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There’s a phrase that gets thrown around a lot: “style over substance.” Movies that embody this phrase are often visually exciting and unique, but they’re shallow on a thematic level. Sometimes, being shallow is okay; action movies benefit greatly from style, so even some cliché entries in the genre (like this year’s “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.”) provide solid entertainment.

Strong style can be used as a great tool to cover up a lack of substance, but just because a movie’s good quality is an illusion doesn’t mean it’s not necessarily real. If a sweeping, sad movie score plants an emotional seed that the story itself lacks, the effect can still be genuine. It might not be as strong or cathartic as an emotional reaction caused by the story, but it’s not inherently fake just because it’s caused by something artificial.

So while I found “The Revenant” to be pretty shallow when I looked at it in retrospect, that didn’t take away from my enjoyment of it as I was watching. It’s the kind of movie that the phrase ‘style over substance’ was created for, but that style is so amazingly done that the illusion works better than it has any right to, creating an immersive and frequently captivating experience that makes you forget how hollow most of it is.

The first way “The Revenant” creates the illusion is by featuring some great performances. Tom Hardy gives such an engaging performance as John Fitzgerald, by far the most complex character in the film. Between his gruff, barely intelligible voice, his wide eyes, and his twisted moral code, Fitzgerald is such a captivating presence, and Hardy is a huge part of that. Domhnall Gleeson and Will Poulter won’t get any credit for their roles, but they’re both really solid in supporting roles.

Ironically, Leonardo DiCaprio’s performance as Hugh Glass is the one that can make you remember how shallow the movie is. He definitely does a good job—he manages to keep you interested and invested for the bulk of the 156-minute running time that’s focused on him, in the same way that Robert Redford gave a silent solo performance in “All is Lost.” But the best performances of the year are usually performances that convey all the nuances and complexities of the character, and Hugh Glass isn’t really a nuanced or complex character. Hardy is able to squeeze every ounce of complexity that he can out of Fitzgerald’s dialogue, but DiCaprio doesn’t particularly do anything to transcend the lack of characterization on the page. He plays what he’s told to, and does a fine job.

By seeing Glass go through so much shit trying to survive, you realize the whole journey is fairly one-note. There are interesting new challenges and new survival tactics that come up throughout the movie—like, of course, the scene of Glass removing a horse’s organs and then curling up to sleep inside its body—but the bulk of his journey is just slow recovery and the struggle to survive.

Unlike Fitzgerald, there isn’t much inner psychology going on with Glass. He’s driven to survive by the desperate need to get revenge on the man who killed his son. He feels grief over his dead son, and the dead Native American woman who gave birth to him. That’s about it, honestly.

[Spoilers for the next three paragraphs.] If there’s one central theme that “The Revenant” seems to explicitly be going for, it’s this idea that revenge is best left for the Creator, whether that means nature or some nebulous spiritual force like God or fate. This isn’t a bad idea for a revenge thriller, honestly. The real-life Hugh Glass, after tracking down John Fitzgerald and confronting him, decided not to kill him because of the heavy penalty for killing a soldier. This could’ve been incorporated well into the heavily fictionalized film to fit in with this theme of mercy and the relief of letting go of your desperate anger, but nope. Glass goes ahead and, effectively, kills Fitzgerald.

The most frustrating part of this isn’t that Glass goes back on the lesson he heard earlier. The movie could’ve easily made it appear like Glass considered showing mercy, then gave in to his anger and bloodlust. The frustrating part is that the movie acts like he is showing Fitzgerald mercy. Sure, he shoots him in the shoulder, stabs him in the gut, and sends him downriver to a group of ruthless natives who will undoubtedly seal Fitzgerald’s fate—but apparently since he didn’t deal the actual killing blow, he’s leaving the revenge to God.

And then the last few minutes depict one final scene of stumbling through the forest, with Glass imagining his dead wife…and, in the last shot, turning to stare straight into the camera. I gotta say, that’s a pretty dumb, self-important final shot. Does it really mean anything, or does it just seem like it’d be the cool, artsy thing to do?

Yeah, you could read more themes into the story. You could say it’s about the battle between man and nature, or the fundamental cruelty of humanity, or something. But I got the same sense I got from the last Alejandro G. Iñárritu movie, “Birdman”: a lot of the movie seemed like it was supposed to be meaningful, but it really wasn’t. I guess that’s why people call his movies pretentious; there’s this appearance of meaningfulness that the movie itself doesn’t actually back up.

Still, if all of Iñárritu’s movies are that way, like I said, this one does a pretty great job of maintaining the illusion. There’s a lot of people who are responsible for that; the production design, costume design, makeup, and visual effects are all pretty perfect. I mean, that bear attack alone is worth some recognition.

But by far the biggest asset to “The Revenant” is Emmanuel Lubezki, who has a ridiculous track record at this point. It’s difficult for me sometimes to tell where the director’s work ends and the cinematographer’s begins, but I have to imagine that a lot of the amazing camerawork in “Birdman” and “The Revenant” is really thanks to Lubezki’s creativity and flawless execution. Without the disorienting distortion of Lubezki’s fisheye-esque shots, without the protracted Steadicam takes, without the visceral visual immersion of the brutal battle scenes, without the stunning visuals of wintery forest landscapes and frigid mountain ranges, “The Revenant” would not be nearly as captivating as it is.

And “The Revenant” really is captivating. Its running time could probably shaved down a little (maybe just 10 or 15 minutes, so Glass’s recovery doesn’t feel too easy and unrealistic), and maybe that’d be a better choice for a focused revenge story—maybe Iñárritu would’ve been better off in general trying to tell a focused, visceral revenge story instead of this faux-meditation on nature and death and life and retribution or whatever. But that’s not what Alejandro G. Iñárritu likes to do. He doesn’t like to tell modest, low-key stories. He likes to shoot for the sky, even when there’s nothing up there.

Grade: B

Summary:

We start again with a flash back to Ned’s school days. On this day, the science class is doing a project and the students are allowed to choose their partners. No one chooses Ned, so he gets assigned to work with Eugene, an Indian student with large headgear. Through this lab, the two become friends, but while playing, Ned accidentally reveals his power to Eugene. Eugene eventually forgets it, but Ned never gets over it.

From there, we are moved back to the present where Ned and Chuck share an adorable conversation. This abruptly changes, as Ned wants to know what Chuck thinks of their relationship. Chuck reveals that they are in fact boyfriend and girlfriend. Unfortunately, before the conversation ends, Chuck reveals that the day is her late father’s birthday. This disturbs Ned as he doesn’t know if he should tell Chuck about the fact that he is responsible for his death.

Meanwhile, Olive is also saddened, but from overhearing that Ned and Chuck are officially in a relationship. But she becomes distracted by Alfredo, newly returned to the restaurant. She goes to fix him his espresso but everyone becomes distracted by “some guy” entering the Pie Hole and alerting everyone about the new candy store down the street, Bitter Sweets.

We then turn to Emerson and his new case. A man, Tony, was strangled to death in friend’s apartment, but his girlfriend was arrested due to small bruising caused by daintier hands strangling him. The trio head to the morgue and, in a surprising twist, they learn the killer is Tony’s friend Burly Bruce Carter. He had used his doll girlfriend’s hands to strangle him. They head over to Bruce apartment and are able to convince him to admit that Sheila (his inanimate girlfriend) had strangled Tony.

Meanwhile, at the Pie Hole, Olive asks Alfredo what he would do if he was in love with Olive, but they couldn’t touch. Alfredo says that he would find a way around it because he would love her unconditionally. Olive dismisses it though, and gets back to work.

Eventually the gang all head to Bitter Sweets. Chuck brings pie to welcome the new business and they find that “some guy”, now named Billy is one of the store’s owners along with his sister, Dilly. Dilly shows her competitive side, but Chuck’s pie drives all her customer’s to the Pie Hole, igniting a feud between the two businesses.

Later, Ned and the gang find that the restaurant’s sign has been vandalized to just read Pie Hoe. In addition, they only have one customer for the day. In order to pass time, Chuck tries to talk to Olive about Ned, but Olive still isn’t over Ned and isn’t comfortable talking about their relationship. The customer reveals himself to be a health inspector and begins to inspect the premise. The Pie Hole fails after the inspector finds Ned’s cooler of rotten fruit.

After they’re shut down, Dilly comes to visit. She reveals that she wants the Pie Hole store front. Ned refuses to combat her. We head into a flashback to learn where Dilly’s competitiveness comes from. Her parents had died from bird flu. Rather than hiding from it, she decides she wants to confront the birds. While traveling across the lake, she gets attacked by birds, but narrowly survives. At shore, she is offered a salt water taffy and that sparks her business venture.

At night, while everyone else is asleep, Chuck and Olive slip away. They have decided to break in and sabotage Bitter Sweets. They release rats into the store. Back at the apartment, Ned finds Chuck awake and learns of the sabotage. He goes to Bitter Sweets to reverse their actions, but instead finds the dead body of Billy in a vat of taffy. As he is trying to get Billy out, the police rush in and arrest Ned for the murder.

Emerson and Olive, attempting to exonerate Ned, visit the morgue and Billy’s body. Without Ned’s touch, they can’t do much, so instead, Chucks stays for the autopsy while Emerson digs into Billy’s past. While Emerson is having trouble, Chucks finds that Billy bit the finger off of his killer. Unfortunately, the finger print is too damaged to do anything with.

We then cut to Ned’s time in prison. We find that Bruce is Ned’s roommate. Before Bruce attacks Ned for landing him in prison, Ned asks how Bruce met Sheila, placating him. Ned sees how happy Bruce is by avoiding the truth and thinks that he could learn from it.

Chuck and Emerson sneak into Bitter Sweets, while Olive distracts Dilly. Emerson notices that table was moved and Chuck finds 9-fingered hand prints on the granite top. Meanwhile, in a reflection, Dilly sees in Emerson and goes to confront the two with a gun. She takes off her gloves and reveals that she has ten fingers and is no longer a suspect. She lets them go after they promise to find Billy’s real killer.

From Chuck’s prints, we learn that the real killer was the health inspector. He was trying to blackmail Billy for money after the surprise inspection on the Pie Hole. Billy refused and it turned physical, leading to Billy’s death.

In the ending we find that Olive realizes that she could love Alfredo, but it’s too late since he has already left again; Dilly has killed the health inspector; and Ned reveals the truth about Chuck’s father, even though he had earlier committed to not telling her.

Pros:

-I love the twist in the murder mystery at the beginning not actually being the real mystery of the episode.

-Dilly is a great character and I really wish we could see more of her. She’e surprisingly dark for such a bright universe.

-It’s a good reprieve that there isn’t another subplot about problems with Ned and Chuck’s relationship.

-It was great to see Alfredo again and it is heartbreaking when Olive misses him.

Cons:

-This is the last time we see either Dilly or Alfredo and I believe they could’ve made great secondary characters. Maybe turning Dilly into an overarching dark counterpoint to Ned.

-The deaths were creative, but I miss the clever makeup art that usually comes along with them.

Overall:

This is a great episode. Not necessarily for the plot, but for the characters. Dilly is especially strong and probably the best one-off characters of the entire series. Her entire personality is the antithesis of Ned and it creates interesting dynamics between her and the other characters of the show. I would’ve loved if she had come back in other episodes and maybe become a recurring villain or the final mystery for the season finale. In addition, Alfredo is a strong character and his relationship to Olive gives further distress to the character once she realizes that she likes him, but cannot reach him. It also makes Olive even further rounded out as her characterization is no longer dependent on Chuck or Ned for development. This is a very strong episode. The plot is simple, but effective, the characters are top notch, and it creates new dynamics for our characters to interact in.

Rating:

9/10 Daisies

I took my first ballet class when I was four years old. Over the next 16 years I went from taking one class a week to five, demonstrating for two more, substituting whenever asked and rehearsing with the professional company associated with my ballet school. I was not dreaming of the Metropolitan Opera as I do now, rather, of summer ballet programs, American Ballet Theatre, and the Joffery.

Eventually I had to give up ballet. Bad genetics and not enough hours in the day resulted in knee problems and an ultimatum to choose between ballet and singing, and being the pragmatic person I am, I chose the career path which was more sustainable and attainable of the two. For months there was a void, an ache in my body longing to stretch and dance and express myself in a way that no other art form could but that has subsided and the ache has become a phantom pain that only shows itself once in a while.

The other day I was asked if I regretted being a ballerina. If I regretted studying the art form that resulted (in combination with other factors – to be clear I am not blaming ballet but it was a contributing factor) in 6 months over the years on crutches, knee surgery and my grandmother like ability to predict the weather based on how my knee feels that day.

Perhaps it is a cliché, but because ballet got me to this moment right here and now I cannot regret a single moment I spent in my ballet studio above Stucchi’s. If I could snap my fingers and wipe away all of the knee problems, the crutches, the surgery and the pain that was associated with a body not meant to dance, I don’t know if I would. Sounds crazy right? Yet, it was only because of my knee problems that I found the Miss America Organization as it was my physical therapist who, over the course of a year and a half, talked me into competing at Miss Washtenaw last year and helped me to discover a world that I am proud to be a part of.

My only regret is that without ballet I have little now in common with the four girls who were my best friends for 16 years and that we have not spoken in at least a year and a half. I cannot regret ballet as a whole. It shaped who I am and the artist that I am. While I’ll never again be the dancer I was, I proud to have been a ballerina – knee problems and all.

There is a scene in Georges Franju’s Judex where the titular character, dressed in a slick black suit and wearing a large bird mask, picks up a dead dove outside a large estate and enters the belle époque ballroom. After he slowly floats through the crowd, as if he is dancing his way deeper and deeper into the party, he stops in front of the crowd, snaps, creating a short-lived flame, and magically revives the dove. Then, he proceeds to pull doves out of thin air, letting the graceful birds flutter all around the amazed crowd. After he personally gives a bird to a lady (Favraux’s daughter) we momentarily shift attention to two other gentlemen wearing black bird masks. They wonder what Favraux will be wearing, and one of them responds, “A vulture mask.” Then, like magic, the vulture masked Favraux appears to do a toast. However, in order to do so, he removes his mask, meaning he is the only exposed individual in the entire party. Mid-toast, the clock strikes midnight, and we zoom in on a clock atop a mantelpiece and as we do so, we see, reflected in the mirror behind the clock, a terrified Favraux looking towards the clock and a placid Judex standing next to him. As we zoom in more and more however, the clock blocks out Favraux, leaving only Judex in the reflection. The time for judgment has arrived and Judex magically presents a glass of champagne to Favraux and the man then drops dead. However, he never drinks before falling.

This is my favorite scene in the entire movie. It’s so precise and magical. The camera remains placid while the content is surreal and magical. It’s as if two perspectives are colliding. Whenever I mention this film to my friends, I always have great difficulty in giving them a brief synopsis to intrigue them. This is simply because I can’t really say, with absolute certainty, that I know what happened in the film. But I still love it, and I find myself revisiting Judex, over and over again.

Remarkably, this is not the first film I left saying, “What the fuck happened?” It happened when I watched Inherent Vice and it happened when I watched The Big Sleep. But I absolutely loved these movies because, regardless of whether I understood the plot or not, I was invested, almost in a hypnotic state, but conscious enough to know I’m enjoying the moment. It’s a kind of magic.

There is a contextual history for this film that’s too long to go into, so by considering this film in isolation one of the biggest questions is why is Judex doing all this? Which makes him, in turn, an enigmatic wonder. However, that is what the present day me would say, but watching Judex, I wasn’t watching it academically; I reverted to a little kid who was just amazed by the magic – Judex is just really fucking cool.

I love when the mechanics of the craft and the content are almost separated, but paradoxically, play with one another in such an intricate way that it completely goes under your radar – thus creating a surreal experience where you are smiling and you aren’t quite sure why right away.

A small flame flickers for an instant and the dove flutters to life. Judex has arrived to execute his judgement and you will see the magic that transpires when his sentence falls.

“The Danish Girl” isn’t awful. I kind of thought it would be, for a lot of reasons. Despite a 70% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes, most critics who I regularly follow gave it negative reviews, and some publications claimed it wasn’t a good representation of the transgender community. Overall, it seemed to be a very Oscar bait-y type movie to me, and the fact that Eddie Redmayne was the star was only more off-putting. I don’t really mind Redmayne (haven’t seen “Les Mis” yet), but I despised “The Theory of Everything,” the last movie that he was really recognized for. Even though “The Danish Girl” has a different director than “The Theory of Everything,” the presence of Eddie Redmayne somehow seemed to confirm to me that it’d be as bad.

And it isn’t. There are moments of “The Danish Girl” that are emotionally affecting, and it’s bolstered by solid performances from Eddie Redmayne, Alicia Vikander, and Matthias Schoenaerts. (This type of movie seems to always have committed actors that often outshine the script and direction. See: Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley in “The Imitation Game,” Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush in “The King’s Speech,” etc.)

The first 45 minutes or so, in fact, I really liked. I think the way Einar gradually realized that she was actually Lili was fairly well-done, and there’s some genuine fun in the scenes where Lili dresses up and hangs out with Gerda. Those are the kinds of scenes that are happy for multiple reasons—on the one hand, they’re like fun dress-up games with a cute couple, and on the other hand, they show a very important, serious transformation taking place. As much melodrama and repetition as there is late in the movie, these early scenes of Lili discovering her identity are nice because she seems genuinely happy to finally be dressing as the person she feels like inside.

The power of these early scenes is that you know that even though everything’s fun and happy and positive, it’s not going to stay that way. Gerda, inevitably, is not going to be okay with Lili’s transformation once she realizes it’s for real and not just a game. And there’s a power to seeing these pleasant scenes slowly melt into serious drama. Lili’s trip to the ball is initially fun and slightly humorous as she awkwardly pretends she’s a cisgender woman, but then there’s the very serious and emotional scene when Henrik (Ben Whishaw) goes off with Lili and kisses her. This is probably Redmayne’s best scene as Lili slowly gives in to Henrik’s advances and kisses him back, terrified and nervous. I could really feel the pain and confusion and desire. (More on gender versus sexuality down below.)

Despite this really solid early section, I couldn’t help but pick up some negative similarities between the movie and “The Theory of Everything.” While Lili’s childhood friend Hans is a potentially interesting character as played by the charismatic Schoenaerts, he ultimately seems to serve as a pointless ‘new partner’ role for Gerda, like Charlie Cox’s character in “Theory.” At least the romance isn’t really developed, and at least the movie ends with him quietly supporting Gerda after she loses Lili, but his character felt like a big missed opportunity to show what Lili was like when she was young.

Redmayne’s performance is more impressive to me here than the physical contortions of his role as Stephen Hawking, but I still get the sense that he’s really trying to show off to the Academy. Some of his scenes crying are really well-done, but there’s too many, and there’s something about his scenes dressed up as a female that seem especially showy. It’s like Look! I can dress up and look like a woman! Look how surprisingly attractive I am in traditional ladies’ clothes! This was one aspect that I hadn’t even picked up on until I read Carol Grant’s article about the movie simplifying womanhood, but “The Danish Girl” does tend to reduce being a woman to lipstick, traditionally feminine fashion, having gal pals, and sleeping with men.

Speaking of which: there isn’t much sex in this movie at all, and it’s kind of difficult to tell whether there should be more or even less. In real life, Lili was a heterosexual trans woman (or bisexual—it’s kind of hard to tell from the cursory research I’ve done), but it’s difficult to tell what role sexuality plays in the film. When Lili kisses Henrik, what does this exactly mean—that she’s solely attracted to men, or that she’s attracted to them in addition to women? During the sex scenes between Lili and Gerda, is Lili secretly thinking of men, or is she genuinely attracted to Gerda? When their marriage dissolves, is the implication that Lili has no genuine attraction to Gerda, romantic or sexual, or is it just that this dramatic transition drives them apart?

In many ways, this would be an easier story to tell if it focused exclusively on gender instead of adding in enough hints of sexuality to wish for more. If Lili began dressing exclusively as a woman, that’d provide ample reason for Gerda to be concerned; it didn’t need to be a kiss with a man that made her question it. Based on the kiss and the fact that Lili has secretly been seeing Henrik, Lili’s sexuality seems to be the main thing driving her and her wife apart, not her gender identity—the ostensible focus of the movie.

This lack of clarity about the characters, their sexualities, and their motivations makes the film begin feeling generally disjointed and shapeless after about 45 minutes. Gerda oscillates between a friendly support of Lili and a sudden rage at her husband seemingly every scene. In some movies, the occasional return of an old anger and sadness may be realistic (see the long fight scene in “Before Midnight”), but in this one, it gets exhausting to try to figure out what the nature of the characters’ relationship really is.

It doesn’t help that there aren’t many dimensions to the characters, especially Lili. What is Lili’s personality, really? ‘Painter’ and ‘transgender’ are descriptors, but not personality traits. Gerda actually acknowledges this in a rare self-aware moment when Lili says, “I want to be a woman, not a painter,” and Gerda says, “Well, some people have been known to do both.” Lili’s line epitomizes the flatness of her character post-gender revelation, but Gerda’s funny self-aware line doesn’t do enough to remedy that. Part of the strength of the beginning of the film is in seeing them talking and showing their personalities outside of the main conflict, but once the real plot kicks into gear, they play pretty flat characters, getting into the arguments and big dramatic discussions that you’d expect them to. Like when Gerda asks Lili to bring her husband back and she says, “I can’t.”

Speaking of which, there’s something vaguely uncomfortable about the repeated insistence that Einar and Lili are separate people. Lili speaks of her past male self like she is killing him by ‘becoming’ Lili. In the society when the movie is set, it’s not unreasonable to think of gender identity as something that changes a person into another person, so it’s not inherently offensive, but it becomes questionable when Lili repeatedly emphasizes that she’s becoming a new person, as if not a single aspect of her previous life was worth living.

And, going back to Gerda’s earlier self-aware line, here’s another instance of inconsistent characterization: sometimes, Lili (and, through her, the movie itself) does seem to be completely self-aware, but other times, it doesn’t. Once, Lili says, “I think Lili’s thoughts, I dream her dreams. She was always there.” But later on, she and Gerda speak as if Lili really never was there, that Lili genuinely was Einar, a male, for most of her life. As funny as Hans’s line “I’ve only liked a handful of people in my life, and you’ve been two of them” is, it’s too much of a literalization of the transition Lili has undergone. No, Hans—Lili has only been one of them. This is the same person you hung out with and loved as a kid.

And then there’s the ending, the maudlin death scene. I’m not sure what makes a death feel manipulative and empty; it’s hard to determine. I mean, in real life, Lili Elbe did die during an operation to construct a uterus and vagina for her. Still, though, there’s something off-putting about feeling the need to make one last attempt at eliciting emotion.

Because with movies like this, the best moments are the subtle ones, the ones that can’t be explained in a few words. There can be big, broad moments with obvious emotional connotations like Joan Clarke telling Alan Turing “Sometimes it’s the very people who no one imagines anything of who do the things no one can imagine” in “The Imitation Game,” and those can be affecting in their simplicity, but there’s nothing really interesting or new or thought-provoking about moments like that. Similarly, while I felt myself getting goose bumps several times in the movie, I was conscious that that was a result of Alexandre Desplat’s soaring score, the performances, and the feeling that I should be getting emotional at that point. I was not genuinely sad when Lili died at the end of the movie. I felt like it was an inevitability in a movie like this.

And I think that’s what reminded me the most of “The Theory of Everything,” a movie I found much worse than this one: the unfortunate feeling that all of this was so predictable. Yeah, maybe Lili Elbe did die during the operation in real life. But of course the movie had to end that way. Of course it did.