The Great Gatsby (2013)

3/5

Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby somehow manages to be both a tepid and titillating reinterpretation of the F. Scott Fitzgerald classic. In the most banal ways it seems to copy the book verbatim, with Tobey Maguire basically reading Fitzgerald's elegant prose in an unnecessary and belabored voice-over. At 2.5 hours runtime, the film's editing is incredibly mis-managed thanks to an overlong first half filled with pedestrian introductions and explanations reminiscent of lazy storytelling.

And yet something about the anachronistic music and Leonardo DiCaprio's enigmatic charisma manages to pull you in and excite you. It becomes filled with verve and vivacity. The acting by DiCaprio and Mulligan is particularly compelling. Their characters, and the magnetic attraction between the two, are the heart and soul of the film. But as good as they are, the rest of the cast fails to impress. And while Baz Luhrmann can do incredible things with music, he seems unable to direct the rest of the movie with equivalent panache.

Films made out of books must be adapted, not simply migrated to the silver screen. Luhrmann should have tried harder to pin down the spirit of the book--that je ne sais quoi that made generations consume it so voraciously--and communicate that same elusive vitality to the movie. Instead he has taken some of the words to the cinema, but has left the heart on the page.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1343092/

Zero Dark Thirty (2012)

4/5

Katheryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty is an intense, visceral experience. It details the decade-long manhunt for Osama Bin Laden following September 11, 2001. The movie is thrilling, but under a premise I find somewhat unsettling. The whole motivation for the film is essentially for us to cheer on the murder of a real human being--this seems disturbing no matter how guilty and deserving that person might be. I felt like a spectator watching gladiators fight to the death--haven't we evolved past that point? If you're able to take that (admittedly large) component out of the equation, then you're left with an exceptional piece of filmmaking.

Kathryn Bigelow takes what she learned from The Hurt Locker and hones her already expert craft to fill Zero Dark Thirty with scenes of tension and dread. Each one is an episodic burst in which you know something bad is going to happen but you don't always know what. Bigelow is able to take that uncertainty and that fear and combine it with efficient editing and sharp cinematography to keep us on the edge of our seat for the entire 2.5 hour runtime. This is in spite of knowing "how it ends" for one simple reason: we were never witness to the inner workings and behind-the-scenes political intrigue that made it happen. We were never witness to the true cost and true sacrifice to get to where we are now.

It is not the most inviting story, or the easiest to discuss, but it is an important one. Bigelow is a filmmaker at the top of her game, who makes it absorbing from beginning to end even while addressing difficult topics like the role of American-led torture and government-sanctioned murder. She has made a uniquely American movie that takes place almost entirely outside of America. But one of her greatest accomplishments is in directing Jessica Chastain.

Chastain gives a phenomenal performance as Maya, the CIA agent who doggedly pursued her lead to the very end and who fought tooth and nail against government doubt. She is fierce, girded by righteous indignation over 9/11, and vulnerable, suffering alone as she loses the people she loved. Make no mistake: this is Chastain's ballgame, and she knocks it out of the park. This is a movie worth watching for her performance alone. You will not be disappointed that you did.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1790885/

The Odd Life of Timothy Green (2012)

3/5

The Odd Life of Timothy Green is a fairly benign family film. The plot follows Cindy (Garner) and Tim Green (Edgerton), a young infertile couple. The movie starts after another unsuccessful attempt at pregnancy. Distraught, they drive home barely talking to each other. To cheer themselves up, they allow themselves to dream up the perfect child. They write down the six characteristics they would see in their child, put the papers in a box, and bury the box in the yard. Magically, a ten-year-old boy named Timothy (Adams) sprouts out of the ground and into their lives.

All the technical aspects of the film, from acting to shooting to editing, are satisfactory enough not to stand out. The movie is honestly quite silly. But the plot is merely a device to allow the characters to learn about life, love, and parenting. Despite that, there are so many extraneous scenes to explain the plot instead of digging in to meatier thematics. It actually held a lot of potential with its simple metaphor, but the director chose to go for trite tropes rather than intellectually-stimulating concepts. Still, it's a saccharine story with attractive actors and colorful cinematography and is perfectly fine for afternoon filmgoing. It just isn't as good as it could be.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1462769/