Remarkably Bright Creatures

Sally Field and Lewis Pullman

Olivia Newman's adaptation of Remarkably Bright Creatures is pleasant fare. Any adaptation of Shelby Van Pelt's bestselling novel would suffer from the contrivances and cutesy anthropomorphism of that magically realistic work, but Newman's restraint and the efforts of a well chosen and talented cast made for palatable viewing even for this hardened cynic. Set in the present day Pacific Northwest, the film and novel tells of two damaged loners who bond over an aging octopus in a small aquarium. The octopus (voiced mellifluously by Alfred Molina) is named Marcellus and provides occasional narration, somewhat dismissive of his human captors, that gives the film a welcome sardonic note. Tova (Sally Field) is an elderly widow in a small coastal town work who works nights at the aquarium where Marcellus becomes her sounding board. After Tova injures her ankle, she tutors her replacement, Cameron (Lewis Pullman), a drifter at loose ends after the dissolution of his band. Both Tova and Cameron have trauma lingering from their past which, with the help of each other and Marcellus, they work through.

If you detect a bit of snideness to this description, that would be accurate. The reveals of the mysteries of Tova and Cameron's past trauma are extremely pat and predictable. However, the scenery is pleasant, the CGI sterling, and Newman's brisk pacing never lets us focus too closely on the many improbabilities of the plot. Remarkably Bright Creatures' supporting cast makes the film a good hang. In what could have been token roles, romantic foils for the two leads, Sofia Black-D'Elia and Colm Meaney both display great charm and skill. It is certainly nice to see Mr. Meaney, who has played a host of villains and boors in a long career,  shine in an appealing role. The fact that his character is a Deadhead portrayed for once without cliché is an added bonus even to someone like me who has never cottoned to Jerry Garcia and company. Tova's female friends, who are self-dubbed the "Knit-Wits" and include Joan Chen and Beth Grant. are an amusing flibbertigibbet Greek chorus. Their standout is Kathy Baker, at the end of a career that has not matched her talent, who gets to tell Tova to snap out of her funk in the film's best monologue.  

The presence of Sally Field often elicits a diabetic reaction from critics and sophisticated audiences. First, the legacies of Gidget and The Flying Nun had to be overcome. Even when she won two Oscars, Field's plain Jane sincerity ("You like me, you like me") brought more ridicule than respect. In the long run though, I believe she has given as many great screen performances as Meryl Streep. It is a testament to Ms. Fields' talent and Ms. Newman's touch that Tova never seems ridiculous even when addressing an octopus. Ms. Newman also brings out heretofore unexploited aspects of Lewis Pullman's capabilities. His warmth and ingratiating awkwardness here bode well for his future.              

Squeal

Algars Vilims and Kevin Janssens

Aik Karapetian's Squeal, currently streaming on Tubi, is the most interesting and impressive film I've seen since Sam Raimi's Send Help. Squeal received no theatrical release in the US and has generated little critical scrutiny. The reasons for this are obvious. While only superficially a horror film, a foreigner is chained up inside a pig barn a la Hostel, there is enough porcine viscera on display to seemingly disqualify the picture from serious attention. Also what kind of publicity can a film directed by an Armenian set in Latvia and populated by its denizens receive. However, Squeal is a deceivingly complex allegory, chock full with allusions, that seems to me one of the best films released in 2021.    

Belgian actor Kevin Janssens plays Samuel, a visitor to Latvia who we first encounter driving that country's back roads searching for his long lost father. He accidentally strikes a pig in the road, who will prove to be his guide on this hero's journey, and then he encounters a dour local woman named Kirke (Laura Silina). She beckons him to seek shelter at the pig farm she runs with her aged father (a splendidly sulphureous Aigars Vilims). She feeds Samuel and plies him with homemade vodka and when he awakes the next morning, he finds that he is an enchained prisoner living in a pigsty. After a few obligatory beatings, Kirke and her father are able to convince Samuel to help out by performing the most odious chores on the farm. Kirke, who has learned some English from her dead mother, is able to converse with Samuel and they tentatively bond. However, Samuel is coveted by two neighboring elders while their grotesque charge (a stunning Normunds Griestins), Jancuks, wants to take Kirke for his own. Complications ensue until Samuel, briefly, gains his freedom with the help of the magically realistic pig; a pattern that repeats.

Laura Silina

I don't want to dwell too much on the plot because, despite its fabulistic nature, Squeal has a few surprises in store that I don't want to divulge. One way to interpret the film is as a political allegory like Animal Farm. Though both works posit pigs as the lumpen proletariat, Squeal is not about the Russian Revolution. Instead it functions as an allegory about resistance to and assimilation of immigrants in modern day Europe. Samuel is initially derided and vilified as a "foreigner" by the locals. However, because of his physical prowess, Samuel earns the respect of the rural folk. By film's end he has been assimilated into the community, marrying and impregnating Kirke. The film never descends into mere allegory because of the multi-dimensionality of the characters and performances. All the leads are superb. Mr. Janssens, who is chained and naked for the first third of the film, gives one of the best physical performances I've seen in some time. His combination of brawniness and vulnerability reminded me of Viggo Mortensen's performances in A History of Violence and Eastern Promises. The film avoids a fairy tale ending as Samuel spies the magical pig who has aided him leaving the farm for a life of freedom. He wonders if he is better off enjoying the tyranny of domesticity or the liberty of the rootless. It illustrates the binary posited by the great writer Dave Hickey: is he a pirate or a farmer?

The other aspect of this intriguing film that I want to touch on are its allusions to Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon, another tale of an outsider and his troubling assimilation into European society. Both films employ an ironic and omniscient narrator. The musical theme played during two key scenes between Kirke and Samuel is one of the two love themes employed in Barry Lyndon: the Irish folk tune "Women of Ireland". The scene where Kirke serves Samuel a meal mirrors the one in which Redmond Barry is seduced by a comely German woman. The twist in Squeal is that the meal is a honey trap. A later scene between Kirke and Samuel also offers a variation on the scene in which Barry attempts to locate a piece of cloth in the bodice of his kissing cousin. Furthermore, a scene in which Samuel rescues Kirke's father after he is shot during a fracas calls to mind Barry rescuing his injured commanding officer in the Kubrick film. I feel that the allusions are neither obscure nor gratuitous, but add to the texture of a magnificent film that unspools in a scant 85 minutes. 

Hell Harbor

Lupe Vélez

Henry King's Hell Harbor is a raucous melodrama that belies King's later reputation as a staid and stodgy yarn spinner. The 1930 film is a vehicle for Lupe Vélez and was one of the last gasps of Inspiration Pictures which had been formed by King, Charles H Duell, and Richard Barthelmess in 1921 to make Tol'able David.  Vélez plays Anita Morgan who has lived all her life in a small port city on an unnamed Caribbean island yearning for something bigger and more exciting. Her father (Gibson Gowland), a descendent of the pirate Henry Morgan, is a brute who wants to barter her off to an unscrupulous and repellent moneylender (Jean Hersholt). Anita's deus ex machina is an American sea captain played by the forgettable and forgotten John Holland.

As you can tell from the cursory description, the plot of Hell Harbor is no great shakes. It was cobbled together by at least three screenwriters from the novel Out of the Night by Rida Johnson Young. Young wrote over thirty plays and musicals and is best known for writing the book and lyrics to Victor Herbert's Naughty Marietta; not my jam, really. However, with the exception of Mr. Holland, the cast of Hell Harbor is continually interesting. Where else can you see the two male leads of Greed reunited and as venal as ever. Before she became a punchline in films like Mexican Spitfire, Vélez was an appealing and beguiling leading lady. She provides much needed spunk and and charm to this flick. Goofy comic relief is provided by two dependable veterans: Harry Allen and Al St. John. King's direction sometimes seems crude and haphazard, but there are moments of sublime lyricism, too. Rondo Hatton appears as a bouncer.