Capone's Art-House Round-Up with THE HOMESMAN, FORCE MAJEURE, NATIONAL GALLERY, AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL 3, and MISS MEADOWS!!!

Hey, folks. Capone in Chicago here, with a few films that are making their way into art houses or coming out in limited release around America this week (maybe even taking up one whole screen at a multiplex near you). Do your part to support these films, or at least the good ones…


THE HOMESMAN
Two thoughts were going through my head concurrently while watching the second film directed by the great actor Tommy Lee Jones (after THE ETHREE BURIALS OF MELQUIADES ESTRADA): "How the hell did this film get made?" and "Thank god it did." In this work set along the fringes of the American frontier, THE HOMESMAN (in which Jones also stars and co-wrote) actually begins as the story of Mary Bee Cuddy (Hilary Swank), a single, independent woman (most men call her "bossy") living alone in the Nebraska Territory but building up a solid bit of money on her stretch of land and somewhat eager to find a man who will marry her in her advanced age.

Mary is also a church-going woman who has agreed to transport three mentally ill women (Grace Gummer, Miranda Otto, Sonja Richter) in her community across a dangerous stretch of the country to Iowa, where a minister and his wife (Meryl Streep) plan to care for the poor unfortunates who have all been driven varying degrees of insane by very nature of the way they must live. Jones provides a few choice, rather unsavory scenes showing examples of the dangerous behavior these women have displayed, and maybe all they really need is to get the hell out of the frontier.

Just as she's beginning her trip, Mary stumbles upon George Briggs (Jones), a drifter who seems to go from empty house to empty house seeking shelter and anything he can steal to survive. Mary takes pity on him and offers her a great deal of money to be her escort. With the three patients in a fortified, prison-like wagon, the five head off east into the not-so-great unknown. The threats are many and quite real, and Jones is well aware of every trick in the book as to how they must be dealt with.

At its core, THE HOMESMAN is a road film with a few extra colorful characters to make the trip just a little more interesting. Jones has pretty much cornered the market on his brand of ornery, and he has it turned all the way up to play Briggs. He's also clearly a stickler for authenticity of both the setting and the means at their disposal in terms of what resources would be available to them as they traveled on their five- to six-week journey during a nasty cold snap. He's also perfectly captured just how poorly women of the time (especially unmarried ones) were regarded by most men. Thankfully, the film does not turn into a love story, which does not mean that Briggs and Mary don't bond in other ways along the way.

It seems like every day of the trip offers up some new obstacle or problem. The three women seem to take turns causing problems ranging from not eating to running away to biting and just being generally disruptive. Add to that roving bands of Native American, bandits, the aforementioned brutal weather and the constant threat of starvation, and you've got a heck of a vacation. The film takes a genuinely unexpected turn in its final third (which I won't ruin for you), and what follows that singular moment elevates the story and the entire film in ways I truly did not see coming.

I feel like some people don't like Hilary Swank as a rule, probably because it seems somehow unfair that she won two Best Actress Oscars (richly deserved for BOYS DON’T CRY and MILLION DOLLAR BABY) so early in her career. Or maybe it's because the films she made in between her celebrated roles were such crap. But THE HOMESMAN offers a performance from Swank that is among her finest. In a single moment, she is able to go from tough to demure to "bossy" to completely vulnerable. It's a measured and beautifully nuanced effort that reminds us some accolades are wholly earned and warranted.

Jones' direction is not surprisingly subtle and simple, but his preference for stark vistas and harsh lands taking their toll on human beings packs a nasty wallop. You feel every step these travelers take, the chill in their bones belongs to you as well, and at times you even fully enter the minds of these poor women driven to insanity by cruel lands, cruel men and a cruel God. I fully acknowledge that those of you who like to spend your hard-earned cash on films that make you feel good might not be drawn to THE HOMESMAN, but if you that rare breed that just plain old likes well-made films that stray (literally and figuratively) from the well-worn path of movie making, you may have reached your destination.


FORCE MAJEURE
Way too many people get bent out of shape about films that are all over the place in terms of tone. You need to get over that shit right now. Tonal shifts can take an average film and make it more interesting, or take something interesting and make it something brilliant. Case in point, FORCE MAJEURE, Sweden's entry for an Best Foreign Language Film Oscar and the winner of the Jury Prize in Un Certain Regard at Cannes earlier this year. Writer-director Rubin Östlund (Play) has fashioned a family drama that is also wickedly—bordering on uncomfortably—funny at the expense of what starts out as a fairly loving marriage.

Married couple Tomas (Johannes Bah Kuhnke) and Ebba (Lisa Loven Kongsli) and their two young children are on a winter holiday in the French Alps, where a whole lot of skiing is the order of the day. In order to cut down on the risk of avalanches, the facility has a series of controlled avalanches throughout each day, one of which occurs while this picture-perfect Swedish family is sitting on a terrance for lunch. When it appears a wall of snow is about to wipe out everyone at the restaurant, Tomas grabs his phone and runs, leaving the missus and kiddies behind. And for the rest of the film, Ebba needles Tomas about his actions, which he at first denies even happened, but then he slowly begins to realize that his cowardly, selfish actions have triggered an avalanche in his marriage from which the family may not survive.

So how is this a comedy? Well, the occasions the Ebba chooses to bring up the incident are quite inappropriate—among dinner or drinks with newfound acquaintances. Often, these strangers react in ways that actually make the situation worse, if that's possible. Even the children sense that their father is losing his grip on being the head of the household. The truth is that the incident was an instinctual blunder, but it's certainly not worth the torture Ebba is putting her husband through, and there's something of a postscript to the film involving the bus ride back down the mountain at the end of the vacation that seems to confirm that her response to his misdeed rapidly descended into an overreaction. But my firm belief is that who you side with in this battle will depend on what you bring in with you into the film and the opinion you hold about the sociology of sex roles in a relationship.

The term "force majeure" is actually a legal expression that essentially means "an act of God" that prevents one or both parties from fulfilling their obligations, so you have some sense of how perfect the title of this film is. Should we be judged by our actions in times of crisis or panic? Or are those the perfect times to judge a person's true character? FORCE MAJEURE, the film, gives us no easy answers, but provides us with a eye-opening account of how one couple manages to work through such a flash crisis of confidence and attempt to restore faith in what they've built. I wouldn't go so far as to call it inspirational, but it is gripping viewing nonetheless.


AMERICAN THE BEAUTIFUL: THE SEXUALIZATION OF OUR YOUTH
Writer-director-producer Darryl Roberts has often been criticized about his now-three-part AMERICAN THE BEAUTIFUL documentary series for being loose on structure, and I'm not here to say those observations are wrong. But as a great lover of the art form, I actually get a kick out of docs that let the subject lead us through the narrative rather than the filmmaker forcing us down a particular, unwavering path. For example, 2003's CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS began life as a documentary short about birthday party clowns and turned into one of the greatest docs of the last 20 years. It's clear that Roberts enters into each new AMERICAN THE BEAUTIFUL film with a rough idea of avenues he'd like to pursue, but he always leaves a side door open for unexpected journeys, sometimes down some rather unsavory roads.

After a first film about this country's obsessions with beauty and celebrity founded on looks, and a second film that zeroed in on the nation's obsession with weight and dangerous dieting practices, Roberts is entering the sordid land of the way everyone from parents to big business to the media has found way to sexualize underage children in everything from beauty pageants to ad campaigns. And while the director (who also acts as narrator and on-screen interviewer) goes through the statistics on how men view and treat women, reports from psychologists, and testimonials from young men who talk about being exposed to porn in their pre-teen years, it's the unexpected moments in this third AMERICAN THE BEAUTIFUL film that are the best.

Roberts has two female interns working for him. One is so angered by the ad campaigns of Abercrombie and Fitch and the hurtful words from the company's CEO about only "cool kids" should wear their clothes that she organized a protest against the company, charging them with bullying. The company's response to her might have been a PR ploy, but it also happened to be a genuinely helpful anti-bullying tool. Roberts' other intern left the production offices earlier than expected for reasons I won't say, but it is a prime example that sexual harassment can rear its ugly head under any roof.

Roberts ties the subjects of sexual harassment, misogyny, child sexualization, etc., together under a massive umbrella of bad behaviors stemming from a systemic immersion at a young age in images and messages from all areas of mass and social media that say these behaviors are the norm. And while this isn't exactly new ground being broken, these new examples of them in the film are often shocking. At worst, this third (and supposedly final, for now) chapter of the AMERICAN THE BEAUTIFUL is a messy account of real behaviors; at best, it's a conversation starter of the highest order about some very important and disturbing subjects. If you feel like being challenged, you may want to take a crack at this though-provoking doc.


NATIONAL GALLERY
People sometimes treat watching one of director Frederick Wiseman's documentaries like it's some kind of endurance test. His films often run upwards of three hours, and you're actually forced to pay attention because he doesn't use title cards, narrators, interviews, or anything conventional that we're used to being spoon fed in order to understand the subject. Instead, Wiseman approximates life. More specifically, he drops us fly-on-the-wall style into a place, allows us to inhabit the space in its every aspect, and by the end of the extended running time, after watching and listening to people who actually do live and work in said location, you feel like you do as well.

On the surface, Wiseman's process probably seems almost too simple to be considered great art. In fact, it's exceedingly tough to select just the right moments to string together to approximate a complete experience. His latest work, NATIONAL GALLERY, allows us to feel like we work in London's famed museum, stocked with 2400 paintings from the last 700-800 years. In addition to the more obvious opportunity of listening in on various tour guides and art experts talking to groups about individual paintings or artists, Wiseman allows us to observe and hear about art preservation, education (a pair of drawing classes, complete with nude models, are actually quite amusing), heritage, research and conservation. From staff meetings discussing budgets to a fantastic lesson in the science of restoring a Rembrandt, every corner of that gallery is visited.

And when all is said and done, there are overall themes that emerge, as well as "characters" who we see in various settings. The struggle of any museum of the size and prestige of the National Gallery is to make the old masters relevant to the lives of modern audiences, while not aiming to appeal to the "lowest-common denominator," as one administrator points out. At the same time, the thing that always connects the public (whether day-to-day visitors or high-end financial supporters on a private preview tour) with the art are the stories — background on the artist and the times in which he/she lived and created; the myth, fable or historical event being portrayed in the painting itself; or even the tale of how the piece was acquired by the gallery in the first place.

And much like any place your may frequent in your own life, you start to single out favorites, whether they be tour guides or wings of the gallery or special exhibits or even patrons. Wiseman is clearly enamored with the collection in the National Gallery and shoots each piece of art lovingly, holding each image long enough for our eyes to search the painting for interesting details. NATIONAL GALLERY is one of the director's better recent works simply because it feels like it's a location he's moved by, rather than just one he's attempting to capture for an audience's benefit. As with nearly all of Wiseman's films, this one is well worth seeking out. But his passion for the subject makes it all the more vital to his body of work.


MISS MEADOWS
I'm not a fan of characters who act overly prim and proper for comedic effect; it feels condescending and so rarely works as a device. In the end, it usually results in something that appears to be overacting, when it's really an issue of being overwritten and not at all funny, primarily because people like that don't live and function in the real world. That being said, I'd never seen Katie Holmes try on such a persona before Miss Meadows, about a woman who places manners above all things, and refusal to do the same could lead to your death.

We don't know much about Miss Meadows for quite some time in the film (I just realized that I don't think we ever learn her first name). She's carries a small gun in her purse, she dresses a little too stylishly for both the town she has recently moved to and her job as a substitute elementary school teacher. Initially we can almost forgive her vigilante-style killings because these people are somehow a threat, but at one point, I'm pretty sure she kills the innocent teacher she's filling in for just to get her job permanently. She wears taps on her shoes all the time, and seems unusually attached to her mother (Jean Smart), whom she talks with on the phone with an alarming regularity. Holmes effectively sells this character by not just being bubbly, pretty, sweet and well-mannered, but by also giving us a fully functional human being, even when her etiquette is under constant attack.

More importantly, Holmes is smart enough to play Miss Meadows with her instability peaking through her lace-curtained facade. She's a righter of wrong, so it makes sense that she takes a romantic interest in the local sheriff (James Badge Dale), who suspects fairly early in their relationship that something is not quite right with his lady love. Writer-director Karen Leigh Hopkins (best known as the writer of works such as WELCOME HOME, ROXY CARMICHAEL, STEPMOM, and BECAUSE I SAID SO) presents the sheriff with a moral dilemma: he suspects that Miss Meadows is a killer of bad people, but he also is in love with her (coupled with the fact that he knocks her up almost as soon as they start sleeping together).

MISS MEADOWS is a bit too deliberately quirky and uneven to pass as sophisticated satire or a successful dark comedy, but there are hints of something great, both in Holmes' carefully realized acting and the pained way she attempts to withdraw from her path of death for the love of someone a bit more stabilizing than other influences in her life. It's good to see Holmes back on her game (nope, sorry, her small uninspired role in THE GIVER didn't quite do it for me), and I hope it's a sign of things to come from her. She displays a range that goes from delicate to deadly in a flash, and does so in a convincing way in the context of this admittedly outlandish story. I wouldn't cross state lines to seek out a theater playing MISS MEADOWS, but if there's one near you, it's worth a look.

-- Steve Prokopy
"Capone"
capone@aintitcool.com
Follow Me On Twitter