Crisp Criticism - "First Man", "The Rider", "Private Life", "22 July", "First Reformed"

by

Julien Faddoul

First Man **

A look at the life of the astronaut Neil Armstrong and the legendary space mission that led him to become the first man to walk on the Moon on July 20, 1969.

Chazelle’s meticulously constructed film, in which a biographical psychodrama is exercised to expound upon so many greater themes of human history (the hazardousness of the US Space Program, 60’s masculine stoicism, the allure of a new world, science as a federal priority, parental grief etc.) that it ends up illuminating none of them.

d – Damien Chazelle

w – Josh Singer   (Based on the Book by James R. Hansen)

ph – Linus Sandgren

pd – Nathan Crowley

m – Justin Hurwitz

ed – Tom Cross

cos – Mary Zophres

p – Marty Bowen, Damien Chazelle, Wyck Godfrey, Isaac Klausner

Cast: Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy, Corey Stoll, Kyle Chandler, Jason Clarke, Shea Whigham, Christopher Abbott, Brian d'Arcy James, Pablo Schreiber, Patrick Fugit, Cory Michael Smith, Ethan Embry, Ciarán Hinds, Skyler Bible, Lukas Haas, Brady Smith, JD Evermore, Steve Coulter, Olivia Hamilton

The Rider ***

After suffering a near fatal head injury during a rodeo, a young cowboy undertakes a search for a new identity and what it means to be a man in the heartland of America.

Literal assimilation of the old adage “Getting Back on the Horse.” Narratively there’s nothing new here but Zhao’s compassion for her subjects and respect for their circumstances is searingly palpable. Playing essentially himself, the courage of Jandreau’s self-dissection onscreen is both harsh and affecting.

wd – Chloe Zhao

ph – Joshua James Richards

m – Nathan Halpern

ed – Alex O’Flinn

p – Mollye Asher, Bert Hamelinck, Sacha Ben Harroche, Chloé Zhao

Cast: Brady Jandreau, Tim Jandreau, Lilly Jandreau, Cat Clifford, Terri Dawn Pourier, Lane Scott, Tanner Langdeau, James Calhoon, Derrick Janis, Greg Barber, Steven DeWolfe, Leroy Pourier, Frank Steele

Private Life ***

An author in her 40s is undergoing multiple fertility therapies to get pregnant, putting her relationship with her husband on edge.

Witty and refreshingly unsentimentalized account of current-day concerns and desires, with sharp writing and acting. It brazenly explores the ebbing of families when obstacles become foundational principles, with characters that never feel like mere plot elements.

wd – Tamara Jenkins

ph – Christos Voudouris

pd – Ford Wheeler

ed – Brian A. Kates

cos – Leah Katznelson

p – Tamara Jenkins, Stefanie Azpiazu, Anthony Bregman

Cast: Kathryn Hahn, Paul Giamatti, Kayli Carter, Molly Shannon, John Carroll Lynch, Desmin Borges, Denis O'Hare, Siobhan Fallon Hogan, Emily Robinson

22 July *

In Norway on 22 July 2011, right-wing terrorist Anders Behring Breivik murdered 77 young people attending a Labour Party Youth Camp on Utöya Island outside of Oslo.

Mechanical, strangely hollow recreation of a massacre and its judicial aftermath, with its director’s typical absence of dramaturgical discourse (though political potency is rampant.) Unlike his best realizations, the approach here feels polished but, in a way, sort of perverse. Like other journalistic, liberally inclined contemporary filmmakers – Kathryn Bigelow, Oliver Stone, Spike Lee – Greengrass would assuredly benefit from a change of scenery.

wd – Paul Greengrass

ph – Pål Ulvik Rokseth

pd – Liv Ask

m – Sune Martin

ed – William Goldenberg

cos – Margrét Einarsdóttir

p – Paul Greengrass, Scott Rudin, Eli Bush, Gregory Goodman

Cast: Jonas Strand Gravli, Anders Danielsen Lie, Jon Øigarden, Isak Bakli Aglen, Maria Bock, Thorbjørn Harr, Seda Witt, Ola G. Furuseth, Marit Andreassen, Øystein Martinsen, Valborg Frøysnes, Thor-Harald Normann

First Reformed ***

A pastor of a small church in upstate New York starts to spiral out of control after a soul-shaking encounter with an unstable environmental activist and his pregnant wife.

As soulful a compendium of Schrader’s oeuvre, sensibilities and influences (chiefly Bergman and Bresson here, but also Dreyer, Tarkovsky, Chekhov and his own collaborations with Scorsese) as one would both hope for and expect. His usual lack of ostentatiousness, affected though it is, crystallises into something politically and philosophically shattering. Hawke is brilliant in the lead role as what is probably the most wearily jaded of Schrader’s emotionally debilitated men.

wd – Paul Schrader

ph – Alexander Dynan

pd – Grace Yun

m – Brian Williams

ed – Benjamin Rodriguez Jr.

cos – Olga Mill

p – Jack Binder, Greg Clark, Gary Hamilton, Victoria Hill, David Hinojosa, Frank Murray, Deepak Sikka, Christine Vachon

Cast: Ethan Hawke, Amanda Seyfried, Cedric Kyles, Victoria Hill, Philip Ettinger, Michael Gaston