Film Reviews from Two Guys in the Dark: December 2019

Wednesday, December 11, 2019

Marriage Story and Short Takes on A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

We’re happy to announce this posting marks exactly 8 years since Film Reviews from Two Guys in the Dark launched, hopefully improving somewhat as time’s gone on. We’re grateful for all you who’ve supported us, especially Nina Kindblad, Richard Parker, and Roger Smitter.

“Try to find the word for forgiving”

(Jackson Browne, “In the Shape of a Heart”)

Reviews by Ken Burke

I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they agree with me or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) if they choose to disagree.

Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach) rated R

“Executive Summary” (no spoilers): Charlie, an up-and-coming NYC avant-garde theatre director and his troupe-actor wife, Nicole, have a young son, Henry, and a marriage clearly on the rocks as she feels he’s too devoted to his work at the expense of their family needs while feeling unfulfilled in her own career progress, so even as they’re emotionally moving farther apart she separates them geographically by taking a role in a TV pilot in LA, forcing Charlie to fly there when he can to see his wife and son, as he’s got a production headed to Broadway. Despite initial intentions to work out on their own whatever disengagement might be necessary on their own, Nicole takes advice to hire a lawyer who’s determined to get this woman all that’s possible so she can start a new life away from Charlie, forcing him to look for an LA lawyer as well, finally choosing a more benevolent (but still aware of vicious divorce realities) option than the hard-driving shark he began with. Despite attempts by this couple to keep it civil, not drag their son into their increasing trauma, there are nasty incidents both in court and between them in private which demonstrate how far apart they’ve now become while still maintaining some aspects of the love that brought them together long ago. Further plot details would fall into the spoiler zone so if you wish to avoid that (even though it’s easily available just below) I highly encourage you to find this film wherever you can because it’s one of the very best of the year, likely to be competing in several Oscar categories especially the Best Actor/Actress ones for leads Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson; however, it’s playing in only a very limited number of theaters as its main availability is from Netflix streaming, easily worth a month’s small fee just to see this film (as well as Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, also a worthy Netflix option [I get no Netflix kickback so please decide on such a purchase for yourself]).

Here’s the trailer: (Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge it; activate that same button on the full screen’s lower right or your “esc” keyboard key to return to normal size.)

If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but as this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film—or want to save some bucks—to help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters like this:

⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.

What Happens: Opening this film with parallel voiceover montages, each spouse in a troubled marriage lists the things they love about the other (illustrated with quick shots), in the process giving us useful backstory on both. Charlie Barber (Adam Driver) says his recitation about Nicole Barber (Scarlett Johansson)* which we hear (see details of), but after we witness Nicole’s comments on Charlie the visuals cut to her handwritten notes in an office with her, Charlie, and a divorce mediator (Robert Smigel) where she decides not to read aloud, doesn’t want to listen to Charlie’s list, insults both men as she storms out. In the process we learn he’s from Indiana, has no connection to his former family, came to NYC for a new life which blossomed into a successful career as a director of avant-garde theatre (but he devotes too much time/energy there rather than being more available to help raise their 8-year-old son, Henry [Azhy Robertson], a major source of conflict between them); she’s from LA where her mother, Sandra (Julie Hagerty), was a successful TV actor (encouraging such a career for both daughters [Dad apparently wasn’t much of a family-factor, first realizing he was gay, then dying] with sister Cassie [Merritt Wever] only making it to local, little-noticed stage work in southern CA while Nicole had an impact in a Risky Business [Paul Brickman, 1983]-type teen movie, All Over the Girl, her fame coming from revealing her breasts). Then Nicole met Charlie, agreed to marry, move to Manhattan, become a mother while being the lead female in his Exit Ghost company, even as his career became more prominent than hers. In an attempt to regain a sense of her own presence in the culture, she adds to the strain of their marriage by temporarily moving to LA, living with Mom while taking a part in a mediocre TV pilot— as Charlie stays in NY because his current project’s in preparation for Broadway but he flies out to see his wife and son as often as he can (Nicole’s the only one often at odds with him; Sandra’s always happy to see Charlie, although Henry’s now in school in LA, becoming quite comfortable with staying there). At various times we’ve given reason to see Nicole as the demanding, bitchy one in the marriage, yet Henry’s also added problems by not taking an earlier job offer in LA for awhile (says his troupe/work in NY was more fulfilling), had an affair with stage manager Mary Ann (Brooke Bloom), which he tries to justify saying Nicole wasn’t having sex with him by that point anyway. We learn a lot about Nicole’s perspective from a long, powerful monologue she delivers to a lawyer, Nora Fanshaw (Laura Dern), she’s been advised to work with even though she and Charlie previously agreed to settle the matter themselves somehow, so when Charlie next comes to visit he’s served with divorce papers. Suddenly, Charlie also needs an LA lawyer, so he tries aggressive Jay Marotta (Ray Liotta), whose abrupt brashness is exceeded only by his expensive billings policy.

*You can see it here (2:56); Nicole’s version about Charlie is at the end of this review’s next section.

This all intensifies when Nora calls Charlie in NY, tells him time’s almost up to respond to the divorce papers or he’ll lose total custody of Henry, possibly along with some of the $625,000 MacArthur “genius” grant he’s recently received, cash needed to keep his theatre group employed, keep his projects moving, pay his exorbitant lawyer bills, which are now somewhat reduced when he switches to kinder, gentler (although divorced himself, as almost everyone in this film seems to be), cheaper Bert Spitz (Alan Alda) who gets Charlie to rent an LA apartment so he can better claim CA residence, even as Charlie keeps arguing their family home’s in NY. Frustrated with the bi-costal-travel (losing the Broadway project in the process) and Nora’s demands, they end up in court with Jay back on Charlie’s team where it all gets nasty quickly with charges against Charlie’s affair, his inadequate time with his son as he’s pursuing custody rights, implications Nicole’s entitled to half the MacArthur money vs. Nicole being accused of being an alcoholic (she—and Mom—do swill a lot of wine), criminally hacking into Charlie’s emails to get dirt on him (sound familiar?), so the 2 of them meet in Charlie’s apartment to try to sort it out in a long, emotional scene (see my So What? section to get links to it), but tempers flare, accusations fly, Charlie punches a wall before breaking down in tears with Nicole accepting his apology. Charlie then has to endure a visit from an odd, court-appointed evaluator (Martha Kelly) to see what kind of parent he is, an overall tense scene as Charlie’s trying his best to be the ideal, yet firm, Dad with Henry barely cooperating at all. ⇒Most of the problems (with neither of them getting much in the way of alimony) are solved out of court, although Nicole’s a bit annoyed Nora demanded Charlie only get 45% time with Henry when he flies out to LA as she’d asked for 50/50, but all’s basically well between these now-divorced parents, with Henry showing a preference for Mom. A year later, Charlie’s had a successful Broadway play and has taken a 1-year residency at UCLA, Nicole’s got a new boyfriend and has been Emmy-nominated for directing an episode of her pilot-picked-up-as-a-series. Charlie visits on Halloween, comes to Nicole’s home where he finds Henry reading that list of “Why I love Charlie” statements from way back in the film’s beginning, then Nicole, Mom, Charlie, and the boyfriend go trick-or-treating dressed as the Sgt. Pepper Beatles, after which Charlie takes Henry home for the night, with an ambiguous sense ... possibly ... he and Nicole … maybe … could connect again after all.⇐

So What? It’s not my original observation this film has echoes of Kramer vs. Kramer (Robert Benton, 1979) and Scenes from a Marriage (Ingmar Berman,1974), but both did come to mind when I was watching Marriage Story, with the former (a Best Picture Oscar-winner, many other top prizes) reminding me of similar travails of a couple breaking up over his over-devotion to work, her lack of self-fulfillment, their custody fight over a young child, the latter (like so much of Bergman’s work, an embodiment of what 5 star-cinematic-experiences for the ages are all about) cataloging how a romantic union once celebrated as Sweden’s best couple deteriorates to the point of divorce even though both former partners continue to have feelings for each other that aren’t totally blotted out by the hurt, anger, recriminations flaring up between them. Not that Marriage Story seems to be borrowing from these past triumphs, just that it brings in similar elements, as many divorce stories likely would do as the final result’s (probably) essentially the same even when myriad details differ in numerous ways. Another similarity for me right at the start with the divorce mediator is my own failed marriage (back in the early 1970s, when I was in my mid-20s)—lasted only 4 years, then after a few flopped attempts at trying to replace it a marvelous miracle named Nina Kindblad suddenly entered my life (well, I did speak first to her, although almost 3 years later she’s the one who asked me to marry; easy to accept)—as my ex-wife and I were seeing marriage counselors only for me (and them!) to learn after she moved out she was already having an affair (with a married guy who soon left his wife and child for her) so our “counseling” was about as useless as the scene we observe with Charlie and Nicole where she not only refuses to verbalize what she loves about her soon-to-be-ex but disrupts the entire process, refusing to accept the structure of mediation she’d previously agreed to. Does this reminiscence lead to my embrace of Marriage Story, just because it feels familiar? No, how this film’s content finds connection to previous aspects of my life (the fictional as well as the factual parts) simply enhances its credibility for me (just like with those other films, in that I found them to resonate with truth about how people in seemingly-solid-relationships often struggle to maintain/regain such solidarity, finding universality in these encounters, even—as Marriage Story does also, so successfully—with scripted situations delivered by talented actors; nothing seems overly-constructed about any of these cinematic-relationship-dramas, just a cluster of compelling events worthy of watching, even if some of their specifics may be a bit difficult to relive at times), allowing me to appreciate the interpersonal-trauma on screen as not only extremely well-performed (Golden Globe nominators agree, included both leads in their Motion-Picture Drama acting categories) but also organic to these characters as they’ve found substance within this story.

I only wish such human-suffering-substance was taken more seriously in our society as there’s so much disillusionment, cynicism, disinterest in serious explorations of needed solutions to difficult problems due to the constant exaggerations, disinformation, blatant lies dominating so many forms of social media, cable news, Twitter bursts that there’s an ongoing tendency to make everything into a joke, a meme (a concept which I hardly know about as I’m [thankfully] not on Twitter nor do I encounter too many memes on Facebook), making a mockery of anything that might require focused thought, intense discussion, maybe even a hard-fought-negotiation-turned-to-resolution, a situation that’s already caught up with Marriage Story. For those of you who haven’t seen the film yet or would like a reminder, here are 2 segments from the intense argument between Nicole and Charlie from late in their story at this link, followed by this one (the best evidence the producers of this film can offer to any voters who must decide whom they think were the best male and female actors of 2019 cinematic releases—I’m not saying this proves they should be the winners because there’s strong competition in both these categories [including, for me, Robert De Niro as Best Actor for The Irishman {Martin Scorsese; review in our November 21, 2019 posting}, even though he didn’t make the Globes’ final 5], but it’s certainly a showcase of their individual abilities), yet this master class in dramatic expression’s already been reduced to a cluster of trivial, comedic attempts in the meme world as explored here, illustrated here (note: these cited examples showed up [a bit slowly] as images on Safari for me but not on Chrome), turning this powerful confrontation (no flight of fiction, at least based on my own sordid memories) into a cluster of jokes, many of them based on Driver’s role as Kylo Ren in the final Star Wars trilogy (J.J. Abrams, 2015; Rian Johnson, 2017; Abrams, 2019), so I guess I’ve now earned “OK, boomer” denigration from the youth in my society (at Thanksgiving a couple of much younger relatives tried to explain the use/appeal of memes to the older crowd at the table, with the gap not fully bridged in the attempt or maybe it all comes down to how humor works for you as an individual, as even some of the “elders” in that group can’t agree on whether NBC TV’s 1990s Seinfeld is hilarious or not [count me in as “yes” on that]). On a more neutral tone (moving beyond memes) about the contents of Marriage Story (I can already tell it’s on my Best of 2019 list, but the ultimate tally will have to wait a month or so for other screenings), here’s Baumbach’s anatomy of a scene, so you can hear directly from him what he’s "shooting" for in this (successfully) serious (memers, be damned!) exploration of Nicole’s opening montage of what she loves about Charlie (here’s the whole thing for reference [audio’s a little low for this clip]).

Bottom Line Final Comments: As with The Irishman—yeah, I know, I keep bringing it up, but so far it’s my top film of the year, so bear with me, please—I have little idea how many theaters Marriage Story’s been playing in over the past few weeks as it has no listing on either the Box Office Mojo or The Numbers tallies, so I’m still assuming such sites don’t count these limited releases (intended primarily for Oscar nomination-qualifications) of films mostly made for Internet downloads (Netflix for both, in this case). I briefly considered that maybe Marriage Story wasn’t in enough venues, not bringing in enough cash to be cited, but given something called Mr. Klein (Joseph Losey, a French re-release from 1976) has been playing in no more than 6 domestic (U.S.-Canada) theaters for 14 weeks bringing in only $181.2 thousand, I can’t believe Marriage Story’s done worse than that so I have to assume its absence is a Mojo/Numbers blackball of some sort.* Nevertheless, the CCAL’s raving about it, with Rotten Tomatoes proudly presenting 96% positive reviews while Metacritic’s average score almost matches them at 94%, their highest for anything both they and I have reviewed of 2019 releases, tied only with their score for The Irishman. Golden Globe nominators are impressed as well, giving it 6 total (the most of anything in their various races, so Netflix is honored of being the studio with the most cinema noms at 17 [The Irishman helping out as well with 5 more], 34 total including TV categories). Nina and I watched Marriage Story via streaming (the minor cost easily comes in this month as less than buying 4 theater tickets for this film and our re-visit to The Irishman) purely for the convenience of not having to drive halfway across the San Francisco Bay Area to get to 1 of the few places where it’s showing (although I still open my wallet for the big-screen-option once or twice a week, hoping this full-blown-cinematic-experience can continue to thrive with all the cable/streaming competition it now faces) so I can’t even say anything about how well it’s doing in local venues, but I will say it’s well worth your time to locate Marriage Story however you can because it’s a marvelous combination of overall narrative (Golden Globe nominated for Best Motion Picture-Drama), precise directing, intelligent screenplay (Baumbach), premiere acting—Dern also Globe nominated for Supporting Actress (with unobtrusive cinematography [Robbie Ryan], a marvelous score [Randy Newman, another GG nom] to further enhance it) all of which will surely be recognized in some manner by various groups’ nominations and awards, with strong contention for major trophies into next spring.

*However, here's a site claiming currently Marriage Story’s taken in about $1.7 million, now in 120 domestic theaters, while The Irishman’s made about $6.7 million, now in 320 theaters (you'll have to scroll down quite a bit to get to this info)—in addition to whatever viewerships they’d had on Netflix.

The content may be a bit difficult to watch if it reminds you too much of similar personal situations, but maybe at least it can offer helpful approaches of what to try to avoid when faced with such difficulties as explored with some commentary by actual couples therapists. But, if you’re seeing this film with your lawyer rather than your distant-significant-other, you’re probably way beyond the friendly negotiating stage anyway so at least try to get some tips on how to keep the cruelty factor within reasonable restraint. One means of confrontation-avoidance might be trivia-distraction-chatter such as you can find at this website listing the top-domestic-ticket-seller (worldwide a couple of times), Best Picture Oscar winner (after this award began in 1927), and the site’s comment on what was actually the best of the year (infrequently matches Oscar, although I see the value in many of their choices, can’t begin to agree with some others) from 1917-2007. So, if you need a head-knocking-break during this hopefully-joyous-holiday-season, see what was happening cinematically the year you or anyone else was born. (I doubt our blog has readers born after 2007, but, if so, you might look anyway to see what the forlorn geezers were so excited about.)

As I explain much farther below, this will possibly by the last posting for Film Reviews from Two Guys in the Dark for 2019 (although I might sneak in another by New Year’s Eve; check back periodically if you like) so as I bring the review of Marriage Story to a close with my usual shtick of a Musical Metaphor—to add one final commentary to what’s gone before but now from the perspective of the melodic-aural-arts offering some insight (maybe?) on the audiovisual arts—I’ll be especially generous with my tune choice here because this film easily inspires me to offer songs that mean a lot to me from past experiences on the romantic battlefield (quite past, fortunately, as hardly anything within them relates to my ongoing marvelous marriage of almost 30 years [it hasn’t been roses all the way, yet the thorns have been resolvable], but before that … well, we all face our challenges at times, don’t we?), so I’ll start by switching up the order from the film’s opening montages, starting with how Nicole might characterize what led her to marry Charlie, realizing even then she’d likely give up a fairly sure thing in L.A. to move to Manhattan—“But you say it’s time we moved in together And raised a family of our own You and me”—as sung by Carly Simon in “That’s the Way I’ve Always Heard It Should Be” (from her 1971 debut album Carly Simon) at https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ux7HgO9QhAc (a live 1971 performance) even as her sense of non-self-fulfillment pushes her toward divorce: “My friends from college They’re all married now […] Their children hate them for the things they’re not They hate themselves for what they are And yet they drink, they laugh Close the wound Hide the scar.” Ultimately, this singer caves into convention, just as Nicole did even though it doesn’t turn out to be “the way I’ve always heard it should be.” Charlie also realizes it’s not working how they intended (even if he doesn’t take enough responsibility for how it’s all evolved) so his painful frustration overwhelms him in that climactic argument scene as articulated so well by Jackson Browne’s “In the Shape of a Heart” (from his 1986 album Lives in the Balance) found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWIJ8RAcsHQ: “There was a hole left in the wall From some ancient fight About the size of a fist Or something thrown that had missed And there were other holes as well In the house where our nights fell Far too many to repair In the time that we were there […] I guess I never knew What she was living without.” Ultimately, both of them come to know what they might be trying to save can’t happen, if at all, without some fundamental changes leaving each of them in a state of sorrow reflected well in Willie Nelson’s “Crazy” (on his 1962 debut album … and then I wrote [plus some other compilation albums]) so I’ll have Charlie sing it through Willie at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0jOR5DC 0rM (a 1992 concert), then Nicole gets her turn through Patsy Cline’s hit version (on her 1961 Showcase album) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbnrdCS57d0. (Unlike with my aural-overflow here, when you finish the review below you'll find I had only 1 appropriate Metaphor to properly conclude it so I added a seasonal song, which I hope helps tide you over into the new year; read down unto the end, feel free to sing along, especially in celebrating the Winter Solstice.)

SHORT TAKES (spoilers also appear here)

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
(Marielle Heller) rated PG

Based on the actual friendship developed between fierce, cynical journalist Tom Junod (here called Lloyd Vogel) and children’s TV personality Fred Rogers but enhanced with fictional additions/fanciful diversions, this is a simple, heartwarming movie about allowing joy back into your life even when it seems to have been burned away so long ago, because we're "precious" according to Mr. Rogers.

Here’s the trailer:

Before reading any further, I’ll ask you to refer to the plot spoilers warning far above.

Maybe it’s odd to consign a 4 stars-rated-movie to Short Takes, but (as I suspected before I even saw … Neighborhood, then realized in a different light once I did) we have a marvelous presentation not needing lots of verbiage to explain its warm-glow-impact because if you ever watched Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood on PBS anytime between Feb. 1968-Feb. ‘76 or Aug. 1979-Aug. 2001 (on hiatus by Fred Rogers’ decision for that gap) or saw the marvelous Won’t You Be My Neighbor? documentary (Morgan Neville, 2018; review in our Feb. 14, 2019 posting) you already know what a decent, charming, caring person Fred was (played here by delightful Tom Hanks at Oscar-nom-caliber but likely to be passed over with the assumption his depicted-decency’s not enough of an act) so you might think you don’t need further reassurance, an attitude holding me back from … Neighborhood quite awhile, choosing instead edgier fare even though I knew eventually I’d need some uplift provided by this sweet story; if fact, if you go to see it prepared with a cynical attitude—dragged in by a child or significant-other-adult* you’ll (hopefully) be transformed, just like award-winning-but-brutal Esquire author Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys) was in this “Inspired By a True Story” (rather than “Based On …”), moving into realms of fantasy at times to make its points without having to rely almost solely (as many biopics do) on how events actually happened while trying to find the right occasions for drama to keep it all interesting (I noted in my exploration of Dark Waters [Todd Haynes; review in our December 4, 2019 posting—now showing in about 2,000 more theatres so I hope you can more easily seek it out] how that film struggled with a situation requiring audience tolerance of legal wranglings over 17 years, with no powerhouse-courtroom-resolution-payoff, yet still succeeds, so it’s a difficult task but not impossible when the history’s closely followed without resort to fictionalizations). In the case of … Neighborhood you can consult this video (11:44 [ad interrupts at about 3:30]) to see the chief aspects shown correctly in this sometimes-enchanted-docudrama (primarily the name-change from actual Esquire writer Tom Junod to Lloyd Vogel, along with a few other minor points, but Junod ‘s lengthy bio of Rogers for an Esquire cover story, "Can You Say ... Hero?" is factual); for that matter, you might also enjoy this even shorter video (4:45) of a few things to know about Mr. Rogers’s life and work before seeing this life-affirming-movie, which I encourage you to do before the onslaught of holiday releases further consumes your allotted time.

*If you spew bile at the thought of a guy primarily performing for preschoolers, that special person of yours might be saying (or at least thinking)—just like Andrea Vogel in this story who begs of her frequently-hard-hearted-husband as he sets off to interview Fred Rogers—“Please don’t spoil my childhood.” Fred may come off as too kindly at first, but he's got a depth we'd benefit from sharing.

In this rendition of the growing connections between Rogers and Vogel (Junod) we open with a 1998 episode of Fred’s show (imagery a bit degraded as if we’re watching it on 20^th century video) in which he shows some photos of friends, including Lloyd (with cuts on his nose from a fight), indicating from the start this isn’t likely a real Mr. Rogers broadcast we’re seeing (although the set, the studio shooting at WQED, etc. all mirror the real thing), then we shift locations from Fred’s home base in Pittsburgh, PA to Lloyd’s home in NYC (with model buildings, rivers, bridges superimposing fantasy at times onto the rest of the movie’s photographed reality) where we also meet wife Andrea (Susan Kelechi Watson)—juggling her legal career around the demands of a new baby—as they’re off to NJ for his sister’s wedding where tensions re-emerge between Lloyd and his Dad, Jerry (Chris Cooper), finally leading to a fistfight (not the entertainment sister Lorraine [Tammy Blanchard], new husband Todd [Noah Harpster] envisioned), after which Lloyd’s editor, Ellen (Christine Lahti), sends him to interview Fred for a mere 400-word bio to be included in their upcoming issue about heroes. Lloyd, as an investigative journalist, is insulted by this (but no one else wanted to be interviewed by him, given his caustic approaches), travels to Pittsburgh, doesn’t get all he feels he needs because Fred’s busy on his set, isn’t ready to believe the guy’s as much of a saint as he seems to be, so he pushes for more time together which they later have in their respective cities; in the process Rogers (also an ordained Presbyterian minister) admits he was made fun of as a fat kid, still deals with anger and frustrations (by swimming fast daily, pounding the bass piano keys, praying) but also deflects some questions about himself to probe Lloyd’s rejection of his father (who had affairs while young Lloyd’s Mom was dying of cancer) to the point when Jerry collapses from a heart attack Lloyd leaves the hospital to return to Pittsburgh, needing more guidance from Fred. Once there, Lloyd’s overcome by trauma, imagines himself as a puppet in Fred’s show, has his own collapse, recovers at Fred’s home, returns to NYC for apologies, reconciliation with Jerry. ⇒During Jerry’s convalescence at his home, the whole family gathers for healing, Fred drives up to visit (even whispers to Jerry to pray for him, just as Fred does daily for those he knows are suffering, including Lloyd). Soon after, Jerry dies, Lloyd’s lengthy article’s accepted by Ellen, praised by all who read it. Lloyd, with Fred’s encouragement, has had a change of heart about a lot of things, volunteers to do more childcare so Andrea can better focus on her own career, then we’re back to that opening Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood episode where Fred wraps up his story about Lloyd, show’s over as he walks over to a studio piano, bangs those bass keys, then settles into melodic playing as the lights go out.⇐ During the credits we get a sample of the real Mr. Rogers’ show: Fred sings “You’ve Got To Do It,” as an inspiration to his young audience to face up to their fears, confront their challenges.

OK, maybe this description sounds saccharin after all, just as some verbal recap of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood might if your inner cynic’s searching for something to dismiss (mine always seems to be on alert), but in watching this exquisitely-uplifting-story—where Hanks does a fabulous job of channeling now-gone-Fred (died of stomach cancer in 2003), constantly sharing sincere concern for those around him (whether it’s a Make-A-Wish kid visiting him on the set, forcing the crew to wait around much longer than planned, or bitter-in-the-beginning Lloyd who doesn’t want his own life probed while he’s trying to uncover Fred’s weaknesses), accepting his own flaws (struggles with setting up a tent during a taping yet insists they include this clumsy scene in the final show, demonstrating to his viewers how unexpectedly-difficult life can be)—you have to admit (hard as it is for those of us who are constantly appalled by the greed, dishonesty, egotism of government and business leaders) this is the kind of story we need to see, need to accept, need to believe in (a sort of more-factual-version of It’s A Wonderful Life [Frank Capra, 1946] where George Bailey—like Lloyd and Fred—faces anger, despair, even to the point of suicide before finding his time on Earth’s been meaningful after all, that a sense of self-forgiveness is possible [more so with Jerry Vogel than … Life’s Mr. Potter]) during this supposed season of charity, acceptance, connection (if we can push ourselves away from the commercialism corrupting this year-ending-hope) rather than the lies, bribery, rhetorical attacks so dominating our society today. The CCAL’s also supportive of … Neighborhood, with an RT tally of 95% positive reviews, MC average score of 80% (high for them so far this year) although audience response's been somewhat muted—$43.1 million domestically (from 3,491 theaters) after 3 weeks in release (it’s been at #3, then 4, 5 during that period, but hardly anything else has mattered given the ongoing powerhouse of Frozen II), which isn’t bad but only #60 for the year, enormously-below how Disney’s got 6 of the top 10, with even Frozen II’s $338 million only at #7 overall compared to the true heavy-hitters in the top 4 spots with a domestic total of $2.26 billion, $6.6 billion worldwide (Frozen II’s up to "just" $922 million globally, but still packin’ ‘em in)—see this site to explore more of these ongoing details. Maybe the sense I previously noted of knowing what … Neighborhood’s about (largely an erroneous assumption) or the higher-anticipated-adrenalin-levels of other offerings are contributing to this limited box-office, but, please, don’t let that hold you back; this is such a delightful movie—uplifting without feeling it could rot your teeth—I can’t recommend it enough. With that, I’ll close out on a most-appropriate Musical Metaphor at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_biMtzAxiy0, the actual Mr. Rogers opening 2 of his many episodes over the decades singing “Won’t You Be My Neighbor,” from his first (Feb. 19, 1968) and last (Aug. 31, 2001) broadcasts. “Won’t you please Please won’t you be my neighbor?” is a request we all need to ask of everyone around us as often as we can, so let’s keep trying, OK?

On a different note to end all this, Nina and I just re-watched The Irishman, this time via Netflix streaming (almost the only way you can see it now; according to the Nielsen ratings service it snagged 17.1 million viewers in its first 5 days on line, along with being chosen Best Film of 2019 by both the National Board of Review and the NY Film Critics Circle [related is this article about the de-aging process used on Robert De Niro and the other principal actors in this grand experiment]). The quality remains high (still the best of the year for me too, but there are many others I haven’t seen yet), the sound clarity even in those whispering/low-volume-dialogue scenes was much better than at the theater (of course, having the option of closed-captioning helped as well for our aging ears), and the impact’s the same on a 47” screen as it was on a much wider one, so I continue to recommend it highly, even if you need to order Netflix streaming to see it. 2 critics at Variety have already named their Top 10 of 2019, although Peter Debruge didn’t put The Irishman within that group (his #1 is Waves [Trey Edward Shults; I haven’t seen it yet]; he did rate A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood as #10); Owen Gleiberman chose The Irishman as his #3, Marriage Story as #2 (his #1 is Joker [Todd Phillips; review in our October 9, 2019 posting])—they’ve also chosen their worst of 2019, which, fortunately for me, doesn’t include too many I’d have had to pay for, although I don’t agree with Debruge on Dumbo (Tim Burton; review in our April 4, 2019 posting) and Yesterday (Danny Boyle; review in our July 3, 2019 posting) being on such a negative list for me (they're #1, #5 respectively for him) while I’d also reject Gleiberman’s inclusion of Rocketman (Dexter Fletcher; review in our June 6, 2019 posting), #4 of his losers, along with his curious decision to include the last ½ hour of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino; review in our August 1, 2019 posting) at #3 even though he chose this entire film as #7 on his 10 Best list (?). Starting with my next posting (whenever that will be), as Two Guys enters our 9^th year of Internet-infestation, I’ll resume ending my Related Links section with the ongoing tallies compiled by Metacritic of which 2019 releases have gotten the most awards/nominations along with how these films rate when combining various critics’ Top 10 lists (I’ll also note the Golden Globe nominees), but I think I’ve already given you enough already to plow through for this posting even as I could use a rest myself.

In fact, as we get into this holiday season I'm taking a break from Two Guys reviewing, going away for a few days with incredible Nina to celebrate my 72^nd birthday followed by other activities over the next few weeks. I might get one more posting in before 2020 arrives, but, if not, I wish you the best as this year ends, followed by the dawn of a new, possibly much better one (as per "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" from John Lennon's 1975 singles-compilation-album, Shaved Fish). Shalom!

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:

We encourage you to visit the summary of Two Guys reviews for our past posts.* Overall notations for this blog—including Internet formatting craziness beyond our control—may be found at our Two Guys in the Dark homepage. If you’d like to Like us on Facebook please visit our Facebook page. We appreciate your support whenever and however you can offer it!

*A Google software glitch causes every Two Guys posting prior to August 26, 2016 to have an inaccurate (dead) link to this Summary page; from then forward, though, this link is accurate.

Here’s more information about Marriage Story:

https://www.netflix.com/title/80223779 (not much of an official site, though)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZytW1Xn0egc (38:34 interview with director Noah Baumbach, producer David Heyman, and actors Scarlett Johansson [arrives late], Adam Driver, Laura Dern,
Ray Liotta, Alan Alda [overall audio level’s low at times])

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/marriage_story_2019

https://www.metacritic.com/movie/marriage-story

Here’s more information about A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood:

https://www.abeautifulday.movie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEhZ4YJOGSE (20:50 interview with Tom Hanks
[ad interruption at about 10:30])

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/a_beautiful_day_in_the_neighborhood

https://www.metacritic.com/movie/a-beautiful-day-in-the-neighborhood

Please note that to Post a Comment below about our reviews you need to have either a Google account (which you can easily get at https://accounts.google.com/NewAccount if you need to sign up) or other sign-in identification from the pull-down menu below before you preview or post. You can also leave comments at our Facebook page, although you may have to somehow connect with us at that site in order to do it (most FB procedures are still a bit of a mystery to us old farts).

If you’d rather contact Ken directly rather than leaving a comment here please use my email address of kenburke409@gmail.com. (But if you truly have too much time on your hands you might want to explore some even-longer-and-more-obtuse-than-my-film-reviews—if that even seems possible—academic articles about various cinematic topics at my website,

https://kenburke.academia.edu, which could really give you something to talk to me about.)

If we did talk, though, you’d easily see how my early-70s-age informs my references, Musical Metaphors, etc. in these reviews because I’m clearly a guy of the later 20^th century, not so much the contemporary world. I’ve come to accept my ongoing situation, though, realizing we all (if fate allows) keep getting older, we just have to embrace it, as Joni Mitchell did so well in "The Circle Game," offering sage advice even when she was quite young herself.

By the way, if you’re ever at The Hotel California knock on my door—but you know what the check out policy is so be prepared to stay for awhile. Ken

P.S. Just to show that I haven’t fully flushed Texas out of my system here’s an alternative destination for you, Home in a Texas Bar, with Gary P. Nunn and Jerry Jeff Walker. But wherever the rest of my body may be my heart’s always with my longtime-companion, lover, and wife, Nina Kindblad, so here’s our favorite shared song—Neil Young’s "Harvest Moon"

—from the performance we saw at the Desert Trip concerts in Indio, CA on October 15, 2016 (as a full moon was rising over the stadium) because “I’m still in love with you,” my dearest, a never-changing-reality even as the moon waxes and wanes over the months/years to come.

OUR POSTINGS PROBABLY LOOK BEST ON THE MOST CURRENT VERSIONS OF MAC OS AND THE SAFARI WEB BROWSER (although Google Chrome usually is decent also); OTHERWISE, BE FOREWARNED THE LAYOUT MAY SEEM MESSY AT TIMES.

Finally, for the data-oriented among you, Google stats say over the past month (which they seem to measure from right now back 30 days) the total unique hits at this site were 34,000 (as always, we thank all of you for your support with our hopes you’ll continue to be regular readers); below is a snapshot of where and by what means those responses have come from within the previous week:

Wednesday, December 4, 2019

Dark Waters and Knives Out

Atrocities Addressed

(as best they can be)

Reviews by Ken Burke

No Short Takes this week as both of these examples of intriguing cinema deserve a full exploration.

Dark Waters (Todd Haynes) rated PG-13

“Executive Summary” (no spoilers): Here’s another “based on a true story” film (not announced as such with graphics, but it smells too much of the slimy reality of our nation’s lost-perspectives to be assumed as fiction; besides, we end with a good result for those involved but not the sort of fiery courtroom victory we’d expect from a well-orchestrated-movie), this one about Ohio lawyer (originally from West Virginia) Robert Bilott (played marvelously by Mark Ruffalo) showing support for his roots by taking on a long, difficult case from his grandmother’s area of Parkersburg, W.Va., helping a farmer friend of hers whose farm’s been devastated by some sort of poison, killing his cows, likely a toxic runoff from a nearly DuPont chemical company landfill. Opening friendly interactions with DuPont quickly go sour when they claim (with EPA support) the problems are all the farmer’s fault through his mismanagement, but Bilott’s determined to prove otherwise, especially when he finds mention in an enormous delivery of legal discovery papers of a virtually-unknown manmade chemical called PFOA, used in the production of Teflon but deadly to any living organism exposed to too much of it. As the years from 1998 ultimately to 2015 drag on more evidence mounts in favor of Bilott’s investigation, yet he continues to face resistance not only from DuPont officials but also many of the citizens of Parkersburg who depend on the huge nearby DuPont plant for their livelihoods. You can easily find out what happens with a simple Google search, but keeping with my usual no-spoilers-option I’ll still “hide” some of the results in my full review in case you’d care to encounter this most-worthwhile-film on your own before knowing all its details (or just read away below, what the hell!). Right now it’s hard to find Dark Waters in a theater, but hopefully availability will continue to spread; it’s certainly worth finding, seeing, learning from it.

⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.

What Happens: (This film frequently notes specific dates central to its content, so I’ll build this section of the review on those chronological markers; because this is a docudrama based on fact you can explore much more background of this crucial-to-all-of-us-situation by reading these extensive details from The New York Times [a primary source for the screenplay], then check out this Slate analysis of fact vs. fiction [mostly fact, except such minor additions as the protagonist enjoying an occasional Mai Tai—not a bad choice if he does; made properly, as I pride myself in doing, those cocktails are delicious], and if you want some info about lawyer Bilott from his firm you can go here. Now, with all that background at your disposal, here’s how it’s used within the film.) We begin in 1975 with 3 teenagers climbing over a private-property-signed-fence to a lake for a night swim in Parkersburg, West Virginia (I didn’t catch whether this lake belonged to the DuPont chemical company, but later events imply it did; I also don’t know if our later-lawyer-protagonist was supposed to be one of those kids, but it doesn’t really matter [except for dramatic irony]) only to be chased away by a couple of guys in a boat who then start spraying something into the water. Cut to 1998, the huge law firm of Taft Stettinius & Hollister in Cincinnati, OH where Robert Bilott’s (Mark Ruffalo) just been made a partner (with Tom Terp [Tim Robbins] in charge of daily operations), but his celebration’s cut short by the arrival of a Parkersburg farmer, Wilbur Tennant (Bill Camp), who’s got boxes of VHS tapes, complaints of the cows on his farm being poisoned (leading to mutations, sicknesses, deaths) by the nearby DuPont plant. Bilott—whose firm represents such chemical-company-clients—tries to help him find more local lawyers who could be of service, but Tennant wants Bilott because this gruff, desperate old guy’s a neighbor of Rob’s grandmother, Alma White (can’t find the actor in a cast list); besides, DuPont’s the major employer of Parkersburg so no one there really wants to ruffle their feathers anyway. Bilott drives the many miles back to Grandma’s for a short visit, explores the destruction of Tennant’s herd (190 cows buried), returns home to view the ghastly images on the videotapes, takes his concerns to Terp who’s not that supportive, nor is Rob’s wife, Sarah (Anne Hathaway), who's more focused on the need for financial stability in their family, including their new baby. At a major DuPont event (celebrating their slogan, “Better Living Through Chemistry”), Bilott contacts company honcho Phil Donnelly (Victor Garber), initially interested in the situation but undercuts Tennant’s claims by producing an Environmental Protection Agency report (helped by DuPont) which blames Tennant for his troubles, claiming gross mismanagement of his property. Bilott wants to sue DuPont, so Terp says keep it quick and simple.

1999: The Tennant case drags on as Bilott now learns about a deadly, human-created chemical compound, PFOA (or C8 because it’s formed by joining 8 carbon molecules to make the no-stick cooking-pan-revolution, Teflon, but it doesn’t break down so it easily contaminates soil and water [along with organic bodies such as cows—and humans; as this film progresses Bilott’s aware of a growing stroke-like-reaction in his body, causing him to shake, at times collapse]). Rob’s convinced Wilbur’s farm’s been polluted from a landfill where DuPont dumped PFOA residue but can’t get much info because the government knows nothing about this substance (or many others like it), has no regulation in place (Rob can’t even find it on the Internet, has to have a chemist explain it to him). Further pressure on Phil leads to his insulting response then a legal response in the discovery phase of Tennant’s case where dozens of boxes of papers are sent to Bilott, totally overwhelming him especially when he won’t let others help, afraid these materials might somehow be deadly; meanwhile, Wilbur’s shunned in his hometown for daring to disturb DuPont, whose resources of their huge nearby factory practically provide ownership of Parkersburg. 2000: Rob finds evidence of C8 in the Ohio River, becomes concerned for the health of others beyond Wilbur’s farm; Sarah’s getting frustrated with the time/energy he’s putting into this case (she gave up her own law career to become a homemaker) until he explains it all to her, including how DuPont’s aware of cancer in the PFOA line workers, leading to illness, deformed babies, etc. Wilbur’s cynical anything useful with come of Rob’s efforts even as Rob testifies to the EPA. 2001: Rob and Sarah take testimony in W.Va., even as DuPont claims the water there is safe. 2002: Terp’s become very supportive, the Taft firm’s more involved, outside lawyer Harry Deitzler’s (Bill Pullman) added to the team. 2003: A new study’s issued on unreported dangers of Teflon. 2004: DuPont promotes a “safe Teflon” campaign, but medical evidence piles up over their denials, the EPA fines DuPont $16.5 million. 2005: Bilott gets 69,000 W.Va. volunteers to take a blood test in exchange for $400 each, even as many believe DuPont won’t be found guilty of any wrongdoing (largely staying loyal to the company's necessary financial support of their community). 2009: Wilbur dies, some Parkersburg folks are upset with no resolution in the case after 10 years. ⇒2011: Rob’s sick but recovers, the blood tests finally show huge medical problems with the W.Va. population, Rob moves ahead with a class action suit (over 3,500 claimants); DuPont counters by challenging them individually in court, so Bilott must defend each one, consistently winning with damages larger in each verdict. 2015: DuPont finally settles all claims for a total of $670.6 million, but Bilott’s still fighting to protect the larger population as Teflon’s now made with a different carbon base, there are some 600 other unregulated chemicals like PFOA, and it’s estimated 99% of Earth’s species—including us—have this stuff in our bodies.⇐

So What? Even though a film like this has plenty of built-in-drama as a crusading lawyer—who’d once represented the very sorts of clients he chooses to take on in this pursuit of justice—challenges DuPont’s knowingly-dangerous-disposal of toxic chemicals, it can become a bit of a slog to audiences in movie theaters who not only want to see corporate criminality brought down but also desire a triumphant conclusion as all the hard work of research, litigation, and courtroom dynamics proves victorious. The potential problem here is—just like with the frustrated citizens of Parkersburg who either seek compensation for the difficulties they’ve suffered because of DuPont or hope to see this whole traumatic episode resolved so their DuPont-financed-lives can return to normal after a decade of endless waiting—we have to march slowly through time, hoping to find resolution to this horrid injustice, as legal procedures in our world (which this story's based entirely on) don’t race along like they do in a 2-hour-movie or even-shorter-TV episode where the forces of good find victory in a relatively-concise-manner. When we’re forced to wade through the swamp of legal-procedure-reality we see that no matter how valid the claims of the plaintiffs, how atrocious the actions of cold-hearted, profit-driven businessmen, how condemning the evidence seems to us when Bilott’s finds what DuPont had hoped would stay buried in that mountain of paperwork, conclusions aren’t necessarily fastly-forthcoming, lawsuits can be manipulated for years to prevent accusations from even coming to trial, murky circumstances (in this case the lack of regulations on PFOAs which, fortunately, was countered by a West Virginia law allowing that if a plaintiff can prove he/she was exposed to a toxin the defendant must pay for regular medical tests so if this person later becomes ill he/she can file for retroactive damages) might derail even the most seemingly-airtight-cases if the opposing lawyers are clever enough in their rebuttals. We witness much of this diversion in Dark Waters, giving us reason to fear Bilott’s years of work might have been useless (unless, of course, we’ve done an Internet search about these events before going to the theater or read the rarely-found-spoiler-filled-review such as the ones Two Guys in the Dark gleefully present, especially if you’d rather read our account than trek out to a cinema-palace—even as we hope public screenings of films continue to thrive despite the ongoing challenges from premium-cable-networks or streaming from major media companies, as is the case with The Irishman [Martin Scorsese; review in our November 21, 2019 posting], now available almost only through your home computer despite its likelihood as a major awards contender) ⇒until we realize it’s unlikely such a major motion picture would've been produced if Bilott had been decisively-defeated by DuPont.⇐

From a desired-dramatic-standpoint, then, Dark Waters has to work hard (which it successfully does) to keep our attention through the years where Rob’s working diligently but seemingly getting nowhere due to the tremendous opponent he faces when even his boss and his wife both get frustrated with the slow pace of his quest, despite being committed to supporting him. Haynes manages to maintain our interest through a combination of slowly revealing the gross atrocities DuPont willingly perpetrated on the citizens of several states with their cavalier dumping of a deadly chemical, allowing us to build our frustration into revulsion as evidence is uncovered plus giving us a superb performance from Ruffalo (Oscar-worthy? Possibly, although he’s already got a lot of solid competition.) who carries the film because ultimately all the others are a bit peripheral, except for Wilbur, but he dies before getting full satisfaction from what finally occurs in the courtroom. The mood’s almost consistently downbeat here, from Wilbur’s first appearance, with the W.Va. scenes especially an intentional misery to watch (desaturated hues, predominately shades of blue, brown, or grey), our fear Bilott will falter due to his increasing physical difficulties, yet he survives to fight on for those he feels must be defended because they’re left behind by all others intended to protect them (just as our EPA’s become a shell of its former self under the disgusting, imposed Trump-restrictions defying science, public health, stability of our environment in favor of continued profits for fossil-fuel and chemical companies while our planet continues to deteriorate). Despite his ultimate victory (I can’t keep dancing around this fact, despite my spoiler-avoidance-intentions), Bilott’s situation may just mirror those explored by other whistleblowers/crusaders in other based-on-fact-films, as well-explored in a marvelous review by G. Allen Johnson of the San Francisco Chronicle where he praises the public service of the heroes in such films as Silkwood (Mike Nichols, 1983)—exposure of nuclear contamination by Oklahoma’s Kerr-McGee Corp.—The Insider (Michael Mann, 1999)—defiance of the lies of the tobacco industry—Erin Brockovich (Steven Soderbergh, 2000)—exposure of Pacific Gas & Electric’s contamination of drinking water in southern California—yet laments how the corporations involved, despite legal losses/huge fines, continue to operate much as before, just as others like them pay up in court for specific sins yet still harm us and our living conditions in a money-driven-society (my Musical Metaphor for the next review below could apply here also) where our supposed governmental watchdogs are far too often kept on a short leash: “For some corporations that are too big to fail, human lives are far less important than their reputations and profits.” He finishes by quoting from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925): “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” Dark Waters is an uplifting film but ultimately haunted by the recurring failures Fitzgerald warned us against ages ago.

Bottom Line Final Comments: Still, no matter how dismal our prospects might be in trying to bring some level of meaningful, lasting change when moneyed interests keep pushing us back into defeat, we can take heart principled people such as lawyer Robert Bilott (who could have just continued his climb in a successful firm, helping the rich get richer, himself in the process) and filmmaker Todd Haynes (with a fine career already, addressing topics not often found in mainstream cinema such as Safe [1995], Far from Heaven [2002], the astounding I’m Not There [2007], Carol [2015; review in our January 11, 2016 posting]) continue to swim furiously against the negative-tide identified just above by Johnson and Fitzgerald, as explored in this article about Bilott (including disagreements with his stance on companies such as DuPont) and this short interview (4:54) with Ruffalo, Haynes, and the real Robert Bilott. The CCAL’s been generally supportive, with a hearty 92% set of positive reviews at Rotten Tomatoes, a slightly-less-enthusiastic 73% average score at Metacrtic (means “generally favorable reviews” by their standards; more details on both [along with numbers on the movie reviewed just below in the Related Links section much farther down]), although audiences haven’t had much chance to see it yet because after 2 weeks in release it’s now in only 94 domestic (U.S.-Canada) theaters so its gross thus far is only about $1 million, leaving it a far cry from the pop-art-champ currently at the top of the box-office-charts, Disney’s Frozen II (Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee) playing in 4,440 domestic venues, raking in $292 million domestically, a global haul of $745 million (I guess the choice between sparkling ice or polluted water’s clear enough, but I do hope enough people see Dark Waters to appreciate yet another aspect of how our environment’s being ruined [us along with it], all for the benefit of those who make our mass-commodity products, buy our mass-commodity politicians). OK, enough editorializing from my completely-partisan-left-coast-soapbox, although I do hope you’ll consider Dark Waters if it comes to a theater or video option near you as it’s an extremely-well-made-film providing a useful lesson in the difficulties faced by those directly impacted by toxic-disinterest in the common good (along with the rest of us ultimately) vs. the hard economic choices faced by those who ought to take a strong stand opposing such abuse but don’t due to tangible fears of alienating their necessary employers.

To spare you any further diatribes inspired by this subtly-powerful-film, I’ll close with my usual tactic of a Musical Metaphor, which this time could be John Denver’s "Country Roads, Take Me Home" (on his 1971 Poems, Prayers & Promises album) if I wanted to use it ironically as Haynes does in his soundtrack (West Virginia’s far from “Almost Heaven” in this film) but a more appropriate choice for me (also from the Dark Waters soundtrack, strong under the closing credits) is “I Won’t Back Down” (written by Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne, on Petty’s 1989 Full Moon Fever album) as done most-effectively by Johnny Cash at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LBYrDx_784 (on his 2000 American Recordings III: Solitary Man album) because Cash to me personifies the grit Bilott needed to persevere against such strong odds for so many years, just as the lyrics speak of unyielding-determination: “You can stand me up at the gates of Hell But I won’t back down.” Bilott refused to wilt under pressure (“No, I’ll stand my ground”); have we got the spine to do the same in the era of Trump? Stay tuned during the ongoing impeachment hearings and whatever might come into 2020.

Knives Out (Rian Johnson) rated PG-13

“Executive Summary” (no spoilers): A famous, elderly mystery novelist (Christopher Plummer) celebrates his 85^th birthday with his large family but is found the next morning with his throat slit. The local police easily declare this a suicide, but a prominent private detective’s secretly hired onto the case to determine if the death was, in fact, the result of murder with many of the man’s close relatives easy suspects when further investigations reveal he had run-ins with several of them on the night of his party with additional trauma coming later when they find out he’d recently changed his will to cut all of them out in favor of his young, devoted nurse. As grim as all this might sound, though, it’s largely an hilarious comedy with an excellent lead performance by Daniel Craig as the Southern-accented-private-eye never satisfied with easy explanations, especially as he finds more of the truth behind this infighting-infested-family with the testimonies of equally-effective Jamie Lee Curtis, Don Johnson, Michael Shannon, Toni Collette, Chris Evans, and others, all attempting to regain their supposed-inheritance from nurse Marta (Ana de Armas), who, as revealed to us early on via flashback, certainly seemed to have played a part in the old man’s death by accidently injecting him with a full vial of deadly morphine rather than his nightly prescription of pain killer (not a spoiler, I swear, as this is a foundational plot point in what's a delightful—if sometimes macabre—movie). What happens as this story continues to unfold would get us deeply into spoiler territory, though, so either find some time to see Knives Out for yourself (I’m almost ready to do so again just to verify a couple of crucial points in the rapidly-presented-narrative), easy to find in thousands of theaters, or just read the entire magnificent review below if curiosity overwhelms you.

Here’s the trailer:

Before reading any further, I’ll ask you to refer to the plot spoilers warning far above.

What Happens: Harlan Thrombey’s (Christopher Plummer) an extremely-successful-mystery writer, but when we first see him (after long tracking shots up toward his huge Massachusetts countryside mansion, then through hallways and rooms of his multi-story home) he’s lying on a couch, dead with his throat slit, a horrid morning surprise to his housekeeper, Fran (Edi Patterson). Through flashbacks—there are many to finally provide the plot details a successful mystery story keeps partially hidden until the great reveal at the end—we learn Harlan had an 85^th birthday party with his large family, then retired upstairs accompanied by his with-him-for-years-nurse, Marta Cabrera (Ana de Armas). However, during the evening he’d confronted 4 family members with bad news: (1) Son-in-law Richard Drysdale (Don Johnson)—married to Harlan’s daughter, Linda (Jamie Lee Curtis), herself an imperial presence, second only to commandeering Dad, parents of snide-adult-son Ransom (Chris Evans)—is revealed, with photos, having an affair (pics show only a brunette from the back giving us fleeting reason to think it’s Marta [it isn’t]), Harlan putting a note in his desk intended to reveal this indiscretion to Linda; (2) Ex-daughter-in-law Joni Thrombey (Toni Collette)—a widow (Harlan’s older son, Nell, died) generously kept within the family—is confronted by Harlan who now knows she’s been taking double payments for her daughter, Meg‘s (Katherine Langford), college tuition ($100,000 per year) so all that money’s to be cut off; (3) Harlan’s younger son, Walt's (Michael Shannon), constrained running his father’s publishing business because Dad still controls everything, including refusing adaptations of his extensive works, so Walt feels useless until Dad “relieves” him of such misery by firing him; (4) Harlan also has a nasty confrontation with grandson Ransom, telling him he wrote a new will cutting all of them off, leaving everything to Marta, causing Ransom to storm out. While there’s no note left by Harlan about his death, the local police, led by Detective Lt. Elliot (Lakeith Stanfield), assume it’s suicide, although famed private eye Benoit Blanc’s (Daniel Craig) been mysteriously hired to look into the case so he’s there for family interrogations as well; what he’ll find out (not a spoiler; we see it in flashback early on) is Marta and Harlan played a nightly game of Go (frustrating him as she always won, just like Ransom, while no one else could beat Harlan) before she gave him his usual shot of pain meds, followed sometimes by a little morphine to help him sleep. This night, though, the medicine vials were knocked onto the floor with the Go board when Harlan choose to disrupt his sure-loss, so after the procedure Marta was terrified, realizing she’d used the wrong one, injecting Harlan with a fatal morphine overdose leaving only 10 min. for him to live because Marta couldn’t find the antidote vial in her medical bag.

His mystery-writer-mind in overdrive, Harlan has Marta depart the mansion to go home so she can note the time of midnight to Walt, on the front porch smoking a cigar. Yet, her real task ([unbelievably] hurried as it must be within those precious 10 min.) is to park her car out of range of the security cameras, trudge through the muddy woods back to the house, climb up a trellis to Harlan’s floor, enter through a window hidden behind a secret panel in the hall, put on some of Harlan’s clothes, walk downstairs where Walt’ll see him then shoo him back up to bed (thereby establishing an alibi for Marta being gone while Harlan’s still alive). When she gets back upstairs, though, Harlan assumes he’s almost dead (she wanted to call an ambulance, but he said it would take at least 15 min. to arrive given their isolation [yet I'll bet it took more than 10 min. for all Marta did after the dreaded-injection]), cuts his throat so we know it’s truly suicide but also assume Marta’s got shared responsibility because of the medical-mix-up; she hurries down the trellis again, only to be seen at the bottom by near-comatose Great-Grandma Wanetta Thrombey (K Callan). By a week later Harlan’s buried (Ransom‘s criticized for not attending the funeral), the family gathers for the will reading by lawyer Alan Stevens (Frank Oz), with all (but Ransom) shocked by the new results, all of them descending on Marta to renounce her fabulous windfall until Ransom drives up, whisks her away (as they talk later in a café she tells him what really happened with Harlan on that fateful night). The Thrombey family’s only hope is to have Blanc somehow find Marta responsible for Harlan’s death so the “slayer rule” would negate her inheritance, but more complications soon ensue. ⇒News media descend on Marta’s home which she shares with her mother (Marlene Forte) and sister (we’re never sure where they’re from because various Thrombeys blithely cite 4 different South American countries), with the mother an undocumented immigrant whom Harlan was also hoping to protect; Walt shows up, tries to convince Marta his family could use the wealth for lawyers to protect her Mom (she rejects his ploy, saying she could pay lawyers herself), then she gets an anonymous note on the copy of a partial toxicology report saying “I know what you did” so she’s frightened, goes with Ransom to the medical examiner’s office only to find it destroyed by fire at which point Benoit and the cops show up, finally catch them after a wild chase, but arrest Ransom because Great-Grandma's identified him as the person descending the trellis. Marta confesses everything to Benoit, then on the way back to the Thrombey mansion she stops at a mysterious address emailed to her, finding Fran overdosed with morphine, about to die, so Marta administers CPR, calls an ambulance. Back at the estate, Marta’s about to confess everything when Benoit finds a full copy of the toxicology report hidden by Fran (she got it from her cousin who worked at that office) showing no morphine in Harlan’s body; Blanc surmises Marta give Harlan the pain meds after all, somehow sensing the correct vial even though it had the morphine label.⇐

⇒Some further questioning of Ransom by Blanc and the cops—along with insightful surmises by super-sleuth Benoit—finally reveals the full truth: After Ransom left the party he followed the same tactics Harlan specified later that crucial night to Marta about parking out of sight of the cameras (maintained by Mr. Proofroc [M. Emmet Walsh, in a brief-but-welcome-appearance earlier in the investigation]), climbing to the upper floor via the trellis, but his tactic was to switch the labels on Marta’s vials (presumably she kept her nurse’s bag upstairs for the nightly injections) so she’d make the fatal mistake, then could be found guilty via Blanc’s insights (which she almost was until the last minute) as Ransom was Benoit’s secret employer, trying to use him to nullify the new will. This plan was thwarted by Harlan’s throat-cutting, bringing about the suicide pronouncement, so Ransom had to find a new strategy, which he attempted to do during Harlan’s funeral by slipping back into the upstairs room (I think, to get Marta’s long-unretrieved nurse’s bag, presumably with more morphine in it, but, truly, I didn’t fully follow that part of the rapidly-described-wrap-up) when he’s secretly seen by Fran (remember her?) who sent him the “I know what you did” note, so he forwarded it to Marta to rattle her, somehow got Fran to that mysterious address emailed to Marta, shot her up with too much morphine so Marta’d get blamed for her death, presumably then taken out of the inheritance picture (some of this known by Marta from a few words Fran mumbled before she passed out). While Benoit’s confronting Ransom with all this Marta gets a phone call which she says is news Fran’s still alive, encouraging cocky Ransom to admit the truth of all those Blanc assumptions with the confidence there wouldn’t be enough actual evidence to even convict him of attempted murder (although Great-Grandma did see him coming down the trellis on suicide night, mistakenly thinking it was him again when she saw Marta), at which point Marta vomits on Ransom (she has a condition causing such a traumatic reaction when she lies*; this is a recurring plot element, but if the director can keep all these revelations from you for almost 2 hours I can certainly do it through the previous 2 paragraphs) because she’s lied, Fran’s dead, but the cops now have a recording of Ransom’s testimony so he’s led away in handcuffs (after he attempted to kill Marta with a knife from a display of such weapons serving as a centerpiece in one of the rooms, but this was just a stage prop, taking us back to Harlan noting how appearances can be deceiving in a much-earlier-flashback). All of these issues now resolved, the Thrombeys leave the house for good as Marta watches them from an upper balcony, now the owner of all of Harlan’s valuable properties.⇐

*I’ll pass along the warning to avoid this movie for those suffering from the condition known as emetophobia, an intense fear of anything relating to vomiting (including expiration dates on food, possibly undercooked food, or seeing other people vomit), causing a severe illness or nausea.

So What? I hadn’t intended the What Happens section to be so long, but there’s lots of complicated plot here (much of it delivered in an amusing manner), needing extensive space to even attempt to explain (without covering all of it, including Jacob Thrombey [Jaeden Martell], adolescent son of Walt and wife Donna [Riki Lindhome]—she’s marginally in group scenes but not as a necessary character within all this chaos—seeming to be a proto-Nazi who overhears some of the talk between Harlan and Ransom from his bathroom-location where he presumably spent much of his evening enjoying masturbation), so if you’d prefer a recap (11:01) on video (ad interruption at about 8:00) of the major narrative elements, twists, and ending without having to reread all my verbiage, please help yourself (full of spoilers if that’s a concern; if not, there’s lots of images from the movie to enhance what you see in the trailer or my few illustrations). Knives Out’s lauded by the CCAL as a fabulously-entertaining-throwback to the types of detective stories popularized by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with his Sherlock Holmes mysteries in print (many adapted for the screen) or the explorations of Agatha Christie (Knives Out has some resonances with Christie’s Death on the Nile [1937]: Hercule Poirot’s on a tourist boat in Egypt when socialite Linnet Doyle’s killed so he must deduce the murderer from the other travelers, adapted to a movie [John Guillermin, 1978] with Peter Ustinov as Poirot and its own all-star-cast [another’s planned for late 2020, Kenneth Branagh directing/starring]); coincidentally (I assume) Knives … plot of a patriarch’s suicide with his riches going to an unlikely recipient reminds me a novel I recently finished, John Grisham’s The Testament (1999), where a billionaire writes a new will just before killing himself, leaving almost everything to a previously-unknown (to the rest of his family) illegitimate daughter, leading a lawyer on a lengthy search for her in the jungles of Brazil. I enjoyed both of those related-narratives (although Grisham’s book’s intentionally more serious than any of these movies), just as I thoroughly did with Knives Out, although it moves very quickly most of the time (lots of intercutting of various present scenes with themselves and the flashbacks to keep up with) which can be somewhat confusing, is a bit (by design, I’m sure) overbearing with many closeups giving a disconcerting sense of what we’re supposed to discover (until we actually do) as we know Harlan kills himself so there’s no mystery murderer hidden within the family, ⇒with my main concerns being what’s really going on when Ransom sneaks upstairs during the funeral, what Fran actually sees of his actions, how Ransom knows it’s Fran who sent him the “I know …” note (presumably with a copy of the full toxicology report, clearing Marta), how he gets Fran to the location where she’s supposed to die, and how that’s intended to incriminate Marta when she arrives unless the cops are also alerted to show up (at roughly the same time?).⇐ Those elements bother me a bit, not enough to seriously reduce my enjoyment of this fast-paced comic mystery (that is, what the mystery’s supposed to be, after we know how Harlan died). But maybe I missed some clear explanation others easily caught.

Bottom Line Final Comments: I’m in the majority of those who’ve found Knives Out to be a worthwhile trip to the local cinema; the CCAL’s highly supportive too with 96% positive RT reviews, MC average score of 82% (quite high for them, at least concerning what they and I have both reviewed of 2019 releases). Audiences are supportive as well; last weekend’s tally from domestic theaters reached $41.4 million ($72.6 million total worldwide), although even that healthy-debut ultimately pales compared to the ongoing-onslaught of Frozen II, scoring a huge $86 million domestically in its second weekend, adding further to its enormous success (noted in the review above), especially for a sequel to an original (Buck and Lee, 2013; review in our January 24, 2014 posting) which came out 6 years ago. Considering the generally-serious-fare currently dominating the domestic box-office (except for those alternatives such as Frozen II, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood [Marielle Heller], The Addams Family [Conrad Vernon, Greg Tiernan], although you’ve noticed I haven’t found time to see them yet), if you’re looking for something ultimately light-hearted (except for the suicide and vomiting, but that may well play into the turmoil that often marks family Thanksgiving get-to-gathers or the Black Friday aftermath) with a warmly-embraced, effectively-used cast (especially the Southern-friend-persona created by Daniel Craig, a far cry from his secret-agent-intensity of James Bond [No Time to Die set for 2020]) constantly whirling you into action as these personalities collide, so I highly encourage seeing Knives Out, available in 3,461 domestic theaters (plus many in other markets, given its international success). While you’re planning a trip to the local megaplex, though, I’ll close with my Musical Metaphor, which I feel has to be Pink Floyd’s “Money” (from their 1973 album, The Dark Side of the Moon) at https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=cpbbuaIA3Ds—with lyrics under the YouTube screen if you’d like to sing along—(even though I’ve used it 6 times already in other reviews, a level of repetition I try to avoid but that’s difficult when a song so perfectly matches the content of the movie). The Thrombey family (not including Marta, even though they all keep saying—until the will’s read—how they view her as one of them [not the compliment they intend, as Harlan’s the only one she truly feels close to[) certainly epitomizes what this song’s all about: “Money, it’s a hit And don’t give me that do-goody-good bullshit […] Money, it’s a crime Share it fairly, but don’t take a slice of my pie.” Some I’m aware of who’ve commented on Knives Out think Marta’s essentially too good of a person to not share some of her new-found-wealth with Harlan’s family, but possibly except for Meg (who seems to show some sympathy for Marta’s situation but then argues her high-rent-private-college-lifestyle’s just too precious to lose, revealing the ultimate satisfactions she covets) I seriously doubt Marta has much reason to defy Harlan’s final intentions that this cluster of leeches needs to stop “riding the gravy train” ( from another Pink Floyd song, "Have a Cigar"), then learn to fend for themselves somehow.

OK, that’s all (enough you say?) from Two Guys in the Dark this week except to note this concern about fake online reviews; yes, this article’s about comments on products/services where unsuspecting potential customers can easily be seduced by paid/planted b.s. from the sellers, but you never have to worry about such from us because whatever we say we truly mean whether you might agree with us or not as we have no ad revenue nor any perks from film companies or even the low-budget-indie-filmmakers who sometimes contact us for reviews. You might be careful about what you read on Amazon and Yelp, though, where such inbred-integrity's often not the case.

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:

*A Google software glitch causes every Two Guys posting prior to August 26, 2016 to have an inaccurate (dead) link to this Summary page; from then forward, though, this link is accurate.

Here’s more information about Dark Waters:

https://www.focusfeatures.com/dark-waters

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj7dLDHmJZI (20:29 interview with director

Todd Haynes and actor Mark Ruffalo [visual drops out briefly at about 15:39])

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/dark_waters_2019

https://www.metacritic.com/movie/dark-waters

Here’s more information about Knives Out:

https://www.lionsgate.com/movies/knives-out (although there’s not much here except the trailer and a link to the “Official Site” [even though this first link is supposed to be that] which gets you to) https://knivesout.movie/?_ga=2.2786224.1223029810.1575252423-1937709868.1575252423 (on Google Chrome it takes a long time to do nothing, but it never did much of anything on Safari either for me, so I hope either of these Web browsers might work better for you with this site; however, it was functional for me on Firefox, with an interesting layout, so that seems to be your best bet, even if you have to copy and paste this second URL [if you're even interested in bothering to do this])

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKR9xxxbPNE (18:52 casual conversations with director Rian Johnson and actors Chris Evans, Daniel Craig, Jamie Lee Curtis, Katherine Langford, Michael Shannon, Anna de Armas, Don Johnson, Jaeden Martell [doesn’t really address the movie

all that much but retains the wacky, unexpected sense of what was on screen])

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/knives_out

https://www.metacritic.com/movie/knives-out

https://kenburke.academia.edu, which could really give you something to talk to me about.)

By the way, if you’re ever at The Hotel California knock on my door—but you know what the check out policy is so be prepared to stay for awhile. Ken

Finally, for the data-oriented among you, Google stats say over the past month (which they seem to measure from right now back 30 days) the total unique hits at this site were 33,677 (as always, we thank all of you for your support with our hopes you’ll continue to be regular readers); below is a snapshot of where and by what means those responses have come from within the previous week: