Quick Takes: February 2022

The Color of Paradise

Dismissed by Jonathan Rosenbaum, a critic I esteem, as a "Middle Eastern counterpart to Disney or Spielberg", Majid Majidi's The Color of Paradise is a tearjerker about a young Iranian boy who is blind. Skirting bathos, I found this 1999 film conjured a silent screen pathos that went out of style when Jackie Coogan hit puberty. Masterful, but if you see it, get out your handkerchiefs.

Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch is his most striking and accomplished film in some time. The cast and production design are outstanding. The film is the most intricately and interestingly structured of the past year. Twee should be his middle name, but Anderson's filmography is his best defense.

James Wan's Malignant is so-so horror. Wan utilizes space well, but the cast is average, and the story cretinous. 

David Gordon Green's Halloween Kills is lackluster and unmemorable. The film suffers from being overly reverent towards the franchise. Green tries to inject a note of Trump era hysteria into the proceedings, but the results are pitiful.

Julia Ducournau's Titane is a disappointment after her highly promising debut, Raw. The protagonist has sex with an automobile and gets pregnant, then things get weird. Another example of Cronenbergian body horror, unfortunately the results have the impact of M. Butterfly instead of The Fly. Vincent Lindon, as a deluded fireman, gives an interesting performance, but this is a misfire.

Michael Showalter's The Eyes of Tammy Faye provides Jessica Chastain with an Oscar bait part and she delivers with a rousing and full bodied performance. Unfortunately, the film never finds a consistent tone. At times, it flirts with being a satire, but it also seems to want to present Tammy Faye Bakker as a feminist heroine. The end result is an unsatisfactory kluge. Andrew Garfield and Vincent D'Onofrio do fine work, but are miscast as, respectively, Jim Bakker and Jerry Falwell.

Eytan Rockaway's Lansky is a barely adequate gangster film subspecies. Due to the cut rate nature of the production, the décor and supporting performances trumpet anonymity. Only AnnaSophia Robb's turn as Meyer Lansky's first wife stands out. Rockaway's script has some interesting ideas, but seems unable to confront Lansky's perfidy. The film is the biggest whitewash since Al Davis vs. The NFL. Harvey Keitel's performance as Lansky is the most compelling reason to see the flick. It is a sly, ethnically distinct piece of work that far outclasses Lansky itself.