West Side Story

 West Side Story (2021)

Starring Ansel Elgort, Rachel Zegler, Ariana DeBose, David Alvarez, Mike Faist, Corey Stall, Brian D'Arcy James, and Rita Moreno

Directed by Steven Spielberg

Written by Tony Kushner

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  B+

The Goldfinch

The Goldfinch (2019)

Starring Ansel Elgort, Oakes Fegley, Aneurin Barnard, Finn Wolfhard, Sarah Paulson, Luke Wilson, Jeffrey Wright, Denis O'Hare, Ashleigh Cummings, Willa Fitzgerald, and Nicole Kidman

Directed by John Crowley

Written by Peter Straughan

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating: D

Baby Driver

Baby Driver (2017)

Starring Ansel Elgort, Lily James, Kevin Spacey, Jon Hamm, Eiza Gonzalez, Jon Bernthal, and Jamie Foxx

Directed by Edgar Wright

Written by Edgar Wright

Summary (in 500 words or less):  Baby (Ansel Elgort) has worked as a getaway driver for a series of heists headed by kingpin Doc (Kevin Spacey) for several years.  However, he calls it quits until Doc pulls him in for one more crime that ends up being a bit more than Baby bargained for.

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  C+

Movie Review - Men, Women & Children

Men, Women & Children (2014)

Starring Adam Sandler, Jennifer Garner, Rosemarie Dewitt, Judy Greer, Dean Norris, Kaitlyn Dever, Ansel Elgort, Timothée Chalamet, Olivia Crocicchia, Elena Kampouris, Dennis Haysbert, J.K. Simmons, and Emma Thompson

Directed by Jason Reitman

Are you aware that the internet can pose a dangerous threat to our youth?

Are you aware that the pressures of being a teen nowadays are amplified exponentially by the power of social media and texting?

Are you aware that some people get so lost in the internet worlds of role-playing games and pornography that they lose touch with their actual reality?

If you've been living under a rock for the past ten years, then writer-director Jason Reitman's Men, Women & Children is the movie for you!  However, if you're anything like me and pretty much everyone else, I'm sure that none of the above questions are altogether surprising.  Reitman seemingly thinks that these notions are somewhat new as he tries to present all of them to riveting, shocking, and dramatic effect.  Unfortunately, we've seen this story before in both movies and television -- and we've seen it done much better.

This is one of those movies where you simply try to guess at the beginning which teenager is going to commit suicide and which one is going to get pregnant because you know it's going to happen -- and, sure enough, Reitman doesn't do anything to reinvent the wheel because halfway through the flick someone gets knocked up and three-quarters of the way through we witness the suicide.  Neither of which surprise us in the slightest as we could see them telegraphed from the film's opening five minutes.  Reitman hasn't crafted characters here, he's simply created stereotypical avatars of what he must think sex-crazed teens (Olivia Crocicchia, Timothée Chalamet) or loner teens (Kaitlyn Dever) or jock teens (Ansel Elgort) or overprotective parents (Jennifer Garner) or cool parents (Judy Greer) or emotionally detached spouses (Adam Sandler, Rosemarie Dewitt) are really like.  He then tosses in a tongue-in-cheek British narrator (Emma Thompson) to spout pithy remarks about the goings-on which confused the heck out of me as I couldn't tell whether Reitman was trying to craft something serious or whether this whole film was just an awful attempt at satire.

Across the board, some typically solid actors are left wallowing.  Kaitlyn Dever (so good in Short Term 12) and Ansel Elgort (quite a charming surprise in The Fault in Our Stars) fare the best, but maybe it's simply because their roles felt the least cookie cutter.  Also, would it be too hard for Judy Greer to land some more gigs?  She makes the best of her part as a mom who posts risqué pictures of her daughter on the internet by imbuing a bit of heart and personality into the film -- something that Men, Women & Children is missing in spades.

The RyMickey Rating:  D+

Movie Review - The Fault in Our Stars

The Fault in Our Stars (2014)

Starring Shailene Woodley, Ansel Elgort, Laura Dern, Sam Trammell, Nat Wolff, and Willem Dafoe

Directed by Josh Boone

Hazel Grace Lancaster (Shailene Woodley) is a teenager with terminal thyroid cancer.  Although the past few years have been promising for her, she still is faced with the fact that her cancer will be her demise.  In order to try and make her feel better, her mother (Laura Dern) insists that Hazel attend a teen cancer support group where she ends up meeting Augustus Waters (Ansel Elgort) who lost his leg to bone cancer.  Hazel and Augustus become good friends with Augustus instantly falling for Hazel...and Hazel not quite reciprocating that affection.

One of Hazel's favorite books is by the reclusive author Peter van Houten (Willem Dafoe) who now resides in Amsterdam.  Because he loves her company, Augustus ends up using his "wish" from the Make-a-Wish foundation to visit Amsterdam with Hazel to meet van Houten and, while on the journey, Augustus and Hazel both grow to appreciate one another more than they ever thought possible.

Aww...sweet and saccharine-sounding, right?  Well, sort of.  The Fault in Our Stars succeeds because it delicately balances the standard romantic film tropes with the more sarcastic and biting edge of modern society.  In fact, Hazel begins the film with a voiceover stating that everyone longs for a happy ending -- but that's not in the cards for her life story.  Her cancer forces her to look at life with a different mindset and that mindset creates a film that while certainly a romance also bases itself in a realistic setting.

As a thirty-something male, I can't help but think I shouldn't have been won over by this film, but I was.  With a screenplay that never places "CANCER" front and center, yet also never pushes it aside as an afterthought, The Fault in Our Stars takes what could've easily been a "disease of the week" TV movie and creates characters to whom you can't help but relate.

It certainly helps that both Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort are so good in their roles.  Ms. Woodley is proving herself to be quite adept in bringing a nice realism to her teenage characters (what with the fantastic performance in the teenage drama The Spectacular Now last year) and I find her a refreshing change of pace from the cookie cutter types of performances we often see in teen pics.  Elgort is new to the movie scene, but I found him charming and charismatic here.  Some have said his Augustus comes off as too perfect, but considering his character's challenges, the optimism rings true as someone who is trying to make the most out of what life has offered him.

The teen drama has seen a definite uptick in quality over the past few years and The Fault in Our Stars is the latest solid addition to the genre.  I'm utterly surprised I enjoyed it as much as I did, but this one isn't just for the teen market and to pigeonhole it as such is an unfair assessment.

The RyMickey Rating:  B+

Movie Review - Divergent

Divergent (2014)

Starring Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Ashley Judd, Jai Courtney, Ray Stevenson, Zoë Kravitz, Miles Teller, Tony Goldwyn, Ansel Elgort, Maggie Q, Mekhi Phifer, and Kate Winslet

Directed by Neil Burger

I feel like it's wrong that I didn't hate Divergent.  In reality, it's a bit of a carbon copy of The Hunger Games franchise -- dystopian society in a ravaged United States, different segments of the population broken off into distinct groups, girl savior tries to take down the evil governmental figurehead.  Much to my surprise, however, I found Divergent an interesting enough start of a series of films.  Unfortunately, I'm not quite sure from this point forward how the films progress into something worth watching, but the first flick is at least moderately appealing.

As mentioned, the overarching premise of Divergent is that the residents of the United States -- or at least the residents in the walled city of Chicago -- are broken up into five groups.  Each group represents one of the following qualities -- smart, kind, honest, selfless, brave -- and when teens reach the age of sixteen they must choose which quality they will follow for the rest of their lives after taking a specially designed test that helps them hone in on where they most likely belong.  Teen sister and brother Beatrice (Shailene Woodley) and Caleb (Ansel Elgort) have grown up with parents (Ashley Judd and Tony Goldwyn) who belong to the community of Abnegation which controls the government, but at the Choosing Ceremony, Caleb joins Erudite (the "smart" clique which desires to run the government) and Beatrice joins Dauntless (the "brave" group which is essentially the law enforcement aspect of the society).  Upon joining Dauntless, Beatrice shortens her name to Tris and soon discovers that she may not be cut out for this new life.  However, once you've chosen your community, you're stuck there and if you don't fit, you'll be forced to become homeless out on the streets.

Tris is also faced with the notion that her initial test to determine which group she belonged in came back showing that she was "divergent" -- meaning that she doesn't belong to any one group.  Divergents are not looked upon in a positive light by Erudite leader Jeanine (Kate Winslet) who sees Divergents as too independently-minded and unwilling to kowtow to her wishes.  While Jeanine seemingly has everyone's best wishes at heart, her only goal is to push Erudite to the forefront of the community and she'll stop at nothing to see that happen.

Admittedly, it's all a bit ridiculous.  And it's all a bit of a rehash of The Hunger Games.  However, I did find myself intrigued by the plot.  Yes, Tris's training goes on for a bit too long and a romance with one of her fellow Dauntless colleagues seems forced and unnecessary (at least this early in the game), but I can't really say I was ever bored.  The acting is more than acceptable for a film like this -- meaning a film appealing to a youthful audience who may not care about such things -- and it elevates the flick to a higher level.

As I mentioned above, however, I can't quite see how this storyline carries on for three more films.  Quite honestly, the film concludes in a way that the story could've just ended and I'd have been fine with not discovering anything else about the community.  How they craft a tale that holds my interest in the future will be difficult and seemingly not possible.  I hope I'm proven wrong.  While Divergent isn't quite The Hunger Games in quality, it's certainly head over heels better than the Twilight saga.

The RyMickey Rating:  C+