EVERYBODY KNOWS (2019)

 

Rated: R

STARS: Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem, etc. etc.

DIRECTOR: Asghar Farhadi

GENRE: Art House/International Drama

Everybody Knows, from Iranian director Asghar Farhadi (A Separation, The Salesman) is an impressive take on family dynamics, Spanish style, but with a boatload of characters, it can be a bit challenging. 

I know that Jill, my dastardly partner in crime here, doesn't like to have to follow too many characters, and I'm the same way. Give me three or four principal players and a fairly straightforward plot--a small subplot is fine--and surprise twists are welcome. Beyond that, what's left of my addled brain might short-circuit.

Everybody Knows does give you a big plot twist in the middle, and it drives the story forward from that point.

Laura (Penelope Cruz) has traveled from Argentina to Spain with two kids in tow to attend her younger sister's wedding. All those bodies come in handy for the celebration scene--singing and dancing and boozing with a sense of abandon in a manner that seems to be endemic to certain cultures, and which I greatly admire. 

Later, when Laura's teenage daughter, Irene, is abducted in the middle of the night, the actors get to shine and demonstrate their full range of emotive talents. 

Paco (Javier Bardem) runs a nearby wine producing estate, and though they are married to other people, Paco and Laura have a long-standing history as lovers. 

Messages from the kidnappers point to the possibility of the abduction being an inside job, as family members grow suspicious of one another, and long buried secrets are revealed. 

What will keep you glued to Everybody Knows is that once you've started along the path of the mystery, you just have to follow along to see where it leads. 

On Netflix.

Grade:  B 

JILL'S DASTARDLY TAKE

Yep. There sure were a lot of characters in this film. But I give the director kudos for making those family scenes seem incredibly authentic. I felt like I was family too. But it was really hard for me to keep track of who was who and what was going on. In fact, I must confess that in the end, I still didn't know who dunnit.

That said, when Javier Bardem is onscreen, I could watch him sleep and be impressed. He has a certain presence, a charisma that can't be denied. Whether playing a primo villain (No Country For Old Men) or a paralyzed poet (The Sea Inside), he is a spectacular actor.

And his real life wife, Penelope Cruz, ain't bad, either.

But the actor in Everybody Knows that I thought deserved special mention is an Argentinian named Ricardo Darin (no relation to Bobby). The balance he struck between self-loathing and dignity, as Laura's loser husband, was outstanding. And I loved his snowy eyebrows!

Still, I'm not comfortable watching movies in my living room. It doesn't seem right somehow. But it seems even less right to be venturing out to an AMC theater--August 31^st is when they're scheduled to re-open-- wearing a mask during the movie. I guess I'll just have to get a bigger TV. 

Because the end left me confused, unsatisfied and feeling terribly stupid, I'll have to give Everybody Knows a qualified thumbs down.

Grade: C

 

  

 

LIFE ITSELF (2018)

Rated:  R

STARS: Oscar Isaac, Olivia Wilde, Antonio Banderas, Annette Bening, Sergio Peris-Mencheta, Laia Costa
DIRECTOR: Dan Fogelman
GENRE: Drama

If I had to distill Life Itself down to one sentence, I'd say: It's a big, ambitious film filled with the small moments of life. A multi-generational saga that can seem, at times, like it's abandoned the entire narrative you were following and started up a different film altogether. Then just when you think what movie am I watching, anyway...what does this have to do with anything?...it connects the dots and there you have your AHA! moment.

Brilliant.

The plot revolves around Will Dempsey (Oscar Isaac), a mentally unstable screenwriter and his young and very pregnant wife, Abby (Olivia Wilde). Will had been committed to an institution, but he's out now and trying to piece his reality back together with the  help of his therapist (Annette Bening). Twists and turns and unanticipated moments of high drama ensue as we are placed on alert to expect the unexpected, journeying through the multiple spin-off lives that follow. To give you more would reveal too many spoilers.

I never quote Rotten Tomatoes, but I had a feeling that Life Itself was going to get panned by a lot of critics, and I was right. When I checked  the site, the film had an approval rating of just 12 percent among critics. But get this--it had a full 80 percent audience approval rating! Well, that tells you that critics are pretty much full of shit, aren't they? Yes, I said it. Why? Because critics are cynics. They think their job is to dissect something and tear it apart, when oftentimes it would serve them better just to get in touch with some genuine human emotion. And that is just what Life Itself is imploring you to do. 

Director Dan Fogelman has gotten his impressive cast to buy into this one all the way--as evidenced by the many sincere and powerful performances.

So the question is, can you handle a film that is unabashedly saying something to you in a straightforward manner without couching the message in cryptic terms that are supposed to make you scratch your head to try and figure it out?  For those who answer in the affirmative, Life Itself is a full box of tissue movie. You know what that means. Bring one or you'll be sorry.

Whether your response to Life Itself is positive or negative...whether you think it's brilliant or corny as hell...I'm betting you'll come away thinking, like I did, that you've never seen anything quite like it.

Grade: A

JILL'S TAKE I hate to be such a copycat but I couldn't agree more with Tim on Life Itself. It is an extremely unique film. Shocking at times, sentimental at others. What I loved was that it gives audiences a chance to eavesdrop on, and identify with, different characters' situations. Tragic as some of their lives turn out to be, we still walk away feeling hopeful. (An emotion that is sadly lacking in today's topsy turvy world.) There are definitely some Oscar-worty performances in this one. First on my list would be Barcelona native Laila Costa whose final speech to her young son will bring even the most hard-hearted movie-goer to tears. Once I realized that her words were scripted by writer/director Dan Fogelman who also created the hit TV series This Is Us, I knew why they struck such a meaningful chord. Fogelman knows how to bring real people with real problems to the screen. Kudos to you, Dan! Another Oscar contender, who is also from Spain, is Sergio Peris-Mencheta. He plays a simple man whose life gets complicated – as lives tend to do. A man of few words, he uses his eyes to express all kinds of feelings. Felicitaciones, Sergio! When a film deals with various story lines, there's always a risk that one story will overtake the others. Not so with Life Itself.There's a kind of flow that carries you along from story to story, accepting the premise that life itself is never neat and tidy. I must admit that the first chapter with Oscar Isaac and Annette Benning dragged a bit for me. But not for long. Grade : B+ ReplyForward