4e Critique du Festival: "The Little Prince"

            Surprisingly, it took over 70 years for someone to transform Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s written masterpiece, Le Petit Prince, into a film. Since its publication in 1943, the novella has been translated into 230 languages; a worldwide classic, it still sells over two million copies annually. It’s been adapted into soundtracks, plays and even an opera. But in 2015, Saint-Exupéry’s classic finally graces the silver screen.

            Mark Osborne’s The Little Prince will most likely not prove to be as timeless as its published predecessor. But the derivative animated feature pays its due respect to the novella, while also taking its own modern-day liberties.

I went into the theater wondering how anyone could do justice to such a perfectly simple story by stretching it over 100-minutes time. I left, perfectly satisfied with Osborne’s rendition.

            We begin in the mundane world of The Little Girl (Mackenzie Foy), whose mother (Rachel McAdams) pushes her to the brink to succeed. She’ll be turning nine soon, but she seems more like she’ll be celebrating her 39th birthday. Everything in her already grown-up life is planned, precise and punctual.

            When they move next door to The Aviator (Jeff Bridges), an old, eccentric, hodgepodge of a human being, The Little Girl learns to appreciate the gift of childhood through the stories he shares with her of his time spent with The Little Prince.

The Aviator’s tales parallel Saint-Exupéry’s narrative word-for-word, which is fitting since the novella’s narrator is an aviator, too.

As someone who had already fallen in love with The Little Prince in print, I was relieved to find Osborne and the co-writer, Irena Brignull, do not make any changes to the story. Instead, they add a refreshing twist by making the protagonist, not The Little Prince, but The Little Girl—a character not found in the original story.

Most of the movie is in 3D animation, but when we travel to the world of the novella, it makes a magical transition into stop motion animation. It’s an easy way to differentiate between the simultaneous storylines, but it’s also a breathtaking portrayal of Saint-Exupéry’s illustrations.

The characters of the original story look exactly like those drawn in the book. They come to life in front of your eyes as you sink into the narrative. Sometimes in the 3D world of The Little Girl, (which I’ll call the “main story” from hereon), we even get glimpses of the pages from the story. They’re identical to the 1943 classic.

Osborne did other things to evoke the feeling that Saint-Exupéry took part in the making of The Little Prince. Just as it is in Le Petit Prince, no one has a given name; the little girl is just that, The Little Girl.

The themes and symbolism in The Little Prince also mirror those of Le Petit Prince. Saint-Exupéry wrote, “All grown-ups were once children... but only few of them remember it.” This theme carries the plot of the main story, as The Little Girl thoroughly enjoys learning from The Aviator why she shouldn’t be in such a hurry to grow up.

We’re also struck again and again with Saint-Exupéry’s beautiful line, “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” In stop motion animation, The Little Prince tells us this, himself. Then, The Aviator tells The Little Girl the same thing in the main story.

All around her are those telling her she must do only that which is essential: brushing her teeth, practicing her arithmetic, going to bed on time. Repeat. But The Aviator enlightens The Little Girl, as The Little Prince enlightened him all those years ago:

“What is essential is invisible to the eye.”  

While The Little Prince is certainly aesthetically pleasing with its happy colors, bright-eyed characters and flawless animation, it’s what you can’t see that makes this movie so enchanting.

It makes you rethink the world of adulthood that towers around us. It makes you wish you were a kid again. It touches your heart. It is in this way that Osborne’s cinematic version of Le Petit Prince truly pays homage to Saint-Exupéry’s inspirational story.

             Director       Mark Osborne

               WriteRS      Irena Brignull, Mark Osborne

         ProducerS      Onyx Films

                                    Orange Studio

                                    On Entertainment

           MAIN CAST      Rachel McAdams

                        Jeff Bridges

                        Marion Cotillard

                        Paul Rudd

                        James Franco

    Running Time      108 minutes­

3e Critique du Festival: "Inside Out"

            After nearly 20 years of formidable animated features, Pixar started petering out. The veteran production company’s most recent theatrical releases—Monsters University, Brave and (insert sigh of anguish here) Cars 2—were mediocre at best. When I heard of Inside Out, in theaters June 19, I worried it would be the company’s coup de grâce.

            As the iconic desk lamp toddled across the screen and unintentionally squashed Pixar’s “I” for the umpteenth time, I imagined a deeper embarrassment in the light bulb’s guilty, childlike stare. He wasn’t sorry for playfully popping the letter but rather apologizing in advance to all 2,500 of us awaiting the film’s premiere at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. We all knew—even the lamp knew—this could be a bust.

            Then, Inside Out unveiled the world of 11-year-old Riley’s mind—a beautifully insightful rendering of human consciousness—and I realized Pixar had finally recovered from its slump, transcending the genius I’d begun to think had devolved into merely a memory.

            The story begins with Joy (Amy Poehler), who introduces us to the other emotions within Riley’s head: Fear (Bill Hader), Anger (Lewis Black), Disgust (Mindy Kaling) and the unfortunately inevitable Sadness (Phyllis Smith).

            At Headquarters, each emotion performs its unique duties by responding appropriately to the situations at hand and controlling Riley’s reactions through a central console. Joy is their ringleader—and Riley’s, too—as she manages the child’s day-to-day life, tenaciously committed to keeping her happy.

            But when Riley’s family moves to a terrifying, frustrating, stinky, lonely new city, and Joy is accidentally thrust from HQ into sectors of Riley’s mind that are unfamiliar terrain, the rest of the emotions take the wheel. Inescapably, chaos ensues.

            The director and co-writer, Pete Docter, was the driving force behind Monsters, Inc., Up and Toy Story, among other Pixar masterpieces. But with Inside Out, he drops the most precious of gems in our laps.

            Docter—who, himself, is a father of two—doesn’t for one second underestimate the complexity of a child’s psyche. The inner workings of Riley’s dreams, memories and personality—along with her emotions, of course—are ingeniously illustrated.

Although I’d never before been able to envision my mind as a three-dimensional space, Pixar’s animated depiction is exactly how I would have if I’d been creative enough to. In splendidly vivid hues, a world unfurls before your eyes that is both whimsical and believable in every aspect.

Each dream is produced like a movie; each memory is stored in a winding, mazelike library; each critical aspect of Riley’s personality is its own island.

Yet, the emotions—the key players in this cognitive kingdom—are the most artfully crafted part of the entire exposition. Somehow, Docter manages to create characters that are exclusively tailored to each emotion and emotionally dynamic, simultaneously.

Sure, Fear is afraid, Anger is angry, Disgust is disgusted, Sadness is sad and Joy is joyful. But instead of relying solely on the established standard of these stock characters to carry the story, each one is made a multifaceted individual with an array of feelings. This harmonious balance doesn’t detract from their dominant traits and provides depth to the narrative in a way only Pixar can accomplish.

This movie has everything we’ve come to expect—no, demand—from Pixar, but what they haven’t quite delivered since Toy Story 3.

It’s intuitive; it’s clever; it’s delightful. The humor accommodates children and adults, alike. Through it all, there’s a solid, captivating plot. By the end, there are enlightening revelations. It’s unpredictable; it’s profound. It’s real.

Inside Out is one of Pixar’s best works—certainly within the last five years but overall, too. Never has a movie taken me on such a fulfilling adventure. How Pixar will top itself now is beyond me, but I can’t wait to see.

             Director       Pete Docter

               WriteRS      Pete Docter, Josh Cooley, Meg LeFauve

            Producer      Pixar Animation Studios and Walt Disney Pictures

           MAIN CAST      Amy Poehler

                        Mindy Kaling

                        Bill Hader

                        Phyllis Smith

                        Lewis Black

    Running Time      102 minutes­

2e Critique du Festival: Standing Tall

            We all know people—if not directly, then through relatives or friends—who just can’t get their lives together. After second, third and seventh chances, they still make the same mistakes. Yes, we all know these people. But since we aren’t them, can we truly understand them? Can we explain why they are so self-destructive?

            I detest using rhetorical questions in writing. (WARNING: Here comes another one.) What’s the point of asking a question and then providing no answer? But I’m breaking my own rule here because my preceding questions have no definitive answer.

That’s the point.

            Emmanuelle Bercot, the director and co-writer of Standing Tall (La Tête Haute), makes said point in this film full of answerless questions about a boy doomed to delinquency, as he tries his best to mature into a man.

But will his best ever be enough?

            At age six, Malony (Rod Paradot) sits quietly playing with toys, while his mother (Sara Forestier), in an anxious, drug-induced fit, tells social services they can have him and abandons him to the system.

Fast-forward 10 years, and Malony is back living with his mother. He’s been expelled for his frequent absences and violent tendencies toward teachers. He loves reckless driving—a skill he’s quite proud of—although he lacks a license. And if he lacks a car, he’ll simply steal one. No big deal.

            Again and again, he winds up in juvenile court. Judge Florence Blaque (Catherine Deneuve), the children’s magistrate assigned to his cases, has a file on Malony that’s too thick to hold in one hand. She, along with his caseworker Yann (Benoît Magimel)—who was once a juvenile delinquent, himself—refuse to give up on Malony.

            Will a juvenile detention center do the trick? Or must he go to prison if he can’t remedy his ways? What is the right choice for this child?

            During the critical developmental year from age 16 to 17, Malony meets a girl and strengthens his relationships with Yann and Florence. He struggles to learn how not to be a delinquent, while enduring events that will change his life forever.

            Standing Tall, which opened the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, is a coming-of-age story—always a popular choice for the silver screen. Yet, Bercot’s cinematic narrative focuses so precisely on character development—and sometimes the depressing lack thereof—that she takes the genre to new heights.

            Her efforts would be fruitless without actors capable of fulfilling the demands of their roles. They did not disappoint.

            In preparation for the film, Deneuve actually sat in on juvenile cases to understand how children’s magistrates deal with the delinquents they work with. In a post-premiere interview, she explained how surprised she was by those judges’ patience. She masterfully transferred that observation into the portrayal of her character.

            How can this woman, who’s nearing retirement, continue to put up with such an ungrateful delinquent after all of the chances she’s given him?

            Magimel delivers perhaps the most organic performance. There is constant guilt and frustration behind his character’s eyes. Although there is little mention of Yann’s delinquent history in dialogue, his expressions and tears of genuine self-doubt tell us all we need to know about how it affects him as a caseworker.

            Can he ever successfully do his job and help Malony the way someone once helped him, if he can’t shake the ghosts of his past?

            Cast as the character to be despised, Forestier believably plays the incompetent, drug-using mother. Then she surprises us by balancing her act with a mix of childlike benightedness that successfully induces empathy for her character. Whether she’s lying about not having children to get a man or crying uncontrollably in court as a manipulative way to excuse her son’s behavior, you can’t help but feel sorry for her, rather than blame her for Malony’s plight.

Is there any way to make this poor, oblivious woman aware of the extent to which she is the enabler here?

Then there’s Paradot’s performance, which tops all others in its authenticity. He plays the antagonist to his own protagonist with impeccable veracity.

Malony’s anger at the world, topped with a tinge of self-loathing, is palpable in his primeval screams. He often lashes out with violent thrashes and spitted slews of curse words. It’s enough to make you cringe… or even cry for him. Not a second seems scripted.

When he isn’t out of control, you can often tell he’s trying with every ounce of his strength to keep the monster within locked in its cage. He twitches his legs, embraces himself, contorts his face. Usually, to no avail. There are visible moments of introspection. But they are usually just that: moments.

Will Malony ever overcome his demons and succeed in life?

Artfully written, dutifully directed and wonderfully cast, Standing Tall isn’t a feel-good film, but it’s one that deserves watching. Sometimes the plot moves slowly, but then again, sometimes so does life—especially when you’re stuck in a rut like Malony.

Standing Tall provides a profound, honest portrait of a self-destructive individual trying to rise above himself. What this film doesn’t give you is much sense of resolution.

But does such a story deserve a substantially satisfying ending?

             Director       Emmanuelle Bercot

               WriteRS      Emmanuelle Bercot and Marcia Romano

            Producer      Elle Driver

           MAIN CAST      Rod Paradot

                        Catherine Deneuve

                        Benoît Magimel

                        Sara Forestier

    Running Time      122 minutes

1er Petite Critique: Mon Roi

With bitter honesty, the director and co-writer, Maïwenn, creates an authentic exposition of the endless effects of emotional abuse.

After severely injuring her knee skiing, Tony (Emmanuelle Bercot) spends several weeks in a treatment center. A blessing in disguise, her time away from home allows her to reflect upon the trauma from her tumultuous relationship with Georgio (Vincent Cassel), her ex-husband, the father of her child and her on-again, off-again lover. Son roi. Her King.

Abrupt editing juxtaposes past and present, like the human mind does, allowing the audience to get lost in Tony’s thoughts. As the film winds on, we slowly realize how much more psychological healing she must endure than physical rehabilitation.

Tony consistently verbalizes her fear that she will never restore the mobility she had before her accident, but her true dread lies in the unspoken: Will she ever return to the Tony she was before she met the man who twisted and fractured her mind?

Brutally, Maïwenn leaves Tony to answer that question on her own.

             Director       Maïwenn

               WriteRS      Etienne Comar and Maïwenn

            Producer      StudioCanal

           MAIN CAST      Emmanuelle Bercot

                        Vincent Cassel

                        Louis Garrel

    Running Time      126 minutes

1er Critique du Festival: "Adama"

Adama: The World of the Wind, directed by Simon Rouby, is the most unique animated film since Pixar first developed its new age style in Toy Story.

In a remote West African village that’s surrounded on all sides by high cliffs, 12-year-old Adama and his family live sheltered from the evils of the World of the Wind. But when the Nassaras seduce his older brother, Samba, to leave the shelter of the cliffs, Adama flees from his Utopia and embarks on a treacherous adventure to bring his brother home.

Like a crow drawn to anything shiny, Adama haphazardly uses his childish intuition to guide his journey. He travels across deserts and seas—with the help of a few strangers—until he winds up in Paris. It’s 1914, and World War I has just begun.

It turns out the World of the Wind isn’t a hell of intangible demonic spirits as Adama’s elders proclaimed, but a brutal reality of industrialized warfare. Samba hasn’t been possessed, but recruited as a soldier for the French forces.

Eventually, Adama’s search takes him to the belly of the beast. With bombs, airstrikes and poisonous gas, the Western Front is no place for a young boy.

Adama is a historical fantasy that successfully sheds light on the little-known African battalions’ involvement in WWI. It also celebrates West African culture through a score composed of genuine ethnic music with original instruments and accurate depictions of spiritual rituals and traditions.

After research, I found that the writer, Julien Lilti, had clear purpose with the terms and names chosen for the story.

“Nassaras,” is an ancient African word for white people. So, the insidious ones are white people. We’ve seen this theme before (i.e. Pocahontas, Avatar), but it’s not demonstrated so blatantly in Adama; rather, it’s not explained at all. At its core, this is not a story of white culture disrupting a native land. This film is about exactly whom its title says: Adama.

Adama, a name of distinct African origin, means “magnificent child,” and Adama certainly lives up to his name. (Please, pardon the cliché.)

He’s innocent and uncertain—at times even terrified. He’s lived such a sheltered life he doesn’t even know that sea water will be salty and falls back aghast after taking a big gulp. Despite his immaturity, the young character’s ultimate tenacity and transformation from gullibly timid to acutely steadfast is inspiring.

Adama is a coming-of-age story made for children and adults, alike, but I wouldn’t describe it as an animated family feature; the genre is too all encompassing. This film is truly an artistic masterpiece.

Rouby, who practiced painting and sculpting before transitioning to filmmaking, played to his strengths to create Adama . Two-dimensional animation makes up the backgrounds while the characters are three-dimensional sculptures integrated through laser scanning software.

It is this unpredictable pairing of 2 and 3D animation that makes Adama so special. It’s like watching a beautiful picture book come to life in front of your eyes. The scenery is made up of soft brush strokes that evoke a watercolor quality, while the characters are sculpted in such a way that they appear papier mâché-like.

Although it’s off-putting at first, once you adjust to the style and the slightly choppy nature of the animation combo, it’s easy to get lost in the abstract aesthetic.

The most alluring part of the film, from an artistic standpoint, is Adama’s eyes. Huge, glossy and reeking of emotion, they say more than the dialogue ever does.

Gargantuan eyes disproportionate to characters’ faces are a recent trend set forth by Disney in Tangled and subsequently Frozen. Although Elsa’s baby blues are pretty to look at and help display more emotion than those of animations past, they don’t serve the same dutiful purpose as Adama’s.

Through his deep brown eyes you can reach into the depths of his soul. When the score accompanies his facial expressions, it evokes true empathy for the sweet, strong child.

It’s impossible not to fall in love with Adama.

                WriteR       Julien Lilti

            Director       Simon Rouby

         Producers      Philippe Aigle and Severine Lathuilliere of Naïa Productions

CO-PRODUCTION      Pipangaï Studio

                        France 3 Cinema

                        Picture Tree International

    Running Time      82 minutes                       

In Love with "Crazy Stupid Love"

Love is quite possibly the strongest human emotion and definitely the most misunderstood. The Bible says love is patient and kind, and Shakespeare says it’s blind. J. Geils Band tells us it stinks, while Nat King Cole attempts to define love by making it into an acronym of loosely related phrases.

For centuries, we humans have studied and showcased love through religion, literature, poetry, art, music, movies and more. But we can never seem to agree on the best way to describe the “L-word” or what it even means to be in love.

In 2011, Crazy Stupid Love—directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa—took yet another attempt to give love an explanation.

Cal Weaver (Steve Carell) is shocked when his wife Emily (Julianne Moore) asks for a divorce after 24 years of what he thought was a perfect marriage. Now, lost in the bachelor’s world he left long ago, he doesn’t know if he’ll ever find love again. When he meets the Casanova extraordinaire, Jacob Palmer (Ryan Gosling), Cal gets a refresher course on lady killing and an extreme makeover, manhood edition.

Meanwhile, Cal and Emily’s son, Robbie (Jonah Bobo), is in the throws of puberty. He’s hung up on his babysitter, Jessica (Analeigh Tipton), who is four years his senior and only has eyes for older men… about 30 years older. It’s the classic wanting-what-you-can’t-have plotline, which begins with Cal’s marriage ending and Jacob getting denied sex—probably for the first time in his life—by the pent-up, good-girl Hannah (Emma Stone).

After plenty of pick-up lines, many embarrassing mishaps and some alarming revelations, each character discovers what really matters about this crazy, stupid thing we call love.

At first look, Crazy Stupid Love’s message is painfully blatant: love is a ridiculous plight that makes people insane. (Sorry for the elementary breakdown of the already obvious, but bear with me here.) This film, with its remarkable writing and all-star cast, takes viewers far past its face value. Much more poignant than your average rom-com, Crazy Stupid Love gives a thought-provoking portrayal of love’s paradox.

Much of this film’s success is due to the writer, Dan Fogelman. Surprisingly, Fogelman’s previous hit screenplays were all animated family features—most notably Cars, Bolt and Tangled. The dialogue is—thankfully—never crude, but it does detach Crazy Stupid Love from Fogelman’s past Disney classics, in which only the occasional innuendo is thrown in for parents to get a laugh, too.

Sometimes the humor is wry, like when Jacob tells Cal, “The war between the sexes is over. We won the second women started doing pole dancing for exercise.” Other times, it’s just wonderfully crafted. In the opening scene, Cal and Emily are out to eat, deciding what to get for dessert, and Cal suggests they both say what they want at the count of three; he says, “three,” and she says, “I want a divorce,” as he says, “crème brûlée.”

The screenplay is a conglomerate of storylines occurring simultaneously, but the connection between the character’s personal chronicles is seamlessly woven. The good writing, when paired with smooth editing, puts little pressure on the viewer to keep track of each individual story in order to make sense of the entire movie’s narrative.

Because the story is completely character driven, good acting is the core that holds Crazy Stupid Love together, which at its essence is a portrait of organic relationships and believable—albeit often outrageously hilarious—situations.

Carell plays his classic fatherly role, similar to that in Dan in Real Life and is much more likeable than as his more ludicrous characters in The Office or Anchorman. His honest acting earns his character, Cal, the much-deserved sympathy for a man who just got cheated on and left by his wife.

Gosling tackles his character Jacob’s developmental journey with amazing ease. We’ve seen him be the sweet yet profound lover before in The Notebook, but here, he also perfectly portrays the womanizer we all love to hate (or hate that we love).

Moore and Stone’s characters get significantly less screen time, which contradicts their usual roles as leading women. But as they have in every other film, they play their parts so believably it feels that character must be who they are in real life.

Although younger actors can often dampen the strength of a movie’s casting, Bobo and Tipton hold their own among the well-renowned stars in the cast. Not a single line delivered in this film sounds scripted.

That’s because Crazy Stupid Love is so well scripted. It gives viewers everything they could ask for in a romantic comedy. There’s smart humor, situational irony, touching details and even tear-jerking moments (for the easily tear-jerked). It’s a movie that appeals to everyone—transcending generational and gender gaps.

Crazy Stupid Love doesn’t necessarily explain love any better than previous attempts, but it does add another piece to the puzzle. It doesn’t make love seem fanciful or cryptic. Instead, it demonstrates the realities of love and how crazy and stupid those realities often feel to those in the throes of it.

Crazy Stupid Love is a movie you’ll want to watch more than once and one you’ll tell others is a “must-see.” It’s more than worth watching, a movie that will stick with you because it’s just as enlightening as it is brilliantly funny.