Halloween is over and if you're a resident of New Orleans like me, you need a break from the week-long party of adult insanity the former family event has become. The indie film festival season is underway. Toronto is over, AFI-Fest is in progress and Sundance is on the horizon. For Hollywood this is the calm before the storm of Thanksgiving weekend holiday season openers. What is one to do? Curl up and watch a good movie from the comfort of your home. Fortunately the last month has seen a plethora of top indie film releases.
The heavyweight of this year's indie films, Moonrise Kingdom is a humorous, quirky and touching story from writer-director Wes Anderson. A young orphan escapes from a scout-like summer camp to elope with a misfit young girl just as a powerful storm bears down on their sparsely populated island. A frantic search party forms comprised of a terrific cast of characters, including Frances McDormand and Bill Murray as the girl's parents, Edward Norton as the distraught scout master, Bruce Willis as the lonely local sheriff and Tilda Swinton as "Social Services." This is as close to a guaranteed good time for all as you can get. Ruby Sparks
In a wonderful follow-up to Little Miss Sunshine, the writer-director duo of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris deliver yet again. A writer manifests his idea of the perfect woman into reality and learns that you should be careful what you ask for. What starts out as light and entertaining comedy has a much more powerful message to impart by the end. You'll never look at your significant other the same way again. Take This Waltz
Writer-director Sarah Polley gives us a smart and sensitive portrayal of a marriage during that risky time when husbands and wives fall into familiar patterns and take the wants and needs of the other for granted. As in many marriages the real cause of this one's demise is rooted in failures of communication and listening. Michelle Williams nails it in the lead role, assisted in no small part by Polley's remarkably insightful script. Seeking a Friend for the End of the World
The apocalypse is an event best shared with someone special in this dramedy from writer Lorene Scafaria, who steps behind the camera for the first time to deliver a comic tale that evolves into much more dramatic and philosophical territory by the end. It's a fun twist on the doomsday scenario that makes up in heart what it lacks in Hollywood-style special effects. With this US national election underway and the economy barely puttering along, you'll realize you could have bigger problems. Safety Not Guaranteed
Mark Duplass and Aubrey Plaza create great romantic comedy chemstry in this unique twist on the mad scientist tale. Based on an actual newspaper ad, Derek Connally's script goes a step further and imagines a fanciful scenario that brings two quirky and independent loners together on a remarkable adventure. Unfortunately the film does not realize its full potential due to uninspired directing.
Hollywood has a long running fascination with the "end of the world" scenario, and as the clock ticks closer to the end of the Mayan
calendar, a slate of films has hit the multiplexes exclaiming the "end is
near." In Seeking a Friend For the End of the World, it isn't
the CGI spectacle that drives the narrative, but the range
of real emotions as the human race comes to its end.
And that end is just around the corner, three weeks to be exact, after an Armageddon-style
mission to stop a doomsday asteroid fails. The clock is now ticking and
it is too much for many to take. The first casualty is the marriage of
Dodge (Steve Carell), as his wife bolts from the car, running into the night,
never to be seen again. And this is the central question within the
movie - with only a finite amount of time before you cease to exist, what would
you do?
Dodge takes the high road. A man to never rest on his laurels, he
still arrives to work daily, but won't take the newly vacated CFO position. He fills the 9 to 5 by answering calls at his
insurance job, exclaiming that the pending disaster would not be covered under
one's policy. But why go to work? To some, the normalcy is a way to keep
your mind at a distance from the bleak future that is right around the
corner. Or maybe as best exemplified by Dodge's housekeeper, there may
be a bit of faith buried under the surface that things might not go as expected, or there's something better awaiting in the afterlife.
While the themes of the future and what could or couldn't happen aren't
really explored within the context of the film, most of the characters Dodge
comes across in the first act have a chance to live out every
fantasy. There really aren't any repercussions when the end is near.
Dodge's best, and it seems only friend, Warren (Rob Corddry), wants to make the
best out of his last few days. It's time to smoke those Cubans and to
teach his children to "drink through the burn" as they take their
first alcoholic drinks. It is the party to end all parties; girls will
sleep with any man, including one of Patton Oswalt's stature, and since there's
no time to worry about getting addicted, why not enjoy the heroin that someone
brought to the party.
But Dodge doesn't want to try new things. He is a man who has lived
a life of regrets, most notably letting the first love of his life get away
from him. When he comes across a letter that has been in the possession of
his neighbor, Penny (Keira Knightley), for an unknown amount of time, he makes it
his mission to find a way to reunite with her one last time. Penny also
has a life of regret. Instead of heading out on one
of the last flights to be with her family in the UK, she decided to stay with
her boyfriend (Adam Brody). When Penny gets in a final fight with her
boyfriend, only Dodge is there to console her and says he can get her to a
plane if she can drive him to find his lost love.
And that's when the movie shifts gears a little. Sure there's a couple
more episodic bouts with doomsday preppers and overzealous cops, but the real
heart in the story is trying to find that human bond and connection within a
time of chaos. Lorene Scafaria, who previously wrote Nick and Norah'sInfinite Playlist, penned the script and is behind the camera for the first
time. She perfectly maneuvers the change from an over-the-top comedy into
a dramedy, and as the movie gets closer to the final moments before impact, the
film goes into longer stretches without a comedic beat.
Keira Knightley and Steve Carell
The road trip aspects allow a real chemistry to be built between Carell and Knightley, considering so much screen time is filled with the two. Keira does a
great job playing against type, while Steve doesn't bring too much new to the
table. We've seen him play the affable guy who is a little down trodden. But somehow the bond is quickly built and
believable between the two. And like any good rom-com, you hope and root that
they'll end up together, but is the end of the world enough to send them in
opposite directions? Or will they ultimately spend the last remaining
seconds together, true friends in the end?
Seeking a Friend For the End of the World is a fun twist on the
doomsday scenario. What it lacks in special effects in makes up in heart,
hopefully making this a memorable film in the end.
