Leatherheads

Review by Russ Breimeier

As both actor and director, George Clooney clearly has a soft spot for the classics. Michael Clayton was made with '70s thriller-dramas in mind. Hipster comedies from the '60s inspired the Ocean's Eleven series. The Good German paid homage to Casablanca and The Third Man from the '40s. Behind the camera, Clooney captured the gaudiness of the '60s and '70s with Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, and offered a stylish tribute to Edward R. Murrow and '50s television journalism in Good Night, and Good Luck.

Leatherheads, in which Clooney stars and directs, goes back even further in time to the '20s, and is somewhat reminiscent of two other old-fashioned comedies he did with the Coen Brothers. It has some goofy, old-time slapstick reminiscent of O Brother, Where Art Thou?, and like Intolerable Cruelty, it's clearly derived from screwball comedies. But as a romantic comedy set during the early days of professional football, Leatherheads is also more conventional (i.e. less unusual) than either of those films.

George Clooney as Bulldogs captain Dodge Connolly

With a script by Sports Illustrated writers Duncan Brantley and Rick Reilly, Leatherheads is completely fictional but nevertheless inspired by historical fact. In the early 1920s, college football was as big as pro baseball, but professional football was considered a joke—sparsely attended free-for-alls with no established rules, running plays that relied as much on trickery as athletic ability. Teams recruited all sorts: farmers, miners, high school students, town drunks. The league itself was established as little more than an agreement for these little teams to play each other—an agreement that couldn't hold up over time, as teams succumbed to bankruptcy one by one. It wasn't until professional teams started hiring former college stars like Jim Thorpe and Red Grange that pro football began to draw an audience and turn a profit.

Which is precisely what happens with the Duluth Bulldogs in Leatherheads. Once the team goes bankrupt and disbands, veteran receiver Dodge Connolly (Clooney) decides that they could attract thousands of fans if they could only sign a deal with the right college football star. That star is Carter "The Bullet" Rutherford (John Krasinski of TV's The Office), a clean-cut all-American receiver, as well as a prominent WWI hero with a Presidential citation for single-handedly forcing a German platoon to surrender. Dodge offers a compelling argument and strikes a deal with Carter's manager CC Frazier (a very steely Jonathan Pryce), and the ploy pays off immediately, turning the Bulldogs into an overnight sensation by drawing crowds from all around.

John Krasinski as war hero Carter Rutherford

Except there's something about Carter's war story that doesn't quite add up—at least according to a source for the Chicago Tribune. So they assign tough reporter Lexie Littleton (Renée Zellweger) to root out the truth about the star player. As the Bulldogs rise to prominence, Lexie finds herself in a classic love triangle between Dodge, the aging buffoon with seemingly no redeemable qualities, and Carter, the wholesome celebrity she's trying to discredit to further her own career. Meanwhile, Dodge must come to terms with his feelings for Lexie and continuing to play football, a sport that is quickly outgrowing him as it becomes increasingly established.

Leatherheads is propelled by slapstick silliness, some of it laugh-out-loud funny, like the idea of 300-pound Big Gus as a high school student playing for the Bulldogs, or the polite brawl between Dodge and Carter. But it's just as often guilty for inducing eye-rolls—the Keystone Cops-styled chase from a speakeasy is a bit much. There are too many instances where it feels like Clooney is trying too hard to manufacture laughs, and usually ends up eliciting more chuckles and smiles than guffaws. His nods to old-fashioned comedy and classic filmmaking are also sometimes a little forced.

The banter between Lexie (Renee Zellweger) and Dodge is priceless

That said, Clooney and the screenwriters have nailed the snappy banter of a classic screwball comedy, particularly in his exchanges with Zellweger—Dodge: "I didn't come here to be insulted." Lexie: "Oh? So where do you usually go?" The one-liners are quick and clever, and the leads share a natural rapport—though I can't decide if it's awkward or an asset that the two actors used to date.

There's also something to be said for smart casting. As noted above, Clooney exudes a certain degree of Golden Age charm. If he doesn't quite rank with Clark Gable or Cary Grant, then at least he translates their classiness to 21st century century cinema—despite a willingness to compromise his suaveness with the goofy facial expressions and physical comedy demonstrated in O Brother. Zellweger, of course, is no stranger to the Roaring Twenties and Depression era, with memorable turns in Chicago and CinderellaMan. Now with a sassy performance reminiscent of His Girl Friday, she seems perfectly suited for this period of American history. Really, the acting is inspired throughout, from Krasinski's boy-scout appeal as Carter to Pryce's strictly business performance as Frazier, not to mention Peter Gerety in a small part as the no-nonsense football commissioner.

The star players get ready for the next play

Clooney also shines as a director, instilling some laughs just in the clever ways he frames a shot to set up a gag. The era is captured beautifully through newspaper headlines, radio broadcasts, newsreel footage, and a wonderful jazz score by the great Randy Newman. That's all complimented by the cinematography, which bathes the visuals with golden warmth appropriate to both football season and classic filmmaking.

The movie doesn't take itself too seriously, and you're best advised not to either. The big game of the finale ends with a play which, though thematically appropriate, works better in a screwball comedy than a football film. For that matter, the football antics become outpaced by the fast dialogue of the romantic triangle and the film's overall feel as a period piece. And though everyone is likeable, they're also either conniving or else have a sketchy background, meaning this isn't as much a movie where you root for a single character as much as you root for everything to work out for the best, whatever that may be—sort of like a musical.

As a tribute to old movies, Clooney's film juggles with too many elements—sports, romance, slapstick, Capra-esque cinema—and doesn't do full justice to any of them. Yet combined together with a strong cast, the film is brimming with nostalgia and charm, and thus most likely to connect with older audiences than younger. Leatherheads is not innovative comedy by any means, but any film that has you leaving the theater feeling better than when you came in has done its job well enough.

Flight of the Red Balloon

Review by Jeffrey Overstreet

How is childhood like a red balloon? Hou Hsiao-Hsien's Flight of the Red Balloon gives many possible answers.

We watch seven-year-old Simon—played marvelously by Simon Iteanu—meander along Paris sidewalks, his progress as lazy and jaunty as the path of that red balloon above him. His lackadaisical stride stands in stark contrast to the crisscrossing streets and tracks that bind the city; he's not yet imprisoned by the grid-like adult world of hurry and hustle. Under his mop of tousled red hair, his eyes cartoon-wide, this kid has sails open to catch a whim. He'll even shout up at the balloon to come down and play with him.

We know that the weightlessness of Simon's existence, the whimsy in his wonder, will soon end. We sense it when he refuses to welcome the balloon as it descends. We see it in how he's drawn to flashy, mechanized activity, like his sister's PlayStation.

Flight's bittersweet tone comes from its focus on childhood, and even a quality of childhood that the harsh city life might soon burst like a balloon. You could call it The Unbearable Lightness of Being, but that title's taken.

And speaking of Unbearable Lightness …

Simon Iteanu as Simon and Juliette Binoche as Suzanne

In a visceral, spirited performance that rates among her very best, Juliette Binoche plays Simon's frazzled, single mother, Suzanne. With her energy manifested in an electrified blonde hairdo, Suzanne is too busy to know whether she's coming or going. In an unforgettable and surprising reveal, we learn that Suzanne works as an actress in a puppet theater. Like Hou himself, she's translating timeless Chinese art for present-day Parisians, and the work unleashes a playful expressiveness that makes her irresistible.

But between rehearsals, Suzanne careens like a pinball from one activity to another. She's trying to cope with intrusive downstairs tenants, the loneliness of missing her absent husband and faraway daughter, and the details of welcoming Simon's new nanny. Coming home, she gets updates from Simon about his day. "You play pinball these days?" she quips, and the line is loaded. Yes, his life is going on without her. Yes, he's being drawn into the machine.

We enter into Suzanne's crazy world through the quiet observance of the new nanny, a Chinese film student named Song (Song Fang). Song's peaceful acceptance of Suzanne's crazy world makes her most appealing. Song's Chinese background, her interest in film, and her ever-present digital camera which she uses to film Simon's everyday experiences, make her the calm at the center of this family's storm. She's making a short film about red balloons in tribute to the classic 1956 French short film, The Red Balloon, just as Hou made Flight as an homage to its director, Albert Lamorisse.

Song Fang as Simon's nanny, Song

Hou's cinematography imitates the casual curiosity of a child. His gaze wanders up and down the street, up and down the buildings. But don't be fooled—every one of his long, patient takes is carefully composed.

If you watch carefully, you'll catch visual jokes and wonder if they're intentional. For example, in the opening shot of a balloon floating away on a cut string, we see a subway sign advertising the film Severance. If that isn't funny enough, the title is bisected by a lamppost! Later, after we've realized that the film is about a vulnerable child overlooked by the busy modern world, a bus passes with a bold poster for the film Children of Men, with Clive Owen's mug staring straight at us. Accident? If so, a very happy one.

Hou's images are rich with meaning. In many shots, reflections suggest that we consider the past, present, and future. Some shots show passing traffic, but reflections in windows and doors let us see vehicles approach, and after they pass, we catch distorted views of their continuing journey. (How he manages to keep the camera out of these reflections is a special effect indeed.) Hou is constantly, quietly reminding us that the past and future are active in the present, and that should provoke questions about what we value, and how we inhabit a moment.

The wandering balloon represents all sorts of imagery

The story's most obvious theme is the elusiveness of the joys and wonders we associate with childhood. Suzanne and Simon are both saddened by a longing for younger, more innocent days. They miss Simon's father and sister—he's away in Montreal, she's with her grandfather. In a heartbreaking moment, Suzanne pleads with her daughter to return home. She reveres home movies of her children, and the most precious gift she can give is an old postcard from her scrapbook.

In a beautiful scene, Simon wanders into a video arcade. Song stays outside, filming his progress through the window. Hou's camera turns to zoom in on Simon, wide-eyed at a pinball machine. (How odd that he's drawn to pinball—a small sphere, making progress through a series of hard-hitting obstacles.) We watch Simon through the glass, and notice that Song has gone inside to join him, her camera still running. It's like Hou is suggesting that, through the gift of pictures, postcards, and film, we can transcend the clamor of our lives and recapture some of our childlike wonder again. Song bridges the gap, quietly savoring the world around her. Camera in hand, she manages to maintain a sense of childlike wonder.

Following Song, Suzanne, and Simon, Hou invites viewers along for a dreamy stroll through a day in their lives with a "you are there" immediacy. Hou allowed his actors to improvise, without rehearsals, and as a result the film has a delightful spontaneity. Binoche even wore clothes from her own closet. (And it must be said—she has a very nice closet.)

Nevertheless, Flight has already inspired some impatient critics to complain that "nothing happens" in this film. To borrow a line from James Cameron's The Abyss — they "need to look with better eyes than that."

Flight is not plot-driven. It is not about drawing us to the edge of our seat or teasing us with what happens next. It's meant to be observed the way you might study art in a museum, or the way you might wander down a street in one of the world's great cities just to watch people and light.

Director Hou Hsiao Hsien on the set with Song Fang and Binoche

Sound boring? Give it a try. Find out why Hou is one of the world's most celebrated filmmakers, and what Americans have been missing. The fact that his films aren't "marketable" in the U.S. reflects poorly on us, not Hou.

Flight will probably stand as his most playful work. The red balloon is an evocative icon that appeals to all ages. It's the suggestion that the simple joy of childhood can be lost so easily. It's also the gravity of that idea—that there's a lonely but buoyant spirit wandering above us, watching over us, waiting for us to reach up. The balloon's as mysterious and benevolent a character as Winnie the Pooh or Hayao Miyazake's Totoro. After we watch it a while, we start to notice bright red spheres and circles everywhere—in decals on bus windows, bright red stop lights, traffic signs, the taillights of a car in a tunnel.

In one scene, the balloon descends the side of a building and passes a painting of a red balloon, and suddenly it brushes against the painting as if kissing a stranger in the Parisian way, or finding a kindred spirit. It's an enthralling moment.

Hou's film is the first in a program financed by the Musée d'Orsay. The film features a scene inside the museum where children consider a painting of, yes, a red balloon. Hou's film has set the standard for the series. We can only hope the rest of the participating filmmakers dare to reach so high.

My Blueberry Nights

Review by Brandon Fibbs

Wong Kar Wai is one of today's most original and visually unique directors. His highly stylized, non-linear storytelling is more like experiencing a dream than watching a film. He seeks to communicate sensory impressions over quantifiable details. His plots pale in comparison to his stream-of-consciousness poetry. And how exactly does one describe the plot of a poem? It is a thing disjoined, impressionistic, ephemeral and open to interpretation.

Internationally acclaimed in his native Hong Kong, Wong is hoping his visual and philosophical technique translates for Western audiences in his debut English language feature, My Blueberry Nights. Like his ravishingly beautiful In the Mood for Love and 2046, the director's latest film is less about narrative and more about the sort of sultry visual moodiness that lingers with us long after the facts of the story have faded.

Norah Jones as Elizabeth

When we first meet Elizabeth (songstress Norah Jones in her screen debut), she is a woman suffering from emotional shell shock. Night after night, she wanders into Jeremy's (Jude Law) Manhattan diner in a trance-like daze, searching for an absent boyfriend. Full of empathy and omniscient advice, Jeremy looks forward to Elizabeth's visits. But she vanishes from his life and his diner the night she finally finds her lover canoodling back at his apartment with another woman. Heartbroken, she flees the city.

Not knowing whether she is running from or toward something, Elizabeth ends up in Memphis, Tennessee. There she befriends the troubled, alcoholic, cuckolded cop Arnie (David Strathairn) and his estranged wife, Sue Lynne (Rachel Weisz; note how her character's name looks American but sounds Chinese). Sharing days at the diner and nights at the bar, Lizzie, as she now calls herself, immediately understands Arnie's pain but is, perhaps, most surprised that she can also identify with Sue Lynne's problematic motivations.

Jude Law as Jeremy

When she next hits the road, Lizzie now goes by Beth, a cocktail waitress in a Nevada casino who falls in with Leslie (Natalie Portman), a down-on-her-luck gambler with a very personal score to settle. Leslie either holds the key to Beth's future or will leave her stranded in a vast, sweltering desert that exists both geographically and allegorically.

Everyone Elizabeth/Lizzie/Beth meets is facing excruciating circumstances, most greater even then her own. As she witnesses the agony of their loneliness and the emptiness of their relationships, she begins to comprehend that her physical travelogue is but a metaphor for a greater journey of exploration going on within herself, a journey from heartbreak to self-discovery. Will she keep running, from one place to the next, never staying long enough to be vulnerable, or will she double back on her own tracks and confront her greatest anguish and perhaps even stumble onto her greatest joy?

My Blueberry Nights is trademark Wong Kar Wai. Slow and deliberate, the film is saturated with vibrant, neon colors, bleached personalities and dreamy digital esthetics. Trains, a key motif in almost all of Wong's films, are shown often, constantly in motion from one place to the next, never sitting still. Though the action is set amidst vast metropolises, we see the cities in miniature only, from the perspectives of corner diners and smoke-filled bars. Only the inhospitable Nevada desert is seen for what it really is, vast and desolate.

Natalie Portman (right) as Leslie

Wong rarely allows his camera to get too close to the actors. The camera always seems to be trapped behind some sort of barricade that obscures our view. It slides this way and that, desperately searching for a better view of the action. Its desperation may have something to do with a comment Jeremy makes to Elizabeth when he admits to spending his free time watching the recordings from his own diner's security camera. "We miss so much, even though it is going on right in front of our eyes."

My Blueberry Nights ends with the least amount of ambiguity of any of Wong's recent works. His films continuously wrestle with love coming apart or never quite connecting in the first place. But for an American audience—which by and large disdains ambiguity and adores tidy endings with satisfying summations—he delivers the closest thing to a happy ending I've seen in his work.

Rachel Weisz as Sue Lynne

For all that, My Blueberry Nights doesn't quite work. It is a slow, uneven script populated with thin characters and a lack of emotional gravity. While the director's lavish style and prowess behind the camera remain intact, his work loses much of its exoticism in English. Far from home, Wong's powers seem to wane. He certainly still knows how to seduce us, but can he keep us?

There's no disputing the fact that Norah Jones is one of the most talented and luxuriant singer/songwriters in the business. Her day job is certainly still her strongest. Jones gives a bland, uninspired performance, which never hooks us despite the fact that it does get better as the film goes on. We can never relate to her character because we are all too aware of the untrained Jones working so incredibly hard at looking like she knows what she's doing. It's not that Jones is a bad actress, per se, just an untrained one.

My Blueberry Nights is like a short film that goes on for too long. It is a flimsy, if inoffensive, addition to Wong Kar Wai's canon, an insignificant diversion at best.

Nim's Island

Review by Peter T. Chattaway

Nim's Island is the latest so-so effort from Walden Media. Like most of their films, it is based on a children's book, and like many of their films, it is directed by a first-time feature-film director—or, in this case, by two people who have never directed a feature film before. But lest you enter the theater with low expectations, the film is also graced with enthusiastic performances by actors who clearly enjoy being part of a story that teaches positive lessons—and a little enthusiasm can go a long way, even when it is not clear just where the story itself is going.

Abigail Breslin as Nim

The part of Nim herself is played by the 11-year-old Abigail Breslin, who was last seen in Definitely Maybe as a young girl who asks her about-to-divorced dad to tell her a bedtime story about his love life. Nim, thankfully, is not so precocious, or at least not in that way; she has spent the bulk of her life with her dad on a remote island in the South Pacific, where she plays with various animals and "escapes" by reading the adventure novels of an Indiana Jones-like figure named Alex Rover.

When she reads these novels, Nim imagines that the dashing, heroic Alex Rover is a man just like her dad, Jack Rusoe (Gerard Butler)—except that where her dad is a marine biologist who hopes to discover a new form of nanoplankton and name it after his daughter, she imagines Alex Rover being a much more rugged, combative individual. To the film's credit, it allows Jack to be masculine in his own way; the fact that he spends much of his time looking at his one-celled specimens through a microscope does not make him a mild-mannered geek. He is, indeed, an inspirational figure to his daughter in his own way—so when Nim visualizes her father as Alex Rover, it may be not so much because she wishes her father were living a different kind of life, but because her father is already a sort of hero to her.

Jodie Foster as Alexandra Rove

Confusing matters, though, is the fact that the Alex Rover books seem to be written in the first person, which apparently leads Nim to believe that they are not just adventure fantasies but have some kind of basis in fact. The truth, however, is very, very different: while the hero of the books is definitely a man, the author turns out to be one Alexandra Rover (Jodie Foster), an intensely neurotic woman whose fear of the outside world reaches almost Howard Hughes-like proportions. She hasn't left her San Francisco apartment in months, she won't go out to check the mail lest she expose herself to the rain, and she obsessively rubs her hands with Purell hand sanitizer. And her knowledge about all those faraway places that she writes about in her books? It seems to come entirely from the reference books on her shelf.

As it happens, Alexandra is struggling with writer's block, and as she goes looking for material that she can use in her next book, she chances upon an article written by Jack about the island that he and Nim live on. Alexandra sends an e-mail, and since Jack is away on his boat, Nim receives it and replies to it. Before long, the two have established just enough of a rapport that, when Nim is injured and a monsoon strikes the island—and possibly separates Nim from her father forever—Alexandra feels personally compelled to go to the island and, uh, do whatever she can.

Gerard Butler as Nim's dad, and as her hero Alex Rover

It's not really clear what Alexandra expects to do once she gets there; the important thing is, she faces her fears—repeatedly—as she leaves her home and makes her way to the island, losing all of her creature comforts along the way. (Her hand sanitizer doesn't make it past the airport security check; various clothing items are lost at sea.) And what helps her to face these fears is the fact that she, too, visualizes her hero Alex Rover, and imagines that he is goading her on to do all the things that she would do if she were a braver person just like him.

There is an important lesson here about the way in which courage is something we have to imagine, and then commit ourselves to—and about how sometimes, by imagining someone better than we are and then emulating that imaginary person, we can actually become better people ourselves. The lesson is bolstered by something Jack tells his daughter, that courage "is not just in you, it's in each choice we make, every single day." Courage is, in a sense, a habit that we need to learn.

The lesson almost gets lost, though, in some of the distractions that the story—written by co-directors Jennifer Flackett and Mark Levin with Joseph Kwong and Paula Mazur, and adapted from the novel by Wendy Orr—throws our way. By some strange coincidence, no sooner has a monsoon overwhelmed Jack's boat and separated him from the island than a boat full of tourists shows up, apparently oblivious to the weather and ready to pollute the island with their candy bar wrappers.

This forces Nim to go all Home Alone on the tourists, protecting the island with help from the leaping lizards and flatulent sea lions that are her friends—and her encounter with a boy from the boat strikes an odd tone, neither anticipated nor followed up by the rest of the film, and it feels like the remnant of a subplot that got axed somewhere along the line. (Incidentally, Nim tells the animals they will have to fight just like the ancient Greek warriors she has read about; can it be a coincidence that her father is played by the same man who played King Leonidas in 300?)

Nim and Selkie go for an underwater spin

This is also one of those films that sort of makes a point about the difference between reality and fantasy, yet presents reality in a way that is very unrealistic. The animals that Nim befriends not only understand her and take orders from her, one of them—a pelican—even takes it upon itself to go and find Jack, stranded at sea, and to give him the equipment that he needs to repair his boat and come home. And when Jack, still lost at sea, yells loudly, Nim can hear him miles away over the sounds of the monsoon. The children in the audience probably won't mind those kinds of fantastic flourishes, but it may dilute the message somewhat.

And then there is the ending, which kind of comes from out of nowhere and, while it resolves one of the film's more minor aspects, it doesn't really resolve what had seemed to be the main issue all along. The film ends up seeming more like a patchwork of narrative threads than a fully integrated story, as such. And when you think about it, it's pretty implausible that Alexandra, who has never met Nim or her father before, would visualize her hero as a more rugged version of Nim's father, just as Nim does—a detail that may or may not be significant, depending on how you interpret certain scenes.

Still, there is a fair bit to like here. Butler and Breslin are as charming as ever, and it is especially fun to watch Foster, who has been so intensely serious of late, tackle such a silly role, and with such zest. For children, Nim'sIsland is a reasonably diverting bit of entertainment, even if it isn't the sort of film that would top anyone's desert-island list.

Atonement

Review by Peter T. Chattaway

The relentless clickety-clack of a typewriter never sounded so ominous, or mournful, as it does in Atonement, Joe Wright's heartbreaking adaptation of the acclaimed novel by Ian McEwan. The film is full of people typing—a girl writing plays, a man composing apologies, a woman spelling out her guilt in the hope that all can be forgiven—to the point where the pounding of the keys is woven into the very score, making Dario Marianelli's music sound even more urgent than it already does.

The story begins in 1935, with 13-year-old Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan) at home on her family's estate and writing a play for her cousins to perform. They don't take direction well, though, and when they abandon her, she wanders to the window and witnesses a mysterious encounter between her adult sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley) and Robbie Turner (James McAvoy), the son of the family's housekeeper.

Keira Knightley as Cecilia Tallis

This encounter, and the fact that Briony sees it but doesn't know how to understand it, sets in motion a series of events that ultimately leads to Briony accusing Robbie of a crime—and the accusation ruins not only his life, but Cecilia's, too, because she loves him and is the only one in her family who believes in his innocence.

The film then leaps ahead to 1940. Robbie is a soldier stranded in France during the disastrous retreat at Dunkirk, while Cecilia and a grown-up Briony (Romola Garai) serve as nurses in London. The two sisters do not associate with each other, though Briony, who now knows that she did something wrong, spends her nights typing out her version of what happened—a version that may or may not set things right.

A number of critics have complained that the wartime sequences don't live up to the promise of the film's first act, but having seen the film twice, my own response is somewhat different. If anything, the first act seems clever but somewhat contrived, like a necessary series of events without which the rest of the movie simply could not happen, but the real emotional pay-off comes in the later scenes. And for what it's worth, on second viewing, the later scenes became even more emotional.

James McAvoy as Robbie Turner

The first act is still quite impressive, though, and much of the credit goes to Ronan's performance as the young Briony, the intelligent but naïve girl whose great error may be due as much to childish spite as it is to childish innocence.

Some of the credit also goes to the film's unusual structure. The mysterious, indeed scandalous, encounters between Cecilia and Robbie that Briony witnesses are first shown to us from Briony's point of view. They are then shown again, from Cecilia and Robbie's point of view, and what looked threatening to the child turns out to be quite different as far as the grown-ups are concerned. The contrast between these perspectives also prepares us for later moments in the film, when incidents we thought we understood are revealed to be even more complicated than we knew.

Another striking thing about this film is the way it emphasizes the role that both chance and choice play in determining our fates. Young Briony, for example, is drawn to a window because she hears a bee buzzing against it—and if it were not for that bee, she would not have witnessed the first of the puzzling incidents.

Saoirse Ronan as a young Briony Tallis

The film also probes the fuzzy line between fact and fancy in the way we remember things, and for that matter in the way we sometimes live in the present. Briony's imagination may be partly to blame for the accusation she makes. And Robbie, more than once, thinks back to certain pivotal moments in his own life and wishes they could be undone. During a moment of delusional illness in France, he also imagines that his mother (Brenda Blethyn) has come to soothe and take care of him.

And just as the individual characters wrestle with these issues, so too does the larger society. When a nurse reports that the government is calling the evacuations at Dunkirk a "strategic withdrawal," Briony, ever the wordsmith, replies that this is just a "euphemism for retreat"; compare that to current debates over so-called "exit strategies." And while the British newsreels show the evacuation in the most positive light possible, the film includes a long tracking shot in which Robbie walks down the beach at Dunkirk and witnesses the most chaotic, despairing, reckless behavior possible; compare that to current debates over troop behavior overseas.

A little light does pierce the darkness, though. Roughly halfway through the tracking shot, the camera comes to a gazebo where several troops have gathered to sing a hymn; we circle them and then, just as we leave, we hear them sing the words "the still small voice of God." Moments later, as the tracking shot comes to an end some distance away, the camera turns back to the gazebo, and those words are once again just barely audible on the soundtrack. In the midst of the chaos and despair of war, the film dwells on this note of hoped-for grace—a note that may be echoed in a later scene, where Briony goes about her business while Debussy's Claire de Lune plays over the soundtrack, in stark contrast to the film's usually frenetic score.

Romola Garai as the older Briony

It is difficult to say much more without giving away important plot points. But suffice it to say that the film, written by Christopher Hampton (Dangerous Liaisons) and directed by Joe Wright (Pride & Prejudice), is full of images and bits of dialogue that echo one another in interesting ways; immersion in water is a recurring motif, and an upper-class man's glib reference to the "war wound" he got while fighting off a child—just a nick on his cheek, really—stands in stark contrast to the actual war wound that the lower-class Robbie has when we catch up with him in France.

The film also raises important questions about the relationship between honesty and kindness, between truth and grace, between memory and wishful thinking, and it ends on a surprisingly powerful note that asks whether there can ever be true mercy without, well, truth. Can one find redemption in a lie, if it is told with kindness?

In thinking about this film, my mind often goes back to Snow Falling on Cedars. Both films move back and forth in time, both films feature young lovers interrupted in a moment of passion, and both films amplify questions of personal, social and even cosmic injustice by dragging their characters into the Second World War.

But where Snow Falling on Cedarswas about bearing your scars and letting go of the past, Atonement seems to be about people who cannot let go of the past, and are indeed haunted by the past and their knowledge that it can never be undone. Briony, in particular, is searching for grace and forgiveness, and the fact that she can't quite find it makes Atonementone of the more devastating films in recent memory.

I Am Legend

Review by Todd Hertz

In the audience's first sweep through I Am Legend's deserted, overgrown and devastated New York City, Robert Neville (Will Smith) drives past a truck with the same poster plastered over it several times. It reads, "God still loves us."

At first, it seems this may be an ironic jab. After all, this is a dark, apocalyptic film about one man left to rot in a seemingly Godless world. But by the end, that poster seems to be a subtle thesis statement.

This is the third major film incarnation of the 1954 horror novella I Am Legend by Richard Matheson (writer of The Twilight Zone: The Movie and several sci-fi/horror stories). Considered a horror classic, it has influenced writers including Stephen King and films such as Night of the Living Dead, but its track record on film isn't as impressive.

Will Smith as Robert Neville, with his dog Sam

The most well known version is the dated and goofy The Omega Man (1971) with Charlton Heston. Like that film, I Am Legend is more "inspired" by the book than a cinematic re-telling. The filmmakers weave their own story and themes (including all of the spiritual content) out of the book's basic premise that a virus has decimated the Earth. And only one man seems to have survived its effects.

The film begins with the TV news. A doctor (an uncredited Emma Thompson) explains how her team was able to mutate the measles virus. She tells the news anchor that measles is like "a fast car with a madman at the wheel" but her team believed it could be used for good if "a cop were driving it instead." And so, they mutated the virus and turned it into a successful cure for cancer. Flash forward three years: that mutated virus has killed 90 percent of the population and turned most survivors into Darkseekers—pale, hairless, zombie-like predators who feast on blood.

A military scientist, Neville seeks a cure for the virus

Neville, a military scientist who tried to stop the virus, is apparently the only unaffected human left. With his dog, Sam—many animals were unaffected by the virus—Neville lives in a well-protected New York townhouse stocked with generators and canned food. By night, he hides from the shrieks of the Darkseekers with Sam as his only comfort. By day, he hunts deer in Times Square, talks to mannequin "neighbors" he has posed in the video store, and works tirelessly to find a cure for the Darkseekers. Neville is consumed by guilt that he couldn't stop the disease's warpath. After all, TIME called him humanity's savior. But he failed. Test after test, Neville insists that he "can still fix this." But can he?

With this promising premise, a dynamic and captivating performance by Smith, and a tensely eerie atmosphere, I Am Legend gets a strong start. The cinematography of the barren and overgrown New York City streets is breathtaking, and Smith is evocative and emotional. In fact, the movie's tension and fright are almost completely thanks to the way he display very genuine terror, sadness, and childlike-dread.

The movie seems headed to be a provocative apocalyptic epic and stirring character study thanks to its dark futuristic prognosis (a la Children of Men, 28 Days Later or 12 Monkeys), gripping glimpses of the paranoia, fear and madness of loneliness (a la Castaway). Unfortunately, it can't maintain the level of these better films. In fact, director Francis Lawrence seems to want to have two types of films at once: this type of contemplative horror saga and a pulpy, crowd-pleasing popcorn flick. It's like the artsy Children of Men with Resident Evil breaking out at the end. I Am Legend aspires to greater peaks, but unravels in B-movie silliness very similar to the director's only other film, Constantine, where Keanu Reeves used a cross-shaped gun to kill demons.

Neville and Sam hide out from the Darkseekers

The movie is decent for what it is, but fans of the book and those expecting more from the grandiose and epic-looking trailers may be disappointed. The problem isn't really that the second half of the movie switches from atmospheric to action focused. Instead, the plot becomes action-based instead of the action being plot-based. Smith brings such heart to the movie, but the second half of his fight against the Darkseekers is just impersonal and, well, fake.

I Am Legend is one of my favorite books. One of the things that draws me to it is that the vampires out in the night aren't just random creatures looking for something to eat. They are Neville's old neighbors and friends. "Come on out, Neville," they taunt. They know him. They're people like him—but just twisted. That's terrifying. But the film's Darkseekers are impersonal threats. And maybe most detrimental to the movie, they don't feel like real people—because they're not. They are badly computer-generated creatures, like the monsters in Van Helsing or The Mummy. They're menacing or believable in only a handful of scenes. After all, some characters in Beowulf feel more lifelike. For a movie relying on human emotions for its effect, it loses its humanity.

In the film's final moments, I Am Legend evokes yet another film: M. Night Shyamalan's Signs. For Christians, it gets very interesting. With only glimpses of faith previously (a family prayer in times of trouble, a cross on a rear-view mirror), God suddenly and jarringly comes to the forefront.

The bloodthirsty Darkseekers are on the prowl

For three years, Neville has put the fate of mankind on his own back. But then, a mysterious woman appears who says the real hope is in God. "He has a plan," Anna says. "He sent me here for a reason." In the final 10 minutes, the movie takes on the themes of God's providence and the need to listen for his voice. Anna says, "The world is quieter now. It's easier to hear God."

It's an interesting direction for a movie about the impact of scientific advancement. So what is it saying about science and God? That scientific advances foolishly allow man to play God? Or that science is comparable to that fast car capable of good or evil, depending on the driver?

Had I Am Legend kept its personal, human and contemplative atmosphere over the loud, crowd-pleasing whiz-bang action, these messages of faith may have carried more weight and heart. As it is, they blend in with the noise—no matter how quiet Robert Neville's New York is.

Chicago 10

Review by Brett McCracken

1968 has been called "the year that rocked the world," "the year from hell," and "the year the dream died." It was certainly one of the twentieth century's most chaotic, paradigm-shifting moments, with assassinations (Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X), riots, massacres, and a general sense of impending doom (or revolution) gripping the world. And most of it unfolded live via satellite. Indeed, some might argue that the story of 1968 is less about a revolution of thought as much as a revolution of images.

When thousands of protesters clashed with the Chicago PD (who responded with tear gas and indiscriminant clubbing) during the Democratic Convention in August 1968, it wasn't just an isolated civic disturbance. More than 50 million Americans were watching it unfold on TV, further polarizing a country that appeared to be ripping at the seams. Some sort of revolution was being televised, and it was both gripping and terrifying.

Archival footage of Jerry Rubin

Chicago 10 is a film about the images. Ostensibly, it's a documentary about the Democratic Convention riots in Chicago and the subsequent "Chicago 8" trial against the protest organizers and hippie leadership for charges of inciting violence (The title Chicago 10 includes the two defense lawyers who were eventually also sentenced with contempt charges).

But this film is not as concerned with narrative or plot development as it is with immersing us in the mood and visceral power of the images that defined these events. There is a lot more going on here visually than your typical run-of-the-mill documentary. Directed by Brett Morgen (The Kid Stays in the Picture), Chicago 10 is a unique blend of 3D animation and real archival footage. The "reenacted" courtroom scenes are all done in a sort of motion-capture, videogame-esque animation of the Second Life variety—a fitting medium to portray a trial that was nothing if not a circus. During those reenactments, current actors provide voices for the original characters—for example, Hank Azaria voicing for Abbie Hoffman, Mark Ruffalo for Jerry Rubin, and Jeffrey Wright for Bobby Seale.

Animated shot of defendants Abbie Hoffman and Bobby Seale

The trial scenes are just one part of the story, however, and in my opinion the more compelling scenes are the "actuality" portions from the front lines of the violent clashes. Culled from over 180 hours of archived 16mm footage and 14,000 photos, these scenes provide a shocking look into the real life progression of events that went down that fateful August week.

There is something jarring and immensely effective about the use of archival material in this film, unencumbered by talking-head interviews and omniscient narratives. The footage is compelling enough to stand on its own, and the filmmakers wisely let it do so. Footage of Chicago's Mayor Daley calling the protesters "terrorists" and instructing police officers to "shoot all arsonists" needs no smarmy Michael Moore setup or running commentary. The point is made in the historical record.

Unfortunately the animated portions aren't quite as convincing, even though they document true occurrences as recorded in the courtroom transcripts. I can imagine several viewers questioning the veracity of a scene in which Bobby Seale (the one black defendant of the eight on trial) is gagged, handcuffed, and dragged out of the courtroom by thuggish bailiffs. It's hard enough to believe things like this actually happened at the trial (though, in fact, they did); unfortunately, the animated rendering bestows little in the way of trustworthy historical verisimilitude. Still, the creative use of animation is stylish and cool, and the quick-cut editing rhythm back and forth between grainy archival footage and fanciful digital illustration does lend the film an attention-grabbing, music video pace.

Actual footage from the 1968 Democratic Convention

As such, there is a sense that this film (released by Participant Productions, the trendy political brand in Hollywood these days) is directed primarily to younger audiences who have yet to engage politically with the same sense of passion and grassroots momentum as did the '60s generation. And of course, the timing of the film (in an election year, with the National Conventions just months away) is certainly not an accident. The filmmakers' hope, presumably, is that kids will see Chicago 10 and get stirred into action—taking to the streets to take down The Man, Yippie style. The anachronistic use of '90s music (Rage Against the Machine, Eminem, Beastie Boys) to accompany the '60s images only underscores this idea that the seething political furor of those days can be replicated in these.

But herein lies one of the film's biggest problems: its tendency to force-feed "modern-day application" rather than let it be a compelling glimpse into one of the most pivotal years (1968) in American history. I would have liked to seen better development of the major figures in the trial (Seale, Abbie Hoffman, David Dellinger, Jerry Rubin, Tom Hayden, etc.) and a little more in the way of historical context. The idea, I'm sure, is to make it seem vague and universal—as if something like this can and does happen in the 21st century. But the reality is that what happened that summer and that year was very unique to the zeitgeist of that time. This is not to say that protests and "taking it to the streets" can't happen today, just that we should understand why it happened then … before we try to sell it as a "must-have experience" to the youth of today.

Director Brett Morgen on the set

The film feels most relevant when it ponders the image of culture and the morphing fusion of politics, spectacle, and celebrity. Abbie Hoffman is the central character in this discussion. In planning the Chicago demonstration with the other Yippie leaders, Hoffman routinely speaks of it as being "conceived as a total theater" in which "we are all actors." He knew better than anyone that the cameras would be recording and broadcasting the protests and that the "performances" of the protesters would be crucial to how the events would be spun. Hoffman's own persona in front of the cameras led him to become something of a celebrity in the late sixties. One of the most interesting sequences in the film shows Hoffman's rise to icon status—complete with a Rolling Stone magazine cover and paparazzi chasing him around with cameras flashing. He was a countercultural rebel who ironically became a mass-marketed commodity. In this way he forecast the future—the increasing importance of subversion/rebellion/counterculture for the ever-adaptive system of capitalism in America.

The implicit and somewhat cynical message of a film like Chicago 10 is that high-stakes politics and activism are, in some ways, constructions of the indifferent media who only care about high drama and higher ratings. As a result, we should trust nothing that we hear and resist being told what to do. On the contrary, we must rely on our own communities and personal will to make change happen, if it is going to happen. As Bobby Seale asserts in the last line of the movie: "All power to the people."