Holiday Movie Review Roundup: Atonement, I'm Not There, Margot at the Wedding

ATONEMENT (A-)

Joe Wright's version of Pride and Prejudice was one of the few "Olde Tymey Britishy" films that didn't make me want to claw my eyes out. I expected Atonement to be along those same lines. What I got far surpassed my meager expectations. Atonement is a perfectly controlled marvel of story and structure, and even when Wright takes a huge storytelling risk in the film's final moments (a risk I believe was also in the novel, which I didn't read), it pays off big time.

It's really three different movies. The opening third is like primo British-era Hitchcock, with a never-better Keira Knightley and a never-better James McAvoy burning up the screen as potential love interests. I knew nothing about the plot going in and was absolutely riveted, so I won't spoil any of it here, but this is the movie's strongest portion. It is nearly flawless, gorgeously shot and brilliantly scored with a mixture of instruments and typewriters (trust me, its really neat). I even noticed things like costume design! Yeah! The costume design was outstanding! There! This first hour or so is some of my favorite filmmaking of the year -- perverse and elegant and twisted and sexy as hell. I've always thought Keira Knightley looks like a ten year-old boy, but wow. In this movie, she looks like a ten year-old boy I'd love to fuck. 

The second segment involves McAvoy at war, and it contains a five minute tracking shot that lands immediately on a list of the great ones -- Touch of Evil, Goodfellas, Children of Men...it's up there. Stunning stuff. The third segment gets into some ballsy territory, and while it won't work for everyone, I loved every minute. Loved every minute of the whole damn thing, really. What a great surprise this movie was.

I'M NOT THERE (B)

Even describing this movie makes me feel like a pretentious dick. Basically, six different actors portray six different versions of Bob Dylan. Except none of them are called Bob Dylan, they all have different names. And they're actually "playing" or "representing" different "personas" and "aspects" of Dylan's career. I think. And one of them (Richard Gere) is in frontier times. And one of them is a young black boy named Woody Guthrie. I know, I know. Somehow it's not as groan-inducing as it must surely sound, and that's likely due to the abundance of Dylan music in the film. No matter how retardaculous a scene may be, it's hard to get too upset when "Idiot Wind" is playing over it.  

As for the six Dylans -- yes, Cate Blanchett does a good impression of the man. Not quite sure what all the gushing praise is about, but yeah, she looks and talks like the dude. Ben Whishaw (of the insane Perfume) has almost nothing to do, but also gives a solid impression. Heath Ledger is good, in a segment that (I think) "represents" my favorite Dylan era. The little Dylan Woody Guthrie kid is cute, although that portion doesn't work. The Richard Gere segment, with circus freaks, ostriches, and a My Morning Jacket performance, works even less. And Christian Bale gives a really awkward, fairly bad performance.

It was during one of the Bale scenes that I began to really ask myself what the hell I was watching. Here in a church is Christian Bale, playing "Jack Rollins," who is clearly supposed to be Bob Dylan, terribly lip synching to a cover of  "Pressing On," which is a Bob Dylan song, but is being sung by X's John Doe. I mean, how am I supposed to process that? And how am I supposed to process the film as a whole, with it's "ruminations" on the life and music of Bob Dylan -- except oh wait maybe not. I don't really know, but it looks great, it's probably more entertaining and interesting than a traditional biography would have been, the constant shifting from story to story keeps things from getting dull, and the music is -- duh -- incredible. Dylan fans (I am a huge one) will have fun, non Dylan-fans should not even consider going.

MARGOT AT THE WEDDING (B+)

Noah Baumbach, who also wrote and directed The Squid and the Whale -- one of my top ten films of 2005 -- tells another story of family cruelty, and it's big, broad, and loud where Squid was small, reserved, and quiet. It's not as funny or as sad as Squid, but it is highly entertaining, and will certainly make you feel better about your own messed up family. 

Jennifer Jason Leigh is Pauline and Nicole Kidman plays her sister Margot, one of the bitchiest bitches who ever bitched. Margot and her son travel to visit Pauline before her wedding, and Margot unleashes hell -- criticizing everyone and everything in her path, getting high, and spewing hate. She's particularly disgusted with Pauline's fiancee, played by Jack Black. She's also in the area to see an old flame (Ciaran Hinds), despite the fact that she's married to John Turturro (in a nicely subdued cameo). Things go spectacularly wrong.

Kidman is really great as Margot -- much like her ex-husband Tom Cruise excels in asshole roles, I only love Kidman when she's playing a cold, icy she-witch. Leigh is outstanding, always great to see her. Jack Black is responsible for much of the film's broadness, and he takes away from the film a bit, particularly in his way-over-the-top sobbing scenes near the end. It's a shame, because I think this could have been an opportunity for Black to expand his career and start getting into deeper roles, but he plays it like he's at a Tenacious D concert. He's often funny, but he should have gone deeper, shown more. 

As for the script, Baumbach is one of the best writers of dialogue working today, even when he goes a bit too far and strays from character for shock value. (Would two sisters, no matter how terrible, really laugh uproariously when discussing another sister's rape?) I'll also say that after this and Squid, the guy needs to learn how to end a movie. I mean, you can't just stop a piece out of nowhere right in the middle of a 

tags: atonement  joe wright  keira knightley  james mcavoy  im not there  bob dylan  christian bale  cate blanchett  todd haynes  margot at the wedding  jack black  nicole kidman  jennifer jason leigh  noah baumbach  

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