The Perils of Adulthood

Just imagine if Jeff Bridges’ Lebowski character had had a younger brother who lived on an organic farm in Long Island, and you will have a rough idea of the premise of Jesse and Evgenia Peretz’s new film, Our Idiot Brother. Like Lebowski, this film is about a lovable hippie who can’t seem to steer clear of “normal” people, and so must share the heartache of their perpetual scheming. Paul Rudd, who plays the title character, Ned, must have taken some inspiration from Bridges’ Lebowski; his hair, clothing and even manner of speech are eerily reminiscent (the faint echo of Bridges’ whining “hey man” can often be heard in Rudd’s delivery).

Our Idiot Brother also pays homage to Lebowksi in its critique of the way our society expects adults to behave. That sounds heavy, but it may be worth partaking in the film’s contemplation about the human need for social exploitation, and whether we’d all be better off putting that need to rest. The film’s suggestion is that we all want things from each other, and so our lives flatten into a maddening and loveless pursuit, little of which leads to the happiness we were hoping for. Ned, by contrast, is content with what he has: a simple life, a humble wardrobe, and a faithful canine companion, none-too-allegorically named “Willie Nelson.”

When Ned falls into trouble after a cop tricks him into a silly drug deal, he loses Willie Nelson, gets thrown in jail, and finds himself — unenviably — with nowhere to turn except for his family. Initially, we think it will be a pain for his sisters to have to keep him afloat, but we soon sense that the pain will be all Ned’s for having to find a way to coexist with such restlessly egocentric beings.

Ned’s family tour begins with Liz (Emily Mortimer), the most laid-back of the sisters and perhaps the most like Ned. She lives with her husband, a feisty British filmmaker named Dylan (Steve Coogan) in a comfortable Brooklyn townhouse. Liz and Dylan are not the obnoxious sort, but their dogmatically liberal parenting style — shunning even the slightest hint of rowdiness in their sheltered male child — is a bore to both Ned and us. Liz and Dylan are also muddling through a marriage that has become sexless, for Liz at least; after accidentally witnessing Dylan’s infidelity, Ned turns informant, further escalating tensions in the household. It is not long before Ned and Dylan find themselves at odds and Ned is forced out.

The next sister stop for Ned is Natalie (Zooey Deschanel), a sultry lower-Manhattanite with a sexual appetite as mercurial as it is voracious. She is unable to offer Ned much in the way of lodging, however, so he continues his journey uptown to his sister Miranda’s place. Miranda (Elizabeth Banks) is the ambitious career woman of the bunch — finely dressed, well groomed, and desperately clawing her way up through the ranks of her publishing company as she works her first big story. That story is about a woman who was raped by her husband and subsequently founded a support group for battered women. As Miranda pursues this subject for the details of her story, the concentric rings of exploitation become glaringly visible. To what extent, the filmmakers ask, is it justifiable to capitalize on other people’s pain in the pursuit of doing something good? Meanwhile, Miranda carries on an ill-defined relationship with her neighbor, Jeremy, who in her mind exists solely to help with her sudden home-decorating urges. It is not until Ned steps in, once again accidentally, that Miranda reluctantly acknowledges that she may have feelings for Jeremy.

What Ned discovers about his sisters is that they are all unhappy people, undone by ideology, promiscuity and ambition in respective order. In turn, they each find that they have much to learn from Ned: if they could only try to take less and give more, they might be better off. Though Ned is hardly a short-tempered fellow, he does finally explode when, in an evening at their mother’s house, the sisters cannot hold back their contempt for family time — a disappointing trait which Ned lacks, and which his sisters must have acquired through the soul-sucking process of becoming “functional” adults. Ironically, Ned’s only kindred soul in the film (besides Willie Nelson) is his mother, a loving woman who supports and encourages him, serving as a reminder that our parents are sometimes to thank for how we turn out, society be damned.

Whoever said that fortune smiles on the bold left out the part about how society frowns on the dreamers. All Lebowski wanted was his rug back, and Ned just wants his dog back, but like so many things in adult life, it is never that simple.

The Trouble with Brothers

As a film about the difficulties of coming home from war, Brothers is a respectable effort; as an exploration of the emotional dynamics of a family in limbo, it is a triumph. Directed by the Irish filmmaker Jim Sheridan — the man behind three Daniel Day-Lewis features to date (My Left Foot, In the Name of the Father, and The Boxer) — Brothers is a measured, old-school take on cathartic family drama.

Sam Cahill (Toby Maguire) is a soft-spoken Marine living with his wife (Natalie Portman) and two young girls in a suburb of Minneapolis. As he prepares for another deployment to Afghanistan, the dread of transition — both his and his family’s — is thick in the air. In short order we meet Sam’s father, Hank (Sam Shepard), a palpably tormented Vietnam veteran, and his black sheep brother, Tommy (Jake Gyllenhaal), who has just finished a prison stint for holding up a bank.

Before the meat of the plot even commences, Sheridan sprinkles in some heavy insinuations about the relationship between these three men. A former star high school football player and now dutiful soldier and family man, it is evident that older brother Sam was able to channel his father’s home-from-war bullying more effectively than younger brother Tommy, who has become an incorrigible misfit. Sam and Hank love Tommy dearly, but they also resent him, which initiates one of the film’s central questions: how do people in a family (particularly men) approach the uncomfortable question of accountability when one of their own turns out to be a failure? Part of the torment on Hanks’s face (who in film acting these days is better able to convey that look than Shepard?) is that he wants to blame Tommy, who is now physically an adult if not otherwise, but he can’t help also blaming himself. At times he looks so boiling with rage — the tan creases of his face bending in on themselves — as if ready to punch Tommy; at other times he looks as though he would like to slink away and cry.

Sam soon ships off for war, a horrifying ordeal before him. In the meantime, Tommy tries to put himself together and be a support to Sam’s doting wife, Grace, who is quietly creaking under the weight of obligation and longing. Tommy discovers a sense of purpose, perhaps for the first time in his life, and he and Grace grow close emotionally.

Much of the middle section of the film is about the painful process of trying to fill holes in family life. Tommy and Grace, who formerly carried on a distant and distrustful relationship, now recognize the need to try harder with each other, if for no one else than Grace and Sam’s girls. But holes in family are difficult to fill. When the chaplains arrive at Grace’s door with the news that Sam is gone, a part of Tommy believes he can step into his brother’s shoes. And indeed, time works strange wonders on affection; Grace’s girls develop a fondness for uncle Tommy rivaling that for their own father, and for her part, Grace comes to crave the emotional connection that she has developed with her brother-in-law but can no longer have with her husband. But this is really just a set-up; Sam is still alive, though in what sense it remains to be seen, and Sheridan dangles us on the hook in feverish anticipation of what that will occur when he returns home. The wound of Sam’s departure has been partially healed, but would it have been better, we wonder, to have left it open?

Had Sheridan wanted this film to play as a more conventional thriller, he could have easily laid in a variety of plot twists and misdirections to achieve such an effect. However, the strength of this film lies in a narrative structure that is entirely devoid of plot twists, and places its bets instead on the ability of its actors. The depiction of Sam’s ordeal in Afghanistan, and his unlikely survival, could have been omitted altogether, setting up the audience for quite a shock when he suddenly returns home. Instead, for most of the film we possess knowledge that Sam’s family doesn’t, and so our anxiety hinges less on the question of what will happen than on what the reaction will be.

“Drama” has come to be something of a cliché in contemporary cinema, manifesting more often than not in the form of hysterical characters and byzantine plots. What has been lost, when compared to the great dramas and even some of the good ones, is that slow, bumpy ride to catharsis, wherein the audience can see the cliff before the characters can and must brace for impact. Thankfully, some filmmakers, such as Sheridan, appreciate the old formula and remind us that when done properly — with a strong reliance on a straightforward plot and disciplined acting — drama still has quite an effect.

Marginalized

If you want to know what it feels like to be pushed through a meat grinder for 100 minutes, go see J.C. Chandor’s new financial thriller, Margin Call. The vantage point we are given in this film is so narrow and cramped — we know so little of these characters and yet we are so bombarded by the oppressiveness of their circumstances — that I often felt as though I was in a tunnel gasping for air. Perhaps not a useless response given the subject matter.

The onslaught begins in the opening frame: on a mortgage-backed securities (MBS) trading floor in an unnamed New York City financial firm, two young analysts gaze on in horrified wonder as the Human Resources department invades the room — not unlike a SWAT team — to carry out a slew of lay-offs. The rancorous British boss on the trading floor, Will Emerson (played by a squinting, spitting Paul Bettany) encourages the two noobs to ignore the spectacle and return to work; he has seen this many times before.

Among the slain on this particular morning is Eric Dale (Stanley Tucci), the head of risk management for the floor. As he is dismissed, he has the wherewithal to ask how it would make sense to begin lay-offs in the risk management department. No answer is given. On his way out of the building, Dale tosses a flash drive to one of his analysts, Peter Sullivan (Zachary Quinto), with a prophetic warning: “Be careful.” Moments later, Dale is out on the sidewalk holding a box of his belongings, and his cell phone has been shut off — a 19-year career drawn to a close.

What Sullivan finds on the flash drive sets the film in motion. According to models, if the value of the MBS assets on the company’s books continues to decline at the recently observed rate, the firm stands to sustain a loss, in the relatively near future, possibly greater than its market capitalization. In other words, “Iceberg dead ahead!” This news works its way up the chain of command, first to Emerson, and then to Sam Rogers (Kevin Spacey) — Emerson’s boss and the head of trading operations for the firm.

How this information moves up through the ranks is perhaps the most condemning part of the film. We learn that Sullivan, the discoverer of the bad news, is an MIT doctorate who went into finance over science because the pay was more attractive. Proving to be one of the few characters who can actually grasp the intricacies of the situation, he spends most of the film explaining — or trying to explain — the matter at hand without offending the predilection of his superiors for “plain English.” When a meeting of the executive committee finally convenes at 2:30 in the morning, CEO John Tuld (Jeremy Irons) implores the perplexed Sullivan to explain the situation as if he were explaining it to a child. Such advice might sound respectable in a high school English class, but in this context it sounds suspiciously like there is a deficit of some sort in the ranks of upper management.

Chandor’s point is that the flow of information through bureaucracies such as this is impeded by ego, which is bolstered by bureaucracy, which is fueled by ego. It’s a chicken-or-egg type of problem, and the result is a system in which the people at the top aren’t necessarily the smarter, the more experienced, or the better qualified; they’re just at the top. Why? No one seems to know, although Tuld generously offers a clue: “It’s not brains that got me here!”

Despite first impressions, this film does not make a case that the business practices in which these types of institutions engage are wholly immoral. Nor does it suggest that the people who carry out those practices are awful, greedy soles. The devil, as it turns out, is the system itself — a system that most seem to resent, no one seems to understand, and only the people at the very top seem to be able to navigate safely.

Of the many taut performances, Kevin Spacey is the glue that holds all other pieces together, with a remarkable turn as a company lifer who has grown a soft heart in his older age — seemingly too much so for his own good. And what of J.C. Chandor? Well, it is downright difficult to believe that this is his first feature. He captures the hum of the city and the bottled tension of the trading floor and boardrooms where much of the film takes place, and he builds a mood around his characters that pulses with a sleepless, almost delirious anxiety. It is a case study in the effect that an engaged director can have on a film and its actors. Chandor clearly did not sign on just to tell the actors how to deliver their lines; he built a whole world in which they could exist.

A caveat for the 99-percenters: this film is not recommended viewing for stoking the flames of the current proletarian fervor. It is an understated, humanizing and, at times, validating glance at the way complex systems create and respond to moments of crisis. Do not go for the liberal talking points; go for the action, and stay for the disciplined lack of moral resolution. It will be worth the small decline in your assets.

On the Tracks to Healing

If you’ve ever heard the phrase, “The journey is the destination,” then you will already be familiar with the idea behind Wes Anderson’s 2007 film, The Darjeeling Limited. A year after their father’s death, three grown brothers, played in descending age order by Owen Wilson (wearing an elaborate head bandage for most of the film), Adrien Brody, and Jason Schwartzman, reunite for a train trip across India, the destination of which is purposefully unclear. Each brother seems to be battling drugs and depression, not to mention interpersonal issues of a colorful variety. The eldest, Francis, despite being the most visibly battered, is the would-be paternal surrogate of the bunch, snatching up his brothers’ passports to prevent them from straying too far, and conveying an annoyingly methodical itinerary of activities, stop-offs, and sleeping assignments. Peter, the middle brother, has a pregnant wife at home who drifts in and out of his consciousness, a hole he tries to fill by purchasing various living and non-living paraphernalia in village bazaars along the way. The youngest and quietest, Jack, strikes up a passionate romance with one of the train’s stewardesses, which runs its course with alarming rapidity.

The first few scenes of the film show the brothers in tension. They resist and resent each other, sulk and regret, dig up the petty and the trivial for sport, and argue over their father’s love. But deep down the brothers are not all that different. As ever in the world of Wes Anderson, siblings are intended as varying manifestations of a single unit — the family — that has fallen into a state of disrepair. The brothers are in one sense separate beings in conflict with each other, and in another sense three versions of an aggravated whole. They have different mannerisms and propensities, but fundamentally they have the same problems, and those problems stem from the same root.

I don’t know if Anderson is religious, but Darjeeling has at least a spiritual feel; it is a journey through grief and reflection. Setting the film in India and filling the soundtrack with Indian ballads seems like a nod to a certain kind of journey desired by affluent westerners in need of a “break,” an “escape,” or a “retreat” — something more than just a “vacation” or a “trip”. In this sense, perhaps the setting of Darjeeling is a critique of those who have too much time and resources to allocate to their mourning process. If getting over the loss of a loved one leaves people with no other choice than to travel across India for several weeks, how could normal people hope to get by?

In any case, the best stories are those that speak from the heart, and this film is somewhat like watching the heart speak to itself. We know early on that the brothers have come to India for a spiritual healing. Healing seems like the last thing they are prepared to do, but then, those are often the types of people who most need it. It may be no mistake that Anderson went to India to shoot this film, or that he included so many references to his idol, Indian film legend Satyajit Ray, or that he harps on familiar — even pat — symbols of healing. There is a strong, permeating conviction, reinforced by Owen Wilson’s character at times, that “we must take this journey.”

Despite the weightiness of this all, Anderson’s filmmaking tends towards the stylistic over the probing. But as in The Royal Tenenbaums, that serves to illuminate the complicated and often absurd nature of family tragedy. Here are three grown men who seem to have never grown up, and for that we are almost inclined to assign them the blame, if it weren’t for the creeping suspicion that their parents did this to them — somehow, some way.

In Tenenbaums, the destructive potential of bad parents was front and center, with a memorable turn from Gene Hackman as the conniving patriarch. And the point was much the same: can we blame a grown Richie Tenenbaum for taking his socks off on the tennis court? In part, but not entirely. In Darjeeling, however, the parents are firmly in the background, and accordingly, we become better acquainted with their effect than their presence. All we know of the father is that he died in a car accident, and it is not until much later that we learn more about the mother, who turns out to be happily ensconced in missionary work in the heart of India, having moved on from the bonds of family and domesticity. The brothers, once pathetic, now seem sympathetic by contrast.

Parents are savage and children are lame, and what a rousing disappointment the family can turn out to be. That’s Anderson’s point, more or less, and maybe also the reason for all the self-therapy, both on camera and off. As consolation, healing is available to all of us, if not on a train headed across the Indian countryside, then in the company of those to whom we are inexorably bound. Maybe it is the only possible way of shedding some of our baggage.

Invaders in the Desert

Cowboys and Aliens, the latest entry from Iron Man director Jon Favreau, begins as a deceptively straightforward western. A dusty, disoriented Daniel Craig comes to somewhere in the New Mexico desert, with no memory of who he is or why he is there, and is beset by a scraggly band of marauders who want to rob or kill him or both. They promptly discover, as do plenty of others later on, that the quiet stranger is not to be trifled with, as he disarms and kills them with ease and makes off with their gear and a horse.

Who is this rugged man? Where did he come from? Why is he so strong and mysterious? With the exception of a strange metal device immovably moored to his left wrist, it seems a clinical setup for the classic western. Craig’s character, whom we soon learn is the erstwhile outlaw Jake Lonergan, strolls into town, still in the swoon of amnesia, and is presented with more opportunities to demonstrate his cobra-like lethality, his palpable pain, and his instant appeal to the primary representative of the opposite sex in the film — a somewhat alien-looking stranger herself.

Lonergan soon comes to fisticuffs with the law, and then with Colonel Dolarhyde (played by Harrison Ford), a wealthy and vindictive cattleman. Lonergan, we learn, at one point made off with some of Dolarhyde’s gold, further aggravating the old Colonel’s already seismic proclivity for grumpiness. The other aggravating factor is Dolarhyde’s misfit son, Percy, played by Paul Dano, who can seem to find no better outlet for his booze-fueled misanthropy than hassling the local saloon owner (Sam Rockwell) and the other town folk.

These personalities are brought to life with surprising aplomb, though conspicuously as an exercise in imitation. In the opening scenes, the film feels almost too much like a vintage western, such that we sense the impending disappointment we will feel when the aliens finally arrive (as they surely do). But as in both Iron Man films, Favreau manages to do a good enough job crafting likable characters in the front half of the movie to compensate for the conventional and brazen action that is to ensue in the back half.

There is also, to Favreau’s credit, enough awareness of the western genre to keep the film engaging even after the aliens arrive; fear of strangers and the unknown, the clash of hostile races, the barren landscape, and the whimsical nature of the law all play a role in this film, as they did in the era of John Ford and Sam Peckinpah. In one scene, Dolarhyde roughs up a drunken bandit, thinking he has heisted his cattle. The accused man knows what he cannot say — that an alien spaceship crashed into his camp the night before and killed all the cattle — and so he must submit to Dolarhyde’s punishment. Law and order is, as ever in the west, arbitrary at worst and ironic at best, and fundamentally about perception (with a twist of absurdity thrown in this time for fun). Favreau also gestures to the alien invasion genre: at the sight of the ghastly beings, the lawmen and outlaws and Indians and misfits mostly put aside their petty quarrels, which are many, and band together. But make no mistake, this is a western with aliens, not Independence Day with cowboys.

Though I would dare not call the film innovative, I admire the elegantly simple premise: what if aliens attacked us in the past? By now we have all seen how it would go if aliens were to attack us in the present or future, but scarcely have we seen it play out at any point substantially prior to the present. In the drab present there is often nothing to feel except dread, in the future there is little but alienation, but in the romanticized old west, terror mixes with longing and mystery in a flavorful, though sometimes overwhelming, cinematic cocktail.

None of which is to say that Cowboys and Aliens has high-minded historical ambitions of any sort, but it does achieve some clever moments of genre-blending and narrative what-ifs. It is just enough to remind you of the outrageous fun you may have had as a boy staging brawls between cowboys and aliens, and not caring about the observation that any adult onlooker would have made, and which is also tempting here: “That makes no sense!” “Yes,” says Favreau, “but it’s fun.”