Author: Corrina Lee

Another year, another biographical film. Every Oscar season, a new ‘based on a true event’ story is dug up from the past to entertain and most importantly, compete for awards. But not all are created equal. By taking on controversial events or figures in history, these films allow us to reevaluate the past and reframe the present.  I, Tonya, is just such a movie.  The movie stars Margot Robbie as Tonya Harding, the all American, champion figure skater. It chronicles her life up to the event that changes the course of her career and her future. Perhaps what makes Harding such an interesting subject, strangely enough, is that she was not an influential, world-changing figure. Instead, she was a merely athlete, whose superhuman talent did not stop her from being subject to the same human flaws that plague us all. Bringing such a relatable story to the screen will hopefully prevent I, Tonya from some of the more sentimental or worshipful tendencies of other biographical films. I, Tonya is currently showing in the State Theatre.  Purchase tickets ($8 for students with ID) online at the Michigan Theater website or at the box office.

Water has always held a mysterious place in our collective imaginations. It simultaneously acts as a healing, life-giving force while having the power to sweep away all our proud civilizations in one thundering wave. Perhaps no movie has done a better job of embracing the paradoxical nature of water than Guillermo del Toro’s new film, The Shape of Water. It is, after all, a film of many contrasting forces. Man and woman. Land and water. Human and inhuman. Silence and sound. At the center of it all is Elisa Esposito (Sally Hawkins). She lives a quiet life in a small apartment building near Baltimore. By night, she is an overlooked cleaning lady in a government laboratory, reduced to, by most of her work fellows, as the ‘mute woman’. By day, she spends her time delightfully consuming musicals with her neighbor, Giles (Richard Jenkins). Elisa’s life takes a turn when the drab laboratory gains an exotic new asset, an amphibian humanoid closely guarded by the sinister Colonel Richard Strickland (Michael Shannon). Strickland regards the creature as only as an opportunity to spite the Soviets and gain an upper hand in the Space Race, but Elisa’s sympathy soon leads her to a different conclusion.

Del Toro brings the audience into this world with his typical stylistic flair, transforming Baltimore into a land of marshy greens and greys. The color scheme makes the reds and yellows stand out like warning flares in the night. The film is full of these bold colors from the theater sign that lights up Eliza’s apartment building to the stop lights of the streets. Even the occasional factory fire is rendered into a beautiful, distant painting. It is a past that is both nostalgic and fantastical, a thematic approach that is echoed in every environment of the film. For example, the laboratory may be extremely mechanical with its dials and rivets, but it also houses an otherworldly creature from the Amazon. Elisa and her friends are perfectly imperfect for this strange place. Elisa’s inability to speak and Giles’ repressed feelings for other men render them as much abnormalities to this society as her new friend. It is an America, so afraid of Communism, that it demands absolute standardization among its citizens. Thus, the fantasy element of the movie serves to reinforce the real world instead of undermining it.  The world around Elisa is already a surreal place, a planet on the path to nuclear self-destruction. It is does not take too much imagination to place a strange fantasy creature in the middle of it all.

Cleverly, del Toro also inserts sound at every opportunity. Elisa, as mentioned repeatedly to ignorant coworkers, is not deaf, but mute. Her life is filled with noisy alarm clocks and crooning records. She even first interacts with the ‘asset’ by carefully tapping the glass of its container. Both Elisa and del Toro understand the importance of sound. It is a powerful, but oft-ignored force, just like her. Elisa’s may lack a voice, but she makes up for it by using sound in many other ways. It is yet another element that makes the world feel expansive and important.

The movie falters, however, when it takes one predictable step too many. Elisa and Strickland were always destined to collide. Their views on what constitutes humanity were simply too divergent, each informed by the lives they have been given. Strickland, privileged by his power and his all-American nuclear family, sees difference also as error. Elisa appreciates and even grows to love those that accept differences instead of judging them. However, these complex and interesting characters are done a disservice by a plot that feels overly familiar, especially when compared to del Toro’s first success, Pan’s Labyrinth. In that film, he mixes environment, character, and plot in just the right amounts. In this one, some elements are vastly more original than others, leading to a final confrontation that feels trapped by convention. It was an attempt to amaze and shock that fell flat. Despite what I consider a rather lackluster ending, I thoroughly enjoyed this film that immersed me (pun intended) into a world that was full of detail, color, and life. The Shape of Water manages to capture the elusive elegance, the seductive power that can only belong to water.

Guillermo del Toro has the knack of tackling unsettling subjects. Whether it be depicting the Spanish Civil War through the lens of a twisted fairy tale in Pan’s Labyrinth or a bleeding, haunted house in Crimson Peak, del Toro has never shied away from showing the beauty within the ugliness. It certainly seems as if he has done so again in his newest film, The Shape of Water. The Shape of Water puts del Toro’s skills to good use, by focusing the story around a mute cleaning-woman named Elisa who discovers the existence of a mysterious aquatic, human-like creature from South America. Her friendship with him is quickly endangered by emerging threats from the government and the science lab that houses him. I am looking forward to yet another del Toro film that centers around a woman. He does an exceptional job depicting characters that are often marginalized or unheard. With del Toro, it is just another stale romance. It is always something different and decidedly strange. The Shape of Water is currently showing at the Michigan Theater. Purchase tickets ($8 for students with ID), online at the Michigan Theater website or at the box office.

It seems appropriate that a film that revolves around a modern art curator would, itself, resist interpretation. Like the art that it intends to satirize, The Square is difficult to define.  In fact, one cannot even say that it is the story of one person or one story, although it may seem that way at first. The film, at first, seems to focus on Christian (Claes Bang) and the museum he curates.  Life seems to be going well for Christian. He is rich, handsome, and secure in his power and privilege. The museum is prepping to open a new exhibit, also titled The Square, which is a simply lit square in the plaza in front of the museum. However, as Christian explains to the brash, young ad men hired to promote the exhibit, it is supposed to mean something more.

‘The square is a sanctuary of trust and caring. Within it we all share equal rights and obligations’

It is the ramifications of this phrase that Christian and the other rich, upper-class citizens that he associates with must confront throughout the movie.  Stockholm is home to not just to the wealthy, but also countless beggars and the homeless. The Square, both the film and the art piece, challenges the rich to look at their own privilege and how they are abusing it, even as they pretend to be generous.

Fortunately, the director Rueben Östlund never lets the pretensions of his subjects slow the movie.  Instead, he constantly undermines Christian’s and others’ attempts to be serious by incorporating the entire screen. There are constantly visual and audio jokes in the margins of the frame. Even as Östlund focuses his camera on Christian, the true aim of the film is to highlight all in the world that Christian is missing. Christian and his fellow art-lovers may espouse to be more sophisticated, more evolved than those around them, but they, too, are subject to the whims of outside forces that they can’t control. By employing a greater focus, Östlund considers subjects that are harder to skewer than simple art-world pretentiousness. The film ranges from classicism to racism to urban poverty without restraint.  It is hard to criticize a film for lacking focus when its ambitions are so high and are so often successful. The Square leaves many threads hanging, all of which extend beyond the reach of the theater. Östlund is aware that many of the viewers of the film share much with the characters within the film and thus, realizes the importance of continuing the discussion even after the end of the film. Although it certainly wanders at points during its two hours and twenty-two-minute runtime, The Square is thoughtful and beautiful filmmaking that never lets the viewer forget their culpability. Through its sounds and visuals, it constantly invites us to think beyond the scope of one movie. There are greater problems to be confronted in the world and within ourselves. The Square may have defined limits, but our empathy should not.

Many movies have been released over the years. There has been the good, the bad, and the just plain ugly, but no movie has had quite the same trajectory as Tommy Wiseau’s infamous production, The Room. Wiseau, a newcomer to Hollywood, chose to write, direct, star in, and most mysteriously, entirely fund his dream project. Full of unforgettably awkward lines and inexplicable directing choices, the movie was declared a disaster. But it has also become an eminently watchable disaster, spawning midnight screenings across the country every year. Part of that fascination has birthed a new project directed by and starring James Franco, The Disaster Artist, based on the novel by Greg Sestro, a friend of Wiseau’s who continues to write and produce films with him.

The film begins when Sestro (Dave Franco) first encounters Wiseau. Greg gapes in both horror and admiration as Tommy performs Shakespeare for the entire theater class. Much of the film encourages the audience to do the same. Goggle at James Franco’s wig!  Giggle at his accent! Observe as he meticulously recreates your favorite scenes from The Room! The Disaster Artist mines what the audience already knows, making it feel perfunctory as it reveals each new puzzle piece. Perhaps it is because the puzzle seems too neatly put together. The awkward football tossing, Wiseau’s peculiar laugh, the iconic lines, each make an appearance in Tommy’s and Greg’s interactions. It is all a collection of references rather than a movie that can stand on its own. When the movie does try to chronicle Greg’s and Tommy’s lives before the making of The Room, it treads in clichés. It is disappointing that a character like Wiseau could be revealed to be simply just another failed LA dreamer, just another jealous friend. It is a case where humanizing the main character does not have the expected effect. Perhaps it would have been better to let the curtain be. The mystery behind it will always be more interesting than the truth.

One of the more intriguing narratives of the movie considers the friendship between Tommy and Greg. Tommy, throughout most of the film, exerts considerable power over the younger, impressionable Greg. He houses Greg in his beautiful LA apartment, drives him around in a Mercedes Benz. To its credit, the movie does not shy away from showing the problematic nature of Tommy’s controlling personality whether it be terrorizing actresses on set to manipulating his friendship with Greg to get what he wants. However, the movie does seem to justify his actions as stemming from a place of insecurity. It is problematic, then, that Tommy is still able to get what he wants from Greg with barely a protest. The characters of The Disaster Artist may be better written than those of The Room, but there is still a missing nuance that can’t be covered up with silly accent. It is hard to believe in characters who seem to be constantly winking at you.

The Disaster Artist knows what audience its playing for. Sometimes, that self-awareness can be captivating. Those who have seen The Room will certainly want to see this movie. However, for me, it actively decreased my investment in the characters, even as I laughed at the impressions and the recreations. It is a well-worn storyline in a well-done package. Both the Franco brothers and Seth Rogen, as the protesting script supervisor of The Room, give terrific performances. The older Franco also does well to meticulously construct and frame shots exactly as they were in the original film. But in the end, the film was a disappointment and unlike The Room, I’m not sure that I will be re-watching it anytime soon.

Based on the novel of the same name by Greg Sestro, The Disaster Artist chronicles the making of the infamously terrible movie, The Room. The Disaster Artist gives a fascinating glimpse into Tommy Wiseau who wrote, directed, and starred in The Room through the eyes of his former friend, Sestro. Interestingly, The Disaster Artist is a passion project itself, directed by and starring James Franco as Wiseau. This is certainly a movie for those who have ever watched and enjoyed mocking The Room. However, it also holds appeal to those who haven’t, such as this reviewer. The Disaster Artist is not only about the disaster, after all, but also the artist at the center. What makes The Room fascinating is not that it was bad. There have been many movies that were bad and quickly forgotten. It is the element of sincerity to Wiseau’s work that continues to draw audiences. Hopefully, the movie can find the man within the art. It opens in the newly renovated State Theater, on December 8th. Purchase tickets ($8 for students with ID) online at the Michigan Theater website or at the box office.