Tag: Molly Parker

Lost in Space (2018) s01e08 – Trajectory

Will Robinson, falling for Dr. Smith’s shit since 1965. Having not seen the original show and not having great memories of the obvious evilness of Gary Oldman’s Dr. Smith in the Lost in Space: The Movie, I don’t know how this show’s version of Will Robinson, played by Maxwell Jenkins, falling for Parker Posey’s very obvious machinations—“Your parents lie to you to make you feel better because you’re just a kid”—when she’s literally locked up for being a supervillain… I’m not sure if Jenkins’s is a particularly dippy Will Robinson or just the norm.

Posey tricking Jenkins into helping her escape and wreck havoc doesn’t happen until the third act and then mostly just to screw up the imminent resolution to the rescue A-plot. It’s all for the cliffhanger, which is fine. Jenkins and Posey have the least amount of charisma together, and it’s thankfully not a running subplot.

The episode’s kind of an Apollo 13 riff. There’s a quick resolution to the previous episode’s hard cliffhanger, which had colony leader Raza Jaffrey being a bigger dick than usual and then losing his authority to Toby Stephens and Molly Parker. They’re a team now too. It makes Stephens more likable when he admits he needs to check with his wife.

But now all the survivors know there’s not much time left before the planet self-destructs—or at least burns all the humans off the surface—and there’s barely enough fuel for one ship. Parker’s got to figure out what to do, then Jenkins somehow makes her think of the time she saw Apollo 13 and how they should do a science no hyphen fiction episode where they need to strip down a space-camper, so it can get to the atmosphere with less fuel.

There’s a very brief thread about Yukari Komatsu having to fly it because she weighs the least, which upsets Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa—the scene where they argue in Japanese makes you wish the show were about them. And in Japanese.

Turns out the only person who can wake up from unconscious in time is Stephens, which means Parker, Jenkins, Mina Sundwall, and Taylor Russell all have to work out dad going on a potential suicide mission while training him for it. Luckily, they’ve got a few days, so they’re going to work it all out.

Not. The mother-ship has to leave sooner, so it’s now or never.

Probably series best acting from Stephens, which isn’t too high a bar for him to clear, but also terrific acting from Parker and Ignacio Serricchio. Even though Parker knows how the ships are supposed to work based on the manuals, Serricchio knows how they really work. It also gives Serricchio time with the other kids—not just Russell, though they have a rushed resolve to their investigating Posey plot—and it works.

Sundwall’s got a little to do with Ajay Friese—dealing with the fallout from her parents usurping control from his shitty dad, but otherwise, she and Russell end up all support to the main plot. Appropriately end up all support to the main plot. It’s a “clocks ticking” science and engineering action story.

Stephen Surjik directs Ron Howard-style just fine. Katherine Collins and Kari Drake (who are both producers as well) get the script credit. It’s most enthusiastic when on the main plot, which is enough to cover for the drags.

Like Jenkins somehow never realizing, after so much recent experience, it’s not okay when adults talk to children the way Posey talks to him.

Lost in Space (2018) s01e07 – Pressurized

So, there’s a lot good about this episode. Director Tim Southam leans in heavy on the “we’ve got John Williams music anyway, let’s make it like a Spielberg” to good effect. There’s a very nice arc for Taylor Russell and Ignacio Serricchio (who still aren’t romantic, yay), and there’s a pretty good one for Molly Parker and Toby Stephens. Maxwell Jenkins and Mina Sundwall have a brother and sister bonding arc because Jenkins is so upset about what happened at the end of last episode.

We don’t see Jenkins tell his family about it, so there’s no resolution to that significant plot point and character development moment. Instead, he and Sundwall come up with activities to show the state of his grief over telling his robot to self-destruct. Not even an “I know why you cry” moment. It’s got to be the biggest dodge the series has done to date. Not sure if they didn’t think they could write it or Stephens or Jenkins could act it.

Anyway.

Serricchio and Russell are still working with colony leader and general asshole Raza Jaffrey. Does someone call him an “asshole?” Maybe. The quickly deteriorating planet is making things difficult for everyone out and about (except Parker Posey, who has an uneventful field trip to get her plot in place for next episode). The expedition has to do a timed special effects sequence to get back home, and something goes wrong, leading to a casualty and a stand-off between Russell and Jaffrey. Russell may be a doctor and all, but what does she know, Jaffrey says.

Serricchio’s got to take a side, which then has further repercussions.

It’s a manipulative arc, to be sure, but expertly directed by Southam and very well-acted by Russell, Jaffrey, and Serricchio. If “Lost in Space” doesn’t screw up Russell and Serricchio’s friendship, it’s looking likely to be the best thing about the show.

Parker and Stephens are on their own day trip. Thanks to unexpected seismic activity, they end up in mortal danger. Since Parker and Stephens know the planet’s breaking up, but no one else is aware (well, Sundwall, but it’s only important later on), it adds a certain dramatic weight to their arc. Plus, they finally get a scene together where they aren’t mad (or Parker isn’t mad) and can appreciate one another. It’s… better? I’m not sure what “Lost in Space” gets out of the Robinson family being mad at dad Stephens for the first six and a half episodes of a ten-episode season, but I’ll bet it’s less than twenty minutes of material.

Parker holds up their arc.

There’s a big development in the rescue plotline, which leads to a compelling hard cliffhanger. The cliffhanger also ties into the Posey plotline, as it works to verify her seemingly random lies.

Southam’s direction is first-rate. He really likes doing this kind of show. The scene where they lay on the John Williams isn’t even good. It’s just the most appropriate place for the music.

Lost in Space (2018) s01e06 – Eulogy

Another episode, another new writer and director. Also, the opening titles are back. It’s also the longest episode so far (I’m pretty sure), clocking in just over an hour. Because a lot happens, and everyone gets something to do. However, the script (credited to Ed McCardie) compensates for its numerous supporting players by sticking Molly Parker in the space-camper for the episode. She’s recovering from injuries last episode, which heal really fast since the previous episode ended with cuts on her face, and they’re dirt this one.

She’s busy trying to decide whether to tell the other survivors the planet they’ve crashed on is going to freakishly burn up like David Marcus used protomatter in his equations. It’ll tie into Parker Posey’s arc, which has Posey trying to convince Sibongile Mlambo to lose her shit about the robot. Parker gets one really good scene; it’s opposite Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa; it’s too bad they don’t have Tagawa do more. He’s the best of the supporting players. Mlambo is the worst. She’s never had so much to do, and she doesn’t do much with it.

Though it’s a rough part—Posey, posing as a therapist, is trying to traumatize Mlambo to… do something. It’s not clear what. The audience knows what’s going to happen, and one presumes Posey has a plan, but when Mlambo gets around to lashing out, it doesn’t seem like Posey knows what’s about to happen.

Toby Stephens and Maxwell Jenkins have the least successful storyline of the episode. Stephens is trying to teach Jenkins how to take responsibility for the robot, having been a bad guy before Jenkins tamed it. They have a very physical and visual arc to show Jenkins is learning, but it’s an internal character development thing, and externalizing it, especially with so much sentimentality, is weird. Though it ties together nicely with the humdinger of a soft cliffhanger.

Mina Sundwell and Ajay Friese are off on a hiking date. It’s good stuff. Like, Sandwell’s a lot better with Friese than her siblings. Unfortunately, their subplot isn’t as much for character development as showing off more of the rapidly deteriorating planet. But they’re sympathetic, and there is one good character development moment.

The main plot has Taylor Russell and Ignacio Serricchio going on an expedition to get some fuel. If they find the fuel, Parker won’t have to tell everyone about the planet burning up, so it solves her problems too. Raza Jaffrey is also along on the plot to add some classism (everyone thinks Serricchio is mercenary, but then they’re leaving him on another dying planet, Earth, while they all go off to paradise). It’s an excellent episode for Serricchio, whose less flirty and more friendly with Russell, and all of a sudden, their character relationship has potential.

While Russell does get some character development towards the start, she ends up just supporting Serricchio’s arc. There’s also some drama regarding their suspicion of Posey, but it’s their secret at this point.

It’s got a very three-act structure, with Stephens starting out trying to sort out what to do about the killer robot and all the excursions getting planned out. Then the third act really echoes the first. The timing’s not great, like Jenkins and Stephens’s responsibility arc probably should’ve come sooner—or that aforementioned humdinger of a finale should’ve come later—but it’s a surprising, compelling episode.

The show seems very confident in its swings. Hopefully, it’s justified.

Lost in Space (2018) s01e05 – Transmission

Even though this episode opens with Parker Posey trekking back through the forest after watching the Robinson kids hide the robot last episode… it seems like more time has progressed than a few hours. Unless all the survivors moved all their space-campers (the Jupiter space-camper) to the same campground overnight and legitimately elected, but dipshit leader Raza Jaffrey has got a plan for communicating their mothership.

They're going to build a tower and put a bunch of lights at the top and hope the mothership sees them from orbit. There aren't any establishing shots of the tower during construction, which makes it kind of hard to visualize, but director Deborah Chow instead focuses on Jaffrey being a jackass and how much better it would be if Robinson dad Toby Stephens was in charge.

It's obvious stuff, but it's also totally fine. Compared to the other guys, Stephens is definitely a winner.

After Posey's walk through the dewy woods, the action cuts to Molly Parker. She will have a solo mission this episode, something to do with her calculations of the planet's changing seasons. They're changing way too quickly. Juxtaposed with Parker going out and investigating, there are flashbacks to her relationship with her kids on Earth, scenes where Stephens just happens not to be there. First up, we discover Maxwell Jenkins was born premature and in a NICU, and so obviously, Parker was going to fudge his scores to make sure he got to get lost in space with the rest of them. Later, there's more with the other kids and shade at off-screen Stephen's expense. Maybe not the best flashbacks, but okay.

The majority of the episode's character development and it all happens onscreen. Taylor Russell and Ignacio Serricchio become erstwhile friends and allies. Hopefully, they don't have a romance because Serricchio's fifteen years older than Russell, who's twenty-four playing an eighteen-year-old, so he looks a full eighteen years older than Russell. We also get Serricchio finding out Posey's still alive—or, more, vice versa—and some drama from that interaction, especially since it gets Russell suspicious.

Meanwhile, Mina Sundwall spends most of her time flirting with Ajay Friese. Friese is Jaffrey's son, and Jaffrey's an asshole to his kid. Good enough banter and Friese calls Sundwall on her brattiness.

Jenkins's plot has him wanting to tell Stephens about the robot and never getting the courage. Posey also snoops on that subplot, using it to cause some drama. Really get to see Posey machinating this episode.

The ending is an unexpected (though forecasted) action sequence with heavy Jurassic Park nods, like straight riffs on scenes. Chow's very intentional about it in the direction, but then composer Christopher Lennertz doesn't lean into the John Williams-esque stuff he's done before. It's also weird a little later when there's a big Spielbergian "boy and his robot" moment.

It actually made me wonder if they shouldn't have tried harder to make the movie feel like Spielberg. Maybe they would've gotten a sequel.

The episode definitely has a different feel than the previous ones—the now enormous background cast—but "Lost in Space" still seems to know where it's going.

Lost in Space (2018) s01e04 – The Robinsons Were Here

So Ignacio Serricchio is playing Don West, a character from the original show (Matt LeBlanc in the movie). If they mentioned his name before, I missed it. However, given Serricchio refers to himself multiple times in the third person this episode, maybe I wasn’t the only one confused.

Last episode ended with the heroes finding out the colony spaceship survived; this episode begins with Molly Parker and Toby Stephens heading over to another escape ship to confab with their fellow survivors. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa plays the dad on the other ship (apparently, they’re all families and all cishet). It’s good to see Tagawa in something, but he’s gone after a second once the episode reveals Serricchio made it (along with Sibongile Mlambo). Posey abandoned them to a killer storm a couple episodes ago, and so now Posey’s in additional danger of being found out. She was already worried about the colony ship, knowing she’s an imposter; now everyone on the planet’s going to find out she’s an attempted manslaughterer.

The other significant development is Mlambo telling Taylor Russell about the killer robot attacking them. She immediately goes to tell her parents, who’ve already left on an adventure with Serricchio. So Russell goes home to confront Maxwell Jenkins about the robot, and since he already knew, he’s going to run away and hide it in a cave so she can’t rat him out to dad Stephens. Or something. It’s unclear why Jenkins is hiding the robot once everyone finds out it’s a killer robot. Because Russell goes with Jenkins to hide the robot, then Mina Sundwall tags along too, so it’s an outing.

It’s a good outing too. The character development between the kids is solid stuff, even if the excursion seems ginned up (though by an eleven-year-old, Jenkins, so a little better given that context). Posey’s following them because she wants to get the killer robot on her side. It’s a kids’ quest trope; it works.

The other plotline is Parker, Stephens, and Serricchio going to a crashed portion of the colony spaceship for supplies. There they make a few discoveries like they’re in more trouble than they thought, but also, Serricchio’s a smuggler who talks about himself in the third person. It’s funny how much different Serricchio’s character plays in this episode than in the one where he and Posey were trying to survive immediately post-crash. He was likable in that episode.

He’s a jackass in this one.

We also get a big reveal in the backstory with Stephens and Parker—what he did to wrong his family—and it’s underwhelming. No wonder it’s hard to write the character relationship when they’ve got such a slight conflict.

There’s a really funny Ferris Bueller’s Day Off reference, some more great Christopher Lennertz riffing on John Williams music (Jurassic Park this time), and generally better timing with the cast. Finally, we’re getting to the actors working off each other, which is nice, especially for Parker and Stephens. Even if their backstory is jank.

It’s the best episode so far. Really good direction from Alice Troughton, and hopefully, the characterizations in the script (credited to Katherine Collins) hold.

Lost in Space (2018) s01e03 – Infestation

After two episodes making a lot of noise but not really doing anything productive, Toby Stephens finally finds something he’s good at—fighting fuel-consuming alien eels. It’s another job the killer robot could do better, but the killer robot is too busy protecting Maxwell Jenkins. Once the robot deems there to be too much danger for Will Robinson (Jenkins), he blockades the kid in a storage closet until the rest of the family can solve the problem. Not too sure about the robot’s critical thinking skills.

Also in the storage closet is Parker Posey, because it’s her bedroom. They don’t have anywhere else for her to stay; Molly Parker showing her the room is one of the few comic beats for the adults this episode. There’s some kid banter, but it’s a high-stakes episode otherwise. The eels are consuming the fuel at an alarming rate, and it’s a race against time. If they lose too much fuel to take off, they’ll be trapped in the glacier forever.

So the A-plot is that crisis, with the episode also spending some time on Taylor Russell’s PTSD from being trapped in the ice in the first episode. She was there for hours, thinking she would freeze or suffocate or both, and even though mom Parker’s a smart lady, she doesn’t understand PTSD. Luckily, Stephens does and is going to help Russell whether she’s talking to him or not.

Stephens’s character—the rough and tumble career Marine—is an odd fit with the rest of the family, partially because he and Parker don’t have any chemistry together, and the show’s been telling us for ages she hates him. The kids aren’t thrilled with him either. And it’s an almost entirely physical performance, with Stephens feeling like the Netflix streaming version of Hugh Jackman or if he were believable as a dad, Michael Fassbender. It doesn’t help the show’s trying to make him… questionably reliable. This episode seems to be turning it around a little, especially with the bonding with Russell.

Because Russell’s so far the only character who isn’t either questionably reliable, dangerous, or annoying. Parker, Stephens, and Jenkins all have failings (though Jenkins’s character is eleven, which qualifies the situation a little), Mina Sundwall actively pesters and nothing else, and Posey’s a villain. Russell’s not the show’s protagonist, but she’s the closest thing to a hero it’s got.

As for Posey’s villainy, we get some flashbacks explaining how she got on the colony ship, including a fantastic cameo from Selma Blair as her sister on Earth (Blair and Posey as sisters should be a show), but also the trouble she got on while onboard. Posey leans into impersonating a psychologist, trying to figure out how to manipulate the family she’s found herself stranded with.

The episode opens with an opening title sequence—the previous episodes did not—and it’s not great but does distinguish a new phase of the show. As does composer Christopher Lennertz leveraging the original “Lost in Space” theme song from John Williams. The music’s all very Williams-esque, including a spaceship sequence out of a Star Wars movie. Lennertz makes it work really well. So well it’s a surprise they didn’t start doing it in the first episode, but this episode’s also got a different director (Tim Southam) and doesn’t feel like part of the pilot movie. It does, however, feel like they’re still setting up the season instead of doing the show.

Lost in Space (2018) s01e02 – Diamonds in the Sky

This episode feels a little bit like “Pilot: Part Two” since it introduces Parker Posey to the series. The soft cliffhanger last episode had her assuming a false identity and getting onto an escape spaceship with mechanics Ignacio Serricchio and AnnaMaria Demara. As the bigger spaceship was under attack from a killer robot before all the ships—including the escape vessels—get sucked into a black hole.

The regular cast will find out all that spaceship information, though not all of it for everyone (and not the specifics). For instance, Maxwell Jenkins will discover his pet Terminator (they even play catch at one point) attacked the ship and killed a bunch of people. But the robot’s changed so Jenkins is going to keep it to himself. Molly Parker and Toby Stephens find out they’re way off course—in another galaxy—though it’s more Parker finds out and has to tell Stephens about it. There’s quite a bit about who’s in charge, Parker or Stephens, and the show tries hard to make Stephens a reasonable leader but… then he does something dumb and callous, whereas Parker’s never callous even when she makes a mistake.

Parker, Stephens, and Jenkins are off investigating other crashed ships—one of their fellow colonist vessels and then the alien robot’s ship. Back at their ship, Taylor Russell and Mina Sundwall are in charge of slowing freeing said ship from an underwater ice lake. Except Sundwall is worried about an approaching storm front and wants to get their RV out of storage while Russell wants to follow the rules.

Under threat from the same storm is Serricchio and Posey. They’ve survived their crash and are trying to find other survivors. Except we, the audience, know there’s something shady about Posey and it seems like Serricchio might be in danger. Except Serricchio is a working class hero and he’s not going to let a little straightedge lady like Posey cramp his style. It’s an interesting way to do character development, having Posey discover the sympathetic truths under Serricchio’s bravado while she’s still a danger to him. Posey mostly plays it restrained, letting Serricchio run the scenes, only with her character developing underneath it. It’s good banter and sci-fi action survival stuff. Serricchio’s so sympathetic he makes Posey seem less dangerous.

While the whole cast gets something to do—although Russell ends up with less and less as the episode goes on—introducing Posey is the point and it’s successfully done. The family drama is all building—the conflicts between sisters, parents, then Jenkins and everyone but his killer robot—there’s no time for relief here, not when the storm is imminent and the planet has diamond-sharp sand that storm will be kicking up.

Again, it feels very much like the conclusion to the pilot movie for the show. The board is set, the pieces’s rules and responsibilities define, time for the game to start.

Lost in Space (2018) s01e01 – Impact

I must confess I didn’t remember my “Lost in Space” enough to know they had three kids. I thought Taylor Russell was added for the new show. I also don’t think I’ve ever seen the original series, just the movie. But there are three kids.

Besides Russell, who’s the Doogie Howser teen doctor, there’s Mina Sundwall, who’s the annoying middle child, and Maxwell Jenkins, who’s the unspectacular youngest. The episode opens with the family sitting around the proverbial dinner table—albeit on an interstellar spacecraft hurtling to an Offworld colony in another star system—playing Go Fish. We find out Jenkins doesn’t cover his cards, and Sundwall takes advantage. We also find out Russell isn’t happy with dad Toby Stephens. Also, they’re crashing and trying to stay calm as they do it.

The episode has a series of flashbacks filling in the backstory, which has an asteroid hitting Earth and basically making it a shithole in a few years, so all the capable smart people are going to go colonize another planet. Luckily, mom Molly Parker, Russell, and Sundwall are all very, very smart and capable people. Dad Stephens was in the Marines on Earth, and everyone’s mad at him about something, even though the first time we see them in flashback, they’re all pleased with dad. Presumably, being in the Marines means he gets to go Offworld with them.

Jenkins, it turns out, wasn’t good enough to cut it for the mission, and Parker had his record hacked to bring him along. So when he’s feeling inadequate, it’s because he’s actually inadequate. Luckily, he will tame a killer robot before the episode’s over, so he’s a lot more useful.

But since I didn’t remember Russell’s character was a series staple, I thought when they were threatening to kill her terribly, they might do it. What a way to do a tough new “Lost in Space” and immediately kill one of the kids. “Lost in Space”’s future is nice looking (except for the really crappy UX on the computers), but the society is really messed up.

Anyway.

Russell spends most of the episode in a life-threatening situation, with Jenkins also getting into one in the second act. Stephens’s questionable dad skills will be involved with both situations, leading to a lot of drama with Parker. Then we find out she was kind of ready to just divorce him when he decided to tag along on their interstellar relocation.

It helps the cast is mostly likable—well, mainly Parker and Russell are likable, while Jenkins is sympathetic. Sundwall gets the least character and but the most personality. And then Stephens is shifty and questionably competent.

Neil Marshall directs, usually emphasizing character drama and the resulting development (a plus since the special effects are iffy at times); he’s thoughtful about how he puts the children in danger, though the sequence where Jenkins is taming the robot ratchets up the intensity a tad much for the pay-off. The first half of the episode seems more budget conscious (limited sets) before the second half opens things up. It scales nicely.

The last flashback reveal introduces Parker Posey’s “Doctor Smith” (in a way you don’t have to know anything about the series or even the accompanying Bill Mumy cameo) in addition to giving the audience a bunch more information than the characters about the crashed spaceships and the robot. It’s a good hook for next time.

Wonderland (1999, Michael Winterbottom)

From a description–not even from a few minutes–Wonderland might appear to fit into (or create again) the British realism movement. It’s shot on video, natural lighting, natural make-up, no visible tripod shots, all hand-held, all very cinema verite. There’s no artificiality to it. Except the artificiality of being a filmed narrative.

Wonderland even visibly bucks against the idea of cinema standards–the easy comic scene of an expectant father encountering a troublesome newborn is instead everyday, one of the things Eddie (John Simm) sees as a kitchen salesman. Lawrence Coriat’s script is set on a weekend, starting with Thursday night–the weekend’s special, by the end of the film, because of the events transpired during the running time, but initially, it’s special–and Wonderland is presented as the slice of these characters’ lives to present to an audience–because of absent brother Darren (Enzo Cilenti), his birthday and his visit to London.

He’s not there to visit his sisters, Debbie (Shirley Henderson), Nadia (Gina McKee) or Molly (Molly Parker)–though it’s seriously implied the only one he had any sort of significant relationship with is Nadia. Nor is he there to see his parents, Bill (Jack Shepherd) or Eileen (Kika Markham). He’s there with his girlfriend Melanie (Sarah-Jane Potts), who’s apparently in the financial position to throw him a great birthday weekend.

There’s no glorious family reunion. There are no tearful, heartfelt moments where Darren and Bill talk. Winterbottom and Coriat enjoy dangling possible cinematic melodramas in front of the viewer, only to dismiss such events, sometimes not unkindly–like when Debbie’s son, Jack (Peter Marfleet), gets mugged. It’s a huge moment, the culmination of everyone concerned’s fears, yet it’s barely shown. The villains are not emphasized and if one were to look away for a moment, he or she could miss it.

But there is glory to Wonderland and that glory is where the film doesn’t just earn its title, but its place alongside Tati’s Play Time. Wonderland is a celebration of Londoners and an exquisitely discrete one. Winterbottom’s London doesn’t come alive until after dark, when it’s awash with lights. Though he’s shooting with digital cameras and using natural light, Winterbottom emphasizes how the artificial lights of the landscape–whether cars’ headlights or shopfronts’ fluorescents–create the vibrant backdrop for the wonderment.

One of the things Tati did with Play Time and, to a somewhat lesser extent, M. Hulot’s Holiday, was draw attention to the generic beauty of people through music. There’s a compilation of Tati’s film’s themes out and if one listens to it when observing the common–people playing frisbee in a park, people walking through an urban center–everything becomes beautiful. To some degree–and it’s a little measured, because Winterbottom and composer Michael Nyman are conservative with it–Wonderland does the same thing. It shows the viewer how beautiful life can be, how wondrous it can be, all while acknowledging its subjects might only be experiencing this beauty and wonder for a moment.

Wonderland‘s interpretation of beauty and wonderment in the common world–because there’s nothing fantastic about the plot, about the setting–even the “melodramatic” moments are completely reasonable, whether it’s Nadia meeting ex-brother-in-law Dan (Ian Hart) on a blind, dating service date or Molly and missing husband Eddie meeting up in the metropolitan hospital–these moments play out without melodrama, without acknowledgment of the possibility of Coriat contriving them. Instead, they’re part of the tapestry, part of the web–they’re part of these characters’ lives. That coincidence–without Coriat or Winterbottom ever drawing attention it or the general artificiality of the motion picture scenario–is one of Wonderland‘s greatest beauties. As the events pass in the running time, as people argue or people cry, it immediately becomes something in the memory of the characters experiencing the events. It’s a crazy idea–if the film doesn’t slow down to acknowledge contrivance or melodrama, do the characters themselves experience it?

But if Wonderland is moving too fast to let its characters catch on, it’s also moving so fast it begs to have the viewer slow it down, to consider each day (separated by title card) or even further–to look at how Winterbottom and Coriat juxtapose the characters with one another. Nadia and Eileen, who have no scenes, don’t even talk about each other–one of the stranger and more realistic facets of Wonderland is how the daughters’ stories, with the exception of Molly, could be separated from the parents and they’d be narratively sound–have this stunning juxtaposition in terms of camera placement. And camera placement means more in Wonderland, something where camera placement and composition should seemingly be more environment defined. When Winterbottom places an actor in the same place as another actor, it isn’t a cute transition, it’s a silent, telling comment on the relationship between the family members, between the people.

And Wonderland really does–like all great stories–bring Faulkner’s point about literature discussing people, not characters, to the fore. It’s impossible to think of Nadia as Gina McKee, even though–at the time–she was the most famous (at least to American audiences) actor in the film. Nadia, with her goofy hair and dating problems, is definitely the protagonist for a lot of the film, but it’s all so fluid, the film moves away from her. Her story is the most cinematic… but not really. All of the sisters–Debbie, Nadia, Molly–go through an incredibly cinematic story during Wonderland‘s running time. How Coriat found time to include Debbie’s son or Molly’s husband or their parents in this story–which only runs an hour and fifty minutes–is incredible. Wonderland begs for narrative deconstruction, not just for Coriat’s plotting, but for how Winterbottom films it.

The last sibling, Darren, is different from the rest. He’s living–with girlfriend Melanie (I’m not sure Potts’s character ever gets named in the film)–the life his family dreams of. He’s out in that exciting, Technicolor, neon London nighttime landscape his sisters only can look at. Molly doesn’t even realize she has anything to do with it, which makes her both sympathetic and sad. Her husband, Eddie, can clearly see what they’re missing and longs for it. Debbie tries to straddle it and being a single mother, but finds both difficult. Nadia, who should move through it with the greatest ease, stumbles. The scene where Nadia falls for a guy–the first time–is devastating, because it reveals this character, this protagonist, in a way the viewer never before saw.

Like I said before, Wonderland begs a certain amount of analysis–why do the colors of Eddie and Molly’s apartment match the colors of the title cards, why does London only come to life on film at night, why does the viewer get a closer look into Nadia’s life than any of the other sisters–but it resists any analysis. It’s a distant film–there’s not a single pay-off moment in the whole thing; it’s populated with unhappy people struggling.

In the end, not everyone gets a reward, nor should they.

But some do and they deserve it.

And so does the viewer.

Hollywoodland (2006, Allen Coulter)

Hollywoodland is not a narrative mess. It’d be a far more interesting (and far less boring) two hours if it were. Instead, Paul Bernbaum’s plotting is intentional and considered. Neither Bernbaum nor director Allen Coulter seem to understand the problems with having two protagonists, not having anything to do with each other, juxtaposed for a couple hours, however.

It starts really strong, with Adrien Brody fantastic as the glib private detective. He has a solid sidekick and love interest in Caroline Dhavernas and Coulter does do a great job giving Hollywoodland the right feel. The lack of a definite time period–Hollywoodland takes place in 1959, but the flashbacks seem to go back ten years–really hurts it. I guess that aside will be the segue into the flashbacks. The first few, which chronicle Ben Affleck’s career woes and romance with Diane Lane, aren’t bad. Then it becomes clear Diane Lane isn’t actually going to be in the film very much and her mediocre acting quickly descends into shrillness as she tries again for an Oscar. She’s not the worst (Bob Hoskins is far, far worse), but she becomes rather tiresome.

Affleck, on the other hand, deserves his own two hour film, not just this one’s poorly framed flashbacks. He’s great–better, as time goes on, than Brody. Because the movie eventually falls apart, as Brody’s story turns into the standard failed father, disillusioned detective bit. The end’s just awful.

Michael Berenbaum’s cinematography is wonderful, giving the film both rich color but also sharpness. The score’s good. It’s a well-produced film, not question, the script is just bad. The beginning–the script’s–is great, particularly in the dialogue and the way people interact. These qualities disappear quickly (it’s almost like the opening got worked on and nothing else got revised).

Jeffrey DeMunn’s good, Lois Smith’s good, even Robin Tunney’s good. Molly Parker is criminally wasted.

The big problem with Hollywoodland–conceptually–is in its approach. It’s a mystery about the death of George Reeves, but then goes and reveals his death is actually nowhere near as interesting as his life.

Luckily, it’s long enough and starts to go bad around ninety-five minutes, maybe sooner, so I wasn’t disappointed by the ending… just glad it was finally over.

1/4★

CREDITS

Directed by Allen Coulter; written by Paul Bernbaum; director of photography, Jonathan Freeman; edited by Michael Berenbaum; music by Marcelo Zarvos; production designer, Leslie McDonald; produced by Glenn Williamson; released by Focus Features.

Starring Adrien Brody (Louis Simo), Diane Lane (Toni Mannix), Ben Affleck (George Reeves), Bob Hoskins (Eddie Mannix), Robin Tunney (Leonore Lemmon), Kathleen Robertson (Carol Van Ronkel), Lois Smith (Helen Bessolo), Phillip MacKenzie (Bill Bliss), Larry Cedar (Chester Sinclair), Caroline Dhavernas (Kit Holliday), Jeffrey DeMunn (Art Weissman), Joe Spano (Howard Strickling), Kevin Hare (Robert Condon) and Molly Parker (Laurie Simo).

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