Ad Astra (2019)

 

Visually, Ad Astra is quite a stunning film. It has been beautifully shot; the cinematography is superb. The film has been art directed to hell and back again, so the production design is also topnotch. However, watching Ad Astra is an exercise in tedium. I fell asleep while watching it in a theater, and I’ve fallen asleep both times I’ve watched it at home. It’s just a slow, boring movie. Maybe it’s time to stop making space films for a while, especially after this and First Man. Perhaps we just need a break until someone comes up with something more interesting to say about space travel? The plot of Ad Astra (Latin for “to the stars”) is rather straightforward. Major Roy McBride (Brad Pitt) has been asked to contact his father, the legendary astronaut H. Clifford McBride (Tommy Lee Jones) about whether his Lima Project near Neptune has been causing some sort of bizarre power surges. This is, naturally, a mission with a lot of emotional resonance for Pitt’s younger McBride because his dad always was more excited about journeying into space rather than staying with his family. Yes, he’s got “daddy issues” because, of course, his father abandoned the family when Roy was a kid, and a lot of the film features Pitt’s voice-over discussing his feelings about his father and about his own fears over repeating his father’s patterns of behavior. Roy has to go to Mars to send a message to his father since that’s the closest communications system to Neptune—and why wouldn’t it be? The film does have a few moments of intense action that interrupt the boredom. When Roy lands on the moon to catch a transport to Mars, he and Col. Pruitt (Donald Sutherland), an old friend of his father’s, get attacked by some sort of weird space pirates who kill their military escorts. The trip to Mars gets interrupted by a distress signal from a Norwegian ship, where Roy and the captain face attacks from some murderous baboons. No, you read that right: murderous baboons. However, these kinds of moments are too rare and too brief. McBride spends an extended period of time on Mars trying to make contact with this father and learning that his father killed everyone on board his ship when they wanted to return to Earth rather than follow the elder McBride’s deranged ideas about his mission. The director of the facility on Mars, Helen Lantos (Ruth Negga), helps him to get onto the ship that’s going to try to stop his father. Sadly, the three other astronauts die within minutes of his arrival on board—not through him killing them, no. They die from a series of rather stupid mishaps. People disappear in this movie very quickly. Part of the problem with Ad Astra is that it takes remarkably talented performers like Sutherland and Negga and even Jones and relegates them to minor roles (almost cameos at times) with only a limited amount of screen time. Instead, we get a lot of time listening to Roy’s inner thoughts. While Pitt is always a welcome presence to gaze upon, his character is well known for his ability to control his emotions and never get upset. That’s tough to watch for almost two hours, no matter how high the quality of the cinematography or art direction or visual effects.

Oscar Nomination: Best Achievement in Sound Mixing

The Lion King (2019)

 

Remaking The Lion King, the Disney classic from 1994, was a completely unnecessary exercise. While Disney has been very successful in recent years in presenting live-action remakes of some of its animated hits, this subpar version of The Lion King is all CGI, so now we really have two animated versions of the same film. The later version’s depiction of the animals is an amazing feat, no doubt, because the animals certainly look realistic (even though everyone knows that not to be the case). The 2019 version has the same plot as the original, and it even seems to follow the original shot-by-shot most of the time. A young cub runs away from his home because he thinks he has caused the death of his father, and he must return years later to save the pride from his uncle’s destructive behavior. The voices are different from those of the earlier actors, except for James Earl Jones, of course, and more members of the cast were people of color this time, thankfully. To be fair, though, John Oliver as Zazu the hornbill, Seth Rogan as Pumbaa the warthog, and Billy Eichner as Timon the meerkat almost steal the film, probably because they serve as the comic relief and it’s easier to look for laughs when the rest of the movie is so mind-numbingly similar to its earlier iteration. Beyonce, who voices Nala, contributes some new songs, but much of the music is from the original Oscar-winning score. I’m sure younger audiences unfamiliar with the 1994 version enjoyed this remake, but anyone who has seen the charming and entertaining original is left wondering what the point of the remake is—other than to make more money, that is.

Oscar Nomination: Best Achievement in Visual Effects

Breakthrough (2019)

 

Breakthrough is one of the better faith-based films in recent years, and that’s saying something substantial given how narrowly focused and rather simple-minded many other entries have been. Chrissy Metz (best known for her role on TV’s This Is Us) portrays Joyce Smith, a mom whose Christian faith brings her adopted son back to life after he falls through the ice covering a lake in St. Louis, Missouri. Her son John (played by Marcel Ruiz, who spends much of the film in a coma in a hospital bed, so not the most challenging of roles) is a 14-year-old aspiring basketball star, but he has quite a lot of baggage that makes him resistant to the love that his mother offers. He was abandoned as a baby in Guatemala, and the Smiths (Josh Lucas plays husband and adoptive father Brian Smith) rescued him while on a mission to South America. John is also rescued from the frozen lake but not until he’s been submerged for more than twenty minutes. Attempts to revive him at the first hospital fail, but when his mother shows up and prays over his body, he regains his pulse after being pronounced dead. From the religious perspective of the film, she obviously prays him back to life. He’s transferred to another hospital in order to have Dr. Garrett (Dennis Haysbert, a reliable and welcome presence in many TV shows and movies), who is a specialist in drowning cases—whatever that means—assist in reviving John. Garrett offers little hope that John will survive or even be close to normal if he does survive given the likely damage to his brain and other major organs. Joyce, however, believes that her faith and prayer can bring her son back, and other prayers follow from John’s classmates and teachers, everyone at the family’s church, and even people who hear about John’s story on the news. You can easily figure out the ending without any help, but that doesn’t necessarily detract from the movie’s various strengths such as the performances by Metz and by Topher Grace from That 70s Show as Pastor Jason, a more “contemporary” Christian than Joyce would like to have as the leader of her church (but who she warms to, naturally, as she sits by John’s bed in the hospital). The film does suffer from some of the clichés that weigh down many faith-based films. For example, the firefighter who rescues John, Tommy Shine (Mike Colter), admits that he doesn’t really know if he believes in God, and the non-believer comes around to accepting the power of faith before the end credits begin to roll. Even Joyce has to admit her failings and submit fully to God in order for her prayers to work. And, of course, there are lots of tears. Breakthrough is a very weepy movie with tons of crying, but all of the tears are earned honestly. The story is based upon Joyce Smith’s book about what truly happened to her son, and the real-life counterparts to the film’s characters appear at the end. It’s very inspiring to see them all well and happy.

Oscar Nomination: Best Original Song (“I’m Standing with You”)

Best Animated Short Film of 2019

Dcera (translated into English as Daughter) comes from the Czech Republic. At fifteen minutes, it’s the longest film in this category, and it also features perhaps the most complex (and most opaque) plot of the nominees. This short film features no dialogue, but a couple of flashbacks are meant to help explain the sequence of events. A daughter is visiting her father in a hospital when a bird crashes through the window. The wounded bird reminds the woman of a time when she was younger and brought another wounded bird to her seemingly uncaring father (who was busy trying to make a meal for them). They’ve obviously become estranged, but the movie is unclear as to why. Surely, the father’s lack of interest in caring for a wounded bird cannot have led to their separation from each other. The other flashback seems to be from the perspective of the father, who’s accompanying his daughter to the train station and trying to make her feel happy. It doesn’t work. While Dcera is touching and quite sad, it’s also kind of ugly, frankly. The paper-mache figures—even the versions of the younger parent and child—are rather grim-looking.

In just seven short minutes, Hair Love manages to invoke a full range of emotions: joy, sadness, frustration, you name it. The premise is simple: a young girl wants to have her hair done like her mother has done it in the past. She has a lot of hair to work with, and she can’t seem to manage it herself. She enlists her hapless father to help, but he fails miserably and keeps trying to get her to just wear a cap instead. However, the video tutorial on his wife’s blog about hairstyles for black women gets him through the process successfully. It’s when we find out why the girl’s mother isn’t available to help that the short achieves a poignant but hopeful climax. By the way, Issa Rae is the voice of the mother, and it is such a pleasure and a comfort to hear her familiar tones. Hair Love is one of the most accomplished and powerful short films in the category.

Kitbull is the most charming and delight of the entries. It’s a brisk nine minutes about a stray black kitten that’s hiding out in what appears to be an abandoned pile of junk. His quiet is interrupted by the arrival of a pitbull who’s being trained by its owners to fight. The kitten is very leery at first, but a game of swatting around an orange bottle cap allows the two animals to begin bonding. After the dog is severely hurt in a fight, the kitten nuzzles up to the pitbull, and they both seem to acknowledge the need to escape from the dog’s cruel owner (complete with butt crack, an intriguing little detail). The kitten is particularly hilarious. The filmmakers have obviously studied cat behavior quite carefully. It screeches, hits the bottle cap, runs around a lot, falls to the ground, purrs, hisses, and hides—all within seconds. Kitbull manages in its short running time to play with a full range of the audience’s emotions quite effectively.

Memorable, a short film from France, is quite an interesting statement on artistic expression. Obviously influenced by the style of painter Vincent Van Gogh, the filmmakers have created a series of clay animation characters. A painter suffering from neurological decline (most likely, Alzheimer’s or a similar form of dementia) keeps forgetting the people in his life and even the names of common household objects. He even fails to recognize his own reflection in the bathroom mirror. Most sadly, he’s forgotten his wife, who was once his frequent muse. He confuses her for the housekeeper and asks her to pose for him. The painting is quite abstract for such an impressionistic film overall. The melancholy tone of Memorable is replicated in the blue colors in the palette of the characters and their surroundings. It’s an intriguing film, but it surprisingly doesn’t seem to have the strong emotional resonance of the some of the other nominees.

Sister is a co-production of China and the United States, and it is perhaps the most overtly political of the nominees. A brother describes his relationship with his younger sister. She’s characterized as a bit of a troublemaker, and they fight and disagree a lot, especially over which cartoon to watch. The stop-motion short uses figures made of some kind of fabric (wool?), and that makes for some interesting moments, such as when the brother tugs on his sister’s umbilical cord and it comes streaming out of her navel. He also pulls on her nose, and she looks like Pinocchio for a moment. It’s only when the narrator flips the story by talking about China’s one-child policy and its impact on his family that we realize the truth of his reflections. Sister is mostly shot in black-and-white, a somewhat fitting choice given the clarity of the argument that it ultimately makes.

Oscar Winner: Hair Love, a lovely choice, especially since…

My Choice: Hair Love. When you can encapsulate so much narrative in such a short period of time and make the audience care so deeply about the characters, you’ve accomplished something quite amazing.

Best Live Action Short Film of 2019

Brotherhood (Ikhwene) is set in Tunisia—the location for two of the shorts nominated in this category—at the home of a poor shepherd and his family. They live together in a one-room house. A prodigal son returns home after spending time fighting with ISIS, much to his father’s disapproval. The song also brings home a Syrian wife wearing a nigab, and their arrival demonstrates the tension between the Tunisians and the Syrians, at least on the part of the father. His wife is more supportive, even to the point of criticizing her husband’s behavior. The father’s skepticism and suspicious nature led to a heartbreaking conclusion. This is a sad movie that is only occasionally leavened by the fun of seeing the three red-haired sons interact with each other. The eldest regrets his decision to leave, but he’s too proud to admit it to his father. The tone of this film, like most of the ones nominated this year, is quite sad, a melancholy story. The cinematography is quite beautiful, but overall, Brotherhood is quite the somber short. Interesting sidenote: the film is a co-production of four countries, Canada, Tunisia, Qatar, and Sweden, an unusual mix, to say the least.

Nefta Football Club is also set in Tunisia, but it offers a somewhat more light-hearted plot than Brotherhood (or the other entries). Two young boys discover a donkey walking through the desert. It’s wearing a set of headphones and has been well trained to walk into Tunisia from a neighboring country. They realize that the donkey is carrying a lot of cocaine, and the two brothers decide to swipe it. To be fair, the younger brother doesn’t quite know what the white powder is; he mistakenly thinks it’s laundry detergent. The older brother knows exactly what it is, and he wants it so that he can get into the drug business and make some money for himself. Nefta Football Club offers some surprising humor, especially the ending. It’s really the funniest of the five options. The two guys who trained the donkey are quite funny, quite goofy in their bickering. The donkey’s disappearance results from a mix-up between the singer Adele and a Middle Eastern singer who seems to have a similar sounding name. One of them doesn’t understand who or what Pavlov (the scientist who gave us the theory of conditioning), and his friend’s exasperation is quite hilarious.

The Neighbors’ Window has a few fun moments, a few light-hearted laughs, but takes a rather dark turn about three-quarters through its run time. The premise seems inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window: a pregnant wife and her husband watch a couple in an apartment across the street; the new couple seems to be “breaking in” their new place by having sex with no shades or curtains serving as a barrier to voyeurs. The wife, in particular, becomes obsessed (although the husband has his moments) even to the point of using binoculars to watch while the lights in their apartment are dimmed to get a better view of the neighbors. By comparison, the people across the street have fun lives filled with parties and sex; meanwhile, the central couple are frequently tired from taking care of their three children. After the narrative shifts to a sadder outcome than originally anticipated, the focus seems to be demonstrating that you really shouldn’t be jealous of people you know very little about. The climax of The Neighbors’ Window actually ends up being rather unexpectedly upbeat and hopeful.

Saria depicts the horrifying abuse at a Guatemalan orphanage and the attempts by two sisters to develop a plan to escape to America. Saria, the title character, and her sister Ximena have few opportunities to talk when they aren’t being observed or harmed. The girls are raped, beaten, forced to do physical labor—a litany of corrupt mistreatment from those who are supposed to protect them and educate them. There are also apparently times when there’s no water for the girls to shower with. The boys at the orphanage join Saria, Ximena, and many of the girls in leaping from the building into a nearby tree. The police come after the escapees, and the brutal treatment at the orphanage will likely accelerate after their capture. The film is set at the same time as the Women’s March in Washington, D.C., that followed Trump’s inauguration in 2017, a momentary source of inspiration for the proto-feminist Saria. It’s based upon a real-life incident in which forty-one girls died in a fire. Saria, the short film (not the character), features some stellar camerawork and a great deal of narrative tension. It also features the fastest moving and perhaps the cleverest cockroach I’ve ever seen in a movie, an odd addition to such a serious story.

A Sister (Une soeur) is quite a harrowing film, a tense sixteen minutes. A young woman is in a car with a man. We’re not sure where they are headed, but she says she needs to call her sister. We listen to her side of the conversation, and then the film switches to an emergency call center where we discover that she’s actually called the Belgian equivalent of 911 instead. The viewer is never exactly certain what the man has done. Did he rape the woman? Kidnap her? A flashback reveals that there has been a sexual encounter, most likely without the woman’s full consent. The operator tries to decipher the clues that the woman gives, but the woman has to be very cryptic at times so as not to be caught by the man. The film goes back and forth between the woman in the car and the woman in the call center. A Sister could easily be expanded into a feature length film; the plot outlines are already there. We’d just need a bit more of what happened before the two people wind up in the car together and where they are headed.

Oscar Winner: The Neighbors’ Window, a very accomplished film with some very strong performances.

My Choice: Nefta Football Club balances very serious subject matter with some welcome moments of humor. In a field crowded with downbeat, depressing stories, it manages to inspire a range of emotional reactions.