Yearning for Home (Wherever It May Be)
Reviews and Comments 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) when they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative.
Opening Chatter (no spoilers): Assuming no additional traumatic, society-challenging political events this week (although an historic second impeachment of Donald Trump as days roll on toward the Jan. 20, 2021 Biden-Harris inauguration [hopefully with no violence, no matter how hungry for such retaliation certain Trump acolytes may be] could certainly lead to some serious consequences before my next posting, so we’ll see what happens by next week), I’ll hope to get through uneventful reviews of a couple of stories dealing with serious subjects although the former ultimately tries to explore paths forward after a bitter personal tragedy while the latter is somewhat about comedy, gets a bit into comic moments, finds its way toward low-key, personal redemption. In Pieces of a Woman we have an alternately searing/simmering collision of individuals as a couple’s baby dies immediately after birth (no spoiler; that event drives the entire film after its first ½ hour) with the mother trying desperately to pull her life back together even as her own (overbearing) mother pushes her toward various responses that may suit Mom’s needs more so than her grieving daughter’s while the baby's father’s hurt/angry as he seeks atonement from the midwife whom he blames for the horror befallening this family. For me, this is one of the best of 2020, should be up for serious Oscar considerations, now available on Netflix streaming. In the Short Takes section I’ll note Standing Up, Falling Down about a Long Island guy who flops as a stand-up comic in L.A., comes home to various support from/bickering with his family, longs for the woman he left behind (she’s still there but married), makes friends with a depressed, alcoholic dermatologist (Billy Crystal) grieving the deaths of his 2 wives (you can find this one on various streaming platforms; I chose Amazon Prime for $3.99). Also in that section I’ll offer suggestions for some choices on the Turner Classic Movies channel (but too much extra text for line-justified-layout like you see here [Related Links stuff at each posting’s end is similarly-ragged], at least to be done by this burned-out-BlogSpot-drone—oh, ye tedious software!) along with my standard dose of industry-related-trivia.
Here’s the trailer for Pieces of a Woman:
(Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge it; activate
that same button or use the “esc” keyboard key to return to normal size.)
If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $. To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid those 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: The timeline of this story set in Boston (shot in Montreal) extends from Sept. 17 of an unspecified (but current) year to April 30 of the next one where we first meet Sean (Shia LaBeouf), foreman of a construction crew building a bridge over a river which he wants to see completed before a daughter is born to him and wife Martha (Vanessa Kirby), an executive in some unspecified company while Sean’s brother-in-law, Chris (Benny Safdie)—married to Martha’s sister, Anita (Iliza Schesinger)—works at a car dealership where Martha’s rich-and-pushy-Mom, Elizabeth (Ellen Burstyn), has just bought them a minivan (daughter appreciates it; son-in-law’s a bit miffed, as if he’s not capable of taking proper care of his pregnant wife—Elizabeth would likely agree). That night all hell breaks loose when Martha goes into labor; Sean calls their midwife, Barbara, but she’s already dealing with another birth so a replacement, Eva (Molly Parker), is sent in her place. Despite debilitating pains, Martha goes along with being moved first into the bathtub, then into her bed where the baby’s successfully born after an initial panic about the soon-to-be-child’s heart rate causing Eva to suggest the need for paramedics but Sean wants her to finish the birth, after which initial joy turns to horror when the baby can’t breath. Sean calls an ambulance, but as it arrives we go to fade out, with the following scenes clarifying the child died. A month later Sean’s focused on knowing what went wrong, wants to bring criminal charges against Eva (supposedly for “justice,” though that truly means revenge) while Martha’s trying to deal with her grief in a more controlled manner, wants to donate the baby’s body to science to help understand the cause of her death which Sean and Elizabeth oppose, wanting a burial instead. As time goes on, tensions increase among all 3 of these adults, including arguments between Sean and Martha about the spelling of their daughter’s name on a tombstone along with a disagreement on clearing out the baby’s room (he objects, especially wants to keep a set of 4 ultrasounds he’d had framed). He tries to resolve the tension with sex at another time, yet that goes awry (he’s so desperate to get in her he won’t even let her fully get her pants off) as he storms out, although suffering his own terrible pain at the horrid loss of his daughter.
Matriarch Elizabeth recruits Martha’s cousin, Suzanne (Sarah Snook), as their lawyer against Eva, but Sean’s deteriorating in many ways: he convinces Chris to falsify some paperwork so Sean can sell the minivan as finances are now becoming much tighter; Sean’s been sober for 6 years but turns to sneaking whiskey, snorting cocaine, as well as having a hot affair with Suzanne given Martha's increasing disinterest in him (Martha wanders a bit also as we see her dancing at a club, kissing a man, but then leaves before things go any farther). Elizabeth (who’s admitted to her daughter she had a miserable childhood, wanted better times for her progeny, encourages Martha to avenge herself on Eva) finally admits she never liked Sean, gives him a hefty check to just leave, move to Seattle (he’d tried to convince Martha to take a road trip there, she declined) which he does (Elizabeth also unloads on Martha, blaming her for the baby’s death due to insisting on home birth).
⇒Later, Martha has to testify at Eva’s intense trial, then during the break she wanders over to a nearby drugstore to pick up a packet of unretrieved photos from months before, finds they’re of her holding the baby just after the birth, returns to the trial where she asks permission to address the court, absolves Eva of any guilt for the baby’s demise. Back home she finds some apple seeds she’s saved in her refrigerator have started to sprout so she plants them. As the story concludes, Martha scatters the baby’s ashes into a river, then either much later or maybe it’s symbolically we have silent shots of a little girl (Juliette Casagrande) who climbs an apple tree, Martha helps her down, they go inside Martha’s home as we’ve reached fade out, final credits.⇐ I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to see Oscar nominations here for Kirby as Best Actress, screenwriter Kata Wéber for Original Screenplay, maybe even Burstyn for Best Supporting Actress (she’s been nominated as such before for The Last Picture Show [Peter Bogdanovich, 1971], as well as a Best Actress nom for The Exorcist [William Friedkin, 1973] along with a win at that higher level for Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore [Martin Scorsese, 1974]). Whether Pieces of a Woman might rise to the level of a Best Picture nom is hard to say because there are so many other contenders I haven’t seen yet, may not be able to watch all of them before March 15, 2021 when announcements come (awards show, April 25), but at this point I’d certainly say it’s a solid contender to be in my (also the Academy’s?) Top 10.
So What? Pieces of a Woman plunges us right into the horrors of a truncated childbirth—a scene which goes on for 25 intense minutes after our brief intros to Sean and Martha, all done in a single, active, manic take as the camera runs all through their home, variously showing us the intense/pained/relieved/shocked faces of the pregnancy couple and their confounded midwife along with the tightly-seen-rooms they inhabit—then moves much more slowly, but with many bursts of emotion, as Martha, Sean, and Elizabeth variously lash out at each other in their grief over the dead daughter, ultimately taking us through the aftermath of such an interpersonal-horror, finally allowing these main characters to just drift off into their individual directions without the compelling sense of closure we so often desire in our cinematic stories (Did Martha ever know about Sean’s affair with Suzanne? Would she really care all that much at this point, even if she did? Do Martha and Elizabeth reconcile in any manner? What becomes of Sean in Seattle?), yet we don’t need answers to such questions to fully appreciate what we’ve seen on screen (with the intimacy here ideally suited to TV-home-streaming with many theaters unavailable), although we might get further appreciation by watching the interview (20:55) in Related Links below with real-life Hungarian couple Mundruzcó and Wéber as they acknowledge this searing story’s based on an actual birth-tragedy, the resulting loss they suffered, followed by desire to share their insights (comments also from Kirby and Burstyn).
My only negative comment about … Woman is completely extra-textual: Netflix has taken Shia LaBeouf out of any consideration for an Oscar campaign or other publicity for the film because of accusations against him for abusive behavior toward ex-girlfriend FKA Twigs (which, ironically, mirrors some of the unhinged actions of Sean toward partner Martha in … Woman). While LaBeouf doesn’t agree with all her charges he admits he has a history of abuse, alcoholism, and aggression (along with a few arrests connected to those problems), as this situation likely ends any hope LaBeouf might have had for an Oscar nomination for what’s an excellent (intentionally-disturbing) performance as a man unhinged by sorrow. You’d think such problems would also boot him from the next Indiana Jones and … movie (due in 2022, again starring Harrison Ford) even though in … the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Steven Spielberg, 2008) we learned his character, Mutt Williams/Henry Jones III, is the son of Indy and Marion Ravenwood, but he’d already been ruled out as early as 2017; whether his future career hits the sort of rocks Johnny's Depp's been dealing with since his similar personal troubles have gone public will await to be seen. In the meantime, don’t miss the opportunity to see Pieces of a Woman even if you have to spend $14 for a month’s worth of Netflix streaming to do so (assuming you can still tolerate seeing LaBeouf, given his controversial situation).
Bottom Line Final Comments: LaBeouf’s off-screen-problems aside, what strikes me as most odd about … a Woman is the response of the CCAL toward it, which is positive yet not too much so for those many critics at Rotten Tomatoes who’ve given it just 77% positive reviews while responding much more favorably to Standing Up, Falling Down (88% positive), reviewed just below (the more-restrained-folks at Metacritic are consistent with 67% for … a Woman to match their 70% for Standing Up … as well as being consistently lower than the RT responses, which they usually are; more details on these critics-accumulation-sites—as with anything I review—can be found below in the Related Links section). Maybe it’s just because at RT there are 168 reviews cited for … a Woman but only 56 for … Falling Down, so I guess the law of averages might dictate that the more you survey the greater the chance of rejections piling up (but that doesn’t seem to be the case for One Night in Miami [Regina King, 2020] which has 98% positives at RT, based on 180 reviews [I’ll add my mine next week when it becomes streaming-available]). Therefore, all I can say to those like TIME’s Stephanie Zacharek (“But yanking at our most wrenching emotions doesn’t necessarily make art great, or even artful. Sometimes it just makes you want to turn away, to watch from a position of defensiveness.”)—or several others, like my local (San Francisco Chronicle) Mick LaSalle, who say, despite their other words of praise, there’s an inconsistent pace here: “Because nothing can top the first half-hour for drama and artistry, ‘Pieces of a Woman’ inevitably loses some intensity for its remaining running time”—is try harder to fully accept this film on its own terms of varied-pace, simmering-to-boiling-intensity, because I think you’re not allowing it to fully be what it is.
As you might know from previous Two Guys reviews (or, if not, please consider making this blog a regular habit as you can tolerate), I like to end each review with a Musical Metaphor for what’s just been discussed, to provide a final perspective on the content while using aural insights (with music and lyrics) to augment previously-printed-verbal-ones. In the case of Pieces of a Woman I found my thoughts drifting back to a marvelous Judy Collins album, Wildflowers (1967), where she wrote/sang 2 songs I feel should be used in tandem to address what Martha’s all about, has to endure in this heartbreaking story searched for acceptable closure. The first is the gentle “Since You Asked” at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgcRQpHAZnE which speaks to the unconditional love this woman wants to share with those around her, including her husband, her mother, and her soon-to-arrive-daughter (“Take the lilies and the lace From the days of childhood All the willow winding paths Leading up and outward This is what I give This is what I ask you for Nothing more”), but fate has other plans for her as she’s denied functional connections with any of these others (or anyone else around her, as noted by the serious stares that greet her when she returns to work after the sudden death of her baby), making me think of the other song, “Albatross,” at https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=DVNlQ3ajqFk, with its haunting, even morbid approach: “Making up your memories and thinking they have found you They cover you with veils of wonder as if you were a bride Young men holding violets are curious to know if you have cried […] And in the dark the hard bells ringing with pain Come away alone.” For me, Collins has the most engaging vocal presence of any pop singer I’ve ever heard, equally able to conjure up warmth or despair, either well worth listening to from her delivery, here useful in giving us another avenue into the complex, maddening situation Martha finds herself in, trying to somehow carry on, to somehow make sense of what hell she’s been put through.
SHORT TAKES (spoilers also appear here)
After a failed career as a stand-up comic in L.A., Scott returns to Long Island, to live with his parents and sister, as he's now longing for the woman he left behind even though she’s married to someone else; his life takes a turn, though, when he meets a depressed alcoholic dermatologist (Billy Crystal) who gives Scott encouragement to return to his comedian desires, despite any difficulties in the past.
Here’s the trailer:
Before reading further, please refer to the plot spoilers warning detailed far above.
A 34-year-old-guy, Scott Rollins (Ben Schwartz), has a sort of reverse-situation from a character in Billy Joel’s song, "My Life" (“Closed the shop, sold the house, bought a ticket to the west coast Now he gives them a stand-up routine in L.A.” [video from a concert appropriately in Long Island, NY]) in that Scott left everything he knew on Long Island (including girlfriend Becky [Eloise Mumford]) in favor of a hoped-for-comedian-career in L.A. only to bomb out, return home where his Mom, Jeanie (Debra Monk), still adores him, tries to help get him a job at the Post Office; Dad Gary (Kevin Dunn) still doesn’t understand why Scott won’t work in the lumberyard Gary hoped Scott would run someday; sister Megan (Grace Gummer) cares about him but easily gets into caustic exchanges, including Scott’s barbs about her at 30 still voluntarily living at home, dating a security guard, Ruis (David Castañeda), despite Scott’s own directionless-situation. One night in a bar restroom he meets drunk dermatologist Marty (Billy Crystal), so in need of a pee he uses the sink, explains he’s almost-constantly-depressed because of the deaths of both women he married while Scott’s morose because, after abandoning Becky, she’s now married to their mutual-friend, Owen (John Behlmann).
In truth, nothing of much consequence happens during a good bit of this movie (Scott strikes up a friendship with Ruis; Scott and Marty get drunk/stoned together a lot; Marty treats Scott for his “stress hives” while encouraging him on his stand-up routines, sort of in place of being with his own son, Adam [Nate Corddry], hostile toward Marty because his mother killed herself with pain pills while Marty cheated on her) until Scott gets up the nerve to try his new routine at a Levittown club where Megan, Ruis, and Becky (renewed her contact with Scott, admits her hurt when he left) attend but Marty misses, drunk with a woman he picked up at a karaoke bar, sad over having just scattered his second wife’s ashes. ⇒Scott visits Becky, they almost have sex but he leaves only to be chased by Owen; they fight a bit but mostly talk. Marty dies, Scott speaks at his funeral, meets his daughter, Taylor (Caitlin McGee), who works at the Post Office, sparks fly.⇐ While I’m more in with the CCAL MC folks (70% average score) than the overjoyed RT critics (87% positive reviews), I did enjoy Standing …, find it quite watchable especially in its condensed format. It was supposed to be in theaters back on Feb. 21, 2020 but I find no evidence of that, just its current availability on several platforms (I chose Amazon Prime for $3.99, but you can get it for a free trial on Starz). As a Musical Metaphor I’ll use Simon & Garfunkel’s “Homeward Bound” (1966 album Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme; also on 1966 U.K. version of the Sounds of Silence album) at https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=m0oJ8_VTu3c (from 1981 Concert in Central Park) because while Scott’s not initially as anxious as this singer to return to his roots he is put off by his attempted life as a traveling comic troubadour, ultimately finds what he longed for back in Long Island (“Home, where my thought’s escaping […] Home, where my love lies waiting Silently for me”), “silently” because he hadn’t met her yet, but ultimately he seems destined to bring happiness to at least one of Marty’s adult children.
Suggestions for TCM cablecasts
At least until the pandemic subsides Two Guys also want to encourage you to consider movies you might be interested in that don’t require subscriptions to Netflix, Amazon Prime, similar Internet platforms (we may well be stuck inside for longer than those 30-day-free-initial-offers), or premium-tier-cable-TV-fees. While there are a good number of video networks offering movies of various sorts (mostly broken up by commercials), one dependable source of fine cinematic programming is Turner Classic Movies (available in lots of basic-cable-packages) so I’ll be offering suggestions of possible choices for you running from Thursday afternoon of the current week (I usually get this blog posted by early Thursday mornings) on through Thursday morning of the following week. All times are U.S. Pacific Daylight so if you see something of interest please verify actual show time in your area for the day listed. These recommendations are my particular favorites (no matter when they’re on, although some of those early-day-ones might need to be recorded, watched later), but there’s considerably more to pick from you might like even better; feel free to explore their entire schedule here. You can also click the down arrow at the right of each listing for additional, useful info.
I’ll bet if you checked that entire schedule link just above you’d find other options of interest, but these are the only ones grabbing my attention at present. Please dig in further for other possibilities.
Friday January 15, 2021
9:15 PM The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949) Best pairing of Orson Welles and Joseph Cotton outside of Citizen Kane (with Reed’s film as one of my very few 5 stars-ratings, after seeing it again on re-release). Cotton’s a pulp writer come to Vienna looking for old friend Harry Lime (Welles) but hears he’s dead, seemingly in an auto accident, yet Cotton suspects otherwise, especially given Harry’s underworld activities. As fabulous as are all the other elements of this film (won an Oscar for Black & White Cinematography) is Anton Karas’ great score, played in memorable fashion on the zither.
Saturday January 16, 2021
1:00 PM Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954) An injured, wheelchair-bound photographer (James Stewart) uses his telephoto lens to watch others in his apartment complex, thinks a man’s (Raymond Burr) murdered his wife so he gets a friend (Grace Kelly) to help him investigate. Widely regarded as one of Hitchcock’s best (despite its seeming-celebration of voyeurism, which earns it some criticism).
3:00 PM In the Heat of the Night (Norma Jewison, 1967) A rich industrialist builds a factory in Mississippi but is murdered; Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier), visiting the area, is arrested for being Black with a fat wallet until he’s identified as a top Philly cop so local chief Bill Gillespie asks him to stay, help with the investigation despite the racism Tibbs constantly faces. Won Oscars for Best Picture and Best Actor (Steiger) also Adapted Screenplay, Film Editing, Sound (nominated for 2 others).
5:00 PM The Searchers (John Ford, 1956) Widely-regarded as one of the best westerns ever as well as part of the long deconstruction of the genre, this focuses on a Civil War Rebel vet (John Wayne) with a hatred for Indians especially because they kidnapped his niece as a child, killed some other relatives; he’s on a quest to bring her home but adolescent Debbie (Natalie Wood) wants to stay with Chief Scar causing further trouble, intolerance, and deaths as neither side can tolerate each other.
Sunday January 17, 2021
12:30 PM A Streetcar Named Desire (Elia Kazan, 1951) From Tennessee Williams’ equally-searing play (it’s more brutal, as Hays Code-dominated films had to conform to “decency” standards), this masterpiece of interpersonal-brutality stars Marlon Brando in maybe his best role but the acting Oscars went to Vivien Leigh (Actress), Karl Malden (Supporting Actor), and Kim Hunter (Supporting Actress). “Stella!”—what more can I say? Even with the censorship, this is an all-time filmic triumph.
Monday January 18, 2021
1:00 AM Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Pedro Almodóvar, 1988) This is the film that brought the director international fame beyond his native Spain. A TV actor (Carmen Maura) is upset because her lover’s (Fernando Guillén) left her, then meets his son and fiancée, followed by the other woman accidently drinking gazpacho spiked with sleeping pills. Hilarious chaos ensues including all sorts of mix-ups plus impending danger from an Arab terrorist. Won many awards.
If you’d like your own PDF of ratings/summaries of this week's reviews, suggestions for TCM cablecasts, links to Two Guys info click this link to access then save, print, or whatever you need.
Other Cinema-Related Stuff: Only 1 extra this week: (1) Netflix will release new films on a weekly basis in 2021. For now, I’ll close out this section with Joni Mitchell’s "Big Yellow Taxi" (from her 1970 Ladies of the Canyon album)—because “You don’t know what you’ve got ‘till it’s gone”—and a reminder that you can search streaming/rental/purchase movie options at JustWatch.
Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:
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Here’s more information about Pieces of a Woman:
https://www.netflix.com/title/81128745
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVM1J5RfG1c (20:55 interview with director Kornél Mundruzcó, screenwriter Kata Wéber, and actors Vanessa Kirby, Ellen Burstyn)
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/pieces_of_a_woman
https://www.metacritic.com/movie/pieces-of-a-woman
Here’s more information about Standing Up, Falling Down:
https://shoutstudios.shoutfactory.com/standing-up-falling-down/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbtGLeCruCw (33:20 interview with director Matt Ratner
and actor Ben Schwartz)
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/standing_up_falling_down
https://www.metacritic.com/movie/standing-up-falling-down
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If you’d rather contact Ken directly rather than leaving a comment here please use my email address of kenburke409@gmail.com—type it directly if the link doesn’t work. (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-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 20th 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 (quite an eternal while, in fact). 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.
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