To say that “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” is about 9/11 is akin to saying that “Moby-Dick” is about a whale. Yes, the attack on the Twin Towers is an essential part of the story, but it is used as a metaphor, not as a plot line. The attack provides a setting and a backdrop for exploring the universal issues of grief and crisis, and of family relationships. This film is about fathers and sons, and about mothers, too. It is about trying to make sense out of something that is essentially senseless.

Death is always cataclysmic. It always feels like two giant towers collapsing. When one person dies, another disintegrates. That’s the larger point of this film.

Many elements of the movie just don’t seem to make sense–initially. The central figure, 9-year-old Oskar (Thomas Horn), simply isn’t reacting properly. When he returns home from school on the morning the Towers come down, he’s too flippant with the doorman, and too calm when he enters his apartment. The doorman is flippant in return. I was in New York that day. I know what it was like. And it wasn’t like this–calm and normal, as though nothing had happened at all.

Before long, however, I realized that this was the other point of the film. It challenges our ideas of what “normal” means. And “proper.” And “making sense.” The film’s series of mistakes isn’t really a mistake. It is a deliberate means of conveying an idea: Life doesn’t make sense, but we have to try to make sense of it anyway.

To make this point, director Stephen Daldry uses a precocious young boy as his central figure. Oskar has a remarkably close relationship with his father (Tom Hanks), who encourages his young son’s imagination with games of discovery and “expeditions.” Oskar has “something like Asperger’s syndrome,” which gives him tremendous focus and memory. It also explains his odd reactions in the first half hour of the film. His condition provides not only a skewed point of view, but a metaphor.

The film’s title is about Oskar’s reaction to sensory stimulation, not to the planes flying into the Towers. Oskar has extraordinary intelligence, but struggles to make sense of ordinary things, like sidewalk lines and answering machines. Similarly, we struggle to make sense of the crises that happen in our lives. Death is an “ordinary” thing. It happens every day. But when it happens to someone we know and love, it isn’t ordinary at all. And it does not make sense.

When Oskar finds a key inside a vase in his father’s closet, he is convinced that it will lead him to something profound that his father left for him. With his unusual focus and quirky intelligence he devises a plan and sets out on a journey that will take him over the boroughs of New York, searching for a message from his father. He knows it will be nearly impossible, but he says, “If things were easy to find, they wouldn’t be worth finding.”

Along the way Oskar meets dozens of New Yorkers. Many of them have experienced a profound loss. Their losses are not as public or as shared as the losses experienced at the Towers that day, but they are felt just as deeply. Grief, we come to realize, does not have to be public to be cataclysmic.

Early trailers focused on the scenes that include Tom Hanks, a multiple Oscar winner and box-office draw. This makes good marketing sense, even though Hanks is seldom on screen. But after the Oscars were announced last week and Max von Sydow was nominated for best supporting actor, I noticed that the trailers suddenly changed and von Sydow became their new central figure. That makes good business sense too, and even better artistic sense. Von Sydow plays a renter who lives in an apartment across from Oskar’s building. Known simply as The Renter, he has experienced a trauma that prevents him from speaking, but not from communicating. Von Sydow is simply brilliant in the role. His expressions transcend the need for words.

As Oskar’s mother, Sandra Bullock also demonstrates a wide range of emotions, from numbness to horror to sadness to joy. Yes, even joy, amid the loss. Her grief is almost too painful to watch as she realizes that her husband is doomed, yet she never steps into the realm of melodrama. She manages to stay authentic and vulnerable in every scene.

I wish the same could be said for Thomas Horn as Oskar. He speaks precociously enough, and his moment of cathartic crisis is believably powerful. But he does not portray Asperger’s (or the condition that is “like Asperger’s”) well. He has the actions down, but something is missing. Or, more to the point, something almost imperceptible is not missing from the look on his face. It keeps the film from quite making sense . . . but that seems to be the point too, doesn’t it?

I wasn’t planning to see “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.” I really wasn’t ready to see a schmaltzy, melodramatic movie about the day the Twin Towers were attacked, and that’s exactly what the early trailers led me to believe “Extremely Loud” would be. But when it was nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award, I felt an obligation to review it, even if just to say, “What was the Academy thinking?”

Having seen it now, I have to admit: the Academy was right. “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” is another of this season’s artistic gems. I don’t think it deserves the Oscar, but it certainly does deserve the recognition of an Oscar nod.

“Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close,” directed by Stephen Daldry. Paramount, 2011, 129 minutes.

John Le Carre’s novels about the Cold War era are among the finest spy thrillers. His recurring espionage agent, George Smiley, is not a caricatured James Bond or a rough-and-tumble Jason Bourne. Instead,Smiley demonstrates the true complexity and moral conflict of a man who protects his country and her way of life by infiltrating and often breaking the laws of another. He is a man who lives a life of quiet isolation. Gary Oldman plays him brilliantly in this version of the story, in which Smiley must ferret out a mole in the upper echelons of MI6.

When I heard that “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” was being remade, my first reaction was “Why now?” The Cold War has been over for a long time. Countries that once made up the Soviet bloc are no longer our enemies, and the political and economic philosophies that separated us then don’t inform the conflict we now experience in the Middle East. Agent Smiley “came in from the Cold” a long time ago, and for good reason. I assumed the story would be updated or at leastmodified to offer a fresh look at current moral dilemmas.

The answer to “Why this film now?” surprised me. “Tinker Tailor” isn’t just a remake of a spy thriller. It is a remake of a ’70s film, and a perfect example of this season’s retro moviemaking trend. More than a movie about the ’70s, it is a movie made like a ’70s movie. Filmed in Super 16 mm, which was used for filming television shows and some movies during that time, “Tinker Tailor” has the grainy texture of a “Bullitt” or a “French Connection,” two films that represent the era. The direction is slow, and the pacing even slower–as in those films, which we once considered so tense and exciting.

Everything about this film makes it feel like a reissue rather than a remake. Its old-school communication equipment, Wang word processors, shaggy hairstyles, and polyester clothing feel natural and unobtrusive rather than recreations designed for retro effect. It was reported that Oldman searched diligently through several vintage shops to find just the right eyeglasses for Smiley to wear. Even the outdoor scenes of London have the grimy, dusty look of the ’70s, before London was scrubbed clean and white in the ’80s and kept that way through better emissions controls.

“Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” isn’t as thrilling as the Bourne movies or as campy as the Bond films. But it is an impressive tribute to the books and films of the ’60s and ’70s, with an impressive cast of A-list actors as well, including John Hurt as Control, Mark Strong as Jim Prideaux, Tom Hardy as Ricki Tarr, Colin Firth as Bill Haydon, and even John Le Carre as a guest at the Christmas party. If you are a fan of spy thrillers or simply a film history buff, you will enjoy this movie. It’s not an action flick by any means, but it is smart, intense and absorbing.

“Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” (Thomas Alfredson, director; Studio Canal, 127 minutes)

“The Artist” (Michael Hazanavicius, director; Warner Brothers, 100 minutes)

As often is the case after the Golden Globes are awarded, viewers flocked to see this year’s winner for Best Picture the week after it was awarded to “The Artist.” Many of those viewers angrily demanded their money back within minutes of the show’s beginning. The reason? “The Artist” is a silent movie. But don’t let that stop you. It truly is one of the best films of the year, precisely because it is a silent film. “The Artist” is a stunning paean to the golden age of filmmaking, brilliantly filmed and perfectly acted.

The technology necessary to record sound was available to filmmakers from the very beginning; after all, Edison invented the phonograph before he invented the motion-picture camera. What these early filmmakers lacked was the ability to synchronize the sound with the action. Consequently, movies remained silent, substituting music to complement the action and enhance the emotion portrayed on the screen. In New York, full orchestras provided that music in ornate theaters for audiences of more than 5,000 people decked out in evening dress. Small town theaters employed organists to play the soundtrack for viewers in everyday apparel.

Actors used body language, facial expressions, and outright pantomime to communicate conflict and exposition. Obviously, complex story lines heavy with dialogue were close to impossible. Emotion and physical comedy dominated.

“The Artist” is a silent movie whose story is set in 1927-32, when the stock market wasn’t the only thing that crashed. Silent films also came tumbling down as the problem with synchronization was resolved and talkies took over. Like the marvelous Gene Kelley-Debbie Reynolds-Donald O’Connor musical “Singin’ in the Rain” (1952), set in the same era, “The Artist” follows the careers of a handsome silent film star and a bubbly young ingénue whom he has discovered—in this case George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) and the aptly named Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo). George is the quintessential ’30s film star with his pencil thin mustache and dazzling smile. Dujardin earned a well-deserved Golden Globe for the role. But Valentin staunchly refuses to make the transition to talkies.

Without the dialogue and complex story line that characterize modern filmmaking, director Hazavanicius invites the audience to focus instead on the rich artistry of early filmmaking–the evocative lighting, the use of shadows and reflections, the camera angles, the elegant costumes, and the stylized sets, among other features. In an homage to the physical comedy of early films, Peppy engages in a delightful schtick with a coat rack and a man’s jacket. Even the film’s opening credits mimic the cast of characters familiar in the opening credits of early black-and-white movies.

Silent films are often parodied for their actors’ broad pantomime and “mugging” for the camera, but Hazavanicius deftly contradicts this broad generalization with the emotional range portrayed by his actors’ facial expressions and body language. Yes, there was some serious over-acting in early films, but “The Artist” reminds us that there was some astounding subtlety and depth as well. This film has comedy, romance, pathos, suspense, and even a surprise ending. The soundtrack is splendid, and even includes a tribute to Alfred Hitchcock–a long section of Bernard Herrmann’s soundtrack from “Vertigo” at the emotional climax of the film.

“The Artist” really is a silent movie; with two very short but very important exceptions, the only sound you will hear is music. So be prepared, but don’t let this fact keep you away from the film. It is, as its title suggests, a work of art.

In 1996 Margaret Thatcher was the keynote speaker at the Foundation for Economic Education’s 50th anniversary banquet at New York’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel. It was such a big event, and Thatcher was such a gigantic speaker, that William F. Buckley, a formidable force in conservative circles, agreed to appear as a moderator rather than as a speaker.

Buckley’s role was simply to introduce Lady Thatcher and handle questions during her presentation. He was told to keep things moving and not let the answers go on for more than a couple of minutes. Buckley took his job seriously, standing up after two minutes to gently let Mrs. Thatcher know it was time to stop talking and let him ask the next question.

But Lady Thatcher was having none of that. She had handled the members of Parliament for over 30 years; she could certainly handle William F. Buckley! A questioner asked about China; Lady Thatcher began speaking; and after two minutes, Buckley stood up. Thatcher continued speaking. Buckley edged toward the microphone. Body language shouted for Thatcher to yield.

She did not. The Iron Lady filibustered on China for several minutes. She talked about politics. She talked about industry. She talked about pandas! She spoke eloquently and intelligently, including specific names and details. She knew her stuff. Buckley stood beside her like an errant fool, until he finally backed away and sat down. Only then did Thatcher conclude her remarks on China and graciously ask, “Next question?”

She was a lady throughout. She never scowled, she never lost her temper, she never stopped speaking. But she had a spine of iron. The great William F. Buckley was put soundly in his place, with grace and good manners. And she gave the audience a jolly good show. I’ve never forgotten it.

We see none of that character and grace in “The Iron Lady,” now in theaters with more than a few whispers of another Oscar nomination for Meryl Streep. Streep is indeed wonderful in the role she is playing. She shuffles with the hesitant gait of a woman in her 90s. She mimics Thatcher’s voice and cadence. She carries her unnecessary handbag with the dignity of the Queen. But she projects none of the grit, power, and philosophy that made Margaret Thatcher one of the most important leaders of the 20th century. For most of the film, her Thatcher is pathetic and befuddled.

“The Iron Lady” opens on an elderly nondescript woman shuffling through a grocery store, hesitating over whether to purchase a quart or a pint of milk. She selects the smaller container, pays the grocer her meager 49 pence, then shuffles out, bumping into other shoppers who refuse to yield for the seeming bag lady. After returning home to breakfast, she complains to her husband (Jim Broadbent) about the price of milk. This is not the prime minister who rescued England from bankruptcy; this is the grocer’s daughter who seems to live now in the projects.

Worse, it turns out that Denis Thatcher has been dead from cancer for several years. Nevertheless, he and Margaret talk to each other throughout the film. He is in her dressing room, her kitchen, her living room, her bed. She knows he is dead. She knows she is hallucinating. But she talks to him anyway. It’s natural to speak to a deceased loved one and say “I miss you” out loud. Jimmy Stewart “talks” to Martha at her graveside in “Shenandoah.” Heath Ledger poignantly breathes the smell of Jake Gyllenhal’s shirt at the end of “Brokeback Mountain.” Streep does something similar when she goes into Denis’s closet and breathes in the smells from his jacket. But she goes way beyond portraying grief. Streep’s Thatcher is bereft, bewildered, and befogged.

It is true that Mrs. Thatcher has suffered a couple of strokes in the past few years, and it may be that her mind has become befuddled. She’s 87 years old. But we do not go to a movie about Margaret Thatcher to see how sadly she has aged. Or to see how well Meryl Streep can play an aged woman. We want to see evidence of Thatcher’s iron will, her brilliant economic philosophy, her political wit and candor. We want to see her in her greatness, not her twilight.

As so often happens in Hollywood when filmmakers portray conservative heroes, the producers of this film are fascinated by their subject but unwilling to give her credit for her accomplishment. We see numerous scenes of IRA bombings and union riots. We hear voiceover about spending cuts, unemployment, and Britons’ inability to pay their mortgages. Thatcher proclaims at one point that they will need to close inefficient mines.

All this makes the film very timely, reminding the audience of current events in America: high unemployment, falling wages, mortgages in default, out-of-control deficits, and Romney’s ill-advised statement, “I love to fire people.” What’s missing is the mountain of good that was accomplished by Thatcher’s privatization policies, under which government workers were given the opportunity to own shares in the privatized utilities for which they worked.

I lived in London during the 80s. I saw the results of privatization. Allow me one personal example. When we bought our flat in 1985, we wanted to add a second phone line. We were told we would have to wait at least two years for a number to become available. We also needed some repair work done on the existing phone line, for which we were given an appointment six months in the future. Six months! We were stuck with the antiquated instrument itself. Brits could not even purchase their own equipment; everything belonged to the government utility, and the government utility was not about to update the phone.

A couple of years later, after the phone company had been privatized, I called again to have my phone repaired. A repairman was at my flat the following morning. In a few short years the company had become profitable, efficient, and prompt. Yes, some people lost their jobs, especially from the ranks of bloated, redundant management. Cutting costs does hurt in the short run. But they were offered severance packages and early retirement opportunities. In the long run, the entire citizenry profited from lower costs and better technology. The filmmakers deliberately overlook this point, and all points like it.

Instead, we see glimpses of Thatcher’s life through the eyes of a sad, confused old woman. Occasionally she reaches back into her days as the daughter of a grocer (albeit a grocer who was active in local politics), determined to “make one’s life matter,” and to her decade as prime minister. But these scenes are brief and unsatisfying. They focus mostly on her ineptness as a mother, her shrillness as a speaker, her bouffant makeover, and her problems with being accepted by Parliament.

I ask you: Would Denis have been criticized for choosing to go into politics instead of staying home to raise the children? Yet Margaret is vilified for her decision–and by a triumvirate of females, no less: woman screenwriter, woman director, woman producer. Her daughter Carol (Olivia Colman) flounces off in anger when Margaret announces that she is going to stand for the leadership of the Conservative party, and apparently the audience is supposed to be sympathetic—to Carol! When the elderly Mrs. Thatcher looks through a box of mementoes, it is filled with hand-drawn cards and crayoned pictures that say “I love you Daddy.” None are written to “Mummy.” This hardly seems fair, especially in today’s climate of opinion. If a man isn’t criticized for leaving his family while he goes to work, why should a woman be?

Thatcher brought a unique sensibility to her role as prime minister. As she wrote in at least one letter to the parents of a soldier killed in the Falklands War: “I am the only prime minister in Britain’s history to have been a mother.” She had long-term vision, coupled with an understanding of short-term costs. She was exactly what Britain needed. She should be remembered as a woman who devoted 50 years of her life to public service. She should not be remembered as a pathetic old lady who barely knows her own name.

The young Margaret Thatcher is played winningly by Alexandra Roach. Perhaps if Roach had been prosthetically aged and allowed to play the entire role, “The Iron Lady” would have been an engaging and enlightening bio-pic similar to the very fine film “The Queen” (2006), in which Helen Mirren gives an intimate and insightful portrait of Queen Elizabeth. Instead, “The Iron Lady” is simply a vehicle for Ms. Streep to demonstrate her considerable skill at mimicry.

This is not necessarily Streep’s fault. She did not write the script. But I doubt that she bears any of the admiration for her subject that Mirren bears for hers. I’m certain that she enjoyed portraying Thatcher as the shuffling, elderly, hallucinogenic woman who was written for her to play. She will probably receive her umpteenth Oscar nomination for the role.

I just hope she never has the bad fortune to meet Lady Thatcher in public. I suspect Streep would receive a gracious, well-mannered cold shoulder that would make Buckley’s treatment at the FEE banquet look like a warm embrace. And it would be much better deserved than the Oscar nomination she is likely to receive.

“The Iron Lady,” directed by Phyllida Lloyd. Weinstein Productions, 2012, 105 minutes.

Margin Call is another offering in the growing list of movies and documentaries that attempt to explain the economic meltdown of 2007-08. This one gives an insider’s view of a giant financial institution–perhaps a Lehman Brothers, although the company is never identified– as its analysts suddenly realize that their company can no longer sustain its high levels of margin-driven debt against its falling asset values.
The film opens with a cadre of blue-suited vultures–most of them women–storming the office to let employees go. At the end of the day, nearly half of them have been fired, including middle manager Eric Dale (Stanley Tucci). Dale has been working out a logarithm that seems to be predicting financial catastrophe, but no one will listen as they usher him out the door. This scene is perhaps the most intense of the whole movie. Women literally tap men on the shoulder and signal for them to follow, an action reminiscent of the Rapture that will herald the beginning of Armageddon. It is hard to say which is better–to be summoned away, or to be left behind to face destruction.
As a parting gesture, Dale tosses a flash drive to his protégé, Peter Sullivan (Zachary Quinto), and warns him to be careful. Sullivan opens the file, and after adding a few mathematical computations of his own, discovers that the company’s net worth is less than the debts it owes. Considerably less. And with the multiplier effect caused by buying on margin, the gap will widen exponentially in a matter of days unless the markets as a whole turn around. An emergency meeting is called, with all the corporate bigwigs arriving in the middle of the night.
Here the film becomes heavy with pointed dialog intended to explain the problem to those of us in the popcorn gallery. It is not unreasonable to assume that every one of these high-powered business people in this high-powered room is a genius at math and finance. Yet CEO John Guld (Jeremy Irons), sinister in his impeccable gray suit, his impeccable British accent, and his frighteningly sharp face, threatens Sullivan, “Speak to me as you would a child, or a golden retriever.” This childlike explanation is designed for the audience’s benefit, of course, but it is almost laughable in the circumstances and reveals J. C. Chandor’s inexperience as a writer/director. He doesn’t yet know how to set up exposition believably.
What follows is intended to explain the financial meltdown in layman’s terms, but Sullivan’s explanation remains so abstract and obtuse that only someone who already understands it would be able to fill in the missing specifics in order to comprehend it. We know that the company has borrowed too much against assets that are diminishing in value, but we don’t gain any further light from having seen this movie, and we certainly don’t learn anything about how to prevent a similar meltdown.
More interesting is the ethical conversations that follow. After Guld reminds the Board of his motto of success: “Be first, be smarter, or cheat,” he adds, “I don’t cheat, and we aren’t any smarter, so we will have to be first.” This means that his brokers will have to sell all of their assets within hours of the market opening in the morning, before buyers realize that the asset values are dropping.
Sam Rogers (Kevin Spacey), a 34-year veteran of the firm, offers the free-market answer to government regulation when he argues, “But you’ll be selling something you know is worthless. They will never buy anything from you again.” He’s right, of course. The greedy business person looks for the quick profit that comes from offering inferior quality at an inflated price, and then hurriedly moves on. But the wise business person offers good quality at a fair price, knowing that satisfied customers will provide steady gains from repeat sales for a lifetime. Cynically Guld gives the opposite view of the free market: “We’ll be selling at the ‘fair market value.’ It’s not our fault if the fair market keeps falling.” Acknowledging Sam’s point about repeat customers, he continues, “This is the big one. We have to get out all at once.”
To entice their brokers to destroy their own careers by ruining all their customer rapport and good will, the company leaders offer the brokers huge incentive packages for unloading the majority of the company’s assets by the end of the day. The brokers might not be able to get a job for a while, but with this kind of compensation, they won’t have to. Integrity can’t be bought, but it can be sold.
Karl Marx argued that those who deal in money deal in nothing. They don’t produce anything of value, and they don’t consume anything of value. They just provide a medium of exchange. Thus, in a Marxist’s view, being a salesman or stock broker is the lowest form of labor. This point comes through in the film when Dale laments, “I used to be an engineer. I built a bridge once.” He then recounts how much time and energy he has saved for all the people who have used his bridge every day for years. The implication is clear: as an employee of this financial institution, his life has been meaningless.
Sam Rogers responds in a similar fashion when Guld says derisively, “You could have been a ditchdigger” instead of a successful, wealthy financial analyst. “Yes,” Sam agrees, “but then at least there would be some holes in the ground.” Guld continues in Darwinian style, “It’s just money; it’s made up. Pieces of paper with pictures on it so we don’t have to kill each other just to get something to eat. It’s not wrong. And it’s certainly no different today than it’s ever been….You and I can’t control it, or stop it, or even slow it….We just react. And we make a lot money if we get it right. And we get left by the side of the side of the road if we get it wrong.”
This cynical attitude about the role of financial institutions is continuing to drag down our economy as surely as investing on margin did. It willfully ignores the fact that financial institutions provide capital for funding those bridges and ditch-digging projects. It encourages viewers of films like this to ignore that fact too. These films continue to garner glowing praise while vilifying an economic system that allowed America to become the wealthiest, most powerful, and most generous country in the world.
For a relative newcomer (this is his first full-length feature film) Chandor managed to do several things right. He secured major funding and assembled an all-star cast that includes not only Tucci, Spacey and Irons but Paul Bettany, Demi Moore, Simon Baker, Mary McDonnell, and many others. He has garnered accolades from the mainstream critics. He has written a script that has, despite its schoolboy reliance on potty language, “gravitas.” But while it may seem “important,” it isn’t very entertaining, or very thrilling. Interesting is about as high as my praise will go. His direction is often affected and heavy handed, especially with his actresses. Wait for Margin Call to be available on Netflix.
Margin Call (2011). J. C. Chandor, director. Before the Door Pictures, 107 minutes. Rated R for language.

Like the very fine film “Contagion,” which I reviewed earlier this year, “The Descendants” focuses on a man who must deal with the death of his wife. And, as in “Contagion,” this man discovers, after the fact, that his wife had been having an affair. The concept gives one pause: if you left the office this afternoon and didn’t make it back home, what secrets would your loved ones discover while trying to put back together the pieces of their lives? Would their memory of you be forever shadowed by some discovery that you were no longer alive to explain?

Although I would never condone an extramarital relationship, I felt sad for both of these cheating wives (especially when I read the book version of” The Descendants” by Kaui Hart Hemmings). We all wear different labels for different occasions. Yes, Elizabeth King (Patricia Hastie) must wear the label “Adulterer,” but she also wears the label “Mother.” And “Friend.” And “Adventurer.” And “Artist.” And “Wife.” And, apparently, “Neglected Wife.” Is it fair that “Adulterer” is the only one by which she will be remembered?

Matt King (George Clooney) seems to recognize this. He admits in voiceover narration that “before the accident we hadn’t spoken in three days. In a way, we hadn’t spoken in months.” Similarly, he acknowledges that he hasn’t spent time alone with his daughters Scottie (Amanda Miller) and Alexandra (Shailene Woodley) in at least seven years. He’s a busy attorney as well as the executor of a family trust that belongs to the descendants of King Kamehameha of Hawaii. In the latter role he has the responsibility of deciding what to do with a huge parcel of undeveloped land on Kauai before the trust is dissolved in seven years. While his wife lies in a coma, he is trying to decide which of several development offers to accept. This family trust provides a backdrop and metaphor for the family drama unfolding in the foreground.

When Matt discovers—from teenaged Alexandra, no less—that Elizabeth had been cheating on him, he decides to track down her paramour. Not to punch him, mind you, although that thought brings a smile to Matt’s face. Somehow he is able to feel enough love and compassion, and perhaps even guilt, to give his wife and her lover the opportunity to say goodbye. The journey to find the lover becomes, in a sense, a journey for Matt to find himself and, in the process, to change his own label to “Father.”
As he surveys the land that is owned jointly by his cousins, Matt muses, “We didn’t do anything to own this land—it was just entrusted to us.” In a way, this is true of families as well. We fall in love, we get married, and children show up. We don’t do anything to prove that we are ready for them. We don’t have a training manual to raise them. But they are entrusted to us nevertheless. Matt goes on to note about the land trust, “We were expected to protect this land. I have seven years left to figure out how to keep it.” His family is like that, too. He is already a father genetically; he has about seven years left to become a father in fact.

Set in Hawaii, “The Descendants” provides a rustic glimpse of the close-knit, laid-back life of the native Hawaiians who aren’t really all that “native”—many of them are blonde and blue-eyed. One can almost smell the frangipani in the background and feel the warm sidewalks under their bare feet. The art on the walls of the various homes is also uniquely Hawaiian, creating a visual luau of colors and designs. It is a lovely film in every respect.

As is usually the case, however, the novel on which the film is based has more depth than the screenplay. Film adaptations always have to take shortcuts to fit the story inside the movie’s limited time structure, and character development often suffers in the process. While “The Descendants” is a good film, I missed the nuances that come out in the book, where we see more of Elizabeth, her background, her motivation, and the joy and tragedy of her life than we do in the film.

Several years ago, some new acquaintances told me their “how we met” story. John had been married to Mary’s sister Kathleen, and when Kathleen contracted cancer, Mary came to help nurse her and take care of their children. On the way home from Kathleen’s funeral, one of the children volunteered from the backseat, “Aunt Mary, can you be our new mommy?” And that is what happened. John and Mary thought this was a wonderfully happy and romantic story. From their perspective it is. But my heart went out to Kathleen. On the way home from her funeral? They couldn’t mourn her and let her be the mommy for just a little while longer?

I thought of that story as I watched Matt become a father to his daughters. After the doctor tells Matt that there isn’t any hope for Elizabeth’s recovery, Matt says to 10-year-old Scottie, “We’re letting Mom go tomorrow.” He says it matter-of-factly, almost as he might say, “We’re letting the maid go” or “We’re letting the gardener go.” The Neglected Wife became the Adulterer, and “Mother” is erased from her resume. I was happy for Matt and his daughters to have rekindled their bond. But my heart ached for Elizabeth. It made me want to go home and give up all my secrets.

“The Descendants,” directed by Alexander Payne. Fox Searchlight – ad hominem enterprises, 2011, 115 minutes.

December is the month when a slew of movies are released, from family films hoping to warm a few hearts, to independent films hoping for Oscar recognition, to franchise installments hoping to be “the Christmas blockbuster” this year. Ironically, December is also the month when we have the least amount of time for movie-going. But not to worry! They will still be around in January. Here are two you may want to see.

Both are action thrillers that fit the last category above—new installments in the highly successful Sherlock Holmes and Mission Impossible franchises. Both feature handsome megastars (Robert Downey, Jr. and Tom Cruise), likable supporting characters, sardonic wit, andample fight scenes with breathtaking risks. And both of this season’s offerings feature arms-dealing villains set on starting a war in order to make a buck.

One works brilliantly. The other falls a little flat.

To understand why one works and one doesn’t, a little literary history is in order. When Edgar Allan Poe invented the deductive armchair detective, Auguste Dupin, in 1842, he wisely created a slightly dense sidekick to go along with him and narrate the story. Poe’s unnamed narrator needed to have everything explained to him. Obviously, this narrator represented the unseen audience. We readers were the ones who really needed the explanation, and Dupin kindly and patiently complied, providing a logical account of the proceedings to the narrator, who then provided it to us.

Forty years later, Arthur Conan Doyle patterned his soon to be famous Sherlock Holmes on Poe’s Dupin, right down to the deerstalker hat and the Meerschaum pipe. His narrator had a name, Dr. Watson, and Watson became our interpreter within the stories. Rex Stout followed the same pattern, providing Archie Goodwin as the narrator of the great detective Nero Wolfe’s affairs. And so the tradition continued.

Director Guy Ritchie’s new interpretation of Holmes lifts him out of Basil Rathbone’s armchair and puts him back in the field of action, where he started. Doyle’s Holmes was a pugilist, sword fighter, magician, martial artist, drug addict, and master of disguise. Downey plays him with unbalanced spunk and daring. (See my review, Liberty, March 2010 http://www.libertyunbound.com/sites/files/printarchive/Liberty_Magazine_March_2010.pdf).

But alas! Ritchie has broken with tradition in an unfortunate way. He has decided in this new installment, “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows,” to make Watson (Jude Law) more an unwilling partner than a narrator. Gone are the patient, patronizing explanations to the dunderheaded Watson. Instead, Watson now fights side by side with Holmes. As a result, the audience has trouble following the plot, which involves Holmes with a widening array of bad guys and gals. Suspense is suspended, because we can’t understand the significance of the various discoveries or characters. “A Game of Shadows” is an apt subtitle. The story is murky and illegible.

The film sports many exciting fight scenes, but we never quite know why various people are chasing Holmes and Watson. As in the previous episode, Ritchie employs an effective technique of showing Holmes’s deductive reasoning by using a dark filter for scenes that take place in Holmes’s mind. Downey plays Holmes with an entertaining comic wit. But fight scenes and funny disguises are not enough to carry a film. I was sadly disappointed by this much anticipated release.

By contrast, the writers of “Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol” learned their lessons well from Messrs Poe and Doyle. They employ not one but two likable dunderheads (Simon Pegg and Jeremy Renner), both of whom are analysts reluctantly pulled into performing as operatives in the field. Throughout the mission, Ethan (Tom Cruise) must explain to them who the next bad guy is and why they have to go after him. This keeps the audience in the know, and we are ready to continue into the next hair-raising stunt.

And they are hair-raising indeed. Ethan escapes prison, breaking arms and noses along the way. He climbs the outside of a structure over 100 stories high. He catapults into buildings and jumps from level to level in a parking garage. He outruns a dust storm. He never quits.

Then there are the trademark maneuvers we have come to expect in a Mission Impossible film: Jumping onto flying vehicles. Hanging spread-eagled inside a government building. Going rogue because the government has disavowed Ethan yet again. And, of course, Tom Cruise running like the wind through crowded streets, as he has done in nearly every film since The Firm in 1993. Add to this a wittier script than we got in previous MI episodes, and we have a close-to-perfect action thriller.

If you have time on your hands this season, you should see both these films. They’re both fun, despite the murkiness of Sherlock’s plot. But if you’re going to see only one, “Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol” is certainly the one to choose.

“Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows,” directed by Guy Ritchie. Warner Brothers, 2011,
129 minutes.

“Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol,” directed by Brad Bird. Paramount, 2011, 133 minutes.

In Katherine Mansfield’s one-act play “Trifles,” trifling evidence such as a reticent personality, a half-cleaned table, a broken bird cage, and a canary with a broken neck lead the audience to conclude that a woman has murdered her husband. Motive and opportunity. That’s all it takes to find her guilty in the eyes of her peers. The play is written with a delicious sense of irony and poetic justice. My students at Sing Sing don’t buy it, however. “That’s just circumstantial evidence!” they complain. “You can’t convict on that!”

They’re right, of course. Motive and opportunity—and sometimes opportunity alone—once led to a vigilante justice system that culminated in countless lynchings in our nation’s history. Compounded by a healthy dose of police-induced false witness, it continues to lead to wrongful incarcerations today.

Motive, opportunity, and false—or at least unsubstantiated—witness lie at the heart of Clint Eastwood’s new film, “J. Edgar.” Eastwood has created a kind of wrongful incarceration inside a film that will stand as an unending sentence. Instead of relying on what is known about J. Edgar Hoover’s public life, Eastwood chose to focus on the very private life that was always hinted at but never confirmed. Books have been written about Hoover, but the conclusive evidence is missing. Even Eastwood acknowledges in this film that Hoover’s official biography may have been full of inaccuracies. The people who might have known the facts are dead, and the famous confidential files that Hoover collected over the years no longer exist. Writers can speculate about their contents, and they have. In print. But no one actually knows.

Hoover’s greatest legacy was his insistence on using evidence-based science to investigate crime. He recognized, for example, the value of using fingerprints, ballistics, and marked money to identify criminals. If he were alive today, he would cheer the use of DNA evidence. His was a bureau of investigation first and foremost.

His not-so-great legacy was his willingness to trample constitutional rights in his march to justice. He was determined to protect America from political subversives, kidnappers, and organized crime rings. To do this he needed to create a public outcry that would (to paraphrase Ben Franklin) make additional security seem worth the cost of essential liberty. Several early scenes in “J. Edgar” emphasize Hoover’s disregard for constitutional rights. Again, if he were alive today, he would probably be at the forefront of Homeland Security and the TSA.

With Eastwood as director, Leonardo diCaprio as actor, and the most influential law enforcement leader of the twentieth century as its subject, “J. Edgar,” which opened this weekend, ought to be one of the most fascinating and powerful films of the year. Instead, it is over-long, under-interesting, and often just plain creepy.

Much of the creepiness comes from the way Eastwood portrays Hoover’s relationships with his mother (Judi Densch); his secretary, Helen Gandy (Naomi Watts); and his lifelong friend and right hand man, Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer). Fighting crime gets short shrift in this film that focuses on speculations about Hoover’s private life. Eastwood pays very little attention to Hoover’s work in the Bureau, except to show how Hoover manipulated public opinion about crime to federalize the FBI and expand his power.

Arrests of notorious criminals in the 1930s are presented as photo ops for Hoover. The Kennedy assassination is mentioned, but receives less than two minutes of screen time. The Lindbergh kidnapping weaves throughout the plot, mostly to demonstrate Hoover’s conflict with state’s rights, but the tone regarding the kidnapping is strangely detached and unemotional. Even the bombing of private homes by anti-American groups in 1919 is presented as an exercise of free speech.

But what of the private life on which this film dwells? Much of what is “known” about Hoover’s private life is based on hearsay and innuendo, motive and opportunity. The film is unable to settle on a clear point of view. Was Hoover a homosexual? Possibly. He never married. He had a close relationship with Tolson, who also never married. But Hoover’s lifelong secretary, Helen Gandy, never married either. Does that make her a homosexual as well? Or simply a person dedicated to her job, as Hoover always claimed to be?

And why should his private relationships matter, anyway? My biggest concern about this film is that, after deciding to establish that Hoover and Tolson were lovers, Eastwood pulls back, suggesting that they weren’t lovers after all. He presents their relationship as awkward, creepy, and heartless. There are plenty of scenes to suggest homosexuality: Tolson significantly passes a white hanky to Hoover at their first meeting (an anachronistic reference to a code that seems to have developed in the early 1970s); they hold hands in the back seat of a car; Tolson tells Hoover, “I want us always to have lunch and dinner together,” almost like a fiance setting down the rules. And yet, when Tolson kisses Hoover, at the culmination of a physical fight reminiscent of those awful 1950s movies when a man would often slap a woman into erotic submission, Hoover responds furiously, “Don’t ever do that again!” What gives? Either they are seeing each other romantically or they are not. I think Eastwood was trying to portray Hoover’s own conflict over his homosexuality, but it gives the film itself a decidedly homophobic tone.

Even creepier is Hoover’s relationship with his mother. Hoover’s father is portrayed as suffering from psychotic paranoia. His mother is domineering and flirtatiously predatory. She parades her new gowns for him, dances with him, buys a diamond ring for him. He is controlled by her and obsessed with her. Judi Densch is at her best in this role, and if this were a fictional film about fictional characters, I would say bravo. Chances are that having a mother like that would indeed lead to psychosexual deviance. But the problem here is that Eastwood is portraying as fact scenes that can only be speculative. And he is suggesting that homosexuality is a psychosexual deviation.

An additional source of creepiness is in the prosthetic makeup used to age the characters as the plot moves back and forth between the 1970s and the 1930s. Armie Hammer, in particular, looks like he is dressed as an alien for Halloween, or for a skit on Saturday Night Live. The prosthetic material does not move like skin, and the liver spots that dot his forehead and face are hideous. Hammer is so handsome and debonair as the young Tolson that it comes as a shock each time his character moves into the 1970s.

Much has been written about Hoover’s secret life, and rumors have entered the realm of “everybody knows.” But secrets are just that: secrets. Hoover’s confidential file is legendary, in the true sense of that word, but no one knows what was actually in them, because all the files were destroyed by Helen Gandy as soon as he died. But this lack of concrete evidence has not prevented authors, journalists, and filmmakers from speculating on their content.

It is an understatement to call J. Edgar Hoover a complex man. He was a fierce patriot who saw nothing wrong with deporting naturalized citizens exercising freedom of speech. He was a crime-fighter who broke laws to fight crime. He is quoted, “Sometimes you have to bend the rules a little in order to protect your country.” He was a man with an enormous ego fed, perhaps, by private demons. He may have been a hypocrite who vilified homosexuals while engaging in homosexual acts himself. But to quote my Sing Sing students, that’s all circumstantial evidence. The only people who actually know the truth are dead. Eastwood’s film convicts J. Edgar by demonstrating a possible motive and a definite opportunity, fueled by probable false witness. In the process he has created a film that is homophobic itself.

At 137 minutes, “J. Edgar” is long. It isn’t suspenseful. It isn’t interesting. And it isn’t reliable. If you want to see a film that presents a more reasoned, though still critical, portrait of Hoover, I suggest you rent “Public Enemies” (2009) instead.

“J. Edgar,” directed by Clint Eastwood. Warner Brothers, 2011, 137 minutes.

“The Way” is a quiet film with a quiet soundtrack that emphasizes the quiet introspection of its main character, Tom (Martin Sheen). But do not equate “quiet” with “boring.” This is a compelling film with a compelling story, told against the backdrop of the beautiful Pyrenees.

Tom is an ophthalmologist who has trouble seeing things clearly. He has chosen a traditional path for his life: He attended a respectable college, entered a respectable career, and reared what he thought would be a respectable family. His son, Daniel (Emilio Estevez), has taken a different way. “I want to see Spain, Palau, Tibet!” he exclaims to his father during what will be their last day together. “Come with me,” he pleads. But Tom is too practical. He has his ophthalmology practice to consider. Leave for two months or more? Just to wander along a mountain trail? When he shouts back about choice and accountability, Daniel responds tersely, “You don’t choose a life, Dad. You live one.”

The two part angrily, but it is abundantly clear that Tom loves and misses his son. In one early scene, Tom’s receptionist informs him that Daniel has left a message while Tom was busy with a patient. Tom’s disappointment is palpable. “Did he leave a number this time?” he asks anxiously. “Do you know where he is?” Any parent who has been estranged from an adult child knows this feeling and can relate to Tom’s despair.

The next phone call is the one no parent ever wants to receive: Daniel is dead. While setting off to walk across the Pyrenees along the Camino de Santiago, a 500-mile pilgrimage also known as “The Way of Saint James,” Daniel was caught in a freak storm. Tom must fly to Spain to identify the body and bring Daniel home. When the coroner suggests that cremation is an easier way to transport the body back to America, Tom decides that he will help Daniel complete the journey by walking the path himself and depositing a handful of Daniel’s ashes at each way station.

Along the way Tom meets several other pilgrims, each traveling The Way for seemingly practical reasons. Joost (Yorick van Wagengingen) is a jovial Dutchman who simply wants to lose weight for his brother’s wedding. Sarah (Deborah Kara Unger) is a flirtatious cougar who wants to quit smoking at the end of the journey. Jack (James Nesbitt) is a journalist looking for a good story.

All these characters have deeper spiritual conflicts that they have avoided facing. The film becomes a journey of introspection, self-discovery, and companionship as they travel not together, exactly, but side by side. Tom’s self-deception is perhaps the most pronounced, and he makes the deepest discoveries. Several times Tom sees Daniel, or imagines he sees him, in a crowd or on a hill, encouraging him and urging him forward. Daniel’s great desire was for Tom to accompany him on this journey. By dying, Daniel has found a way to make it happen.

“The Way” is a film about the relationship between a father and a son, made by a father and a son. Emilio Estevez, who wrote, directed, produced, and performs in “The Way,” seems to be Sheen’s less wayward offspring. One can’t help but think about the heartache Sheen must be experiencing in real life as he has watched his more celebrated son, Charlie Sheen, blow up in public over the past year. The younger Sheen was finally fired from his successful TV show, “Two and a Half Men,” because of problems associated with accusations about drugs, alcohol, and extramarital sex. The elder Sheen’s own heartache as a father is apparent in his portrayal of Tom, a man tortured by the way he said his last goodbye to a son whose way of life he did not approve. He plays the role with restraint, but his body language and facial expressions effectively convey his character’s deep emotions.

Tom tells himself he is walking The Way for Daniel, but as one pilgrim wisely tells him, “You walk The Way for yourself. Only yourself.” This is true of life, of course. We make the life we live. Another character tells Tom, “I wanted to be a bullfighter. My father wanted me to be a lawyer.” He blames his father for his failure to choose a more satisfying path, but it was his own choice to put his father’s approval ahead of his own happiness. The essence of good parenting is to provide protection and opportunity without forcing children into a way that is not their way. And above all—never say goodbye in anger.

“The Way,” directed by Emilio Estevez. Filmax, 2010, 121 minutes.

Looking down the vista of time I see an epoch in our nation’s history, not in my time or yours, but in the not distant future, when there shall be in the United States but one people, molded by the same culture, swayed by the same patriotic ideals, holding their citizenship in such high esteem that for another to share it is of itself to entitle him to fraternal regard; when men will be esteemed and honored for their character and talents.

The sentiment expressed in these words may sound familiar, especially considering that the monument to Martin Luther King was dedicated just last week. You might think that these words are from an early draft of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous “I have a dream” speech. It would be a good guess, but it would be wrong. The words above were written by Charles Waddell Chesnutt in 1905, more than half a century before Dr. King uttered his poetic and powerful prose on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, August 28, 1963:

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

Born in 1858, Charles W. Chesnutt witnessed the Civil War and lived through the reconstruction and racism that followed it. Both his parents were considered black, although both had some white ancestors. Photographs of Chesnutt reveal that he could easily have passed for white, as many mixed-race people did in those days. Chesnutt chose not to pass into that easier world. Instead, he embraced his black roots and wrote short stories about the complex issues of racial relationships. He was well respected in the literary community, writing for the Atlantic Monthly and other mainstream publications. He was even invited to attend Mark Twain’s posh 70th birthday party.

Nevertheless, Chesnutt’s political sensibilities ran deep. He was an early civil rights activist and a founding member of the NAACP. The words quoted above are taken from an essay he wrote for the NAACP’s literary magazine, The Crisis, entitled “Race Prejudice, Its Causes and Its Cure.”

Like the man who would follow in his footsteps, Chesnutt did not believe in violent reprisals for the wrongs committed against African-Americans. He wanted fair treatment, but without retaliation or reverse bigotry. Chesnutt and King both longed for a day when color simply would not matter. In that 1905 essay, Chesnutt continued:

[I see an epoch] when hand in hand and heart with heart all the people of this nation will join to preserve to all and to each of them for all future time that ideal of human liberty which the fathers of the republic set out in the Declaration of Independence, which declared that “all men are created equal.”

Similarly, King’s 1963 speech proclaimed: “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.’”

Interestingly, King’s heirs sued CBS for copyright infringement after CBS aired a segment of the speech as part of a documentary on the civil rights movement. They claimed that the speech was a performance and thus was protected by “common law copyright,” even though King did not register the speech in advance with the Registrar of Copyrights. In 1999 the court ruled in the estate’s favor, giving King’s family the right to license the speech and receive royalties whenever it is copied, aired, published, or performed. Now if the speech is printed in a textbook or quoted on Martin Luther King’s birthday, for example, his heirs will earn a royalty. It’s a little like singing “Happy Birthday”… even though it seems to be in the public domain, it isn’t. This copyright will remain in force until 70 years after King’s death (2038).

I am happy for King’s heirs, especially in light of the monument that was recently unveiled near the steps where he delivered his famous speech. I applaud the distance we have come toward seeing his dream become a reality, as well as toward seeing Chesnutt’s “vista” move into the foreground. Sadly, however, to my knowledge none of King’s heirs has ever acknowledged or credited the article that Charles Chesnutt published in The Crisis all those years ago, even though its influence on the “I have a dream” speech can hardly be disputed. Let’s acknowledge the contributions of both these great civil rights leaders.