Cineplexus

2 Movies About Young Francophile Girls Coming of Age

Okay, I'm not really going to go there. But the last two movies I saw – Youth in Revolt and An Education had some pretty odd things in common. Each featured a star-crossed couple much to wise and cultured for the world around them. Each couple contained a young woman obsessed with all things French, and a male counterpart eager to make her Parisian dreams come true.

Surprisingly enough, these movies have these key points in common and virtually NOTHING else. The former is modern love story, a quirky, tongue-in-cheek adaptation of a quirky, tongue-in-cheek book. The latter is an elegant story of the dubious appeal of the lush life, set in the 1950s and based on a true story. The tone of the two films could hardly be more different. So I will review them separately, later this weekend. I just couldn't resist making my parallel observation. It's a weakness.

500 Days of Summer ★★★★½

From the very start, 500 Days of Summer asserts that it is going to be different from other movies. It has a quirky, ironic voice-over by an omniscient narrator, an unuaual dedication, a decidedly unorthodox timeline. And, it states, it is not a love story.

Jumping around from the ending to the middle to the beginning and back again, the film tells the story of somewhat starcrossed couple Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Summer (Zooey Deschanel). Breaking the traditional gender roles (as promised), Tom is a born romantic, looking for his perfect match, and taking the whole search very seriously, while Summer is somewhat afraid of commitment, obsessed with her own independence.

500 Days of Summer is definitely not a "chick flick", but I found myself warmly relating to Tom's character, both his sensibilities and his dilemmas. There's a wonderful chemistry between Gordon-Levitt and Deschanel, who both do the film an amazing service as tremendous, recognizable-but-indie actors. Their endearing take on two very realistic characters combines with an offbeat sensibility that pervades the whole movie (there's a post-coital musical number, for example) to create a finished product that's captivating, hilarious, and, above all, totally orginal.

Ghost Town ★★★½

Seriously? Another movie about a mortal who can see dead people? Great. Add it to the list. After all, what actor could possibly manage to make such a hackneyed premise remotely enjoyable?

Oh. Right. Ricky Gervais.

If I'd said I was looking forward to seeing Ghost Town in the hours before I arrived at the theater, I would have meant it in the sense that I enjoy attending the cinema, regardless of how silly the film I'm seeing may be. There was just one aspect of the movie, which is about a man who dies temporarily during routine surgery and is then able to converse with the dead, that appealed to me: its star.

Mr. Gervais more than manages to bring this film up above my (admittedly low) expectations. In fact, his unfailingly dry humor manages to turn a romantic comedy about ghosts into a frequently funny joke at the expense of his jerkwad character, Bertram Pincus, who is desperately in need of reform. That reform comes in the form of a sleazy adulterer (Frank Herlihy, played by Kinnear) who happens to be dead. Once he realizes Pincus can see him, Frank uses his wheeler-dealer skills to convince Pincus that he must convince Herlihy's ex-wife not to remarry. Yeah, it sounds complicated, but it's not. Except for the ghosts. That part I can't explain.

It seems that Gervais's secret – play a jerk, make the audience love him anyway, and make as many self-deprecating jokes as possible – is a winning one. While co-stars Kinnear (ghost-husband instigator) and Téa Leoni (alive-wife love interest) serve their purpose in Ghost Town,  it is Gervais who takes the film from passable to genuinely enjoyable.

But it's still about seeing dead people. Give me a break.

Once ★★★★

(Orginally reviewed June 2007)
d. John Carney.

The movie musical. It is a creature that I've always loved, but whether it's a stalwart classic (The Sound of Music) or a daring rock opera (Tommy), musicals always have one thing in common: when the characters' mouths open and that first song starts coming out, your brain has to high-tail itself to fantasy land, or you'll never be able to get over how bizarre the prospect of a singing, dancing, Universe really is. One might say it's Hollywood's oldest magic spell: an entire genre that viewers flock to not just in spite of its impossibility, but because of it.

Hollywood, it would seem, has never met the director, cast, and crew of Once.

From main character's first street performance as the movie opens to the magical recording session that is the movie's climax, not a note of Once's music - which incidentally, is truly stunning - seems impossible or ingenuous. It might be a cinematic miracle.

Spanning the first few days after its two main characters meet, the film watches an unnamed man and woman in Dublin, Ireland as they begin to unlock one another's immense potential. The pair is played by real-life friends and musicians Glen Hansard (of Irish band The Frames) and Markéta Irglová, and is done so with an unassuming simplicity that is nearly impossible for professional actors to achieve.

The story of Once's protagonists is at once simple and complex. Their romance is ambiguous, their careers are mundane (he's a vacuum repairman at his father's shop, she does odd jobs). They meet in the simplest way possible, when she sees him singing and playing his guitar for passing change on the street. Underneath every conversation and situation the film depicts, however, looms a fuzzy pathos that is never quite spelled out by either character. Never, that is, except in song. It sounds cheesy, but seriously, it is really, really not.

It is difficult to explain the sensation that came over me when I realized how good this music really was, but I can tell you exactly at what point it hit me. When the woman reveals to the man that she plays the piano, she entices him to join her at a local music shop where she is allowed to practice on the instruments on display. After quickly showing her the basic melody of a song he's written, the two start playing and singing together. It is nothing short of tearjerking. In fact, even as I write this, all I can think about is going back to the theater so I can experience the moment again. As the film goes on, we have the delightful experience of watching the faces of several other listeners who are experiencing this same realization, that this music is mindbendingly good. In the lyrics and chords is the story of two people's desperation and pain, but neither character will reveal this acute angst in any way other than music. In real life, I might find that unhealhty, but as an audience member, I'm pretty pleased with this arrangement.

There are elements of Once that are confusing and maybe a bit frustrating. Nothing is black and white, nowhere the characters go is particularly thrilling, and sometimes we're not totally sure why they're their. The hand-held camera is sometimes jerky or sporadic. But all of these things add up to a movie that is not just the most realistic musical ever, but possibly the most realistic love story ever filmed. Really, what in life is black and white? What relationship isn't ambiguous? In real life, there's no such thing as a happy ending, because the only ending we get is the Big One. It's crazy, but by breaking every rule in the cinematic playbook, Once is able to say much more about life and love than any amount of narration, budget, or big-name talent in recent memory has been able to.

Watch out, Hollywood. Your magic spell might be losing its effect.