Catching Up With The Films of 2023: Golda (dir by Guy Nattiv)

Posted on January 9, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In Golda, Helen Mirren stars as Golda Meir, the 4th Prime Minister of Israel and the first woman to lead a government in the Middle East.

The film opens in 1974, with a visibly unwell Golda Meir braving a line of protestors as she testified before a commission that is investigating the events that led to the 19-day Yom Kippur War. Sitting before the members of the commission, Meir lights a cigarette and, as the smoke forms around her, she speaks with a confidence that belies her physical frailness. It’s the first of many cigarettes that we will see Golda Meir smoke throughout this film. While Golda Meir was known for being a chain-smoker in real life, her smoking also plays an important thematic role in the film. Golda Meir is terminally ill throughout the film, secretly undergoing chemotherapy and continually being told that her high-stress job, her cigarettes, and her coffee are not helping her health. Golda, however, knows what she has to do to keep herself focuses and to handle the stress of being the leader of a small country that is surrounded by enemies and for her, that means drinking a lot of coffee and smoking a lot of cigarettes. Much like Israel, she is not going to be told what to do by people who do not understand what she has to deal with on a daily basis. Throughout the film, Golda willingly sacrifices her physical health for Israel, telling her more trusted aide (Camille Cattin) that the only thing that worries her is developing dementia in her old age. A leader who cannot think cannot lead.

The majority of the film takes place in 1973, during the 19-day Yom Kippur War. Israel is caught off-guard by a surprise attack led by Egypt and Syria. Vastly outnumbered, the IDF struggles to repel the invaders. While dealing with not only her own bad health but also the personal and ideological conflicts within her government, Meir also reaches out to the U.S. Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger (Liev Schreiber) for help. Unfortunately, Washington D.C. is more concerned with Watergate than with the latest war in the Middle East and, as Meir quickly deduces, there is also worry that Saudi Arabia will cut off its supply of oil to any country that supports Israel. Though Meir uses a combination of charm and shrewd political gamesmanship to convince Kissinger to put pressure on the Nixon administration, Meir still finds herself being pressured to accept an internationally-brokered ceasefire rather than pursue a strategy of forcing Egypt into negotiations….

Does this sound familiar? A vicious surprise attack is launched on Israel during a holy day. The Israeli Prime Minister, who is loved by some and vilified by others, is accused of not being sufficiently prepared for the attack. Israel is initially isolated from the world, just to be pressured to accept a ceasefire as soon as it starts to prove its resiliency and humiliate its enemies. Golda completed production before the October 7th attacks but the film feels like a direct response to them, a reminder that Israel has always had to fight for its existence and that it has always proven itself to be stronger than its enemies realize.

Much like Darkest Hour, another film about a leader who was underestimated, Golda plays out like a dream of history, with the emphasis being on Golda Meir moving from one meeting to another, somehow managing to hold everything together while the world sometimes seem to be falling apart around her. A good deal of the film’s tension comes from the moments when Golda and her advisors wait to hear whether or not their latest move has been a success. One of the film’s most harrowing scenes features Golda listening over a radio as a group of Israeli volunteers are wiped out by the invading Egyptians. It’s a scene that reiterates the human cost of war, regardless of which side wins. (The film makes good use of historical footage of the war, mixing it with scenes of Golda and her cabinet planning their strategy. Again, it serves to remind the audience that there are real consequences to every decision.) Held together by Mirren’s intelligent and authoritative performance, Golda is a film full of details that stick with you. I’ll always remember the scenes of Golda being led through an underground morgue so that she can secretly be treated for the cancer that is slowly killing her. With each trip, the morgue become more and more filled with bodies.

Though Mirren’s performance was acclaimed, Golda itself opened to mixed reviews. I suppose in today’s political atmosphere, that’s to be expected. After all, Golda is not only a pro-Israel film but it’s also a film that portrays Henry Kissinger as being something other than a one-dimensional Bond villain. For many of today’s very online film reviewers, all of that is heresy. At a time when some so-called educated people are driven to a rage at just the sight of posters of abducted Israeli children, Golda‘s reception is not a surprise. At a time when people are making excuses for terrorists who would attack farmers and concert-goers, a films as otherwise different as You Are So Not Invited To My Bat Mitzvah and Golda can feel like acts of beautiful cultural defiance.

History repeats itself, Golda tells us. Golda may largely take place in 1973 but, ultimately, it’s a film about 2023 and 2024.

Here’s The Trailer For A Haunting in Venice

Posted on May 1, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Somehow, I missed this trailer when it dropped last week. Well, no matter! The movie’s not being released until September 15th so I still have time to share the trailer for A Haunting in Venice, the latest Agatha Christie adaptation from Kenneth Branagh! This film finds Poirot retired and living in self-imposed exile in Venice. When he attends a séance, he is dragged back into the world of mystery solving.

The cast of suspects includes: Kyle Allen, Camille Cottin, Jamie Dornan, Tina Fey, Jude Hill, Ali Khan, Emma Laird, Kelly Reilly, Riccardo Scamarico, and Michelle Yeoh! Not having read Christie’s Hallowe’en Party, I can’t tell you who the murderer is or even who the victim is. But, personally, I suspect Tina Fey did it.

Here’s the trailer!

Film Review: Stillwater (dir by Tom McCarthy)

Posted on January 20, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I finally watched Stillwater a few weeks ago. Stillwater, as you remember, was originally meant to come out in 2019 but the release date got moved to November of 2020, presumably so it could be an Oscar contender and also so it could come out just in time to provide some cinematic commentary on the presidential election. However, due to the COVID lockdowns, the release date got moved back to 2021. It was finally released on July 30th, 2021 and it was briefly the center of some controversy before everyone forgot that the movie existed.

Stillwater tells the story of Bill Baker (Matt Damon) and his daughter, Allison (Abigail Breslin). Bill is a plain-spoken construction worker from Oklahoma. He drives a pickup truck. He always wears a baseball cap. He speaks in the deep accent of the American midwest. He says grace before eating. He probably listens to country music and Kid Rock. Though he says at one point that he can’t vote because he has a criminal record, Bill would probably have voted for Trump if he had been allowed to vote (hence, the controversy when the film was finally released).

His daughter, Allison (Abigail Breslin), left Oklahoma so that she could attend school in France and, presumably, so she could get away from her father. Allison’s girlfriend, Lina, was murdered in France and Allison was convicted of the crime. Now, she’s sitting in prison while still protesting her innocence. Every few weeks, Bill boards a plane and flies to France. He gives Allison supplies, like an Oklahoma University sweatshirt. He also tries to convince the authorities to reopen her case. Allison swears that there is evidence that will exonerate her. When Bill, who doesn’t even speak French, realizes that he will never be able to convince the authorities to reopen the case, he decides to do some investigating on his own.

Bill moves to France. He lives with and eventually falls in love with an actress named Virginie (Camille Cottin). He becomes a surrogate father to Virginie’s young daughter. Virginie also serves as Bill’s translator as he searches for a witness who can prove that Allison is innocent. Virginie gets upset when Bill suspects that the murderer might have been a refugee from the Middle East. When one potential witness uses racial slurs, Virginie refuses to translate anything that he says. When she explains to Bill why she won’t talk to the man, Bill replies that he deals with people like that all the time …. back in the United States. When Virginie’s cultured friends meet Bill, they all dismiss him as being an ugly American and demand to know why he doesn’t like immigrants.

Yes, you guessed it. Stillwater isn’t just a murder mystery. It’s also meant to make a statement about America’s place in the world, with Bill standing in for the country during the age of Trump. Bill is the type of American that Europeans tend to hate and Bill’s efforts to prove his daughter’s innocence lead to him doing some things that have obvious parallels with the techniques used by CIA interrogators during the War on Terror. “How far would you go to protect your family? How far would you go to protect your country?” the film seems to be asking. It’s not an irrelevant question but the film approaches it in too heavy-handed of a manner to really be effective. Matt Damon might as well have spent the entire film shouting, “I’m an American!” like Dennis Hopper did in Apocalypse Now. That would have actually be kind of fun.

For someone who has given so many good performance in the past (and who was excellent in The Last Duel), Matt Damon gives a curiously detached performance as Bill. One gets the feeling that Damon was not particularly interested in emotionally connecting with the role of someone who has probably never seen a Matt Damon movie and who would certainly never vote for any of the candidates that Matt Damon has ever endorsed. (One can just imagine the scene if Will Hunting tried to convince Bill Baker to read anything by Howard Zinn.) Since Damon doesn’t seem to know how to suggest that Bill has any sort of inner life, he instead concentrates on trying to perfect Bill’s accent. And yet, even there, the film is inconsistent. It takes more to sound like your from Oklahoma than just lowering your voice and saying, “Yeah” a lot. Watching the film, I could help but think that Mark Wahlberg or even Ben Affleck would have been a bit better cast as Bill. Neither one of them sounds like they’re from Oklahoma, of course. But they do have the sort of blue collar attitude that Damon was lacking.

As for Abigail Breslin, she’s not really given much of a role to play. Every 15 minutes or so, she steps into a prison meeting room and berates her father for not getting her out of jail. Until that last few minutes of the film, that’s pretty much the extent of her role. Breslin is playing a character who is obviously meant to bring to mind Amanda Knox. The real-life Knox didn’t particularly appreciate this and, having watched the film, I have to say that Knox was more than justified in being offended. Even though the film is fictionalized, enough of the details of Allison’s case correspond to the details of Amanda Knox’s case that it’s impossible to watch the film without thinking of Knox. Beyond that, though, Allison is an inconsistently written character. The film’s final twist lacks power precisely because we really don’t know anything about Allison or what her relationship with her father was like before she was arrested.

As a director, Tom McCarthy uses the same flat visual style that made Spotlight one of the least interesting films to ever win best picture. Tonally, the film is all over the place. It starts out as a murder mystery before becoming a romance, and then suddenly, it takes a turn into Taken territory. It ends on an annoyingly ambiguous note, meant to leave the audience to wonder whether or not everything that Bill went though was actually worth it. If Bill and Allison felt like real characters, the ending may have worked but since they don’t, the ending just leaves you wondering whether it was worth spending over two hours to reach this point.

Anyway, if you want to see a better Damon performance, I suggest checking out Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel. If you want to see a better film for director Tom McCarthy, I suggest tracking down 2011’s Win Win, a charming film that feels authentic in a way that Stillwater never quite does.

Film Review: Allied (dir by Robert Zemeckis)

Posted on November 26, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Earlier today, after deciding to take a break from watching the Lifetime films that have been steadily accumulating on my DVR, I went down to the Alamo Drafthouse with my BFF Evelyn and we watched the new World War II romantic adventure film, Allied.

Now, you should understand that I’m an Alamo Victory member and one of the benefits of my membership is that I get a free movie for my birthday! (My birthday was on November 9th. The offer’s good for up to a month after the big day. Pretty nice, no?) I have to admit that there’s a reason why I wanted to see Allied for free. I knew that, since this big movie with big stars and a big director was being released at the start of Oscar season, I would have to see it eventually. Add to that, Allied is current somewhat infamous for being the movie that contributed to the divorce of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Apparently, Brad had an affair with Marion Cotillard while making this movie. I knew I had to see Allied but I didn’t want to pay for it because, quite frankly, I wasn’t expecting it to be very good.

I mean, the trailer looked awful! The trailer was a collection of war film clichés and, as happy as I was to see Brad without that raggedyass beard that he tends to have whenever he’s trying to be a serious actor, it was still hard to ignore that he essentially looked like a wax figure. Then you had Marion Cotillard, looking as if she’d rather be playing Lady MacBeth. Judging from the trailer, Allied just didn’t look very good.

Having now seen Allied, I can say that the trailer does the film a great disservice. Not only is Allied far more entertaining than the trailer suggests but the trailer also gives away the film’s big twist! Seriously, this twist occurs about 75 minutes into a 120 minute film and, if it was sprung on you without warning, it would totally blow you away. It would leave you reeling and reconsidering everything that you had previously seen. But since the twist is highlighted in the trailer, you instead spend the first half of the movie impatiently waiting for it.

You probably already know the twist. But I’m still not going to reveal it because maybe there’s one or two of you out there who have managed to avoid the trailer. Instead, I’ll tell you that Allied is a World War II romance. It opens in Casablanca, with Canadian secret agent Max Batan (Brad Pitt) working with Marianne Beausojour (Marion Cotillard). Marianne is a legendary member of the French Resistance. It doesn’t take long for Max and Marianne to fall in love and soon, they’re having sex in the middle of the desert, making love in a car while a sandstorm rages all around them. Max eventually marries Marianne and they have a daughter. But around them, the war continues and both of them find themselves struggling to determine who they can and cannot trust.

As directed by Robert Zemeckis, Allied is a big movie, one that is frequently entertaining and yet occasionally and frustratingly uneven. Allied feels like its less about recreating history and more about paying homage to the World War II and espionage films that Zemeckis watched when he was growing up. It’s a technical marvel, featuring not only sandstorm sex but crashing airplanes and a painstaking recreation of Europe in the 1940s. The film is full of seemingly random details, many of which don’t add much to the narrative but they do contribute to Allied‘s oddly dreamlike feel. This is the type of film where espionage is discreetly discussed at a party while Gershwin plays on the soundtrack and British airmen casually snort cocaine in the background. When Marianne gives birth to Anna, she does it outside while bombs explode around her. When the baby is finally delivered, a group of nurses applaud. It’s all wonderfully over the top but, occasionally, the narrative lags. Zemeckis sometimes seems to be torn as to whether or not he’s paying homage to or deconstructing the genre. As a result, some scenes work better than others. (There’s a lengthy sequence involving a note containing false information. It’s obvious that Zemeckis is trying to pay homage to Hitchcock’s Notorious but he never quite manages to pull it off.)

Despite what I previously assumed as a result of seeing the trailer, both Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard are well-cast. Cotillard is one of the few actresses who feels at home in a throwback film like this one and she does a good job keeping the audience guessing. (Of course, if we accept that Allied is essentially Zemeckis’s cinematic dream of World War II, Cotillard serves to remind us of Inception and its multiple layers of dream logic.) Brad Pitt, meanwhile, should consider playing more roles without his beard. After watching Daniel Craig sulk through four James Bond films, it’s nice to be reminded that, occasionally, an actor can actually have fun while playing a secret agent.

Allied is uneven but entertaining. Don’t let the trailer fool you.