[NoHo Arts District, CA] – This month’s movie and TV reviews by Mike Peros look at One Battle After Another, Roofman and Blue Moon.
In certain ways, Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest, One Battle After Another, is sadly both prescient and timely, given the accelerated paramilitary attempts to target (dare we say, persecute) immigrants (illegal and otherwise), as well as the white-supremacy aspects that drive important parts of the plot. In a riveting opening sequence, revolutionaries led by Leonardo DiCaprio’s Pat Calhoun and Teyana Taylor’s Perfidia liberate a number of immigrants from a detention facility; while doing their revolutionary thing, Perfidia takes it among herself to sexually taunt and humiliate Sean Penn’s exceedingly rigid (in most ways) Captain Lockjaw, who vows he will see her again. That promise will eventually lead to Perfidia and Lockjaw engaging in some carnal activity, which complicates Perfidia and Pat’s relationship, as Perfidia has a baby and soon after decides to flee the domestic nest. This leaves Pat to raise her girl, Charlene, which becomes even more difficult after they are forced to flee, following Perfidia’s desperate deal to save her own skin by informing on her fellow rebels. Flash-forward fifteen years, and Pat (now Bob) is a stoner shell of his former self, hiding out and under the radar, while his daughter (now called Willa, and nicely portrayed by Chase Infiniti) is an independent-minded, resilient teenager who has to occasionally take care of Dad. And all is proceeding somewhat amicably (if a little tenuously)—until Lockjaw, for reasons having nothing to do with patriotism or national safety, initiates a mission to hunt them down.
One Battle After Another has a lot on its mind: failed idealism, authoritarianism, militarism, betrayal—but it’s at its best when it focuses on the concept of family and the lengths that DiCaprio’s Bob goes to in order to protect his daughter and rekindle his sense of self and preserve his family. He is out of touch in many ways, partly due to drugs, partly due to a lack of desire, and partly because of his reluctance to engage. Some of the best moments in the film have to do with his desperation to find his daughter, reaching absurdly comic heights—as in his inability to remember a key password. While on his quest, he receives some welcome help from an endearing Benicio Del Toro as a mentor of Willa’s—and a man with secrets of his own. And while Sean Penn’s uptight and obsessive Lockjaw is impressive (if a little over the top), it’s the bond between father and daughter that will stay in the mind.
Roofman, from director/writer Derek Cianfrance, tells the true story (well, partly) about Jeffrey Manchester, as played by Channing Tatum, a charming if frustrated underachiever who tries to provide for his family (in the film, at least) by robbing around forty McDonald’s by entering through the roof (earning him the sobriquet “Roofman” Manchester is a considerate robber, who offers his coat to at least one of his victims (before locking him in a freezer), but eventually he is apprehended and sent to prison. However, he ingeniously not only finds a way to escape—but manages to discover a way to hide out at a Toys R Us. (As Maxwell Smart might have said, “If only he dedicated his energy to the forces of good, instead of evil.”) And if that isn’t good fortune enough, while at the Toys R Us, he sees that the attractive Kirsten Dunst is an employee (as well as Peter Dinklage as an unfeeling manager). And so the film proceeds from a caper movie to a romantic comedy with shadings of a manhunt movie. Tatum is very good as the robber with a heart (maybe a little too much), and he and Dunst share some nice chemistry, but it’s a little unclear how we’re supposed to respond to this guy. Manchester is affable enough, but in his way, he is leading the Dunst character on, and spreading some pain along the way, in his past and the present.
It’s March 31,1943, opening night of the Rodgers and Hammerstein massive musical game-changer Oklahoma! and everyone is at the theater: Oscar Hammerstein, Richard Rodgers—and Rodgers’ former partner Lorenz Hart, who sees just enough of the show (which he hates) before repairing to the nearby Sardi’s for some drinks and conversation—before the opening night partygoers arrive. It’s this one night at Sardi’s that is the primary setting of Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon, and though Rodgers and Hammerstein are present, this film is Hart’s show—or shall I say, Ethan Hawke, who masterfully portrays Hart as a brilliant, perceptive, irritating, occasionally creepy, narcissistic, and needy figure. As Hart awaits the end of the show (and Rodgers’ arrival), he banters with the knowing bartender (Bobby Cannavale) and the friendly pianist (Morty Rifkin). Hart views himself as being a discarded, betrayed genius (even though he turned down adapting what would have become Oklahoma!), though he’s going to do his best to make amends with Rodgers (a smooth, understated Andrew Scott)—and perhaps have an emotional, even sexual fling with his young protégé Elizabeth (Margaret Qualley).
Though the film mainly confines itself to one set (apart from a brief prologue), it is never stagy. The camera is on the move, the dialogue remains literate and witty, and the relationships (and expectations) convincingly evolve over ninety minutes or so. Through sleight-of-hand camerawork, the tall Hawke convinces as the diminutive Hart, whether in his monologues (or diatribes) or the various interactions that each peel away at his not-so-carefully crafted veneer of fragile stability. In Linklater and Hawke’s hands, Hart does occasionally know the right thing to say, but each exchange (as with a grateful but cautious Rodgers) sees him go a little too far—snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. I enjoyed Blue Moon, its use of music, the theatrical atmosphere it evokes, as well as the little references and not-so-in-jokes. Though you might feel differently, I encourage you to give it a go. And later, you may want to find out more about the real Lorenz Hart.