Tribeca: "Every Secret Thing" with Dakota Fanning & Diane Lane

Tribeca coverage continues with your host Nathaniel on a new feminine driven mystery

Twisted women are an easy hook for this movie nerd and Every Secret Thing's premise provides. Ronnie (Dakota Fanning) and Alice (Danielle MacDonald) are just out of juvenile prison for a gruesome crime they committed when they were all of 11. Rivals rather than friends as children, in no small part because of Alice's single alcoholic mom (Diane Lane) who pours affection on both girls, biology be damned, they impulsively kidnapped a baby girl one terrible day. Years later, the two disturbed girls are back in their hometown and the years in lock-up have obviously further scarred them. Ronnie has withdrawn into a vaguely Goth shell and Alice, who has eaten her feelings for years, still protests her innocence.

But then another baby goes missing...

Every Secret Thing is written by the gifted Nicole Holofcener (based on Laura Lippman's novel of the same name) but directing duties this time go to Amy Berg. Berg is an Oscar nominated documentarian making her first narrative feature though she's been in the news lately because of the Bryan Singer allegations and the new documentary she's making about Hollywood sex rings. Holofcener's involvement is both surprising and not. On the one hand the film is largely about interpersonal relationships between women (her specialty) but on the other it lacks the kicky personality and wit of her other films. Just about the only laughs in this sometimes monotonous drama come from the gallows. Alice, memorably if arguably overplayed by MacDonald, has an odd relationship to the truth which sometimes makes for the kind of laughter that you have to swallow half-way through from guilt (Should I be laughing at this?)

Though Every Secret Thing has enough solid actressing to keep you engaged (Lane and MacDonald are trying to push the material to the weirder place that it should live in but the film isn't brave enough to follow) it's usually no more than solid. Fanning's role is disappointingly the slimmest of the four principle women. Elizabeth Banks' straight-laced detective, who investigated the original case and is on the case again, is too one note to maintain interest. In the end Banks's work and the underlit cinematography reflect a kind of dreary punch-pulling in the acting and direction, that make the film far too sedate given its pulpy plot points. Every Secret Thing keeps blanketing the sharper edges of its actually gruesome story, just when it should be exposing you to bracing truth, like it's tucking you in drearily so you won't have nightmares. B-/C+

Tribeca: "5 to 7," Or Why Frustrated Writers Should Back Away From Final Draft

Tribeca coverage continues with Diana on 5 to 7 with Anton Yelchin & Glenn Close

Based on the imaginings of an out-of-touch, middle-aged writer-director, 5 to 7 is about a 24 year-old “writer” (Anton Yelchin) who becomes involved with the 33 year-old wife of a French diplomat (Berenice Marlohe). Brian lives in Manhattan, presumedly on his parents’ dime (Glenn Close and Frank Langella, both painfully misused), and attempts to write, his creative juices facilitated by posting a multitude of rejection letters on his wall and playing lonely man wiffleball in his apartment. Arielle also lives in Manhattan  and is oh so very “French” -- husband, two kids, posh neighborhood, and ability to balance high heels with a well-fitting dress.

Spotting Arielle in front of the St. Regis, Brian pursues her through quips that sound more like early drafts of “wit” rather than the finished product (think Woody Allen without the neurotic charm). She tosses words back at him that are meant to signify mutual attraction. When they do end up in a hotel room together (after she hands him the key), there is zip chemistry between the pair, cringingly highlighted all-the-more when Arielle tells Brian that he is a natural lover and asks whether his other lovers had told him that. That’s the crux of the problem with this film - we are told things consistently through voiceover and character iteration (Brian loves Arielle, Arielle loves Brian, Brian’s mother can see that they love each other), but we’re rarely shown anything substantial enough to back up these assertions. [More...] 

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Tribeca: Spacey, Shakespeare, and Sightseeing

Tribeca Film Festival Coverage continues. Here's abstew on a Kevin Spacey doc

"That's why the film is called 'Now', it's not just the first word spoken at the beginning of the play, but it was meant to evoke that immediacy of live theatre. It's happening right now, in front of you," director Jeremy Whelehan said to a packed audience at the world premiere of his documentary film Now: In the Wings on a World Stage.

The film chronicles The Bridge Project, a transatlantic theatre company that was a collaboration of the British Old Vic (which for the past 10 years has had two-time Oscar winner Kevin Spacey at the helm as Artistic Director) and New York's BAM, and the last production the company performed, Richard III. The documentary (which Spacey also produced) goes behind the scenes of director Sam Mendes' production of the Shakespeare work about the deformed, power-hungry king and the year long, globe-spanning journey of its company of players. Spacey and the entire cast were on hand to introduce the film and stayed afterward for a discussion moderated by legendary anchorman Charlie Rose. [More...]

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Tribeca: Gender Punk Love Story

Reporting again from Tribeca, here's Jason on the Tiger-winning Something Must Break from Swedish director Ester Martin Bergsmark.

Xavier Dolan directing a remake of Fassbinder's In a Year of Thirteen Moons is what occurred to me about halfway into the Swedish transgender love-story-of-sorts Something Must Break, although I think I probably do director Ester Martin Bergsmark's film a disservice setting it up against the lofty cinema I excitedly imagine that project could be. (Somebody send Xavier a note, please.) As for what the film really is, while it's spiked with moments of aggression and punk (especially in the terrific final moments) it's more intent to drift on languid pauses, hushed tones, and Instagram filters - think Weekend on smack.

Something Must Break tells the tale of Sebastian turning into Ellie while simultaneously falling in love with Andreas, a boy whose outer Sid Vicious masks a more gooey James Dean trustafarian center. Simultaneously or maybe because of - the push and pull of Andreas' needs (which Andreas can't even seem to comprehend himself) seems to spark Sebastian to action, and the film's at its most interesting when his inner Ellie begins making herself known, most especially in moments of defiance. The film does nearly wring a tear or two out of Andreas' blind self-absorbtion and cruel confusion, and I did dig the way the process of Sebastian's transformation was more just a shift of perspective, as if light began hitting a diamond from a different angle.

But it's the sort of movie that feels like an extended first act - I was more interested in where Ellie was going than where I'd just watched her wander from. I wanted to see that diamond cut glass.

Tribeca: Life Partners With Benefits

Tribeca coverage continues with Jason on Life Partners with Leighton Meester & Gillian Jacobs

When I say that the specter of Frances Ha hangs heavy over Life Partners, you should probably keep in mind that the specter of Frances Ha has been hanging over my entire life for the past year and a half - it nearly immediately became The Movie I Quote Constantly. But that said, Life Partners tells the story of the air-tight bond between two young women that experiences a little leakage when a gentleman caller arrives on the scene, tossing the sudden third wheel into chaos, so you know... it's not just me.

Standing in the shadow of Frances' greatness could squelch the life from anything, but Partners, with its light heart and sitcom tread, is a genial enough 93 minutes that it makes it out alive. It's not the sort of film I'll be demanding be screened for me upon my death bed, the light in Greta's eyes carrying me off into that great nothingness, but I imagine now and then I'll chuckle remembering this or that moment down the line.

One interesting contrast of note between the two films - whereas Frances only seemed a little gay for her bestie Sophie, and that tension was acknowledged and joked about, in Life Partners the Frances-esque character of Sasha (played pleasantly enough by by Leighton Meester) is actually a lesbian, but the topic of any non-platonic love between her and her heterosexual bestie (played pleasantly enough by Gillian Jacobs) is verboten. It seems a conscious decision by the film-makers but it strains towards self-consciousness - one of their friends would joke about it, at least. Life Partners isn't that interested in really difficult complications that linger though. It still has some growing up to do.