A Separation is the tale of a family being torn apart. The wife wants more freedom, while the husband wants to maintain stability and tradition. They are at war, and the rest of the family is pulled between them. This could happen in any country. However, these people are Muslim, living in modern-day Iran, trying to live moral lives under an intrusive regime.
There is a distinct reason this amazing, gritty film won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film. It may be a small, insular story, but its complications and setting make it intensely gripping.
Moadi and Hatami are the loving couple. She wants to leave and he wants to stay and respect his ailing father who suffers from Alzheimer's. Mom finds her own place, and their daughter (Farhadi) stays with dad and grandpa, hoping for reconciliation. A caretaker (Bayat) is hired to watch the old man, and things go horribly wrong (in ways I won't reveal as not to spoil the surprise). The film leaves everyone pleading to an unseen judgeâ┚¬â€Âsomeone who says theirs is â┚¬Å”a small problem.â┚¬ÂÂ
It doesn't feel small. It seems huge and heartbreaking to the people involved. Camera angles are close, claustrophobic. Complications arise, and everyone starts to doubt others' intentions. In the end, we must make up our own minds. However, we also learn something about the universality of family conflicts, as well as the uniqueness of these issues under Islamic law.
Dr. Seuss' tale of the creature who â┚¬Å”speaks for the treesâ┚¬Â grows into an ADHD musical extravaganza.
Efron is a love-struck teen, living in the plastic town of Thneedville, where nary a plant grows. His girl wants a tree, so he sets on a quest to find one. In the barren badlands outside of town, Efron meets the Once-ler (Helms) who says he's responsible for the ecological disaster. The Once-ler takes an inordinate amount of time to tell a simple tale from long ago, replete with singing fish and dumb teddy bears. The main character in his story is the Lorax (DeVito), the mystical orange hairball sent from elsewhere to dissuade the raping of the forest.
It's pure Seuss stuff, a classic from his socially conscious period. However, the movie version feels a little stunted. The first problem is that splitting up the narrative kills both stories. The villain is more ridiculous than scary. In fact, all of these characters are a little flat. The adorable fish and bears are tacked on for distraction. The musical numbers are buzzy and forgettable, with garbled lyrics. So much of this seems borrowed from better films, like WALL-E and Babe.
The animation is colorful, and the pace is lively. It just could've used more emotional resonance. There are only two moments when The Lorax slows down and speaks from the heart. These two scenes make the rest of this flick feel very plastic.
Disney did a good job by hiring an actor named Kitch to play the lead. This is epic, corny stuff, played to the hilt for seriousness. It's based on a series of action-packed books written by Edgar Rice Burroughs (Tarzan) starting in 1912, before we knew much about Mars.
Super-sexy Kitch is a post-Civil War gold-digger who gets miraculously transported to the Red Planet. Because of the lowered gravity, this man is a superhero thrust in the middle of a multi-species war. Two species look pretty humanoid, replete with cool tribal tattoos. The third side is gigantic, green, and tuskedâ┚¬â€Âthey have six arms. In amongst the three tribes are evil people who use the Forceâ┚¬â€Âor something like itâ┚¬â€Âto bring about imminent doom to Mars, and possibly later, Earth.
John Carter is in no way unsubtle stuff â┚¬â€œ combining aspects of Star Wars, Dune, and Avatarâ┚¬â€Âthough Burroughs did it first. He also blatantly borrowed a lot from the Spanish and Americans fighting over Native American land. This movie version is nothing but fast and fun pulp: shallow, brainless, and entertaining. It's also blatantly, visually stunning.
The original series was aimed at young teens, the same ones who half a century later would collect comic books. This feels right, because the ridiculous bravado precludes Superman's Action Comic posturing and early Batman gravitas. Will you enjoy it? Only if you like your material as weightless as life on Mars.
