Demolition

For F*** Magazine

DEMOLITION

Director : Jean-Marc Vallée
Cast : Jake Gyllenhaal, Naomi Watts, Judah Lewis, Chris Cooper, Heather Lind
Genre : Drama
Run Time : 100 mins
Opens : 14 April 2016
Rating : NC16 (Coarse Language And Sexual References)

If a story opens with “so-and-so had it all”, you know things will soon take a turn for the worse. Davis Mitchell (Gyllenhaal) had it all: a high-paying investment banker job, a beautiful wife, loving parents, a plush house and a fancy car. Davis’ world is shattered in the aftermath of a car accident that claims the life of his wife Julia (Lind). Davis’ father-in-law and boss Phil (Cooper) sees that Davis is unravelling and tries to convince him to seek professional help. Instead, Davis goes about his own unorthodox way of coping with grief. When writing a complaint letter to a vending machine company after his candy gets jammed, Davis includes some startlingly personal admissions. This soon develops into a correspondence with customer service representative Karen Moreno (Watts) and Davis gets to know Karen and her rebellious teenage son Chris (Lewis) as he works out his issues.

            Demolition is directed by Jean-Marc Vallée of Dallas Buyers Club and Wild fame, from a screenplay by Bryan Sipe. This is meant as a character study, delving into a man’s search for catharsis – and meaning, if there’s any to be found - in the wake of trauma. Unfortunately, the cold, stale odour of sophomore year creative writing class wafts off the screen. It’s almost immediately obvious that the narrative conceit of Davis’ over-sharing in his complaint letters serves as a way to pack in as much exposition as possible. The dialogue also heaves with such clunky lines as “repairing the human heart is like repairing an automobile. You’ve got to dismantle everything, then you can put it back together again.” While there are elements of dark comedy within, the bulk of the film is sullen navel-gazing.

            Gyllenhaal has played a number of truly fascinating characters in his career. Alas, Davis doesn’t number among them. The character is meant to be inherently sympathetic because his wife has just died; his erratic behaviour an extreme manifestation of loss. As the title indicates, he develops an appetite for destruction, of property and of self. The film seems to go out of its way to make the more rational characters come off as unlikeable, in order to justify Davis’ actions. The methods with which Davis deals with tragedy may be relatable to some, but are generally overblown and melodramatic. This is a character whom we’re supposed to think is edgy and cool – you know, broken, but sexily broken, with Gyllenhaal working those puppy dog eyes for all they’re worth. It feels a little cheap and is easy to see through.

            To the film’s credit, it goes out of its way to frame the burgeoning relationship between Davis and Karen as something other than an impulsive rebound fling. Karen is an unfulfilled pot-smoking single mum and while she takes pity on Davis, she is also wary of him given Davis’ instability. If anything, the movie needs more of Naomi Watts. Cooper has several moments in which Phil wears his heart on his sleeve and emotion bubbles to the surface, but the main note he’s required to play is ‘disapproving’. Chris is not so much a character as all the stock ‘troubled kid’ traits rolled into one. This reviewer got the impression that Lewis watched Edward Furlong in Terminator 2 a hundred times to prepare for the role. It’s a wayward kid of a very 90s sort. Davis’ attempts at bonding with Chris, while potentially sappy, also give the film the jolts it needs.

            Demolition’s version of ‘working through pain’ involves public displays of volatility, copious quantities of self-pity and long voiceovers wherein complaint letters-turned-teary confessionals are read aloud. The 100-minute running time is relatively shorter than that of the average drama, but it still feels interminable at times. We’ve taken Demolition apart and searched for meaning – there’s some of it, to be sure, but not nearly as much as the film would like us to think there is.

Summary: Demolition is packed with on-the-nose clumsiness and soap opera plot twists masquerading as depth, but lead actors Gyllenhaal and Watts manage to suss out some substance.

RATING: 2 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong 

The Impossible

For F*** Magazine, Singapore

THE IMPOSSIBLE

Director:	Juan Antonio Bayona
Cast:	Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor, Tom Holland
Genre:	Drama, Thriller
Run Time:	108 mins
Opens:	17 January 2013
Rating:	PG13 - Disturbing Scenes and Brief Nudity

The devastating Indian Ocean tsunami that struck on Boxing Day 2004 was one of the most horrifying natural disasters in recent history, taking the lives of many and impacting the lives of many more. Spanish director Bayona and screenwriter Sergio Sánchez of The Orphanage fame have re-teamed to tell the true story of one family’s harrowing experience of the event. 

Henry Bennett (McGregor), his wife Maria (Watts) and their sons Lucas (Holland), Thomas (Samuel Joslin) and Simon (Oaklee Pendergast) have travelled to the resort town of Khao Lak, Thailand for an idyllic tropical Christmas holiday. Their family vacation is violently cut short by the tsunami, which hits their resort head-on.  The film follows Henry, Maria and their children as they search desperately for each other in the aftermath of the disaster.

Director Bayona has crafted a powerful, emotional film that allows audiences to witness the horror that nature can wield and the triumph of family and the human spirit at the same time. Focusing on a single family caught in the midst of the madness lends the story an honest intimacy, and Bayona has carefully re-constructed the background against which it unfolds. The scene of the tsunami surging aground and demolishing everything in its path is gut-wrenchingly realistic; the ravaged landscape left in its wake meticulously re-created. There is a very effective use of sound, and Bayona certainly has an eye for haunting images.

This must have been a difficult film, both emotionally and physically, for the actors to undertake, and McGregor and Watts have bravely risen to the challenge, tossing aside Hollywood superficiality to appear truly bloodied, bruised and broken. Watts is breathtakingly vulnerable, painful-looking makeup effects assisting her portrayal of the badly-injured Maria, whose duties as a mother are always a priority – the Best Actress Oscar nomination is much-deserved. McGregor does the “everyday hero” thing convincingly, making it easy to identify with the father’s quest Henry undertakes, and Holland shines as their oldest son.

On the internet, the film has been the target of accusations of racism, some up in arms over the fact that it focuses on a Caucasian family when the tsunami happened in Asia. It is this reviewer’s opinion that this is a trite point to make, and even though the real-life Belon family was Spanish and McGregor, Watts and the other actors aren’t, it takes nothing away from their portrayal. The filmmakers had intended the family onscreen to be kind of universal, and that’s what has been achieved.

Unlike most disaster movies, The Impossible doesn’t revel in the carnage wrought and strikes a masterful balance between the sensitive and the visceral. It’s devoid of the maudlin, overwrought melodramatics of Roland Emmerich-esque blockbusters, and is a worthy picture that, cheesy though it may sound, will probably make you hug your loved ones a wee bit tighter afterwards.

SUMMARY: A moving, well-told story of survival and familial bonds, equal parts heartbreaking and uplifting. 

RATING: 4 out of 5 STARS

Jedd Jong

Fair Game

FAIR GAME

2011

Starring: Naomi Watts, Sean Penn

Directed by: Doug Liman

Doug Liman redeems himself after Jumper, with a film about a very different husband-and-wife team from the titular couple of Mr. & Mrs. Smith. Fair depicts the "Plame Affair”, when the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame was leaked by government elements to the press, and her husband former Ambassador Joseph Wilson labelled a fraud for challenging the "facts" as presented by the Bush Administration. The film is based on books that Wilson and Plame had written in the aftermath of the fiasco. 

The film is as much weighty political thriller as it is a biopic. Tension is very effectively generated, and the conversations never become mundane or sedate. The film's greatest strength is its uncompromisingly bleak authenticity, it's willingness to present everyday life at its frightening worst. 

Everyone loves a good underdog story, and Fair Game is centred on the "David" of Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson and the "Goliath" of the Bush administration. I'm sure that the couple were made to unnecessarily endure a good deal of trauma, but sometimes it does get hard to buy the White House as the "big bad wolf", and only as that. However, credit is due for the decision to stay away from engineered melodrama and blatant shows of emotion. When Plame does have a breakdown, it feels real and heartwrenching.

This leads me on to a good part of why the film works as a political thriller with a documentary slant: the performances. Naomi Watts' portrayal of Plame is unflinchingly intense, and without much effort the actress shows Plames' struggles to balance being a wife, mother and CIA operative all at once, with the world bearing down on her for something that was not her fault. Sean Penn, who also starred alongside Watts in "21 Grams" and "The Assassination of Richard Nixon", is excellent as usual. It can be said that Joe Wilson is more "normal" than post Penn characters, but by no means less interesting. 

While Plame and Wilson are the focus of the film, it never feels like they hog the limelight. Liraz Chari portrays Dr Zahraa, used by the CIA to get access to her nuclear physicist brother, with a genuine frailness and justified caution. David Andrews is delectably - but never overtly - slimy as real-life Vice-Presidential advisor Scooter Libby. He is one of those villains you love to hate, and what makes his performance all the more scary is that this guy exists in real life.

Director Liman gets in the thick of it and shoots the dialogue scenes as if they were action sequences, which is a good way to pump up the suspense. It is to his credit that while most of the film consists of people talking, it is always riveting and never boring. After a while, his penchant for handheld closeup shots does border on the excessive, but it's never anything to worry about.

The movie globe-trots a fair bit, opening in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and hopping about Washington D.C., Niger, Egypt and Iraq. The locations are all pictured convincingly and never glamourised or exoticised. They function merely as backdrops for the plot to unfold, and it is rare that such movies don't veer into "scenery porn".  There is a great shot where a US Army helicopter scatters leaflets onto the ground – it’s poignant, effective and almost artistic. 

In the end, the film does make for a good, thought-provoking watch. It is nothing too intellectual and is still good entertainment, and Plame and Wilson should be proud that director Liman, stars Watts and Penn and the others involved in making "Fair Game" have done them much justice. However, it does get bogged down by its fist-shaking anger and political message. 

3.5/5 STARS 

Jedd Jong