Annihilation

The directorial debut of writer Alex Garland, whose most famous novel is The Beach and whose screenplays include 28 Days Later (and its sequel, 28 Weeks Later), Sunshine, Never Let Me Go, and Dredd, was Ex Machina from three years ago. It was a bold yet subtly eerie look at AI; not quite dystopian, but bordering on it. In his follow-up, Garland has adopted the novel by Jeff VanderMeer called Annihilation. In this story, there again is a "not-good place", called "the Shimmer", a quarantined expanse where creatures mutate, and yet this film is grander and features a lot more big swings. One of them is that Garland is not going to give a lot of answers, and while that may still work fifty years on with something like 2001: A Space Odyssey, it doesn't work here.

It's not as if Annihilation doesn't try. It does often look like Annihilation takes inspiration from the avant-garde 2001 (along with Alien, Jurassic Park, and a touch of Pan's Labyrinth), certainly in terms of visuals. But pretty images do not make up for a lack of story and character development, and they certainly don't, on their own, inspire and excite viewers, or at the very least wake those who are bored out of their mind. Such is the problem with Annihilation.

The movie starts in an ominous way. A character named Lena sits answering questions, not sure of much, especially the whereabouts of her colleagues. She wears white medical clothing, quarantined, being questioned by a character played by Benedict Wong, and she seems totally dazed and confused, unable to recall anything of her nearly four months in the Shimmer. We can deduce that she is the sole survivor. Lena is a cancer professor and former soldier going through grief after the death of her partner, Kane (played by Oscar Isaac), a soldier who has died in a mission she knows little about.

This would certainly make Kane walking into her home even more surprising to her, but that he does. Still, something is certainly off about it. He doesn't feel well, and he is rushed to a hospital after falling into a seizure. Here, Lena meets Dr. Ventress (played by Jennifer Jason Leigh), who tells Lena about the Shimmer, how the scientists have "many theories, few facts" regarding the mysterious entity. Is it religious in nature? Extra-terrestrial? No one knows. Kane was part of team that tried to find out; they failed. He's in good company, as everyone and everything they have sent in to try and discover answers has never returned. Perhaps the environment kills them, or perhaps they go crazy and kill each other. Lena, determined to find an answer to what ails her lover, joins Ventress and other scientists: Anya Thorensen (Gina Rodriguez), Cass Sheppard (Tuva Novotny), and Josie Radek (Tessa Thompson). She pointedly does not tell them about her connection to Kane, fearing it would "complicate" things.     

The Shimmer is like a macabre version of Neverland, a state park with a lush, green forest surrounded by a transparent layer that looks similar to oil mixing with water. Flowers have mutated into gorgeous new species. But almost immediately, the characters start to lose their memories. They've been there for days, and yet they can remember almost nothing. Adding to the Neverland quality is giant crocodiles, but these ones happen to have teeth similar to sharks.

It's a real, real shame that a film with such intriguing female roles for great female actors has turned out so dull. In Ex Machina, women also had a majority of the roles, but it felt exploitative at times. Not so here. Thompson is a real marvel in the movie. Her performance is so unlike her recent work in films like Creed and Thor: Ragnorok. She transforms into this character, a shy but clever individual, not in an ostentatious way, and the subtle choices she's made make her almost unrecognizable. I was a little more disappointed in the performances of Leigh and Rodriguez, who both overdo things, mostly in different ways. Portman is mostly fine, yet her being cast is another example of whitewashing in Hollywood, as the character in the original book series is described as Asian. (Additionally, Leigh's character is described as half-Native American.)

Annihilation certainly requires a lot more patience than Ex Machine does. It's a lot sillier, too. The motivation of Lena's character to go on such a mission is too difficult to believe. Like Sam Neill or Jeff Goldblum before her, it is not plausible for her to accept. This movie is more Prometheus than Alien, and yet it thinks the reverse is true. The characters certainly seem like they're straight out of the former, as they don't feel they need protective masks when walking around the Shimmer. Garland and team try the whole less-is-more approach, and yet it often does not pay off. There are horror moments that are not frightening in the slightest, action scenes that aren't thrilling in the slightest, and the whole thing feels like it would work better as a spooky short story written by someone in middle school.

Is Annihilation pretentious? Most likely. Boring? Definitely. Ultimately, there is not a single exciting or interesting moment throughout this film. Annihilation might challenge you to think, but who would be inspired to engage in such inquiry about a movie like this?

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Jackie

Those very first notes of Mica Levi's score, with its juxtaposition of strings, flute, and occasionally a clarinet, for the film Jackie, about Jacklyn Kennedy in her final tumultuous days at the White House in 1963, are immediate notifications that this film is going to be spellbinding. Only one week after the assassination, Jackie Kennedy is distraught, yet she has an undeniable fervor to make sure history remembers her husband, preferably more like Lincoln than McKinley. That is the simplest, most succinct way to explain this remarkably complicated story.

But the ironic thing is that history was kind to her husband's legacy for about fifty years. He's still well liked, often ranking around 15 or so among presidential scholars. But many historians, according to biographer Robert Dallek, author of the highly regarded and fair An Unfinished Life, think he was average or even slightly below average. The public, which usually forgets that it was his successor who accomplished the Great Society and not him (or that JFK may not have been one of the presidents during most of the Vietnam War, but his policies helped get us there), still hold him think highly of him. Perhaps he can owe that legacy to his wife.

But what of his wife's image these days? An initial search for articles about how the public views her only brings up stories about how her pink suit is being locked away (and won't be available for the public to view until 2103). But dig a bit deeper and it's easy to find what an optimist would call "adoration" but a neutral observer (or pessimist) might call "spell". Her approval ranking in the late 1990s was higher than Mother Theresa, Helen Keller, and any living president at that time. Unlike with regards to her husband, the historians' opinions largely match the public's: she was behind only Eleanor Roosevelt and Abigail Adams, according to a recent survey.  

Jackie, written by Noah Oppenheim and directed by Pablo Larrain, is a movie with a pretty darn good cast, to say the least. Billy Crudup is the first actor to appear besides Natalia Portman, who is nominated for Best Actress and is one of the front-runners. Crudup is Theodore H. White, the journalist whom Jackie summoned immediately to help rescue JFK's legacy. It is his article in Life magazine that drew a connection to the famous Broadway play, that "for one brief shining moment, there was known as Camelot." Here too is Peter Saarsgaard (who acted with Portman in Garden State) as Robert Kennedy, Greta Gerwig as the White House Social Secretary Nancy Tuckerman, John Carroll Lynch as Lyndon Johnson, Richard E. Grant as William Walton (the painter and Kennedy confidante), and in his final performance, John Hurt as an Irish priest comforting Jackie.

Other than Portman's, Hurt's is the most interesting to watch. At first, his performance as the priest comes across as indifferent, like he's consoled too many widows and doesn't have time for one more. Then it seems like he's at least willing to listen, so long as he can spout memorized platitudes about the ubiquity of God. He even does not seem unsure or unwilling to say that "God was in the bullet" that killed JFK when Jackie throws that conundrum at him. By the end, though, it seems that he not only is a decent listener, but his advice is probably as good as one's can be to a person in mourning. "There comes a time in man's search for meaning," he tells her, "when one realizes that there are no answers. And when you come to that horrible, unavoidable realization, you accept it or you kill yourself, or you simply stop searching." He goes on, but I will leave it to the viewer to listen to his voice, and let it serve as a reminder that he will be so very much missed.

The first dialogue in the film, a tense humorless banter session between a grieving widow angry at how the press is handling the aftermath of the assassination, and a journalist (Crudup) confused about what to say and skeptical of how much control Mrs. Kennedy has with the article he's writing sets a sufficient tone. Within moments of the scene, it's clear just how much preparation Portman put into this role, her best work since her Oscar-winning performance in Black Swan. She likely practiced and practiced until she perfected that very wealthy, breathy Mid-Atlantic voice of Jackie's. It's not simply an imitation, but one that requires her to be scared, sad, bitter, confused, angry, comforting, and concerned.

She puts it to best use when we see Jackie fight back against the new administration to make sure JFK gets what she believes to be the most appropriate funeral. She confronts Jack Valenti (the LBJ aide and future president of the Motion Picture Association of America, played here by Max Casella). As she heads out the door, it seems Valenti has won and there will be a more modest procession for safety purposes. But won he has not. Jackie turns back to him. "Mr. Valenti, would you mind getting a message to all of our funeral guests when they arrive?" He will. "Inform them that I will walk with Jack tomorrow--alone if necessary. And tell General De Gaulle that if he wishes to ride in an armored car or in a tank for that matter, I won't blame him. And I'm sure the tens of millions of people watching won't either." Why is she doing this? She's just doing her job, she asserts.

There are expected historical inaccuracies throughout, but overall this is a powerful look at the emotional state of not simply a widow who will raise her children husbandless but of a woman who must face what just about no one else has had to. She must also explain to her two children that their father is gone; she must avoid the nightmares brought by the memory of her husband being shot right in front of her, his brain matter all over the car and his blood on her dress; and she must mourn while the whole world watches. "How do I do this?" she whispers as she walks to the children, ready to tell them the heinous news. She tries the route where she explains that their daddy is in Heaven keeping their baby brother Patrick company. "But what about us?" Caroline asks. Enough of that; change course. It's time for Caroline to be a brave girl. Then Jackie and her brother-in-law watch the alleged murderer answer questions on television.    

Perhaps this is an unexpected story, but Jack's part of the Kennedy story has been told ad nauseum. JFK has been portrayed by Cliff Robertson, Martin Sheen (who has played both JFK and RFK), Bruce Greenwood, Greg Kinnear, James Marsden, Rob Lowe and others. Aside from the 1991 miniseries called A Woman Named Jackie, her story still has been largely untold. Most Americans might simply be able to remember her grace and style, but not much else. Now that most Americans probably have no idea about the context of Camelot, it's apt for a movie like this. And it's done just the right way.

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Black Swan

I'm am not an expert on Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake," the ballet at the center of the Darren Aronofsky-directed thriller "Black Swan," (though I enjoy listening to it for relaxation). But I do know a thing or two about unpredictability after reading Nassim Nicholas Talem's "The Black Swan," a philosophy book about improbability and how to deal with it. The title comes from a Latin expression--more or less that a good man is as rare as a black swan (black swans were thought to have been non-existent). With the discovery of black swans in the seventeenth century, a millennium of thinking had instantly been erased. Moments of unpredictability--the outbreak of World War I, 9/11--present a "black swan problem."

There are characters here in Aronofsky's movie that participate in this game so that their desired outcome is achieved. However, its central player, performed by Natalie Portman, is one who is feeble and unable to do as the other characters do. But it's much more complicated than that--it appears she is going crazy.

Portman plays Nina, a young ballerina with a passion for perfection (a common theme in Aronofsky's films). She is determined to the point where some things do not seem quite right. Her director Thomas (Vincent Cassel) is demanding her to push harder to let herself go for the Black Swan part, to release her sexuality. Her mother (Barbara Hearshey) is overprotective, decorating her daughter's room with a painful amount of pink stuffed animals, and probably jealous of her daughter's success. What augments Nina's madness is that she now has a competitor named Lily (Mina Kunis). Lily has the easy ability to seduce which Nina lacks; it becomes evident to Nina that Lily is after her part, and the director is taking notice of the latter.

The movie will likely remind audience members of Roman Polanski's "Rosemary's Baby," particularly aspects such as sexuality, a strong female lead, creepiness, and the frightening presence of a scary man-bird. One disappointing aspect, however, is sometimes the dialogue is a bit (perhaps intentionally) silly. Thomas takes Nina back to his apartment one evening presumably to seduce her. He asks her questions: "Do you enjoy making love?" and she is noticeably embarrassed. "Sex," he says. "Do you like it?" She nervously giggles--the stuff of bad porn movies.

But this is one of the most stylish and gorgeous horror films in a while. There are moments that Aronofsky does not allow his camera to focus on, like spots of blood or muscles rotating or Nina being alone in the dark, but are still details that are impossible to ignore. (Personally, clipping nails and people standing straight up on their toes is difficult to watch, so this had better be sufficient preparation for "127 Hours.") In the first few moments, Aronofsky grabs your attention and refuses to relinquish it. He does this with the help of the music of "Swan Lake" as well as the original score by Clint Mansell, the cinematography of Matthew Libatique, and of course his performers. Natalie Portman gives the very best performance of her career so far, and as of this writing highly deserves the Academy Award. In "Black Swan" there is an expected amount of symbolism, a heavy amount of duality,  and just the right amount of ambiguity. There are oft-used moments of people hiding in the dark and something arbitrarily jumping out to make us scared, but Aronofsky does not use these so they feel hackneyed. Instead, one gets the sense that this is an entirely original film.

I have never seen a bad film by Aronofsky, and I hope I never will. If one will exist, then the world is indeed unpredictable.

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