Fast Film Reviews

“Based on an actual lie.”  That how The Farewell begins – with a bit of levity.  It’s a true story culled from director Lulu Wang’s own experiences in hiding the truth.  Her grandmother was diagnosed with terminal cancer.  Since Chinese law does not require doctors to disclose such determinations to patients, her relatives didn’t divulge the news to the terminally ill woman.  They meant well.  They didn’t want to spoil her final months.  They carried on as if everything was fine so that her final days would be stress-free.  According to the filmmaker, this is a Chinese tradition.

In just her second feature, director Lulu Wang has fashioned a very personal film based on her own experience.  In the movie, Nai Nai (Zhao Shuzhen) has only a limited time left to live.  The family has hatched a plan.  Under the deception of a fake wedding for Hao Hao (Chen Han), Nai Nai’s grandson, everyone will travel to China to see the matriarch one last time.  Nai Nai thinks they have arrived to plan and attend the wedding when in reality they are simply there to see her.  In this way, they can personally pay their respects.  Awkwafina plays Billi, a fictionalized version of the director.  Wang was born in Beijing but moved to the U.S. with her parents when she was 6.  That mix of cultures shapes Billi’s point of view as well.  Her American desire to truthfully break the news is at odds with this Chinese custom to shield their beloved grandmother from this heartbreaking prognosis.  Billi’s mom (Diana Lin) and dad (Tzi Ma) have advised Billi to remain at home in the U.S.  They know she will be unable to hide her feelings and promote the ruse.  Billi shows up unannounced anyway and her entrance is one of many awkwardly amusing scenes.

Awkwafina is a fascinating actress and the identity with which the audience can most relate in this account.  The Queens-born rapper initially had a viral rap success on YouTube before she was cast in the ensemble Ocean’s 8 in 2018. She later appeared in Crazy Rich Asians that same year.  In both, she was a flamboyant, extroverted individual.  She was funny and likable.  She is no less captivating here but her personality is notably dialed way down.  Awkwafina bridges the cultural divide between Billi’s New York home and her Chinese roots.  There are mentions that Billi’s ability to speak Mandarin isn’t very good so that struggle to fit in remains an underlying subtext.  Awkwafina’s acting is extremely unaffected and understated in its sophistication.  She incurs our empathy without sentimentality.  Her amazing achievement stands out because of (despite?) the exquisite subtlety of the performance.

The Farewell brilliantly details familial bonds in a most personal and honest way.  We’re detailing the impending death of a loved one.  This is pretty serious stuff but Lulu Wang’s screenplay somehow combines real comedy amongst the tragic circumstances.  “Chinese people have a saying: When people get cancer, they die,” her mom proclaims early on.  An idiosyncratic blend of humor and solemnity pervades the atmosphere.  The Farewell is a heartfelt and touching picture.  What makes it so powerful is the utter veracity with which the household comes together to deal with the news.  The different ways in which a family grieves is a big part of the narrative.  It invites the viewer to reflect on their own relatives and how one would handle the situation. This may detail a Chinese family but the human emotions on display are universal.

The Farewell contains moments of great insight and poignancy. At times the screenplay is quite subtle because it suggests things without overtly expressing them. Given the melancholy mood surrounding the wedding, you start to wonder if perhaps Nai Nai doesn’t suspect something is amiss.  When we learn that Nai Nai also kept her own husband in the dark about his terminal illness, that suspicion intensifies but is still not confirmed.  As in life, ambiguity delicately informs this tale from beginning to end.  A movie about dying that shuns conventional rules where everyone must explicitly confess what they are thinking – what a refreshing take!  Every once in awhile an authentic reminiscence can capture our attention without requiring a complicated plot or melodramatic performances.  It’s the depth of emotion that charms our heart. The Farewell is just such a film.

07-28-19

A new Quentin Tarantino film is an event.  Once Upon a Time in Hollywood has been billed as his ninth picture.  So apparently Kill Bill Vol 1 and 2 are now considered one film.  The auteur has declared his plans to retire after he has made 10 total.  Much of the critical establishment has worshiped at the altar of this much-lauded filmmaker.  Personally, I haven’t always been a fan of the way he succumbs to his excessive impulses.  His last production, The Hateful Eight, was a mean-spirited tale of truly reprehensible individuals.  To its credit, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is decidedly more good-natured.  It’s a tale that longs for a bygone era.  But that isn’t for the Golden Age of directors like William Wyler, Frank Capra, and George Cukor.  No Tarantino reveres the men of 1960s Hollywood like Sam Peckinpah, Sergio Leone and John Sturges who made manly movies.

The drama takes place in Los Angeles circa 1969 which was a turning point in the entertainment industry.  Easy Rider, Medium Cool and The Wild Bunch all came out that year.  The studio driven era of the past was giving way to a slew of cinematic revolutionaries that were pushing the envelope in what types of behavior could be portrayed on film.  Studios had always kept a tight reign on what could be depicted on screen.  That standard was quickly eroding due to a social conflict that was playing out in real life.  The Best Picture of 1969 was a whimsical musical – Oliver – the last G-rated movie to win the award in fact.  In 1970 it was the X rated Midnight Cowboy.  Contrasts don’t get more conspicuous than that.  This is all mere subtext however but it helps to appreciate the social environment that this film details.

Tarantino’s attention to detail in fabricating Los Angeles circa 1969 is visually flawless.  He favors practical effects over CGI.  There is exhausting attention to period detail and production designer Barbara Ling is the MVP on this picture as far as I’m concerned.  The time is lovingly recreated with painstaking accuracy.   The vehicles, the storefronts, the clothing, Hollywood Boulevard – it is an immersive and palpable atmosphere.  The movie employs a soundtrack of Top 40 hits and vintage radio commercials in an aural pastiche that recalls American Graffiti.  To Tarantino’s credit, he’s depicting a generation that occurred a whopping 50 years ago whereas George Lucas manifested a past that transpired a mere 11 years from his fabrication.  Still, American Graffiti was positively hypnotic compared to this formless rambling.  If set design were the whole movie, this would be the best film of the year.  However, movies also rely on pacing and that’s a major problem in this nearly 3-hour endurance test.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is like a patchwork quilt of interconnecting characters.  This is the saga of Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) a fading actor, and his close buddy/stunt double Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt).  Rick was once a successful star of TV westerns of the 50s and 60s but has seen his career decline as of late.  He’s currently guest-starring as the villain in an action series.  In contrast, the more level-headed Cliff, who also doubles as Rick’s valet, is more resigned to the fact that his best days are behind him.  Cliff hasn’t been able to get much work due to speculation surrounding his wife’s death.  The central relationship is loosely based on actor Burt Reynolds and his buddy Hal Needham, a stuntman as well as director, actor, and writer.   There’s also a superfluous story that involves actress Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie), newlywed to director Roman Polanski (Rafal Zawierucha).  Her chronicle simply revolves around going to the cinema to watch herself in the Dean Martin spy comedy The Wrecking Crew. Her vacuous but beautiful face is enrapt at the sight of her own visage.  Except she’s watching genuine footage of the actual movie with the real Sharon Tate.  It’s an odd juxtaposition because Margot Robbie and Sharon Tate are clearly not the same people.

That’s the set-up, but what exactly is the story?  In this 3 hour tale, the account plods along at a leisurely pace that seems in no hurry to get anywhere in particular.  The fable operates as sort of a meandering series of vignettes in and around Los Angles.  The account largely focuses on the slumping career of Rick Dalton.  His interaction with a precocious young co-star named Trudi Fraser (Julia Butters) is a high point.  Her obsessive allegiance to her craft actually causes Rick to question his own dedication.  Another is Cliff’s bizarre run-in with Bruce Lee (Mike Moh) who was starring in The Green Hornet at the time.  Tarantino is a fan of martial arts.  Cliff implausibly humiliates the Asian star in hand to hand combat.  I didn’t take this biased fantasy of Quentin’s as truth, although that doesn’t make the deceit any less compelling.  Moh’s portrayal is so over the top that the martial artist star still remains the most captivating presence on screen.  Actors Moh and Butters were my two favorite cameos in a sprawling cast that has many of them.  Well, human ones anyway. Brandy, the pit bull that plays Cliff Booth’s pet, bears a mention as well.  The drama has little narrative thrust so any one of these scenes could be excerpted and enjoyed independently or even excised completely and not affect the story.

The movie briefly springs to life in a fascinating diversion which concerns Cliff Booth and an underage teen hitchhiker (Margaret Qualley).  She invites him back to the ranch of George Spahn (Bruce Dern).  This is the desert commune/cult where she lives and works.  She invites him to stay and meet their friend Charles Manson (Damon Herriman). Booth is clearly distrustful of the hippies.  He insists on seeing the 80-year-old almost blind George for himself to make sure he isn’t being exploited.  It’s a captivating segment.

They say that this is Tarantino’s most personal work, but what exactly is this man idolizing?  If I didn’t know any better, I’d think Tarantino was pining for the days when America was bolstered by strong conservative values before the cultural mores were upended by the freethinkers of the “decadent” 1960s.  The production functions as a mournful lament.  These two men bemoan the liberal hippie culture that is infiltrating show business and indeed the rest of society.  At one point 4 young people pull up and park their car in Rick’s driveway.  Rick, who has had enough of these counterculture types, lunges from his doorway like a bat out of hell cursing.  He orders the youths to leave, uttering the word “hippie” almost like it’s a slur.  It’s a surprisingly sympathetic point of view for what these two middle-aged white guys represent in our post-2017 MeToo movement.  The fact that this is Quentin Tarantino’s first film without producer Harvey Weinstein provides some interesting underlying context.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is Tarantino’s most amiable picture.  There is less bloodshed than you’d expect from a man who routinely fetishizes violence.  It’s only during the climax that this production ultimately submits to slaughter.  I must admit, knowing that Sharon Tate was 8 1/2 months pregnant with her unborn child when she was murdered along with coffee heiress Abigail Folger (Samantha Robinson), hairstylist Jay Sebring (Emile Hirsch) and Polish screenwriter Wojciech Frykowski (Costa Ronin) gave me anxiety about where this movie was headed.  Leave it to Quentin to subvert expectations.  Inglourious Basterds is his most satisfying work.  There are parallels between that alternate take on history and this one.  However, where that film gradually builds toward its conclusion, this one simply meanders without focus or direction.  Only in the last 15 minutes do the characters come together in an action-filled (and yes extremely violent) altercation.  It’s the director’s classic presentation of wish fulfillment.  There is a point I suppose.   I sadly regret that once this movie started to show a pulse, it was all over.

07-25-19