Still catching up, apologies for less than good review etc etc …

It doesn’t surprise me much now that I’ve seen this movie why it seems to be having so much trouble getting seen despite a cast led by AnnaSophia Robb and featuring small appearances from the likes of Val Kilmer (brilliant if fleeting) and Heather Graham (who quite honestly I didn’t even spot, lol). It’s a shame that it’s such a difficult movie to know “who to sell it to” – it’s certainly a children movie and children should be allowed to see it, though I’m not sure the powers that be will want them to – because it’s as beautiful if not more so than I imagined it’d be when I heard about it early last year or even late 2006.

The tagline is “You’re never too young to have a plan,” and boy, are these two kids with a plan. I mentioned when I wrote about Bad News Bears how I was sure they’d really missed a trick not casting AnnaSophia Robb in the Tatum O’Neal part when they remade it. Here, again, I’m struck by her surprising earthiness that you never really get from still or red carpet photographs of her. We meet her as her parents’ car crashes in a sleepy Texas town where a young boy lives like a ghost to his own parents. He immediately senses she’s smarter than him, though he gets the feeling she maybe screws with peoples’ heads sometimes. “I will never screw with your head,” she tells him, “ever.” And then she informs him, “I think it’s time for us to leave,” and they go, right under the nose of the boy’s father too pre-occupied with his boat in the yard.

They get married and sex is mentioned – it is in the line, “Don’t worry, I’m not ready to have sex yet,” but I just know that a lot of people won’t care about the context and will simply have a heart attack over a 13-year-old just saying the word and suggesting it’s an option, lol. There’s a great moment when they find shelter in a barn that turns out to belong to Val Kilmer (described beautifully by the boy, “He’s the nicest grown-up I’ve ever met. But I think he hates himself …”). Robb asks him what they owe him for room and board, to which the answer comes, “I think fallin’ asleep to the smell of pig shit should do it.” There’s a lot of stuff like this in the movie that makes me wonder just exactly how the movie will end up rated. Young teens definitely deserve to see it, but there are things I imagine would be cut to allow them to do so, things that need to be left in. Its morality towards the end is really difficult, like it almost turns into Heavenly Creatures and even I think some young people will need talking through it. Most adults won’t be interested in it. It’s a really unique movie, and I hate to say it ‘cos it sounds so patronising or whatever but, especially coming from America.

Of course my primary interest in the movie was AnnaSophia Robb, and she delivers a performance every bit as haunting as she did in Bridge to Terabithia. Her character takes a turn midway that gives me butterflies in my stomach every time I think about it – it’s described by the boy, “I didn’t realise it at the time, but she was starting to slip away inside herself,” and it’s so crushing. It reminded me of the scene in Stealing Home when Jodie Foster says, “I wish I could do that …” at the end of the pier. This is definitely a movie I’ll watch again and again, and if you get the chance to see it, don’t hesitate for a second.

It’s of course even harder to write a level-headed review of this movie following Heath Ledger’s death than it was in the fog of Oscar buzz on its original release, and these are the only two ways I’ve yet seen it, so time will still tell as to whether it’s as good as I’ve found it both times around. Sky Movies had it scheduled to screen the night following Heath’s death, I think purely out of coincidence – they did a triple bill of his movies on Saturday in a specific tribute – and I kinda felt like I wanted to do something, like anything, as the news just hit me in a way I’d never have expected and it seems it hit a lot of people the same way too.

The first time I saw the movie, I kind of missed the 1963 date at the start and it took me until the late 70s/early 80s styles came in to actual realise exactly when it was all set, and it seems to me this kind of highlights why it’s so much better than the surface story would suggest. So many movies do the whole society against the minority thing, and this could’ve easily gone exactly the same way. What makes this one special is the deep-seated conflict at the very heart of the relationship – Ennis’ absolute conviction that what they’re doing is just abhorrent, and where that notion comes from. This story could happen right now – though society has just about changed for the better when it comes to accepting sexuality, it doesn’t make it any easier for those with a certain upbringing to accept who they are let alone act on it. The sixties setting here really only heightens an already tough piece of drama.

I was upset at the time when Ledger didn’t get the Oscar – though I was glad to see checking the IMDb while watching that he was nominated … I’d forgotten if it was he or Jake Gyllenhaal who got recognised (they both did – Gyllenhaal in the supporting category) – of course, I’m even more upset now. It’s probably been said all over the place especially in the past week, I’ve read it myself a dozen times, but it’s one of those things that deserves to be said so often – it’s an amazing performance. The key scene in the tent, from his half-pushing Gyllenhaal away, half-pulling him back; his long-coming emotional outburst after Gyllenhaal’s “I wish I knew how to quit you!” line; to that last line, “Jack I swear”; the one word that comes to mind about every second of this character is “beauty”. And it’s a beautiful film he lives in.

24th January, 2006:

I was one of the first people to snigger at the gay cowboy thing, I confess … I’m a South Park fan, I watch Letterman, what can I say? Add to that, I really didn’t like the hype that this movie was getting. Much as I respect Ang Lee as a film maker – even in the recent shadow of Hulk, The Ice Storm at least was a masterpiece – and good as the movie looked, it still felt a little to me like all the last remaining homophobes on the planet were finally coming out to beg redemption by praising it. I mean, didn’t Far From Heaven kinda tread this territory before without such a hue and cry?

So I began the movie looking for reasons to hate it – it’s a little obvious here, a little clichéd there, etc, etc. But, I’m glad (relieved?) to report, my prejudices are not set in stone. This movie is even more beautiful and deep than I’d been led to expect. And when I say deep, I mean I’m seriously, as Cartman would say :p The photography is gorgeous, the pacing precise and never dull, the performances, eek, I’m gonna say it, braver than anything in recent memory. Heath Ledger is going to get the Oscar, I hope Michelle Williams too. As movies go, 2005 just looks better and better the more I see – why couldn’t all these movies be scattered throughout instead of all clumped in the end???

I’m not sure I got as much out of this as some, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t more gripped from start to finish than I was during pretty much any given movie of the past year (okay, maybe 30 Days just pips it). The chase here is extraordinarily visceral, delivering bucketloads of the kind of jumpy shock most movies can lay claim to just a handful of with just about every gunshot and jolt having an impact. I hope that if this movie does get the Oscar nominations everyone’s buzzing about, it’s included in the sound categories too.

I guess I’ve got to be honest and say if there’s a reason I’m left a little empty by the movie, it’s ‘cos it lacks two things which, it you look at my faves, are kind of important to me: heart and music. So it’s not the movie’s fault at all as these two absences are highly deliberate. But it’s very rare a movie without one or both those things can do a thing for me – whereas this one did plenty – so don’t be discouraged by my 4-star rating. Though this movie comes close to that box of movies last year that were technically perfect but delivered nothing “beyond” for me, it never quite gets in.

Javier Bardem is one of the creepiest killers ever to walk the screen and his modus operandi is truly the stuff of nightmares (it’s when you see him open doors with it that makes it even worse). There’s plenty here to bring me back for a second viewing, when I’m sure it might grow on me just as Fargo (which I didn’t get at all on the first view) did. Right now, I do think calling it the Coens’ “best ever!” is a bit of a stretch – I mean, come on, they had about a decade long string of instant modern classics up to Fargo – but it is eons above Ladykillers and Intolerable Cruelty.