The Beaver

"Ignoring the 800 Pound Gorilla in the Room"
or
"Uh-uh, Honey.  Talk to the Hand"

Jodie Foster's new film, The Beaver, was always going to have an uphill battle finding an audience when it was released.  First, it's about mental illness, but atypically for Hollywood, it's not a comedy.  Second, it stars Mel Gibson (in a good...actually heroic...performance), so any review is going to feel obligated to slide in some mention of the "800 pound gorilla in the room."* Both detract from the film itself which has a difficult enough time staying focused on its issues, but at least has enough moxie to try and do something a little different—without tugging too hard on the obvious heart-strings.

Gibson plays Walter Black, an executive of the Jerry Co. toy company, who, following The Peter Principle, was given the CEO position that he wasn't really qualified for, over a female executive (the always wonderful Cherry Jones).  He runs Jerry Co. into a few quarters of red-ink lethargy (although the brick-and-mortar doesn't come tumbling down) and has a complete mental breakdown...slowwwwly.  Not wanting to get out of bed in the morning, reduced to monosyllabic answers and avoiding any interaction, Walter is so clinically depressed that, finding a ragged beaver puppet in a dumpster, he starts using it as a surrogate to speak through and at.  Walter goes away.  And everybody has to address "The Beaver" (who talks in a gruff Cockney, sounding a bit like Gibson's co-star in Edge of Darkness, Ray Winstone).  The situation is explained to new recruits with an intro card:

"Hello, the person who handed you this card is under the care of a prescription puppet designed to help create a psychological distance between himself and the negative aspects of his personality. Please treat him as you normally would but address yourself to the puppet.

Thank you."

Thank YOU.  The thing is, "The Beaver's" not a better person than Walter, he's just chirpy and aggressive.  Walter can go away and "hide" in his limbowhile "The Beaver" does all the P.R. work, chortling and being cute, while Walter fails to commit.  Walter thinks that Beaver is a tourniquet on his arm, staunching the bleeding, but all he's applied is a band-aid...cover up the problem until it goes away.  "The Beaver" is the "manic" while Walter remains the "depressive" and the puppet is just another room where he can hide, pouring all his effort into the surrogate, while ignoring the real problem.

Sidebar:  Let's talk about depression.  Full disclosure—I have suffered from depression in the past, but, just like fools, I don't "suffer" it now.**  The instinct is to run away and hide and do nothing, lest you fail and make things worse.  But, action is the best cure for it—to ac-cent-u-ate the positive and e-li-mi-nate the negative.  It's "better than nothing," which is what depression inspires...a lonely, isolating cage of nothing.  It's always better "to be" than "not to be."

But, that's hard to convey in a movie (and be entertaining about it, anyway).  "The Beaver" has a brother-in-mind from movies-past, and that would be Harvey.  For all its twee charm, great lines and James Stewart whimsey, Harvey is a film about mental illness—Elwood P. Dowd has suffered a breakdown from the death of his wife and has replaced her companionship with a "pooka" taking the form of a six-foot-three-and-half-inch ('lets get the facts right") juicer of a rabbit.  The conceit of the play is to say that we're all crazy..."After this he'll be a perfectly normal human being. And you know what stinkers they are!"...and reassures us through stage-craft that we're just as nuts when we see doors opening and closing by themselves, indicating Harvey's presence.  The charm of it, played for comedy, disguises the pain at the heart and soul of the play; I once saw a performance of it at the Seattle Repertory Theater where Dowd (Elwood P.) was a melancholic, sad, mournful, and that version of the play has always stuck with me, despite the weird shift in tone.  

The Beaver (the film) has that same problem of tone.  There are moments of lightness...more irony than humor***...but, ultimately, it's a sad affair, however ludicrous and "wacky" it might seem in the overview.  And, Black's conflicts with his family, particularly his son (Anton Yelchin), who views his father's condition with contempt and fear...that he might go down the same path.  He's a student who charges a fee to write papers for less-gifted class-mates because he has a knack for writing "in other people's voices," and his efforts writing a valedictory speech for a school hottie (Jennifer Lawrence—she's terrific, and a tough little actor) makes up a parallel story to his father's struggles.  Foster plays Black's wife, and the best thing she brings to the role is a tentative panic behind the eyes in trying to keep her family together. 

Gibson's eyes, however, haunt.  They perfectly convey the radiating hurt (without overdoing it by going into mawkishness)...and the consuming deadness as he retreats.  This is some of his best work in years, especially considering he's having to play two characters at once, the puppet and the puppet-master, while simultaneously keeping it unclear which is which.  Foster, as director, maintains a discrete presence, but has one big pay-off by ommission; by filming Black and his symbiot constantly in two-shot, she maximizes the dread one feels when "The Beaver" is alone in the frame—quite the directorial coup, actually.  That conflict builds as the story goes along, cautioning that if you're going to have a surrogate speaking for you, choose one with less prominent teeth. 

This is good, disturbing stuff.  And an interesting approach by all concerned to a nicely buttoned-up screenplay that dots the "i's" (without putting little smiley faces on them) and double-crosses the tease, and dares to question the idea of "self" and losing it.  Some might find it depressing. 

But it made me smile.

The Beaver is a Matinee.


* If you wanna know about it (or if you've been living under a rock for the last few months), just "Google" Mel Gibson."  I'm sure you'll find out what's going on quickly.


** Yeah, yeah, I know. "TMI."  But, hey, I write, I analyze.  It's what I do.  It's why I'm here—on more than one occasion I've been told "Couldn't you just ENJOY the movie for what it is?"  Some other Yojimbo can do that.  It's not me.  I'm critical with movies as I'm critical with myself—I aspire to something more in what I do and I expect it of anybody who sticks their neck out onto the creative chopping block.  It's common among writers, actors...and, I am sure, puppeteers and ventriloquists, whom I've been fascinated with since I was a kid.  All take on other persona's in their craft—something the movie makes clear—and more than a little analysis—self- and otherwise—goes into that.  I wouldn't have it any other way.


*** I can only think, with horror, what this would have been like if, as was once the case, Jim Carrey or Steve Carell had played it, instead of Gibson, who looked the situation square in the eye and played it for truth, rather than laughs.

Edge of Darkness (2010)

"Losing Your Edge"*
or,
"I Love the British. They Deserve the Falklands."**

Those who've been reading LNTAM for awhile know of my deep and abiding love for the 1985 British mini-series "Edge of Darkness," Troy Kennedy-Martin's attempt to "politicize" the police procedurals that had become so prominent on the BBC. Martin took the standard murder mystery and made it a comment on the Thatcher era of politics,as well as on the growing nuclear industry in Britain and the apparent entanglements of British and American interests. Then, with director Martin Campbell, it became something more: not only a murder mystery, but a ghost story, a psychological drama and an almost mythological fable, with the Earth itself as a participating character in the balancing of the scales of justice. It also had strains of comic loopiness amid the gritty brownstones and harsh fluorescent lights of urban crime investigation, and an overall tragic tone of inevitability. Over six hours, it covered a lot of ground above and below the surface.

Campbell desired for many years to make a film of it and with his box-office clout resulting from resurrecting the Bond franchise with "Casino Royale," he has finally managed to do it, bringing along many members of his Bond-team, including cinematographer Phil Meheux, editor extraordinaire Stuart Baird and costumer Lindy Hemming. Adapted by Andrew Bovell and William Monahan (he wrote "The Departed"), I've been curious (with an undercurrent of dread) of what the new version of one of my favorites would be like.

Well, this "Edge of Darkness" is not as good as the original, compressing and tossing a lot of the story to accommodate a two hour length. But, it's not half-bad either—efficient, taut, and, if you're paying attention, weaving its own commentary on the bad marriage between government and industry, especially in the post-911/W.years in which it is set. Gone is the humor, the tilted quality, the psychology and the Big Picture aspects of the tale. The ghost story is given up, as well, but it still manages to have the haunted quality of the original, while buttoning up the story for a less-delayed, more visceral conclusion.

Thomas Craven (Mel Gibson) is a widowed detective in the "Bahston" police force, welcoming his daughter Emma (Bojana Novakovic) home from a long absence. She's been using her Masters of Science degree interning at a local facility, the Northmoor nuclear facility working on cold fusion energy production ("It's very green," says its slimy CEO Bennett, played by a dead-eyed Danny Huston). But, at dinner, she begins to vomit uncontrollably and as Craven is desperately trying to take her to the hospital, they are attacked in the night. A single yell—"Craven!"—pierces the darkness and Emma is shot-gunned, mortally wounded.

The conventional wisdom is that it is one of Craven's enemies seeking revenge and missing his target, combining murder and accident. But Craven doggedly pursues clues, haunted by his daughter's memory, to pursue the assassin and get justice. Very quickly, the murder weapon and an old perp of Craven's is found—dead of a particularly nasty head-wound—the case apparently closed.

But not so fast. Acting alone, Craven digs further into Northmoor and his daughter's recent past to find out what happened, her cell-phone leading to a line of suspects that he questions seeking the truth. His lone-wolf quest puts him on the radar of Northmoor's private security firm and the U.S. government, particularly a "cleaner" named Darius Jedburgh (Ray Winstone), who makes his own inquiry, deciding if Craven should be allowed to proceed further or be stopped.

That's pretty much the opening thread of the original, too, except that the locales and characters are different. In the mini-series, British Intelligence is following Craven's investigation and they bring C.I.A. operative Jedburgh to provide Craven with information—a situation that creates an odd bond between the two men. In the original, Ronnie Craven is fragile, having had a break-down when his wife died, and keeps himself together by suppressing his emotions, except for the odd conversation he has with his dead daughter, whose clues lead him to different corners of the investigation. That may be his mental condition coming to hand, but it might not. He also has to deal with the guilt of being part of the authority that his activist daughter is working against. But Tommy Craven, of this version, is a coiled spring that only loosens in moments of extreme violence, periodically reliving his memories of his daughter and anything she says is non-specific to the case. A similar scene of Craven identifying his daughter's body is handled completely different. When the morgue nurse attempts to cover Emma's face after the identification, Gibson's Craven suddenly and violently hisses "Leave her alone!" Bob Peck's reaction was a loud wounded animal howl—"Leeeeave her!"

Jedburgh is a different creature, as well. Joe Don Baker's C.I.A. operative from the mini-series was a loud, Stetson-wearing Texan who waxed philosophically on the roots of all problems, arcane and mundane. Ray Winstone's British character is a low rumbling bear with a lower class argot, a disappearing act and an expression that gives nothing away but by what he says. In the mini-series, Craven and Jedburgh team up as an assault force to get clues, but in the 2010 film, they play opposite sides, aware of each other's presence and linked by common maladies and points of philosophy. The character is still amusing, but not a tragic-comic high wire act the way Baker played him.

Tommy Craven (rather than his older mini-series brother Ronnie) is more aggressive, and frequently yells his dialogue in a cynical sneer ("I'm the guy with nothing to lose and I don't give a shit. So, fasten your seat-belt"), and, since there's less of a mystery to be solved due to the thuddingly obvious machinations of the bad guys, it all boils down to one man seeking revenge, something that was out of the question in the original. Those action set pieces are stunningly conceived and delivered by Campbell and shaped by Baird into especially visceral short bursts, with one bit of film mayhem coming so fast and so out of the blue that it practically knocks you out of your theater seat. It's refreshing in these days of salad-shooter editing to see fast, punchy dust-ups (and wet-works) that one can actually follow and has so much impact.

The new version is probably more satisfying for contemporary audiences jacked up on Red-Bull and obsessed with "closure;" I, for one, enormously enjoyed the hopeless quality of the original's ending with its ghoulishly ironic end-joke (which made everything all right in my eyes). But, the politics are still there, and this "Edge" does a fine job of being morphed into something for its time, with its stated philosophy of "It's not what it is—it's what it can be made to look like." In other words, you can have your yellow cake and eat it, too. Words to live and die by.

So, take it for what it is, it's a good boiling down and re-vamping, which has the dual effect of making it both fresh and too familiar, as so many things that made the original unique have been jettisoned out the old chute. But, as a display of technical craftsmanship, it is quite impressive.***

"Edge of Darkness" is a Rental.



* I've known, ever since this project was announced, that whatever was done with it, it couldn't impact my admiration for the original mini-series. And it doesn't. It's like the story of a visitor to Raymond Chandler, asking him if he he felt bad about what the movies had done to some of his novels. Chandler took the guest into his library. "They haven't done anything to my novels," he said. "Look. They're still there." The mini-series is still a classic. And this one is good for what it is.

** A line from the original's Darius Jedburgh (played brilliantly by Joe Don Baker), as he and Craven sit, watching a dancing competition on the telly. "Look at that," says Jedburgh, before that particular line. "They don't have anything like this in the States." Well, they do now.

*** Since writing this, I've been looking at a smattering of reviews, and finding myself appalled. First off, a lot of reviewers seem to see this as a Mel Gibson production. It isn't, and although it makes it easier to knock the film if you mis-characterize it as such, Martin Campbell directed it. And too many reviews have led off with "Mel's being a martyr again" (which I suspect were cribbed from one AP review) which may be so, but he's got a way to go before he beats Charlton Heston's record. Quite a few get it wrong to compare it to "Taken." "Edge of Darkness" isn't very original, no. It's based on the 1985 British mini-series (that's been established). "Taken," however, isn't the heighth of originality, either, as it's a contemporary urban version of "The Searchers." Finally, what genius over at "The Atlantic" hired Ed Koch to review movies, as he displays that he knows nothing about them? "How're you doing, Ed?" Badly.

Gallipoli

"Gallipoli" (Peter Weir, 1981)  Two Australian business men, Robert Stigwood (the man behind the "Bee Gees" phenomenon and flush with money and influence) and Rupert Murdoch, owner of some of the Australian and British tabloids, who would parlay his fortune into acquiring 20th Century Fox Company and turning it into his News Corp., took a chance funding this anti-war film about one of Australia's saddest hours, written and directed by the brightest light in the New Wave of Australian cinema.

As was the case with quite a bit of the Aussie cinema, it seemed like a cross of genres, between British kitchen-sink and the American Western, and its main narrative thrust—of two champion runners from different planks of society who seek their destiny in the Armed Forces—provided an opportunity to present Australia circa 1915 to the world at large. At this point in his career, Weir still had a jarring crutch or two: his use of electronic music—in this case, Oxygene by Jean Michel Jarre* —for the running sequences seems a bit too modernistic for a period piece although the pace is certainly suggested by the bouncy piece of techno.

The two Aussie's, Archy Hamilton (Mark Lee) and Frank Dunne (Mel Gibson) compete in a foot-race with Archy just beating him for, and the two strike up a friendship. Archy wants to join the military's Horse Brigade and do his part in the War effort. Frank decides to try his luck, too, anything being better than his railroad job.

The film follows their paths, diverging and re-joining to the Australian-New Zealand front with the ANZAC** at Gallipoli, where the two men trying to make their mark are just two cogs in the war machine, and where contingency is determiner of life and death. In the confusion and bluster of the battlefield, one is lucky if Fate is allowed into the mix. It's a damning film about the value of worth, and the total lack of morality on the battlefield. Unclouded by politics, staying in the trenches amongst the mud and fog of war, Weir brings the film to a close with a single solitary image in freeze-frame, which wraps up his themes and reverberates in its implications. With this one film, Weir started to remove the ambiguities of his earlier films, and became much more assured as a film-maker.

ANZAC Day, commemorating the landing of the Australian-NewZealand forces at Gallipoli, is celebrated as a national holiday each April 25th.

*He's the son of future Weir composer Maurice Jarre, who wrote the scores for David Lean's last films, including "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Doctor Zhivago."

**The Australian and New Zealand Army Corps

Hamlet (1990)

"Hamlet" (Franco Zeffirelli, 1990) So, the big question was: "Mel? Mel Gibson? Hamlet?" Zeffirelli was no slouch when directing Shakespeare with "The Taming of the Shrew" and "Romeo and Juliet" already in his film-list. But Mel Gibson? "Lethal Weapon"/"Mad Max" Mel Gibson? How can this come to any good?

Turns out it can.

Seeing Zeffirelli's "Hamlet" for the first time is a film-long surprise at how good Gibson is in the role--his performance of the Elizabethan verse often inspired. He's backed by a stellar cast: Glenn Close (nine years older than Gibson) as Gertrude, Alan Bates as an on-guard Claudius, Ian Holm as a much more competent, even wily, Polonius, Paul Scofield, a brilliant ghost, Stephen Dillane as Horatio, and best of all, Helena Bonham Carter's Ophelia.

A second look at the film years later shows the seams. Gibson's Hamlet is all open-mouthed "busy" acting, a bit too manic and protesting too much. But it does make the case that his Hamlet is Glenn Close's son for she does exactly the same thing, gaping for the loges in Zeffirelli's rough-hewn settings. Dillane's "trying-to-take-it-all-in" Horatio and Bates' slimy, wary Claudius come off the best. But they're blow off the screen by the radical turn of Bonham Carter:



Ophelia--From the get-go, Helena Bonham-Carter plays the daughter of Polonius (and object of Hamlet's affections/mental torture), not as a frail flower, but a practical girl, down-to-Earth and obedient to her father, and loving to her brother. Bonham-Carter's line readings of the verse are flat and conversational, not lilting. Her reaction to Hamlet's bi-polarism are confusion, and incomprehension, not histrionics, and when her psyche snaps, there's no poetry in it. You could find her Ophelia on a city street-corner--agitated, rattling, eyes darting and fingers flailing; it's a powerful performance--a radical interpretation, scary and threatening. When she hands out flowers to the royal couple and her brother, she hands them weeds...and bones.

No wonder Tim Burton fell in love with her. Bonham Carter has never steered clear of the dark waters of her characters, and, in fact, will jump into the deep-end and maybe--maybe--swim up to the light. There's never been an Ophelia like this one, and disappointingly, I haven't seen one since. This is a feminist interpretation of Ophelia, one of real power while not sacrificing Shakespeare's text or the role's tragedy. I don't know if the Bard would recognize his creation in this performance, but the actor in him would be amazed.
Here are this film's other "Hamlet" touchstones:
The Ghost--Portrayed by Paul Scofield deep in the shadows, it is a heart-breaking performance, as the grasping King begs for satisfaction from his son, damned as he is for his sins. His Old King Hamlet has all the fear of Hell in his eyes, and a quavering in his voice, a King broken by the tortures of perdition. He's not a formal apparition of the supernatural, but a ghost who is, himself, haunted, and seeks out his son for a last chance at salvation. That's quite a guilt-trip he lays of Hamlet--even more so than a revenge mission. No wonder Gibson's Hamlet looks panicky through the whole movie.

Polonius--verbose he may be, but he's no fool. In fact, as played by Ian Holm, he's a bit of a snake-in-the-grass, currying favor with a calculated duplicitousness. And quite capable of sacrificing his daughter in order to further the fortunes of his son Laertes. And he lets her know in no uncertain terms that she must perform her duties as bait for the good of her family, though not necessarily for her own. His fate seems particularly deserved, rather than an unfortunate ironic happenstance in Elsinore's machinations.

The "To Be Or Not To Be" speech--Gibson walks down stone stairs into the dark to contemplate action/inaction and life/death and does well with "the" speech. His Hamlet is usually at wit's end (heh), but here he is hushed and still, as if not to wake the dead. Apt, as the location he's chosen to do his ruminating is the burial site for old King Hamlet. That's the King's sarcophagous in the back-ground of the screen-cap. Hamlet might be in his own version of Hell during the speech.
Gritty, grimy, with the drama accentuated rather than the artifice of the verse, this "Hamlet" is a fine interpretation. Gibson might have been the star (and the chief draw), but the humanization of the ghost and the bodice-ripping interpretation of Ophelia make it one to remember in the further explorations of The Great Play.