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Archive for the ‘Drew Barrymore’ Category

Donnie Darko

27 Apr

Donny Darko – directed By Richard Kelly. SpookyDrama. 133 minutes Color 2001.

★★★

The Story: A teenage boy sleepwalks his way into a unlived life.

~

The Gyllenhaal kids are in this one, she the easy one, he the difficult one. Which is not to say he is the bad guy and she is the good girl, she nice, he nasty. No, they do not exist in these realms at all. One day fifteen years or so from now, when they are pushing fifty, they may play the brother and sister in Chekov’s The Cherry Orchard, but until that time we shall simply have to wait. Nice and nasty doesn’t apply to them. Her face is raised to the world, his face is hang-dog. There’s mystery enough in that.

If she delights to have fun, and he is reluctant to have fun, well then, there lurks in him a smile withheld for a more honest and more understanding gathering. Drew Barrymore as his English teacher offers it. So does Katharine Ross as his therapist. But the only one giving him the quality of attention his frown demands is his girlfriend, nicely played by Jena Malone.

The film is one of those messes written by the man who directed it. Will people never learn? Do not direct what you have written, because you will invariably direct everyone but the writer. But another reason prevails for its being a mess.

The director is by nature conventional and to try to be unconventional makes a movie about time-travel – not realizing, time-travel is a thing conventional directors conventionally try.

So what is a conventional persona supposed to do?

What they had better do is don’t try to be unconventional, but to adhere rather to the gift of conventionality they have been given, and, if they are no brighter than this director, what that means is to honor the strength of a strong story line, and seek out a strong story line to honor. That would set the matter of conventionality and unconventionality aside with an iron hand.

As it is, we have a foolish film about an oddball adolescent, played when Jake Gyllenhaal was 20 and just the right age. Gyllenhaal’s personal recalcitrance carries the picture. The picture does not carry the picture. It simply presents weirdness pretending to significance.

Inside this is cocooned an interested personality biding his time for a role more generous to his gifts, as, say, in Nightcrawlers.

He is well supported by Drew Barrymore, Mary McDonnell, Katharine Ross, and Maggie Gyllenhaal, all women you will note. Females rush to protect Jake Gyllenhaal. Men steer clear of him, you will note. It is the abiding subtext of many a Gyllenhaal film, most pronounce in his most renowned one, Brokeback Mountain.

 
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Posted in ACTING STYLE: AMERICAN REALISTIC, Drew Barrymore, Jake Gyllenhaal, Katherine Ross, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Mary McDonnell, Patrick Swayze, PSYCHOLOGICAL HORROR DRAMA, YOUTH DRAMA

 

Mad Love

28 Mar

Mad Love –– directed by Antonia Bird –– a young man falls for a nutcase –– 96 minutes 1995.

**

You cannot pick the lice of this picture fast enough to outrace their replacements. The script is the first louse in that it depicts what no human would do or get away with doing under the circumstances. The second louse is that the script gives us no characters, only premises conterfeiting characters: the girl is mad and the boy falls madly in love with her: this does not constitute character. For the third louse, we have lines no human would say. For the fourth, we have direction aimed to slant us to forgiving what is unforgivable and to find dear what is reprhensible. We also have a director who allows the principal actors to fake it. Which brings us to the fifth and sixth louse, neither of whom have enough substance as humans to hold our interest. Chris O’Donnell is not a bad actor at all, but he stands with Christian Bale and Matthew McConaughey as unwatchable because the corners of his mouth naturally turn up in a constant smug self-satisfied smile. It’s not his fault, but I can’t bear to look at him. Finally, we come to the sixth louse, Drew Barrymore who gives a performance which she will live to be ashamed of if she lives to be as old as her grand-aunt, whose jaw line and chin she inherited, along with the high bridge of the Barrymore nose, and the family toleration for hackwork. Her performance here is infested with cheap choices, for she loads every scene she plays with a pitch for our sympathy. She was 20 when this was done, and her behavior is cute beyond recognition. Her miscalculation is to play innocence and pain, which, of course, must come across as self-pity, whereas she would have been smarter to play out-and-out fury, which would have produced sympathy. This brings us to the un-lice, Joan Allen as the mother. She has but one tiny acting scene, in a school psychologist’s office, with her husband, well-played by Robert Nadir. Allen gives him a look in which an entire family history is lodged. But this is but a great actress, calm and untouched amid a plague of lice.

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2 Comments

Posted in ACTING STYLE: YOU-COULD-DRIVE-A-TEAM-OF-HORSES-THROUGH-THE-PAUSES, Drew Barrymore, Joan Allen: screen and acting goddess, MATING, ROMANTIC COMEDY

 

Mad Love

19 Nov

Mad Love –– directed by Antonia Bird –– a young man falls for a nutcase –– 96 minutes 1995.

**

You cannot pick the lice of this picture fast enough to outstrip their replacements. The script is the first louse in that it depicts what no human would do under the circumstances. The second louse is that the script gives us no characters, only premises conterfeiting characters: the girl is mad and the boy falls madly in love: this does not constitute character. For the third louse, we have lines no human would say. For the fourth, we have direction aimed to slant us to forgiving what is unforgivable and to finding dear what is reprehensible. We also have a director who allows the principal actor to fake it. Which brings us to the fifth and sixth louse, Chris O’Donnell and Drew Barrymore, neither of whom have enough substance as humans to hold our interest. Chris O’Donnell is not a bad actor, but he stands with Christian Bale and Matthew McConaughey as unwatchable because the corners of his mouth naturally turn up in a perpetual smug self-satisfied smirk. It’s not his fault, but I can’t bear to look at him. Finally, we come back to the sixth louse, Drew Barrymore who gives a performance which she will live to be ashamed of if she lives to be as old as her grand-aunt, whose jaw line and chin she inherited, along with the high bridge of the Barrymore nose, and the family toleration for hackwork. Her performance here is infested with cheap choices, for she loads every scene she plays with a pitch for our sympathy. She was 20, and her behavior is cute beyond human recognition. Her miscalculation is to play pained innocence, which, of course, must come across as self-pity, whereas she would have been smarter to play ugly out-and-out fury, which would have produced sympathy. She has become a better actor since. This brings us to the un-lice, Joan Allen as the mother. She has but one tiny acting scene, in a school psychologist’s office, with her husband, well-played by Robert Nadir. Allen gives him a look in which an entire family history is lodged. But this is but a great actress, untouched amid an infestation.

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1 Comment

Posted in DRAMA, Drew Barrymore, FAMILY FILM, Joan Allen: screen and acting goddess, MATING

 
 
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