Capone's Art-House Round-Up with GRANDMA, LISTEN TO ME MARLON, LEARNING TO DRIVE and SHE'S FUNNY THAT WAY!!!

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…


GRANDMA
Writer-director Paul Weitz's (ABOUT A BOY, AMERICAN PIE) latest, GRANDMA, is a deceptively simple story about a complicated woman. The film opens engagingly with a lovers' spat that turns into an ugly breakup between Elle Reid (Lily Tomlin) and her girlfriend Olivia (Judy Greer), where hurtful insults are flung by Elle in an effort to make this kind woman stop loving her. Slowly over the course of the film, small elements of Elle's life are revealed, not through clumsy exposition, but from confrontations much like the one in the opening. But Elle comes by her anger honestly.

Not long after this awful screaming match, Elle's granddaughter Sage (Julia Garner of MARTHA, MARCY, MAY, MARLENE; WE ARE WHAT WE ARE) arrives at her door in a mild panic. She's pregnant, and her no-good boyfriend has bailed on giving her money for an abortion, which she is scheduled to have at the end of the same day. As a result, the girl needs money, which her grandmother is fresh out of, having recently paid off all her credit card debt with her last dollar and subsequently cut up the cards and turned them into wind chimes. So the bulk of the film is watching this odd couple drive from old friend to old friend in search of cash, but in the process, we get a tour of Elle's sordid, sometimes painful past.

Elle's life tribulations are many, but she also seems to come by her bitterness organically. Her long-time partner died not long ago, and as we learn through the course of this mini-road trip, she has people in her life that she counts on as friends, adversaries and both. There are some fun moments with characters played by Nat Wolff (as Sage's ne'er do well asshole of a boyfriend), Laverne Cox and the late, great Elizabeth Peña, and during each exchange we learn a little bit more about Elle's life and abrasive, sometimes explosive personality. Eventually, the pair run out of options and must go to Elle's estranged daughter (Sage's mom) Judy, played by Marcia Gay Harden, a stern, successful business woman, who has no idea that her daughter is pregnant until the two are at her office door with hands out.

Perhaps the most emotionally jarring moment of GRANDMA comes when Elle and Sage show up at the home of the mysterious Karl (Sam Elliott), who has an ancient connection with Elle that I won't ruin here, but he's willing to help, until he finds out what the money is for. He's not a stern pro-lifer, but his reasons make sense. For a film structured around an abortion that may or may not actually happen, GRANDMA is remarkably non-judgmental about that element of its story. Elle recalls a time when she was much younger and legal abortions were much more difficult to obtain. And while she makes a few jokes at her pregnant granddaughter's expense, her support and protective nature are always in the foreground.

GRANDMA is a wonderful exercise in the slow character reveal. Weitz assumes that the audiences watching his film have brains, so he doesn't feel the need to spell everything out regarding Elle's inner workings and past, but it's all there in the fabric of the movie, waiting for us to pull at the threads and see what is underneath. It's a pleasure, rather than a burden, to have to work a little to understand Elle, much as it would be if you were making an actual friend who may be a little tough to love sometimes. Thankfully, Greer's Olivia dips in and out of the story as it progresses, making it much easier for us to see what is in Elle that is worth holding onto and caring about. The film is a testament to family, and it may even inspire you to take stock in your own damaged relationships and consider whether they are beyond saving. It's a remarkable little film about some deeply powerful emotions and souls.


LISTEN TO ME MARLON
With no additional narration or interviews and only a single title card at the beginning of the film explaining that the late actor Marlon Brando left behind hundreds of hours of taped commentary that he recorded throughout his life, the documentary LISTEN TO ME MARLON relies entirely on Brando's own words to tell his complicated story of being a devastatingly handsome matinee idol, activist, father and one of the most enigmatic celebrities in history. Directed by documentarian Stevan Riley, the resulting film feels like a tour of Brando's life in pictures, combined with the monologue going through his head while he was experiencing these events. At times, it resembles a therapy session or confession.

The movie feels comprehensive, moving from Brando's childhood and distanced relationships with his brutish father and alcoholic mother, to his early years as a stage actor, scoring his big break with the Broadway run of “A Streetcar Named Desire,” followed by the film version. He walks us through acting classes with Stella Adler, teaching him Method acting (these moments are supplemented with archival interviews with Adler on various talk shows of the time). It's clear that she saw something special in him, and he adored the mothering attention she gave him when his own mother was essentially useless in his life.

The tapes also reveal Brando's habits—he was a fan of self-hypnosis in an effort to decompress, and, later in life, to lose weight. The tapes reveal a man who grew tired of the commerce of the movie-making industry (which came to a head while shooting 1962's MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY), and before long Brando was labelled a "difficult" actor to work with. He turned his attention to the Civil Rights movement and later Native American rights, and he was more than happy to march, protest and otherwise lend his name and voice to these causes, no matter the impact on his career.

Naturally the film covers the greatest hits package, including GUYS AND DOLLS, THE GODFATHER, APOCALYPSE NOW, LAST TANGO IN PARIS, SUPERMAN and more. The insight into Brando's opinions on these works is endlessly fascinating and sometimes quite amusing. Perhaps the most eerie aspect to hearing Brando's voice again is that the filmmakers also have access to digital facial scans the actor did in the later part of his life. By scanning his face in different, pre-determined expressions, we're able to see a facsimile of Brando's face saying the recorded words. It's not exactly lifelike, but it adds something of substance to the tapes that I would not have anticipated.

LISTEN TO ME MARLON is also a tragic account of Brando's children, two of whom died while he was alive, and one was sent to prison for killing his sister's supposedly abusive boyfriend. The court case that followed forced Brando to come out of the shadows of his secluded life and into the spotlight in ways that were humiliating and painful; in his testimony, he often blamed himself for the killing because he wasn't a good father.

The documentary pulls back a bit of the mystery surrounding Brando and does so respectfully, with just the right amount of aggrandizing. The filmmakers take a brief moment to celebrate some of Brando's less-wise role choices in films, but nothing about it feels exploitative. It's a unique perspective—sometimes feeling as if we're hearing things we ought not—on someone of great acting stature, and it seems fitting that Brando gets the last word on every aspect of his life through this film.


LEARNING TO DRIVE
This small film from director Isabel Coixet (MY LIFE WITHOUT ME) is anchored by two gifted performers playing New Yorkers whose lives would likely never have crossed were it not for the fact that both needed help from the other at this exact moment. In LEARNING TO DRIVE, Ben Kingsley plays Darwan, a Sikh Indian and former university professor who fled his country decades earlier to America, where he is now a cab driver and patient driving instructor. While assuming his cabbie guise, he meets Wendy (Patricia Clarkson), whose long-time husband is actively in the process of breaking up with her for a younger woman.

Since her husband drove everywhere, she never learned to do so, and she asks Darwan for lessons so that she can visit her grown daughter Tasha (Grace Gummer) at a collective farm where she lives and works. She is genuinely petrified of driving, so Darwan must first free her of her anxiety and help her stay focused and observant so she can drive out all other distractions. She's a terrible student, but he's a brilliant instructor, and over the course of their lessons, they two find a kind of serenity.

In a lesser, more sentimental work, Darwan and Wendy would have introduced the other to their individual cultures and lives, but this relationship isn't about that. Their friendship exists because they lead separate lives that meet in this one location for this one purpose. When they accidentally, momentarily slip into each other's worlds, anxiety sets in. Darwan's largest concern is that his arranged-marriage wife is due to arrive, and he has no idea how to talk to a woman, so he makes the earth-shattering decision to ask his new friend—the personification of the modern, New York sophisticate—what he can do to impress his soon-to-be wife (Sarita Choudhury).

Clarkson and Kingsley (who worked together before with director Coixet in ELEGY) are two of the finest working actors around. They make it look easy, when it's clear that striking this balance between drama and the occasional humorous moments is crucial to the success of the film. Both of these characters have had to restart their lives under very different conditions, but the end result is surprisingly similar—emotional trauma, upheaval, and reinventing themselves under these new circumstances. Theirs are remarkably tragic stories, couched in a hopeful, uplifting work (written by Sarah Kernochan) that offers us a chance to see what tremendous actors can do with an already worthy script. Film fans should note that Martin Scorsese's long-time editor Thelma Schoonmaker cut this film as well, and the results in a couple of key moments are undeniable.


SHE’S FUNNY THAT WAY
Owen Wilson is having a really rough time at the movies these days. NO ESCAPE is decidedly rough around the edges; the new Jared Hess film Masterminds (in which Wilson stars) has had its release date postponed indefinitely due to the distributor having major financial issues; and the long-delayed and retitled SHE’S FUNNY THAT WAY from director/co-writer Peter Bogdanovich (THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, THE CAT’S MEOW) is a sloppy, unfunny mess. ZOOLANDER 2 cannot get here fast enough. I'll put it to you this way: if all you care about is seeing one famous face after another parade across the screen, you'll be in your own private version of heaven. Otherwise, you're in for a world of hurt.

Set in the world of the New York theater scene, SHE’S FUNNY THAT WAY concerns prostitute-turned-actress Isabella Finkelstein (hooker name: Glow-stick, because that's sexy), played by the usually reliable Imogen Poots, sporting a Brooklyn accent that practically smothers her. While in New York to cast his new play, married director Arnold Albertson (Wilson) is staying in a hotel alone, so he does what any self-respecting, virile male would do and hires a call girl—Glow—for the one night he's away from his actress wife (Kathryn Hahn). As a parting gift to his favorite hooker, he gives her $30,000 to get her life on track so she can pursue her acting dreams. Plus she gets an inspirational pep talk from Arnold that sets her on a path to a better life.

It doesn't take us long to discover that Arnold has done this before, but he's some sort of magic man, since every former prostitute he's helped out in this way has gone on to bigger and better things. Not surprisingly, since there are apparently only about a dozen residents of this version of New York City, Isabella's first post-Arnold audition is for his play, written by the great Joshua Fleet (Will Forte) who just happens to be dating angry psycho-analyst Jane (Jennifer Aniston), who hates every one of her patients, especially an elderly judge (Austin Pendleton) suffering from a destructive obsession with, you guessed it, Isabella. Seriously, there is one shrink and one hooker in the whole city.

Does that cover all of the celebrities with roles or cameos in SHE’S FUNNY THAT WAY? Not even close. But hopefully you get a sense that this film feels like free-for-all, tossing in famous faces in hopes that someone will be funny or at least interesting. The screenplay (from the director and Louise Stratten) isn't so much a story, as it is a series of coincidences, and it's easy to lose interest in a hurry. I spent most of my time watching this saying to myself, "Hey, there's Michael Shannon as a Macy's security guard," or "Hey, Cybil Shepherd [as Isabella's mother] was in THE LAST PICTURE SHOW," or "Christ, Richard Lewis looks like hell," or "I've really missed Illeana Douglas as a character actor," or "Quentin Tarantino is in this thing?"

Bogdanovich has made himself available to younger filmmakers for advice and mentoring over the years for such folks as Tarantino, Noah Baumbach and Wes Anderson (the latter two are listed as producers on the film), but perhaps it's Bogdanovich who should have sought advice from his younger counterparts. It's not that the film feels old-fashioned (his previous film, THE CAT’S MEOW, certainly did, and it's wonderful), but it does feel agonizingly out of touch with anything resembling humor or timing or whimsy. Poots won me over with her sincerity as Isabella, but she tends to have that effect on me, and the fact that nothing else about the film appealed to me or felt remotely realistic makes me think I'm probably making excuses for her being in this in the first place. SHE’S FUNNY THAT WAY is a genuinely unbearable. Still, if you're an Owen Wilson (or more likely a Tarantino) completist, you better get your tickets now.

-- Steve Prokopy
"Capone"
capone@aintitcool.com
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