Meyeresque

Nancy Meyers has carved out a niche in the movie world. She started in the 1980s as the screenwriter of Private Benjamin and Baby Boom, two movies that looked at women and their struggles in paternalistic worlds. Both movies became huge hits that spawned TV series. She switched to the paternal viewpoint with Father of the Bride in the 1990s, and had another major hit. In 1998 she became a hyphenate, writing and directing her movies, starting with the remake of The Parent Trap. She’s only directed one movie that she didn’t write, but it was definitely one in her wheelhouse – 2000’s What Women Want. Since then she’s done Something’s Gotta Give, The Holiday (a personal favorite of mine), and It’s Complicated.  In some ways she’s like Frank Capra, whose work spawned the term Capraesque. While the details change, you pretty much know what you’re going to get when you go to a Nancy Meyers movie. Since she does it extremely well, that’s not a bad thing. She mines comedy out of characters and relationships rather than simple jokes, which allows her to tug on your heartstrings even as she tickles your funny bone.

After a break of 6 years, she’s back with a new movie, The Intern. This time her jumping off point is the difference between old school business and the modern economy. The central character is Ben Whittaker (Robert De Niro), a former executive who finds, after the death of his wife, that retirement is too empty for him. When he sees a flyer posted in his New York neighborhood for a senior intern program, he applies, even though he must do it by uploading a video of himself. The company behind the program is an on-line clothing store that was started by Jules Ostin (Anne Hathaway) at her kitchen table. It’s grown in a couple of years to a major concern.

Ben is hired to be Jules’ intern, though she’s not as supportive of the program as her HR people. (The interview vignettes are fun, especially when one young guy asks Ben where he sees himself being in ten years. Ben: “When I’m 80?”) Ben brings the quiet confidence of experience with him, along with classic business style in the suits he wears and the briefcase he’s had for forty years. With the company’s expansion, Jules is being overwhelmed, and she’s worried Ben might overstep the boundaries she’s put up. But she slowly comes to see Ben can help her handle problems – even some problems she can’t face.

.A few years ago I felt pain for De Niro. He was stuck doing Meet The Parents and its interminable sequels. Now, after Silver Linings Playbook, Limitless, and American Hustle, he’s recovered his mojo. Ben may not be a great role, but De Niro is great in the role, and in some ways it mirrors his position in films now – the classy vet who shows the young guns what acting truly is. After dramatic turns in The Dark Knight Rises and Interstellar, along with her Oscar-winning turn in Les Miserables, it’s good to see Anne Hathaway in a light comedy again. It cleanses the palate like sherbet in between the heavier courses of a meal.

Rene Russo stands out in the supporting cast as the company masseuse who gives Ben hope for a second chapter in his personal history. With this and the Thor movies, it’s good to see her back in front of the camera. Adam Devine, known mostly for the Pitch Perfect films, plays one of the employees who befriends Ben and who ends up being mentored by him. JoJo Kushner, who plays Jules’ daughter Paige, is a standout as well.

There’s decency to the characters in Meyers films that you often see in real life but is usually missing in films, and the stories are hopeful without being saccharine. She also develops the smaller characters so they become real, not simply window dressing to the main characters. In those ways she matches Capra. The Intern isn’t the best that Meyers has done, but it’s still better than what often passes for comedy in Hollywood films

Local

In 1976, Paddy Chayefsky wrote Network, a poison pen letter to network news that was also prescient in its predictions of where the medium was headed. In 1976 it was a satire; today it’s very close to history. A bit of the spirit of Network is present in screenwriter Dan Gilroy’s first project that he’s also directed, Nightcrawler, which casts a jaundiced eye at local news. Rather than satire, Gilroy has crafted a creepy thriller. Like the proverbial train wreck, Nightcrawler is mesmerizing so you can’t turn away, even as it turns your stomach.

Louis Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a walking/talking compendium of self-actualization programs. While he has huge dreams, he lives in a tiny studio apartment and watches TV by splicing into a neighbor’s satellite signal. He makes what money he has by stealing copper wire, manhole covers, and chain-link fence that he sells to scrap metal companies. By chance one night he happens upon an accident just after it occurs and watches as two CHP officers save a woman from a burning car. Within seconds a van pulls up and Joe Loder (Bill Paxton) hops out. Loder is a stinger for local LA news who chases down police radio calls to get footage that he then auctions off to the local outfits. Louis is entranced by Loder’s work and tries to talk himself into a job, though Loder shuts him down and races off to a new call.

While he has no experience, Louis has a singular focus on a goal and no restraints on doing whatever he can to accomplish it. He manages to hustle up a camera and a police scanner to set himself up as a stringer. At first he’s pathetically bad, but soon he get bloody footage of a carjacking victim. He takes it to Channel 6, where he meets Nina Romina (Rene Russo), the overnight news editor. Nina buys the footage and gives Louis some suggestions on how to improve his work.

Louis becomes an exclusive stringer for Nina and Channel 6, which has been mired in last place in the ratings. He takes on an intern, Rick (Riz Ahmed), to help with directions while driving and filming the stories. Louis isn’t above moving a body to make a shot more compelling, and as he becomes more successful he takes greater risks. His success causes friction with other stingers like Loder. But you really don’t want to get on Lou’s bad side.

Writer/director Gilroy is the son of Frank D. Gilroy, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and screenwriter who wrote “The Subject was Roses” and “The Only Game in Town.” He’s recently had successes with Real Steel and The Bourne Legacy. Working with Oscar-winning cinematographer Robert Elswit (There Will Be Blood, Good Night and Good Luck, Magnolia), Gilroy gives the viewer the best view of night-time Los Angeles since Collateral. The movie is a family affair, as Dan’s older brother Tony, a screenwriter and director himself (The Bourne Legacy, Michael Clayton; screenwriter for the other three Bourne movies), serves as a producer, and Dan’s twin brother John edited the movie. John had also edited Miracle and Michael Clayton, among others.

Another family connection is that for 22 years, Dan Gilroy has been married to Rene Russo. After an incredibly busy 1990s, Russo had only done a couple of minor projects in the 2000s. She came back as Thor’s mother in 2011, and got to kick some butt in Thor: The Dark World last year, but with Nightcrawler she’s back in the form she demonstrated in Outbreak, Lethal Weapon 3, and The Thomas Crown Affair. Her scenes with Gyllenhaal are wonderful, especially as she slowly realizes she’s made a deal with the devil.

But the movie belongs to Gyllenhaal. He lost twenty pounds for the role so that Louis Bloom would physically look like a hungry predator. At first he’s the socially awkward hustler, but as the movie progresses you see the sociopath beneath. Yet you can’t look away. Gyllenhaal is an actor who took risks in early films like Donnie Darko and Brokeback Mountain. After a one-time misstep with the failed big-budget Prince of Persia, he’s been on a roll with his roles, with solid work in Source Code, Prisoners, and End of Watch, among others. Nightcrawler shows the earlier risk taker is still there, and the result is mesmerizing.

As the local anchors in the movie often say when introducing Bloom’s footage, viewer discretion is advised. This is an intense and often bloody thriller. It’s also a fascinating character study as well as a cautionary tale. As Bloom points out in the course of the film, local news now devotes about 20 seconds on average to community news, politics, etc., but crime stories – preferably in nice neighborhoods where homeowners are threatened by outsiders – now command 5 minutes of every local news half-hour broadcast. Take out the commercials and that’s about a third of the available time.

Maybe it is time to turn away from the train wreck – if we still can.

 

The Legends of Legends

Thor: The Dark World begins as the original Thor did, with a look back at Asgardian history, but this one goes far enough that the story has become a legend to the people of Asgard. It tells of a time when the Dark Elves tried to use a weapon known as the Aether to destroy the Nine Realms. Odin’s father defeated them, and sent the leader of the Dark Elves, Malekith (Christopher Eccelston), into a suspended animation exile. The Aether was hidden, and then forgotten, except as a legend.

In the present day, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) returns from the Battle of New York with his prisoner, Loki (Tom Hiddleston). Then he and his inner circle of warriors – Sif (Jaimie Alexander), Fandral (Zachary Levi), Volstagg (Ray Stevenson), and Hogun (Tadanobu Asano) – set about to restore peace in the Nine Realms, including Hogun’s home world. Meanwhile, on Earth, things are getting a little crazy. Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgard has been arrested for dancing naked at Stonehenge. Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) is in England pursuing her studies, helped by Darcy (Kat Demmings), who’s now taken on an intern of her own. They find an anomaly in a warehouse in London, where physics no longer apply.

Jane doesn’t know the anomalies (and Erik’s behavior) are tied to a once-every-5000- years alignment of the realms, when the worlds can intersect for a brief period of time. Exploring the warehouse, Jane is transported to the spot where eons earlier the Aether was hidden. Unwittingly she releases it, and it invades her body. She returns to London after what seems to be a few minutes only to find that she’s been gone for hours and Darcy has called the police to search for her. When the police try to arrest them for trespassing, the Aether reacts violently to protect Jane. Thor returns to Jane at that moment and, seeing the power within her, takes her back to Asgard. He doesn’t know that the Dark Elves, awakened by the release of the Aether, are heading to Asgard as well.

While the first Thor was a tale of redemption on a Wagnerian scale (beautifully directed by Kenneth Branagh), The Dark World owes more to The Avengers with invaders from the stars threatening first Asgard and then Earth. The screenplay was written by the team of Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, who wrote the three Chronicles of Narnia pictures as well as the excellent Captain America: The First Avenger. This time they worked with Christopher Yost, who has written a number of recent animated adaptations of Marvel comics. The story expands our view of Asgard from the first movie, and overall it works well, though in the end it gets a little too clever for its own good. Branagh left after the first movie to do the reboot of Tom Clancey’s Jack Ryan series (in which he also appears in front of the cameras). Instead, the directing duties were given to Alan Taylor, who has mostly done series work with HBO, most recently on “Game of Thrones.” He’s a journeyman who tells the story well, though without the theatrical flash of Branagh.

One weakness of the first movie that is corrected this time is the horrible underutilization of Rene Russo. She had hardly any lines, but this time she plays a crucial part in the story. Stellan Skarsgard’s role as Erik Selvig goes way over the top with craziness, but somehow Skarsgard pulls it off. As in the first movie, Kat Dennings is wonderfully dry as Darcy. Hemsworth is a perfect physical specimen to play Thor with his blond locks and honed muscles. The story is more straightforward so his role doesn’t have the emotional resonance of the original, and the same is true for Portman’s Jane Foster. One does wonder why Thor is obsessed with Jane when there’s Jaimie Alexander in the picture. The most compelling character in the film is, not surprisingly, Tom Hiddleston’s Loki, as he tips between hero and heavy.

Overall Thor: The Dark World works better than one would expect and – with the exception of a too cute ending – it’s a satisfying experience. There are two tags: one midway through the credits; another at the end. The mid-credits one apparently is a set up for the next Avengers movie, with an appearance by Benitio Del Toro as “The Collector.” The final tag gives a bit of payoff to the Thor/Foster love story, along with a bigger payoff from an earlier scene in the movie. It’s worth waiting for.