Capone's Art-House Round-Up with THE 9TH LIFE OF LOUIS DRAX, THE HOLLARS, LITTLE MEN, and MIA MADRE!!!

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 9TH LIFE OF LOUIS DRAX
For the briefest of moments, I thought THE 9TH LIFE OF LOUIS DRAX was going to be a dark, modern fairy tale about a young boy (played with a blend of creepy and precocious by Aiden Longworth) who is prone to near-fatal accidents. Chronic bad luck causes the mishaps; good luck keeps him alive. But as the title indicates, young Louis’s good luck may have run out as his succession of bad luck culminates with a tumble off a cliff that leaves him in a coma. His mother, Natalie (Sarah Gadon, recently seen in INDIGNATION), and brain specialist, Dr. Pascal (50 SHADES OF GREY lead Jamie Dornan) look after the boy in the hospital.

In an effort to unlock the boy’s shutdown brain, Dr. Pascal ends up tapping into something that could be looked at as Louis’ extra sense, one that seems to mix (or confuse) fantasy and memory, and even sometimes bring the dark forces of his mind into the real world. When the accident becomes the center of a police investigation (led by the great Molly Parker), Louis’ fall looks more like he was pushed by his father (Aaron Paul), who has been missing since the event. At the helm of this mixed-tone mish-mash is French horror maestro Alexandre Aja (HIGH TENSION, MIRRORS, HORNS), working from a script by actor Max Minghella (whose late father, director Anthony Minghella, was in the early stages of adapting the novel by Liz Jensen when he died in 2008).

Trips into the boy’s brain have been attempted before by his former psychiatrist (Oliver Platt), who is not eager to recall the session with Dr. Pascal. More curious (for very different reason to the good doctor) is Natalie, who spends a great deal of time with him as they discuss Louis’ prognosis. Gadon takes on the look of a Hitchcock blonde here, complete with all of the underlying danger. Pascal is in a strained marriage, which may account for his being open to Gadon’s charms.

As the film takes us on a tour of Louis’ past, he becomes a more disturbing subject for the doctor, and it becomes clear that his mother is an enabler of the highest order. And if he was pushed from that cliff, was someone trying to kill Louis or protect others in the process? Aja’s blend of tones and genres might make your head spin as he goes from Grimm’s fairy tale to dark comedy to (largely bloodless) horror to police procedural, with a few other stops along the way. None of the characters is written deep enough for us to get a sense of what they were like before these events, so I never found myself caring much when someone became endangered, including Louis. On the plus side, THE 9TH LIFE OF LOUIS DRAX also has a terrific retro vibe to its look and plot machinations.

The film’s few truly scary moments seemed shoehorned in, as if Aja didn’t trust the plot to keep us interested. His instincts were correct, by the way, but that doesn’t make the scares are less cheap. If any of this sounds confused, then you have some idea of what it’s like to watch THE 9TH LIFE OF LOUIS DRAX is a collection of ideas thrown into a blender and made into a genre shake that is either missing a vital ingredient or simply has too many.


THE HOLLARS
When actor John Krasinski first tackled directing with the dark 2009 ensemble Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (based on a story collection by David Foster Wallace), the film felt like such a far cry from the types of film and television work he’d done up to that point (such as parts in films like THE HOLIDAY, LEATHERHEADS, LICENSE TO WED, IT'S COMPLICATED, and his best acting work in AWAY WE GO) that it may have startled some fans. For better or worse, his latest directing effort, THE HOLLARS, is exactly the kind of film you’d expect from the guy who played Jim on “The Office” for nine seasons.

At its core, the film is about a dysfunctional family from somewhere in the middle of America, somewhere where Krasinski’s character, John Hollar, escaped from years earlier to go to New York City to pursue his career as an artist. In those years, he hasn’t visited home and doesn’t call often enough, as far as anyone is concerned. He’s in the midst of a long-term relationship with Rebecca (Anna Kendrick), who just happens to be pregnant but whom he’s afraid to actually marry for who knows what reason. And in case you needed to ask, yes, he’s also afraid of becoming a daddy.

But John rushes home when he gets word that his mother Sally (the magnificent Margo Martindale) has collapsed and is in the hospital. At the hospital, John is reunited with his father (Richard Jenkins), who is almost paralyzed with worry, and brother Ron (Sharlto Copley), who is still very much fixated on his ex-wife (Askley Dyke), now dating a youth minister (singer Josh Groban). It should be noted that The Hollars was written by Jim Strouse, who has a history writing about fractured but strangely functioning families with such works as PEOPLE PLACES THINGS, THE WINNING SEASON, and GRACE IS GONE, but this one is largely saved by the performances and not an especially enlightened or insightful script.

There’s also nothing particularly remarkable about Krasinski’s visual prowess either. The Hollars is effectively a point-and-shoot film, anchored by a better-than-average cast that also includes the likes of Charlie Day, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and Randall Park. What is remarkable about the film is the way it sells the family, who certainly have their fair share of communication issues but we always know they’ll come back together no matter how nasty the fighting gets. Each character is assigned their quirks, and they are sent into the world to bounce into the other characters in various combinations. It’s the stuff of network television dramas, but it also plays well with a lot of audiences, including one I saw it with recently.

There’s a moment in the middle of the film, after Sally has been diagnosed with a brain tumor and is about to go into surgery when Krasinski takes over from the nurse shaving her head. It’s a beautifully intimate and delicate moment that will likely result in a theater full of people openly weeping. The are a handful of moments like that peppered throughout THE HOLLARS, but there are just as many (if not more) scenes that feel like either lame slapstick or overplayed drama, which seem more the order of the day than addressing the film’s central crises head on. Even John’s stress about becoming a father isn’t dealt with directly. When the time comes, he just seems to push his concerns under the rug, never to be addressed again.

The film’s saving graces are Martindale, Jenkins and Kendrick, the three best actors in the piece. Conversely, every scene with the brother character could have been written out, and I never would have missed him. He’s not a complete asshole, but he grates on us by never behaving like an actual person in turmoil, which is what we’re led to believe he is. THE HOLLARS is one of those rare movies that is not particularly great, but it’s still an easy film to like, and if you’re in a particularly forgiving mood, it may actually move you. And after the summer we just had, I’ll take what I can get, I suppose.


LITTLE MEN
When a film treats its details on real estate law with the same level of accuracy as the inner workings of the interpersonal relationships contained within, then you know you have something special to look forward to. The latest from writer-director Ira Sachs (LOVE IS STRANGE, KEEP THE LIGHTS ON, MARRIED LIFE), LITTLE MEN begins as a story about a squabble over a piece of property but morphs into a far more heartbreaking account of how squabbles between parents can truly screw up the close friendships that their kids form, which is especially tragic when the kids in question don’t always have the easiest time making friends.

Co-written with Mauricio Zacharias, LITTLE MEN begins with an old man passing away. He’s the grandfather of 13-year-old Jake (Theo Taplitz), whose family moves from Manhattan into the grandfather’s Brooklyn home, which is located above a small dress shop run by Chilean-born single mother Leonor (Paulina Garcia of The 33 and Netflix’s “Narcos”). Jake becomes fast friends with her son Tony (Michael Barbieri), a more outgoing boy who draws Jake out of his shell and even looks out for him at their school.

As Jake’s parents, struggling actor Brian (Greg Kinnear) and psychotherapist Kathy (Jennifer Ehle), begin to look over the lease agreement Leonor had with the grandfather, they realize that she’s paying next to nothing for the space. With pressure coming from Brian’s sister (Talia Balsam) to make the space financially viable for both of them, they propose a much higher price for the space, which of course Leonor can’t afford. It becomes clear that Brian’s late father just liked having Leonor and Tony around and didn’t care about the money, but with that arrangement now a thing of the past, a feud erupts among the adults, which spills over into the lives of the kids.

Sachs has a real gift for capturing the humanity of even the least human circumstances—i.e., real estate disagreements—and for a time, it’s wonderful to watch as the boys simply go about their business, basically ignorant of the pot boiling over beneath them. Once they have figured out what’s going on, they even agree on a plan to remain silent around their parents until the issue is resolved to everyone’s liking; needless to say, that doesn’t fly. Even worse, it’s clear that Brian and Kathy don’t want Leonor out, but with his sister threatening legal action, they can’t do much to protect her; Leonor, on the other hand, is quick to judge them and loses her temper much too quickly. There are no real villains in this scenario, but that doesn’t stop good people, especially the children, from getting hurt unnecessarily.

LITTLE MEN isn’t necessarily the kind of film that results in tears, but that doesn’t mean that your heart won’t be crushed just a little as events hurtle toward their almost inevitable conclusion for the simple reason that adults can’t take a step back, admit they acted hastily, and look for a better resolution that doesn’t break up what could be a friendship for the ages. Director Sachs continues to search for the good in all of his characters, and usually he’s successful, which almost makes the situation worse. This is truly one of the most human films of the year.


MIA MADRE
Floating around the festival circuit since the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, writer-director Nanni (WE HAVE A POPE, CARO DIARIO, THE SON’S ROOM) Moretti’s MIA MADRE is meant to feel like a peek into not only his process as a film director but also the personal toll that dedicating one’s life to the arts can have. In this thinly veiled autobiographical tale, Moretti’s stand-in is actually the great actress Margherita Buy, playing Margherita (go figure), while Moretti himself plays her brother Giovanni, who is portrayed as the more level-headed, sensible sibling, which only makes her feel worse about herself.

Their mother Ada (Giulia Lazzarini) is in the hospital with heart issues right as Margherita is beginning to shoot her new movie about the Italian labor movement, starring the rather pompous and self-aggrandizing American actor, Barry Huggins (played with a blowhard’s enthusiasm by John Turturro), who loves to brag about his past achievement, even if he never actually experienced them (his stories about working with Stanley Kubrick are extraordinary, even if they aren’t true). The fact that he’s completely incapable of acting well without a whole lot of handholding and his command of the Italian language is sketchy at best makes things all the more stressful for the director. Turturro is a complete scream in this part, and that’s good because a great deal of MIA MADRE is quite melancholy.

To add to Margherita’s neurosis and stress is a breakup with her actor boyfriend (Enrico Ianniello). The crew is ready to jump ship (echoing the drama of the movie within a movie), and her daughter (Beatrice Mancini) is doing poorly in school, possibly the result of a chasm that has grown between them. All of this is causing the filmmaker to have unsettling dreams that we are privy to in some disturbing sequences. I’m not sure how much I actually learned about the mindset of a talented director or about the Italian film industry by watching MIA MADRE, but the self-reflective Moretti keeps things at such a frenzied pace that at least things never get boring; I’ll take that most days of the week.

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