Has a similar plot but comes nowhere near Maren Ade’s powerful Toni Erdmann
Cast: Kristen Bell, Kelsey Grammer, Seth Rogen, Zach Appelman, Paul W. Downs, Brittany Ross, Lenny Jacobson, Danielle Davenport
Director: Lauren Miller Rogen
Writers: Lauren Miller Rogen, Anders Bard
Cinematographer: Seamus Tierney
Editor: Mollie Goldstein
Composer: Roger Neill
A 14-year old girl tries to deal with the conflict created by her nascent sexual desire and her faith. The significant others in her life are clearly divided into two groups. The non-believers are all male (father, grandpa, boyfriend) and all clearly express their desires. The believers on the other hand (the mother, the girl, and the priest) all have to repress their desires in order to comply with the dogma imposed by their religion.
Incongruous music
Actors: Clara Augarde, Lio, Michel Galabru
Director: Katell Quillévéré
Writers: Mariette Désert (collaboration), Katell Quillévéré
Music: Olivier Mellano
Cinematography: Tom Harari
Editing: Thomas Marchand
Weak scenario and direction, wrong music (!)
Cast: Jim Broadbent, Harriet Walter, Michelle Dockery, Charlotte Rampling, Billy Howle
Director: Ritesh Batra
Writer (novel): Julian Barnes
Writer: Nick Payne
Cinematographer: Christopher Ross
Editor: John F. Lyons
Composer: Max Richter
Dying to love, loving to death
Interesting use of landscapes; different sorts of music are superimposed; the screen stays black for quite a while; dialogues are sometimes ‘de-synchronized’…
Director: Mark Penney
Writer: Mark Penney
Actors: Shaun Benson, Eliane Gagnon, Michel Perron
Cinematography: Robert Smith
Editing: Mark Penney
Inverted structure, great cast, excellent dialogues though a bit too talkative and theatrical
Cast: Jeremy Irons, Ben Kingsley, Patricia Hodge
Directed by David Jones
Screenplay by Harold Pinter
Edited by John Bloom
Strong performance by Amy Adams / weak structure
Cast: Amy Adams, Christoph Waltz, Krysten Ritter, Danny Huston, Jason Schwartzman, Terence Stamp
Director: Tim Burton
Writer: Scott Alexander, Larry Karaszewski
Director of Photography: Bruno Delbonnel
strongest: script + personages + minorities
weakest: humor
The more you learn about the situation, the more complex it gets, the more distant and evasive truth becomes.
Cast: Bérénice Bejo, Tahar Rahim, Ali Mosaffa, Pauline Burlet
Director: Asghar Farhadi
Screenplay: Asghar Farhadi, Massoumeh Lahidji
strongest: gender
weakest: humor
Cast: Isabelle Huppert, André Marcon, Edith Scob, Roman Kolinka, Sarah Le Picard
Director: Mia Hansen-Løve
Writer: Mia Hansen-Løve
Cinematographer: Denis Lenoir
Editor: Marion Monnier
Director: Vincent Sherman
Writers: David Goodis (original screenplay), James Gunn (original screenplay)
Actors: Ann Sheridan, Lew Ayres, Zachary Scott
Same year, same director, same actress, same infidelity theme as precedent movie (Nora Prentiss) but this one with a more traditional approach. As in Nora Prentiss, a film noir with no real bad guy (or bad girl), except for the greedy Martin Barrow (Steven Gearey).
Eve Arden steals the show, a feminine counterpart to George Sanders.
Director: Vincent Sherman
Writers: Paul Webster (story), Jack Sobell (story)
Actors: Ann Sheridan, Kent Smith, Bruce Bennett
Nice film noir without any bad guy (or bad girl), just a man who “reached for something, going about it the wrong way.” CineMaven’s ESSAYS from the COUCH