Film

Private Dickens

The Invisible Woman

There was a time when The Invisible Woman, a movie that takes a speculative look at an affair Charles Dickens had toward the end of his life, would’ve had Oscar written all over it. The Academy Awards used to love these ornate period dramas so very, very much. The film, released in a limited number of theaters, did pull down a nomination for by costume design, but that’s all. Now, I’m Bob Grimm not saying I personally would’ve nominated bgrimm@ this movie in the major categories, but it’s a newsreview.com pretty close call in some categories for a film that got absolutely no buzz during awards 4 season. Considering its subject matter and period piece pedigree, this would’ve been Oscar heaven in 1995. Ralph Fiennes directs himself as Dickens, and he presents the author as the John Lennon or Elvis Presley of his day. Dickens was a literary rock star, and one of the first to deal with print media scrutiny and hordes of fans when he tried to take a walk or go to the theater. The married Dickens also created quite a bit of controversy by having an affair with a young actress named Nelly (Felicity Jones), whose full name was Ellen Ternan. Jones, the stunning actress who broke through with an amazing performance in Like Crazy, is this film’s best asset. As Nelly, an aspiring actress with questionable talent and a discreetly displayed big fan crush on Dickens, Jones brings a smoldering sophistication to her role, and goes toe-to-toe with Fiennes in many scenes. This actress is the real deal, and would’ve been a lock for an Oscar nom back

“She was the best of wives, she was the worst of wives ... no, that’s not it ...”

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excellent when films like Sense and Sensibility and Shakespeare in Love were all the rage.

As for Fiennes, he does a fine acting job on top of steady, stable directorial work. The film, based on the Claire Tomalin novel that speculates on aspects of the Dickens/Nelly affair, is told out of chronological order. Fiennes makes the time shifts easy, anchoring the movie with a stunning beach shot that allows us to know we are back in the latter part of the story.

Much of what happens in this movie is based on true events, including the 1865 Staplehurst rail car crash that many attribute as the cause of Dickens’ subsequent health woes and decrease in writing output. He began a retreat from the literary scene in the aftermath, and died only five years later. Other parts of the film are based more on rumors and foggy history, including Dickens and Nelly losing a baby and their living situations toward the end of his life. Fiennes looks to show a parallel between celebrity today and celebrity 150 years ago. Dickens lived in a time when divorce was less common and an extramarital affair equated to mortal sin. (I guess it still does today in some sects.) One of the film’s greatest scenes is when Dickens’ wife Catherine (heartbreakingly portrayed by Joanna Scanlan) learns the details of her separation from him through an article, penned by him, in the newspaper. I’m sure there is many a celebrity spouse today who has found out about their impending separation or divorce via TMZ.com.

The movie is a beauty to look at, boasting some of 2013’s finest cinematography by Barry Ackroyd (The Hurt Locker, Captain Phillips). The Oscar nom for costume design is well deserved. I never questioned the authenticity of the time period Fiennes and crew recreated. It all looks very real.

This is the second directorial effort for Fiennes after 2011’s very good Coriolanus. I think he’s a director to be reckoned with. He has a crafty touch with sensitive subjects.

The Invisible Woman could’ve been heavy handed, like a soap opera, in the hands of another director. Fiennes makes his movie seem less like a period piece and more like a universal statement of media power over lives and its ability to inhibit our choices. Ω

4American Hustle David O. Russell continues his impressive directorial roll with this semi-comedic look at the notorious ’70s Abscam scandal. This is basically Russell shooting for Scorsese glory here, and while the style of the movie seems copied at times, there’s no denying the power of the ensemble cast. Bradley Cooper scores laughs as a pathetic FBI agent looking to make a name for himself, and Christian Bale looks great in a comb-over as the conman forced into an alliance with the law. Amy Adams gets one of the strangest roles of the year as a con artist pretending to be British, and she pulls it off quite nicely, while Jennifer Lawrence steals her every scene as a seemingly dim Long Island housewife. You also get stand up comic Louis C.K. as Cooper’s field boss. The film falls a little short of greatness due to its sometimes carbon copy feel, but the cast pulls it out of the fire. It also has the best use of Robert De Niro as a bad guy in many years.

4Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues After nearly a decade of being absent from our movie screens, Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell), the world’s greatest newscaster, has returned. This time, it’s the ’80s, and a new media craze called 24 Hour News has Ron and the boys (Paul Rudd’s Brian Fantana, Steve Carell’s Brick Tamland and David Koechner’s Champ Kind) working the late night shift in New York. The plot is basically just a place setter for weird, random humor involving bats, sharks, shadows, scorpions in RVs, and hair. Ferrell and the crew manage to sell the dumbest of things, and they make so much of it funny. Even the stuff that’s just strange has its own humorous appeal. Carell goes super dopey with Brick as he finds a love interest (Kristen Wiig), Champ still loves Ron in a dangerous way, and Brian has a new condom cabinet. I laughed my face off, with this being a sequel that continues the comedic legacy of the brilliant original, and even ups the ante when it comes to anchor-on-anchor battles in the park (the battle scene in this one is one for the ages, and involves fighter jets). The last time they made one of these, they had enough on the cutting room floor to release an entire other movie. I hope that happened here as well, because I don’t want to wait 10 years for more.

4Dallas Buyers Club Matthew McConaughey continues his career resurgence in this film based on the life of Ron Woodroof, a man who tested HIV positive in the ’80s, and had to battle the FDA while smuggling non-approved drugs into the country for himself and fellow sufferers. McConaughey lost many pounds to look the part, and it’s a frightening transformation. He also delivers an incredible performance. This, combined with his work earlier this year in Mud, easily establishes 2013 as the best year of his career. Jared Leto does incredible work as Rayon, a cross-dresser who helps Woodroof distribute the drugs to those needing some sort of treatment. Director Jean-Marc Vallee does a good job of capturing a time where HIV was a death sentence, and the terror that surrounded those who were fighting for their lives. This is a very good movie with great performances.

3Frozen I have to admit I was more into the strange Mickey Mouse short that precedes this musical adaptation of Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Snow Queen” than the actual feature. It features retro Mickey busting out of a black and white film and becoming 3-D as he battles a bad guy kidnapping Minnie. It’s worth the price of admission. As for the actual feature movie, Kristen Bell and Idina Menzel have wonderful voices, and the visuals are fun to behold in this middle-of-the-road Disney fare. It has a lot of music—some of it quite good, some of it, well, not—and a beautiful look to it. For recent Disney animation, my vote goes to Tangled for best, but that’s not to say this one is a letdown. It’s OK. Just OK. It’s about on par with Pixar’s latest, Monster’s University. It’s fun to watch, but not altogether memorable.

1The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Peter Jackson’s decision to shoot his latest Tolkien trilogy in High Frame Rate 3-D is a tragic, disastrous choice. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, like its predecessor, An Unexpected Journey, is a task to watch. The look of the movie simply doesn’t jibe with the technology, resulting in a visual nightmare. As a middle chapter in The Hobbit saga, Smaug is guilty of the same flaws that marred the first film. It’s overstuffed, the dwarves are severely uninteresting, and the action scenes lack any kind of urgency. It’s just a big, boring stunt film with people looking silly in their getups. As Bilbo, Martin Freeman labors to make things interesting during action scenes that feel redundant. (Hey, it’s another giant icky spider attack!) He definitely stands out among a cast of bland actors playing bland dwarves. Oh Gimli, how you are missed! Jackson finds a way to bring back Orlando Bloom as Legolas. Bloom’s scenes are a bunch of sorry minutes that could be cut from the film’s running time. Too many scenes in this movie feel padded and bloated. With each passing minute, Jackson is doing further damage to his directing legacy. His original Lord of the Rings trilogy was a major triumph. These Hobbit films feel and look like parody. Smaug the dragon (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch) finally shows up, and he is easily the best thing in the Hobbit films thus far. He should’ve arrived in the second half of the first film, and the whole damned thing should’ve been over in three hours.

4Lone Survivor This is an explosive passion project from writer-director Peter Berg that takes an unrelentingly gruesome look at Operation Red Wings, the failed 2005 Afghanistan mission that claimed the lives of 19 American soldiers. Most of the movie centers on the four Navy SEALs dropped into hostile territory, and how an unfortunate civilian encounter and communications problems led to a massive gun battle of insurmountable odds. Mark Wahlberg plays Marcus Luttrell, the Navy SEAL who co-wrote the book this movie is based upon. Luttrell, along with Navy SEALs Michael Murphy (Taylor Kitsch), Danny Dietz (Emile Hirsch) and Matt Axelson (Ben Foster), were performing reconnaissance for a mission meant to capture or kill a notorious Taliban leader when a trio of goat herders stumbled upon their camp. The resultant ambush is filmed with many gory details, and will be a hard watch for some. The stuntmen who worked on this movie did an incredible job, and the cast is one of 2013’s strongest ensembles. This is a nice comeback for Berg after Battleship.

3Nebraska I can’t deny the wonderful acting work from the likes of Bruce Dern, Will Forte, Bob Odenkirk and especially June Squibb. They are all wonderful in this movie. What I can bemoan is the stupid, stupid story propelling that acting. Dern plays an old codger who becomes convinced that he’s won a million dollars because of a magazine subscription letter saying he’s a winner. So he starts walking from Montana to Nebraska, and his son (Forte) eventually helps him on his quest with an automobile. It’s a dumb idea to start, and the premise is too improbable for a serious comedy movie. Still, it does lay the groundwork for some decent father-son dynamic between Dern and Forte, and Odenkirk shows up as another son and knocks his part out of the park. Of the six Oscar nominations this film earned, I would call Squibb the most deserving for her work as Dern’s droll wife. The black and white cinematography is also quite nice. As for Best Screenplay, Best Picture and Best Actor, I wouldn’t go there. The movie is good in a peculiar way, but far from great. The premise annoyed me a bit the whole time I watched it.

4Saving Mr. Banks Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson are charming as Walt Disney and Mary Poppins author P.L. Travers in this obviously whitewashed look at Disney’s attempts at getting Travers’ approval to make a movie out of her book. Of course, most of us know he succeeded, but many don’t know that Travers was quite the holdout. The movie splits time between the Disney/Travers business and Travers’ childhood, where we find out much of Mary Poppins was based on her troubled father (Colin Farrell) and actual nanny. B.J. Novak and Jason Schwartzman are wonderful as the Sherman brothers, who made Poppins into a musical, much to the chagrin of Travers. The movie takes a lot of artistic license with the situation. Even though Travers is depicted as difficult here, she was far more adversarial in real life and never approved of the movie (those animated penguins!). Still, the film is fun to watch, with Hanks and Thompson making it all very worthwhile and heartwarming.