The Trip to Bountiful: A Review (Review #1962)

THE TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL

Memory is a most curious thing. It is something that we alone possess, attempt to pass on, and sometimes live in or for. The Trip to Bountiful is both a specific and universal story, with a moving performance from Geraldine Page as a flawed but feisty woman, determined to go back one final time to what was home.

Carrie Watts (Page) is a widow living with her son Luddie (John Heard) and his wife Jessie Mae (Carlyn Glynn). To say that Mother Watts and Jessie Mae do not get along is putting it mildly. The bossy, often mean Jessie Mae is a tyrant with Mama Watts, scolding her for singing hymns and accusing her of deliberately hiding her pension check that Jessie Mae wants. Luddie, for his part, wants there to be peace between the two women in his life, but they cannot find much common ground.

Mrs. Watts is determined to go back to her hometown of Bountiful, Texas, for one last visit and reminisce. Luddie and especially Jessie Mae are dead set against it and will not let her go. It takes Jessie Mae finally leaving to meet up with her frenemy for Mrs. Watts to carry out her plan: rush out of their shared apartment, board a train to Bountiful and get back home. Unfortunately, Mrs. Watts is not aware that time has evaporated Bountiful, done in by the Depression and people moving from there to nearby Houston, where she too lives. Finding there are no trains to Bountiful, she tries a bus. There are no buses to Bountiful, but there are to nearby Harrison. That's close enough for Mrs. Watts, who manages to avoid Luddie and Jessie Mae.

On route, she makes friend with Thelma (Rebecca De Mornay), who has recently married a soldier shipped off and who is traveling to Corpus Christi to stay with her parents until her new husband returns. In Harrison, Mrs. Watts realizes that she left her purse on the bus that just left. Fortunately, the bus is not too far and can have the purse sent back. Unfortunately, that gives the police enough time to hold Mrs. Watts in town until Luddie comes for her. The shock of coming so close only to be held back is too much, and she has a medical emergency. The sheriff, taking pity on her, agrees to escort her to what remains of Bountiful, though he reminds Mrs. Watts that Luddie will bring her back. Once in Bountiful, Mrs. Watts reflects on what has come before and what there is left to come. Will Mama Watts, Luddie and Jessie Mae find a new understanding amongst each other?

It is a curious thing that while The Trip to Bountiful is often filmed in open spaces, it still strongly reflects its stage roots. So many scenes in The Trip to Bountiful play as if they were taking place on a stage. I do not know if director Peter Masterson or screenwriter Horton Foote (adapting his own stage play) deliberately intended to make The Trip to Bountiful look like a stage play filmed outdoors. That was what I found to be the end result.

This observation is not a slam on the film. Far from it: The Trip to Bountiful allows for the dialogue and the acting to have more of a focus due to that staging. It is, however, easy to see how the story originated on the stage given that it plays that way. 

The Trip to Bountiful was Geraldine Page's eighth Oscar nomination. Had she lost, Page would have had the record for the greatest number of unsuccessful Oscar bids, or at least gotten there before the current record holders of Peter O'Toole and Glenn Close who are both 0-8. Given that Page was not a major film star like O'Toole and Close, this would have made for a curious bit of history. However, Page more than was worthy of the win. This is not the time nor place to judge whether Page "deserved" to win or match her against her competitors.

It is, instead, a time to look at Page's performance. Here, one is deeply moved by Mrs. Watts, who is stubborn but also filled with deep emotion on her past, present and future. She has wonderful moments of monologues, such as when she talks to Thelma about Ray John Murray, whom she considers the lost love of her life. Telling Thelma that she did not love her husband but admired him (and let him know it), we see in Page's performance all the waves of regret that Carrie Watts has. Mrs. Watts is a woman of deep faith, who finds both joy and comfort in her relationship with Christ. She also has great pain, talking about the loss of two of her children in moments that move the audience. In her desire to visit her old ground, her fear and anger at seemingly failing, the struggle with her daughter-in-law, Page captures this singular woman's needs, anxieties and hopes.

The Trip to Bountiful is an exceptionally well-acted film all around. Rebecca De Mornay and Carlin Glynn would have more than rightly earned Best Supporting Actress nominations for their performances as Thelma and Jessie Mae respectively. It is a bit of a surprise that both were overlooked that year. De Mornay reveals a side to her skills that I think has not been as tapped as it should have. Her Thelma is gentle, kind and almost innocent, a young bride starting out her life who helps Mrs. Watts avoid Luddie and Jessie Mae. In their scenes together, you see a bond growing that the pressures of time forced an end. Again, you can see how the character of Thelma might have just been there for Act II, but that does not remove the positives of De Mornay in the film.

For her part, we get to openly hate Glynn's Jessie Mae. She is not a monster, for at one point she does show great concern when Mother Watts has something of a fainting spell, even offering to stay with her while Mother Watts recovers. However, for most of The Trip to Bountiful, we see Jessie Mae as snobbish, contemptuous of her elderly mother-in-law and rather curt with everyone. Still, by the end, we do see that perhaps there can be a rapprochement in their relationship.

In his role, Heard too showed another side as the henpecked Luddie. He loves his mother, but he loves his wife too. Near the end, Luddie has a long monologue about how he does not feel the connection to Bountiful that Carrie has owing to the circumstances that he lived through. Heard handles the gentle, sometimes weak, but eventually firm Luddie with great skill. This is a man filled with regrets, even anger, about his situation with Carrie and Jessie Mae, but now wants to see if he can be that peacemaker he wants to be.

The Trip to Bountiful is a curious film in how it is never far from its stage roots. However, with strong performances from the cast and a moving story about the importance of your past and future, I think many will be moved at the end. "I'll go on," Mrs. Watts at one point says. She may mean go on to Bountiful, but I think there's more meaning than that. We all have our own Bountiful, and The Trip to Bountiful is a beautiful reminder of remembering our roots without becoming entangled in them.

DECISION: B+

The Great American Pastime: A Review

 

THE GREAT AMERICAN PASTIME

Welcome to Rick's Texan Reviews Annual Opening Day Movie Review, where I look at a baseball-related film to coincide with the AAA Opening Day for the El Paso Chihuahuas. This year, I look at the funny frolics of Little League.

Long before we had the Bad News Bears, we had the Willow Falls Panthers. The Great American Pastime looks at the dangers of Little League Baseball, from pushy parents to dirty players. While essentially a B-film, The Great American Pastime has just enough charm to carry it over.

Bruce Hallerton (Tom Ewell) loves watching baseball, but he is not big on other things, such as his wife Betty (Anne Francis) or son Dennis (Rudy Dee). A surprise opportunity for father-son bonding comes up when a group of fellow attorneys ask him to be their Little League team manager. Unfortunately for Bruce, Dennis is placed on a rival Little League team. Still determined to make the best of it, Bruce continues managing the disastrous Panthers.

The poor record does not win him any fans among the Panthers' parents save perhaps for one: the luscious Doris Patterson (Anne Miller). This femme fatale of the Little League set always laughs at Bruce's jokes, invites him (and his family) to dinner and appears delighted to be near the plain Bruce. Betty clearly dislikes this black widow, much to Bruce's confusion. Bruce now has to content not only with Betty's growing green-eyed monster but Dennis adopting the questionable "win-at-all-costs" attitude the Tigers have. Will Bruce grow to bring at least one win to the hapless Panthers? Will he let Doris down easy? Will he get a big surprise from Doris and Betty?

The Great American Pastime is fully aware that it is meant to be a bit light. As such, I judge it on whether or not it entertained me and made me laugh. It did this mostly well.

What did surprise me was in how almost progressive The Great American Pastime is when it comes to adultery and sex. Granted it was a bit in double entendre and suggestions, but it worked quite well. Remarking on what he considers Doris' best attributes (raising a son as a widow), he says, "I take my hat off to her". Betty instantly fires back, "Please make sure that's all". After an outraged Doris crushes Bruce's dreams of a mistress, she informs him that she was only buttering him up to get a favorable position for her son Herbie. As she orders him out of her house, she gives him a parting shot. "Now run along and...play with your marbles". 

Read that any way you like.

The Great American Pastime also features two black players. Sadly, we never heard from them or the parents, but I find it a step forward. 

The performances range from the amusing to the tolerable. Tom Ewell is pleasant enough as Bruce, a put-upon man who creates his own disasters. Appropriately silly when working with Doris, he does not do so well when bemoaning his situations to Betty. Francis is a bit weak as Betty, but to be fair it was not a great part. The thought of Miller as this Little League temptress is amusing, more so given the plain-looking Ewell. However, she did quite well in the role. The Great American Pastime is also an early role for Dean Jones as the eager young coach. Bruce's voiceover description of Buck Rivers has one of Nathaniel Benchley's clever lines: "His teeth were so white they made me nervous". 

We get a lot of amusing zingers in The Great American Pastime. Early on, Bruce describes his team as "a nest of midgets". Later on, he attempts to make Betty sympathetic to the black widow Doris by telling her that her husband "disappeared into the jungle". "What was he: a baboon?" she derisively responds. After a disastrous game, Dennis is talking about the results with the family dog, Smidgen. An irate Bruce asks that Dennis stop. "Why? You afraid he'll get your job?", Betty replies.

One thing that I think was a flaw was in having Ewell address us directly in the opening and closing. I think we could have done without the voiceovers too, though it is not a deal-breaker for me. 

At a brisk 90 minutes, The Great American Pastime knows when to start and when to finish. A light affair, The Great American Pastime may not be great itself, but it is pleasant enough and fully aware. 

DECISION: C+

2024 Opening Day Film: Mr. Baseball

2023 Opening Day Film: Angels in the Outfield (1954) 

2022 Opening Day Film: Bull Durham

2021 Opening Day Film: Alibi Ike

2020 Opening Day Film: Mr. 3000

2019 Opening Day Film: Ladies' Day

2018 Opening Day Film: Fear Strikes Out

2017 Opening Day Film: Eight Men Out

Venus (2006): A Review (Review #1960)

VENUS (2006)

I start my Venus review with a curious observation: whoever chose this poster to advertise the film ought to be publicly horsewhipped. It is downright frightening, this disheveled old man staring back at me, almost dead-eyed. Moreover, it tells us absolutely nothing about what Venus is about. HE can't possibly be the goddess of love. Venus, Peter O'Toole's eighth and final failed Best Actor nomination, probably would not be remembered save for that sad distinction. That is a shame, as Venus is a good film about mortality and a mutual great awakening to the joys of life.

Relatively successful actor Maurice Russell (O'Toole) has become adept at playing corpses, finding fewer roles in his seventies. He exchanges pills and reminiscences with his acting friends and colleagues Ian (Leslie Philips) and Donald (Richard Griffiths). Ian is at first delighted that his great-niece is coming to London to care for him. He soon finds Jessie (Jodie Whitaker) a boorish nightmare. Ian begs Maurice to take her off his hands. The ever-rakish though secretly ill Maurice agrees.

As Maurice and Jessie start to know each other, they find the generation gap pretty large. Jessie, uncultured, uncouth and unsophisticated, is opening up to Maurice about her life. She occasionally teases him about looking and touching her, which he finds delightful. For his part, Maurice finds new vim and vigor despite his growing illness owing to his prostate. He does wine and dine her, but he also gets her a modeling job, posing for art classes. Maurice also brings art and culture into her life. 

Still, Ian, who still dislikes his tart of a great-niece, finds their relationship, whatever it is, distasteful. As they all push and pull away and at each other, will Jessie grow in life as Maurice fades away from it? Will the lifelong friends reconcile before it is too late? 

The title Venus comes from Maurice's nickname for Jessie, partially inspired by the Diego Velazquez painting Rokeby Venus at the National Gallery in London which Maurice shows her. Venus is a very brisk 95 minutes long, and in that time director Roger Michell guides his actors to very good performances.

At the top of the list is Peter O'Toole, who as stated earned a Best Actor nomination for the film. He handled the comedy well, such as when he does a pratfall attempting to see Jessie's first nude modeling. After accidentally barging in and causing a ruckus, Maurice attempts to play it cool by asking, "Is everything all right?". 

O'Toole has a droll manner as the knowing rascal Maurice. Speaking about the nightmare that his great-niece is, Ian tells his friends, "Martha said there is no job in the countryside". Maurice observes in O'Toole's magnificent voice, "There must be some demand for barmaids and prostitutes". When persuading Jessie to go to a theater performance, he observes, "It won't be as good as Celebrity Love Island, but it'll be live". 

However, in O'Toole's performance, we see the vulnerable, even regretful aspects of him. Some of his best scenes are with Vanessa Redgrave as his ex-wife Valerie. Here, just the two of them, we see Maurice coming to terms with his failures in love and more importantly, with his own mortality. 

There is poignant moment where he and Ian go to a small church which contains memorial plaques to their fellow thespians, some of whom they knew, some whom they did not. As a chamber orchestra begins to play, these two BFFs begin an impromptu waltz, finding joy and acceptance that they too will eventually find their names here. 

An aspect of O'Toole's performance that may go unnoticed is how Maurice, as a still-working actor, has a few scenes where he is acting in two roles: Maurice and whatever character Maurice is performing. In a clever bit of editing, we first see Maurice fall in Ian's apartment after essentially hitting the clubs with Jessie immediately followed by him in a hospital, surrounded by family begging him not to die. We soon quickly establish that the hospital is a studio, and Maurice is playing yet again another dying man. It was a clever twist in screenwriter Hanif Kureishi's script. Later, Maurice takes Jessie to a location shoot, where Maurice is acting in a Georgian drama. Made up in full Georgian makeup and costume, one briefly gets caught up in that story, showing O'Toole's range.

Peter O'Toole is a standout in Venus, bringing Maurice's joie de vivre as he accepts his impending death with grace, though not perhaps with a lot of dignity. This is a man who loves life but who also faces his mortality with a mix of fear, regret and acceptance. 

It is hard to judge Jodie Whitaker in Venus, which was her film debut. She was fine as the tawdry but evolving Jessie. In fairness, she has a wonderful, quiet moment when she, while bathing, talks about a forced abortion to Maurice, waiting outside. Earlier, Maurice told Jessie that the sight of a beautiful woman would be the most beautiful thing that a man would see. When she asks what would be the most beautiful thing that a woman would see, after a pause Maurice says, "Her first child". It was not clear why that caused Jessie to become upset, but this scene explains that. We also see how, by the end, Jessie had changed for the better, the woman who terrorized her great-uncle by just lying about eventually became a responsible young woman. 

In their smaller roles, Philips, Griffiths and Redgrave also did well. The interplay between O'Toole and Philips revealed a longstanding bond right from the start, where these two old men exchange medication and tell each other the pros and cons of red or white pills. Griffiths has some of the funnier moments, such as when he expands on Maurice's skills with women. Maurice, lover of words, assures his friend that he is "a scientist of the female heart" who can get Jessie off his back. Donald adds on that Maurice is "a professor of pussy", which shocks Ian and amuses Maurice. 

Venus also features Corrine Bailey Rae's Put Your Records On, which dominated the airwaves back in the day. It does describe Jessie's evolved character, and lends Venus a nice, casually upbeat ending and chill vibe. 

Venus is a short, simple story well told, with good performances all around. People who might worry that the May-December relationship is sordid I think might misread it. I do not see it as a sugar daddy-pretty young thing situation, though there are elements of that. It is, however, not exactly a grandfather and granddaughter type either. I put it as a strange dance between people who may not have sought each other out, but who ended up in better places thanks to their interactions. 

DECISION: B-

My Favorite Year: A Review

 

MY FAVORITE YEAR

Television's early days were never so wild and outlandish as My Favorite Year, a wonderful and brilliant comedy with a bravura no-holds-barred performance from Peter O'Toole. My Favorite Year is a delightful romp, full of heart and joy but able to move you in its softer moments. 

My Favorite Year is 1954 according to our protagonist, Benji Stone (Mark-Lynn Baker). Stone is the newest and youngest writer on television sketch comedy show Comedy Cavalcade, starring Stan "King" Kaiser (Joseph Bologna). Kaiser is abrasive, temperamental and prone to delusions of grandeur and insecurity. He also is not afraid of spoofing mob boss Karl "Boss" Rojek (Cameron Mitchell) with a series of comedy sketches about "Boss Hijack". Rojek does not like being openly mocked, but despite the danger that is the least of Kaiser's concerns.

That belongs to this week's Comedy Cavalcade guest star, matinee idol Alan Swann (Peter O'Toole). Swann is a drunk whose best years seem behind him. He delights in being scandalous, but he is also suave, charming and even insecure behind the bravado and swashbuckling derring-do. Benji, who is a massive Swann fanboy, dares to stand up to not just Kaiser but the equally loud and abrasive Comedy Cavalcade head writer Sy Benson (Bill Macy), insisting that Swann should not be replaced as the guest star. Kaiser, impressed by Stone's act of defiance, agrees to keep Swann in the show, provided that Stone keep his eyes on Swann. Stone won't be alone in trying to keep Swann out of trouble, for Swann's longtime New York chauffeur Alfie Bumbacelli (Tony DiBennedetto) is an old pro at keeping Mr. Swann from his most extreme behavior.

With that, Benji Stone and Alan Swann begin their weeklong adventures. Swann offers guidance in Stone's wooing of Comedy Cavalcade production assistant K.C. Dowling (Jessica Harper). Swann takes Stone to dinner at the Stork Club, where he helps Swann squire a pretty young thing. Stone also takes Swann to have dinner with his mother Belle Steinberg Carroca (Laine Kazan) and his stepfather, Filipino bantamweight boxer Rookie (Ramon Sison). 

As the week comes close to ending, Swann and Stone learn more about each other. Despite his image, Swann is really at heart Clarence Duffy, a Scotsman who went AWOL from the British Navy with dreams of becoming an actor and managed to become a movie star. Stone reveals that he is really a Benjamin Steinberg, who does not hide his Jewish identity but is embarrassed by his family's behavior. On the day of the broadcast, Swann has swanned off to Connecticut in a failed effort to see his daughter Tess, whom he loves but is afraid to reconnect with. Will Alan Swann pull himself together enough to perform live in front of a studio audience, a prospect that terrifies him? Will Boss Rojek get back at King Kaiser literally on the air?  

My Favorite Year is really about Stone's favorite week, as the story takes place in that short time period. Screenwriters Norman Steinberg and Dennis Palumbo (from a story by Palumbo) crafted a story that was in terms outlandish and heartwarming, where the characters can be crazed one moment, touching the next. 

A good moment that shows how My Favorite Year balances absurdity with sincerity is when Benji takes Alan to the foreign land of Brooklyn for a Steinberg family dinner. We get a lot of Borscht Belt comedy when Aunt Sadie (Annette Robyns) pops in wearing her wedding dress, apparently oblivious as to how bonkers it looks. Even Belle looked shocked, and Belle is no shrinking violet, insisting on calling her guest both "Al" and "Swannee". As a bemused Swann looks on, Aunt Sadie comments that she's worn that dress only once before.

This scene has some funny moments, like when Benji scolds his mother for calling Swann "Al". "If I bring Jolson or Capone, you can call him Al", he says. Uncle Morty (Lou Jacobi) replies, "Jolson's coming?". However, we see what makes My Favorite Year so special: Peter O'Toole's performance. O'Toole as Swann here is unflappable and surprisingly respectful and respectable given the odd goings-on. He is gracious towards Benji's family, which is no small feat. When Uncle Morty brings up past sex scandals involving Swann, everyone else is appalled. 

Swann, however, reveals the gentleman behind the rogue. Calmly answering Morty's question about his schtupping past, he says that the answer is no. Swann points out that people like him are targets, often accused of things that they did not do. However, he adds that because of who he is, he sometimes is allowed to get away with murder on other things, so in his mind, it balances out. 

These types of scenes, where O'Toole reveals the gentleman and gentle man behind the swashbuckling persona, are a real acting treat. O'Toole certainly can do the broad farce and drunken pratfalls with great enthusiasm. He even has one of the film's best lines when he realizes, to his horror, that Comedy Cavalcade will not only be live but in front of a studio audience. As his panic grows into a frenzy, he ends his meltdown by shouting out, "I'M NOT AN ACTOR! I'M A MOVIE STAR!".

However, shortly afterwards, Benji finds Swann in the studio hallway. O'Toole shows Swann not as the plastered buffoon he's taken for, but as a frightened man, terrified of being a failure and not living up to the image that even he is not sure is real or fake. O'Toole showcases a range that is simply remarkable in My Favorite Year. One moment he can have you laughing at how outlandish he can be, like when he looks at a fire hose that he can use to try and shimmy down to a lower floor like a man who has discovered fire.

The next moment, you see him silently watching Tess come out of her mother's house. Staying in the car, we see the joy in seeing her fade into fear, him crouching back into the seat. It is a beautiful performance: funny, touching and knowing of this man, a charming, smooth and intelligent but roguish and undisciplined one. It is one of Peter O'Toole's greatest screen performances and an underrated one.

Everyone else in My Favorite Year is not up to O'Toole's level but they are pretty serviceable. Out of the rest of the cast, I would put DiBenedetto as the best, his Alfie very understanding of "Mr. Swann" and his pretty bonkers behavior. Mark-Lynn Baker is "introduced" in My Favorite Year, and I think he did well as Benji Stone/Benjamin Steinberg. He and O'Toole work well together, especially whenever Swann gets Benji's name wrong as either "Stoneberg" or "Stoneburger", which brings no reaction. He did not do so well when he was attempting to tone done his family's behavior, a bit too forced in my view.

Same with some of the other performances. They worked up to a point, but I feel conflicted in that I think that they were meant to be broad but somehow still did not fully work. Bologna was a strange figure: sometimes not funny but exaggerated, other times fine. As a side note, the two comedy sketches shown as part of Comedy Cavalcade (the Boss Hijack sketch and the musketeer sketch meant to spoof Swann's persona) were not funny at all.  

Still, it is a credit to director Richard Benjamin that My Favorite Year rolled pretty smoothly. I hope that people will watch and remember My Favorite Year for being more than Peter O'Toole's seventh Best Actor nomination. It is a fun, nostalgic homage to early television and how our cinematic heroes may be more real than we think.   

DECISION: B+

As Good as It Gets: A Review

AS GOOD AS IT GETS

Melvin Udall is not someone that if you met, you would not want to be around. You certainly would not like him. However, one of the elements in As Good as It Gets is that despite all logic, we end up liking, even loving Melvin no matter how awful he is to others. As Good as It Gets is a wonderful comedy, blending humor and heart where you find yourself laughing even at things that you would cringe at.

Melvin Udall (Jack Nicholson) writes successful romance novels, but he is in many ways a loathsome person. He insults people openly, sometimes shockingly. While he does have obsessive-compulsive disorder, Melvin is also extremely difficult to deal with in his routines. Among those is having breakfast at not just the exact same restaurant but at the exact same table. If anyone else dares to sit at his table, he will not shrink from going beyond mere insults to being downright bigoted in order to get them out. Only Brooklyn waitress Carol Connelly (Helen Hunt) can work with him. 

She also is the only person who can put Melvin in his place. When he dares suggest that her chronically ill son Spencer (Jesse James) will die like everyone else, she makes clear that if Melvin ever brings up Spence again, she will not serve him. For once, Melvin backs down, mostly due to how that would upset his routine though perhaps a small part of him feels shame about targeting a child.

He won't back down when it comes to insulting his openly gay neighbor, painter Simon Bishop (Greg Kinnear) and his little dog too. Simon struggles to confront Melvin, something Simon's art dealer and friend Frank Sachs (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) does not have a problem with. Simon's newest model, hustler Vincent (Skeet Ulrich), poses for two weeks. However, Vincent is party to his fellow hustlers robbing Simon, almost killing the painter. Melvin, no fan of Simon, at least has enough sense to contact the police.

Now, Melvin owes Frank a favor for not beating him up before. That favor? Look after Verdell, Simon's beloved dog whom Melvin cannot stand. Despite himself, Melvin soon starts bonding with Verdell. He also finds that, despite his misanthropic nature, he soon starts getting involved in the lives of both Simon and Carol. When he finds that Carol cannot come serve him because of Spencer's illness, Melvin pays for a specialist to treat him. He goes so far as to venture from Manhattan to Brooklyn to see if Carol can come back to work. 

Melvin also agrees, very reluctantly, to go with Simon to Baltimore to see if Simon's estranged parents can help him financially. Terrified that Simon will attempt to seduce him, Melvin pushes Carol to go with them. On their way to and from Baltimore, friendships and romances build, fall and return.

As Good as It Gets is a master class in writing thanks to Mark Andrus and director James L. Brooks' screenplay. The story flows smoothly, where Melvin's evolution from almost anti-human to somewhat functional but still crass person is natural even though he still says awful things. We know that Melvin is a very terrible person at the beginning, when he dumps Verdell down the garbage chute rather than see the dog urinate on the floor. Add to that how, when Simon asks about Verdell, Melvin replies that he thought that Simon was referring to "that colored man that I've been seeing in the halls".  

As the film goes on, Melvin continues saying the most awful and bigoted things. However, the end result is that we laugh at him, not with him. Melvin's overall uncomfortableness, his thorough thoughtlessness is all played for laughs. We do see, however, that a wonderful element of As Good as It Gets is that we see that for all his awfulness, Melvin has another side to him.

We see it when he is writing his newest romance novel, the words of love pouring out. We see it whenever someone, be it Carol or Frank, stands up to him. As the film goes on, the delight that he has with Verdell makes Melvin almost cuddly. How can we hate someone who sings Always Look on the Bright Side of Life to a dog?  He still is in many respects a horrible person; by the time he introduces Carol and Simon to each other as "Carol the waitress, meet Simon the fag", we see that Melvin is less monstrous and more clueless about people.

There is also a sense of schadenfreude when Melvin has to endure a serious of disasters: he loses Verdell to Simon, is refused to be seen at the psychiatrist's office for his insistence on not making an appointment and finds a new waitress at his table. When he finally is ordered out of the restaurant over his boorish behavior, Melvin's body language shows a man thoroughly dejected, the applause from the other restaurant patrons giving this scene a greater comedic punch. 

The film is filled with great quips and insults. I think the best-known one is when he is asked how he can write women so well. "I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability", he replies to a female fan at his publisher's office. 

As Good as It Gets also has the great blessing of Jack Nicholson in the lead role. Nicholson makes Melvin into a funny character both despite and because of his behavior and bigotry. I think it is because there is a slight impishness in Nicholson's performance, as if we saw that for all his outward bluster and boorish behavior Melvin has something of a heart. He shows the vulnerable man behind the eccentric behavior. Melvin is a misanthrope, but he also is able to see joy in how children are fond of Verdell. You end up being charmed by Melvin, some of the time, and that is due to Nicholson's performance.

Nicholson has a strong group of actors working with him. In a curious turn, I think Helen Hunt is the weaker of the three main characters (Melvin, Carol and Simon). It is not that Hunt, in her Best Actress Oscar-winning performance, is bad. She has a wonderful scene where she struggles to write a lengthy thank-you note to Melvin, which is quite moving. The problem with Hunt's performance is that she struggles quite audibly with her Brooklyn accent. It is a case of trying too hard to sound like someone born and bred in the borough when that accent not just comes and goes but goes from heavy to nonexistent. I think it might have been better if Hunt had not adopted or attempted the Brooklyn accent, which could have been easily explained away as Carol being a transplant.

Greg Kinnear, who was best known at the time as the host of the comic clip show Talk Soup, had made a few films before As Good as It Gets, but here he did one of his best performances, rightfully earning a Best Supporting Actor nomination. Fey without being cartoonish, Kinnear made Simon into a lost man struggling not so much with his sexuality but with his own sense of worth separate from that. Kinnear has a standout scene where he is on the telephone to his mother. The shift from someone looking for help to someone who sees that he is not helpless is there in his performance. Kinner also has a nice bit where he imitates Nicholson, showing Kinnear a good mimic and Simon capable of having a spine.

If I have a few caveats about As Good as It Gets, separate from Hunt's dodgy accent, are with some plot points. I struggle with the idea that anyone would have hired a street hustler to be Simon's model versus looking for a professional. We never saw how Melvin came to find that Simon had been robbed and attacked. I had a major issue at the scene where Simon's injuries and reaction to them were played for laughs. 

Still, overall, As Good as It Gets holds up very well. Yes, Melvin says awful things that are insulting at best, downright racist and homophobic at worst. However, that is part of the joke: that Melvin, as abrasive as he is, is unaware that he looks foolish. It is hard not to laugh throughout As Good as It Gets, a crowning achievement for everyone involved. 

DECISION: B+

Drive My Car: A Review

 

DRIVE MY CAR

Some things are universal, and some things are specific to certain cultures. Drive My Car touches on both elements, covering grief while also keeping to its Japanese setting. While the film's length may be off-putting to some, once the film gets rolling Drive My Car becomes a strong portrait of letting go. 

Successful theater actor Yusuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima) has built a strong reputation for his multilingual dual skills of directing and acting on the stage. His wife Oto (Reika Kirishima) is a successful television screenwriter, giving him her newest risqué scenario for Japanese television. Kafuku is in high demand as an actor, director and theater judge. Leaving for a theater festival, he is delayed and forced to return, where he finds Oto having sex with Koji Takatsuki (Masaki Okada) an actor from a new television project. Kafuku quietly sneaks off, only to find that Oto asks that they have a talk when he returns. When he does return, he finds Oto dead of a brain hemorrhage. 

Two years later, Kafuku is still processing his mixed emotions, as he is now alone, he and Oto having lost their daughter many years ago. He has been invited to a theatrical residency in Hiroshima but is displeased when told that he will need a driver during the residency. Kafuku has been driving his beloved red Saab 900 Turbo for years even with his glaucoma (diagnosed after an accident). Moreover, he uses the drives to listen to tapes of Oto feeding him lines, which relaxes and helps him with his productions as well as keeping Oto alive. His new driver, Misaki Watari (Toko Miura) is a bit of a sullen girl, but efficient at her job. She is also 23 years old and would have been the same age as his and Oto's daughter had she lived. 

Kafuku will direct the theater's production of Uncle Vanya with a multilingual cast. To both their surprises, Kafuku casts Takatsuki in the title role, the actor having fallen on hard times due to personal scandal. As the rehearsals go on, the trio of Kafuku, Watari and Takatsuki deal with their own guilts and regrets about the past with varying degrees of success. Will another scandal that involves Takatsuki force Uncle Vanya to be cancelled? Will Kafuku have to pull double duty? Will he and Watari reconcile with themselves and heal? 

Drive My Car is a bit of an endurance test. The first forty minutes is about Kafuku and Oto, which technically is all pre-credit. I wonder if this could have been covered in less time. It does allow us a chance to be with the characters and build up the dynamic between Kafuku and Oto. However, it at times feels like too much, especially when you think that Drive My Car is more than just Kafuku's story. 

However, once one settles into things, he or she will find that Drive My Car does reward those willing to endure writer/director Ryusuke Hamagushi's adaptation of Haruki Murikami's short story. There is a scene where Kafuku and Takatsuki talk in soft tones about Oto: the former's awareness of her rampant infidelities as a coping mechanism while still loving him, the latter filling in the story which Kafuku did not know how it ended. All this while Watari is listening up front, rarely even expressing much except at one point where her eyebrows go up when she hears that Kafuku and Oto's daughter would be the same age as Watari had she lived.

This scene, not built on grand emotions but on quiet tones and glances, is a master class of acting, writing and directing. Hamaguchi gives us a great moment to close this scene when Kafuku offers Watari a cigarette where she can indulge in her one major vice, then Kafuku joins her. Hamaguchi allows the symbolism to speak for itself. 

He also at times finds clever ways to give us background. For example, we do not know why Takatsuki is now slumming it in a theater production until Kafuku and Watari take a ferry to Watari's hometown to give him time to consider whether or not to act and direct Uncle Vanya. We hear from a far-away television about Takatsuki's past record, which tells us while giving us that information in a logical way.

The performances are not just universally good but multilingual. We have scenes where Uncle Vanya and Waiting for Godot are performed in different languages ranging from German to Indonesian. Kafuku's newest production of Uncle Vanya is similarly multilingual: there are Chinese and Filipino actors, and even an actress who uses Korean Sign Language. It is eventually cleared up how this cacophony is clear to the audience (a large screen has several simultaneous translations). However, the staging of Uncle Vanya is so good that at times one almost forgets one is watching Drive My Car and focuses on Uncle Vanya.   

Nishijima and Miura form a great double-act as Kafuku and Watari. Individually they both excel, particularly Nishijima who carries the bulk of Drive My Car. He not only has to play Kafuku but also at times characters from Waiting for Godot and Uncle Vanya. His performance is never showy but actually quite quiet, which makes it all the more effective. The same goes for Watari, who has her own moments when she talks about her mother and the regret she carries with her own relationship. They grieve in different ways but find a way to process that grief to peace.

Again, I think length will be an issue. I think the nearly three-hour runtime, coupled with it being in Japanese, will scare some people off. I admit to struggling initially with the film, finding it interesting at times but dragging at others. Eventually though, particularly after a drive with Kafuku and Takatsuki, I became more involved. Drive My Car is well-written, directed and acted throughout. Straightforward and respectful, one will find Drive My Car well worth the trip.

DECISION: B+

Thrilla: A Review

THRILLA

The COVID-19 pandemic hit everyone in many different ways. For Mike "Thrilla" Davila and Adam "Bomb" Collaride, it put both their business and championship dreams close to ending. The documentary Thrilla chronicles their joint struggles while giving us a background into the men themselves. Well-told albeit with a few hitches, Thrilla is a rarity in documentary filmmaking: a film that documents something.

Thrilla, the documentary notes, was filmed during the summer of 2020, a tumultuous time as the world was in panic over the COVID-19 virus among other things. Among those whose lives COVID-19 impacted are Mike Davila and Adam Collarile, jiu-jitsu fighters and newly established businessmen. While the world was in the grips of social distancing, Davila and Collarile were focused on getting Davila to make the required weight to compete in the Eddie Bravo Invitational, a Jui-jitsu competition in El Paso, Texas. Davila, whose nom de guerre is Thrilla, knows that winning the Invitational will be not just great for his and Collaride's Legends Martial Arts business. It will be a crowning achievement in his career.

When they arrive in El Paso, Davila is at 150 pounds, but he must get down to 145 with days if not hours to go.  That he is at 150 pounds is actually a major improvement from where Davila was seven weeks earlier, which was at 188 pounds. That means Davila has to lose 43 pounds in less than eight weeks, a daunting task even for a fit athlete. As Thrilla counts down the weeks, noting the impressive weight loss, we also see the inner strength that both Davila and his friend and business partner Collaride have.

We learn from them about their backgrounds: their struggles in bonding with their fathers, their determination to build up something not just for themselves but for others. Mike Davila at one-point remarks that he had get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Collaride, for his part, notes that Mike is a sweetheart but when he is on the mat, he's a killer. 

They had become friends over time, though Mike initially was a bit leery of how joyful Adam was. At long last, they work on opening Legends Martial Arts studio, getting help from families and friends to make their dream come true. Legends opens on February 8, 2020. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo orders all non-essential businesses to close March 22, 2020. Owing to the proximity of jiu-jitsu, Legends finds itself fighting for its life almost at birth. Davila and Collaride may be down, but by no means are they out. They keep working, keep training and push on. They push on with their business and push on with the tournament. Will Thrilla win in El Paso? Will Mike and Adam not just become legends but build a legacy for future legends?

Thrilla is a wonderful portrait of two men who are both competitors and brothers-in-arms in so many ways. The most obvious way is in competing in Jiu-jitsu, a field which Davila and Collaride are passionate about. They also, however, compete within themselves. Davila's fraught relationship with his own father, Collaride's determination to leave something good behind, all are showcased in Thrilla. 

The film is not just about these two men, but about the importance of friendship and loyalty. Adam, a strong jiu-jitsu fighter in his own right, will accompany Mike to Texas despite the New York COVID restrictions because Mike needs someone in his corner (COVID prevents an audience). There's more than poetry to that analogy. These men, despite their different personalities, know that they have each other's backs. Mike, Adam, another instructor by name of Steve Ramos, and all those who go to Legends: they are more than training their bodies. In a sense, they are training their hearts and souls. 

It takes a great skill to make a weekly countdown of weight loss almost tense. Credit to director Ricardo Aguirre, Jr. for managing to build up suspense as we get a weekly countdown. Davila goes from 188 in Week One to 179 in Week Two, 172 in Week Three, until we get to 12 hours before the official weigh in. The tension and suspense are built up so well, and by this time we know and care about Mike and Adam, that when we see the disparity between Mike's weight scale and the tournament weight scale, we are as equally flummoxed and frustrated when they do not match.

As a side note, I marveled at not just how much weight Davila was able to lose in a relatively short amount of time given how I have twenty pounds that stubbornly won't shift after two years. I was amazed that Mike Davila is at the time of the tournament 37 years old. 

Intentionally or not, Aguirre, Jr. in Thrilla made a film about more than two men training for a jiu-jitsu tournament and working to keep their new business alive amidst the chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic. He made a film about friendship, loyalty and how a man can measure his strength from more than whom he can defeat on the mat. 

Davila and Collarile are business partners and friends, but they are also distinct personalities. Even on how they came up with the name Legends for their workout studio appear to have different origin stories. I believe Mike said that it came due in part to their proximity to Sleepy Hollow, trading in on the Legend of the Headless Horseman. 

However, in their stories of where Legends came from, we see their life philosophies come through. "Everyone wants to be a legend", Adam says, keeping to the idea of the importance of leaving something behind. Mike, for his part, notes on the importance of what comes between your birth and your death. Referencing how headstones are inscribed, he says, "That small dash is your legend". Despite any cliches about fighters, these two muscular and fit athletes are quite poetic.

Thrilla has one or two issues that stick out. A particularly embarrassing moment is when on-screen text notes Governor Cuomo's decree. It reads that Cuomo "orderd" (sic) businesses considered non-essential to shut down in order to combat the spread of COVID-19. I also think that Thrilla is not strictly speaking about Mike "Thrilla" Davila, so it is a bit of a misnomer. Adam "Bomb" Collarile is just as much a part of Thrilla as Thrilla is, so I was a bit puzzled why the film was named Thrilla. Granted, these are minor details, and hopefully the misspelled word is fixable. It just looks bad.

"Opening the gym has always been a dream, and dreams come slow", Adam observes halfway through Thrilla, emphasizing the last word. Dreams, however slow or small they seem to others, are worth fighting for. Mike "Thrilla" Davila and Adam "Bomb" Collarile, two decent men well profiled in Thrilla, show that legends are not born but made, and made with others beside you.

DECISION: B+

The Exorcist: Believer. A Review (Review #1955)

 

THE EXORCIST: BELIEVER

After having not one but two prequels and two sequels, The Exorcist got a third sequel. The Exorcist: Believer, from what I understand, was meant to be the first of a new series of Exorcist films. Judging from what a fiasco Believer is, I think we can put that idea away. The Exorcist: Believer is a horror film in that it is horrible beyond imagining. 

While on a mix of a photographic assignment/vacation in Haiti, Victor Fielding (Leslie Odom, Jr.) and his heavily pregnant wife Sorenne (Tracey Graves) find themselves in the midst of a major earthquake. The voodoo blessing that Sorenne got for their baby girl Angela didn't help save Sorenne's life as Victor is forced to decide between saving the mother or the child.

Thirteen years later, the teen Angela (Lidya Jewett) still wonders about her mother. She and her BFF Katherine West (Olivia O'Neill) decide the best thing to do is having their version of a seance to contact her. They end up disappearing into the Georgia woods, terrifying their parents Victor and Tony & Miranda West (Norbert Leo Butz and Jennifer Nettles). The girls are eventually found, frightened, but what they think is a few hours has actually been three days. The deeply Christian West family and the atheist Fielding family are relieved to find the girls alive. However, they also observe their strange behavior. Angela attempts to strangle Victor with her mother's scarf. Katherine creates a scene at Service, screaming about "the body and blood".

What could be going on? To find out, Victor eventually seeks out Chris McNeill (Ellen Burstyn), who after her daughter Regan's exorcism has written a book and talked for years about their experiences. Could Angela and Katherine be possessed by a demonic force? Ann Brooks (Ann Dowd), a nurse and former nun, seeks out help from Father Maddox (E.J. Bonilla). However, it will take an all-hands-on-deck approach, as this exorcism will need the Baptist Pastor Revans (Ralph Sbarge), Victor's neighbor and Pentecostal minister Stuart (Danny McCarthy) and witch doctor Dr. Beehibe (Okwui Okpokwasili) along with Ann and a bit of Father Maddox to try and expel the dark forces from the girls. Who will live, who will die and who will be literally blinded by their own stupidity?

The Exorcist: Believer has a screenplay credited to Peter Sattler and director David Gordon Green, with story by Green, Scott Teems and most surprising to me, Danny McBride. It would not surprise me if more hands were involved in the script. However, if so, at least these people had the good sense to not want to be publicly recognized. 

The Exorcist: Believer is awful, awful, awful on every level imaginable. It might have even found new levels of awfulness unknown to man or demon. It is close to an hour in this almost two-hour movie before we get the first glimpses that something is satanically amiss. In that time, the audience must endure Leslie Odom, Jr.'s totally blank expression. The Exorcist: Believer has the worst single performance in Odom, Jr. to where one genuinely wonders if he can actually act or was just so bored with things he did not bother to act. No matter what the situation, Odom, Jr. had the same blank expression. 

The nadir of this expressionless performance is when Victor and Chris go to the West house to find Katherine. The house is in total shambles, yet Victor calls out for Tony as if everything is fine and he just happened to wander in. Absolutely no reaction to the conditions around him, Odom, Jr. carries on, apparently totally oblivious to how the West house was pretty much destroyed. 

The Exorcist: Believer also finally manages to drag then-91-year-old Ellen Burstyn into an Exorcist sequel (Linda Blair popping up in a last-second cameo). Blair appeared in Exorcist II: The Heretic, and Jason Miller decided that he needed work desperately enough to appear in The Exorcist III. Now, the set is complete, but at least Blair has the excuse that she was a teenager when she agreed to The Heretic. Burstyn should be embarrassed by this, particularly a noted line where she mentions that she herself did not witness Regan's exorcism.

"My opinion? Because I'm not a member of their damn patriarchy," she tells Victor over why she thinks she did not see the exorcism. Leave aside for the moment the patronizing and downright idiotic suggestion that sexism kept her out (I doubt that the two priests would have allowed anyone to witness, let alone participate in this ritual). In less than ten minutes, she ends up going alone into Katherine's room, attempting some kind of exorcism herself. Chris, who we are told is so knowledgeable about exorcisms that her memoir A Mother's Explanation is almost a how-to guide, gets literally stabbed in both eyes by a crucifix. For all of Chris' bemoaning about "the patriarchy", she ends up proving Fathers Merrick and Karras right in their exclusion of Chris. 

Every performance from the adults is deeply embarrassing to silly, making The Exorcist: Believer into almost a comedy. I won't pick on Jewett and O'Neill as they are children who were given a thankless job and, I believe, did the best that they could with what they had. The adults, however, had no excuse. They all en masse looked laughable. 

The Exorcist: Believer is worse in even the most basic elements of character. One wonders if anyone behind the film has ever met a Christian, let alone understand them. There is no way, NO WAY, that a Baptist minister would agree to participate in any kind of ceremony with essentially a witch doctor. The blending of Christian and occult practices would appall Reverend Revans (technically it is Pastor Revans, but I find the alliteration of Reverend Revans funny and perhaps unintentionally revealing). Moreover, The Exorcist: Believer seems to make the case that the occult practices of voodoo are what ends up saving at least one of the girls. After all, Believer begins with Sorenne receiving a blessing from a voodoo priestess.

Even if you rejected any objections to The Exorcist: Believer on it being almost vicious in how it treats Christianity be it Protestant, Catholic or Pentecostal, you cannot expect people to take seriously a character named "Dr. Beehibe". Demons flee at the name of Dr. Beehive. 

I now genuinely think that The Exorcist: Believer was not a serious attempt to make a horror film. It was meant as a spoof. Either that, or maybe Danny McBride just looked out the window, saw a beehive and said, "Now THERE'S my witch doctor who will take down the devil". When Katherine calls out "The body and the blood" at her service, I was howling with laughter. 

On so many levels, The Exorcist: Believer does not make any sense. Father Maddox, in a rushed scene, attempts to convince the local Catholic hierarchy about the need for the exorcism "based on what I witnessed with my own eyes". In the film, he witnessed nothing. As much as the film wants us to be shocked or horrified or empathetic towards the characters, we fell nothing. Well, perhaps contempt for them to where when the possessor demands that the parents choose between Angela and Katherine, I would have been fine if neither made it.

Should you be curious as to which child lives or dies, it should be clear. 

The Exorcist: Believer attempts to make things scary with its dominant greenish/bluish tinting throughout. The end result is just to make the film look ugly and laughable. The editing, particularly during dual examination of the girls, makes it almost frenetic to confused. 

Simultaneously boring and blasphemous, The Exorcist: Believer may not be just the worst film of 2023. It may be one of the worst films of all time.

DECISION: F-

THE EXORCIST FILMS

The Exorcist

Exorcist II: The Heretic

The Exorcist III

Exorcist: The Beginning

Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist

With Love, Meghan. The Netflix Series. An Overview

WITH LOVE, MEGHAN

Queen Mary took her responsibilities as Queen very seriously. "You are a member of the British Royal Family. We are never tired, and we all love hospitals," she once reminded her granddaughter, the future Queen Elizabeth II, I believe. That mantra of duty above self and of showing enthusiasm for the most mundane of tasks or people has been followed by her successors Queens Elizabeth the Queen Mother and Camilla with perhaps only minor modifications. Her one-time potential successor Diana, Princess of Wales as well as the current Princess of Wales, the former Catherine Middleton, continued or continue that custom.

The late Diana's daughter-in-law Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, however, decided that she was tired and did not like hospitals. For whatever reason, be it a lack of privacy, an abundance of racism, or a combination thereof, she along with her husband Prince Henry, Duke of Sussex, decided to "step back" as working members of the Royal Family. Their first efforts to be "half-in, half-out", where they could take on some royal duties while pursuing outside commercial ventures, was shut down flat. Since "Megxit", she and Prince Harry have inked several lucrative deals for podcasts and Netflix productions. Their first podcast, Archetypes, had 12 episodes and lasted one year. Their first Netflix production, Harry & Meghan, was about themselves. 

Now comes their fifth Netflix production, With Love, Meghan, where Meghan Markle (or Meghan Sussex, depending on whom you ask) transforms into a domestic doyenne duchess, offering her insights into creating an elegant and joyful lifestyle. Having seen all eight episodes of the first of an eventual sixteen (a second set already filmed and scheduled to be released later this year), With Love, Meghan is an awe-inspiring vision of one wealthy woman's journey to the center of attention.  

Each With Love, Meghan episode has a set pattern. Over nice Carolina shag music, the Duchess of Sussex tells her film crew who is coming to visit her rented home, what she will be doing to make them feel welcome and go over what they will be doing with or for her to match the theme of whatever she has decided. It will end with her and her guest enjoying the fruits of their labor while they heap lavish praise on our domestic goddess and relatable gal pal. 

After finishing With Love, Meghan, for better or worse, I was reminded of another royal wife, though probably not the one Meghan, Duchess of Sussex would want comparisons to. Queen Marie Antoinette built a small retreat at Versailles, where she allegedly dressed up as a simple milkmaid and pretended to be a peasant girl, the Ancien Regime version of cosplay. With Love, Meghan similarly came across as this former actress turned royal pretending to be a domestic-minded woman who wants only to bring joy to the lives of average people (there is a lot of mention of joy in the series).

It is strange that the more Meghan attempts to come across as relatable and endearing, the end result is the opposite. She comes across as plastic, desperate even, for affirmation, validation and de facto worship. She is not fishing for compliments. She is throwing grenades into the river to have the fish blasted out of the water. 

The endless praise that her guests heap on her is almost shocking in its garishness and vanity. Some of the things that her guests tell her go past cringe to downright looney. Mindy Kaling has gotten the most press for this, and her statements in Episode Two (Welcome to the Party) did lay it on thick. "When I received that in the mail, a box of your preserves, it was probably one of the most glamorous moments in my life". Any person who thinks that receiving a box of preserves from someone that you may or may not barely know is "one of the most glamorous moments" in their life has led a remarkably boring life.

Kaling also had one of the most viral moments from With Love, Meghan, where she remarks to Meghan, "I don't think anyone in the world knows that Meghan Markle has eaten Jack in the Box and loves it". That statement alone in and of itself is bizarre, as if the concept of an American going to a fast-food place is such a rarity. If it had been Anne, Princess Royal driving up to a Jack in the Box and chowing down on it, then the shock and surprise of it all would have made sense. But for Meghan Markle?

That led to a surprisingly passive-aggressive moment between these lifelong chums when Meghan, in a voice that blended sweetness with barely contained anger, expressed surprise that she kept calling her Markle when it was Sussex now. This is a curious thing to get hung up on as for years after her wedding, people called her "Meghan Markle" without incident in the same way that the Duchess of Windsor was and is still called "Wallis Simpson" and the Princess of Wales is called "Catherine Middleton", though to be fair less frequently now. 

The subject of her surname is open to debate. Less interesting than what her last name is, is the Duchess' reaction. There was an edge to her response, a curious defensiveness that was surprisingly hostile. For someone who is attempting to showcase her hosting skills, Meghan Markle or Sussex or Mountbatten-Windsor or Saxe-Coburg-Gotha for all we know, to all but snap at her guest over something that you have never brought up publicly is so bizarre, but it is revelatory. It suggests that for all the efforts to be graceful and elegant, there is a level of entitlement that you expect from others, even friends. 

The Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, had a similar mindset. She could be down-to-earth and pleasant, almost chummy with others, until you dared called her "Margaret". At that point, she would instantly remind you that she was a King's daughter and the Queen's sister and insist that you pay her the proper reverence. Her circle took to calling her "Ma'am, Darling" in a mix of deference and mockery. The difference between Margaret and Meghan is that while Margaret was born royal, Meghan merely married into it. 

As a side note, I think both Anne and Margaret would loath and be enraged at being compared to Meghan, but I digress.

While Kaling has received the lion's share of notoriety for the grandiose praise she heaped on Meghan, I think the winner in the "It's The Joy of My Life to Bask in Your Presence, Meghan" contest is Delfina Figueras. She is the Argentine wife of a polo player whom Meghan and Harry know and whom we meet in Episode Three (Love is in the Details); after a day of hiking and making focaccia (which is Italian bread and the first time that I have heard of such a thing), they picnic in the backyard of Meghan's rented villa. 

Delfi tells her, "I enjoyed this morning's hike because I saw you being you. And I love that. I love when you are doing your thing, and yeah. I absolutely, I'm obsessed with that face of Meghan. So happy". I think Indians thanked Gandhi less enthusiastically for leading the end of the Raj than Delfi did for Meghan making sun tea and having her make bread.

That may be one of the most surprising things in With Love, Meghan. Markle tells us how she prepared certain dishes and drinks prior to her guests' arrival. However, once they arrive, she also has them essentially make the meal almost as if they were caterers. I figure that Markle thinks this is all fun for her guests, a nice group project where everyone can delight in making a gourmet taco bar while having girl-talk and giggles.  

I come at this from a very different viewpoint. My late mother also loved entertaining. I firmly believe that if she had seen With Love, Meghan, she would be aghast and appalled that any hostess would make her guests do any cooking or cleaning up. Mom was adamant that as the hostess, it was her exclusive responsibility to see that the guests were served and that they were not to lift a finger in preparing any aspect of the gathering. This extended to any offers from guests to help, offers that were kindly but firmly declined. Mom would have made all the arrangements, had all the food prepared, and seen to it that her guests enjoyed the event. She would have been horrified at the sight of making lifelong friends make beeswax candles or horror of horrors, cook their own meals in her kitchen.  

As a side note, Mom would also have been horrified by the sight of any woman walking around the kitchen barefoot, though to be fair she would have approved of seeing the Duchess of Sussex dress impeccably to be on television. Mom might have wondered why she was dressed so elegantly to cook, but at least she would think that if you knew you were going to be on television, you should look your absolute best. 

Almost all the guests gush about Meghan to Meghan, praising her skills to where it transcends hyperbole and slips into farce. Even some of the professional chefs (the only ones whom Markel, or Sussex, or who knows now defers to on With Love, Meghan) seem a bit too enthusiastic about being in her presence. One, maybe two of the chefs think that what they whipped up in the rented kitchen would make for a good dish at said chef's restaurant. If memory serves correctly, only Chef Ramon Velasquez from Episode Six (The Juice is Worth the Squeeze) seems nonchalant about being in her presence, treating her as an eager student versus the more downhome Martha Stewart with a noble title to her name (whatever her name may be). To be fair, chef Alice Waters from Episode Eight (Feels Like Home) seems more perplexed than worshipful at the goings-on around her.

I am reminded of what someone once said about T.E. Lawrence when I think of With Love, Meghan. Like Lawrence of Arabia, Meghan (Markle/Sussex) has a way of backing into the limelight. As tawdry as the previous American-born divorcee who married a British Prince of the Realm might have been, Wallis Simpson (or Windsor if we apply Meghan's methodology) would never be so garish as to be hawking jam and prattling on about making beeswax candles to a television audience. She may have literally cavorted with Nazis, but you'd never see the Duchess of Windsor hosting Wallis' Workshop.

Overall, I think Markle's training as an actress is actually a major hinderance in With Love, Meghan for two reasons. The first is that the audience can never fully shake off the idea that all this is a performance. There is throughout all eight episodes something a bit off-putting, dare I say fake about the entire production. I am not bothered that Markle did not use her actual home. I actually think it makes sense. However, I do not understand why she wants her friends and family to trudge up to a rented house and essentially pretend that they are not performing for the camera. What was intended as a kind of eavesdropping in The Juice is Worth the Squeeze when the girls are playing mah-jongg ends up looking like four people trying to figure out what to do around each other. 

Secondly, Markle never looks at the audience. Sometimes she does not appear to even look at her guests. Instead, most of the time she looks at her director, Michael Steed, and speak to him. I think her acting training to not look into the camera prevents there being any connection between herself and her viewing audience. 

Liberace back on his 1950's television series knew enough to look directly into the camera and even literally wink at the audience. He understood that there needed to be an intimacy between host and audience, even if it was artificial. Meghan, however, never looked at anyone outside her immediate presence, like Steed or sometimes her guests. As such, we lost a sense that Meghan actually wanted us there. Perhaps they wanted a "fly on the wall" manner to With Love, Meghan. However, that to me makes for a strange way to invite people to learn all your various entertaining tips and tricks.

Ultimately With Love, Meghan is boring and elitist. The Duchess' efforts to come across as friendly, casual and relatable end up making her look like Election's Tracy Flick. I imagine that With Love, Meghan would have been the exact thing that she would have done if she had never married Harry and she needed a job after Suits had ended.  

I admit to being at a loss over how hosting a television show demonstrates a desire to live a life of privacy, but there it is. Meghan, Duchess of Sussex has passionate defenders and passionate haters. That may or may not color your view on With Love, Meghan. Separate from one's feelings about the hostess with the mostest, With Love, Meghan never makes a case as to why we should listen to the Duchess on anything domestic. 

2/10

Novocaine (2025): A Review

NOVOCAINE

There are all kinds of pain in the world, from physical to emotional, which we are not impervious to. Well, almost.  The action-comedy Novocaine covers those two types of pain in a mostly fun, self-aware manner. While not without its stumbles, Novocaine is a fun, frothy film that entertains and amuses.

Nathan Caine (Jack Quaid) has a very rare medical condition, Congenital Insensitivity to Pain (CIP). This prevents him from feeling any injuries, which puts his life in danger should he require medical attention as he would not be aware of it. Due to this, Nathan has led a pretty sheltered life where he has little interaction with people outside his job as the assistant manager of the San Diego Trust Credit Union. Except for online gaming with someone named Roscoe whom he has never actually met in real life, Nathan has nothing close to a friend, let alone a girlfriend.

However, recent employee Sherry (Amber Midthunter) has caught his eye. To his surprise, he caught her eye too and they begin a sweet romance culminating into a physical one. Nathan finds a new lease on life now, but nothing good lasts. Right before Christmas, the credit union is robbed. The bank robbers kill people and force Nathan to open the safe. They also abduct Sherry. Despite Nathan's very cautious and kind-hearted nature, he races to pursue the abductors. 

His inability to feel physical pain helps him as he gets repeatedly injured in ways that would have killed others. His actions, however, raise the suspicions of Detectives Langston (Betty Gabriel) and Duffy (Matthew Walsh), who initially think that Nathan may have been part of an inside job at the San Diego Trust.

They are not far off, as the bank heist was part of an inside job, but not from Nathan. With some help, albeit extremely reluctantly, from Roscoe (Jacob Batalon), Nathan stumbles his way into dispatching two of the three bank robbers, brothers Ben (Evan Hengst) and Andre Clark (Conrad Kemp). Bank robbery mastermind Simon (Ray Nicholson) has a surprise or two up his sleeve for this unexpected nuisance, who did not count on love to get in the way of his perfect bank job. More killings ensue before the final confrontation, but things end on a relatively happy note.

There were many things that I appreciated about Novocaine. It took time to build up the Nathan/Sherry relationship without it going too long. It also gave us likeable characters and a surprising amount of physical and verbal comedy. Lars Jacobson's screenplay had some quite amusing bits of dialogue between Langston and Duffy. When preparing to raid a house where Nathan is trapped, Duffy remarks that he blames San Diego's downward slide to when the Chargers and Clippers (football and basketball teams respectively) left the city. Another time, Nathan ends a telephone call where he got some information by repeating the other person's unheard closing line of "Go Padres!" (the baseball team and sole remaining major league sports team left in town).

Novocaine is a film that clearly loves San Diego. 

The film had fun with the premise while taking it just seriously enough to not slip into total silliness. Nathan is impervious to physical pain, but he is not immune from its effects. As Novocaine goes on, the film finds more and more outlandish ways of torturing him. The fact that you know that Nathan is not going to feel it made for some very funny moments. Sometimes it went a bit overboard for my liking (the climactic battle between Nathan and Simon had one moment that downright horrified me and had the audience both gasp and wince). The scene where Nathan is apparently tortured by Andre is both funny and gruesome, as again at times I found Novocaine too graphic in its depiction of violence.

Jacobson's screenplay also did something quite clever in that it put the audience ahead of the characters. Without giving away major spoilers, we know the truth about the bank robbery long before Nathan does. This builds up the anticipation of the shock that he will get. By this time, however, the audience has grown to like the characters, even some of the villains. 

A good part of the credit for that goes to directors Dan Burke and Robert Olsen, who guided their actors to strong performances. Novocaine is, I presume, the breakout role for Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan's son in film (full disclosure: I have never seen The Boys and have a vague awareness of it). I confess to struggling not to write "Jack" for "Nathan", especially as in some moments Jack Quaid has more than a passing resemblance to his father. However, I think Jack Quaid did quite well as Nathan Caine. We saw Nathan's goodness and compassion, where we see a good man and not just a nice one. Early in Novocaine, Nathan finds a way to delay a required payment from Earl (Lou Beatty, Jr.), a recent widower. While letting him know that this delay may not save his business, it might allow him just enough time to make a mortgage payment and save his home.

You can see Nathan's compassion for a good man still grieving his wife's death. You can also see how Nathan sees his own lack of attachments reflected in Earl's longtime marriage. Quaid is likeable throughout Novocaine. He keeps true to the character: having goofy moments in the early days of love, and forever apologetic whenever he inadvertently causes chaos. However, he also shows Nathan's determination to rescue Sherry. Quaid gives Nathan an everyman quality, of someone who does his best in outrageous situations and who fights his way against his own fears. Quaid blends the humor and heart in Novocaine quite well. He can handle the comedy well, but it is too soon to say if he can move beyond his parents' shadows to be a star in his own right. Novocaine, however, is a good calling card for his future in film.

Midthunder is also pleasant as Sherry. While not the strongest of performances, Midthunder manages to make Sherry charming, endearing and even at her worst, sympathetic. Nicholson (the other nepo baby as he is the son of Jack Nicholson) has a lot of fun as the villainous Simon, cruel and sadistic but not without his own moments of mirthful menace. Batalon does not come on screen until late in Novocaine, but he does have a good manner in his comic sidekick. 

The film is not without some missteps in my view. A character is killed off that I think took the air out of the overall fun and goofiness in Novocaine, and the film never fully recovers from that moment. It runs an hour and fifty minutes, which is I think longer than it should have been. As I stated earlier, some of the violence, while at times funny, did get a bit more graphic and gruesome for my taste. Judging from the audience reaction, it went a bit too far for them too. Finally, there was a strange line about how Nathan essentially benefitted from white male privilege, which I though was not needed. Starting Novocaine with R.E.M.'s Everybody Hurts was, I figure, meant to be ironic. It fell a bit flat for me, but that was probably the least of its stumbles. 

On the whole, Novocaine knows what it is: a fun, goofy action-comedy that has a little romance thrown in. With charming leads, a premise that balances being serious and silly, I think Novocaine will, overall, entertain and amuse viewers. 

DECISION: B-