"Of Gods And Men." This film won a grand prize at the Cannes Film Festival so I was expecting greatness. I left feeling dissatisfied and thinking it was probably me more than the film itself. The story is an interesting one. A group of French Catholic monks who live near a poor Algerian community are faced with a huge decision. Should they stay or should they flee in the face of a fundamentalist uprising?
Some want to leave, arguing they never signed up to be martyrs in someone else's civil war. Others argue for staying put, that it would be wrong to abandon the impoverished villagers who've come to depend on them. It's a great moral question, complicated further by the Algerian government's strong urgings that they leave or risk becoming targets. As things play out, you realize they're in a no-win situation where both the government and the revolutionaries see the monks as collaborating with the other side.
Inevitably, there is a raid on the monastery. All but a couple are captured; the ones who survive by hiding then face yet another set of moral issues -- of cowardice vs. courage, of self-preservation vs. loyalty to the group. This all sounds compelling but it was a slow-moving film (Lori and I both nodded off at different points) and one that utterly failed to develop individual characters that you really cared about.
"Rabbit Hole." Nikole Kidman was nominated for Best Actress at this year's Oscars on the basis of her performance in this film. I've tended to think of her as overrated, but this film has me rethinking that. She is outstanding in this story about a young married couple trying to cope with the death of their 4-year-old son.
Becca (Kidman) and her husband Howie (Aaron Eckhart) grieve in very different ways, he wanting to preserve remembrances of their son in their house and she wanting to remove those signs. She reaches out to the teenager who ran over their boy when he ran into the street; he looks for solace and companionship in a woman who attends the same support group for grieving parents.
The movie is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by David Lindsay-Abaire. The story is intriguing, the script is sharp and the entire cast is superb in conveying confusion, despair, anger, resignation and, ultimately, hope. A very, very good film.
"Bridesmaids." After two very serious movies, we were ready for something silly. This just-released film, starring Saturday Night Live's Kristen Wiig, delivered big-time.
It's the goofy story of Annie, a down-on-her-luck woman whose lifelong friend, Lillian, asks her to be maid of honor in her wedding. Annie resents Lillian's new friend, Helen, who is beautiful and rich and seems to delight in insinuating that she, not Annie, is Lillian's dearest and closest friend. Of course, rivalries ensue. But that's just one of the threads tying this fun film together. It's part physical comedy, part hilarious dialogue.
You can't help but feel sorry for Annie, even as you laugh at her, as she makes one bad move after another involving romance, work and roommates. Ultimately, it's a story about the enduring strength of a childhood friendship, all wrapped up in a feel-good Hollywood ending. Go see it. And be prepared to be swept off your feet by Melissa McCarthy in the role of Megan. Funny!
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