|
Movies for Grownups™ 2006
By William R. Newcott, March-April 2006
What is it with outsiders and misfits? From Capote to Enron, from an anguished intellectual to one out-of-control ape, this year’s winners seem determined to chart their own course, for better or for worse
|
Best Movie for Grownups
Capote, directed by Bennett Miller
He stands there, an improbable man impeccably dressed, stark against the
Midwest horizon. And to make matters worse, he has been told by his best friend
to stay with the car. He's just too...well...strange to amble up to a
Kansas farmhouse and ask to be let inside.
That's Truman Capote, the ultimate outsider, and this is the world into
which he seemingly parachutes in Capote. It's a film with a meticulously
narrow vision of a larger-than-life character, a guy who insists with a
straight face, "I never lie," yet who lies with astonishing facility.
The script, by Dan Futterman, is equally spare and majestic, like a Great
Plains landscape. The Manhattan scenes crackle with cocktail banter and
clinking glasses. The heartland episodes unfold in some cinematic Central Time,
full of measured words and thoughtful pauses. All crowned with one of the
finest performances of this or any other year: Philip Seymour Hoffman, body and
soul, as Truman Capote.
Thrilling in its composure, nail-biting in its revelations, Capote is
everything you could want in a movie for grownups.
For the people of Holcomb, Kansas, the earth seemed to be coming off its
axis when a local family was shotgunned to death in 1959. But when the
flamboyant little man from New York City blew into town to write a story about
the crime for The New Yorker, well, that just about tore it. Door by door,
Capote exposes his personal tragedies and insecurities to others—but only
to disarm them into spilling their own secrets.
"On the surface it's this elaborate story of a writer doing all
sorts of things to complete his masterpiece," says director Bennett
Miller. "But nobody, and to some degree not even he himself, really
understands the course he's on and what he is going through. He wanted fame
so badly he was oblivious to what he was trampling on to get it."
Runners-up Three other nominees for this year's Best Movie for
Grownups award likewise find compelling ways to profile real-life figures.
Director Ron Howard's Cinderella Man, the most conventional of the lot,
tells the story of boxer Jimmy Braddock (Russell Crowe)—a man propelled
by a sense of hope that's so infectious it inspires an entire nation. Good
Night, and Good Luck is a black-and-white evocation of a time when the American
social landscape was ignited by ideologically polarized giants—Edward R.
Murrow and Senator Joe McCarthy—doing battle to the death. And the
musical biography Walk the Line, a warts-and-all look at the life of Johnny
Cash, sharpens its edge by asking its stars, Joaquin Phoenix and Reese
Witherspoon, to do all their own singing.
Crash, written and directed by Paul Haggis, enlists a dozen characters to
take on the issue of race in America. The picture he paints is painful to watch
but impossible to forget.
Best Actor 50 and Over
Jeff Daniels, The Squid and the Whale
"Kafka—he was one of my predecessors," declares the
self-involved, hopelessly intellectual father at the center of this quirky
family portrait. When he signs a photo for his son, he writes: "Best
wishes, Bernard Berkman (Dad)."
It takes a special actor to pull off head-scratching hubris like that
without slipping into parody. But here's Daniels, resplendent in his
oh-so-bohemian beard, spouting self-serving accolades and casting himself as
patriarch even as his family, long beyond falling apart at the seams, whirls
out of control.
Daniels plays a failed author who hasn't told himself he's secretly
humiliated by his career as a writing teacher. He fancies himself a
legend—yet behind that sagebrush beard, his eyes seem empty, the shade of
snuffed-out dreams.
"I wanted someone funny to play the part, but who was also a great
actor," writer and director Noah Baumbach said in an interview. "As
Bernard he can be very off-putting, but there's also something that makes
you want to take care of him."
Runners-up Anthony Hopkins, The World's Fastest Indian: He's
quirky and eccentric in one of his most enjoyable roles...Kurt Russell,
Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story: Gruff and reluctantly charming, he's the
perfect balance to the Dakota Fanning effect...Nathan Lane, The Producers: If
he could reach your seat and throttle laughs out of you, he would...Tom
Wilkinson, Separate Lies: His slow awakening to the gray areas between right
and wrong draws us in.
Best Actress 50 and Over
Joan Plowright, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont
She's played just about every major role in classical theater and was
nominated for an Oscar for Enchanted April in 1992. But Plowright, 76, has
never given a more radiant performance than in this gentle tale of a widow who
takes up residence among the eccentric occupants of a London hotel.
From the moment we meet Mrs. Palfrey alighting from her taxi, we're
hooked. She stands there, distinguished and experienced, yet her face is an
open portrait of nervous expectation. Gently turning away the advances of a
suitor who, like us, has become enamored of her character, Plowright excavates
deeply to uncover the complex emotions of a woman on her own: "Most of my
life I've been somebody's daughter, somebody's wife, and
somebody's mother. I would like to spend the rest of my time here being
simply myself." Her voice is firm, her eyes determined. Trouble is, in
declaring her independence, she makes herself all the more irresistible.
If selecting a Best Actress winner from this year's terrific
performances was difficult, finding enough eligible nominees was nearly as
tough. Hollywood still seems reluctant to trust actresses 50 and over with
leading roles. Instead, moviegoers have to find them in sparkling supporting
parts, like Sissy Spacek in North Country, Susan Sarandon in Elizabethtown, and
Jessica Lange in Broken Flowers.
Runners-up Judi Dench, Ladies in Lavender: She breaks our hearts as a
woman in hopeless love...Shirley MacLaine, In Her Shoes: Upstaging Cameron
Diaz, she hijacks the whole movie...Meryl Streep, Prime: She's agonizingly
hilarious as a shrink with family issues...Liv Ullmann, Saraband: Radiant as
ever, she reprises her Scenes From a Marriage role.
Best Director 50 and Over
Steven Spielberg, Munich
His Oscar-winning Schindler's List comes closest, but for pulse-pounding
human drama, for searing exploration of the hard choices people make in the
name of justice, Munich is the most intense film Steven Spielberg has yet
conjured up.
On its face, Munich is a straightforward narrative of an Israeli hit squad
tracking down and assassinating those responsible for the 1972 Munich Olympics
massacre, in which 11 members of the Israeli team were killed. But along the
way the film becomes a devastatingly personal view of the price of vengeance.
Brutal and beautiful, the story probes the chasm between retaliation and
forgiveness. Its final scene, a cityscape that five years ago would have been a
postcard shot, becomes in his hands a certified jaw-dropper.
Runners-up Woody Allen, Match Point: This is his best in years, a
Hitchcockian tale of obsession...Ron Howard, Cinderella Man: Above the
blood-spattered, smoke-filled ring rises his keen sense of humanity...Ang Lee,
Brokeback Mountain: An unconventional love story, it is masterfully framed with
Western motifs...Fernando Meirelles, The Constant Gardener: His first movie in
English proves the universal language of film.
Best Screenwriter 50 and Over
Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana, Brokeback Mountain
The screen adaptation of Annie Proulx's New Yorker story about two gay
cowboys turns the standard portrayal of homosexuality on its ear. It's not
that we don't see gay characters in film and television. We do. They're
just shrill, zany, campy—alien. But here, as Frank Rich writes in The New
York Times, "the heroes are neither midnight cowboys, drugstore cowboys
nor Village People cowboys." They're painfully, brutally real. And
their struggle to find love is universal.
Runners-up Pedro Almodóvar, Bad Education: His own childhood
was the inspiration...Paul Haggis, Crash: He brings contagious passion to his
theme and characters...Jim Jarmusch, Broken Flowers: Bill Murray's latest
middle-age angstathon has a poetic lilt...Sally Potter, Yes: She reports the
war between men and women in iambic pentameter.
Breakaway Accomplishment
David Strathairn, Good Night, and Good Luck
He's one of Hollywood's most reliable supporting actors—but
get a load of this astonishing turn as the careworn, clip-voiced, chain-smoking
Edward R. Murrow. Channeling the newsman, Strathairn carries an invisible
weight of somber experience on his stooped shoulders. He's so good,
he's scary.
Runners-up Pierce Brosnan, The Matador: James Bond scores as a
scruffy hit man...Tommy Lee Jones, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada:
It's his first feature-directing job (in English and Spanish)...Kate
Montgomery, Christmas in the Clouds: After a life in journalism and marketing,
she directs for the first time at age 50...Susan Stroman, The Producers: The
queen of Broadway musical directors triumphs with her first film.
Best Documentary
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, directed by Alex Gibney
"Burn, baby, burn!" chant Enron energy traders as California fires
push up the price of electricity. It's just one startling scene in
Gibney's meticulous exposé of what went wrong in the halls of Enron.
Says Gibney: "This is about something fundamentally more problematic about
our culture, this sense that in the economics sphere, ethics and morality no
longer need apply."
Runners-up Grizzly Man: A doomed nature lover makes home
videos...March of the Penguins: Love blossoms on ice...No Direction Home: Bob
Dylan: Martin Scorsese creates the definitive bio of an icon...Tell Them Who
You Are: Director Mark Wexler studies his cinematographer dad, Haskell.
Best Intergenerational Movie
Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story, directed by John Gatins
Kurt Russell (whose Miracle won this category last year) plays a struggling
horse trainer coping with the dreams of his daughter (adorable Dakota Fanning)
and the demons that haunt his father (cranky Kris Kristofferson). "I liked
that this is a generational Kentucky horse people story," says Russell.
"This is what they do."
Runners-up Because of Winn-Dixie: A stray dog helps a girl reconnect
with her dad...In Her Shoes: A ne'er-do-well party girl learns valuable
life lessons from her grandma...Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont: Pretending to be
related, an older woman and a young man learn the meaning of family...The Squid
and the Whale: From the wreckage of divorce, members of a family try to salvage
their futures.
Best Comedy for Grownups
The Producers, directed by Susan Stroman
Yes, it's a musical remake of one of the funniest films ever (Mel
Brooks's 1968 Oscar winner); and, yes, Nathan Lane devours the scenery and
his costars. But once you catch your breath, you'll realize just how
sophisticated lowbrow comedy can be.
Runners-up The Family Stone: They're dysfunctional and loving
it...The 40-Year-Old Virgin: We're glad he waited, for our sake...In Her
Shoes: Grandma knows best...Rumor Has It: It's an inside joke for The
Graduate generation.
Best Foreign-Language Film
Ushpizin (Israel), directed by Gidi Dar
The title means "Holy Guests," and during the festival of
Succoth—when guests must be treated as a blessing, no matter
what—an Orthodox Jewish couple find themselves playing host to a most
annoying pair.
Runners-up Bad Education (Spain): Here's a good argument for home
schooling...Saraband (Sweden): Ingmar Bergman makes a worthy last
film...Après Vous (France): This buddy comedy is très
funny...Crónicas (United States): In Spanish, John Leguizamo indicts TV
news.
Best Grownup Love Story
Craig T. Nelson and Diane Keaton, The Family Stone
It's rare that filmmakers take a crack at depicting a love story
involving folks 50 and over; rarer still that they get it right. Well, meet The
Family Stone. Writer and director Thomas Bezucha's long-married
couple—and a more handsome pair than Diane Keaton and Craig T. Nelson
would be hard to imagine—share passion physically and intellectually.
They laugh, weep, and make love—sometimes simultaneously. If, on your
child's wedding day, you were to imagine the couple 40 years on, you'd
do worse than to hope for something like this.
Runners-up Kevin Costner and Joan Allen, The Upside of Anger: They
fuss and fight, but then there's make-up sex...Peter Falk and Olympia
Dukakis, The Thing About My Folks: She's in just the last 15 minutes, but
their devotion drives the movie...Al Pacino and Rene Russo, Two for the Money:
They're as flawed—and devoted—as they come...The penguin pairs,
March of the Penguins: Hey, they walk 70 miles just to bring home fish. Would
you do that for your mate?
Best Movie Time Capsule
Cinderella Man, production design by Wynn Thomas
There's much more here than the spot-on look of the 1920s and '30s.
The film captures the delirious optimism of pre-Crash America, the numb shock
of the Great Depression, and the nation's desperate need for an Everyman
hero.
Runners-up Good Night, and Good Luck: Everyone smoked, slicked their
hair, and saw things in black and white...North Country: It's the '80s,
and America learns what sex discrimination means...Capote: The big city meets
mid-America in the '60s...Munich: Global terrorism is born.
Best TV Movie
The Girl in the Café, directed by David Yates, HBO/BBC
A wonderfully understated Bill Nighy stars as a buttoned-down British
bureaucrat who impulsively asks a young woman (Kelly Macdonald) along to a
world poverty summit. Beyond a May-December romance, he gets more than he
bargained for when she challenges his commitment to compromise.
Runners-up Empire Falls: An all-star cast populates small-town
U.S.A...Lackawanna Blues: A boy finds music and love in a boarding
house...Sometimes in April: Rwanda explodes in genocide...Warm Springs: A
crippled FDR stands tall.
Best Movie for Grownups Who Refuse to Grow Up
King Kong, directed by Peter Jackson
When do three hours seem like 90 minutes? When you fill them with battling
dinosaurs, killer three-foot insects, and a big ape with the temperament of a
four-year-old. Respectful of the original, jazzed up for the kids, it's a
surprisingly affecting thrill ride.
Runners-up Batman Begins: He's got a girl and gadgets...The
Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe: It's like Oz,
only with swords...Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit: The dog is
the smart one...Wedding Crashers: They're crass and strangely sweet.
|
