Inchanting Intouchables

I had the pleasure of attending a screening of the French film The Intouchables the other night. I had never heard of the film prior to the screening save for a brief plot summary on movietickets.com a couple of hours beforehand, but I was intrigued.

I absolutely adored this movie. It is heartwarming without being cheesy, and similar to Love Actually, makes me cry, laugh, beam with happiness, and leaves me with an overall positive outlook on life.

Francois Cluzet plays Phillipe, a widowed aristocrat paralyzed from the neck down who is searching for a new caretaker. Omar Sy plays Driss, a guy from the projects who meets Phillippe when he goes to interview for the caretaker position in order to get a signature for his unemployment benefits. Phillippe likes Driss's frankness and carefree demeanor since it's a refreshing change from the stiff, uptight nurses he'd interviewed before. Driss becomes his live-in caretaker and they form a close friendship that expands both of their horizons and opens them to new experiences that they wouldn't have had the courage to experience otherwise.

It is a classic scenario of the straight man paired with the joker. Driss is the joker and Phillipe is the straight man off whom to bounce gags. The combination of Omar Sy and Francoise Cluzet is an example of perfect casting. They play off each other really well. Cluzet's smirks and restrained laughter to Sy's antics keep the relationship grounded and realistic.

What I find the most charming about this film is how heartwarming it is without crossing the line into contrived sentimentality. For example, there is a scene in which Driss sits through a classical music concert with Phillipe and identifies the pieces through commercials or cartoons and then plays Earth, Wind and Fire to liven the party. Had it been a scene in an American film, it would have played as schmaltzy and groan-worthy: Driss is dancing around and getting everyone in the room to dance with him and he has a huge smile on his face as he tries to get Philippe to enjoy the music. Somehow, it was not cheesy in this film. The French are able to pull off heartwarming, silly moments without inducing gagging because they don't oversell the moment. They trust the material, play it for what it is and let the content speak for itself. As a result, the scene was celebratory and a nice moment in the movie.

The main fault I found with the film was the use of exposition at the end to sum up the lives of the characters. It immediately took me out of the film. I was simply enjoying the film in a narrative context so once they put up captions and pictures of the real people, I was zapped back to reality. I hate to say it, but it ruined the movie a little bit. They should have ended the movie after the last scene and omited the captions and pictures. Films can tell a true story without referencing the real people. In an age where audiences don't simply watch a film but also research the backstory on websites and blogs, information and pictures about the real people could have been set aside for those venues instead of capping the film.

Be that as it may, the performances are wonderful and the movie is inspiring and worth a viewing. It is a great example of not allowing any kind of emotional or physical handicaps prevent you from taking a chance at living life to its fullest. Go see it if you get the chance.



The Intouchables is written and directed by Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano and stars Francois Cluzet and César-winning Omar Sy. It is currently playing in Los Angeles at The Landmark Theater and Arclight Hollywood.

Lack of an Eye for Details in 'The Raven'

      There is a trend not only in literature but also in Hollywood to take classic works of fiction and put a modern spin on them. Audiences have enjoyed reading “Pride, Prejudice and Zombies” and Abe Lincoln: Vampire Killer will be released in theaters this year. The Raven follows this trend by incorporating some of Poe’s classic work into an entertaining thriller with the man himself as the protagonist.

      The premise of the film involves a series of murders in Victorian-era Baltimore played out like the scenes from published Edgar Allen Poe stories. Poe is called upon to help investigate these murders and when his lady love is kidnapped by the killer, Poe must write a series of murder stories to try to get her back.

      The film opens strong with death shoved in our faces. Edgar Allen Poe sits dying on a park bench while a cannibalistic image of ravens feasting on one of their own cuts to police investigating a gruesome double homicide. We are immediately plunged into a haunting world in which no one is safe from his own kind.

       Hannah Shakespeare and Ben Livingston have written a unique script with an inspired storyline. They have clearly done their research of Edgar Allen Poe’s literary portfolio as they weave various elements and symbolism from his stories throughout the plot, providing clues to the murderer as well as winks to Poe literates. The script structure is parallel to how the villain enacts his devious plan – echoing the stories and providing clues to further the action. There is a nice moment in which a scene involving an editor lecturing Poe to write more gore instead of reviews that to a gory scene involving the death of a critic. The screenwriters almost dare the audience to critique the film by having characters make quips about literary criticism.

       Unfortunately, the execution of the film is flawed. The tone is disjointed and the anachronistic dialogue distracts from the historical look of the period film. While the screenplay does a worthy job of alluding to famous Poe imagery, the film is not resolved as to whether it wants to be a macabre suspense thriller or a dark comedy that happens to have thrills and gore. Once the movie ends, the end credits begin with blaring modern music and angular graphics that are more reminiscent of "True Blood" than a Victorian-era thriller.

        John Cusack is entertaining as Edgar Allen Poe but his wacky characterization veers more toward raving buffoon than brooding intellectual. The beautiful Alice Eve neither excites nor inspires empathy as the love interest, Emily, and their chemistry fizzles. Brendan Gleeson is solid as Emily’s father and Luke Evans gives a noteworthy performance as Detective Fields.

        One blaring flaw in the film is a fault in editing - we never actually see Emily kidnapped. When the villain arrives at the party and wreaks havoc, we jump from her and Poe holding hands in the crowd to a scene where the characters discuss her disappearance. How is the audience supposed to feel a rush of panic with Poe if we never actually see the moment that drives the rest of the film's action?

        Regardless of any inconsistencies, the movie is entertaining and suspenseful. The relationship between Poe and the villain could have been compelling due to the parallel between the man/bird relationship in Poe's famous poem: Poe is tormented with self-torture as he searches for his beloved while an unreasonable creature torments him with constant refrains of murder and hopelessness. If you’re a fan of Poe, gore or if you’re a fan of historical dramas, you will be sure to find elements in this film to satisfy your tastes.

       The Raven is directed by James McTeigue and stars John Cusack, Alice Eve, Brendan Gleeson and Luke Evans. Run time is a reasonable 1 hour 50 minutes.

*Unpublished movie review from a few months ago

No Love for "The Loved Ones"

I had the opportunity through my internship at Clevver Media to attend a free screening of the Australian horror film The Loved Ones a few days ago with the idea of writing a review for the Clevver Movies blog.

Unfortunately, my opportunity turned to misfortune as the movie progressed, so much so that I left the free screening and in so doing, nulled the possibility of writing a credible blog for my job. I will write my opinion of this movie for my own personal blog, so here it goes.

I have only left in the middle of a screening once before. It was also during a horror film - The Hills Have Eyes remake to be exact. Before my stomach shocking material is questioned, let me just add that A Clockwork Orange is one of my favorite films.

The problem with this movie is that the shocking material that was in the film served no purpose in questioning any social mores or making any kind of valid point. It was simply a feature length of gratuitous "torture porn" and disturbing material that was neither justified nor supported by the writing, acting or directing. It was shock value for the sake of shock value and because of that, a complete waste of time.

The movie is about a troubled teenage boy kidnapped on the night of his high school dance by an even more troubled classmate and her father after he turns down her request to go to the dance together.

It begins with the boy and his father having a bonding moment in the car that is quickly shattered when an injured naked man appears in the middle of the road, causing the boy to swerve into a tree and kill his father. We flash forward to him in high school a few months later, clearly troubled and on drugs. His unsightly but loving girlfriend and he share an intimate moment in the car that is uncomfortable to watch due to his razor blade necklace hanging dangerously close to her vagina. I had my eyes covered during this part expecting the worst, not realizing the worst would come much later in the movie.

We find out the boy has become a cutter in order to cope with his depression, and after a fight with his mother, we see him stomp down the street gripping the razor blade in his hand with blood running down his wrist. He walks to a cliff area and climbs the rocks to his secret spot. Oddly, after seeing him cut the hell out of his hand, he has no wounds during the scene which is a testament to the lack of continuity in the film. Before he has a moment to catch his breath from his climb, we see a man sneak up behind him and cover his mouth to pull him into a car trunk. The boy's dog is beaten, wounded and sent off to die.

We cut to a side story about the boy's best friend who asks the local Goth girl to the dance, and we see their relationship progress. Her father is the local sheriff who is soon called in to go searching for the protagonist. This side story will have no real tie-in to the main story in terms of action driving the plot forward. It simply serves as a reprieve from the main story.

We cut back to the house in the boonies and the creepy girl from earlier is in her bedroom gluing pictures of the protagonist into a scrapbook. Her room is filled with dolls and pink decor and she's listening to an angsty girl song about unrequited love called "Not Pretty Enough". Her father comes in, gives her a pink party dress and watches her undress with lustful eyes while she tries it on. They go to their kitchen which is decorated for a party and the protagonist is tied to a chair. To sum up the rest of what I saw, they threaten to hammer his dick to the chair unless he pees in front of them, he escapes his ties with the use of his razor blade and climbs a tree but they throw rocks at him and knock him out and drag him back into the kitchen. Disturbing dialogue, a zombie woman with a hole in her head, and violence ensued. I left after they got him out of the tree. The scene playing as I left the theater involved the father and daughter driving knives into his feet.

The problem about a film like this involves the lack of any kind of purpose for the action. The acting is wretched, so I felt no empathy for any character. The writing is bad with dialogue like, "[Your penis] is crying. I better kiss it make it better." The continuity and progression of events is inconsistent. And above all, with such disturbing content, it absolutely has to have a some kind of message that it's trying to convey. Instead, it is simply there just for the sake of existing. Therefore, it is uninteresting and not worth my time. Luckily, I did not pay anything to see it.

I don't require horror films to portray some kind of message about society. But I do prefer to watch movies, whether horror or another genre, to have some thought behind its execution.  Since this film lacked that, I had to pass.