I have often thought of writing about Whale Music on this blog. I even re-watched it a few months ago with that purpose in mind, but just didn’t get to it. Today, I’m writing about it briefly as a tribute to its star, Maury Chaykin, a gifted Canadian actor who died yesterday—his birthday—at age 61.

Whale Music stayed with me from the first time I saw it, well over a decade ago. It’s about a lost man named Desmond Howl (Chaykin) who was once a highly successful rock star, but now hides in his dilapidated mansion, haunted by the death of his brother (Paul Gross), heartbroken over the infidelity of his wife (Jennifer Dale), and obsessed with composing a symphony for whales. When 19-year-old runaway Claire (Cyndy Preston) hijacks his loneliness and refuses to let him wallow, the two find a way to heal some of the gaping wounds in their hearts by making their own off-beat brand of music together.

There is more to Whale Music than just its lead performer. The writing is textured and deep, which isn’t surprising given that it was co-written by the late Paul Quarrington, who wrote the Governor General’s Award-winning novel upon which the film is based. It paints a vivid picture of a truly disturbed mind, offering the kind of layering and complexity that was sadly missing from this summer’s blockbuster psychological thriller, Inception. It’s also richly atmospheric. By bringing Whale Music to the screen, director Richard J. Lewis took the opportunity to bolster the profound storyline with the awesome beauty of the British Columbia coastline, and the breathtaking sights and sounds of whales—the most majestic and mythical creatures on the planet.

But. Whale Music would not be what it is without Maury Chaykin’s magnificent performance. I have always loved Chaykin’s acting. He’s been in the business for more than three decades (since before I was born), bringing depth and colour to characters in dozens of films and TV shows, including Blindness (see October 14, 2008 post), The Sweet Hereafter, Exotica, My Cousin Vinny, The Mask of Zorro, Entourage… But of his many performances, the one he delivers in Whale Music has long been my favourite. The back of the movie’s DVD case proclaims Chaykin to be “a monument of emotion.” It’s corny, but it’s true. Chaykin was a big man. It’s as if he used every extra ounce to channel the incredible energy and feeling that fuelled his performances. You can feel the emotion he’s portraying on camera, almost as if it were coursing through your own veins, accelerating the beat of your own heart. Or at least, that’s the power he had over me in his best work.

I’m so sad that he’s gone. He was always a highlight in any film I found him in, a reason to go and see it. I’m thankful, though, that so much of his passion and talent have been preserved on film. He took his gifts and returned them to everyone who watched his work. If I feel this loss as deeply as I do, I can only imagine that it must be resounding across the country, around the world, with those who really knew him. Maury, you will be missed and you will be remembered.

The Kids Are All Right is a simple story about a family experiencing growing pains. True, the topics up for dinnertime discussion are slightly less conventional than those taking place in most houses on the block (sperm donors; lesbian interest in male-on-male porn). But in spite of its unorthodox architecture, this family is always treated with the utmost respect by the filmmakers. That respect, combined with great dialogue and superb acting, is what makes me recommend this film so highly.

The family is: lesbian couple Jules (Julianne Moore) and Nic (Annette Bening), their biological children Joni (Mia Wasikowska) and Laser (Josh Hutcherson), and the children’s sperm donor father, Paul (Mark Ruffalo). Until now, Jules and Nic have raised their daughter and son on their own. But when Joni turns 18, she and her younger brother decide to contact their father.

What follows is a light, heartfelt, often funny exploration of family dynamics and boundaries that focuses on immediate issues and concerns—as opposed to making a larger statement on sexuality and gender roles. Co-writer and director Lisa Cholodenko makes no apology for Jules and Nic’s lifestyle choices, and keeps the film relatively drama-free. As a result, we’re allowed to share in the experience of a family that strays from the nuclear tradition, without being burdened by the stigma that too often surrounds homosexuality.

(This honest, authentic look at non-traditional families and homosexuality is reminiscent of another excellent film, Shortbus (see July 25, 2007 post), which, by coincidence, I wrote about exactly three years ago. Shortbus has a smaller target audience, but it’s a very unique film with a lot of layers, and one I’d recommend to anyone interested in broadening their perspective.)

The Kids Are All Right also offers an honest portrayal of a second often-stigmatized occurrence: marriage. In a world where the humdrum of a lifelong commitment to one person—a commitment that requires work and compromise—is so often sneered at, it’s gratifying to see a couple that has had its share of challenges but isn’t ready to fold at the first sign of difficulty. As Jules says, marriage is “a f—–g marathon!” that only gets more complicated as the partners age and change. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth the effort. It comes with a family—a home—and as long as you choose the right partner, there’s nothing like going the distance together.

If you’re looking for something thoughtful and funny amid the high-voltage drama of Salt or Inception, you can’t go wrong with The Kids Are All Right. Simple though the story may be, it brings normalcy and understanding to subjects that many people could benefit from being enlightened about. And the performances really are outstanding across the board. Moore, Bening and Ruffalo have already proven their chops in countless films, and they don’t disappoint here. As Joni, young Wasikowska (who starred as Alice in Tim Burton’s recent Alice in Wonderland) looks poised to become a huge breakout star in the coming years.

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This post is for AB, a dear friend who is about to get married, and who had the courage to create her own version of happiness.

After the Wedding is an incredibly moving, impeccably acted film. It was a 2007 Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, although it lost to the deserving German movie, The Lives of Others (see August 27, 2007 post). I almost rented After the Wedding when it was first released, after noticing its star, Mads Mikkelsen, in Casino Royale (he was Le Chiffre, or the guy who cries blood). I’m not sure why I didn’t follow through a couple years ago, but last night when the film came up in conversation, I couldn’t put it off, so I went out again into the rain to rent it, popped it in the DVD player and promptly stayed up much too late finishing it. I loved it.

The film opens in Mumbai, where Danish aid worker Jacob (Mikkelsen) manages a dilapidated orphanage. The place is gravely run down, so when the director receives an offer of a substantial donation from a Danish corporation, she’s inclined to do whatever the CEO commands. In this case, that includes sending Jacob back to his native Copenhagen to meet with the CEO, Jorgen Hannson (Rolf Lassgård). At first, Jacob refuses. It seems that although he has dedicated his life to the orphanage, his choices haven’t only been about improving the lives of others; he’s also been trying to escape his own.

When the orphanage director makes it clear that he doesn’t have a say in the matter, Jacob reluctantly flies home. Upon meeting with Jorgen, Jacob realizes the transaction won’t be as simple as shaking hands and posing for a photo op. Jorgen invites Jacob to stay for his daughter’s wedding, and only after the ceremony do we begin to explore what Jacob—along with Jorgen and his family—have been running from.

Watching After the Wedding is a bit like watching an Actors Studio showcase. There are so many beautifully performed scenes where the actors bare incredibly raw emotion, but so skillfully and with such restraint that even moments at the height of anguish and heartbreak are never over-the-top.

Adding to this sense of realism is director Susanne Bier’s decision to shoot on video using a handheld camera. The style reminds me of another excellent hyperrealist film, Rachel Getting Married (see May 18, 2009 post). Both movies are well served by the approach, which creates the sense of immediacy you’d find in a home video. It’s an especially appropriate choice for After the Wedding because it provides a fitting documentary feel during the scenes at the Mumbai orphanage. My only stylistic complaint is Bier’s overuse of extreme close-ups. Some of them work, particularly those that emphasize hands or objects. But she’s a little too in-your-face with the tight shots of eyes and lips.

I can’t say much about the plot without revealing points that should be discovered firsthand. But what I love most about the film—aside from the exquisite performances without which the movie couldn’t possibly work—is the bittersweet journey the characters go through as they try to find their place in the world, that place where you truly feel at home. As we see in After the Wedding’s final scene, and particularly its final shot, you can’t forge a home where you don’t belong, and you can’t ever really feel at home by trying to outrun the past.

“Everybody’s out on the run tonight but there’s no place left to hide/Together we can live with the sadness/I’ll love you with all the madness in my soul/Someday baby I don’t know when we’re gonna get to that place where we really want to go and we’ll walk in the sun/But till then tramps like us baby we were born to run.”

The drawings are available for sale at www.theDADproject.etsy.com, with $10 from every item sold being donated to the Canadian Cancer Society. Please visit www.thedadproject.com to learn more.

Sling Blade is easily one of the best films I’ve ever seen. It’s made me completely high on the artfulness of filmmaking, and all the facets it includes—script, score, acting, direction, cinematography, sound and set design … When everything comes together, film has the potential to be completely riveting. And Sling Blade definitely delivers on that promise.

I am in awe of Billy Bob Thornton, who not only starred in and directed the film, but also took home the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay (Sling Blade is based on his short screenplay, Some Folks Call it a Sling Blade). He brings the elements of filmmaking together in such a distinct and effective way that I’m left utterly inspired and quite speechless. So it’s a good thing for keyboards.

Sling Blade opens as Karl Childers (Thornton) is about to be released from a mental hospital, having spent several decades imprisoned for murdering his mother and her boyfriend at the age of 12. As he explains, in his lurching and raspy way, he killed them with a sling blade (“Some folks call it a kaiser blade; I call it a sling blade.”) because he caught them in the act and thought they were doing wrong. He intended only to kill the man, whom he assumed was assaulting his married mother; when he realized she was willingly committing adultery, he killed her too.

But Karl is no longer deemed a threat to society because, as he says, he sees no reason to kill anyone else. He returns to his rural Arkansas hometown and soon befriends a young boy named Frank (Lucas Black). Frank’s mother Linda (Natalie Canerday) invites Karl to move in with them. And then Karl meets Linda’s abusive boyfriend Doyle (Dwight Yoakam), and Karl begins to see that there may be a reason to kill someone else after all.

The film’s tagline is: “A simple man. A difficult choice.” But Karl is anything but simple. Sure, when asked what he’s thinking after sitting in what appears to be ponderous thought, he replies that he was wondering whether to bring French fried taters home with him. But he’s also clearly spent a lot of time considering what separates right from wrong. He’s looked to the bible (whose words his parents often distorted to their advantage as they raised him), and to those around him, and he’s weighed his past decisions. In the end, he comes up with some answers of his own.

From the outset, Sling Blade called to mind distinct components of two other excellent films: David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence (see July 31, 2007 post), and the Cohen brothers’ No Country for Old Men. In its opening scene, Sling Blade drags out the sound of a chair being pulled across the floor as one of Karl’s inmates approaches him. In letting the camera linger on the two men, and holding the scraping sound far longer than you would expect, Thornton immediately sets the tone for the tension that plays out through most of the film. You wonder what sinister acts the inmate has in mind. If any. But that’s the point—you never know.

The scene reminded me of the long and eerily calm opening shot in A History of Violence, which very effectively establishes a feeling of calm before the storm. Except with Sling Blade, that feeling is maintained throughout the entire film. We don’t even have to see the violence. Thornton is confident to have the camera nestle in and let us visualize the violence to come without ever showing it. There’s a scene when Doyle outdoes himself, tearing into Frank and Linda in a drunken rage. The entire episode plays out in one long take, with Doyle and the others in the background, while Karl sits in the foreground listening as Doyle digs himself in deeper and deeper. The viewer is left to fill in what other directors might have addressed through fancy camera work or narration.

Sling Blade features many tableaux like that, where the characters are given space to interact without the interruption of cuts and close-ups. This isn’t just a default approach for Thornton; he knows to mix it up by varying the pace of the direction, editing and music (provided by the legendary Daniel Lanois) when it suits the story. It’s simply a way of letting the characters talk and the story unfold in a highly captivating manner. It works because the script is insightful and layered, and the actors are perfectly cast. Even Karl’s creepy inmate from the opening scene tells his tales in such a compelling way that his words become tangible, and all Thornton had to do was let his actor talk.

What reminded me of No Country for Old Men is the matter of fact way in which Karl seems to process death. The killer in No Country for Old Men (played by Javier Bardem) seems to represent the hand of fate, and there is an element of that in Sling Blade. Although with Karl, it seems more that he’s the hand of god. Yes, he’s a murderer. But it’s not clear that he’s in the wrong. He never acts out of a need for violence; he simply carries out the acts he believes to be right, whether because it’s what he was taught as a child, or what he came to decide on his own as an adult. (“Some folks call it murder …”)

Throughout Sling Blade, I found myself marveling at both the compelling and often daring stylistic choices, and the unabashed exploration of right versus wrong. Thornton’s approach to both is to lay it all on the line and let it play out before us, never rushing it, never forcing anything. The end result is a brilliant film that continues to roll in your mind long after the last frame.

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MR, I dedicate this post to you. Thank you for recommending Sling Blade (I’ll have to get to the others on your list), and thank you for letting me know you’re out there reading all my posts. I’ll never stop writing now.

Clive (Adrien Brody) and Elsa (Sarah Polley) are just your typical 30-something couple. They’ve been living together for a few years, and Clive is thinking children but Elsa isn’t quite there yet. So, they create a pseudo-child by splicing human DNA with the DNA of other, unspecified animals (though you can be sure there’s something amphibious in the mix).

I’m still shaky from having seen Splice. That must be a testament to its power and poignancy. I’ll try to be coherent here, but the second-last scene really disturbed me, even though it was foreshadowed in a scene between Elsa and her hybrid creation, Dren (Nerd spelled backwards).

Clive and Elsa are overachieving biochemists who have been successfully splicing the DNA of different non-human species for many years. Under the threat of having their operation shut down, they rashly move forward with splicing human and non-human DNA in secret. The results, of course, are bound to be disastrous, as we’ve learned from all previous creature features of this sort (and in case there was any doubt, the sinister music in the very cool opening titles confirms this). But first, Elsa and Clive bond with Dren, each in their own way. Despite Elsa’s protests that she isn’t ready for motherhood, she ends up stepping eagerly into that role once Dren emerges from her synthetic womb. Even Dren’s arrival parallels a birthing scene, with Elsa—her mother—moaning in pain over a wound inflicted by her “child.”

As Dren grows up (at a highly accelerated pace due to some indeterminate factor in her genetic make-up), Clive and Elsa experience the growing pains that typically accompany parenthood, including having trouble making time for work or each other. But as Dren’s mind and body grow increasingly sophisticated, her parents’ problems become anything but typical, and they soon realize the depth of their error and arrogance.

What’s alarming is how quickly Elsa turns punitive, shaming and maiming Dren, who is her child in all respects—Elsa gave her life, and raised her from infancy. We learn that Elsa’s own mother was something of a nightmare, keeping Elsa in small, dirty room with little more than a mattress as furnishing. As Clive tells it, Elsa didn’t want to have children because she was afraid of losing control, so she opted for engineering her offspring in a lab. It’s no coincidence that when her “carefully controlled” experiment goes awry, Elsa brings Dren to no other place than the home where she herself was raised (in the middle of the woods, no less); a place Elsa ran from to escape her “crazy” mother.

Splice has an obvious point to make about the dangers that creep up when ego and corporate agendas mix with science. But more than that, the film paints a terrifying picture of what happens when we try to control nature (no matter how good the intentions), and how lasting the effects of parenting can be. Watching Dren grow up at warp speed presents an exaggerated study in just how badly children can be damaged by the “wrong” parenting choices. Whenever Elsa thinks she knows best, it quickly becomes clear that Mother Nature knows better.

Elsa and Clive’s mistake is in tampering with something they don’t truly understand. The more they try to control Dren, the more their problems escalate, until both Elsa and Clive cross the line in hideous ways. It’s hard not to wonder if things would have gone so wrong had Dren been given the respect and freedom she asked for, rather than being confined and demeaned. There is no doubt that creating Dren was a mistake. But the mistakes her parents make after her birth point to something far more disturbing than the creatures they engineer—the human capacity for corruption.

I recommend Splice, despite (or maybe because of) the fact that I’m still reeling from it. It’s well paced, and has slick editing, particularly at the beginning. Its script is as intelligent as it is dark and disturbing. Definitely worth seeing, and then considering for awhile afterward.

Adam (USA 2009, Drama/Romance), Writer/Director: Max Mayer

As soon as I saw the title, I had to rent Bliss. It shares the same ironic name as the short screenplay I’ve been trying to get funded for the past year or more. Fortunately, the Turkish feature film turned out to be great, and not just another flop I picked up on a misguided impulse.

Bliss is based on the 2002 novel by Zülfü Livaneli. When young Meryem (Özgü Namal) is found unconscious by the shore, the people in her Anatolian village assume she was raped. According to custom, the only way to atone for her “shame” is to put her to death. Cemal (Murat Han), the son of the village leader, is tasked with taking her to Istanbul and killing her. But he can’t bring himself to finish the job, and the pair embarks on a journey that highlights the stark contrast between their beliefs and those of modern-day Turks.

This movie is gorgeous. Its camerawork is inventive and thoughtful, exquisitely matched with each scene and moment. The acting is exceptional on all counts, although Namal deserves special recognition for her powerful portrayal of Meryem. And the scenery—punctuated by an evocative score—is spectacular. Not only is Bliss an enlightening study of the culture clashes and medleys that exist in Turkey, it goes a long way to showcasing the country’s stunning natural beauty.

And then there’s Adam. I don’t have much to say about the film because, on the whole, I don’t recommend it. It’s about a young man named Adam (Hugh Dancy) whose struggle to make a relationship work with Beth (Rose Byrne) is compounded by the fact that he has Asperger’s Syndrome. When I heard about Adam, I was interested by the subject matter. But the trailers had too much of a movie-of-the-week flavour to get me into the theatres. I ended up renting Adam, and found that the previews were fair.

I’m only bothering to write about the movie because there were some interesting parallels between Adam’s difficulties in engaging in substantial relationships, and those demonstrated by so-called NTs—neurotypicals. How big a difference is there really between a person who hides behind a door, afraid to open it when his date arrives, and a person who opens the door but never really lets anyone in? Aside from the appearance of one being normal, they’re both quite similar—not sure how, and not ready, to open up and trust.

Beyond that, though, the film didn’t inspire much reflection. It doesn’t offer a lot by way storyline; instead, it sort of plays out like Introduction to Asperger’s 101. Dancy is clearly a fine actor who brings a nicely understated delivery to his performance. But his talents, and the portrait of a person with Asperger’s, would be better served in a film that offers the kind of artful, lyrical treatment found in Bliss.