Albert Nobbs (2011) (Friday, January 27, 2012) (149)

There is one interesting scene in Rodrigo Garcia's film Albert Nobbs. At one moment, Albert (Glenn Close) and his friend Hubert Page (Janet McTeer), both of whom are living as men, though they are biologically woman, go for a walk on the beach dressed in women's clothes. This has a certain strange quality to it, as we know well that both of these characters are women and that dressing as such should not be a problem, but as we've spent 80 minutes watching them as men, it still feels like they're just two guys cross dressing.

This is not very dissimilar from a moment in Celine Sciamma's recent film Tomboy, where young Laure's mother makes her wear a dress, even though we've only seen her in boys' clothes. I would say, though that that scene was much more interesting as it was not simply a superficial statement, but much more of a psychological one. Garcia might have been attempting to make a psychological statement, though it just falls flat. It's a strange feeling to see a character we think of as a man dressed as a woman, though I'm not really sure what to make of it. I'm not sure Garcia explains his intentions well enough here.

Nobbs is a butler in a Victorian-era Dublin hotel, where he has worked for years. It seems at some point it became easier for her to get a job as a butler than as a woman servant, so she decided to cross dress and identify as a man. There's certainly a suggestion that he identifies as a gay woman, though the psychology gets very uncertain. One night Nobbs has to share his bedroom with Page, who is in the hotel repainting the walls, and they each find out the other's secret (by opening their shirts and showing their breasts. Subtle.). It seems Page made a decision to live as a man to protect herself from an abusive husband a long time ago. Now he lives as a transsexual in a relationship with a woman. When Nobbs decides to get out of the hotel game (why now?!), he decides he should marry young Helen (Mia Wasikowska) a girl who seems more interested in the hunky handyman than Nobbs.

Aside from the frustration of not really understanding the psychological point of view of Nobbs, this story is extra annoying as it shows Nobbs making only bad decisions. Why in the world would he want to marry Helen? She seems totally average and not unlike hundreds of other chambermaids he might have met over the years. Why would he decided to get out of hotel butlering now when it seems like a very safe place for him? Why not open a tobacconist shop alone without a wife?

I don't think Garcia explains enough here about the motivation of Nobbs or what goes into his decisions. It seems like he's leaving most of that interpretation work up to the audience to figure out, but I don't think that's very fair in the context of this film. I have no good idea about Victorian mores regarding cross-dressing and transsexuals and I don't think we know enough about what Nobbs' deep feelings are regarding Helen or any other woman. Does he really love her? Is she just the means to a "normal" end? Does he have similar feelings toward Page? It's all very muddy and difficult to understand.

Stars: 1.5 of 4

The Guard (Thursday, August 25, 2011) (73)

The Guard is a very weird movie. It's a cop comedy with a white cop and a black cop - but unexpectedly such a scenario plays out in Western Ireland, home to all sorts of gonzo hijinks and racist people who choose to not speak English. As the film opens, Sgt. Gerry Boyle (Brendan Gleeson) watches a car of drunk kids flip over on a road. He gets out of his cruiser, goes over to the crash scene, finds a bag of drugs, takes out a tab of acid and drops it. You see, Gerry has his own way of doing things. And it's gonzo.

There seems to be a big drug delivery that's going to come in to the port in the rural village where Gerry lives and works. To help with the arrangements to capture the dealers, the FBI sends agent Wendell Everett (Don Cheedle) to help out. Right away he's faced with all sorts of terrible stereotypes of black people from Gerry and other locals. He weathers it well, but it creates a contentious relationship between these two guys who are now working together. Ultimately Wendell returns the barbs to Gerry with stereotypes about Irish people (it's comedy, people!!).

Gerry's behavior is unconventional and goofy. He has an afternoon tryst with two hookers from Dublin (he brings them in on the train) rather than working on the case, he moves evidence from a crime scene for no good reason, he makes deals with the drug dealers he's supposed to be hunting.

Just when you think the film is a screwball cop flick, it gets sorta deep and serious. There's a story about Gerry's mother who is about to die; there's a story about rural Ireland versus urban Ireland; there's a buddy story about Gerry and Wendell. You can never really feel comfortable because it's both silly and serious.

It feels a bit like an Edgar Wright/Simon Pegg movie at times (Hot Fuzz in particular) and a bit like Henrik Ruben Genz's off-beat Danish cop western, Terribly Happy from last year (in large part due to the topography of the locations), but it's not really as good as either of those. Those films really know what they are and they do those things well (silly comedy;dark, atmospheric drama with comic elements). This seems to want to be all things at all times, but it ends up being neither fish nor fowl (cool metaphors, I know – you're welcome). It's not particularly interesting from a story/script point of view and has basically nothing artistic about it. It's a square peg jammed into a round hole and is not wonderful.

Stars: 2 of 4

Kisses (Monday, June 28, 2010) (60)

Kisses is a small Irish movie about a super poor boy and girl who live in the outskirts of Dublin. They both have terrible abusive families with drunk, uncaring parents. One day, the son gets in a fight with his father and the girl and he run away. They end up in downtown Dublin at night and have a wild time of it enjoying their freedom and spending the bit of cash the girl was able to steal from her brother's stash. Eventually, the darkness and depravity of the city catches up with them and they have to return to their miserable homes.

The film is shot is a very cute way, where it opens as black and white, and then as they escape, it moves into a washed-out color, then full color and then moves back to washed out and then black and white again as they return to their homes. This is a bit overdone, I think, but I appreciate that director Lance Daly is trying for something. It has the overall look of Medicine for Melancholy, but none of the elegance.

It is a very sad film about the desperation of these two kids' lives, but I think it's not immediately apparent how sad it is. I think we are generally moved to feel that anything about kids is sweet and nice, and the real pain they feel is hidden here, not only beneath the treatment of the color ratio, but also because the kids seem happy (because they don't know any better).

The kid actors are good, but I don't think that means much - I think kids are generally cheap cyphers in whom we put anything we want. If we like them and we want them to do well, we can say they're great actors; if we don't like them, we can say they're bad. It's a bit unfair, I think, to have them around.

This is an OK film, but nothing brilliant. I am not too wild about it, and I don't think I like how much of a downer it is. Warning: there is some unexpected sexual violence in this that sort of comes out of nowhere and goes nowhere. This is pretty ugly, I think, and a bit manipulative, or even exploitive.

Stars: 2 of 4