously intelligent characters. Not being too PC. But what I really liked about this basically entirely plotless film is that it really dives into a single relationship -- the good, the bad, and the ugly. They say some awful things to each other, but they also know that they love each other, and saying those awful things don't break the relationship. Plus, it's like watching a highly condensed version of many of the conversations I had with family and friends during the lockdown: what is the right thing to do in various circumstances? Why don't some people seem to care? How much risk is too much? What about all the people who can't work from home? And most importantly: why are people bulk-buying toilet paper?
Another one I loved was
Belfast. I watched it on the plane on the way home from Germany, and it was a spectacular way to pass a couple of hours. The 1960s were a sad time in Northern Ireland. Though that tumult is the plot that propels the movie forward in time, it's not the center of it. That center is the adorable
Jude Hill, who plays Buddy, and his parents (
Jamie Dornan and
Caitriona Balfe). (I'm most familiar with Jamie Dornan because of his role in
The Fall, in which he plays a truly awful person. This was a lovely change of pace.) The movie is the sweet story of a little boy trying to find his way in a complicated world that he doesn't fully understand. He and his brother have good parents who are just trying to raise their kids and do the right thing, against all the prevailing odds. It's a good reminder that, even as it seems like we're following a similar trajectory of fracturing into political camps here in this country, there are still good people on both sides just trying to do right by their kids. In the way that people called
Roma a love story to Mexico City,
Belfast is a love story to Northern Ireland. Plus,
Judi Dench plays the grandmother, and she's always such a grounding force in a film, and it boasted a spectacular soundtrack including
Van Morrison and
Christy Moore.
Seaspiracy has some interesting ideas, but the guy who made it is a terrible filmmaker. I think at least a dozen times throughout the film, he says, "I learned x. Why had I never heard/thought of that before? I had to learn more." It got old after the fourth or fifth time. It's a long movie, and depressing. Through the whole movie I was asking myself, "so, what can I do?" There's a single lesson at the end. Spoiler -- the lesson is this: stop eating seafood. In a vacuum, that's probably an okay lesson, but if I'm not supposed to eat meat, or seafood, or imported fruit or vegetables, or fruit or veg grown on big farms, or anything that's genetically modified (which is basically everything) ... what am I supposed to eat?
