Life Through the Lens: Potential and possibilities
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"History is not simply the study of the past. It is an explanation of the present."
***
A pencil is just cedar planks with graphite threads.
A paintbrush is just sable hairs gathered onto the end of a wooden handle.
A piece of paper is just wood-pulp washed, bleached and refined.
A beam of steel is just iron ore and minerals melted through a furnace.
A computer is just sand, minerals, periodic elements and a bit of solder.
It is easy to reduce a human being into a sum of its parts. To make someone just their past, their mistakes, their permanent record. To make someone just their accomplishments, their degrees, their net worth. To make someone their possessions, their family, their affiliations.
The problem with that is it reduces us to nothing more than a pencil, a paintbrush, a piece of paper. We are more, though. We have something only found in human beings: potential and possibilities. At any given moment, at any given crossroads, we could become so much more than we were previously. We could outshine our darkest corners. We could shatter our prior ceilings. We could go completely off the script we had been following.
You, human reading these words - you are more than the pieces that represent you. You are more than your follies or your feats. You are pure energy, unpredictable and uncontainable. You are potential. You are possibilities.
***
The best part of Barton Academy, a boarding school in New England, is going home. It's getting away! It is suffocatingly antiquated, especially professors like Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti). Hunham is unforgiving, unbending and unfriendly. Yikes - get me away from him!
As Christmas 1970 nears, the school begins to empty. After finals are completed, each lucky boy gets to be with family. They get to return to those things that fill their lives with joy and gratitude instead of the school that sucks their souls dry. See ya!
Well, that is unless they have no family to return to. A few kids at the boarding school have nowhere to go, so they stay at school for the break. Those kids (and one lucky member of the faculty) are called "holdovers."
Professor Hunham didn't have better plans for Christmas, but he certainly didn't want the job of babysitter ... and his boss hates him, so Hunham is roped into it. Senior Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa) had plans for the beaches of St. Kitts and tiny bikinis for the holidays, but his recently remarried mother threw him a curveball at the last second: Angus must be a holdover. Heartbroken and quite embarrassed, Angus had no choice. Cafeteria administrator Mary Lamb (Da'Vine Joy Randolph) is also staying behind to keep the holdovers fed. Due to the recent loss of her son in Vietnam, she is not eager to face life and family in these tough times.
Hunham is bent on rules and order. Tully is determined to breathe and be free. Lamb is grasping for what is lost and fearful of what is left. We got ourselves a motley crew! What better season to rethink the word "family" and find new meaning than Christmas?
I kept hearing about The Holdovers - how great it was, how funny it was, how refreshing it was. Well, it is all that! I was thoroughly impressed with Alexander Payne's latest. It is intimate and intentional. What it lacks in surprise and inventiveness, it makes up for in spirit. Payne has a way with dialogue, keeping it fresh and forward-moving.
Writer David Hemingson shows great skill in the screenplay. Each character is beautifully written and developed. There is a deep humanity present in each of their struggles and their eventual growth.
Giamatti deserves much praise for his performance as the lovable curmudgeon. He is intense in his delicate emotions, able to perform each clearly and authentically. It is a relentlessly interesting performance! I thought the movie's supporting cast a bit underwhelming. Sessa is steady as youngster Angus, but his performance seemed childishly raw. Randolph is the Oscar frontrunner for best supporting actress, but I don't see the appeal. The character has written depth, but her performance plays a bit wooden.
It is deserving of its nomination for five Oscars, including Best Picture.
REPORT CARD: The Holdovers
Grade: A –
Assessment: A truly enjoyable vision of difficulty and determination
***
Sandra Voyter (Sandra Hüller) is a German novelist of acclaim; she is in a season of much success and prosperity professionally. Her personal life is the struggle: Her marriage is on the rocks; her life was uprooted to France; her home is a neverending work-in-progress; her son Daniel was involved in a preventable accident that robbed him of almost all his sight ... and that stinking music! TURN DOWN THAT REGGAE VERSION OF 50-CENT!
Due to her husband's aggressively loud music, Sandra has to cancel an in-home interview. Overwhelmed by the music and the tension at home, Daniel takes the dog for a walk along the snowy French Alps, which just so happens to be in his backyard. Upon his return, he finds his father dead in the snow just outside the attic balcony.
Accident? Murder? There is passion present, contempt contemplated, love still lingering and nothing but speculation devoid of fact. Did she do it?
"Anatomy of a Murder" is an unexpected delight. It is, on the surface, an ordinary courtroom drama. Under the surface, in an almost unexplainable way, it is so much more. It is the expertly crafted tension that keeps the movie new in every moment.
Director/writer Justine Triet shows an undeniable grasp on movement and pacing. She guides the audience through this situation with a deft hand, even courtroom scenes where the action is minimal. The ambiguity, the unanswerable questions ... they loom and fill the movie!
The cinematography of Simon Beaufils is breathtaking at moments, truly full of splendor; at other times, it is familiar and subtle. The editing of Laurent Sénéchal is succinct yet full of energy. The production design of Emmanuelle Duplay is textured and effortless.
The film's acting is consistently impressive. Hüller is wonderfully and cryptically captivating. Samuel Theis is impactful as Samuel Maleski, the murdered husband. The relationship between Hüller and Maleski is complicated and rich. Milo Machado Graner is capable as young Daniel, often carrying a scene with talent and sensitivity. Swann Arlaud is affecting as Maître Vincent Renzi, Hüller's lawyer.
My only complaint is the resolution. I was truly loving the movie's resistance toward closure; I would have preferred to keep it wide open.
It is deserving of its nomination for five Oscars, including Best Picture.
REPORT CARD: Anatomy of a Murder
Grade: A-
Assessment: A thrilling addition to the genre!