Movie Review - Pieces of a Woman

Director: Kornél Mundruczó
Genre: Drama
Runtime: 126 minutes
Year: 2021
Starring: Vanessa Kirby, Shia LeBeouf, Ellen Burstyn, Iliza Shlesinger, Bennie Safdie, Sarah Snook, Molly Parker

I WATCHED THIS MOVIE FOR MY 2021 MOVIE CHALLENGE.
WEEK 15: A NETFLIX ORIGINAL MOVIE

Description: When Martha (Vanessa Kirby) delivers her baby during a home bith, it ends up in an unfathomable tragedy. She beings a year-long odyssey of mourning that fractures relationships with loved ones.

Review: The spark can suddenly be gone because of something that doesn’t even last a beat. The realization that something traumatic has become a reality. One moment Martha and Sean share their full lives, their hopes and plans for a bright future. The next, they don’t know each other anymore. “Pieces of a Woman” begins impressively, with a tragic event depicted in half an hour with an unprecedented piece of intimate cinema. The rest of the film consists of snippets of time, in which we see the trail of destruction that has swept through two lives.
Of course, Marth and Sean’s happiness is imperfect from the start, but there is a lot of love between the two characters. You believe Vanessa Kirby when she acts like she’s laughing at Shia LaBeouf’s character’s agonizingly lame puns, and how sweet he can be to her when she needs the greatest support. But we also sympathize once their happiness is torn to pieces and they muddle along for a long time before they actually articulate that something is gone.
You have to be able to feel the pain of these two characters. Sean’s behavior derails in multiple ways and even becomes agonizing to watch as the story drags on, which is very important. With an actor other than LaBeouf, it might have been harder to accept that this man had such extremes in him. Kirby plays her pain so overwhelmingly that it makes her immobile. We almost never see a character like that in a movie. To make that compelling and dramatic, you really have to gave what it takes. And Vanessa Kirby is definitely the star of the film.  
The stylistic Hungarian director Kornél Mundruczó goes for raw realism. He pulls it off. It’s not necessarily a film that is broadly appealing, because this is not the story for a broad audience. The average viewer will probably not chose it while scrolling through all the Netflix films. However, it is a movie that I believe is one of the best of the year so far. Because “Pieces of a Woman” offers things you won’t see anywhere else.

Rating: 4,5 / 5

10s Movie Review - When Marnie Was There

Director: Hiromasa Yonebayashi

Genre: Animation/ Drama/ Family

Runtime: 103 minutes

Year: 2014

Starring: Hailee Steinfeld, John C. Reilly, Vanessa Williams, Catherine O’Hara, Kathy Bates, Ellen Burstyn, Kiernan Shipka

Description: Due to 12 year-old Anna’s (Hailee Steinfeld) asthma, she’s sent to stay with relatives of her guardian in the Japanese countryside. She likes to be alone, sketching. She befriends Marnie. Who is the mysterious, blonde Marnie?

Review: Now that grandmaster Hayao Miyazaki passed the torch after “The Wind Rises”, the question remains whether Japanese animation will be the same. With this Studio Ghibli film, Miyazaki has trained a team of very talented animation directors and draughtsmen. The studio has developed a unique style that has bridged the gap between the graphic rough Japanase anime and the sweet style of Walt Disney. Stylistically, the emphasis is on the hand-drawn animation, where the computer only serves as a support. And personally, I have always preferred the hand-drawn style. Thematically Ghibli is universally oriented with emotional stories that weave old Japanese traditions with Western values. In addition to Miyazaki’s extensive oeuvre, his colleagues have managed to enchant the world.

The newest film is the compelling and dreamy “When Marnie Was There”. Director Hiromasa Yonebayashi took care of this full-length animation, based on the novel by British children’s book author Joan G. Robinson. The book was a favorite for Miyazaki, who often sought a connection with Western literature for his film adaptations. Yonebayashi succeeds in fusing traditional English elements with Japanese influences, although his characters have a western look, as the vast majority of Ghibli productions. The clever thing is that Yonebayashi doesn’t shy away from adult themes such as illness, loss, loneliness and abandonment and manages to capture this in an imaginative but for the animation studio remarkably earthy setting.

Central is twelve-year-old Anna, a talented girl who, in a poignant opening dialogue, declares that the world contains an imaginary circle in which she clearly stands outside. The girl is not noticed by her surroundings and was given up for adoption as a child. Anna also suffers from a severe form of asthma. In order to get some rest and fresh air, her adoptive mother sends Anna to family on the coast. The nosy girl loves to draw, and quickly starts to explore her surroundings. During her first exploration, she discovers an eccentric country house overlooking a swamp area. Anna thinks she recognizes the house and the blonde girl sitting at the window from her dreams and decides to investigate. Her host family maintains that it is an empty mansion, but Anna cannot let it go. Once she comes into contact with Marnie, the blonde girl at the window, a special friendship develops.

Yonebayashi constantly plays with the thin line between dream and reality. The bond between Anna and Marnie becomes so close that both threaten to lose themselves in the friendship. This never becomes threatening, but both girls want to try to hold on to what connects them for as long as possible, even if the world around them changes.

Although it’s not that hard to guess what’s really going on, it’s easily forgiven since we were again treated with beautiful imagery, a timeless story and lots of heart. Studio Ghibli really needs to keep creating.

Rating: 4/ 5

10s Movie Review - Interstellar

Director: Christopher Nolan
Genre: Drama/ Science Fiction/ Adventure
Runtime: 169 minutes
Year: 2014
Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Mackenzie Foy, Wes Bentley, Timothée Chalamet, Michael Caine, Casey Affleck, Topher Grace, Ellen Burstyn, Matt Damon, John Lithgow, David Oyelowo

I WATCHED THIS MOVIE FOR MY 2020 MOVIE CHALLENGE.
WEEK 26: A MOVIE MADE BY CHRISTOPHER NOLAN

Description: A team of explorers travel through a wormhole in space in an attempt to ensure humanity’s survival.

Review: Spaceman Cooper leaves his two children, when he decides to take part in a space mission to find an alternative planet for the decaying Earth. Time is relative, according to Einstein, so a trip to the first planet they visit takes Cooper an hour or three, but in our perception of time more than twenty-three years. Back at the base station, Cooper sees a video of his family. In a few minutes he sees that his family has dramatically changed. Daughter Murp, is as old as him now and son Tom is a father himself. “Interstellar” leans heavily on family ties, which gives it a huge emotional load.
The story is very complex and it is best to just let it take you away. Cooper became a farmer, after a traumatic crash, since Earth is in dire need of food. Another planet offers the only solution, but mankind has stopped space travel. At school they even learn that the mission to the moon was only a clever propaganda move. Cooper’s clever daughter Murphy think’s she is getting signals from her bookcase. What and who is unclear. Martians? Gravity? But Murphy thinks it’s a ghost. However, this silent force and a dust storm lead Cooper and his daughter to a remote space lab.
Christopher Nolan and his writer brother Jonathan are both men with great ideas and an unparalleled ability to transform their vision into images. And you can see that in “Interstellar”. You have to really pay attention or know a bit about physics to fully understand the complicated concept of black holes, wormholes, fourth and fifth dimension and the theory of relativity. Each time you are reassured with the realization that in the end, it is the dramatic aspect that the Nolan brothers want to focus on. Only Christopher Nolan knows how to combine all these difficult angles with compelling drama and spectacular space trips. Surprisingly, they are often very simple principles such as love and loss. “Interstellar” is overall a very ambitious movie. It’s clear that movies like “2001: A Space Odyssey” or “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” were major inspirations for Nolan.
“Interstellar” is anything but a simple space adventure, a film you really have to focus on and let yourself be overwhelmed by. And the soundtrack is one of the best in years. A fantastic film, that doesn’t feel like it’s almost three hours long.

Rating: 4,5/ 5

100 Movie Challenge 2016 - # 27: The Age of Adaline

Director: Lee Toland Krieger

Genre: Drama/ Romance

Runtime: 110 minutes

Year: 2015

Starring: Blake Lively, Michiel Huisman, Harrison Ford, Ellen Burstyn, Kathy Baker

Description: A young woman (Blake Lively), born at the turn of the 20th century, is rendered ageless after an accident. After many solitary years, she meets a man (Michiel Huisman) who complicates the eternal life she has settled into.

Review: Many people wish to stay young forever, but by watching movies about immortality you know it’s never the life you dream of. When young Adaline gets into a car accident and hits the water, she gets into a coma. When lightning hits the water, she is brought back. The side effect: she will never age a day. This all happens in the 1930s and we meet Adaline again in the twenty first century. Because Adaline is technically 107 years old, she is forced to move around and take on a new identity.

For a young actress like Blake Lively it’s a challenge to portray an elderly woman. She succeeds, because even though she looks very young, she often makes us realize she is actually an older woman. We get some flashbacks, so we understand Adaline’s life more. This is narrated, like a children’s movie. It somehow bothered me.

Michiel Huisman (Dutch like me) plays Adaline’s love interest Ellis in the 21st century. He has charisma. But from the moment his character enters the story, the film turns into a more standard romance movie. Here it’s immortality, but it could easily be replaced by fear of commitment. Harrison Ford, who plays Ellis’ father, is surprising in the film. His role is much warmer than we are used to see him in these days. He was sadly introduced way too late into the story.

“The Age of Adaline” is a solid romantic drama, which is a bit more standard then I had hoped for. But overall it’s a nice film to watch if you like the genre.

Rating: 3/ 5

100 Movie Challenge 2016 - # 18: Interstellar

Director: Christopher Nolan

Genre: Adventure/ Science Fiction/ Drama

Runtime: 169 minutes

Year: 2014

Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Wes Bentley, Jessica Chastain, Michael Caine, Casey Affleck, Topher Grace, David Oyelowo, John Lithgow, Ellen Burstyn, Matt Damon

Description: A team of explorers travel through a wormhole in space in an attempt to ensure humanity's survival.

Review: Christopher Nolan’s movies can be called cold, but certainly have emotion. The (anti) heroes in movies like “Memento”, “The Prestige” and “Inception” are all driven by human emotion like heart ache or jealousy. In “Interstellar” we also meet those characters. That’s not a bad thing though, when they are portrayed by great actors like Matthew McConaughey, Jessica Chastain and Michael Caine.

McConaughey plays the disillusioned widow Cooper, former test pilot for NASA and now a farmer. The film is set in the near future, where the earth is exhausted and producing food is the main priority instead of science. What people don’t know is that secretly NASA is planning a mission to save mankind and move them to another planet, that can be reached through a wormhole. Cooper is asked to investigate the planet, together with a group of fellow astronauts. This means Cooper has to leave his two children and he can’t tell them when or if he will return.

The emotional scenes between Cooper and his daughter Murph are a highlight for me. They are so sincere and you feel it yourself. And although the drama is the heart of the film, Nolan focusses more on the scientific aspect of the story. Nolan likes old school effects, doesn’t use CGI if not necessary. The spaceship décor was build, very detailed and the robots CASE and TARS were all controlled manually.

The first half of the film is much better than the second and after two hours, you start to feel the length of the film. The happenings are randomly piling up and the characters can’t carry the drama anymore. And that ending, I don’t know.

Many say it’s Christopher Nolan’s best, I do not agree. Not even remotely. I think “Interstellar” is slightly overrated, although I can see and understand what Nolan wanted with this film.

Rating: 3/ 5