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Review: Keira Knightley Awakens Seattle in ‘Laggies’

October 30, 2014 By Thelma Leave a Comment

Keira Knightley dresses down (and out).

Keira Knightley dresses down (and out).

“Suck it up, go with your gut.” That’s the advice Seattle late twentysomething Megan (Keira Knightley) gives to adolescent Annika (Chloe Grace Moretz) at the end of Lynn Shelton’s most commercial movie yet, Laggies. Shelton herself has followed that mantra, pioneering a successful indie career by going with her gut. She’s a generous filmmaker, giving female characters dimension and detail without sacrificing the crispness of her men.

Shelton has created a cottage industry in Seattle making films that are cool, contemporary, and just a little bit angsty without being all tattooed-edgy. I loved the sibling issues raised, and the actresses engaged — Rosemarie DeWitt and Emily Blunt — in the prickly yet tender comedy Your Sister’s Sister. I sighed during the uneven masseuse dramedy Touchy Feely, also starring DeWitt, a yeasty bread that refused to rise. Everyone makes mistakes, though women directors often don’t get a second chance.

But Shelton, who directs both TV (the upcoming Fresh Off the Boat) and has three film scripts in development, sucked it up, undeterred. And along came the Sundance hit Laggies, slang for folks that are lagging behind but don’t have the true philosophical entropy of slackers. It’s a more temporary condition.

The comedy, which Shelton directed from Andrea Seigel’s sexy, sweet-natured screenplay, opens briskly. Megan escapes a claustrophobic wedding reception in which her sympathetic beau (Mark Webber) has just tried to kneel down and propose. He’s doing the right thing, but Megan instinctually recoils: How can it feel so wrong? Is that all there is, my friend? What happened to flat-out fun on the modern woman’s rush to career, love, marriage, and a baby carriage?


Read More on IndieWire’s “Women and Hollywood” blog…

Filed Under: Criticism, Movies & TV Tagged With: Chloe Grace Moretz, Keira Knightley, Lynn Shelton, Review, Sam Rockwell, Women Directors

Critic’s Pick: ‘The Way, Way Back’

July 9, 2013 By Thelma Leave a Comment

Must-See Movies Beyond the Blockbusters

If you’re first act was writing the Oscar winning screenplay for “The Descendants,” looking for an encore can be tough. But writing partners Nat Faxon and Jim Rash leveraged that win and made the leap to directing their own small-budget, bighearted coming of age comedy. “The Way, Way Back” – based on their original screenplay, tells the funny-sad story of Duncan (Liam James), a gangly son of divorce travels with his mother, Pam (Toni Collette), for a summer visit to the sea-side cottage of her new boyfriend, Trent (Steve Carrell).

When Duncan isn’t skulking, or making fumbling attempts to flirt with the curvy girl-next-door (AnnaSophia Raab), the fourteen-year old commandeers a girlie stingray bike and discovers a dilapidated water park. At the Water Wizz, Duncan lands a job and finds a measure of independence. He also encounters a guru-like screw-up of a father figure in the deadpan park manager Owen (Sam Rockwell).

RELATED: Critic’s Pick: ‘I’m So Excited’

Part “Little Miss Sunshine,” part “”The Ice Storm,” “The Way, Way Back” (a reference to Duncan’s position at the bottom of the totem pole at the very back of the family station wagon) fits neatly into the summer coming of age category. If you liked last year’s twee hipster “Moonrise Kingdom,” the classic “Summer of ’42,” or the nostalgic “Super 8,” this comedy fits the genre neatly and provides an antidote to the screaming mega-blockbusters to be found in the bigger theaters at the multiplex.

In other words, the dialog matters.

As Duncan, James lays on the pout a bit thick, but Rockwell steals every scene he’s in. He has a stand-up comedian’s delivery, nails the best lines from screenwriters Faxon and Rash (who also play water park characters) and earns a tart love interest in Maya Rudolph’s together park manager.

Carrell has the bigger challenge. Faxon-Rash script Trent as an unadulterated tool – the guy Duncan’s mom should never marry. In the first scene driving to the beach, Trent defines himself by cruelly telling Duncan that, on a scale of one to ten, the teen’s a three.

RELATED: Top 5 Water Parks in America

Because of the negative way in which Trent’s drawn, he’s never more than an instrument for pushing the plot toward its redemptive end. He’s seen too much through Duncan’s eyes, and that doesn’t give Carrell’s subtle comic of manners much space to breathe warmth into a character that desperately needs it.

In part because of the imbalance between Rockwell and Carrell, the wacky water park scenes trump the dysfunctional divorcee-by-the-beach drama. Like Duncan, the audience yearns to escape to the Water Wizz. That funky setting makes for the best scenes, although nothing compares with the “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo” water park episode where Mom stripped to her bathing costume and, horror of horrors, revealed her mangled ‘fork-lift toe.’ Bringing that to film would demand John Waters and his late muse Divine. If only!

Bottom Line: A Darkly Funny Coming-of-Ager

Filed Under: Criticism, Movies & TV Tagged With: Coming of Age Comedy, Critic's Pick, Jim Rash, Nat Faxon, Sam Rockwell, Steve Carell, Yahoo! Movies

Countdown to TIFF – 11 days – Movie Trailer “Seven Psychopaths”

August 26, 2012 By Thelma Leave a Comment

Martin McDonagh dialog. Great cast. Laughs. Tough guys saying “Shih Tzu.”

Filed Under: Movies & TV Tagged With: Christopher Walken, Martin McDonagh, movie trailer, Sam Rockwell, TIFF12, Woody Harrelson

Review: Conviction

October 16, 2010 By Thelma Leave a Comment

Us rating: ** 1/2

Hilary Swank earnestly assumes the role of real-life blue-collar heroine Betty Anne Waters, who became a Massachusetts lawyer in order to free her wrongfully imprisoned brother, Kenny (Sam Rockwell). Director Tony Goldwyn does a fair job telling the story, but Conviction rises above the Lifetime-movie level due to Rockwell’s performance as a rough-around-the-edges New Englander. He demonstrates that this sinner is no saint, particularly in a scene in which he goes from devoted daddy to bar brawler in the course of one short pop song.

http://tiny.cc/khg0t

Filed Under: Criticism, Oscar Race Tagged With: Best Supporting Actor, drama, Hilary Swank, movie reviews, Oscar, Sam Rockwell, Us Weekly

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