Movie No ????: "Nothing but the Truth"

I had meant to restart this blog with a grand review of Pixar's latest wonderful film, complete with watching four other Pixar classics in the days leading up to seeing "Up." That would then be followed by short reviews of the rest of the 2009 films I've seen. I was going to leave the rest of 2008 until I hit 100 (hopefully before August).

Then I saw a film that made me so angry I had to post it.

** Note: This review contains spoilers for the film "The Contender." So if you haven't seen it in the nine years since it was released but still want to, well, you might want to skip this one. Although, trust me, you probably don't want to see it.

Rod Lurie's "Nothing but the Truth" isn't the worst film I've seen from 2008, but it might be the most infuriating. That shouldn't come as a shock, though, considering Lurie's "The Contender" got me riled up for similar reasons.

And no, they have nothing to do with the films' politics.

Lurie seems to be a master at constructing (or borrowing in the case of "Nothing but the Truth") interesting situations and then doing his darnedest to simplify anything thought-provoking and replace nuance with sermonizing.

In "The Contender," Lurie's tale began with topics examining 1) Whether the historic nature of the appointment of Joan Allen's character as the first female vice president and what it would do is more important than whether she is the best candidate, and 2) How we judge women's indiscretions differently than men's, especially in politics. It also had the possibility for a nice tug of war between politics and idealism, kind of a battle for the soul of Christian Slater's character.

Then Lurie relegates Slater's character to the sideline for extended periods of time, refuses to remove the halo above Joan Allen's character's head by having her not be guilty of the youthful sexual indiscretions but refuse to deny them simply to prove a point, and, in the most bizarre twist of all, has the other contender be guilty of a political stunt that costs a woman her life. There you go, we've eliminated potentially interesting themes, we've taken away the possibility that people might actually have to do look inside themselves and see how they'd actually feel about a female politician with a past no more sordid than many of her male counterparts, and the pesky question of whether or not she's actually the best candidate. There you go, we've led you straight to feeling exactly how we want you to about the characters. Tied a nice bow around it and everything.

It made me sick to see so much potential wasted.

"Nothing but the Truth" isn't quite as upsetting, but only because you never saw any of its actual potential on the screen. That was stripped away from this fictionalized account of the Miller/Plame case before the cameras started to roll. Most of the matters that made that case fascinating are systematically stripped away, boiling it down to the most simplistic version of the events that could be made while still having it be recognizable. Complexity, it appears, is not Lurie's friend.

It seems as though the president has ordered an air strike against Venezuela after blaming its government for an attempt on its life. A reporter (Kate Beckinsale) has learned that a CIA memo delivered to the president before he made his decision vindicated the Venezuelans. Because the agent who wrote it (Vera Farmiga) is married to a former ambassador critical of the president, her name was included in the article.

When a special prosecutor is appointed to look into who leaked the agent's identity, Beckinsale's character goes to jail rather than reveal the confidential source. And there she sits as it tears her life apart.

Gone are the questions about why the agent needed to be named in the story and the questions about whether the reporter was aiding and abetting political retribution (the ones that added a lot of shading to the Plame case). Unfortunately that's not the only thing missing. The characters feel more like symbols than people, and the dialogue seems to be 90 percent exposition, and clunky exposition at that. Even in the few places where the oratory soars, there is an air of unreality to the proceedings.

Much like the bizarre bridge stunt in "The Contender," Lurie has another eye-rolling twist of an ending. Except this time, rather than simply eliminating the moral and intellectual shadings from the film, the ending actually makes everything that preceded it simply sound and fury, signifying nothing. Even at his worst, M. Night Shyamalan's twist endings have made some thematic sense. I'd hope that Lurie was going for something more than a "gotcha" surprise with the final reveal, but I'm having a real hard time figuring out what.

Beckinsale, fresh off an absolutely stunning performance in "Snow Angels," doesn't help matters much. She is fine scene-to-scene, but at the point where the story and dialogue were falling flat, the film needed a commanding screen presence at its center. Beckinsale just doesn't show it here (coincidentally that's also been one of my biggest complaints about her small-screen doppleganger, Evangeline Lilly of "Lost"). She isn't helped, though, by the fact that her character doesn't resemble any reporter I've ever met while working at newspapers, which is especially surprising given Lurie's newspaper background.

Faring far better, and indeed the one truly great part of the movie, is Farmiga as the pseudo-Valerie Plame. The way she turned emotionally on a dime, with her character displaying whichever emotion she thought would best accomplish her objective, was stunning. It made for an interesting portrait. Unfortunately, her screen time is comparably brief, and nothing else about the film really rises to the same level.

Everything else is simply frustrating.

D

Best picture thoughts

I figured I should at least post my thoughts on the best picture nominees:


“Slumdog Millionaire”: There is a reason that this likely will win best picture. Few if any films this year managed to make this many disparate elements work and work well together. From the music to cinematography to the acting to the wonderfully edited montages, Danny Boyle’s film weaves some wonderful movie magic, mixing the joy and the sadness, triumph and tragedy. It might not be the year’s best film, but of the best picture nominees, it is the one I’ll be rooting for. A

“Frost Nixon”: Why would a reviewer make the point of saying someone's *not* a genius? Do you especially think I'm *not* a genius? You didn't even have to think about it, did you? – “The Royal Tenenbaums
Is it possible for someone to be criticized so much for being overrated that he actually becomes underrated? It seems to have happened with Ron Howard after his Oscar win, with most of the criticism being that he is not a genius, that he has no distinctive style, a glorified director for hire.

And it might all be true, but that doesn’t change the fact that the guy knows movies and knows how to make them. Give him good material and he’ll make a good movie. Give him great material and you’ll get “Frost/Nixon,” which might have surpassed “Apollo 13” as his best film. The give and take, the mental and verbal sparring is fascinating. And Langella and Sheen are both wonderful as the title characters. A

“Milk”: One of the most amazing parts Gus Van Sant’s “Milk” is how it manages to skirt some of your typical biopic traps that tend to make the interesting conventional. Part of the reason is it is about the birth of a movement as much sometimes as it is the life of a man. It captures the passion and determination, the exhilaration and disappointment. And Penn is rarely less than riveting as the man all of this is filtered through. The one real disappointment is that most of the other members, with the possible exception of Emile Hirsch’ Cleve Jones, all seem rather two-dimensional. Still, as biopics go, this is one of the better ones. A-

“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”: “Benjamin Button” is one of those films that almost demands to be seen on the big screen. The visuals are so lush, so beautiful that it is tough not to be swept up in the storytelling. And get swept up I did. The problem came afterward, when I actually thought about the film. There is just not that much there. The characters aren’t all that compelling, the framing story adds little and I just got the feeling they could have done more with the central premise than they did. Still, I have to give major credit to David Fincher and the technical crew. They made the film into a storytelling experience. B+

“The Reader”: There is a reason that this was an unexpected Oscar nominee: it is simply not as good as the others. It flits around touching on a ton of subjects but thoroughly examining none, giving the Reader’s Digest version of arguments just to say that they were made. There is one aspect that is not overrated, though: Kate Winslet’s performance. She is simply amazing. Her performance here is reason alone to see the movie, to marvel at the intensity and nuance. It’s almost enough to make you forget the rest of the film was a muddled, middling mess. B- (mostly for Winslet)

Oh, and I'm rooting for Rourke, Winslet, Ledger and Tomei in the acting categories, although Penn, Jenkins, Langella, Leo and Hathaway also turned in outstanding performances in the leading categories.

Boy am I behind ...

OK, I am 10-11 movies behind again (and even further behind on my viewing thanks to my parents getting us a Nintendo Wii for Christmas). First, however, here are my Oscar thoughts. For the changes portion of it, I'm not counting some of the foreign films ("4 Months ...," "The Band's Visit," "The Counterfeiters") because I'm not sure about eligibility.

Best Picture
Haven't seen: "Frost/Nixon" (will remedy tomorrow) and "Milk" (Not in the Q-C yet)
Should win (of those seen): "Slumdog Millionaire"
Changes? Definitely "WALL-E" for "The Reader," also "The Dark Knight" for "Benjamin Button"

Best Director
Haven't seen: See above
Should win: Boyle squeaking past Fincher
Changes? See above, although Fincher might be more deserving than his movie.

Best Actor
Haven't seen: Rourke, Penn, Langella (you know, the ones that might actually win)
Should win: Jenkins (nice job nominating him)
Changes? Replace Pitt with Colin Farrell for "In Bruges"

Best Actress
Haven't seen: Hathaway, Leo (how cool is this nomination? Go "Homicide" alums), Jolie
Should win: Winslet, hands down
Changes: Replace Streep with Kate Beckinsale in "Snow Angels" (I can't believe I just wrote that either.)

Best Supporting Actor
Haven't seen: Shannon, Brolin
Should win: Ummm ... I saw "The Dark Knight." What do you think?
Changes: If you're going to reward comedy with Downey Jr., why not go all the way and give James Franco the nomination for "Pineapple Express" over Hoffmann. Both are smaller co-lead roles, and Franco was probably more consistant.

Best Supporting Actress
Haven't seen: Tomei
Should win: Ummm ... can I say Tomei without having seen the performance? Adams and Cruz are somewhat uneven. Henson is solid, but not terribly memorable. Eh, we'll have Davis Dench her way to a win. Hers was the only performance in "Doubt" that lived up to the hype.
Changes: Ummm ... I guess maybe Hiam Abbas of "The Visitor" replacing Adams. Man is this category depressing this year. Hopefully Tomei knocks my socks off.

Best Original Screenplay
Haven't seen: Hunt, Lee and Black
Should win: Have you been paying attention to this blog?
Changes? Nope. The two I've seen are both deserving. Just glad not to see "Vicky Christina Barcelona" here

Best Adapted Screenplay
Haven't seen: Morgan
Should win: Simon Beaufoy by a mile
Changes? Can we add in "The Dark Knight" and just leave it as a two-movie category until I see a few of the others? "Benjamin Button's" story feels lacking, "The Reader" is an amazing performance in an otherwise mediocre film, and while it might have worked on stage, "Doubt's" dialogue sounds too forced and obvious on film. Not even three of the best actors working today can sell some of it.