June 22, 2009

Summer is a bad time for this movie buff. So many reviews caution that the film has prevailing profanity, sex, and drugs—and excessive violence. They are so full of negativity that the filmgoer leaves the theater depressed—and this certainly includes most European films. I have to have a very good reason for seeing such movies. I am disinclined to punish myself.

Easy Virtue arrived with little advance fanfare, but when I saw that it was based on a Noel Coward comedy of manners play, I rushed to see it. It was the best film I have seen in months: witty, beautifully filmed, with first-rate actors and an issue that was certainly of interest to me. This was a comedy of manners about an old British aristocratic family, confronted by the hasty marriage of their only son and heir to an American racecar driver—a decidedly modern woman.

In full disclosure, my own first marriage was to a comparable Iranian elder son—and his family feared that he had married a “landlady’s daughter.” In my case, when they learned otherwise, I enjoyed an enduring relationship with the family, even long after the marriage ended.

The heroine of Easy Virtue was not as lucky. She was beautiful, courteous, vibrant, and obviously well educated. She even spoke French very well, and was more than willing to like her young husband’s family if they would give her a chance. Unfortunately, they did not. Her mother-in-law considered the marriage a catastrophe, and set about strangling it in its cradle. However, she did not consider the power of her daughter-in-law not to let herself be crushed.

This film showed a major clash of cultures: a young self-made American celebrity who came from a working class Detroit family vs. an ancient, stodgy British family living in a centuries-old country mansion with the usual built-in class snobbery. The target of their conflict was the family son (and heroine’s husband), a young, cheerful man who was not worldly enough to know what was happening to him. He was clueless, which was most evident when his mother had him appointed hunt master for the season’s fox hunt. There he sat on his horse, dressed in hunter red, and when he put the bugle to his mouth to begin the hunt, he was obviously living up to generations of his family’s hunt masters before him.

Jessica Biel played the beautiful American with spunk and charm; Kristen Scott Thomas played her aristocratic mother-in-law; Colin Firth played her father-in-law---a man whose spirit had died during World War I—but was capable of being brought back to life; Ben Barnes played the too young husband; and Kris Marshall played the proper butler, whose face telegraphed his disdain for the family—which they never noticed.

The Proposal. Considering the summer fare of films adored by 15-year-old boys, I am not at all ashamed to welcome a few “chick flicks” which are not assaults of foul language, violence, and graphic sex. The jaded and snooty reviewers did not much like this film, but I did—and so did an auditorium full of happy, entertained viewers.

In this film, Sandra Bullock plays Margaret Tate, a ferociously ambitious book editor who bullies her staff (think of the archetype of the shrew), including her long-suffering male assistant, Andrew Paxton (Ryan Reynolds). Margaret’s career is threatened when she learns that she is to be deported to her native Canada for violating a non-travel rule during her citizenship process.

Thinking on her feet, she makes a deal with the astonished Andrew to marry (with promises of a quick divorce afterwards and a promotion for him that he has been agitating for.) The problem is a shrewd immigration officer with a knack for spotting phony marriages. He tells the couple that they will be interviewed, along with all of their friends and family, to determine the validity of this proposed marriage.

The couple head for Sitka, Alaska, where Andrew’s family lives—and they have just a weekend to get to really know each other enough to convince the skeptical immigration official.

The film was charming—with a cast of actors well beyond an ordinary chick flick (Betty White as a ditzy and pushy grandmother, Mary Steenburgen as Andrew’s mother, and a number of weird and wonderful townsmen and women in Sitka). Sitka itself is a player, being astonishingly beautiful.

No, there are no dark moments of angst in this film, but the characterizations are well developed and we do care about them. A charming film!

The Taking of Pelham 123. Faintly praised by critics who remembered the original of this film, starring Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw, this film has been thought to be an unworthy reworking. I don’t remember the original, fortunately, so I really found this version exciting and interesting. The Matthau role was played by the always wonderful Denzell Washington and the villain was convincingly performed by John Travolta, who makes him seem like what I suspect such a criminal would be—a self-justifying rascal. This remake is a thriller, and as such, is a good summer movie. It is a heist movie—a gang of mal-doers who hijack a subway car in New York and hold the passengers hostage, demanding a huge ransom from the City of New York. Washington plays the dispatcher, who winds up unwittingly as hostage negotiator. Considering many of the other summer movies, this one is worth a few hours.

UP and A Night at the Museum. Up is an animated film that has been promoted for children, as has the comic film, A Night at the Museum. Up is really wonderfully constructed, and I think it a little too sad to take a little one. The story is more for adults who deal with the loss of a spouse. A Night at the Museum, however, was a wonderful romp through history as the inmates of the museum take over the asylum at night. If you take a child, you will have to explain the jokes and references, but it is a good place to start getting children interested in history.

Dr. Laina Farhat-Holzman is a historian, lecturer, and author. You may contact her at Lfarhat102@aol.com or www.globalthink.net.