Capone's Art-House Round-Up with INTO THE FOREST, MICROBE & GASOLINE, and TALLULAH!!!

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…


INTO THE FOREST
Based on the novel by Jean Hegland and adapted by director Patricia Rozema (who helmed the under-appreciated 1999 MANSFIELD PARK, and wrote the adaptation of HBO’s GREY GARDENS), INTO THE FOREST covers a lot of ground with only a few key players. In a way, it’s science fiction or perhaps it’s just another version of the present. A massive power outage occurs, leaving two sisters, Nell (Ellen Page) and Eva (Evan Rachel Wood), and their father (Callum Keith Rennie) stranded in their fairly well supplied and stocked country home in the woods of Northern California.

People in the closest town are scrambling for answers, but it becomes clear that this is a much larger problem then just this community and the “Why?” might be the real question that needs answering. Still in school, Nell is just beginning a relationship with a nice young man, Eli (Max Minghella), while Eva is rehearsing for a big dance audition that will never happen. Although they are isolated, both young women are still technology-dependent, so when it’s clear that the power is going to be out for quite a while—or permanently—they find it difficult to scale back and function without gadgets.

At a certain point, Into the Forest becomes about just the two women, who are close enough in age to have grown up best friends, but far enough apart to still want different things out of this new reality. Stocked with a fairly healthy supply of gasoline, the girls have a massive disconnect when one of them wants to use a sizable portion of it to power generators to do something frivolous, while the other rejects the idea as insane. Fights eventually lead to one of them almost leaving the other one behind, and there’s something comforting about the idea of the two of them being together, rationing food and other supplies, and working together as a family unit that pushes the film forward.

Rozema uses the house as a metaphor for the world outside, from which the girls stay mostly separated, although there is a most unwelcome visitor at one point. As weeks turn into months in this home, the woods finds a way of overtaking the house, causing damage to the framework, roof and just about anywhere else vegetation, water and wildlife might invade. The deterioration of the home seems to mirror both the psyches of the women and, more than likely, whatever is left holding the nation together (although we find out very little about the world outside after a certain point)

Page (also a producer on the film) and Wood are quite extraordinary as these sisters. There’s a genuine closeness that is so strong that it covers up some of the INTO THE FOREST’s shortcomings. What Nell and Eva haven’t already learned from their resourceful father about surviving without all the modern conveniences, they teach themselves eventually, and it’s an inspiring process that doesn’t involve driving around with shotguns and stealing resources from other people. I’ll admit, I’d expected the living-in-nature part of this story to be more of a plot point/threat, but nature is decidedly gentle with these characters for most of the film; it’s the other human characters that pose the greatest danger.

Telling an end-of-the-civilized world story from the perspective of two young women living (by choice) alone and isolated is not inherently cinematic, and there are times when director Rozema struggles to find the deeper meaning of this tale. But the portions of INTO THE FOREST that are about the fractured state of the modern American family, and the desperate lengths some might go to shore up those bonds, those elements work just great here. Between those messages and the two great lead performances, there’s a great deal to admire about this movie.


MICROBE & GASOLINE
Film and music video innovator writer-director Michel Gondry is known for his visually resplendent and ultra-creative assaults on reality as we know it with such films as ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND, BE KIND REWIND, and MOOD INDIGO, but with this latest French feature, MICROBE & GASOLINE, Gondry is approaching what is clearly a very personal story about an awkward young boy named Daniel (nicknamed Microbe because he’s small for his age, and played by Ange Dargent) and his friendship with fellow outcast Theo (nicknamed Gasoline because he often smells like gas from working on his father’s car, and played by Théophile Baquet). Both boys are inventive, handy with machines, and full of great ideas about how to escape a world that bullies and generally misunderstands them at every turn.

Part buddy film, part road-trip movie, MICROBE & GASOLINE, paints two distinct portraits of the two leads before pushing them together. Microbe is shy and doesn’t have any friends, except maybe a cute girl he has a crush on, Laura (Diane Besnier), who is one of the few students at his school who will talk to him. His mother (Audrey Tautou) is somehow both overbearing and standoffish when it comes to discipline. Gasoline, on the other hand, has parents who think he’s an irresponsible idiot, and if they care for him in any way, they do a great job hiding it from him. The plan the two boys cook up involves building a glorified go-cart that resembles a small house. That way, if a police car approaches them as they embark on running away from home, hey can pull the car over, disguise the wheels, and make it look like a quaint house in the country.

Running away and staying out of trouble both seem like impossible tasks for the kids, and eventually even they have a falling out, not long after declaring their best friend status. Director Gondry tells this charming and heartfelt story fairly straightforwardly, without his usual frills. Some of his flourishes pop up as the boys design the car (Microbe is also something of an artist) and concoct various sneaky means to disguise the fact that it’s a car, the filmmaker shows a great deal of confidence in his story and storytelling ability to keep the bells and whistles to a minimum.

MICROBE & GASOLINE can sometimes be as quirky as its lead characters, but it all adds to capture the desperate need the kids have to make a connection and find that one other person who understands a fraction of what they believe and how they want to run their lives. These two young actors (three, if you include the young lady playing Laura) are exceptional and find ways to be subtly different, to a degree that would be off-putting to those who don’t care to look closer. But to anyone paying attention, these unique individuals might be captivating.


TALLULAH
If you’re a parent, you might have some issues with the feature film debut from writer-director Sian Heder (a frequent writer for “Orange Is the New Black”). TALLULAH tells the story (and is the name) of a free-spirited young woman (Ellen Page) who lives in her barely functioning van with her boyfriend Nico (Evan Jonigkeit), who leaves her when she refuses to even consider stopping with the vagabond lifestyle, getting a job, and getting married. She threatens to ditch him, but he runs away before she has a chance, and she goes back to New York City, where they met, to try to find him.

Since Nico had talked about how much he was missing his mother Margo (Allison Janney), Tallulah starts with her apartment—if Nico isn’t there, maybe she can scam a few bucks off the mom. As part of her plan to get by day to day, Tallulah walks the halls of a nearby fancy hotel, looking for trays of room service food with a few morsels still left. She gets caught by a guest, Carolyn (Tammy Blanchard from The Invitation), who happens to be getting ready for a date with a man who isn’t her husband, and she mistakes Tallulah for a member of the hotel staff and asks if she would take care of her infant child while she runs off to possibly have her first affair.

This is where things get tricky. Although it wasn’t her original intent, Tallulah’s wild behavior (both before and after her date) leads her to believe that this baby is not safe with its mother, and she runs off with the baby, back to Margo’s apartment, where she claims the child is Margo’s grandchild. There’s a lot of wish fulfillment going on in TALLULAH. Margo is desperate to reconnect with her son, so she quickly embraces this baby as a member of the family. She’s also facing abandonment issues from all sides—her son leaving two years earlier, as well as her soon-to-be ex-husband (John Benjamin Hickey) coming out of the closet and moving in with his new lover (Zachary Quinto). So anyone who is willing to be dependent on Margo looks pretty good in her book right about now.

But there’s also the question of Tallulah’s history. Director Heder gives us next to nothing, so a great deal of reading between the lines is required. Her instinct to take the baby out of this unsafe and unhealthy environment is almost a knee-jerk reaction that might have been the result of a similar situation growing up. Tallulah also appears to have no impulse control—if she gets an idea in her head, she barely hesitates to carry it out, never considering the consequences. Her survival skills range from seeing an opportunity to snatch some money from a wallet left exposed or to swipe a baby. Uzo Aduba pops up as the pregnant Child Protective Services rep assigned to the case, working on it with a detective (David Zayas), with both looking at Carolyn for answers about why Tallulah might have taken the baby.

There are moments in TALLULAH when you almost forget that the baby has been taken and for a few fleeting instances, seeing Margo and Tallulah coming together to make a go at co-parenting is rather heartwarming. But it also points to something inside Tallulah that is severely broken. She has a loose grip on reality (she talks of driving to India with Nico early in the film), and the idea that she “rescued” this child (good intentions notwithstanding) snaps everyone back to reality something fierce as the film goes on. Page is so good here, you can almost forgive the fuzzy morality tale at the core of this movie. She effortlessly brings forth a young woman who is wise beyond her years, and she seems fine with the path that got her here, even if there were some nasty bumps in the road.

Heder doesn’t feel the need to spell out and highlight everybody’s shortcomings and defective parts. They’re clearly there but are rarely discussed, and that is so damn refreshing. TALLULAH isn’t going to sit well with some, maybe most, audiences, and that’s fine—not every film has to. Challenging pieces like this are meant to spark discussion, not necessarily about right and wrong, but about what drives a person to behave the way young Tallulah feels she must. Lines are deliberately ill-defined, as are most in the real world. And if you step into this world, prepare to possibly even dislike some of the lead characters. It’s more important that you understand them than like them anyway. Try this one on for size, and see how you like the fit.

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