More Than One Lesson

It’s easy to classify J.A. Bayona’s beautiful new film A Monster Calls as just another family movie about grief and sadness, like Bridge to Terabithia or Where the Wild Things Are. But, while those films are perfectly good, it would be wrong to do so. That would be too simple, and A Monster Calls is not a simple film. Quite the opposite, in fact, as on its surface it would seem to be about loss, but is at its heart about something much deeper, something more complex. This is a film about honesty, truth, and the often contradictory nature of both. Not exactly light material, and Bayona – directing from a script by Patrick Ness, adapting his own novel – chooses not to attempt an artificial lightness. Instead, he embraces the feelings of its main character; namely a deep sadness and a need for escape.

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Every dramatic writer understands the vitality of the three-act structure. The importance of rising action, character arcs, obstacles, conflict, and the eventual climax as key elements in effective emotional storytelling cannot be overstated. Many of the most beloved films have strictly adhered to this formula and, in doing so, provided their own arguments for why it has shown itself to be so sturdy over the years. For a writer or a director to attempt to subvert basic storytelling elements like this is to flirt with the potential confusion and alienation of his audience.

And yet there have been many filmmakers over the years that have come to understand the stylistic and emotional potential of unconventional storytelling. At the very least, this can serve the very practical function of forcing the audience to try to more actively engage in the film they’re watching, lest they lose track of the story thread. In reformatting even the most straightforward story, the filmmaker requires the audience to approach what could be very familiar material from a different angle, which can ultimately affect the thematic meaning they take from the film. However, to engage in non-linear storytelling simply for the sake of attempting something different is to run the risk of overcomplicating the story and frustrating the audience. Ultimately, if a filmmaker chooses to abandon more conventional narrative choices – such as the three-act structure and a chronological timeline – he must have a reason beyond simple novelty.

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Gareth Edwards’ Rogue One is a worthy entry in the Star Wars saga. The first major motion picture to step outside the “episode” format, Rogue One feels appropriately like the scrappy cousin in a large, respected family. This is to its credit, as the Star Wars films are always at their most effective when they portray makeshift families and ragtag bands of misfits coming together in service of something greater than themselves. And given that the story is about what is essentially a suicide mission, Rogue One certainly fits in nicely with the larger themes of the series. In fact, it is really only in the film’s desperate desire to connect to the rest of the series – bridging the gap between Episodes III and IV – that it stumbles. Whenever it is telling its own story, though, the film is focused, poignant, and entertaining.

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Tom Ford had long been a highly successful fashion designer when in 2005, at the age of 43, he chose to start his own film production company. Four years later he made his directorial debut with the sorrowful character study A Single Man. While it’s no surprise the film was visually striking, what was most impressive was the subtlety, sensitivity, and focus on character that he displayed in his first feature.

Now, seven years later, Ford has made his second film, Nocturnal Animals. Given Ford’s background and ongoing career success in fashion, the fact that he was returning to the director’s chair after such a lengthy hiatus suggested that he wasn’t just making a movie to pay the bills or because filmmaking is just in his blood. He didn’t just have a story to tell, he had a story he needed to tell. At first, it is unclear as to why he or anyone else would want to tell this story (stories, really). But after a frankly bizarre opening credits sequence and the initial sense that the stories unfolding before us will be deeply unpleasant, Nocturnal Animals ultimately becomes an experience that gets into your head, under your skin, and that stays with you.

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We all have our Christmas movie staples. It’s a Wonderful Life, White Christmas, Love Actually, any version of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. We also love our favorite genre films that happen to take place at Christmas. Die Hard, Gremlins, anything with Shane Black’s name on it. But each year I love to find other Christmas gems I haven’t seen before and occasionally they make their way into the rotation. I first watched the 1942 comedy The Man Who Came to Dinner five years ago and now I can’t imagine Christmastime without it.

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While it would be unfair to ask any film to be on par with one of the greatest ever made, when a movie chooses to open its story in 1942 Casablanca, it’s going to have a lot to live up to. While Allied boasts Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard as its leads, a screenplay by Steven Knight (Locke), and direction by Robert Zemeckis, it’s no surprise that it is not in the same league as Michael Curtiz’s Casablanca.

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It is no longer surprising when a new Disney animated feature contains stunning visuals, memorable and moving songs, or funny and engaging characters. The studio has long been not only the pioneer for feature-length animated storytelling, but often the gold-standard bearer. So the fact that Moana, the latest entry in that ever-growing canon of classics, contains all of those elements was certainly no shock.

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First contact with alien races has been depicted in many different ways through the history of science fiction. Some stories are about invasions, others offer hope of friendship with far away worlds, but always there is uncertainty and at least some degree of fear for the characters in their forever changed universe. Arrival doesn’t put all of its cards on the table right away in that regard but it does engage the heart as well as the head throughout, which is always welcome.

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It’s difficult not to be wary of films detailing the backstories of our favorite movies. Between the disastrous Star Wars prequel trilogy and the decision to turn the relatively short novel The Hobbit into three bloated films adding up to the length of a full day’s work, there was reason to be concerned about Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. If it hadn’t been for the fact that Harry Potter novelist J.K. Rowling was writing the screenplay herself, it would have been hard to see it as much more than a desperate cash grab by Warner Bros. Especially when it was recently announced that there would be five films in this new series set in the Potterverse, decades before Harry was even born. It turns out that Rowling was all the reason fans needed to feel confident because this first film in the series is a complete joy to watch.

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Films about real life historical heroes are often given a pass by a certain percentage of their audience. Regardless of the quality of the movie, the mere fact that the story of a laudable figure is being told is enough for some viewers. It’s as though the film is above reproach because its subject is someone- or something- to be admired. Hacksaw Ridge will certainly have many singing its high praises because the man at the center of its story, Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield), was such a great hero.

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