Late December is often a time for
family, but it's also a time for glutting on awards season movies,
with multiple high-profile titles being released weekly. Naturally,
families head out to the theatre on their precious days off in early
winter, but finding the right flick for everyone can be a challenge.
To help you narrow things down (ever so
slightly), here is a two-fisted review for a double feature I call the “Take-Your-Mom///DON'T-Take-Your-Mom Double Bill”. The
comprising films: Philomena and The Wolf of Wall Street.
Now far be it for me to presume your
mother's cinematic tastes, but if (like many people's moms) she's one
of those Downton Abbey devotees who prefers lite drama of the
genteel variety, or is simply convinced that British film and
television is 'just better' than everything else, then it's hard to
imagine her disliking Philomena.
Based on the 2009 non-fiction The
Lost Child of Philomena Lee by journalist Martin Sixsmith (played
in the film by Steve Coogan, who also co-produced and co-wrote the
screenplay), it follows the travails of a darling old Irish woman
(Judi Dench in the title role) as she and Sixsmith attempt to track
down the long lost son that was taken from her fifty years ago. The
jaded Sixsmith is only there to write a human interest story, a
project which the former political correspondent considers quite
beneath him. But as a surrogate mother-son relationship develops
between the two, it isn't so unpredictable to see that Philomena has
more to teach him than he realizes.
In the hands of a less tactful talent
pool, it wouldn't take much for Philomena to descend into the
same territory as the maudlin magazine dreck that Sixsmith originally
set the story out to be. The film openly disparages the term “human
interest story” as middlebrow sentimental pablum, before proceeding
to feed its audience the very same on a Sterling spoon. Yet Coogan
and co-writer Jeff Pope understand the importance of writing to theme
in order to flesh out the bathetic elements of the plot. Their
adaptation bears lots of rich thematic fibre to probe, from religious
corruption to class disparity to sin and forgiveness.
For that matter, I think I admire the
work on the page a bit more than its execution here. Director Stephen
Frears' soft touch is mostly well applied to this material, but
unfortunately settles on a muddled tone that can't quite decide
whether it wants its audience to laugh or cry; And this despite the
insistent prodding of Alexandre Desplat's pleasant but overly
informative score, which borrows none too conservatively from his
compositions for Frears' similarly styled The Queen.
It chafes the funny bone to see
Philomena served up as a working class simpleton for quick laughs,
but Dench ultimately rises above being the butt of those jokes with a
finely wrought performance that finds both emotional frailty and real
human grace in her character. “Just because you're in first class
doesn't mean you're a first class person,” she knowingly chides at
one point. By the end of her journey, she shows us all what real
class looks like.
*** out of ****
If Philomena sounds like it just
might be your mum's cuppa Earl Grey, then you'd best steer her clear
of the next title on my double bill, Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of
Wall Street, which could be likened to a double shot of comedy
and tragedy blended in a martini shaker and then spiked with enough
crack and Quaaludes to tranquilize a bull elephant.
Taking its cues from the Goodfellas
playbook, The Wolf of Wall Street ricochets zealously through
its loose series-of-events narrative structure, cataloging the
meteoric rise and subsequently inevitable fall from “grace” of
notorious stock broker Jordan Belfort, played here by Leonardo
DiCaprio in a fearless, ferociously funny performance that ranks
among the best work of his career.
Making his start by selling worthless
penny stocks to gullible working class Americans for ludicrous prices
on a 50% commission, Belfort works his way up the financial ladder,
amassing an equally shady entourage of business associates –
“ratholes” he calls them, and it's hard to disagree with that
nomenclature – along with a nettlesome FBI investigation. I suppose
indulging in every sex-crazed, pill-popping, booze-guzzling form of
debauchery under the sun attracts a certain amount of attention.
Though under critical fire for
allegedly glorifying Belfort and his crime-assisted lifestyle of
decadence, sharp-minded viewers should be able to pick up on the
willful satire of this piece. One scene, in which Belfort and his
top executives callously yet pragmatically discuss the logistics of
organizing a dwarf-tossing competition before proceeding to chant the
infamous “gooble gobble” chorus from the 1932 cult classic
Freaks, makes it perfectly clear what the filmmakers think of
their subjects. True to the Goodfellas cloth from which it's
cut, this is a backhanded indictment of a despicable freak show told
in antithetically entertaining fashion.
Boardwalk Empire scribe Terence
Winter's screenplay is darkly hysterical, but its extensive runtime
(which occupies as many digits as Belfort's monthly income)
eventually erodes the harsh bite of his prose to more of a dull gnaw
by the film's end. Thankfully, even though the big picture lacks
shape, Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker's work
in the editing room – a decades-long artistic partnership that far
outweighs any which the director has ever had with an actor –
manages to keep the energy up, the pace fluid, and our attention rapt
for much of that unwieldy three hours. Each scene is painstakingly
constructed and milked for every possible comedic beat, cut with a
degree of precision that only the practiced hands of a true master
like Schoonmaker could achieve.
***1/2 out of ****
Maybe I'm generalizing a bit too much.
Perhaps your mom is an even more avid Scorsese fan than you, or would
be bored to death by Stephen Frears' stillness, but you should check
out this double feature anyway. You may discover that Philomena
and The Wolf of Wall Street, though polarized in their genres
and stylistics, have a few things in common (besides the fact that
both are angling for a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination in this
year's Oscar race). Both films examine the false perceptions given
off by class; the idea that neither money nor social status nor
religious piety can make you a good person; and that sin and
redemption are a state of mind. Both have also stimulated some
controversy for their perceived depictions of powerful institutions –
The Catholic Church and Wall Street – but you can join those
debates after you see the films for yourself. They both earn my
recommendation, whether your mom likes them or not.
