It has become tradition that when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences releases its “shortlist” of films to be considered for the Best Documentary Feature Oscar, something worthy will be left off. This is not even the official list of five nominees, mind you – this is just the list from which those films will be chosen. This year, the film most widely recognized as having been slighted of that opportunity is JOAN RIVERS: A PIECE OF WORK, directed by Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg.
So does A PIECE OF WORK belong on that shortlist? Probably. But it’s also most likely that what makes the film good is its subject, the surprisingly-complex Joan Rivers. As a piece of filmmaking, I’m not sure that this one rises much above an E! True Hollywood Story.
As just mentioned, the groundbreaking comedienne Joan Rivers makes for a compelling documentary subject. Here, she is seen hawking for performance dates, appearance opportunities and money-making ventures. She lives lavishly, acknowledging on a tour of her apartment that “this is how Marie Antoinette would have lived if she’d have had money.” But it’s hard to dislike Rivers for her lavish lifestyle when she is clearly so willing to put in the work needed to financially support it.
Rivers’ ridiculous work ethic and professional drive are the central focus of A PIECE OF WORK, but the film also reveals many private aspects of Rivers’ life as well. We get into the plastic surgery stuff a little bit here and find out that the first thing Rivers does in the morning is put on her makeup. Even with all of that work, she is terrified of her “natural face,” not that her face is in any way natural anymore. We also get a look deep enough into her psyche to see that she is, in many ways, the female comedy version of Little Richard. By that, I mean that she is constantly looking for people to acknowledgeher contributions to the world of comedy as Richard does with rock music. She tenses up around the mention of Kathy Griffin, the heir apparent to a throne she has not finished sitting on herself. Surprisingly, Rivers can, on occasion, come off as somewhat pathetic here. I found that aspect to be brave and refreshing. This is a warts-and-all look at a celebrity legend.
JOAN RIVERS: A PIECE OF WORK covers many of Rivers’ former and recent professional highs and lows, from her discovery by Johnny Carson to her failed talk show to her play about her life to her appearance on Celebrity Apprentice and the Comedy Central roast of her. And while it helps to like Rivers herself to enjoy the film, it’s not a prerequisite. In fact, it’s a fascinating portrait of just how very hard someone works behind the scenes for a career. Yes, Rivers is a bitch. But she’s also fiercely loyal and insanely driven.
I like documentary films that allow me to form my own opinions and provide me with enough richness of detail to do so, and JOAN RIVERS: A PIECE OF WORK fits that bill. It’s not an astonishing documentary (that title, for me, goes to “Exit Through the Gift Shop” this year), but it’s also not a surface film manipulated and controlled by its subject. Nor is it a manipulative, political platform device, as is this year’s likely Oscar frontrunner, “Waiting For Superman.” By truly revealing some of the dirty details of Joan Rivers as this film does, one can form his or her own opinion about her, and that is worthy of much admiration.
My criteria for what makes a film great is that I should connect with it on an emotional level and I should not be done with the movie by the time I get home from the theatre. By those two standards, David O. Russell’s THE FIGHTER qualifies as a great film. I’ve spent a lot of time reading the reviews – most of them make their boxing pun jokes (like saying it’s not a “knockout”) and focus on whether or not THE FIGHTER measures up to “Raging Bull” and “Rocky” as boxing films. Those critics looking at this film through that lens are rating it as an average movie.
But THE FIGHTER is far better than average and worthy of more than to be compared to “Raging Bull” and “Rocky.” Instead, it is one of the most deeply-affecting films about disappointment I can ever remember seeing. In addition, it’s a film about the power and pull of family, even in the face of unjustifiable allegiance. After THE FIGHTER is these two things, then it is a boxing movie.
Based on a true story, THE FIGHTER tells the story of Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg), a boxer from working-class Lowell, Massachusetts. Micky is the younger half-brother of Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale), himself a former boxer and local folk hero. Known as “The Pride of Lowell,” Dicky is famous—at least in his own mind—for having knocked down Sugar Ray Leonard in a boxing match. The details of how that all went down are sketchy to those beyond the ear of Dicky, who constantly relives the moment and uses it as fuel for a planned comeback. But in the meantime, Dicky helps to train his little brother for his own matches.
Unfortunately, Dicky is now more commonly known for his severe addiction to crack, a habit that has eaten away at his teeth and frame and causes him to show up hours late for Micky’s workouts. Still, he remains the golden child to their mother Alice (Melissa Leo), who manages Micky’s boxing career while overseen by her seven daughters who sit across couches in the family living room, hair sprayed into mall bangs, the white trash version of the Greek Furies.
Micky begins dating Charlene (Amy Adams), a barmaid in town, and she takes it upon herself to get it through to him that his family is bringing Micky’s career down. Their training is not helping him develop. Dicky is unreliable and more focused on himself. And Alice has continually walked him into uneven matchups, the losses not seeming to bother her as much as they do Micky.
Eventually, Micky agrees to take on new training and management, with the stipulation that his mother and brother not be involved. He is hesitant – blindly devoted to his family. But he gets it, and his career takes off, even as the focus of the family shifts to Dicky’s incarceration and the family’s complaints of betrayal.
Some reviews have said that Mark Wahlberg is not commanding enough in the film—that he is supposed to be the center that holds it all together but does not. I think those critics are missing the point completely. While I do believe that Walberg is essentially playing a version of himself (a working class Boston kid clawing to make something out of his life), I also believe he is pitch perfect in his stillness and quiet delivery. Quite frankly, Micky is surrounded by talkers, chief among them the brother that he adores and the mother he can’t bear to betray. Those two talk unless there is a crack pipe or cigarette in their mouths, respectively. And Wahlberg accurately conveys a sense of “when’s it gonna be my turn?” without generating a false level of energy to eclipse his un-eclipsable family members.
It’s no surprise, then, that Christian Bale and Melissa Leo, by nature, get the flashy roles in THE FIGHTER. But don’t be fooled; both actors give astonishing and career-defining performances. In a film where the acting is so jaw-droppingly memorable across the board, Bale in particular is revelatory. Casual fans of Bale (such as those who only follow his on-screen career as Batman) might not realize that his shocking weight loss for this film is his second go-round at such a Method technique, following his even more emaciated look in 2004’s “The Machinist.” But that is only the surface of the brilliance of what I am confident will be an award magnet of a performance for him. His Dicky is paradoxically sickly and athletic, as physically jittery as it is verbally, and Bale is spot-on as a Bostonian motormouth. Believe me when I say that I’m not doing his performance justice here; you need to see it for yourself.
Equally unbelievable in her own way is Melissa Leo, a virtual unknown when she was nominated for the lead actress Oscar last year for “Frozen River,” a fantastic but largely unseen indie film. If Leo keeps turning out performances like this, her days of relative obscurity are numbered. Leo’s work as Alice is riveting: a chain-smoking, bouffant-coiffed keeper of family delusions poured into pencil-thin, tight jeans. She is a hot mess of a woman lording over a hot mess of a family, and Leo is so convincing in playing her that a line in the film where Alice complains to Micky about his girlfriend disrespecting her almost elicits a laugh. How would one respect her?
I don’t want my review to go on forever, so I’ll keep it short in adding that Amy Adams, who I put at the top of my list of favorites after her work in “Doubt,” further flexes her versatility here as Micky’s girlfriend, Charlene. Unlike the useless white trash sisters of Dicky and Micky, she’s tough but smart, and Adams gives another fantastic performance. She’s an actress with the soft beauty of a rom-com leading lady with range of a character actor.
Director David O. Russell was not originally slated to direct THE FIGHTER, and hadn’t made a feature film since 2004’s “I Heart Huckabees” (also with Walhlberg). And while I haven’t seen all of his films, I am a big fan of “Three Kings” and this film clearly lacks the frantic storytelling of that film; this is more grounded. But Russell manages his way through some of the expected boxing film conventions, such as the buildup to the big match at the end of the film and the tight, in-the-ring camera work, and transcends these clichés with his focus on the streets and people of Lowell. While the job might have started as a director-for-hire project, it might have paid off as Russell’s coming out party as a formidable mainstream feature directorwho can maintain artistic credibility.
As I mentioned before, the best thing about THE FIGHTER is the emotion it invokes. Like I said, this is a film about the weight of disappointment. Dicky is a disappointment to himself and to his family and tries to transfer the dreams of success he carries onto his brother. Micky loves his family but they are toxic; THE FIGHTER forces audiences to consider the dilemma of having to choose between one’s own goals and the pull of family. I am fully aware that this is not a topic that’s never been done before. But it’s done quite skillfully here – so much so that the questions are raised anew. Do you succeed for just yourself? For others? Do you give up on your dream because maybe it was more someone else’s dream than your own? How do you make something out of your life when the family you love so much is also the cause of such profound embarrassment?
In the end, Micky is fighting against more than just his boxing opponents and his waning shot at success. He’s fighting against himself in archetypal sense of self-conflict. And this film, as a result, wins.
In a case of self-fulfilling prophesy, THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT lives up to its title. From everything I’ve been reading, I understand that I should be more enthusiastic about this year’s indie darling, but after having waited this long to finally see this much-buzzed-about film, my reaction to the film was that it features strong performances (none specifically “showy”) and an engaging, verite-flavored script. Those two elements are more than just “all right,” but the direction, comedy and dramatic arc are just, well, all right.
THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT is the story of what happens when Joni and Laser, the teenage children of lesbian couple Nic and Jules, decide to seek out their sperm donor/father and integrate him into their lives. There is nothing sorely lacking in their home that causes the kids to seek him out. Rather, they are simply curious. But they know their moms will have a problem with it. Nic (Annette Bening), the biological mother of Joni, is a wine-guzzling alcoholic (though only once is this even casually addressed in the film) and doctor (though we never once see her working) who is controlling and uptight. Jules (Julianne Moore), the biological mother of Lazer, is a free spirit embarking on a landscaping business as the latest in an apparent stream of career dead-ends. In an odd contrast, we see Jules working on numerous occasions, though her job ultimately leads to things that test the resolve of the family unit. (More on that later.)
Enter Paul (Mark Ruffalo), the sperm donor, an organic gardener/restauranteur and apparent one-time hippie. He agrees to meet with his “kids.” Joni (Mia Wasikowska) is charmed by him, while Laser (Josh Hutcherson) is slightly off-put by him. Regardless, they bring him into their lives. The reaction by Nic and Jules is guarded to say the least, particularly on the part of Nic, who views Paul’s entrance into their lives as some apparent parenting failure on their part that the kids would feel incomplete. Jules is slightly more open, eventually befriending Paul and even taking a job landscaping the backyard of his home. Soon enough, Jules and Paul become involved, and within time, everyone else finds out about it.
Much of what people love about this film, I suspect, is the way the film features a gay couple but the conflicts that their family deal with are almost completely “un-gay.” Look how far we’ve come, I can hear people saying, that the main couple having problems with their teenage kids just happen to be lesbians, and that’s not necessarily the focus.
I concur that this is, in fact, quite a sign of the times and America’s growing tolerance. I also think, however, that this factoid might be elevating THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT to a higher status as a piece of filmmaking than perhaps it deserves. I thought the same when I saw “Milk” a few years ago, another story about gay people. That film, in contrast, was decidedly gay, and my criticism of it was ironically almost the opposite of my criticism here. In that film, an indie director went especially mainstream with a story that needed a few more rough edges. I wasn’t convinced that the film couldn’t have been directed by someone other than Gus Van Sant.
KIDS tries to be as “un-gay” as “Milk” was gay, and its mainstream quality is much more admirable. That said, it’s hard to get too worked up about films so dedicated to cinema verite that they eschew some of the storytelling elements unique to film. One of the last ones that fits this bill that I can think of would be something like “Rachel Getting Married.”
The acting performances in THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT are universally believable and compelling. Bening and Moore play a couple that appear to have been married for 20 years. Even the requisite “you betrayed me” scene when Nic finds out about Jules’ affair with Paul is played in an understated, hurt way, rather than for Tyler Perry-esque, plate-smashing hysterics. Consequently, it is entirely believable. Bening in particular has been garnering a lot of award season buzz for her performance as Nic, and she is very good. It’s the kind of performance that at first one doesn’t think might deserve such recognition because it is the opposite of flashy in almost every way. But that’s precisely why it’s good. Moore, however, is equally excellent, and for my money, Ruffalo gives the film’s most memorable performance. His Paul is not just some one-dimensional former stoner. Ruffalo brings to life all of this man’s “what-ifs,” curiosities and regrets. He’s fantastic. And the kids mentioned in the title? They are more than just all right. Both Wasikowska (also the lead in this year’s “Alice in Wonderland”) and Hutcherson are likeable and believable.
Writer/director Lisa Cholodenko, working from a script she co-wrote with Stuart Blumberg, makes directing choices that are as understated as the script’s naturally-exposed conflicts. There are no camera shots to remember in the film; her work is the very definition of an indie film like this: shoot the screenplay and that’s it. One can see from this film that Cholodenko is talented at portraying the realities and even some of the more precious mundane moments of a suburban family. So talented, in fact, that the alternative nature of this particular family, with its gay parents and sperm donor, adds not one measurable level of oddity or eccentricity to the film. It feels remarkably normal and natural. And it’s pretty amazing that this can be said, given the social and political climate leading up to this point.
I’m not sure if that alone, however, makes THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT a film worthy of the highest praise. Personally, I fully support Oscar nominations for the script and acting performances, especially those of Bening and Ruffalo. But if the movie doesn’t elevate itself to something more self-important just because the parents happen to be gay, then neither should we, as the viewers, inflate its status based on its handling of that information, however admirable. What you’re left with, then, is a lovely little slice-of-life film, too heavy to be a comedy (as it’s billed) and too light to be melodrama (which is a good thing). It’s a well-navigated, skillfully-executed piece of filmmaking. Nothing fancy. Just all right.
