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05-02-12
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These are excerpts from reviews of Jessica Chastain's films from a variety
of sources. Click Full Review to see more from any review. All links here are
viewable at no charge, though some may require a free registration. See also Jessica
Chastain's web page and Jessica
Chastain Movies on Chastain Central.
2012 is Jessica's Second Big Year for Movies!
Index
Chastain Central chooses reviews based on three primary critera:
- The very earliest reviews, so that we can get an idea of the film from its
first viewers
- Reviews dealing specifically with the performance of Jessica Chastain
- Reviews which provide particularly valuable insight into the film
For additional reviews, see Jessica's pages on Metacritic
and Rotten
Tomatoes.
Movies in Alpha Order
Blackbeard ~ Coriolanus ~
The Debt ~ The Help ~ Jolene ~ Killing Fields ~ Lawless
Orient Express ~ Stolen ~ Take Shelter ~ Tree of Life ~ Wettest County ~ Wilde Salome
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Lawless (The Wettest County in the
World)
Background
10-18-11
Excellent Performances in Wettest County and Jessica in the Buff
(Latino Review) This is probably the best work I've seen from LaBeouf since
Disturbia, but he's no match for the likes of Tom Hardy as well as Gary Oldman.
Hardy's been stealing just about every movie he's been in nowadays and he almost
does with this one. The real surprise is actually Guy Pearce, star of Hillcoat's
The Proposition as a no nonsense deputy out to enforce the law. He puts Michael
Shannon in Boardwalk Empire to shame. There's so many good things about this
movie that I don't want to spoil it for your readers, but I will say it features
an excellent and brutal killing montage cut to Velvet Underground's "White
Light, White Heat" that's just amazing. The film also features Mia Wasikowski
and Jessica Chastain who we actually get to see in the buff. The audience I saw
the film with left the theater just as amazed as I and this film will be a
critical darling when it hits later this year. Full
Review To Index
Coriolanus
Background
12-01-11
Jessica is Pure Sunshine in Coriolanus (Los Angeles Times) Chastain,
who has had such a remarkable year already, one that has included a comical
blond in "The Help" and mothers variously tested in "Take Shelter" and "The Tree
of Life," is pure sunshine here as Martius' devoted wife Virgilia. The actress
invests the language with such a lyrical lightness, it's as if she grew up
quoting Shakespeare over breakfast. Meanwhile, Butler is a nice surprise,
handling the nuances of his rebel fighter as well as the knife he favors for
fighting. It ranks as one of his most affecting performances to date. But
"Coriolanus" belongs to Cox. The veteran character actor ("Troy," "Braveheart,"
Bournes "Identity" and "Supremacy," and so on) steals the show as the wily
politician Menenius. It is delicious to watch him coaxing and cajoling with the
slick finesse of a D.C. lobbyist. Saying volumes with the arch of a brow and the
tilt of his head, using a mirthless laugh for punctuation, Cox is the grease
that keeps the wheels of this complicated narrative moving along. Full
Review To Index
12-01-11 Coriolanus Gets it Right (Reuters UK) "Coriolanus," the
directorial debut of actor Ralph Fiennes, gets it right. Featuring battle
sequences with the same immediacy as the last decade's worth of Iraq/Afghanistan
movies, and scenes where it feels perfectly natural for iambic pentameter to be
coming out of the mouths of cable-news pundits, this "Coriolanus" fits perfectly
into the modern world and raises questions that are as tough for contemporary
viewers as they were for the groundlings at the Globe…But even with the fine
acting by Fiennes, Butler, Jessica Chastain (if you're keeping score, this is
her sixth movie of 2011) and Brian Cox, "Coriolanus" belongs to Redgrave, who's
not so much an actress here as a force of nature. Full
Review To Index
12-01-11 Coriolanus Action Sequences are Clean and Clear
(Movieline) The cutting in Fiennes's action sequences is clean and clear, not
choppy. And Coriolanus's tussles with his sometime-rival, sometime-cohort Tullus
Aufidius (played by an amazingly not-horrible, if not exactly good, Gerard
Butler) are worked out with the right mix of outright male aggression and
twisted mutual admiration. It's only when the two find themselves in the clinch,
their musclebound arms wrapped firmly around each other's necks, that they
realize they're just two sides of the same coin…But the sleekest weapon in
Fiennes's arsenal is Vanessa Redgrave, who plays Coriolanus's tough-love mom,
Volumnia. If Coriolanus is cool as steel, we can see where he gets it: Volumnia
is his female counterpart, his true partner in his life's work, as the story's
incestuous undertones suggest. (The young actress Jessica Chastain plays
Coriolanus's retreating, suffering wife, Virgilia.) Redgrave's Volumnia has the
carriage of a warrior queen, her voice the smoothness and the bite of honey
still in the comb - she makes even the play's densest language seem as if it
were written yesterday. Full Review To Index
11-30-11 Coriolanus a Tough, Compelling Drama (Huffington Post)
Never a popular part of the Shakespeare canon, Coriolanus (opening in limited
released Friday, 12/2/11) bears a peculiar timeliness, in the muscular
directorial debut by Ralph Fiennes…But Fiennes isn't playing favorites. What
might be identified politically as left or right doesn't matter to Caius
Martius, the central character played by Fiennes, who will be given the
honorific "Coriolanus" after his military victory over Rome's enemies, the
Volscians, in the city of Corioles…everything is different when you've saved the
city from invasion. Suddenly Martius is being hailed -- not just as a hero but
as a possible candidate for consul, the country's top office. Indeed, he is
initially voted into the office -- until his enemies start making mischief…
Every politician knows you have to kiss up to the electorate -- but Martius is a
military man, not a political one. He balks at the idea of kowtowing to anyone,
especially the rabble who, only weeks earlier, he had been manhandling with his
riot-gear-equipped soldiers. He mocks the idea of populist rule -- and the
populace rebels. Just that fast, he's not only turned out of office but banished
from the country… Jessica Chastain, as Martius' wife, can only stand by, looking
helpless and pained. Indeed, it's hard to imagine this marriage, given the
rough, resolute version of Martius that Fiennes presents. This is a man with
little give, a man whose own standards and rules of behavior ultimately distance
him from everyone and prove his undoing… Coriolanus is tough, compelling drama,
a comprehensible Shakespeare adaptation that glories in the Bard's language and
ideas, even as it captures one of his most intriguingly troubled heroes. Full
Review To Index
11-29-11 Coriolanus Reverberates in Today's Strife-filled Times
(SignOnSanDiego) Of the many politicians we've seen undone by scandal and
mismanaged crises, we've not yet seen one dare try to fight a media storm by
calling the common people "measles." Leaders with deaf ears and publics that
sway capriciously are eternal themes that certainly reverberate in today's
strife-filled times. It's no wonder Ralph Fiennes saw fit to transport
Shakespeare's tragedy (not one of his highest regarded) from its fifth century
BC setting to a contemporary world… The gritty first half of the film is largely
shot handheld, which, while surely a fitting style for a film about war and
political tumult, grows tiresome and overused. There's a feeling of rushing and
of some clunky contemporizing. Fiennes plays Coriolanus with all-consuming rage,
which overshadows the character's other qualities. While he does seem, like
Hamlet, displaced from his natural role, Coriolanus' humility doesn't quite come
through. The pace of the camera and the storytelling improves considerably in
the second half, or the play's fourth and fifth acts. The whole production finds
its balance and Fiennes' performance grows fuller, finally bursting forth in a
late rush of sympathy at the end. [Also includes excellent description of
setting and plot]. Full
Review To Index
11-27-11 Jessica is Riveting as Ever in Coriolanus (New York
Magazine) Fiennes and Logan haven't made a definitive Coriolanus, but they've
made a sensationally gripping one. They have the pulse of the play, its firm
martial beats and its messy political clatter. They tell a good story…Fiennes
shoots these sequences with handheld cameras and gets in the warriors' faces,
chief among them his own, a scowling mask with a map of ugly scars. Those scars
have dramatic weight…how much more at home Coriolanus is in the presence of his
bitterest Volscian enemy, Tullus Aufidius (Gerard Butler), than with anyone
else, including his stunner of a wife (Jessica Chastain, riveting as ever). As
her son's most vigorous political promoter, Volumnia is also his most effective
saboteur-not to mention the scariest political matriarch this side of Angela
Lansbury in The Manchurian Candidate…But there isn't a performance misjudged or
a line misspoken. True, it's bizarre to hear Shakespeare's language in the
mouths of TV newsreaders and commentators on the Roman-Volscian conflict. Full
Review To Index
10-21-11 Coriolanus is an Impressively Staged Production but a Bit
Long (OntheBox) It's an impressively staged production. It's supposedly set
in Rome but looks more like the blasted wasteland of Full Metal Jacket - strewn
debris and gutted buildings. The modern setting coupled to Shakespearian
dialogue is initially a bit jarring but soon settles into an even pace: the
crowd capture protests with smart phones; grenade launchers reduce towns to
smoking rubble; rolling news channels constantly report the latest updates…but
It's a shame that Jessica Chastain, a superb actress, is wasted, as she's given
very few lines as Corialanus' wife Virgilia… Unfortunately, there are a few
blips along the way. There's a reason that Coriolanus is one of Shakespeare's
lesser known plays and that's because it's actually quite dull. It lacks the
dramatic punch that it needs to sustain its weighty running time of 127 minutes
and by the second half, you'll be glancing regularly at your watch. Full
Review To Index
10-19-11 Coriolanus is Perfect Blend of Stage and Screen (Front
Row Reviews) Fiennes has moulded Coriolanus into the perfect blend of stage and
screen taking us deep into the eye of a tyrant. It is a grand and staggering
achievement that transposes the timeless words of the Bard to a world that is
technologically and visually contemporary but audibly and thematically
archaic…Coriolanus succeeds because it is very much about character, about
relationships, and about their strengths and their weaknesses. It eschews direct
focus on context and period - fleeting television reports and scrolling news
banners provide much of the exposition - choosing to cast key players as the
prevailing forces, and this is in keeping with Shakespeare's writing itself as
he too used outside contextual forces only as a vehicle for further highlighting
the virtues or flaws of his players. Here Fiennes does this in equal measure by
infusing his film with high drama born from the clashes of characters, not of
armies or political powers. Key supporting roles are played superlatively by
Venessa Redgrave as Coriolanus' overbearing but caring matriarch, Brian Cox as
the visibly calculating silver tongued politician Menenius and the porcelain
Jessica Chastain as the wholly conflicted wife of the scorched hero…this is
heart-gripping, adrenalin pumping filmmaking where we are bombarded by words not
actions, and all's the better for it. The language on display here may
necessitate concentration and an openness to its linguistic complexity but that
effort bears rich fruits. Full
Review To Index
10-17-11 Coriolanus Does Well in Modern Context (Impact Magazine)
It's clearly Fiennes' film, he is absolutely brilliant as the headstrong and
volatile Martius Coriolanus, warrior and defender of Rome but no friend of the
city's people. His direction is also fairly good, but it suffers from a few
setbacks…Casting the bearded Butler in a Shakespeare adaptation always seemed
like a strange move and unfortunately there is no miraculous turnup - he spits
out his lines, which are all unaltered from the original text, as if they were
hieroglyphics. It's not his fault though, he's just miscast. Jessica Chastain,
Brian Cox, James Nesbitt and Vanessa Redgrave make up the supporting cast and
they are all superb - there is, however, a noticeably eclectic mix of accents,
once again detracting from the spectacle…who's going to watch it? It's extremely
loud and bloody, which is likely to put off most Shakespeare fans, and it's
Shakespeare, which is likely to put off most non-Shakespeare fans. One aspect of
it that does work surprisingly well is the modern context. The guns-for-swords
change is seamless and there are a few nice touches, e.g. when newsreader Jon
Snow comes on TV to report on affairs in fluid thespian verse. Full
Review To Index
10-16-11 Coriolanus Possesses Moments of Flair and Originality, but is
Ultimately Disappointing (Cine-Vue) Coriolanus - like any Shakespearean hero
- is not without its flaws. There are numerous scenes added to the text in order
to provide context, which feel extremely clumsy. More surprisingly, the main
problem lies with Fiennes' performance - in Coriolanus, he acts as if on stage.
Screen acting and theatrical performance require different skills; this
essential point appears to be something Fiennes has forgotten. He doesn't always
utilise the camera, instead choosing instead to sweep across the set in a
fashion all to reminiscent of his OTT performance as Voldermort in the Harry
Potter franchise…Coriolanus is by no means entirely weak, at times possessing
moments of flair and originality, but it is ultimately disappointing. Full
Review To Index
08-12-11 Modern Day Shakespearian Coriolanus Fits Together (Indie
Wire) Rookie feature director Ralph Fiennes and veteran screenwriter John Logan
(The Aviator) have crafted a strong modern adaptation of Shakespeare’s bloody
war tragedy Coriolanus. Fiennes shines in the central role, which he played on
the London stage in 2000 to raves...Vanessa Redgrave, as his Machiavellian
mother Volumnia, could win the Oscar for best supporting actress...Jessica
Chastain, as Coriolanus’s sensitive wife Virgilia, is fine in a tiny role, and
Gerard Butler is superb in a crucial part as Coriolanus’s sworn enemy, Aufidius,
an equally fearsome general of the rebel forces, who eventually allies with
Coriolanus...Fiennes grabbed some money from the BBC and from backers in Serbia;
the movie was shot in Belgrade on a hand-held shoestring by The Hurt Locker‘s
Barry Ayckroyd. This alternative Roman universe—with cars, uniforms, armored
tanks and machine guns—all fits together...Here’s a sampling of Berlin reviews:
Full
Review To Index
The Texas Killing
Fields
Background
10-17-11
Jessica Once Again Surprising as a Texas Cop (Huffington Post) This is one
of those thrillers that relies on the unreliability of cell phones for suspense.
It also layers on a testy relationship between a pair of divorced cops
(Worthington and the ever-present Jessica Chastain) who are forced to work
together. And, finally, it's a movie where cops who should know better rush into
dangerous situations without backup. Of course, without that kind of cop, where
would movies like this be? There are car chases, fights, scenes of tense
interrogations - all the essentials. While Mann gets believable performances out
of her cast - Chastain once again surprising, this time as a rough-'em-up Texas
cop - she can't make Texas Killing Fields into a believable or compelling film.
It feels half-baked and half-hearted. Full
Review To Index
10-14-11 Texas Killing Fields a Rare Film and an Entrancing
Thriller (Examiner.com) The film is also visually stunning, carrying "a
ghost-like and tantalizing beautiful appeal"…The effect is poignant making the
design and camera movement effective from beginning to end - a fantastic
storytelling tool. The acting is superb, especially from newcomer Chlo? Grace
Moretz and Jessica Chastain (Tree of Life, The Help) both able to captivate
everyone in the audience. Texas Killing Fields is a rare film, and entrancing
thriller that will keep playing in the audience's head even after the last frame
of the picture has ended. Full
Review To Index
10-14-11 Solid Cast Moves through Stench of Death in The Texas Killing
Fields (TIME) The solid cast plays this material as if it were brand
new. Worthington, taking a break from blockbusters before shooting the sequels
to Avatar and Clash of the Titans, is the steely foil to Morgan, a sad-eyed
Javier Bardem lookalike who makes a tender humanity seem the highest form of
machismo. Chastain and Moretz, who between them have appeared in every single
recent American movie (correction: only 13 films in the past two years), provide
exemplars of the smart, sexy woman and the beautiful, imperiled child. But all
the characters - the heroes, the villains, the victims and the other sickly
shades - tread through the narrative as if they are drenched in the stench of
death. In an eye-blink the place could explode around them, or the dank ground
could consume them. Full
Review To Index
10-14-11 Killing Fields Effectively Depicts Mood of a Community Under
Siege (Film School Rejects) With a memorable Jeffrey Dean Morgan performance
at its center, Texas Killing Fields boasts a human dimension that enhances the
impact of its strong noir craft. The blackness engulfing the picture's Texas
City setting mirrors the tormented souls of detectives Brian Heigh (Morgan), a
New York transplant, and hotheaded local boy Mike Sounder (Sam Worthington). The
men are investigating a string of unsolved murders that have culminated in the
bodies of teenage female victims being found in an oil field outside of town,
which the locals have nicknamed the "killing fields." As the specter of these
murders hangs over all, the town has been immersed in a sort of sinister
dread…In grays and browns, on rainy nights and bleak days, the filmmaker
portrays a community under siege. Vultures soar over the killing fields, the
characters delve straight into the muck and an ever-encroaching anxiety adds
urgency to the investigation. The film isn't quite of Zodiac's caliber, but it
offers a similar portrait of police officers meticulously struggling with a
faceless deadly enemy, while simultaneously stressing the ramifications of life
under a constant terror threat. Mann crafts several strong set pieces, including
a lengthy shootout and a genuinely gripping home invasion. She has an eye for
sharp, subtly disorienting mobile camerawork that ably shapes the downtrodden
look and feel of the morose setting and its inhabitants. Full
Review To Index
10-13-11 Texas Killing Fields Needs More Room for Jessica (LA
Weekly) Worthington's botched accent often makes him sound more like the
transplanted New Yorker that glum Morgan is supposed to be playing, and one
often wishes they'd both clear out to make room for more of Jessica Chastain,
here as a detective from a neighboring township with an Annie Oakley complex
after a lifetime of dealing with surly good ol' boys. Full
Review To Index
10-13-11 Good Performers in Bad Script (Los Angeles Times) There is a lot
of angst and anger walking around on-screen trying to pass for substance, mostly
a lot of cops getting all up in criminals' faces. But as good as Worthington,
Chastain, Moretz and Morgan can be as they try to untangle the morass and the
menace - and get caught up in it - they just can't quite pull it off. (Though
let me give a shout-out to whoever helped Chastain and Worthington master a very
credible Texas drawl - well done). The real killer, sadly, is the script… things
are either under-explained, like the Worthington character's seething rage, or
over-explained, like everything about a key suspect, the many-tattooed Rule
(Jason Clarke). The narrative swings wildly between people and places and
events, which requires a lot of mood swings of the actors. That would be fine if
they were grounded in a reality that we either understood or were interested in.
Full
Review To Index
10-13-11 Killing Fields Suffers from Periodic Lulls (Indie Wire)
By surveying various disconnected lives in an opening sequence, Mann shows a
willingness to push beyond the familiar procedural routine and put the town in
closeup. It's a dreary place: In addition to a cookie-cutter pair of officers on
the killer's tail, the ensemble includes Chloe Grace Moretz as the adolescent
child of a broken home that's constantly under the scrutiny of Officer Brian
Heigh (Jefrey Dean Morgan). A solemn and religious man always at odds with his
responsibilities, he routinely clashes with his no-nonsense partner, Mike Souder
(Sam Worthington). And then there's their measured colleague, Pam Stall (Jessica
Chastain, in a tough counterpoint to her many softer roles), who often
negotiates between their extreme reactions. But she can only do so much. From an
early interrogation scene, it's clear that Brian and Mike inhabit the
good-cop-bad-cop routine not by choice but by nature. However, the derivative
characters don't hold down the potential of "Texas Killing Fields." Instead, it
suffers from periodic lulls. The sleepy town has secrets to hide, but Mann
doesn't generate enough interest to make it worth unraveling them. Full
Review To Index
10-13-11 Texas Killing Fields: Decent Performances Undone by a Tepid
Screenplay (Crave Online) Not that Texas Killing Fields enrages me, but then
that's a big part of the problem. It failed to elicit a single, palpable
emotional reaction throughout the entire running time thanks to muddled
plotting, leisurely pacing and disappointing performances from actors trying to
elevate material that is clearly beneath them. Texas Killing Fields is
dramatically out to lunch… The plot of Texas Killing Fields would be pretty thin
for a Law & Order episode, and it isn't aided by confusing storytelling…At
one point Worthington says something to the effect of, "Do you even know where
you are?" And that's when I realized that I had no idea where they were. I was
never sure where the heck anything was in relation to the other locations in the
film, which is odd for a movie in which geography is an important plot point...
It's a plodding, confusing film with decent performances that are undone by a
tepid screenplay riddled with plot holes and dangling threads. Full
Review To Index
10-10-11 Killing Fields Starts Well but Unsatisfying in the End
(Indie Wire) A dark, intense and psychologically bruising picture, the technical
chops evinced in Mann's belated sophomore feature-length are impressive - from
adept editing, first-rate choreography of shots (plus a few artful establishing
ones) and perfectly gloomy cinematography, she's got it all down cold. However,
while she's clearly got an eye for filmmaking, the rest of the film could use a
little (or a lot of) work as there's a litany of problems that eventually make
for a deeply unsatisfying picture. Opening well, right in the middle of
conflict, we're introduced to Mike Sounder (an unintelligible Sam Worthington);
a local homicide detective investigating the appearance of female body in the
nearby bayous. His new partner is Brian Heigh, a cop from New York (Jeffrey Dean
Morgan), who is helping him investigate what appears to be a new addition to a
series of unsolved murders…Likewise, another detective on the crime scene is a
fiery redhead Detective Pam Stall (Jessica Chastain), who we learn is Sounder's
ex-wife (though truthfully, this plot point feels a little too convenient and
contrived, the first clue of amiss things to come)… Casting is a major issue.
"Avatar" star and Australian actor Sam Worthington, cast as a native Texan when
American actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan is also in the cast seems like a deeply
puzzling decision. Worthington's version of a Southern accent is mumbled
incoherence - a bizarre choice perhaps as an attempt to mask his accent's
shortcomings…Chastain's role is typically rote on the page, but like a lot of
her thankless roles this year ("Take Shelter" could have been one), this fine
actress injects an urgency to everything she does and always elevates middling
material…There's a lot of individual things to admire about "Texas Killing
Fields," at least early on, but as a whole, it's deeply flawed, rather
predictable police procedural. Full
Review To Index
10-10-1 Texas Killing Fields an Engaging Movie that will Hold
Attention (Digital Spy) It's a bit of a mystery as to why Texas Killing
Fields has arrived with so little fanfare. In a week when a bloated 3D
blockbuster strong-arms its way into theatres, it's a pity that this thriller -
a perfectly decent alternative movie pick - will go unnoticed…Mike Sounder
(Worthington) is the temperamental local detective on the case, while Brian
Heigh (Morgan) is a New York cop who sits as a counter to his fiery partner.
Heigh, a religious family man, is naturally at odds with his colleague, who's
divorced from Chastain's detective Pam Stall…A shootout and car chase may pale
in comparison to Heat, but a later siege on Lucie's dilapidated home is gripping
and tense...The film occasionally breezes too quickly through its plot to
connect the dots and reach its conclusion. Lee's trailer trash mother,
Chastain's determined police officer and Graham's refinery worker are in need of
more screen time to flesh out their characters…Visually, too, the film never
quite fills out a widescreen frame enough to make it feel like essential viewing
at the cinema…That said, Texas Killing Fields is a solid police procedural with
strong performances from its four main actors. It hardly reinvents the
wheel…it's an engaging movie that will hold your attention. Full
Review To Index
09-23-11 The Texas Killing Fields Filled with Wasted Potential
(Neon Tommy) Despite the constant references to the Killing Fields and the
atrocities that have taken place there, the movie never taps into the full
potential of the setting and the white knuckle effect it could have had on the
audience. The storyline is mostly used to develop (poorly) its male characters
instead of the female victim's stories. The males are portrayed as dominant
characters opposite weak drug addict mothers, push over prostitutes and easy
targets. The only exception to this rule is the exceptionally tough skinned
Anne. Even Pam ( Jessica Chastain), Mike's ex-wife and fellow police detective
cannot help but beg for her male counterparts to solve the crime. Aside from the
powerful performance by Moretz and the jump-out-of-your-seat thrilling break in
that takes place in the first 20 minutes, the movie is full of wasted potential
and moments that fail to arrive…The final blow comes in the form of the trite
"several months later" black screen that is used to tie up the story with a neat
ending for a movie that never really began. Full
Review To Index
09-10-11 Texas Killing Fields is Run of the Mill Police Story
(Cine-Vue) Ami Canaan Mann's (daughter of Michael Mann) debut film Texas Killing
Fields (2011) is a run-of-the-mill police procedural, which really has no place
this year's Venice Film Festival. Detectives Souder (Sam Worthington) and Heigh
(Jeffrey Dean Morgan) are investigating a series of abductions and murders of
young women. The older detective is gripped by an almost religious sense of
mission whereas Souder for all his in-your-face attitude, fights shy of drifting
out of their jurisdiction. This latter point is particularly problematic as the
Texas Killing Fields - the dumping ground where most the bodies are found - are
in his ex-wife's jurisdiction. Jessica Chastain plays the role of the feisty
police officer with verve… Texas Killing Fields' cast performances are all
strong, particularly Sam Worthington. Full
Review To Index
09-09-11 The Fields Highly Entertaining for Lovers of the Genre and
Those who Like a Good Story (WhatCulture!) The film follows Texas City
homicide detectives Mike Souder (Sam Worthington) and Brian Heigh (Jeffrey Dean
Morgan) while they are trying to solve one of their cases (Maan has previously
claimed that there's still 27 cold cases in Texas) and outside their
jurisdiction there is what the locals call the Killing Fields, a muddy area
where many bodies of missing women are regularly found. Detective Pam, played by
Jessica Chastain…is in charge of the murder investigation and she asks for
Brian's help. Things are made more complicated because Brian and Mike are trying
to protect little Anne Sliger (Chloe Moretz), a sweet little blonde angel who's
mother "entertain men" in the house therefore forcing the kid to always be on
her own in the streets. Mann's direction is fluid and intriguing from the
get-go, she almost makes us feel as if we are flying inside a dream, or a
nightmare as later we find out…it's a film that perfectly belongs in the cop
genre, two cops chasing a serial killer, but Canaan Mann adds something more to
it. We see the drama from the detectives's perspective but also from the
victims. We are the victims of this crimes, we are the families of the dead
women…It's a highly entertaining film for the lovers of the genre but also for
those who like a good story and good filmmaking. Full
Review To Index
Take Shelter
Background
10-05-11
Ebert: Take Shelter is Masterful Filmmaking (Chicago Sun-Times) Here
is a frightening thriller based not on special effects gimmicks but on a dread
that seems quietly spreading in the land: that the good days are ending…It is
the gift of actor Michael Shannon as Curtis LaForche that while appearing to be
a stable husband and father with a good job in construction, he also can evoke
by his eyes and manner a deep unease… Stories about Curtis begin to spread in
the community, and Curtis is not paranoid when he thinks people are talking
about him. His explosion at a community benefit dinner is terrifying in its
energy…his wife, Jessica Chastain is effective in her seventh major role this
year; since "The Tree of Life," has any young actress ever put together such a
series of roles?... And then a storm comes. Its nature need not be discussed
here. It leads to a scene of searing power, in which Samantha tells Curtis that
it is safe once again to return to the surface - that it is a step he must take
personally. The story seems somewhat resolved. Then the film concludes not with
a "surprise ending" but with a series of shots that brilliantly summarize all
that has gone before. This is masterful filmmaking. Full
Review To Index
09-17-11 Jessica is the Eye to Shannon's Storm in Take Shelter
(Awards Daily) Further shelter from Curtis's intoxicating madness lies in
Jessica Chastain's performance as Samantha, Curtis's pragmatic wife. While
Samantha is possibly the least complexly written character Chastain has enacted
this year - she's hardly Celia Foote - the absence of baity material allows
Chastain to make the character her own, and she invests considerable range and
compassion to her character. Chastain is the eye to Shannon's storm. Most
laudable of Take Shelter, though, is the brilliantly spellbinding and ambiguous
final act. Writer/director Jeff Nichols takes Shelter into uncharted terrain and
ends the film with a dark open horizon. A haunting film, Take Shelter is surely
to be one of the critical darlings of 2011. Full
Review To Index
09-06-11 Take Shelter will be Remembered Years from Now (Exclaim!)
Beyond the deliberate pacing and languid eye detailing the bright blue skies of
the American Midwest, the painfully realistic dialogue and intensely nuanced
performances from both Chastain and Shannon propel this movie to a rare and
intense level of excellence. This is the kind of film that will be remembered
years from now. Full
Review To Index
07-05-11 Lebanese Review of Take Shelter (The Daily Star) BEIRUT:
Insanity has proven a wellspring of inspiration for filmmakers...Curtis sits at
the head of a young family. His wife Samantha (Jessica Chastain) works as a
seamstress from home. Their main preoccupation is their daughter Hannah (Tova
Stewart), whose deafness is apparently treatable...“Take Shelter” is a masterful
piece of work. The big-sky locations and the cinematography of Adam Stone make
the movie an impressive visual experience but the look of the thing is pressed
into servicing the mood Nichols wants to cultivate. That mood is dread and the
film generates and accumulates dread as effectively as any slasher flick could
ever hope to do...Curtis is not the only man in town to exhibit symptoms of
paranoia. Then in addition there are the incidental details of the film – from
the manifold references to the tough economic times everybody is confronting, to
the ravings of a gun shop patron about the military’s nearby stockpiles of
poison gas, to the crazed environmental distortions that inspire Curtis’
nightmares... Cannes Critics’ Week runs at Metropolis Cinema-Sofil until 8 July.
Full
Review To Index
06-30-11 Comment on Take Shelter Trailer (Flickering Myth) The
introduction is spot on: not too long, poignant and well-edited. The supporting
character comments the main character on the quality of his life, while said
main character is watching a threatening tornado approach with disturbing
curiosity rather than fear. A perhaps obvious marriage of audio and video for a
solid first five seconds, but they work. Overall, there is a nice progression of
events, a good build-up, an excellent choice of music, a steady pace. Full
Review To Index
05-19-11 Take Shelter Wins Grand Prize in Critics Week Competition
(TheWrap) A movie starring Jessica Chastain took the top prize in competition at
Cannes on Thursday – but it wasn't "The Tree of Life," in which Chastain appears
with Brad Pitt and Sean Penn, and it wasn’t the festival's main competition,
which will announce awards on Sunday. Rather, "Take Shelter," a psychological
thriller directed by Jeff Nichols and starring Michael Shannon and Chastain, won
the Grand Prize in the Critics Week competition, in which a jury headed by
Korean director Lee Chang-Dong singled out the film from among seven
competitors..."Take Shelter" also won the Society of Dramatic Authors and
Composers SACD prize. Full
Review To Index
05-17-11 Take Shelter Reflects Modern Sense of Dread
(IndieMoviesOnline) As a series of 21st century episodes have rocked faith in
western power structures – variable degrees of military impotence in Iraq,
Afghanistan and now Libya, terrorist atrocities bringing death to the streets of
our greatest cities, the financial masters of the universe being exposed as
trouserless blow-hards uselessly tinkering like the Wizard behind the curtain –
so the sense that a change is gonna come has mutated into a creeping existential
dread, an unending nightmare bereft of light and hope...It is hard not to
receive Take Shelter as an expressionistic document of that dread, what with its
study of the deterioration of construction worker Curtis LaForche...Curtis
dreams of sky-blotting twisters which spew urinary streams of brown rain, of his
dog attacking him, even of his wife, Samantha wielding a knife with menace
(Samantha, incidentally, is played by Jessica Chastain, who would be as
plausible as Shannon's daughter as she is as his wife. Maybe more so)...Working
hard and treasuring his loved ones is not going to be enough for Curtis to make
it. He has no belief that he can keep his job, no faith that he can protect his
deaf daughter, Hannah (Tova Stewart). His sole unshakable conviction is that the
world is too cruel and immense and powerful for him not to be crushed by
it...the film is hampered by a stony-faced sincerity...with Curtis positioned as
a tragic figure, a man betrayed by life, when in truth we...have to acknowledge
ourselves as at least partly culpable for our millennial woes. Full
Review To Index
05-16-11 Take Shelter is Parable of New US Anxiety (Screen
International) Emotionally authentic, and often moving, even while it flirts
with thriller, horror and disaster-movie genre traits, the film features a
riveting lead performance by Michael Shannon as a man struggling to come to
terms with the realisation that of the imminent threats to his family that he
sees all around him, the biggest may be himself. Awards action for Shannon is
not unthinkable; Nichols’s fine original script (marred only by some second-act
doldrums) and David Wingo’s sombre, ominous orchestral score also deserve
nods...Perhaps the film’s greatest strength though is the way it combines hints
that we’re watching a parable of the new US climate of anxiety with an
unflinching dedication to the reality of its characters’ plights. Chastain is
good as the film’s emotional touchstone, a mother striving to protect her child
but also hold on to the man she loves, and help him to separate hallucination
from reality. But it’s Shannon as a man desperate to keep a grip, yet unable to
rewire his mind, who really stands out. Rarely has a descent into madness been
presented with such disturbing and affecting empathy. Full
Review To Index
01-31-11 Take Shelter Director Says Jessica is the Pivotal
Character (Vanity Fair) When Jeff Nichols broke onto the scene with Shotgun
Stories, in 2007, not only did he make Michael Shannon a star, but he also made
quite a splash for himself...Take Shelter is already being called an American
masterpiece...[Nichols says,] Ultimately, this film is about marriage,
commitment, and communication...Michael Shannon is the main character, but
Jessica Chastain is the pivotal character. Will she stay with him? Will she not
stay? Will she support him? Will she not? The answer to that is the answer to
this stress and this fear and, ultimately, the film. If this movie isn’t a film
about marriage, commitment, and communication, what happens at the end,
literally, doesn’t really matter. Full
Review To Index
01-31-11 Jessica Matches Shannon Beat for Beat in Take Shelter
(JoBlo.com) Curtis (Michael Shannon) is a blue-collar worker, doing his best to
support his wife, Samantha (Jessica Chastain), and their young, deaf daughter.
All seems to be going well, until Curtis starts having strange, apocalyptic
dreams about an impending storm...Shannon's so good in the role that it would
have been all too easy for him to completely dominate the film, but amazingly,
the gorgeous Jessica Chastain, who plays his supportive, but no-nonsense wife,
matches him beat for beat. Chastain's got a big year ahead of her, with a
featured part in Terrence Mallick's TREE OF LIFE, and watching her here, it's
impossible to deny that she's a huge talent just waiting to break out. This
could have been the typical, hysterical wife role but Chastain gives her
character a strength that makes her a force to be reckoned with. At the same
time, it's made clear that she's madly in love with Curtis, as no matter how
crazy he acts, she's never willing to just give him up, or allow him to sink
into insanity...To me, TAKE SHELTER really felt like one of the big Sundance
discoveries of the year...I really can't recommend it highly enough, as it works
on so many levels. Full
Review To Index
01-28-11? Take Shelter Sundance Review #8 (/FILM) Though Take
Shelter moves like molasses punctuated with moments of frightening intensity, it
never loses its dramatic tension. Nichols’ script and direction bring the
audience into Curtis’s mindset. Much as he feels frightened, the pacing and
visuals build a continual anticipation. Is Curtis crazy? Is he a prophet? From
the minute the film begins, the audience is left with an uneasy feeling and we
can latch onto whomever we want, be it Curtis, his friends, his wife Samantha,
played by Jessica Chastain (Tree of Life) or his deaf daughter, played by Tova
Stewart. However, while the film remains gripping throughout, when it was over I
couldn’t help but be feel a little empty. Due to the pace of the film you have
plenty of time to read into it...it doesn’t quite give a hint as to what the
filmmaker was trying to say. What the film means is totally up to you. Full
Review To Index
01-28-11 Take Shelter Sundance Review #7 (Gordon and the Whale)
Since I’ve been attending film festivals, there’s always been that one film that
that leaves me slack-jawed. It sticks in my head for the duration of my stay,
and all I want to do is talk about it. If time allows, I’ll catch a second or
third screening of it. The fun part is taking fresh eyes with me, peeking at
their reactions during certain parts, and talking about it as we exit the
theater. This year at Sundance 2011, that film is Jeff Nichols’ TAKE
SHELTER...From the first shot in the film, Curtis starts having terrifying
dreams. They start with a wicked storm, pouring rain that resembles motor oil,
and they end with him awakening to screams and real pain. Each one gets
progressively worse. Are they predicting the end of the world? Appearing so
undeniably real, Curtis starts to confuse real life with the dream world. As
paranoia starts to take a toll, he begins to build a living quarters
underground, risking his job security, marriage, and friends...TAKE SHELTER is
proof that you don’t need to heavily rely on CGI to make a good story about the
apocalypse...This film though, is driven by its central characters, Curtis and
Samantha. As mentioned above, Shannon has no problem keeping my interest.
Neither did Chastain – she gives us her all as Samantha and it’s powerful. Full
Review To Index
01-28-11 Take Shelter Sundance Review #6 (Collider.com) Before the
screening of Take Shelter, writer-director Jeff Nichols explained to the
audience that he was attempting to tap into an emotion of dread and anxiety. For
the first act of his movie, he’s wildly successful at capturing that feeling.
Vivid, nightmarish dream sequences set the film up as a paranoid thriller. But
then Nichols hits the breaks, stops the dreams, and the tension slowly leaves
the picture as it moves at a glacial pace. While he’s able to eventually pick it
back up at the end and come to an interesting conclusion, he is never able to
reconnect with his audience...I applaud Nichols for trying to tie in legitimate
wide-spread fears with Curtis’ fear of the storm. Adam Stone’s cinematography is
gorgeous and full of stark colors and contrast. However, when the film hits the
second act, Nichols’ drops the dreams and slows the pacing to a crawl...Nichols
is able to get the movie back on track in the last twenty minutes by finally
pushing Curtis and Sam’s relationship to a turning point. But by then the damage
is done and we’ve been dragged along too slowly to feel invested in the
characters despite the strong visuals and performances...Take Shelter is almost
a brilliant paranoid thriller that slyly taps into contemporary dread. The story
just takes too long to get to where it needs to be. I understand Nichols wants
to hold tension by keeping scenes quiet and sparse...What’s most frustrating
about Take Shelter is that there’s a dull, slow-paced drama sandwiched between
an intense, paranoid thriller. Full Review To Index
01-26-11 Take Shelter Sundance Review #5 (Time Out Chicago) Take
Shelter, a doom-marinated drama that offers a first-row seat to one man’s
apocalyptic anxiety and psychological bust-up. Staring up at the sky as a nasty
Midwestern storm brews, a construction worker named Curtis (Michael Shannon)
radiates dread. Something is definitely troubling him: Maybe it’s those dreams
he’s been having, the ones filled with strange people attacking his
five-year-old daughter. Maybe it’s the motor oil that’s seemingly raining down
from the sky. Maybe it’s the flocks of birds flying in odd, helixlike patterns.
By the time he starts building an underground survival space in his backyard,
his long-suffering wife (Jessica Chastain) thinks he may truly be losing his
marbles. Us, we’re not so sure that his hallucinations aren’t omens of some bona
fide bad juju on the horizon. Is Curtis a paranoid schizophrenic or a
prophet?...You’re never sure whether he’s more scared that he’s going crazy, or
worse, that he isn’t, and as the visions start to get more vivid, Shannon lets
you see each seam slowly unraveling. Slowly, that is, until Nichols gives his
star a big “There’s a storm a-comin’!” screamfest, which is when Take Shelter
begins to lose its carefully cultivated cool. Even as the third act starts to
push the narrative into Twilight Zone territory, the sense of
this-is-the-way-the-world-ends that Nichols & Co. channel gets under your
skin and burrows there. Full
Review To Index
01-26-11 Take Shelter Sundance Review #4 (Vanity Fair) Movies can
occasionally be works of art. Take Shelter is such a film. Jeff Nichols’s
follow-up to his highly regarded first film, Shotgun Stories, is an existential
parable about the dread that underlies even the most modest life, and the
struggle to function that occurs when awareness of that dread overtakes your
soul. More concretely, Take Shelter follows the effects this baseless anxiety
has on that endangered species, the blue-collar American family man...when
increasingly bizarre nightmares about foreboding apocalyptic storms haunt him
well into the waking hours, this tightly woven life quickly unravels. The
insuperable anxieties these dreams provoke cause Curtis to exhibit more and more
erratic behavior...What moves you most about Take Shelter are the little moments
of Curtis playing with his daughter while building a storm shelter—as well as
Samantha’s fragile strength in both providing her husband comfort and pushing
him to overcome what threatens to defeat him. With her own quiet power, Jessica
Chastain carries off the acrobatic task of portraying a loving wife who is at
the same time repulsed by her husband’s insane behavior and dedicated to holding
her family together. Between them, Shannon and Chastain play out a powerful,
poignant duet of trust tested to its breaking point. Full
Review To Index
01-25-11 Take Shelter Sundance Review #3 (Salt Lake Tribune) If
you stretched a "Twilight Zone" episode to two hours by adding endless dramatic
pauses to every scene, you'd get this quasi-apocalyptic drama. Working-class
Curtis (Michael Shannon) starts having nightmares in which he sees oily rain and
zombie-like neighbors. Is he having visions of the end times? Or is he showing
signs of schizophrenia, like his mother (Kathy Baker)? Curtis tries to tough out
his problem, not confiding in his loving wife (Jessica Chastain), who starts to
wonder if he's losing it. Writer-director Jeff Nichols ("Shotgun Stories") sets
a brooding, somber tone, but lets scenes run on too long to keep the tension
going. Full
Review To Index
01-25-11 Take Shelter Sundance Review #2 (Indie Wire) Director
Jeff Nichols re-teams with Michael Shannon for the absorbing saga of a mentally
disturbed husband and father inexplicably driven to build a tornado shelter in
his backyard. As with “Shotgun Stories,” Nichols assembles a tense portrait of
blue-collar life, while deepening his thematic interests and working on a bigger
scale. Burrowing into the subconscious of a damaged man, he delivers a modern
American epic with extraordinary restraint...“Take Shelter” opens with Shannon,
as the construction worker Curtis, gazing off into the distance as a vast storm
approaches. Oil rains from the sky—and then he wakes up. The sequence marks the
first of several obscure dreams and visions tormenting Curtis with increasing
intensity...Raising a deaf daughter with his supportive wife Samantha (Jessica
Chastain), Curtis spends his off-hours drinking with friend and co-worker Dewart
(Shea Whigham), an admirer of Curtis’s evident contentment. “You’ve got a good
life,” he tells his pal. “That’s the best compliment you can give a man.” The
ensuing conflicts test the fragility of that statement, as Curtis’ neatly
calibrated world runs into a wall... Chastain brings an equally compelling
dimension to the story as her character struggles to understand Curtis’s
frustrations and fights to support him against the unseen threats lurking in his
head...HOW WILL IT PLAY? Purchased by Sony Pictures Classics ahead of Sundance,
the movie will undoubtedly become an awards season contender based around
Shannon’s haunting performance, while helping Nichols advance his rising career.
Full
Review To Index
01-25-11 Take Shelter Sundance Review #1 (Reuters) Snapped up
pre-Sundance by Sony Pictures Classics, this knockout prestige picture is a
masterfully controlled piece of work on every level -- from its precise
modulation of mood to its piercing emotional accuracy, its impeccable
craftsmanship and breathtaking imagery. Rarely have electrical storms, cloud
formations and glowering skies had such an unnerving impact or expressed such
dark visual poetry. While at times it conjures suggestions of vintage
Polanski-style paranoia in rural America, this haunting psychological thriller
is also a quasi-horror movie firmly rooted in slice-of-life reality...From
cinematographer Adam Stone's first arresting widescreen view of Curtis standing
outside his small-town Ohio home, staring up at an ominous sky as clouds burst
and oily rain falls, it's clear this man has disturbing thoughts on his mind. He
has a loving home life with wife Samantha (Jessica Chastain) and 6-year-old
daughter Hannah (Tova Stewart), who has lost her hearing but is scheduled for
corrective surgery...From flocks of birds like moving ink stains overhead, to
walls of thundering clouds closing in on him, to levitating furniture that comes
crashing down, these frightening visions are executed with stunning
effectiveness by an ace visual effects team led by Chris Wells...Chastain is
heartbreaking as a woman wondering if the person she loves has become someone
else, her face dissolving into wreckage as Curtis finally explains his
fears...When Curtis explodes and starts prophesying doom to a community hall
full of locals, it's among the film's most heated moments but also its saddest,
played out in the scared, bewildered faces of the people present. Full Review To Index
The Debt
Background
09-06-11
Mirren Fans May Get Their Backs Up over Jessica (Baltimore Sun) Mirren fans
who go into this movie cold may get their backs up when they realize that
another performer plays the star's character as a young woman. But any feelings
of "…I thought I was seeing a Helen Mirren movie" disappear when Jessica
Chastain enters East Berlin and imbues the character in her youth with all the
excitement and uncertainty of a splendid operative on her first field job. In
"The Help," as the "white-trash" housewife who learns to see through the false
values of the upper-crust Junior League in Jackson, Mississippi, Chastain
thrashed through her scenes with a beautiful awkwardness, as if her body were
made of mismatched parts. In "The Debt" she's lithe and eloquent. The one female
member of the Mossad team must subject herself to the Nazi doctor's
gynecological examination. You can see her fear and mortification -- and her
determination -- in Chastain's eyes, and when she finally drops her disguise,
the performer expresses, in swift, galvanizing movements, the liberating power
of the truth. Full
Review To Index
09-02-11 Jessica Chastain Takes Center Stage in The Debt (Tulsa
World) "The Debt" is supposed to be an ensemble piece, but Jessica Chastain
gives such an unforgettable performance that this feels like a star vehicle for
her. She's just not that big of a star - yet. This performance, as well as those
in "The Tree of Life" (as the mother) and "The Help" (as the outcast Celia
Foote), will change that quickly. Full
Review To Index
08-31-11 Helen Mirren Appears in the Posters, but Jessica Chastain owns
The Debt (Jewish United Fund) Even though Helen Mirren's face appears
in all the posters, it's Jessica Chastain who owns The Debt. Chastain is this
year's "It Girl" (luminous as the mother in The Tree of Life and adorable as the
bimbo in The Help), but I am still dumbfounded by her transformation into Young
Rachel Singer. There's only one performance I can compare it to: in 1974, I
walked into The Godfather: Part II having liked The Godfather well enough for a
gangster flick, but wait! Who is this guy playing "Young Vito Corleone"? He's
phenomenal! Sure enough, DeNiro, who had some good credits before that, won an
Oscar in 1975 which launched him into the cinematic stratosphere. In both cases,
the magic lies in an actor's ability to embody a far more famous actor so
completely that you really believe you are actually seeing the young Marlon
Brando and the young Helen Mirren even though your brain certainly knows
otherwise. Full
Review To Index
08-31-11 Ebert: The Debt has an Unfortunate Flaw
(TheChronicleHerald.ca) The architecture of The Debt has an unfortunate flaw.
The younger versions of the characters have scenes that are intrinsically more
exciting, but the actors playing the older versions are more interesting. Helen
Mirren, Tom Wilkinson and Ciaran Hinds bring along the weight of their many
earlier roles. To be sure, the older actors get some excitement of their own,
but by then the plot has lost its way. Maybe the problem is a structure that
cuts around in time. Three characters, six actors, and although the woman is
always presumably Rachel, I was sometimes asking myself which of the two men I
was seeing when young. In a thriller, you must be sure. I suspect this movie
would have been more effective if had it remained entirely in the past,
especially given all we know. Full Review To Index
08-31-11 Jessica Propels The Debt in Two Ways (HitFix) The film
played at last year's Toronto Film Festival, and then promptly dropped off the
radar completely. Now, after a quick distributor shift, Focus Features is
putting the film out, and they benefit from the delay thanks to the fact that
Jessica Chastain went from being an unknown quality to being one of the stars of
a big summer hit and one of the most-discussed arthouse releases of the year…It
must be a terrifying challenge for a young actress just defining themselves
onscreen to be asked to play a young Helen Mirren, but Chastain seems to me to
be the real deal, someone who embraces a challenge, and since the film is really
about Rachel, both of the actors have to play the same character. We need to see
the choices of one reflected in the actions of the other, and it works. Chastain
is very good, and there is a righteous fire in the way she plays the part. These
are young people, driven by anger and sorrow, and there are moments where Rachel
makes some pretty unsympathetic choices. Chastain makes sense of those moments,
emotionally, and her performance is so strong that she creates a sense of
gravity, with Csokas and Worthington caught in her orbit, reacting to her. She
drives the film, but Worthington is very good here, using his quiet smolder to
suggest a young man already hollowed out by his desire for revenge. Full
Review To Index
08-31-11 The Debt's Heart Beats with this Year's Breakthrough Actress
Jessica Chastain (Washington Post) Though Helen Mirren features most
prominently in advertising materials, the film's heart beats with the younger
version of her character, played by this year's breakthrough actress Jessica
Chastain ("The Tree of Life," "The Help"). It is Chastain who survives the
film's most chilling encounters: As Rachel Singer, an agent pursuing "Surgeon of
Birkenau" Dieter Vogel (perpetrator of Josef Mengele-type concentration-camp
medical experiments), she poses as an East German fertility patient and must
allow the man she's hunting to give her multiple medical examinations. Full
Review To Index
08-30-11 Jessica Chastain is a Revelation as Young Rachel in The
Debt (Dallas News) The Jewish Film Festival of Dallas is an annual
showcase for some of the best foreign films. In 2009, the festival screened a
2007 Israeli thriller titled The Debt. A potent drama with a Holocaust theme,
it's one of the best films in festival history. You should see it…The remake is
at its best when the young Rachel, Stephan and David are on the screen. Jessica
Chastain is a revelation as the young Rachel. She has appeared in recent months
in The Tree of Life, The Help and now this, underscoring a formidable
versatility as well as her training at Juilliard and her prowess at Shakespeare.
She is truly a remarkable actress. [submitted by a reader] To
Index
08-30-11 Jessica Gives The Debt its Urgency and its Soul
(STLtoday.com) Although Mirren is impressive, it's Chastain who gives "The Debt"
its urgency and its soul. Virtually unknown just a year ago, she has emerged as
one of the most exciting actresses in American film, with recent standout roles
in "The Tree of Life" and "The Help." Chastain has the rare ability to disappear
into a character while paradoxically retaining her singular charisma. Full
Review To Index
08-30-11 Jessica Turns in a Riveting Performance in The Debt
(Fresno Bee) Madden does get it right with the casting, especially the
performances by Helen Mirren and Jessica Chastain as Rachel, the female member
of the team. Rachel not only agrees to live with a monstrous lie as the young
agent, but she comes to embrace it in the passing years. Both actresses show raw
emotions at the confusion and pain they feel. These are two actors able to say
so much with just a simple look. Chastain brings a mix of strength and
vulnerability to the role as the novice secret agent. She must push down her
deep hatred if the mission has any chance to succeed. At the same time, she is
battling with her own sexual and emotional problems. Not every actor can be both
emotionally naked and hidden but Chastain turns in a riveting performance. Full
Review To Index
08-30-11 The Debt Pays off with Action more than Big Message
(Boston Globe) "The Debt" pays off with action more than big message. "The
Debt,'' an English-language remake of a 2007 Israeli hit, is being sold as a
straight-up "Mission Impossible'' thriller about three Mossad agents bringing a
Nazi war criminal to justice. In fact it's a lot pulpier and more dramatically
interesting than that, but you can't explain why without giving away the twist
that resets the story's priorities halfway through. Suddenly a movie about
heroes has become a film about humans, and the stark narrative field of black
and white has become infiltrated by shades of gray. Full
Review To Index
08-28-11 Jessica's and Sam Worthington's On-screen Chemistry is Perfect in
The Debt (The Daily Campus) A surprisingly sweet storyline comes from
the on-mission relationship of Chastain's Rachel and Sam Worthington's David.
Even though they are told to play a couple in order to capture Dr. Vogel, a real
relationship forms between the young David and Rachel. Chastain and
Worthington's on-screen chemistry was perfect. Being the devoted agents they
are, the couple suppresses their feeling for each other, thus making their one
kiss in the movie more passionate than ever...While Chastain may not be near as
accomplished as Mirren, judging by her performance in "The Debt," she soon will
be. Chastain's performance as Rachel Singer is an intelligent combination of a
fragile girl in love and a deadly Israeli spy. Full
Review To Index
08-25-11 Jessica Steals the Show in The Debt (Exclaim!) To say
that Jessica Chastain steals the show would be an understatement. Scenes where
she tries to ward off discomfort and anxiety while being examined come off as
singularly unnerving. She manages to balance tough and vulnerable without ever
denying a humanitarian emotional core. This is particularly apparent in her
reactions to shockingly anti-Semitic goading tactics from the doctor
post-kidnap. It's her performance, along with Mirren's modern day depiction of
the same character, which helps add a dimension of much-needed human complexity
to what is merely an above-average, somewhat predictable thriller. Full
Review To Index
08-25-11 The Debt Raises Serious Issues without Exploiting or
Trivializing Them (Jweekly.com) The announcement that the 2007 Israeli drama
“Ha-Hov” (“The Debt”) was going to be remade in English was widely welcomed,
presumably because of the casting of Helen Mirren. Certainly it wasn’t because
people knew and admired the original film, which screened in just a handful of
U.S. festivals — including a Jewish film festival in the East Bay in 2009. At
that time, I was turned off by the Israeli movie’s crass use of a Nazi villain
to drive a pulpy suspense yarn. So I was not looking forward to a remake, even
if it was being made by John Madden, the Oscar-nominated director of the Academy
Award–winning “Shakespeare in Love.” However, I underestimated Madden’s skill
and integrity, for “The Debt” is a smart, beautifully crafted thriller that
raises serious issues without exploiting or trivializing them. Full
Review To Index
08-13-11 Jessica's Rachel the Glue that Binds The Debt Together
(Socalthrills.com) Jessica Chastain’s performance as the younger Rachel is the
glue that binds the entire story together. Rachel appears reserved yet below the
surface is decisively strong and brutal. This year has been Chastain’s coming
out as an actress, thus far in “The Tree of Life,” and “The Help.” She matches
her wonderful efforts in those films equally in “The Debt” as she creates a
character that is both tender and brash. As the older Rachel, Helen Mirren is no
less impressive as she portrays an intensity that has only grown stronger
through the 30 years since the original mission...Jesper Christiansen’s
performance as Dieter Vogel is more than just disturbing, as he becomes evil
incarnate. David, Rachel, and Stephen all reach their own breaking point as the
Nazi doctor creates a living hell for them using no more than a few short words
and piercing glances. “The Debt” hinges on the element of surprise and mystique
that surrounds the order of events and the actual truth of what took place
during the attempt to take down Vogel. One pivotal scene in the story is seen
more than once from different perspectives, altering the entire tone of the film
near its halfway mark. This movie is constructed as a thriller, and a violent,
pulsating one at that...“The Debt” feels like two distinctly different films
perfectly sewn into one. On one side is the sequences of 1966 where the
characters go through immense turmoil and are permanently scarred by their
experience. The present is sort of a catharsis, as Rachel must once and for all
close the chapter on a part of her life that has kept her unknowingly imprisoned
and shackled. The movie carefully walks the line of playing cat and mouse with
the audience, but never to a point that makes the film appear like it is touting
its own brilliance or surprising the audience for the sake of shock value. Full Review To Index
08-12-11 Jessica's Role in The Debt Described (Examiner.com) In
1965 Rachel (now played by Jessica Chastain) is in East Berlin with her fellow
Mossad agents...David (Sam Worthington) and Stephan (Marton Csokas). Their
mission...to capture the Nazi war criminal Dr. Dieter Vogel (brilliantly played
by Jesper Christensen) and bring him back to Israeli to stand trial. Vogel is
known as the feared Surgeon of Birkenau. Rachel sets herself up as bait in order
to capture Vogel. The good doctor is now practicing medicine under an assumed
name. Rachel becomes his patient pretending that she is having trouble getting
pregnant. The look on Rachel's face every time this twisted evil man touches
her, will have you squirming in your seat. I know I was. It's during this
mission that an unexpected love triangle grows between Rachel, David and
Stephan. An affair that has consequences for years after. 'The Debt' is an old
fashioned thriller. The suspense builds in and across two different time periods
with startling action and surprising revelations. Full
Review To Index
08-08-11 Jessica's Performance Works Well with Sam Worthington in The
Debt (HeyUGuys.co.uk) It is a tale of how people live up to the legends
they make for themselves and how a nation can buy into that legend without
knowing the whole story. For most of the film, it all works together very well,
however, at times loses steam...we flash-back to 1965 where young Rachel
(Jessica Chastain) meets up with young David (Sam Worthington) and young Stefan
(Marton Csokas). This is where the majority of the story takes place and for
much of the film it works very well. Chastain’s performance is restrained and
works well off of the often quiet performance by Worthington. The flash-back
story is where most of the weighty drama occurs in the story, however, these
quieter moments are peppered with some great high-stakes sequences...the
intelligence of the story paired with the performances make for a refreshing
running time. Helen Mirren is icing on the cake and overall, the film is quite
good and will play very well if you are a fan of the genre. Full Review To Index
10-23-10 The Debt is a Solid Thrill Ride (Examiner) “The Debt” is
a solid thrill ride. Unlike most films centered on Holocaust events, this film
manages to be just as modern as it is historical. The acrobatic, time-bending
editing takes what would otherwise be a very linear narrative and warps it into
a loop-holed, suspense-laden tale with time sequences that cut back and forth
within a forty-year sweep...the real stand-out of “The Debt” is Jessica
Chastain, who portrays Rachel Singer, Mirren’s character, as a young woman. She
is the actress literally involved in extricating the actor who portrays the Nazi
war monster. Chastain is remarkable- she outshines every other person in every
scene she plays, capturing the terror, horror, fear, deft physical martial
artistry, psychological manipulation and sadness required by this role. In
another season, Chastain might even have been nominated for Best Support
Actress- or perhaps even Best Actress, as her performance is that powerful and
complete. However, in that this film probably won’t be released till post-Oscar
season, and it isn’t so phenomenal as to capture the Academy’s attention till
January 2012, I doubt Chastain- nor the film’s editors- will be receiving any
Academy recognition... “The Debt” deserves both domestic and international
distribution, and should make a killing at the box office. Pun intended. Full
Review To Index
09-28-10 The Debt Had Me on the Edge of My Seat (HeyUGuys.co.uk)
The [Toronto International Film] festival screened around 300 films over its 11
days...TIFF really is a festival for film gourmands, and while it is an
important tool of the industry (second only to Cannes and ahead of Venice and
Berlin), it is first and foremost a public festival...The Debt: A botched Mossad
abduction of a former concentration camp doctor in mid 1960s Berlin has far
reaching consequences for the trio of Israeli agents involved. This taut
thriller had me on the edge of my seat very early on a Sunday morning, and
features great performances from Helen Mirren and relative newcomer Jessica
Chastain (portraying the younger Mirren) as the intelligence agent whose
involvement in the plot makes her an Israeli national hero. Full
Review To Index
09-18-10 Toronto Reviewer Intrigued with Jessica in The Debt (The
Film Stage) That is pretty much what you get with John Madden‘s latest. It tells
the flashback story of three Mossad Agents who need to capture a Nazi war
criminal, and how that effects them in the present day. Sam Worthington does
drama just fine, but the film really got me intrigued with Jessica Chastain, who
will be seen in Terrence Malick‘s The Tree of Life. Full
Review Back to Top
09-17-10 Toronto Festival Viewer Includes Jessica in Best Breakthrough
Performances (Boise Weekly) The biggest surprise for me at TIFF was how good
the movies turned out to be. The lineup set high expectations and more often
than not, I was engaged, provoked and most importantly, entertained. In my
opinion from the cheap seats, the winners are as follows: The best breakthrough
performances were Andrea Riseborough in Brighton Rock and Jessica Chastain in
The Debt. The best audience pleasers: Black Swan, Conviction, Hereafter, The
Debt and The King’s Speech. Full
Review To Index
09-14-10 Jessica Praised The Debt Review (RopeofSilicon.com)
Bouncing back and forth in time, The Debt is a satisfying thriller that is
almost so subtle it feels like it's based on a true story. The balance between
story and attempts to thrill is this film's strongest asset. Situations aren't
exaggerated in order to make for increased tension, instead the heat of the
moment and occasional romantic asides keep things moving along...Playing the
younger versions of the three leads, Chastain, Worthington and Csokas serve
their characters well, not to mention this is the coming out party for Chastain
whose work in Terrence Malick's upcoming Tree of Life is already said to be top
notch. She gives a good showing here in a role that is essentially the lead
character of the film. She's mirrored by Helen Mirren who plays Rachel 30 years
later and the two make for an impressive combination. Full
Review To Index
09-14-10 The Debt Jumps the Shark (HitFix) [The Debt] features
great cinematography from Vaughn regular Ben Davis and stellar turns from
Chastain (who will be in Terrence Malick's "Tree of Life"), Worthington (best
dramatic work to date) and the incomparable Mirren. In fact, for most of the
film you have a feel all three are major players in the Oscar race for
supporting actor and actress. That is…until the third act...the choices Vaughn
and co-screenwriters Jane Goldman and Peter Straughan make towards the end of
the film are jaw-droppingly bad. Terms like "nuke the fridge" and "jump the
shark" are often used in genre or event movies, but rarely in a thriller of this
caliber. But for reasons this pundit can't understand -- nor could anyone else
in my screening -- the picture just goes the complete wrong way and it does so
badly. And, what could have been a great, smart and moving thriller becomes a
picture that leaves a nasty taste in your mouth. Well, at least until you
remember the fine performances before those moments. The strange thing is the
picture could be easily rectified by cutting before this sequence at not one,
but two natural end points. Full
Review To Index
No Date-2010 The Debt Never Loses Focus But Wilts Toward the End
(Killer Reviews) John Madden is no stranger to award winning dramas. Shakespeare
in Love won out over Saving Private Ryan and Ethan Frome was a well received
romance back in 1993. Madden works the camera like a maestro in effortlessly
weeding the story through multiple decades. The film never loses focus and
relies on its strengths – namely the performances of Mirren, Csokas and Chastain
– to carry the heavy plotline forward. However, in the final acts, the story
gets a little lost. Watching Mirren head to Kiev, Ukraine was a leap of faith
and political, social and moral values begin to choke the life out of what was a
better than average thriller up to that point. With the conclusion of The Debt
being too heavy handed to maintain the thin weight of the first ¾, The Debt
eventually fails to be the film that showed award promise in the trailers. We
are not suggesting that The Debt is a bad film, but its final reel wilt does
take away from the execution of its predecessors. Full
Review To Index
No Date-2010 Plenty of Action and a Powerful Subtext (SBS Films)
Alternate titles for The Debt, a decades-spanning thriller pivoting on a
nail-biting mission behind the Iron Curtain, could be 'Gravitas,' or 'History
Rears Its Head' or 'While It's Entirely Possible That The Truth Will Set You
Free, Lies Will Definitely Do a Number on You.' In addition to being a fairly
gripping tale told via fine performances, The Debt falls into the category of
movies given to lingering in one's memory in the brain whorl marked "What Would
I Have Done Under The Same Circumstances?" The film makes you want to be a
Mossad agent en route to making you glad you're not one...The opening sequence,
in which a young woman and two youngish men exit a military transport plane and
emerge into the sunlight in Israel, circa 1966, takes on a very different
connotation when it is revisited at film's end...The Debt features longing and
regret and botched romance and some breathless hand-to-hand (not to mention
thigh-to-neck) combat and heart-in-throat improvisation under harrowing
circumstances...Chastain and Mirren are a good physical and temperamental
match...Madden tackles themes – honor, duty, sacrifice – that have been diluted
in many contemporary films in order to get-to-the-action...There's plenty of
action but there's also a powerful subtext that keep percolating just below the
surface. It's a good combination. Full Review To Index
The Help
Background
08-27-11
Example of Critique that The Help does not Capture the Civil Rights
Era (World Socialist Web Site) Unfortunately, the film falls short of a
credible presentation, as the reality of the situation is not tackled with any
degree of seriousness. One of the most jarring elements is the absence of any
reference to the mass struggles that shattered the Jim Crow structure in the
South at the time, or any indication of their influence and atmosphere. This is
not the concern of either the movie or the book. In fact, the book’s jacket
cover informs the potential reader that “Change begins with a whisper.” And
elevated to historical catalyst—or whisperer-in-chief—is the middle class
do-gooder...While there is much focus on Hilly and her band of bigots, the
assassination of prominent NAACP leader Medgar Evers in Jackson in June 1963 by
a white racist, an earthshaking event in the region, by contrast, is given short
shrift by the filmmakers. The Help is not simply a reductive—to say the
least—period piece, whose main dynamic is a skirmish between good and evil, with
blacks on one side and whites on the other. It rewrites, probably out of
light-mindedness and lack of knowledge more than anything else, the history of
social struggle in America and postwar history in general...A few horrors
described in the book are tellingly omitted from the film. For example, in the
novel, a son of one of the maids mistakenly uses a bathroom designated for
whites and is chased down, beaten and blinded. And another: the book states that
in 1963 a man named Carl Roberts was “found cattle-branded and hung from a pecan
tree” for calling the governor “a pathetic man with the morals of a
streetwalker.” Such politically motivated sadism—all too common at the time—is
avoided by the filmmakers. Why? Full Review
To Index
08-25-11 The Help not Meant to be the Entire Story of the Civil Rights
Movement (Huffington Post) I'm not going to get into a point-by-point
rundown of why I think many of the criticisms being hurled at The Help are
just-plain wrong...much of the outcry over The Help comes not from what is in
the movie itself, but rather what isn't in the film, and (more importantly) what
isn't in the marketplace...As a stand-alone film, it works as a solid, if not
awe-inspiring character piece involving a number of women (black and white) who
exist in an employer/employee relationship during the middle of the 1960s Civil
Rights Movement. If the picture were one of a dozen films being released by a
major studio that centered around African-America actors, its flaws would be
less of an issue...But it is silly to condemn the one 'shining' example and
punish it for the non-existence of other pictures like it...The Help is NOT an
all-encompassing story about the Civil Rights Movement. It does not portend to
represent every single black woman who suffered under Jim Crow. It does not
portend to claim that African-Americans were only able to take their
institutionalized freedoms because of plucky white women of the era...it is not
the responsibility of The Help to be the be-all, end-all big-studio movie
involving the Civil Rights Movement. It does not concern itself with those who
actively fought for freedom because that is not the story being told. It is a
story about those who merely endured during a time of social injustice, and that
story is every bit as relevant as the struggles of The Freedom Riders or the
indiviudual portraits of iconic characters such as Medgar Evers or Rosa
Parks...The Help is not a story about those on the frontlines, and it is not a
story about a great social victory that was won. It is a character study, full
of small victories and larger defeats. Full
Review To Index
08-22-11 Jessica's The Help Book Fan Grandmother Gives Thumbs Up to
Jessica as Celia (Fox All Access) At first, Chastain was worried about what
her grandmother would thing about the movie and her performance. Those fears
were laid to rest, however, after Jessica took Grandma and a few of her friends
to the premiere. And although she’s gotten plenty of great feedback on the
movie, Chastain told us that “thumbs up” from her grandmother was the best
compliment she could ever receive. Full
Review To Index
08-21-11 Best Performance of The Help Belongs to Jessica (The
Daily Athenaeum) While "The Help" does a good job of recreating the 1960s, the
story it tells could use some work...As acting goes, both Stone and Davis did
great jobs, but occasionally it felt like Spencer wasn't sure what to do with
herself when she wasn't talking, almost like a living cardboard cut-out. Howard
also did a great job of being a great combination of passive-aggressive and
snootiness that was needed for the film's villain. However, the best performance
belongs to Jessica Chastain, a housewife who doesn't seem to fit in with the
local girl's club, but is really just looking for a friend. Surprisingly, the
original score composed by Thomas Newman was one of the best things about this
movie..."The Help" isn't perfect, but it does a fine job of recreating an
important time in American history and is a story that is worth being heard at
least once. Full
Review To Index
08-19-11 Critic Defends The Help against Racial Criticism
(Huffington Post) Two criticisms I've seen of The Help are the use of the N-word
-- and the stereotype some have tasted in the fried chicken of Minny Jackson,
played brilliantly by Olivia Spencer. Not only does The Help not shy from that
history, but the assassination of civil rights Evers in Jackson in June 1963 is
not mere background for the film. Audiences see actual news footage of Evers
stating his positions on living black-and-white television shortly before he was
killed. The night of his murder, Aibileen Clark (in a star turn by Viola Davis)
is shown with another black commuter being ordered off the bus home, the driver
calling them by the N-word, because something terrible has happened. Her fear of
white brutality so palpitates her heart the she races home, stumbling hard along
the way, to gather her children around in the safety of their small
home...Listen to it in The Help and get mad -- but at the culture that routinely
demeaned black people -- not at the film, which aims to tell it like it
was...Some criticism of this film is legitimate. Most of the white women in the
movie are two dimensional. One exception is the beautifully nuanced depiction of
Celia Foote by Jessica Chastain, as the blonde who is shunned by a bevy of young
housewives desperate to be part of the clique. And the weakest performance among
an otherwise marvelous cast, is by Bryce Dallas Howard as the race-baiting and
two-dimensionally callous Hilly. However, the unwarranted attacks -- that is,
those imposing racial preconceptions and discomfort apart from the film's own
merits -- can only defeat the intentions of many race-mired critics. How many
more films exploring American racism will Hollywood produce in light of the
current racial second-guessing? Hollywood will run scared. And potential roles
for these or other black actors in midlife or older will remain as scarce as
ever. Full
Review To Index
08-17-11 The Help does not Capture the Spirit of the Times
(Politic365) This movie falls short of painting a realistic backdrop of the hell
on earth it really was. Yes it was uncomfortable to watch quite a few scenes,
but there were no knots in my stomach. After all I’ve seen footage of 1960s
water hoses being turned on peaceful protesters, pictures of the swinging, burnt
remains of lynching victims and the bloodthirsty crowds that rathered see James
Meredith dead than he dare be allowed to enter the white walls of Ole Miss. I
really had to suspend my disbelief to get into the story. I am not suggesting
that this movie should have been dark and gritty (it’s not that kind of story),
but I am accusing it of not capturing the atmosphere of the times. Save the
scene in which Viola Davis desperately runs home after being let off the bus due
the Medgar Evers’ shooting, I sometimes felt I had no context for the story
being told. Having more clearly established the setting would have given the
story a much heavier arc and raised the stakes for all involved just a bit more
(including the audience)...Viola Davis is the real reason to see this film. Her
performance hangs heavy in the air, unfettered and unencumbered by the blithe
re-telling of what life for maids in 1960s Mississippi was like. Watching her on
screen is like watching an entirely different film. She cuts through the gloss
to give the movie the texture it needs. Full
Review To Index
08-16-11 Why Some Criticize The Help (Salon) The film has
generated criticism for its supposed whitewashing of one of the most
contentious, painful periods in recent American history. The Association of
Black Women Historians recently issued a statement on the best-selling book and
film, sating that, among other things, "'The Help' is not a story about the
millions of hard-working and dignified black women who labored in white homes to
support their families and communities. Rather, it is the coming-of-age story of
a white protagonist, who uses myths about the lives of black women to make sense
of her own. The Association of Black Women Historians finds it unacceptable for
either this book or this film to strip black women's lives of historical
accuracy for the sake of entertainment." The Boston Globe has criticized the
film as "an all-American cop-out."...its detractors wail..."Why this, when there
are other books, written by actual black women, to be read?" True, and maybe
readers who enjoyed "The Help" will now seek them out...much of the criticism of
the movie and book also stems from its restrained depiction of the era's sexual
harassment and racial violence. Yet it seems not so much a conspicuous oversight
as a narrative choice -- "The Help" is a story that takes place largely in the
genteel domestic sphere, and studies the ways that females of the era both
dished out and endured racism...It's clear that the main problem a lot of people
have with "The Help" is that the story was written by a white lady...It's not
about the big news stories of the early civil-rights era -- it's a story about
having difficult and necessary exchanges about race...that "The Help" has
touched off such intense debate, such vehement criticism, is a good thing,
because it says that we're doing just that still. Full
Review To Index
08-15-11 The Help Well Received at Academy Members Showing
(Reuters) The ensemble film, which was adapted from Kathryn Stockett's
bestselling novel set in civil rights-era Mississippi, had its free screening
for Academy members at AMPAS's Samuel Goldwyn Theater on Saturday afternoon.
According to a member with no stake in the success of the film, it drew an
audience that arrived early and filled the 1,000-seat theater to as much as 90
percent capacity, an extremely good showing for a 4 p.m. matinee...Members in
attendance "absolutely loved" the film, according to one voter, with substantial
applause and no walkouts during the near two-and-a-half hour running time.
Another reported that applause was particularly heavy for actresses Viola Davis,
Octavia Spencer and Jessica Chastain, but not for director Tate Taylor...It's
worth noting, though, that an extremely positive Goldwyn screening is not always
a guarantee of Oscar success...for the moment most signs point toward the
company nudging Davis toward the Best Actress category, where she'll be
competing against her castmate Emma Stone (who has a far smaller chance of a
nomination). If they go for the alternative and push her as a Best Supporting
Actress nominee, she'll be up against co-star Spencer and maybe a handful of
others as well, including Chastain and Bryce Dallas Howard. Full
Review To Index
08-14-11 The Help Reader Disappointed with Items Missing in the
Movie (Poptimal.co) The film isn’t bad, not by a long stretch, but I don’t
anyone who read the novel will come out thinking they did it justice...This is a
400+ page novel, so obviously details are going to be left out, sometimes ones
that are treasured pieces of the story...The change that disappointed me most
was the relationship between Minny and her employer, Celia Foote (Jessica
Chastain). Celia is an outsider, a white trash woman from a place called Sugar
Ditch, MS who got herself pregnant and married to one of the most eligible
bachelors in Jackson – and Hilly’s ex-boyfriend to boot. Instead of the
multi-dimensional, lovingly sculpted character in the book, this Celia is
utilized for the easy laugh. Yes, she’s inappropriate and ridiculous in the
novel, but she’s also desperate, and sad, and one of the best white human beings
we get to meet. The friendship between her and Minny, and later Celia’s husband
Johnny, is also reduced to little more than a vehicle for laughs, when it’s
actually heartbreaking and poignant and one of my favorite parts of the
story...All of those nitpicks may be due to my love for the novel, and there are
plenty of things the movie does well. The performances are well-executed, even
breathtaking at times, and I can’t imagine a better cast being
assembled...Jessica Chastain, who I’d bet money read the novel, because she
understood the complicated Celia even if the audience did not...There is
absolutely nothing to complain about as far as the acting in this film. Full
Review To Index
08-12-11 Jessica Spectacular in The Help (The New American) Every
single actor delivers brilliant performances, but of particular note is that of
Jessica Chastain, who plays a young broken-hearted Southern woman, Celia Foote,
who, try as she might, just cannot break into Jackson society. She develops an
unlikely bond with Minnie, who is so sassy she cannot keep a job. The two,
rejected by white Jackson, become each other’s salvation, as Minnie softens to
Celia, and Celia becomes dependent on Minnie. Chastain is spectacular in the
role. Full
Review To Index
08-12-11 Celia's and Minny's Relationship the Most Touching in The
Help (Ahwatukee Foothills New) If movies were living, breathing
organisms, I'd give "The Help" a big hug...The movie impeccably mixes moments of
heartbreak with an abundance of sheer delight, telling an empowering story about
race and some of the most strong-willed female characters of recent times. In
that sense, "The Help" might be the best movie of it's kind since "The Color
Purple."...The most touching relationship in the movie is between Minny and her
new employer, a clueless housewife named Celia, played by Jessica Chastain.
Between her role as the graceful mother in "The Tree of Life" and her work here,
Chastain is easily my choice for breakout actress of the year. In "The Help,"
Celia starts off as the naïve comedic relief who can't tell her way around a
kitchen. As Minny digs deeper into some of the secrets Celia has been keeping
from her husband though, she develops into one of year's most tragic and
sympathetic characters. Full
Review To Index
08-12-11 The Help not a Liberal Guilt Movie (Connect Savannah.com)
Every summer witnesses the release of a handful of counter-programming efforts,
titles designed to satisfy audiences who don't particularly care for superhero
sagas or alien adventures or gross-out gags...it would be easy to dismiss The
Help as yet another "liberal guilt" movie, the sort that's invariably told
through the eyes of its Caucasian lead rather than those of its African-American
characters. Yet while Skeeter certainly clocks a sizable amount of screen time,
it's never in doubt that the true protagonists are Aibileen and Minny, two
domestics brought to vivid life through the extraordinary performances by Viola
Davis and Octavia Spencer. Many of the conflicts play out as expected, and Bryce
Dallas Howard's racist housewife proves to be about as subtle as Cruella De Vil.
But interesting subplots abound - I particularly liked the relationship between
Minny and her insecure employer Celia Foote, played by The Tree of Life's
Jessica Chastain - and with its influx of emotionally wrenching scenes. Full Review To Index
08-11-11 Celia as Moral Centerpiece of The Help Would Have Provided
More Emotional Impact (bgdailynews) Howard has some good moments as the
film’s main heavy, while Jessica Chastain provides a nice balance as an
ostracized housewife who develops a friendship with Minny. If the story had used
Chastain’s character as the moral centerpiece instead of Skeeter, I think “The
Help” could have had a little more emotional impact. As it is, this is a film
that wants to have a say about some serious subjects - ranging from racism to
spousal abuse - while at the same time appealing to the masses. To its credit,
“The Help” succeeds more on the latter than it does the former, leaving a
somewhat effective drama that could have been much more. Full
Review To Index
08-11-11 Jessica Steals Every Scene She Plays in The Help (Ology) It must
be mentioned that Jessica Chastain (recently seen in Terrence Malick's leaf porn
The Tree of Life) steals each and every scene she's in as the ditzy, buxom, but
socially shunned rookie housewife Celia Foote. Her burgeoning relationship with
the relentlessly candid Minny is the highlight of the film. First-time feature
helmer Tate Taylor, whose directorial career seemingly materialized overnight,
instantly proves himself adept at jerking tears and getting laughs left and
right. See it. You won't be sorry you did. Full Review To Index
08-11-11 The Help a Breathtaking Success (Monterey County Weekly)
There are the movie-movie pleasures of The Help, the stuff of simple cinematic
entertainment, the stuff we go to the movies for. The magnificent performances.
The fresh narrative. The unsentimental direction that lets you feel your own
emotions instead dictating them to you. These things aren’t all that hard to do,
and yet their rarity – particularly all in one film! – means we should cheer all
the harder when we find them.?In other words, see this movie! As
straightforward, Hollywood-glossy storytelling-for-your-enjoyment goes, The Help
is a breathtaking success...there’s nothing of the chick-flick ghetto here. If
movies that are all men and no women can be universal, so can this one. Full
Review To Index
08-11-11 Jessica Almost a Sure Thing for Oscar Nomination for The
Help (KMOX.com) Based on Kathryn Scokett’s monumentally successful
novel, “The Help” is a movie that has throngs of people (mostly women) anxious
to see it on the big screen. My prediction is that they won’t be disappointed.
“The Help” is an actor’s film, and the cast of this motion picture doesn’t fail.
Octavia Spencer and Viola Davis are the real stars of this splendid ensemble
effort, playing two maids in white households in Jackson, Mississippi...Viola
Davis is a sure thing to be nominated for an Oscar for best actress. Almost a
sure thing for an Oscar nomination is Jessica Chastain. She plays a poor girl
from a small town who has landed herself one of Jackson’s most eligible young
men. Her character is knock-out good-looking, but domestically challenged. She
is helped by the character played by Octovia Spencer. Soon Chastain’s character
become one of the most poignant in the film as she is banished and embarrassed
by the other housewives in Jackson “high society.” Full
Review To Index
08-10-11 Octavia and Jessica are the Two Standout Performances in The
Help (ropeofsilicon) The film's two standout performances belong to
Octavia Spencer as Aibileen's closest friend, Minny Jackson, and Jessica
Chastain as the bubbly out-of-towner Celia Foote who's looked at as white trash
by the ladies of Jackson after having married one of their men. To this point
I've seen Chastain play extremely dramatic characters in The Tree of Life, Take
Shelter and The Debt and this was the first time I've truly seen her come to
life. She is a breath of fresh air in a film filled with stodgy, uptight women,
and the way the story weaves her character in with Minny's is one of the film's
highlights. As Minny, Spencer is in a zone. Wide-eyed and fiery, she commands
the audience's attention as much as she commands attention within the narrative.
Minny is the character you cheer for, laugh with and wish you could sit with
over dinner. If Davis and Stone are the heart of this film, Chastain and Spencer
are the blood pulsing through it. Full
Review To Index
08-10-11 The Story of The Help is Jessica Chastain (MCN) For me,
The Story of The Help is Jessica Chastain, who not only steals every scene she
gets near with seemingly no effort at all, but set off a big light bulb for me…
because it took me a while to figure out it was her...Chastain, in The Help, is
a more connected version of Marilyn Monroe. She gets the moments here than
Monroe never got… real pain… real desire… all while embodying a goofy
white-trash bombshell whose entry in a simple dress turns every head in a room.
In The Tree of Life, she is a young Sissy Spacek, perhaps a bit more patrician,
a beautiful, loving, woman in a world she doesn’t control, but which she
survives with a simple warmth and emotion. In Take Shelter, she dances with
Michael Shannon, a reflection of where his character’s mind is going as the
story progresses. And in The Debt, as a younger version of the Helen Mirren
character, she minds her senior, but also creates a young woman who is both as
fragile and as fierce as she must be to do what her character does. You might be
able to connect the 3 redheads visually, but it is almost as though her face is
different in each of the films. She lets us into the soul of her characters, as
though each had a different set of eyes. And there is still Coriolanus due
(after premiering at Berlin) at TIFF next month. Chastain and Spencer and Davis
and Howard can all be pushed hard for Oscar nominations for this film...And my
advice on the film…if you find yourself wanting to go, based on the book or ads
or the trailer, go. You will likely be happy you did. If you are turned off by
any of that, don’t go. Full Review To Index
Roger Ebert Review
August 9, 2011
Roger Ebert
is perhaps the most well known film critic in America. Here are excerpts from
Roger Ebert's review as written in his Chicago Sun-Times Journal:
"The Help" is
a safe film about a volatile subject. Presenting itself as the story of how
African-American maids in the South viewed their employers during Jim Crow days,
it is equally the story of how they empowered a young white woman to write a
best-seller about them, and how that book transformed the author's mother. We
are happy for the two white women, and a third, but as the film ends it is still
Jackson, Mississippi and Ross Barnett is still governor.
Still, this
is a good film, involving and wonderfully acted. I was drawn into the characters
and quite moved, even though all the while I was aware it was a feel-good fable,
a story that deals with pain but doesn't care to be that painful...Stone has top
billing, but her character seems a familiar type, and the movie is stolen, one
scene at a time, by two other characters: Aibileen Clark (Viola Davis) and Minny
Jackson (Octavia Spencer).
Both are
maids. Aibileen has spent her life as a nanny, raising little white girls. She
is very good at it, and genuinely gives them her love, although when they grow
up they have an inexorable tendency to turn into their mothers. Minny is a maid
who is fired by a local social leader, then hired by a white-trash blonde. Davis
and Spencer have such luminous qualities that this becomes their stories,
perhaps not entirely by design.
The blonde is
Celia Foote (Jessica Chastain, from "The Tree of Life"), who is married to a
well-off businessman, is desperate to please him, and knows never learned
anything about being a housewife. Minny needs a job, and is happy to work for
her. Celia wants her only during the days, when her husband is away, so that
he'll think he's eating her cooking and enjoying her housekeeping. Minny helps
her with these tasks and many more, some heart-breaking, and fills her with
realistic advice. Chastain is unaffected and infectious in her performance.
Celia doesn't
listen to Minny's counsel, however, when she attends a big local charity event
(for, yes, Hungry African Children), and the event provides the movie's comic
centerpiece. Celia's comeuppance doesn't have much to do with the main story,
but it gets a lot of big laughs.
Two
observations, for what they're worth. All the white people in the movie smoke.
None of the black people do. There are several white men with important speaking
roles, but only two black men, including a preacher, who have much to say. Full
Review To Index
08-09-11 Jessica Explodes off the Screen in The Help
(awardsdaily) Here are the standouts for me: 1. Viola Davis — for once she gets
an opportunity to really show what she can do as an actress...Davis has been
circling the Oscar scene for a while now but she finally might see some gold. 2.
Octavia Spencer — this is your more traditional Oscar supporting performance as
she all but steals the show. Spencer finds the funny in every scene. She’s great
in the quieter scenes too...3. Emma Stone – at first it appears that her
character is going to be yet another too-pretty-for-the-part portrayal but
Stone’s natural beauty is muted enough here to reveal a more authentic and
believable character. She nails the tougher emotional scenes quite well...4.
Jessica Chastain – Chastain was not given all that much to do in Tree of Life
but in The Help she explodes off the screen as the socially undesirable blonde
bombshell. Oscar loves him the dumb blonde, sexually free types so there is a
good chance she could earn a nomination instead of the above two. Chastain lets
it all hang out emotionally – with a firestorm behind her pasty white skin. Of
all of the white characters hers is the most interesting. Otherwise, it seemed
like there should be less of the white people and more of the maids. Full
Review To Index
08-09-11 The Help is True to the Book (moviefone) Tate Taylor's
script, to its credit, stays quite true to the events and characters in the book
that worked so well. While certain events have been moved around and some of the
finer details are left out, nothing detracted from the movie as a whole. If
you're a student who was assigned the book for summer reading, you might miss a
couple points here and there, but you could probably just see the movie and
still pass the test with ease. (Not that we recommend that!) For the most part,
the transfer from the page to the screen couldn't be better...As far as
emotional roller coasters are concerned, this one does the novel justice and
then some. Reading the book, we got a lump in our throat maybe once or twice
over the course of some 500 pages; watching the movie, we were fighting back
tears (along with everyone else in the theater) a handful of times over the
course of two hours. While Kathryn Stockett did an amazing job of creating these
characters in the first place, seeing them in the flesh really drives it all
home...Jessica Chastain is utterly delightful as Minny's ditzy employer, Celia
Foote...this film is something special. Regardless of your gender or your
familiarity with the novel. Full Review To Index
08-09-11? The Help Filled with Great Actresses (Cinema Blend)
Sporting some of the greatest actresses, both young and veteran, working in
Hollywood today, The Help is stacked from top to bottom. Howard, in playing the
film’s central antagonist, is so great that it may end up hurting the actresses’
career as audience members will constantly feel the urge to jump into the screen
and punch her character in the face. Octavia Spencer, who plays Aibileen’s best
friend, a fellow housekeeper, plays the dramatic and comedic elements of her
character perfectly and has an outstanding dynamic with Jessica Chastain, who
plays her bubbly, airheaded employer. Sissy Spacek is a scene-stealer as Hilly’s
senile mother, Davis finds every note of gravitas in her part and Stone once
again proves that she is one of the best young actresses working in film today.
There isn’t a single weak link in the entire chain. Full Review To Index
08-09-11 Men Seem to Like The Help (Moviefone) I saw 'The Help' at
a daytime screening two weeks ago, and I've never been more grateful to be in
possession of a pair of sunglasses than I was when I left the dark theater and
emerged into the light. Yes, reader, I cried, and I defy any sentient being
among you to get through this film about women and race in the Jim Crow South
without doing the same. Not that it's an overwhelming bummer of a film: the
insanely talented might-as-well-be-all-female cast -- Viola Davis, Emma Stone,
Octavia Spencer, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jessica Chastain, Sissy Spacek, Allison
Janney, etc. -- deliver plenty of laughs, and more than a few infuriating shocks
to the conscience. I went along for the ride -- all 2 1/2 hours of it... I have
yet to meet a single man who has seen the movie and didn't like it. [See video
at:] Full
Review To Index
08-09-11 Jessica and Two Other Actresses Carry The Help (USA
Today) Powered by a strong cast, The Help is a faithful adaptation of Kathryn
Stockett's novel. A trio of outstanding performances carry the film on their
strong shoulders...Davis and Spencer give pitch-perfect performances...The third
noteworthy portrayal is by Jessica Chastain as Celia, a kind-hearted outsider
who dresses like a bombshell and is ostracized by the snobbish young women under
bossy Hilly's sway. Chastain makes a powerful impression as a fragile young wife
hiding a painful secret...The Help sidesteps easy sentimentality. As the film's
heart and soul, Davis and Spencer add vast reserves of depth and dignity to a
crowd-pleasing tale. Full
Review To Index
08-09-11 Jessica is Radiant in The Help (Visalia Times-Delta) You
won’t see a more startling and clear-eyed depiction of what it must have been
like to live in the Jim Crow South than “The Help.”...But both Aibileen and
Missy eventually agree to tell their stories...The stories start to hit close to
home for Eugenia, who soon learns the real story of how her family’s maid
Constantine (Cicely Tyson) left the family home after decades of service. It’s a
heartbreaking moment...Not all the servant’s stories are sad, though. The
vibrant and funny Minny starts a touching and eventually deep friendship with
Celia (Jessica Chastain), a young bride who hires the woman to teach her how to
cook. Their relationship changes both of their lives for the better...Chastain,
who was so good in “The Tree of Life” earlier this summer, is radiant as the
sweet newlywed. Full
Review To Index
08-09-11 The Help Explores Closeness and Hypocrisy of Female
Relationships (Enterprise News) If you think the summer has been lacking in
sophisticated, adult entertainment, don’t worry, “The Help” is on the
way...You’ll get drunk on it, too, as more than a half dozen of Hollywood’s
finest actresses intoxicate you with performances superb enough to attract a
gentleman caller named Oscar. The only question is which of these Southern
belles he’ll smile upon most...On the surface, “The Help” might seem like
another treatise on the evils of racism at best and a second coming of “Steel
Magnolias” at worst. But if an analogy must be made, I’d say “The Help” is
mostly on a par with “Fried Green Tomatoes” in tone and complexity, as it
explores the closeness and hypocrisy of female relationships. Racism is really
just a sidelight in a story that centers on the commonalities that both white
and black women faced in the repressive air that filled the South in the early
1960s. It also questions how much those mores have changed in the 21st century.
Mostly, though, this is a rare opportunity to experience a movie brimming with
talented actors mellifluously exercising their Southern drawls...Every
performance is top-notch, including Spacek as Hilly’s seemingly feeble-minded
mama. But the three standouts are Chastain, Davis and Spencer, all delivering
Oscar-worthy turns that encompass humor, tragedy and fortitude. Full
Review To Index
08-07-11 Jessica and Viola Davis are the Stand Outs in The Help
(Screen International) Aimed at loyal chick lit fans and the often receptive
audience for inspirational drama, The Help is a nicely cast but otherwise
pedestrian adaptation of Kathryn Stockett’s best-selling 2009 novel about
blackmaids and their white employers in the American South of the early
sixties...The subject matter won’t help internationally, though there should be
at least some interest in the several dozen territories in which the novel has
been published...Perhaps trying a bit too hard to respect the source material,
writer-director Tate Taylor (a lifelong friend of novelist Hackett whose only
previous feature is indie outing Pretty Ugly People) allows the film to meander
through a lot of scenes that, while sometimes touching or funny, often feel
incidental. The upshot is a lack of dramatic momentum and an unjustified
two-and-a-half hour running time. The performances are a mixed bag, with Davis
and The Tree of Life’s Jessica Chastain (playing a white social misfit who hires
and befriends Minny) standing out. Full
Review To Index
07-31-11 The All Female Cast of The Help Appeals to Those Interested
in Substantive Fare (Los Angeles Times) A period drama set amid the
explosive racial politics of the 1960s South. An all-female ensemble cast. An
inexperienced director. It sounds like a recipe for a movie that would send
studio executives running. Yet "The Help" — a complex tale of white women and
their relationships with the black maids who clean their houses and care for
their children — didn't just get made. Arriving in theaters Aug. 10, the
DreamWorks film is vying for the attention of audiences more interested in
substantive fare as Hollywood begins to shake off the popcorn movies of summer.
Full
Review To Index
07-13-11 The Help - Oscar Material? (Orlando Sentinel) It’s
impossible to predict which movies will catch on with a broad spectrum of the
audience and develop awards’ season legs. But “The Help,” Tate Taylor’s
adaptation of the Kathryn Stockett novel, has civil rights history and race as
its backdrop. The hook, as aspiring journalist interviewing black housemaids in
Jackson, Mississippi in 1962-63, is brilliant. It has an un-patronizing yet feel
good take on its subject and terrific performances by Viola Davis, Cicely Tyson,
Bryce Dallas Howard (Mean mean mean), Jessica Chastain of “Tree of Life” (cheap
and blonde), Emma Stone and Octavia Spencer. Full
Review To Index
The Tree of Life
Background
Roger Ebert Review
May 17, 2011
Roger Ebert
is perhaps the most well known film critic in America. When Tree of Life
premiered at the Cannes Festival on May 16, 2011, reviewers were polarized in
their responses. Here are excerpts from Roger Ebert's review of May 16 as
written in his Chicago Sun-Times Journal:
Terrence
Malick's new film is a form of prayer. It created within me a spiritual
awareness, and made me more alert to the awe of existence. I believe it stands
free from conventional theologies, although at its end it has images that will
evoke them for some people...
Not long
after its beginning we apparently see the singularity of the Big Bang, when the
universe came into existence. It hurtles through space and time, until it comes
gently to a halt in a small Texas town in the 1950s...
Malick sees
the time spans of the universe and a human life a lot like I always have. As a
child I lay awake obsessed with the idea of infinity and the idea of God, who we
were told had no beginning and no end. How could that be? And if you traveled
and traveled and traveled through the stars, would you ever get to the last one?
Wouldn't there always be one more?...
Many films
diminish us. They cheapen us, masturbate our senses, hammer us with shabby
thrills, diminish the value of life. Some few films evoke the wonderment of
life's experience...
I know the
imperfect family life Malick evokes. I know how even good parents sometimes lose
their tempers. How children resent what seems to be the unforgivable cruelty of
one parent, and the refuge seemingly offered by the other. I know what it is to
see your parents having a argument, while you stand invisible on the lawn at
dusk and half-hear the words drifting through the open windows. I know the
feeling of dread, because when your parents fight, the foundation of your world
shakes...
What Malick
does in "The Tree of Life" is create the span of lives. Of birth, childhood, the
flush of triumph, the anger of belittlement, the poison of resentment, the
warmth of forgiving. And he shows that he feels what I feel, that it was all
most real when we were first setting out, and that it will never be real in that
way again. In the face of Hunter McCracken, who plays Jack as a boy, we see the
face of Sean Penn, who plays him as a man. We see fierceness and pain. We see
that he hates his father and loves him. When his father has a talk with him and
says, "I was a little hard on you sometimes," he says, "It's your house. You can
do what you want to." And we realize how those are not words of anger but
actually words of forgiveness. Someday he will be the father. It will not be so
easy. Full
Review To Index
08-25-11 Sean Penn Shares His Confusion Regarding Tree of Life
(The Guardian) This week it emerged that Sean Penn seems to have been as
mystified by The Tree of Life as the rest of us. "The screenplay is the most
magnificent one that I've ever read but I couldn't find that same emotion on
screen," said the actor of Terrence Malick's graceful meditation on the meaning
of life / unnaturally long ode to self-involvement. "A clearer and more
conventional narrative would have helped the film without, in my opinion,
lessening its beauty and its impact," said Penn. "Frankly, I'm still trying to
figure out what I'm doing there and what I was supposed to add in that context!"
Full
Review To Index
07-30-11 The Tree of Life: A Hindu Reading (The Hindu) The triumph
of Tree of Life lies in its ability to connect with our personal stories. From
all that the kids learn growing up, we try to understand ourselves and
everything we learnt — through religion, upbringing and textbooks — and the
choices we make. It's a deeply meditative film on existence, a prayer of
thanksgiving and a paean to motherhood. According to Malick, God is a woman. And
the woman is God because she creates, she introduces the child to the way of
grace. And Man is the child because he takes time to learn and takes to the way
of nature quite early on. Which is why the father repents his actions way later
in the film, while the child picks up the way of nature as early as adolescence
when he is consumed by lust and experiments with violence...Treat this film as
you would treat a visit to the temple. Go with an empty cup and an open mind.
Else, just skip and don't ruin it for those who want to pay attention to the God
in Malick's detail. Full Review To Index
07-12-11 The Tree of Life: A Buddhist Reading (Religion
Dispatches) By suggesting we see Tree of Life not in terms of a dualistic
choice, but as a “middle way,” I also mean to trigger a Buddhist sensibility to
the film that runs alongside the more overtly Christian one. There is no space
to develop a full account of this here, but it is worth mentioning that a
“Buddhist reading” is entirely plausible...Beyond the style, I mention here one
curious relation to the narrative of Buddhism’s origins. The Life of the Buddha
tells of Siddhartha’s young existence as a prince, living in a kingdom of
earthly delights. At one point in his life, he travels beyond the palace walls,
and there has his “four visions.” He sees an old man, a sick man, a dead man,
and an ascetic. These radically change his life, becoming the sparks that lead
to the renunciation of his old life and begin his spiritual journey. In Tree of
Life, there are a couple key encapsulating scenes experienced by both Jack and
R.L., and both scenes take place outside their own neighborhood. One day, as
they walk through their downtown, they imitate drunken men stumbling out on the
street, laughing as they go. And then they walk past a palsied man, crippling
across the street. We half think (and fear) the boys might imitate him too, but
they don’t. They are bewildered, and the image sinks into their minds. The way
the scene is shot makes it clear they are not being “polite” (as in having been
previously told that “its not nice to make fun of other people”) but they are
genuinely confronted with an image of something they can’t quite register based
on past experiences. Another scene shows a boy who has drowned in the nearby
public pool, his lifeless body laid on the side as the boys gaze on, clearly
trying to make sense of it. No further comment is made. Full
Review To Index
07-12-11 Pitt, Penn, McCracken, and Jessica Chastain Perform Well (The
Gateway Online) While Brad Pitt receives top billing and does a fine job as a
strict but loving father, it’s Hunter McCracken playing the child version of
Jack who is the film’s emotional core. Bearing a striking resemblance to his
adult counterpart Sean Penn, McCracken remains quiet but assured throughout most
scenes, while bursting with rage in some startling moments. Newcomer Jessica
Chastain is equally as impressive, providing a fully fleshed-out character,
despite having very little dialogue. Full
Review To Index
07-07-11 Tree of Life is Paean to the Lost Eden of One's Youth
(RTE.ie) The Tree of Life is nothing less than a masterly tone poem in which
Malick and his acclaimed cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki have created a
heart-rending paean to the lost Eden of one's youth. Full Review To Index
07-07-11 Lack of Dialogue in Tree of Life Unfortunate for Jessica
(Telegraph.co.uk) Malick’s ideas about beauty don’t really extend to language;
his film, though lasting 138 minutes, has very little dialogue as if to preclude
the possibility that humans have the power to create meaning through words. This
is especially unfortunate for Jessica Chastain who, pale-skinned and
pre-Raphaelite-haired, embodies an archetypal femininity that requires her to do
little more than smile serenely, attend to her children, and be more angel than
mother. Full
Review To Index
07-05-11 The Tree of Life is a Captivating Masterwork
(411mania.com) Labeling his style as "not for everyone" has become a cliché, but
the manner in which he approaches filmmaking is different, and more ambitious
than just about any other director alive. The marriage of visuals and music left
me in awe. Malick is a visionary and a poet and The Tree of Life is a
captivating masterwork. It seems that oftentimes when people do not fully
understand something, instead of trying to learn more, they react harshly to its
nature...The Tree of Life is not intended to be baffling, it just might need to
be viewed multiple times to appreciate all of its underlying secrets. Terrence
Malick should be compared to Stanley Kubrick because both approached their craft
with similar attitudes and desires. Both valued their privacy, supplied the
final cut they wanted, and left it at that. There are many similarities, but the
primary one is that both Kubrick and Malick divided audiences with almost every
new release. Yet as the years roll by, the polarizing feedback started to
change, and the mixed reception of a film transitions into describing it as just
a classic...when it was finally released at the 2011 Cannes Film festival, the
media promptly announced that boos were heard with counter applause. Anyone
familiar with the Cannes crowd knows that this is a yearly reaction, and Malick
fans, including myself, took that news and our anticipating for The Tree of Life
only increased. Full
Review To Index
07-05-11 The Tree of Life is about Evolution in Various Forms
(411mania.com) In essence, The Tree of Life is about evolution in various forms,
whether it be an enormous planet or a school boy from a country town. The idea
is that the cycle repeats in various inimitable embodiments. There is a creation
of the Earth sequence that goes on to illustrate the beginning of life itself,
the dinosaur period, and the era before man. This particular interlude is the
source of the majority of the disputes, as some have made the absurd comment
that what's on screen belongs on the Discovery channel. I do think this broadens
the meaning of the film and causes us to admire our place in the universe by
observing how our species has evolved, and by glimpsing Jack's personal
coming-of-age saga. This portrait of one seemingly normal family, is the
nucleus, but is bookended by larger truths of space and time and spirituality.
One of the best moments occurs when the camera rests on a beach near a stream,
where a Parasaurolophus is lying, severely wounded. Soon a young Troodon
(picture a Raptor) wanders by and notices the injured dinosaur. He looks and
places his foot on its neck, getting ready to kill his prey. After
reconsidering, and observing that the Parasaurolophus is helpless, the Troodon
scampers away. There is of course no dialogue during this scene, except for the
vivid sounds of the dinosaurs' movements and the flowing water, but the impact
it leaves is unbelievable, and I cannot remember a more seamless integration of
special effects. At no point did I contemplate the CGI. These dinosaurs appeared
as real as any modern animal, as if Malick magically obtained this suspenseful
rendezvous from the past. Full
Review To Index
06-30-11 Tree of Life: the Final Act Brings it All Home (Herald
Sun) This is a movie where mood is all that matters. And what meaning can be
drawn from that mood will vary wildly from one person to the next. Patience
above and beyond the call of duty is unapologetically demanded. And for at least
two-thirds of The Tree of Life - where the film's abilities to becalm and
bewilder all but cancel each other out - the worry remains that we are being led
down a scenic road to nowhere. All I can say is hang in there. The final act,
which includes a depiction of the afterlife as genuinely moving as any mind
could conjure, brings it all home with an intensity of emotion that is
undeniable. Full
Review To Index
06-30-11 Not All Appreciate Tree of Life (Palm Beach Post) While
cinephiles delight in deciphering the complexities of Terrence Malick’s new
film, The Tree of Life, movie theaters across the country are dealing with
something else: a steady stream of walkouts. I counted 12 to 15 people leaving a
showing I attended last weekend at the Cobb Jupiter 18 theater. A colleague at
another screening counted 17. At a Connecticut art-house theater, enough people
were asking for refunds, which the theater does not permit, that management
posted this notice: "We would like to take this opportunity to remind patrons
that The Tree of Life is a uniquely visionary and deeply philosophical film from
an auteur director. It does not follow a traditional, linear narrative approach
to storytelling."...Here’s the important thing to remember: For the small number
of people drifting out, most of the audiences are staying. Full
Review To Index
06-26-11 Tree of Life Best or Worst Movie Ever Made?
(OnMilwaukee.com) Some people say that it's the "worst movie ever made", which
is obnoxious and completely ridiculous. Really, it's the worst movie ever? Just
because it's unconventional? The beautiful images, at least, don't score any
points with you? On the other end of the spectrum, I hear that it'll "change
your life" or that it's "what cinema is made for", which is also crazy. The Tree
of Life is not film at its very best, but rather simply film doing something
different...if it fundamentally alters the way you think about the world we live
in, chances are you never really thought about it before to begin with. No...but
it is a great film and more importantly an interesting film and one worth seeing
and sitting through, perhaps more than once. Full Review To Index
06-23-11 Tree of Life is not Entertainment - It is Art (Buffalo
News) “The Tree of Life” is not entertainment in any ordinary Hollywood way,
conventional or unconventional. It is art. To put it another way, it is not the
equivalent of a novel or a novella or a short story, as most films are. It isn’t
prose. It’s narrative poetry. If you want to find Malick’s closest artistic
brothers and sisters, you probably shouldn’t look at other filmmakers or
musicians, or even painters. Try Robert Browning and Alfred Lord Tennyson. It
isn’t necessary to know your Browning or Tennyson to see the film, but you do
have to understand that the movie you’re seeing is for another, much larger,
version of yourself than the one you’re used to bringing into movie houses. Full
Review To Index
06-22-11 Comparison of Tree of Life to 2001 is Superficial
(San Antonio Current) The Tree of Life [is] a film bracketed by nothing less
than the inception and the end of a universe of suffering...This epic observance
of Old Testament pangs and New Age panacea, shared by recovering addicts of all
kinds, to literally “Let go and let God,” has been compared to Stanley Kubrick’s
2001: A Space Odyssey; the superficial similarities might be that both pictures
are long, used the services of chief special effects supervisor Douglas Trumbull
(who hadn’t worked in three decades), have a score that invites similarities to
Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and have the audacity to point to where its protagonists
are going and where they have been. But if there is a starchild in The Tree of
Life, he is not in some evolved last stage of pure thought, but in the very
human child you can hold and touch right now. Full
Review To Index
06-18-11 Sydney Film Festival Tree of Life Review (Flickering
Myth) In my opinion there are going to be two types of people in this world,
people who will love this film and people who don’t and I’m firmly in the
former...All of the actors are effortlessly moving...The real surprise asset of
this film is young Jack (Hunter McCracken). We spend a substantial amount of
time with young Jack (McCracken) and he demonstrates the capacity to absorb
Penn’s aura and project his mannerisms to echo the gravitas of Jack in later
life...In formulating an impression of the beginning of the world and asking
questions about life invariably the topic of spirituality comes up. The Tree of
Life is spiritually ambiguous. The O’Brien family is religious but I think that
the mother character sees her God (via Malick’s perspective) not in a church or
in prayer but in nature and every aspect of life - especially her
children...Malick has truly out done himself with The Tree of Life. Sometimes
there are significant films that resonate with you; that swirl their images
around you mind; that etch themselves to the insides of your eyelids so that
they are inescapable; that cause great debate and impassioned love and fiery
hate. The Tree of Life is a signpost,; it’s a chapter title; its an important,
significant, poetic, beautiful film. Full
Review To Index
06-17-11 How Tree of Life is Polarizing (Journal & Topics
Newspapers Online) In its most subtle ways, "The Tree of Life" evokes feelings
of depth that other films try in vain to accomplish by putting the pedal to the
metal. No, the best way to draw evocative feelings is to do as little as
possible - as say in "2001: A Space Odyssey." Once there, it is up to you to
either take the plunge and accept the film's mythology - or pull back and sit
there in stunned silence. "The Tree of Life" has that kind of polarizing effect
- and writer/director Terrence Malick challenges you to open your eyes, ears,
mind, heart and faith to his images and words - or have a miserable time waiting
for it to come to a boring ending. "The Tree of Life" is a cinematic journey
into a realm of your consciousness and the outer boundaries of your
imagination...You don't need to connect all the dots for this film to have an
impact on you - and it doesn't need to be completely understood to enjoy it. You
must go with the flow and gather what you can to try and understand what you
think the director is aiming at. But it is necessary for the film to have
symmetry and have a firm anchor at the end in order to achieve emotional
closure...certainly Oscar worthy. Full
Review To Index
06-10-11 Jessica Chastain Leads the Tree of Life Cast
(Examiner.com) While Brad Pitt played the domineering father well, a personality
the actor admitted differed greatly from his own parenting, Jessica Chastain
truly led the cast. She personified grace incarnate, no doubt aided by her past
dance experiences, her movements working well with the camera and balancing the
energy of her three boyish co-stars. Despite this being their first film, the
boys acted as one would expect of professionals. While McCracken held more
screen time and showed a fire in his eyes, Laramie Eppler also impressed in his
depth and range of emotion. Full
Review To Index
06-03-11 The Tree of Life Vividly Replicates the Way We Remember
(San Francisco Chronicle) "The Tree of Life"...contains some of the most
psychologically insightful and ecstatic filmmaking imaginable. Malick shows you
the world that you know, but he shows it in such a fever that you see it, not
differently, but completely. It's a vision so alive to the mystery in everything
that the simple depiction of a man walking into an office building feels like a
feast of limitless possibility and geometric variety. To see "The Tree of Life"
is to wish you could go through life seeing things in this way. There would be
no fear of death because each moment would be so full as to contain
lifetimes...It's as if we're seeing a dream of the past and hearing mental
vibrations that, either randomly or because of their particular strength,
happened to survive time. The feeling is one of privilege, to be picking up on
precious currents of consciousness, seemingly lost to the world. At its most
basic, "The Tree of Life" vividly replicates, in cinematic terms, the way we
remember. There are general memories, moods and sensations, and then there are
incidents and bits of conversation that are recalled with absolute present-tense
lucidity. Full
Review To Index
05-27-11 How Will Christians Respond to Biblical Themes in Tree of
Life? (Christian Post) “The Tree of Life” has been lauded by many
Christians for carrying Biblical themes, yet at the same time it divides
believers for that very reason. What exactly do the themes mean? What does a
1950s devout Christian family have to do with the dinosaur era and an influx of
a symphonic celestial intermission? The impressionistic film – starring Brad
Pitt, Sean Penn and newcomer Jessica Chastain – opens with a quote from the book
of Job...We witness the 160 million year period from when dinosaurs reigned the
planet to the point of their extinction. The question of life forces the
audience to wonder, how are human beings different? What is the meaning of it
all when everything is created to die?...The complexities of the film and the
slow plot make it difficult for the general audience to truly understand the
Biblical narrative...It will leave viewers, just like most critics, with more
questions than answers. Full
Review To Index
05-27-11 Tree of Life Leaves Viewers in Awe (Collider.com) Though
the summer season is in full force this weekend with The Hangover Part II and
Kung Fu Panda 2 poised to make over $100 million each, it is Terrance Malick’s
The Tree of Life that will leave viewers the most awed. With spectacle ranging
from sumptuous images of the beginning and end of the universe to brief glimpses
of evolution on earth and even dinosaurs as well as touches of magical realism,
this film is an epic tonal poem that left me speechless. My eyes ached because I
didn’t want to blink for fear of missing even one moment. After the film, I
stumbled out into the streets of Los Angeles and walked for eight miles,
contemplating what I had just seen. Full
Review To Index
05-26-11 Tree of Life is the Culmination of Everything Terrence Malick
Has Done Until Now (The Canadian Press) This is unlike anything you've ever
seen before. And yet it's very much the culmination of everything Terrence
Malick has done until now — all four features he's made over the past four
decades. All his thematic and esthetic signatures are there from earlier films
like "Badlands" and "The Thin Red Line": the dreamlike yet precise details, an
obsession with both the metaphysical and the emotional, an ability to create
suspense within a languid mood. It is simultaneously mesmerizing and maddening
as it encompasses nothing less than the nature of existence itself..."The Tree
of Life" is deeply spiritual, but Malick isn't one to preach. Instead, he gives
you the sense that he's genuinely asking questions to which the answers may be
unknowable — he's putting them out there for himself, and for us all. Full
Review To Index
05-25-11 Reviewer Describes Tree of Life (NPR) "Once it started,
you felt the audience kind of divide. Some people really couldn't stand it and
other people found it transformative. It's a story about a young boy, who grows
up to be Sean Penn later, growing up in '50s Texas. His parents are played by
Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain. About 90 minutes of the movie is the story of
this kid's life, growing up during his young years in Texas. What makes the film
strange is it's surrounded by two other things. On the one thing, there's a kind
of 2001-ish story of the creation of the world, which I think is designed to
parallel the creation of this one person's life. But that comes complete with
the creation of the planet and with dinosaurs and all the rest which is kind of
odd for a film about Texas in the 1950s. And then the film builds to another
non-narrative thing — a dreamy, searcher New Age sequence — where Sean Penn,
dressed in a business suit, walks across Death Valley, and maybe or maybe not —
it's not clear from the film, exactly — winds up in Heaven, where he ends up
meeting all of the people he'd known before. So what you have is a rather
beautiful, poetic and normal story of a family in Texas surrounded by stuff that
some people thought visionary and other people thought kitsch." Full
Review To Index
05-25-11 Malick Has a Painter's Eye and a Philosopher's Mind (Bloomberg)
The highlight of Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life” is an 18-minute montage of
galloping dinosaurs, exploding volcanoes, floating amoebas, majestic rainbows,
wriggling jellyfish and a giant meteor hurtling through space. Not a single
person or human voice interrupts the kaleidoscopic flow. It’s a perfect
reflection of Malick’s eccentric filmmaking style, one that emphasizes mood and
images over plot and drama. Malick has a painter’s eye and a philosopher’s mind.
In movies such as “Days of Heaven” and “The New World,” characters take a
backseat to nature and story lines zigzag like a car sliding on ice. “The Tree
of Life,” only his fifth feature in 38 years, may be his most elusive and
beautiful. Full
Review To Index
05-22-11 Tree of Life: Massive Visionary Ambition and Vaporous
Religiose Balderdash (The Independent) The Tree of Life. Fans awaited it as
the Second Coming and Malick may have been thinking along the same lines. The
Tree of Life is the story of a Texan family over several decades, with Brad Pitt
as an authoritarian dad and newcomer Jessica Chastain as a mother who talks to
God in voice-over and levitates in her back yard. But it's also the story of
Creation itself, from the Big Bang, through the dinosaurs – yes, there are
dinosaurs – to the afterlife, where you get to hug your mom and pop on the
beach. It is unarguably a work of massive visionary ambition – and at the same
time, vaporous religiose balderdash, a film that Stanley Kubrick might have made
if he'd been an evangelical preacher. Part cinematic symphony, part cathedral,
part Norman Rockwell greeting card, The Tree of Life is spiritually coercive and
very unpalatable. I don't think it was just the atheists who were booing at the
press show. Full
Review To Index
05-21-11 The Tree of Life Counts (Boston Globe) I think “The Tree
of Life’’ counts. The movie opens with a quotation from the Book of Job, which
means bring your allegorical weight belt. It’s heavy yet light, staggeringly
ambitious yet hermetically personal, a triumph and a failure. After opening with
his characteristic swirl of hovering, dangling camerawork (Emmanuel Luzbecki
shot it) and images that well up your eyes, a break is taken from pensive
voiceovers (“Mother? Brother?’’) and obscurely knotted domestic ellipses (Brad
Pitt and Jessica Chastain mourning a dead son in the 1950s; Sean Penn mourning a
brother in some approximation of the present) to offer a Big Bang planetarium
afternoon. It’s some show. You just wait for Malick to give it some heft or
connection — or to just keep going with it. But he skips millions of years ahead
to the saga of three boys being raised by Pitt’s tough former Navy officer
turned industry captain in Waco, Texas. It feels holy and searching and
remembered and cowed by God— and yet medicinally scientific, too. This is a work
of art by a man who, while having lost touch with reality, is aching to arrive
at some understanding of himself. Malick must, at least, be met on the terms of
seriousness and his ambition. Full
Review To Index
05-20-11 Tree of Life is Rare American Art (Boston Globe) Of the
20 films in competition for the prestigious Palme d’Or, only two — “Drive,’’ by
Danish-born Nicolas Winding Refn, and “The Tree of Life,’’ by Terrence Malick —
are listed as American...Two days ago, in line for a movie, Amy Taubin, a
contributing editor at Film Comment magazine, remarked that Americans no longer
make art, they make independent movies...“The art movie is what used to come to
Sundance,’’ Taubin said. “They were interested in form. Then the studios
discovered that those movies don’t make money...So what began as filmmakers
taking risks has become a landscape of filmmaking that avoids risk in order to
stick to formulas that work commercially....It certainly isn’t the case with
“The Tree of Life,’’ which is the sort of huge and hugely anticipated movie that
almost never comes out of America now. The premiere here Tuesday morning incited
the most pre-screening frenzy and loudest post-screening jeers, which in my
experience means Malick has done something at least partially right...it’s
increasingly rare for an American director to attempt a huge movie with majestic
images and big ideas. “The Tree of Life’’ re-creates the Big Bang, has a
dinosaur or two, and spends a lot of time in the fray with rambunctious boys
growing up in 1950s Texas...it’s impossible to leave the theater less than fully
aware that the movie’s real star is Malick. Full
Review To Index
05-19-11 Jessica is The Tree of Life's Ethereal Mother Figure
(Houston Chronicle) Filmed in Smithville and Houston, Brad Pitt delivers one of
the most memorable performances of his career as the movie's thwarted,
authoritarian father. But it's The Tree of Life's ethereal mother figure -
played by a nearly wordless Jessica Chastain - who emerges as the film's
valorized moral center, a paragon of the spiritual grace her grown son (Sean
Penn) and the filmmaker clearly long for. Full Review To Index
05-19-11 Is Tree of Life the 2001 of 2011? (Hour.ca) The
Tree of Life features Sean Penn as a man looking back on his youth, spent in a
small Texas town in the 1950s with his two brothers, their loving mother
(Jessica Chastain, the film’s revelation) and their strict father (Pitt, solid
as always). Through this impressionistic family chronicle, Malick simultaneously
depicts the origins of the world – Big Bang and dinosaurs included! A stunning
visual spectacle, The Tree of Life clearly bears the mark of its brilliant and
meticulous creator (the voiceover narration, the incantatory dialogue, the
lyrical images, the communion with nature), but during the last stretch, we come
dangerously close to losing interest in this mystical and metaphysical fable.
The 2001 of 2011? Full Review To Index
05-18-11 Reviewer Did not Feel the Immense Cinematic Experience She Hoped For
in Tree of Life (Flagpole Magazine) I was surprised I made it into
Tree of Life, because there were more sign holders than there were ticket
holders. Once I had the shiny ticket in hand, my hopes for the film rose even
higher, and sadly, I was let down. I expected a beautiful elaboration of the
trailer I had seen, and instead, I was just replayed the same preview, except on
a bigger screen. The images of the universe were large, and the voice-over was
nothing short of dramatic, but I did not feel the immense cinematic experience
that I’d hoped for. Once the film started to focus on the narrative, I became
more interested. The three brothers who play the sons of Mr. and Mrs. O’Brien
(Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain) were perfect in their roles. Full
Review To Index
05-18-11 Tree of Life Characters Speak to God Rather than to Each
Other (Mid Columbia Tri City Herald) The only American entry in the top
category, The Tree of Life marks a long-awaited return for prior winner Malick
(Best Director, 1979's Days of Heaven). Starring Brad Pitt as a 1950's patriarch
who believes in rigid discipline above all, he and Jessica Chastain's muted
housewife raise their three boys in a perfectly-depicted Texas suburb. The
costumes, lighting and production values are so evocative, you can almost feel
the summer's nighttime humidity closing in. But just as the drama heats up
between the family members, whoosh, we're spirited away by a spectral light show
into worlds prehistoric and fantastical. Doggie dinosaurs crouch in lush
forests. There's a planet. A cave. Amoebas mate. Water rushes. Think a
gorgeously photographed show at the local planetarium. Seriously. Now consider
yourself trapped in said nature show for 1.5 of the 2.5 hours. Since this is the
The Tree of Life, then, darn it, we're going to explore every limb since time
immemorial. Malick scrambles the concept of story, his characters whispering
voice-over prayers up to God rather than dealing with each other. We want to
pray as well, begging Malick to reconsider. To let us spend some time with what
looks to be some fascinating characters. But no ... there's some rain falling
over here, or a sunflower growing over there ... obviously much too riveting to
miss. * Rating on a scale of 5 trees falling in the forest: 2. Full
Review To Index
05-17-11 Dismissive Review of Tree of Life (RFI) Few cheers and a
lot of jeers followed the showing of director Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life, a
two-hour mishmash of three different stories with very little in common. Brad
Pitt and Jessica Chastain are Mr and Mrs O’Brien, a couple raising their three
children in Waco, Texas, in the 1950s. The flashbacks come as their eldest -
played by Sean Penn, who is probably on the screen a total of five minutes -
looks back on his childhood and wonders about the meaning of life. In between,
bring on the dinosaurs! Quixotically Malick decided to break up the two stories
with a 15-minute shot of the cosmos, complete with rich orchestration...Some
journalists were upset that Malick, a known recluse, didn’t show his
face...Ultimately, the best thing about the film was the fact that the king and
queen of Hollywood, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, aka Brangelina, walked the red
carpet for the premiere. Full
Review To Index
05-16-11 Most Helpful Tree of Life Review So Far [Part One]
(Hollywood Reporter) This fifth feature in Terrence Malick’s eccentric
four-decade career is a beauteous creation that ponders the imponderables, asks
the questions that religious and thoughtful people have posed for millennia and
provokes expansive philosophical musings along with intense personal
introspection. As such, it is hardly a movie for the masses and will polarize
even buffs, some of whom might fail to grasp the connection between the
depiction of the beginnings of life on Earth and the travails of a 1950s Texas
family. But there are great, heady things here, both obvious and evanescent,
more than enough to qualify this as an exceptional and major film...Life is
shaped in an unconventional way, not as a narrative with normal character arcs
and dramatic tension but more like a symphony with several movements -- each
expressive of its own natural phenomena and moods. Arguably, music plays a much
more important role here than do words (there is some voice-over but scarcely
any dialogue at all for nearly an hour) whereas the soaring, sometimes grandiose
soundtrack...dominates in the way it often did in Stanley Kubrick’s work.
Indeed, this comparison is inevitable, as Life is destined to be endlessly
likened to 2001: A Space Odyssey. Full
Review To Index
05-16-11 Most Helpful Tree of Life Review So Far [Part Two]
(Hollywood Reporter) Much of the early going is devoted to spectacular footage
of massive natural phenomena, both in space and on Earth: gaseous masses, light
and matter in motion, volcanic explosions, fire and water, the creation and
growth of cells and organisms, eventually the evolution of jellyfish and even
dinosaurs, represented briefly by stunningly realistic creatures, one of which
oddly appears to express compassion for another. Juxtaposed with this are the
lamentations of a mother (Jessica Chastain) for a son who has just died in
unexplained circumstances....Life gets the balance of its extraordinary dual
perspective between the cosmic and the momentary remarkably right, which holds
it together even during its occasional uncertain stretches. Least effective is
the contemporary framing material centered on the oldest O’Brien kid, Jack,
portrayed as a middle-aged man by Sean Penn...the picture builds to
unanticipated levels of disappointment and tragedy, much of it expressed with a
minimum of dialogue in the final stages of Pitt’s terrific
performance...Voice-over snippets suggestive of states of mind register more
importantly than dialogue, and both are trumped by the diverse musical elements
and the rumblings and murmurs of nature, which have all been blended in a
masterful sound mix. Emmanuel Lubezki outdoes himself with cinematography of
almost unimaginable crispness and luminosity. Full
Review To Index
05-16-11 Tree of Life Elicits a Wide Range of Opinion (Metro
Canada - Ottawa) Terrence Malick lived up to both his public and professional
reputation Monday at the Cannes Film Festival, remaining out of sight while
premiering a film that left crowds buzzing over its thematic scope, emotional
depth and visual grandeur...The film starring Brad Pitt, Sean Penn and Jessica
Chastain drew a scattering of harsh, prolonged boos, answered by enthusiastic
applause from others at the press screening...he skipped the Cannes press
conference that followed Monday's screening, leaving Pitt, Chastain and his
producers to face reporters. "Mr. Malick is very shy, and I would say that I
believe his work speaks for itself," producer Sarah Green said. Pitt compared
Malick's attitude toward publicizing a film to building a house. "I don't know
why it's accepted that people who make things in our business are then expected
to sell them, and I don't think that computes with him," said Pitt...Malick is
known for making films that defy classification...The richly personal drama is
told in a vast reach of impressionistic exchanges and images: from breathtaking
views of the universe's creation to primordial scenes in the age of the
dinosaurs to tender and terrifying family moments. The dreamlike images are
accompanied by poetic voiceovers as characters ponder the universe, wonder if
God exists and offer small pleas or questions to him. "Lord, why? Where were
you?" Chastain's character laments after tragedy strikes. "Who are we to you?
Answer me."...Some at Cannes found it all deeply moving. Others said Malick went
over the top. Full
Review To Index
05-16-11 Tree of Life Requires Reflection and Digestion (TheWrap)
Terrence Malick’s eagerly awaited "The Tree of Life" was held in rapt attention
when it screened in Cannes this morning. But when the credits rolled it was
greeted with boos and applause, as is sometimes the case with more challenging
films here. There is little doubt that the film is a disappointment to those who
were expecting something maybe a little less “thin.” You probably aren't going
to hear the word "masterpiece" thrown around much. All are in agreement about
how beautiful it is to look at and how well the film was made. It’s worth seeing
for the cinematography alone. Having gotten the bad news out of the way early,
let me say that I am not nearly willing to dismiss "Tree of Life" because it was
hard to digest in one go. I look forward to ruminating on it over the next ten
years...It seems to me Malick was getting to something about his own evolution
as a man, mortality, religion, the afterlife - what is it to be born? What is it
to die? The film offers up no answers to these questions...Watching the film is
at times like being in a religious service, walking through an art gallery,
meditating, listening to a poetry reading or dreaming. To that end, it is like a
psychic caress. It’s one of the most soothing works you’ll see here. It soothes
the soul, even if it doesn’t exactly engage the brain. The reaction has so far
been mixed with bloggers and critics. Some want to think about it more before
coming to a conclusion - others feel it was repetitive and said everything it
needed to say in its first breathtaking hour. Full
Review To Index
05-16-11 Tree of Life is Too Obtuse (Film School Rejects) One of
the problems for The Tree of Life is that it is too knowingly obtuse: the
obvious idea of the film is that the we share in the O’Brien’s quest to unravel
meaning in their lives through an evaluation of themselves, their relationships
and their relation to nature and the grander canvas of the universe, but without
a sufficient guiding influence, it becomes far too easy to simply drift along
through the images Malick has so painstakingly compiled without being able to
relate to or engage with his premise. For the majority of The Tree of Life,
Malick is less a film-maker than a magpie of spectacular images, which are in
themselves very impressive (and will no doubt form the basis of all the positive
reviews it gets), but they are so disjointed and alien...Perhaps it is both, but
the cold, clinical precision of the scenes lends itself only to detachment, and
when the revelation finally comes that this is one of the ways that the adult
Jack O’Brien discovers the meaning of life, it inspires nothing much more than
acknowledgment...if you’re like me there’s not much in the scenes for you apart
from a few “ooooo”s in between the various “eh?”s...The mid-section of the film,
in which the O’Brien’s 1950s life is recounted is just as gorgeous as the
visuals of the Earth beginning, but here there is far more to latch on to in
terms of engagement. This is essentially the substance of the film: a portrait
of family life seen through the eyes of a child...the astronomical and
evolutionary scenes are too labored, too blatant and too insistent that they
cloud the meaning rather than add to it...Pitt, Chastaine and McCracken’s
performances are great, and the score is exceptional. And of course, the
aesthetic merits of the film could never have been in doubt, and don’t
disappoint. Full
Review To Index
05-16-11 Applause Overcomes Boos for Tree of Life (Movies.ie) Brad
Pitt, as always, is incredible in his role as Mr O'Brien. It is a change for him
to play a character that is not quite evil, but ruthless and tough - especially
towards children. Jessica Chastain is haunting as Mrs O'Brien and her gentle and
nurturing character is the perfect foil for Pitt's more abrasive one...The
people that booed loudly at the end of the screening, were quickly drowned out
by the applause of those of us who were not quite sure what we had seen, but we
knew we loved it. Critics are already calling the movie pretentious and self
absorbed, but we, here at Movies.ie loved it, and we recommend that you avoid
the reviews, and make your own mind up. The Tree of Life was not the only movie
shown on the Croisette today, but it was definitely the one that everyone was
talking about. Full
Review To Index
05-16-11 First Tree of Life Reviews from Cannes: Mixed
(Hollywood Reporter) The Palais' Lumiere Theatre was packed full of press, who
pushed and shoved to secure a seat for the 8:30 a.m. screening that marked the
official bow of the movie...And even before the final credits rolled on the
elusive director’s 138-minute meditation on the meaning of life, the rush to
judgment began. With the film’s final, ambiguous image still lingering on the
screen, a number of vociferous boos rained down from the balcony, while
scattered applause broke out on the floor of the festival’s main theater...Sean
Penn is seen, relatively briefly, in framing sections as one of their sons,
grown up, troubled, and wandering through high rises in Houston. And then there
is also a magisterial detour into a section that recreates the origins of the
universe and the creation of planet earth, with a stop along the way for a
fleeting glimpse of some dinosaurs. First reactions came in a rat-a-tat volley
of tweets. “Tree of Life just ended, and it’s a very sad and beautiful...wank?
The ultimate refutation of narrative? An interminable tone poem?,” tweeted
Hollywood Elsewhere columnist Jeffrey Wells. Proclaimed Salon’s Andrew O’Hehir,
“If the cosmic astronaut god-baby at the end of 2001 could come back to Earth
and make a movie? It would pretty much be Tree of Life.”...As more substantive
reviews began to issue forth, the tone turned more positive. Calling the movie
“mad and magnificent,” the Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw wrote,”This film is not for
everyone....But this is visionary cinema on an unashamedly huge scale.” The
Hollywood Reporter’s Todd McCarthy noted that it is an “exceptional and major
film” but is “hardly a movie for the masses and will polarize.” Full
Review To Index
05-16-11 Miffed at Tree of Life Director but Haunted by Movie
(MailOnLine) Brad Pitt's art house movie The Tree of Life was greeted to a harsh
chorus of boos, hisses and reluctant applause when it was unveiled at the Cannes
Film Festival. The picture's director Terrence Malick didn't even bother to turn
up at the press conference following a screening that started at 8.30am. Such a
move is considered bad manners. No matter how shy you are for in Cannes you show
up and face the music. It was left to Brad Pitt as lead actor and producer to
lead a team that included leading actress Jessica Chastain, and various other
production executives Dede Gardner, Sarah Green, Grant Hill and Bill Pohlad. The
two hour 18 minute picture is, essentially, a visual poem about love, life,
death, evolution and erupting volcanoes. It's a meditation on grace and nature
and, as with all Malick films, it's deeply personal...I'm quite haunted by it
and I take my hat off to Pitt for backing it with his own money. Full
Review To Index
04-29-11 First Review of The Tree of Life (with extensive production
notes) (The Film Stage) With less than a month to go before Terrence
Malick‘s The Tree of Life hits theaters, the first official review has landed,
and it is quite positive. Sprouting from the French site Les Echos du Cinéma, we
have a translation below from an IMDb user. They praise the film for its natural
performances and beauty, but call out its Christian tones..."After the
screening, we stay there, frozen in our seat, and we understand we can not blame
the film because it is beautiful, even sublime and very moving. The scenario is
the antiplot, there is no conflict, and the meaning of the film, heavily assen,
eludes analysis and discussion. This is a Spielbergian movie in a way, but
deeper and more beautiful. The actors are more real than real, the direction of
Malick shows them in a totally natural that makes us forget the fiction. The
images mesmerize us with their strength and poetry they inspire. But that is not
there. The best part is that you’ll find your feelings of childhood like never
before in film. You’ll see, laugh, run, grow and marvel as the child you were.
You will literally discover the world…Grace is all that matters for Malick. To
choose grace rather than nature is the conflict within Jack. Love and forgive
means choosing grace. To create beauty, but also tend toward grace. Hardness,
violence, profit is the way of nature. Only the relationship between nature and
man, he is talking about the human soul, of God and love between men. There is a
new dimension of cosmic order and we are witnessing the birth of the
universe...we see the first dinosaurs that look much better than the ones in
Jurassic Park. Full
Review To Index
Jolene
Background
05-01-11
Jessica is Convincing in Jolene Blu-ray (JustPressPlay) Jolene will
sneak up on you. What starts as a strange film, with hammy performances that
seem to verge on parody, becomes a provocative and devastating viewing
experience. With a career making turn for Jessica Chastain and a stunning
supporting cast, the film is a modern epic, chronicling ten years in the early
adult life of an orphan. To say the film delivers is an understatement and to
say it’s anything less than a staggering achievement would be a bald-faced
lie...When the end credits roll, one feels they’ve seen a series of mini-movies,
wholly separate from one another, instead of one continuous story. While this
structure could ruin most projects, Jolene rises to the occasion with the
strength of its central character and the clear precision of the
storytelling...The ending is too incredible to divulge and will melt even the
most cynical heart...Chastain dares to look stupid, unconcerned with the obvious
weakness of her character at moments, unwilling to show anything but the pure
truth of Jolene built gradually through her journey. She is as convincing as a
teenager as she is at the movie’s end, ten years later. Hollywood needs more
talent of her caliber...Blu-ray Bonus Features. Beyond the usual, there is a
nice selection of interviews to wade through...The director’s scene specific
commentary is fascinating. Full
Review To Index
04-24-11 Jolene DVD Review (Straight.com) Jolene is portrayed by
Jessica Chastain, a stunning redhead with the old-school looks of a classic
movie star. It’s no wonder that men keep making her offers she can’t
refuse...I’ve always been a fan of Ireland—who was born and raised in Vancouver
before going on to make such heartfelt films as The Whole Wide World and Mrs.
Palfrey at the Claremont . So I wish I could afford to be charitable. But
despite Chastain’s undeniable presence, the story falls flat. After a while, I
felt like I was being forced to watch a bunch of stupid, selfish, losers screw
up their lives. Full
Review To Index
11-04-10 Jolene Draws Compassion from Some; Dismay of Others
(Seattle Times) Chastain proves near-heroic embodying Jolene's innate strength
and incremental wisdom. Yet she also makes us understand how the heroine's
wobbly resistance to manipulative characters is overwhelmed time and again. In
an episodic story with ever-shifting environments and visual palettes (rural
South Carolina, Phoenix, Tulsa, Southern California), Jolene's red hair is the
constant torch of an irrepressible, even artistic spirit...Ireland, co-founder
of the Seattle International Film Festival, knows Jolene will draw compassion
from some viewers and the dismay of others irked by her poor judgment. Fair
enough. The director encourages our honest, involved responses. Jolene's journey
ultimately speaks for itself. The film's final chapter, cleverly set in
Hollywood, recasts her story in profound terms of classic American
self-invention. Full
Review To Index
10-29-10 Jessica Portrays Jolene's 10-Year Journey Like a Pro
(Movieline) Jolene...ultimately amounts to an overlong, vaguely undisciplined,
sporadically trite and obvious bit of road-trip coming-of-age adapted from E.L.
Doctorow’s story. But it has one of the year’s most affecting performances going
for it as well: In her screen debut, Jessica Chastain inhabits the title
character’s 10-year journey like an old pro, making the most of director Dan
Ireland’s leisurely pace and a giving ensemble including Dermot Mulroney, Rupert
Friend, Chazz Palminteri, Frances Fisher and Michael Vartan. Beautifully shot,
it looks and feels like a sprawling showcase for the last gem in a retiring
jeweler’s store — one everyone wants, too, including directors Terrence Malick
and John Madden, who’ve featured Chastain in forthcoming films of their own.
She’s worth it. (Opening limited in NYC, hopefully expanding into other markets
soon.) Full
Review To Index
10-28-10 Jessica Digs Deep in Jolene (New York Times) Jolene
(Jessica Chastain), a survivor of sequential foster-home abuse, embarks on a
10-year search for stability and happiness. What she finds is sex... Jolene
transitions from corn-pone Lolita to willing victim of male desire — Ms.
Chastain digs deep. Surrendering to her character’s smoky voice-over and
disastrous judgment, the actress finds pockets of soul in a role that’s part
Jessica Rabbit, part Marilyn Monroe. Working from Dennis Yares’s adaptation of
an E. L. Doctorow short story, Dan Ireland (whose marvelous 1996 film, “The
Whole Wide World,” introduced us to Renée Zellweger) directs with exploitative
zeal. Full
Review To Index
10-28-10 Jolene Is Almost But Not Quite Good (New York Post) So
bad it's almost (but not quite) good, Dan Ireland's "Jolene" is an unusually
elaborate and excruciatingly long vanity production based on a short story by
E.L. Doctorow ("Ragtime") about a young orphan who looks for (and finds) love in
all the wrong places in the '60s and '70s...Like Doctorow's story, "Jolene" ends
with her arrival in Hollywood, but not until we've seen nearly as much
gratuitous nudity and over-the-top acting as in "Showgirls." Fortunately for
Chastain, "Jolene" is getting only a token release, three years after it was
filmed. Few except critics will remember it when she appears as the female lead
in the much-anticipated "The Tree of Life" in May. Full
Review To Index
10-26-10 Jolene Worth the Two-Year Wait (New York Observer) Jolene
is a very good movie that toured the film festival circuit in 2008 and
disappeared. It is opening at last, and it's good enough to ask aloud, what
happened?...Sensitively directed by Dan Ireland, a co-founder of the Seattle
International Film Festival who makes interesting, offbeat, critically praised
movies (The Whole Wide World with Renée Zellweger, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont
with Joan Plowright) that almost always run into distribution problems, Jolene
has been carefully adapted by Dennis Yares from a short story by E.L. Doctorow.
One would hope that it might change Mr. Ireland's continual run of bad luck, but
the way it has been ignored by both the majors and the small film companies that
specialize in low-budget indie-prods, I worry that a lot of people who crave
fascinating departures from the normal Hollywood rinse cycle may never get a
chance to see it. This would be a shame for many reasons, but most of all
because Jolene introduces in the title role a captivating and totally original
newcomer named Jessica Chastain. This movie boasts a terrific cast, and Ms.
Chastain not only holds her own corner of every scene, she's the only thing you
want to watch. It's a smashing debut. Full
Review To Index
01-13-09 Jessica is a Real Find in Jolene (Hollywood Reporter)
Because there isn't a strong narrative to link her disparate adventures, the
film's success grows from the vividness of individual scenes and performances.
Ireland has a gift for casting, and he has another find in Jessica Chastain, who
can seem simultaneously childlike and womanly, vulnerable and hard-edged; even
when she's embroiled in the most sordid encounters, she always retains our
sympathy. And Ireland has surrounded her with a superb supporting cast including
Dermot Mulroney, Theresa Russell, Frances Fisher, Rupert Friend, Chazz
Palminteri and Michael Vartan. The film is technically accomplished, but it
would benefit from some careful pruning. This picaresque tale dawdles a bit, but
Chastain keeps us rooting for Jolene's survival. Full Review To Index
06-16-08 Jessica Anchors Film Which Has No Solid Grounding (GreenCine)
Chastain does a great job of igniting Jolene's mix of street-wise survivalist
instinct and romantic soul. Her performance anchors a film that has no solid
grounding and her voice-over is spoken with a candid bluntness, the toughened,
unsentimental honesty of hindsight with just a wistful trace of regret - but
after a while I was merely shaking my head at her nearly fatal bad judgment,
which does not improve with time or experience...I saw too few films [at the
Seattle Film Festival] to go trend-spotting, but Jolene did spark a recognition
of a tendency in films in general and American indies in particular (especially
adaptations) at SIFF to frame and explain their narratives with voice-over
narration. Full
Review To Index
Stolen
Background
03-12-10
Stolen Has Small Screen Feel (Daily News) There's a big difference
between television and movie success, but surely triple Emmy nominee Jon Hamm
("Mad Men's" Don Draper) can do better than this minor noir drama. Written and
directed by first timers, "Stolen" actually has a small-screen feel as it
toggles unsteadily between two parallel tragedies. Hamm's Detective Adkins is
searching for his missing son when he comes upon the remains of a boy kidnapped
from a single father (Josh Lucas) in the 1950s...Hamm is so limited by the
period trappings that it seems as if he simply wandered onto the wrong set. Full
Review To Index
03-10-10 Polished and Suspenseful (New York Observer) Although Josh Lucas
and Jon Hamm have no scenes together, they work in tandem. In a spiritual sense,
Mr. Lucas reaches out from the grave to join forces with Mr. Hamm to track down
the killer of their sons, providing 97 minutes of maximum jitters. If the
first-time direction by Anders Anderson and the perfunctory script by Glenn
Taranto don't always ignite, I admire their refusal to underestimate their
audience's intelligence or give away anything more, at any given moment, than
the characters discover themselves. This turns the viewer into a sleuth along
with Mr. Hamm, turning up clues like a silent partner on the case. Not a
masterpiece, perhaps, but technically polished, with inspired performances and
enough suspense that by the time Mr. Hamm found the redemption that freed him
from his own demons, I was so wired I needed a Valium. Full Review To Index
03-10-10 Stolen Seems Cheap and Offers Little (NY Press) Filmed in
a washed-out palette that is meant to convey desperation but just comes across
as cheap, Stolen offers little to the recent sub-genre of Imperiled Children
movies, even as it takes the fathers’ point of view. James Van Der Beek appears
in both time periods, saddled with hilariously gross old-age make-up during his
scenes with Hamm. Hamm himself is too smart a performer for movies like these,
but let’s write it off as a canny career move to take a vacation from Don Draper
and his glumness. Full Review To Index
03-04-10 Dark Yet Prim and Proper (npr) Stolen is a dark saga set on the
fringes of society, yet it couldn't have less film noir atmosphere. Everyone is
just too pretty, and most of the characters are as sweet and simple as John, a
child whose only apparent disability is being, well, childlike. Little attention
is paid to period details like language, clothing or hair: Matthew's boys live
in the late 1950s, but have shaggy, early-'70s manes. Indeed, their haircuts are
almost the only unruly things in this facile movie. Stolen is a tale of random
violence that's as prim as the vision of America peddled 50 years ago by Madison
Avenue. Full
Review To Index
03-04-10 Stolen: A Standard Issue Whodunit (Metromix) "Stolen"
unfolds as a standard-issue "whodunit?" thriller with a multi-era spin. It's not
half bad, nor particularly spectacular. It's just…there. Since the story coasts
along on ambivalence, and the narrative build-up outshines a so-so payoff,
you've got a film that hinges on Hamm's presence. He's got loads of it—but it's
a double-edged sword. Hamm's performance capitalizes on his deft ability to play
brooding, emotionally conflicted alpha-males. Just like Draper. That's a good
thing if you're a "Mad Men" fan looking for something wholly familiar from the
star. Not such a good thing if you were hoping to see him stretch out of his
comfort zone. Full
Review To Index
Murder on the Orient
Express
Background
07-13-10
Poirot and His Antagonist, Jessica's Debanham, Play Up Moral Ambiguity
(zahirblue) Much centers around the true identity of the victim--a vicious
criminal named Cassetti, responsible for the kidnapping and murder of Daisy
Armstrong five years earlier…What fascinates is how this version really plays up
the moral ambiguity. Nowhere more in the short-lived relationship between Poirot
and the person who proves his true antagonist--Miss Debanham (Vanessa Redgrave
in the 1974 film, now played by Jessica Chastain). Before the train departs,
Poirot and she are both witness to a terrible sight--a man leading a crowd to
chase down, then stone to death his wife whom he claims to having been
unfaithful. Poirot…agrees this was "unpleasant" but also "she knew the rules."
Miss Debanham sees further, that even if guilty that poor woman killed no one.
How could that have been justice?...The straightforward, even ruthless [Poirot]
who begins this journey to Paris is not quite the same person who emerges from
Orient Express a few days later. And he knows it. We can see it in his haunted
eyes. Just as we can see her knowledge that they have done this to him in the
gaze of Miss Debanham. Full
Review To Index
Blackbeard
Background
07-04-07
Jessica Is Real Star of the Show in Blackbeard (AVForums)
Blackbeard ticks all the right boxes. It has everything that a good
pirate film should have. It has full size sailing ships, sea battles (shot off
the coast of Thailand), a mutiny, sword fights a go-go, duels with pistols, a
pretty wench (Jessica Chastain), walking the plank, buried treasure and even a
marooned hero...Blackbeard is played by Angus MacFadyen, who appeared as Robert
the Bruce in 'Braveheart'. Sadly his portrayal of the seafaring rascal just
doesn't convey the menace required by the role...MacFadyen lacks the screen
presence (and acting experience) to make the character threatening, fearsome and
hated. The bottom line is - he's just not scary...The real star of the show,
however, is Jessica Chastain who plays the love-interest as a feisty gal who
knows how to use a flintlock or blunderbuss to good effect...In general, it's an
entertaining enough affair and there's enough going on to hold your interest for
its 169 minutes. It just lacked the spark that was needed to make it a truly
involving experience. Overall, remember it's a Hallmark romp and you won't be
disappointed. Full
Review To Index
07-04-07 Jessica Chastain is Nice Fit in Blackbeard (Amazon) Here
is a great made-for-TV miniseries that does a fine job of capturing the mystique
of the legendary (albeit infamous) pirate, Blackbeard. Angus Macfadyen nails the
part of the flamboyant, reckless, merciless and rancorous buccaneer. With no
offense to Mr. Macfadyen, he plays a great scoundrel! The rest of the cast is
quite good as well. Jessica Chastain is a nice fit as the timid, demure, young
& innocent upper class dame who must transform into something of a tomboy in
order to stand up against the nasty pirates...Some other commentators have
complained that the movie is not accurate. This is true: the storyline IS
fictional...the "point" of this film is to tap into the mythology of the
charismatic pirate ...On that account, I believe the movie delivered what it
promised. There were parts of the movie in which I thought to myself: "I bet the
real Blackbeard would have been able to relate to how he was portrayed in this
film."...All in all, if you like pirate movies, this one is certainly worth a
look...I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the film. Full
Review To Index
07-12-06 Blackbeard Shows Its Made-for TV Roots (Flick Filospher)
A made-for-cable mini, this overlong and underdone three-hour movie has its
charms, but it suffers from a minuscule budget and, more dramatically, from its
origins on the squeaky-clean Hallmark Channel...[It] is far too tame to thrill,
and much of the action, like the pirate brawls that pad out the runtime, occur
in muddy darkness...Intrigue comes in the form of a British naval officer (the
vaguely Orlando Bloom-esque Mark Umbers) gone undercover on Blackbeard’s
ship...and the spunky young lady (the very vaguely Keira Knightley-esque Jessica
Chastain) who mopes for his return, when she isn’t rather improbably working as
a doctor among the poor island folk. Full
Review To Index
July 11, 2006 Blackbeard Not Great But Fun and Entertaining (DVD
Talk) I had a pretty good time with Blackbeard. And I'm probably being just a
little bit nicer than the starchy little mini-series deserves, but hey -- I had
fun with it! Angus MacFadyen (and an outrageously ripe accent) stars as
legendary pirate Edward "Blackbeard" Teach, a seafaring criminal who enjoyed a
brief but very colorful reign in the early 1700s...The plot's your standard
affair: Blackbeard busies himself by hunting for treasure and abusing the port
town of New Providence...And if I told you that a romance blossoms between the
blandly noble Maynard and the delicately lovely Ms. Charlotte ... well, I doubt
you'd be all that surprised...Oh sure, Blackbeard might have been improved with
45 minutes shaved off its 169m running time, but then they couldn't have aired
the thing over two consecutive nights...Like most mini-series produced for basic
cable, Blackbeard occasionally trots out some really lame dialogue or some
entirely sketchy special effects, but as far as these types of productions go,
Blackbeard's pretty darn watchable. The production design is rather impressive,
the thing (despite being too long) moves fairly quickly, and on the whole
Blackbeard feels like a perfectly entertaining Saturday afternoon matinee. Full Review To Index
Wilde Salome
Background
09-04-11
It's All in Jessica's Eyes in Wilde Salome (Whatculture) With Pacino
as our perfect tour guide we go from New York to London, to Dublin to Los
Angeles following Oscar Wilde's steps. We learn about Wilde's life in London and
it's a journey inside one of the best minds of western literature… The film was
very experimental, shot in a studio with no external locations. But as we watch
pieces of the film there is no need for locations. It's all in the acting. It's
all there, we do not need more. It's all in Jessica Chastain's eyes when she
asks for the head of John the Baptist whose only fault was to resist her beauty.
He did not kiss her. And so Salome get what she wants, as the audience's eyes
are glued to the screen… You don't need to be a fan of Al Pacino's films to
enjoy Wilde Salome, you don't even have to be a fan of Oscar Wilde for that
matter. If you like films, if you love theater and want to see with your own
eyes what passion means, then Wilde Salome will definitely not leave you
disappointed. Full
Review To Index
09-04-11 One Principle Reason to see Wilde Salome: Jessica
Chastain (Indie Wire) It's an ambitious project… and it's no surprise that
it's taken five years to see the project through to completion (as is clear from
the ugly DV footage that makes up much of the candid section of the
film)…there's one principle reason to see "Wilde Salome," and the clue is in the
second part of the title. Pacino (and, we assume, Parsons) can claim bragging
rights on Jessica Chastain, who plays the title role in the production; she was
cast in the stage version way back in 2006, long before her current
omnipresence, when all she had to her name were a handful of TV credits on the
likes of "E.R." and "Veronica Mars." Not only does Chastain (only 25 at time of
filming) exude star quality and a serious-minded work ethic in the
behind-the-scenes footage, but she's also sensationally, jaw-droppingly good as
Salome. It's a far cry from her ethereal turn in "The Tree of Life," the actress
moving effortlessly between the innocent, the seductress and the monster. It's
impossible to take your eyes off her when she's on screen, and it firmly
reinforces what's become more and more clear over the course of 2011; that she's
a truly precious talent, and one that will only go on to do more and more
impressive work over the years. It remains to be seen if the film gets even the
kind of limited release that "Looking for Richard" received-it's a much more
niche piece of work, and being much less well realized, is unlikely to attract
even much of an arthouse crowd. But even if it ends up airing on PBS years from
now, it's worth checking out, if only for the acting fireworks. Full
Review To Index
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