Category: Drama

REVIEW: Laskovoe bezrazlichie mira [The Gentle Indifference of the World][2018]

Jared Mobarak

Only love is real. Sometimes it isn’t enough to simply portray the type of eternal love that Shakespeare wrote in Romeo and Juliet. Watching two star-crossed lovers attempt to fight the injustices of this world to be together only to sacrifice themselves can still ring hollow because it’s hinged upon the naiveté of children not looking for another solution regardless of whether the result would be the same. To take the poison is to admit defeat against the external forces proving too strong to combat. Love therefore becomes our sole…

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REVIEW: Le Redoutable [Godard Mon Amour] [2017]

Jared Mobarak

I was lucky enough to admire my lover. We’re introduced to Emile (Marc Fraize) halfway through Michel Hazanavicius‘ Le Redoubtable [Godard Mon Amour]. He’s a local Frenchman with a car and the means to procure enough gas to drive an argumentative Jean-Luc Godard (Louis Garrel), his wife Anne Wiazemsky (Stacy Martin), and their friends (Micha Lescot‘s Bamban, Bérénice Bejo‘s Michèle, and Grégory Gadebois‘ Michel Cournet) home from Cannes. His inclusion moves the film forward from place to place while also providing a stand-in for we the viewers caught watching Godard’s…

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REVIEW: Tully [2018]

Jared Mobarak

You’re empty. After loving their first collaboration (Juno) and disliking their second (Young Adult), I didn’t know what to expect with director Jason Reitman and writer Diablo Cody‘s third pairing behind the camera. The best I could do was enter the theater unprejudiced and hopeful for the best since I do like most of their work regardless of that mutual misstep. I can’t say Tully initially made it easy, though. Just because Marlo (Charlize Theron) and Drew (Ron Livingston) aren’t the generic rich, white, suburban couple able to afford a…

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REVIEW: Measure of a Man [2018]

Jared Mobarak

This time I had something to prove. The coming of age dramedy is a crowded genre with many seminal works established in the 70s and 80s. It’s tough to therefore see any entries without comparing them to what came first. Some can still find their niche and win audiences over before earning a place besides those former greats, but oftentimes they simply feel too familiar to necessitate a second look. The latter category is a shame because familiarity isn’t always synonymous with “bad.” Take Jim Loach‘s Measure of a Man,…

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REVIEW: And Then I Go [2018]

Jared Mobarak

Ours is a group of two. The Columbine massacre happened in 1999. It’s crazy to think it’s been over twenty years because we seem to have a new school shooting every month now. And as they grew in prevalence, the conversation surrounding them shifted from tragedy to politicization. Gus Van Sant‘s Elephant arrived in 2003 as a poetic psychological display unconcerned with pretending to know answers. It documented the experience of this tragic event as an emotional confluence between troubled souls on both sides of the gun—the mundane taking on…

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REVIEW: You Were Never Really Here [2018]

Jared Mobarak

I must do better, sir. An unparalleled exercise in economy, Lynne Ramsay‘s You Were Never Really Here cements her status as a cinematic master. This brutal thriller runs a deliberate yet swift 89-minutes, its central character a man of few words with violence bubbling just beneath a too large heart for the hostile world that’s forced him to retreat within. His job: going places the police can’t to save children in duress. It’s not something overtly explained, but neither are his motivations. Where dialogue might work in text (Ramsey’s script…

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REVIEW: Love After Love [2018]

Jared Mobarak

She was a person of real consequence. A father is sick and then he dies. There’s nothing too original in that progression of events or in how those left behind cope. Sometimes this type of tragedy makes people retreat within themselves and others see themselves lash out for attention. Sometimes it’s a foregone conclusion loved ones prepared for in order to be able to move on without too much struggle—viewing the sadness not as a thing to solve, but one to accept. Russell Harbaugh and his co-writer Eric Mendelsohn touch…

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REVIEW: Lean on Pete [2018]

Jared Mobarak

I’d rather them never see me again than see me like this. Loneliness is a tough concept to cope with as a child, especially when it begins to seem as though you’re to blame. That’s hardly the case, though, since people who leave do so out of selfishness rather than “just cause.” You may think yourself cursed as a way to cope via laughter and many adults retain this mindset to turn jaded as a means of self-defense. But before that transition can occur, you’re another tragic adolescent left with…

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REVIEW: 火垂るの墓 [Hotaru no haka] [Grave of the Fireflies] [1988]

Jared Mobarak

Please stay home with me. Everything I read and heard about Isao Takahata‘s Hotaru no haka [Grave of the Fireflies] appeared to want to prepare me for a solemnly tragic tale that couldn’t be completed without tears streaming down my face. I took this train of thought as a badge of honor—preparing its emotionality and authenticity towards WWII’s futility and collateral damage. This is the reaction most war films hope to conjure with many going out of their way to manipulate the reception via story, score, or imagery. Reducing this…

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REVIEW: Oh Lucy! [2018]

Jared Mobarak

Meow. Meow. Smooch. I saw Atsuko Hirayanagi‘s short film Oh Lucy! back in 2014 and thought it to be a bona fide charmer. It told the story of a lonely woman named Setsuko who does her niece a favor by recouping the cost of English classes the cash-strapped girl had decided quit. The American teacher was an eccentric who used wigs and fake names to allow ‘Lucy’ to disappear into a new, more candid version of her buttoned-up self. It’s a whirlwind of emotions when the teacher goes back home—enough…

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REVIEW: Sweet Smell of Success [1957]

Jared Mobarak

No. You’re dead, son. Get yourself buried. The hook is simple: Steve Dallas (Martin Milner) and Susan Hunsecker (Susan Harrison) are in love, but big brother J.J. (Burt Lancaster) doesn’t approve. He hasn’t supported her with penthouses and fur coats to watch a young guitarist whisk her away, but he can’t be caught stopping them with his formidable clout to make and break people on a whim as New York’s premier lifestyle columnist either. Putting his name on the boy’s metaphorical death certificate would risk losing Susan further than it…

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