Capone's Art-House Round-Up with INDIGNATION, GLEASON, and ROSEANNE FOR PRESIDENT!!!

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…


INDIGNATION
At its core, this adaptation of Philip Roth’s INDIGNATION is about taking a sheltered, young Jewish man and throwing him into a small college in Ohio, circa 1951, without a clear sense of how to take care of himself. Marcus Messner (Logan Lerman, THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER) decides that the best thing to do in these circumstances is throw himself into his school work, but he becomes increasingly infatuated with a female classmate, Olivia Hutton (Sarah Gadon). They go out on a date, and she becomes rather forward with him (I’ll say no more), which naturally causes more anxiety in Marcus’s life, but the two start spending a great deal of time together.

From first-time writer-director James Schamus (producer of pretty much every Ang Lee film, as well as works by Todd Haynes, Edward Burns and Nicole Holofcener), INDIGNATION captures and zeroes in on the angst that follows Marcus nearly everywhere he goes. Somehow he manages to channel his anxiety into a type of rage that resembles rebellion, and in the film’s best sequence, Marcus is called into the office of Dean Hawes Caudwell (a magnificent Tracy Letts) for one of the most eloquent verbal battles ever captured on film. The two do a dance with words, meaning and conflicting philosophies about the reasons Marcus has been called in at all. The two extended scenes with Marcus and the dean could have been expanded into an entire movie of its own, and it would be awesome.

As Marcus and Olivia continue to see each other, he begins to see the cracks in her perfect features. But it’s the moment when his mother (Linda Emond) meets Olivia where your heart just freezes and you forget to breathe. Dear old Esther is kind to Olivia in front of her face, but when Olivia departs, the true nature of a mother comes to the surface. It’s a shocking and insightful sequence that sets the tone for Marcus’s life from that moment forward.

INDIGNATION is a fully loaded examination of sexual awakening and the neurosis that can be unleashed when someone doesn’t know what goes where when. After taking the better part of a year off from acting, Lerman comes back strong about a boy trying to figure out who he is and what he wants from this period in his life. But its Gadon who steals every scene she’s in, with a blend of poise and instability behind the eyes. She feels like the only selfless grownup in the movie, and even that takes its toll on her.

In a sense, the film captures a moment in time in the early stages of the culture clash that developed more than 10 years later between students and school administrators over the war effort, women’s and civil rights. But in the case of Marcus, he’s fighting for the right to live life the way he sees fit, which includes dating the woman he loves. In large part, INDIGNATION works in capturing youthful enthusiasm, love and angst, but it moves beyond that into a coming-of-age tale that shows the pain of rebirth.


GLEASON
Not long after retiring from an applause-worthy career as a defensive back from the New Orleans Saints, Steve Gleason was diagnosed with ALS at age 34 and given a life expectancy of no more than five years. Within weeks of that tragic news, Gleason’s wife, Michel, found out she was pregnant with their first child, and with very little discussion or debate, Steve began to film what would become a series of instructional video journals that could be played for his eventual son, Rivers, when he was older and in need of instruction, guidance or just needed to hear his father’s voice. Director J. Clay Tweel (FINDERS KEEPERS, PRINT THE LEGEND) has constructed a documentary that is both a biopic about Steve but also a look at the efforts he made while still relatively mobile to help others with this debilitating condition.

So often during GLEASON, we feel like we’re intruding on some of the most personal moments a person who needs full time medical care could have. But those moments pale in comparison to watching Steve film his journal entries, go through bouts of depression, attempt alternative treatments (including a faith healer, which does not sit well with Michel), and discuss his battle with faith in the face of this disease with his bible-pushing father. There’s a sequence between Steve and Michel where he is attempting to get her to admit that she’s angry with him because he’s ruined her life, and while you can tell the thought might be in her mind, she’s too good a person to say something that hurtful.

The contrast between Gleason’s public and private lives grows more noticeable as his physical limitations become greater. He forms an ALS-centered charitable foundation that uses his name recognition to help ALS patients get access to much-needed mobility devices. And in the midst of all these many triumphs, he attempts an experimental stem-cell treatment that unexpectedly accelerates his condition and makes him so much worse. The film traces the emotional rollercoaster ride to end all such rides.

There’s a noticeable shift in Steve’s attitude once Rivers is actually born. The video journals give way to actual time with his son, fixing what’s broken between him and his father, and doing all that he can to ease the burden on Michel. But when he does address his son via a journal, the entries shift from practical advice to more contemplative thoughts about living fully, being good to people, and embracing your mistakes as part of growing. They are all the things you wished someone had told you in a handy set of video files, but you likely had to learn on your own.

GLEASON works on a variety of levels, but the one that got to me was its unflinching look at the progression of ALS, and capturing Steve’s life of watching his body functionality, ability to talk, and eventually ability to breathe get chipped away (he’s still alive, in case you’re wondering) slowly but aggressively from month to month. He guides us through the ordeal, and there’s no indication that cameras were turned away for these moments. It’s a tough watch, but it’s a life-affirming, inspirational and completely honest experience that should not be missed. And if it’s possible for a film to be both devastating and uplifting, GLEASON is such a work.


ROSEANNE FOR PRESIDENT!
Much like the subject herself, director Eric Weinrib’s (a sometimes producer for Michael Moore, who appears in the film a fair amount) ROSEANNE FOR PRESIDENT! is a little ragged around the edges but is still a thought-provoking work that will make you laugh and think in equal measure. The film follows comedian Roseanne Barr’s failed—but quite sincere—bid for the Green Party nomination for president in the 2012 election (a familiar face, Dr. Jill Stein, got the nomination). Armed with an arsenal of four-letter words, a healthy distrust of the current political system and resulting government, a belief in universal health care, pure vitriol about banks, and a pocketful of weed (like the card-carrying hippie she is), Barr put her name and beliefs out there and had a great deal of support in the party from those who believed a well-known candidate would bring the group far more attention and increase their rank and file.

In many ways, the reasons that Barr did not end up being the candidate are right there on the screen. She dislikes large groups of people (and the hand-shaking that goes along with campaigning), more because she’s slightly paranoid about “crazies.” She enlisted Farheen Hakeem, a Muslim woman, as her campaign manager, who often found herself making excuses for Barr not being at a given debate with Stein when Stein showed up every time. Barr seems perfectly fine sitting in her Hawaiian home with longtime boyfriend John Argent talking strategy and being frustrated by her low delegate count, when it seems fairly clear that delegates wanted to meet the person they were voting for before the primaries.

Throughout the film, Barr, her family and professional friends (including Moore, Tom Smothers, Sandra Bernhard and Rosie O’Donnell) remind us that her long-running, highly rated “Roseanne” television series (as well as her stand-up act that inspired it) tackled many issues relating to women’s rights, gay rights and the struggles of the working class—all areas that still mean a great deal to her. And while she took this race mostly seriously, she wasn’t above poking fun at the idea of her being in charge of the country (she originally supported the wholly reasonable idea of bringing back the guillotine and chopping the heads off of corrupt bankers).

For a brief moment in the film, when Barr’s delegate count takes something of an uptick, she contemplates the idea of being a spoiler in the same way Ralph Nader was painted as being as the Green Party candidate in the 2000 presidential election. I don’t think at any point Barr believes she’ll win the presidency, but she is aware that being a chosen candidate for a third party (she ended up as the nominee for the Peace and Freedom Party) does mean that your ideas will get out in a way that just sitting at home posting YouTube rants might not.

And the truth is, Roseanne knows how to capture an audience’s attention, speak persuasively and clearly to crowds (although her on-stage discussion of how marijuana protects you from mind control might be a bit off-putting), and on those occasions where she damn well feels like it, she can be as charming and funny (funnier, actually) as any mainstream politician. Part civics lesson, part satire, what ROSEANNE FOR PRESIDENT! most definitely is not is a celebrity ego trip or publicity stunt (if she was trying to publicize anything but her political beliefs, it was lost on me). For a fleeting moment, the 2012 election was made a little more interesting. If Barr were to have run this year, I’m not sure she’d get noticed in all the chaos and viciousness.

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