By Chris James
Jodie Comer and Austin Butler star in Jeff Nichols' "The Bikeriders," which screened at the AFI Film Festival.
The Film Experience is back at the Hollywood and Highland complex for another film festival. The AFI Film Festival is back for another year. Throughout the weekend, the team is going to be sharing their reviews of some of the latest films to hit the festival circuit. The AFI Film Festival is often times the first time many Oscar hopefuls touch down on Los Angeles, in the same building that the Oscars are held no less. The festival also boasts an impressive number of international features, including 18 submissions for Best International Feature.
For this first dispatch, I've reviewed Jeff Nichols' The Bikeriders, the LA premiere of Quiz Lady and the Iranian film Terrestrial Verses. Read after the jump to find which films triumphed and which fumbled...
The Bikeriders
How often do you wish some of these boy movies were told from the female perspective?
Jeff Nichols’ The Bikeriders delights in its cadre of rugged bikers and the dramas that come from their riding club. Yet, the joy of the film comes from seeing this world framed through Kathy (Jodie Comer), the wife of renegade rider Benny (Austin Butler) as she’s interviewed by photojournalist Danny Lyon (Mike Faist). The film is inspired by Lyon’s photo series and accompanying book, The Bikeriders. To the film’s positive and detriment, it feels much like a photo essay. It delights in the vibe and anecdotes of this biker culture, but never quite finds its footing as a strong narrative provoking its characters to some sort of growth or change. Still, with Jeff Nichols’ empathetic lensing, the world of the Chicago Vandals comes to life with high entertainment value and heart.
Kathy first met the Chicago Vandals when she went to meet up with a girlfriend who was already at their bar. Her white pants are within minutes stained from the grabassing by all the men in the gang. Then she gets a glimpse of “the most handsome man [she’s] ever seen” - Benny (Bulter), a biker hunched over the pool table just waiting for a closeup. Benny gives Kathy a magical ride on his motorcycle, drives away her boyfriend and their whirlwind love is made official when the two marry five weeks later.
Through Kathy, we get a lowdown on the founding of the group by Johnny (Tom Hardy), a truck driver with a big heart but even bigger fists. An initial group of ten to twenty or so men comprise the Chicago Vandals. The cast is filled with so many actors giving wonderfully idiosyncratic performances as the different club members. This includes Michael Shannon as the elder of the group who was rejected from Vietnam, Emory Cohen as a biker who loves to eat insects and Norman Reedus as a smiley Californian with an intimidating streak named Funny Sonny. As word spreads about the Vandals, the group decides to franchise to other parts of the Midwest, bringing their gift of anarchy and camaraderie to other men who feel stuck in society. “These guys wanted to join a motorcycle club because they couldn’t follow the rules, only to then start making up their own rules in the club,” Kathy pointedly muses. As the group grows larger and times change, the makeup of the group changes and brings with it increased violence and competition. After Benny gets his leg nearly torn off by a shovel in a daytime fight, Kathy implores him to quit the group. However, Johnny won’t let that happen, as he sees Benny as the only logical person to pass the club to in order to keep out the riff raff.
There’s the makings of a really interesting love triangle, and the movie definitely tries to thread that needle. Kathy loves Benny and this motivates her to encourage him to leave the club. Johnny loves Benny and thus wants to pass on the club to him. The scenes that crackle with the most vigor and conflict are between Comer and Hardy, who are seemingly engaged in a competition to one up the craziness of their midwestern accents. Both their characters want the same thing and know that for them to get their way, the other will have to lose. There’s a mutual respect they have for each other, as they represent the opposite sides of the person they love. They’re so good that it only further highlights how flat Austin Butler is as the object of their affection. To be fair, Benny’s screen time is a good bit less. He’s a specter to which these other more dynamic characters project their desires onto. He’s all vibes, but ultimately very little substance.
Most of the film waffles between times as we get almost extended vignettes of the Kathy-Benny-Johnny love triangle. The most clean narrative throughline charting the club’s change comes from The Kid (Toby Wallace). One day as a teen, he sees the bike riders roll through town and immediately knows he has to become one of them. He gathers a group of friends together and they begin working on bikes. His home life is tough, which forces him to harden up, nearly killing his Father at one point when he witnesses him beating his Mother. Too eager to join the group too early, the Kid gets a rude awakening from Johnny, which sets him on this quest for power that ultimately leads to the destruction of the way of life he wanted so badly.
Ultimately, The Bikeriders successfully engenders love and nostalgia for this biker subculture that has morphed into something different than its origins. Johnny started this club to find community and emulate Marlon Brando. These delinquents were looking for love and fellowship, albeit a kind built on debauchery and rebellion. This rebellion was at the overarching societal structure more than any one group or person. As the famous exchange goes in The Wild One: “What are you rebelling against?” “Whadda ya got?” As violence and post-Vietnam traumatized youngsters infected the ranks of the Vandals, the biker gang morphed into something filled with more drugs, murder and illegal activity. The Bikeriders as a film brings to life what Danny Lyon unearthed beautifully in his photographs in the 60s and 70s. There was once a beauty and purity to the biker gang, men who couldn’t find their place in society who found their home and family on the road. B
The Bikeriders is distributed by 20th Century and is currently undated. It was removed from its December 1st release date amid the ongoing SAG strike.
Quiz Lady
Quiz Lady is chock full of talent, but even the strongest of filmmakers can’t elevate a weak script.
Anne (Awkwafina) has been obsessed with the quiz show, Can’t Stop the Quiz, since she was a little girl. Through her parent’s divorce, mother’s gambling benders and sister’s hair brained antics, the genial show, hosted by an ultra-affable bow tie wearing Terry McTeer (Will Ferrell), has been Anne’s main companion for over twenty years. The only other long term companion is her adorably chunky dog Linguini, who has magnificently lasted 20 years. When her mother’s retirement calls to tell her that her mother has run away, Anne is reunited with her sister, Jenny (Sandra Oh), a party girl who has never found her calling in life despite a wealth of false starts. The new ambition of the month - becoming a life coach. No sooner do the two exchange pleasantries before Linguini is taken by a gangster named Ken (), who wants $80,000 to settle their mom’s gambling debt. Jenny posits that Anne could win the money easily on Can’t Stop the Quiz, but Anne’s stage fright prevents her from entering.
You can probably guess where the film is headed from here. However, you’d be surprised how long it takes until it gets to the expected, yet sweet territory. Jenny first kidnaps Anne to get her to try out for the show. This jaunt into road trip territory provides minimal laughs as it meanders through sitcom set pieces where the laughs are dead on arrival. We get a few laughs from key supporting players, such as a Ben Franklin obsessed innkeeper (Tony Hale) and a cantankerous, Alan Cumming loving neighbor (Holland Taylor). Unfortunately, most of the scenes are over-plotted for no reason, namely Anne’s newfound status as a viral celebrity for… answering questions correctly in a fast manner?
Sandra Oh works overtime to make the chronically unreliable Jenny seem fun. Yet, the strain is felt throughout the movie. Even in this zany world, Jenny makes little sense, meandering through life without a discernible goal. This makes her a frustrating engine for a story, her motivations never feel strong enough. Paired with a sister who goes out of her way to avoid putting herself out there, the two sisters never gel in a way that creates interesting conflict. Awkwafina is comparatively toned down, which makes sense for the character but makes it hard for Anne to jump off the screen as an exciting protagonist to root for, at least until the end.
The heart of the film is Anne’s love for her quiz show. It’s a pure and comforting love that is respected and paid off in a final act on the show of her dreams. Despite a rocky and unfunny hour before it, the movie kicks up some energy in its final act and arrives at a bit of pathos, even if it does so predictably. This is not because the film gets funnier. In fact, Jason Schwartzman’s performance as a self absorbed contestant on track for a record breaking win on Can’t Stop the Quiz is tiring the first time around and noxious by the end. However, Awkwafina really excels in this beat. Anne is living a dream she never dared to dream and is scared to fail or to have her fantasies shattered. This finally gives the movie real stakes, rather than a “ransom” around their mother that is conveniently forgotten scene to scene.
It’s never a good sign when the movie postscripts are funnier than the film that preceded it. Quiz Lady has its heart in the right place and finds its way by the end. Unfortunately, the movie itself is an unfunny slog that feels more like a first draft than a major motion picture. By the time it finds its comic and emotional footing, it’s too little too late. D+
Quiz Lady debuts on Hulu on Friday, November 3rd.
Terrestrial Verses (AYEH HAYE ZAMINI)
Sometimes, it’s the smallest indignities that cast the greatest burden.
The latest film by directors Alireza Khatami and Ali Asgari may be short in length, but it packs a biting punch, and with humor no less. Terrestrial Verses clocks in at 77 minutes and is comprised of nine vignettes set in Tehran, all of which have a fixed camera pointed at one person in the midst of a frustrating everyday negotiation. The Tehran the film opens with and the Tehran the film closes with may look similar just in terms of what is shot, but the city takes on a different shape and tone as we’ve explored what it means to try and exist in this city.
Each of the nine vignettes paint and increasingly hostile portrait of the mundanities of navigating bureaucracy in its many forms. The diversity in its subjects - men, women, kids, teens - only further illustrates that all people are oppressed by the laws and morals that govern Tehran. We open with a man just simply trying to name his newborn son David, but being prevented by a clerk who insists “David is not an approved name.” There’s a sort of Black Mirror esque quality to the inescapable horror of some of these shorts. In one, a woman fights to get her car back after a traffic cam claims “it caught her driving without a hijab.” What follows is a discussion on what constitutes a private space, only to end with a hilariously aggravating button.
In fact, “hilariously aggravating” is the best way to describe most of the stories. A man forced to strip to reveal his tattoos in order to get a driver’s license feels in conversation with a young girl who loves pop music forced to don more and more clothes in order to progress in school. The staticness of the camera and the invisibility of the oppressor in each story only adds to the weight of the piece. One might view each scene as a two-hander, almost like a series of one act plays. Yet, each piece is a person arguing against the world, the government and society at large.
Baked into the structure is a sense of repetitiveness. This can be a tinge exhausting for the viewer, but it underscores the filmmakers’ thesis: Every day people in Tehran go through these elliptical arguments just to exist in a society that wants to restrict and control them. The narrative only continues in real life for the filmmakers. Since the film’s premiere in Cannes, the Iranian government has prevented Asgari from traveling or making other films. It’s fitting one of the final vignettes showed a director unable to tell his life story without being censored by the government. Terrestrial Verses is an urgent look at modern Iranian society. B+
Terrestrial Verses is currently seeking US Distribution.
More from the AFI Film Festival
Follow along with The Film Experience at the AFI Film Festival. Other coverage pieces are below:
- AFI Fest: Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s ‘Evil Does Not Exist’ by Abe Friedtanzer