A Rainy Day in New York

 A Rainy Day in New York (2020)

Starring Timothée Chalamet, Elle Fanning, Selena Gomez, Jude Law, Diego Luna, Rebecca Hall, Cherry Jones, and Liev Schreiber

Directed by Woody Allen

Written by Woody Allen

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  C

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019)

Starring Angelina Jolie, Elle Fanning, Michelle Pfeiffer, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Sam Riley, Ed Skrein, Harris Dickinson, Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple, and Lesley Manville

Directed by Joachin Rønning

Written by Linda Woolverton, Noah Harpster, and Micah Fitzerman-Blue

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  C-

Maleficent

Maleficent (2014)

Starring Angelina Jolie, Elle Fanning, Sharlto Copley, Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple, Leslie Manville, Sam Riley, and Brenton Thwaites

Directed by Robert Stromberg

Written by Linda Woolverton

Click here for my current Letterboxd review

Click here for the original RyMickey Rating

Current RyMickey Rating:  B

The Beguiled

The Beguiled (2017)

Starring Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning, Oona Laurence, Angourie Rice, Addison Riecke, and Emma Howard

Directed by Sofia Coppola

Written by Sofia Coppola

***This film is currently streaming via HBO***

Summary (in 500 words or less):  In 1864 Virginia, three years into the Civil War, injured Union soldier John McBurney (Colin Farrell) deserts the Army and is found by young Amy (Oona Laurence), a student at a girls' boarding school run by Martha Farnsworth (Nicole Kidman) and teacher Edwina Morrow (Kirsten Dunst).  Having not had a man in the house/school for a very long time, Martha, Edwina, and oldest student Alicia (Elle Fanning) begin to fawn over McBurney and their jealousies and insecurities may prove damaging to all parties.

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating: C-

Movie Review - 20th Century Women

20th Century Women (2016)

Starring Annette Bening, Elle Fanning, Greta Gerwig, Lucas Jade Zumann, and Billy Crudup 

Directed by Mike Mills

***This films currently streaming via Amazon Prime***

Santa Barbara.  1979.  Fifteen year-old Jamie Fields (Lucas Jade Zumann) is in that awkward stage of a teenage boy's life where he's becoming more sexually cognizant of his surroundings, but he lacks a male role model to go to with any questions he may have.  He lives with his well-meaning mother Dorothea (Annette Bening) who rents out two rooms in her house to a twentysomething cancer survivor/budding photographer named Abbie (Greta Gerwig) and a fortysomething hippie carpenter/mechanic William (Billy Crudup) whose spare time is spent practicing yoga and other Zen-like things.  While Dorothea is a liberal, open-minded woman, she finds William a bit of a kook, so she asks Jamie's best friend, the sexually free Julie (Elle Fanning), and her boarder Abbie to help her help Jamie through these difficult stages of his pubescent years.

On the surface, 20th Century Women doesn't seem like much, but thanks to a rather brilliant ensemble of actors and a quick-witted and sharp script that creates characters and situations that feel legitimate and fully realized, the film by writer-director Mike Mills is one of the best of 2016.  At its heart is Annette Bening whose Dorothea could so easily have been turned into the "flower power"-type stereotypical California liberal, but instead is a wonderful balance between that laid-back West Coast demeanor mixed with a headstrong mother who wants the best for her son.  Bening deftly balances the humor and pathos necessary for her character and shines.  The rest of the ensemble also makes the most of Mills' screenplay by crafting likable, though flawed, characters who never once feel like caricatures.

While this review may be on the shorter side, don't mistake its brevity for a lack of appreciation for this fine film.  Seek out 20th Century Women as I don't think you'll regret the decision.

The RyMickey Rating:  B+

Movie Review - The Neon Demon

The Neon Demon (2016)

Starring Elle Fanning, Karl Glusman, Jena Malone, Bella Heathcote, Abbey Lee, Desmond Harrington, Alessandro Nivola, Christina Hendricks, and Keanu Reeves

Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn

***This film is currently streaming via Amazon Prime***

The fashion industry is a brutal one -- but one can only hope it's not as bad as what's depicted in The Neon Demon which details a profession that eats you up and spits you out...quite literally.  Young Jesse (Elle Fanning) has just moved alone to California in the hopes of making it big as a model.  Told to lie about her age in order to get more jobs, the innocent and naive fifteen year-old girl is nearly immediately fawned upon by some big-name photographers and designers which doesn't sit well with a few struggling industry models (Bella Heathcote, Abbey Lee).  Adrift in the cutthroat world, Jesse befriends Dean (Karl Glusman) -- a nice guy who genuinely cares about her success and well-being -- and Ruby (Jena Malone) -- a make-up artist who's intentions may not be as pure as they seem.  As Jesse rises up in the ranks rather quickly, it's only natural that there will be some who want to take her down and they'll stop at nothing to succeed.

Totally original, but also completely full of WTF moments that had me questioning why I was watching, The Neon Demon is a visually stunning film with director Nicolas Winding Refn upping the stylish quotient from his previous endeavors.  That said, once you move beyond the look of things, there's not a whole lot here.  Fashion industry metaphors are obvious and they do nothing to advance the underdeveloped story which eventually devolves into a laughable horror movie of sorts.  Admittedly, the stylization of this film proves to be a near perfect match for the industry it's trying to send up, but with one-note characters and a too-basic story, The Neon Demon doesn't quite make the grade.

The RyMickey Rating:  C

Movie Review - Trumbo

Trumbo (2015)

Starring Bryan Cranston, Diane Lane, Helen Mirren, Louis C.K., Elle Fanning, Michael Stuhlbarg, Alan Tudyk, and John Goodman

Directed by Jay Roach

Dalton Trumbo (played here by Bryan Cranston) was one of Hollywood's most sought after screenwriters in the early 1940s, but his Communist political leanings led him and many other Hollywood artists to be questioned by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).  After refusing to testify in front of Congress, Trumbo went to jail for a year in 1950 and, upon his release, found himself blacklisted in Hollywood with no one willing to hire him because of his politics.  Trumbo details the title character's story and his fight to get back into the profession he loved.

Director Jay Roach is known for his wacky comedies -- Austin Powers series, Meet the Parents -- and in his first theatrical foray into drama, he unfortunately doesn't quite succeed.  Trumbo feels like a film inhabited by caricatures rather than a film inhabited by actual people.  Because of this, we lose the emotional connection needed in order to really feel for Trumbo and his plight which is admittedly a blight on both our government and the Hollywood machine of the 1940s/50s.

While Bryan Cranston plays things straight for the most part -- although certainly embodying the witty, literate side of the screenwriter -- many of the other major players in the film are told to chew up as much scenery as possible.  Helen Mirren exudes snarky evilness in every line reading and movement as Hedda Hopper -- gossip columnist and strong anti-Communist activist.  While the HUAC was certainly an ill-advised group, portraying Hopper as a vigilante gung ho on bringing down Trumbo proves to be laughable as opposed to realistic.  (The problem here is that Hopper may very well have been the way she's portrayed, but the film makes her out to be so comically and vehemently vile that she loses any sense of reality.)  John Goodman as a bellowing low-budget film producer who hires Trumbo after his incarceration is also simply playing a stereotypical brash bigwig.  Other than Cranston's Trumbo and Diane Lane's portrayal of his wife Cleo, everyone depicted here feels fake.

Trumbo is reminiscent of a film made in the 1940s and 1950s where actors would be playing broad versions of undeveloped characters as opposed to a film made in the 2000s that looks back on that era over a half century ago and really delves into the issues.  Light-heartedness certainly works in a comedy depicting the 1950s and it works in portions of Trumbo as well except that this film -- and Dalton Trumbo himself -- deserved a film that also gave this man's struggles (and those of his peers) the gravitas they deserved.  All this being said, I appreciate the light that Trumbo shines on this pretty disgusting time in Hollywood history, but I wish the film itself was a better representation of the era.

The RyMickey Rating:  C-

Movie Review - Young Ones

Young Ones (2014)

Starring Michael Shannon, Nicholas Hoult, Elle Fanning, and Kodi Smit-McPhee

Directed by Jake Paltrow

***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

Director and screenwriter Jake Paltrow's Young Ones takes place in the future, but feels squarely rooted in the past.  With some unique, odd, and retro cinematic and cinematographic choices, the visual landscape of Young Ones unfortunately overtakes the rather lukewarm and surprisingly emotionally empty story.

Taking place in the not-so-distant future when water is a scarce and precious commodity, Ernest Holm (Michael Shannon) lives in the dry and barren Midwest with his two children Jerome (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and Mary (Elle Fanning) -- the former who travels with his father around the land as a traveling salesman/barterer and the latter who stays at home and cooks, cleans, and harbors a growing animosity for her dad for essentially being shackled in the house.  Mary's moments of happiness center around her boyfriend Flem Lever (Nicholas Hoult), but Flem gets upset when Ernest wins an auction for a simulated donkey (not as weird as it sounds) that Flem feels was rightly his causing the young man to ponder ways to get back at Mary's father.

Unfortunately, the story is quite slim and even a relatively short run time can't save it.  Despite some solid acting from all four of the main actors, I found next to no connection to the emotional plights of the characters.  Considering that Shannon, Hoult, Fanning, and Smit-McPhee have all been pretty solid in the past, I have to think that the fault therefore lies in the script which leaves their characters languishing in a dusty landscape.  While certainly having moments of uniqueness, Young Ones just lacks the spark and vigor to really make it compelling.

The RyMickey Rating:  C-

Movie Review - The Boxtrolls

The Boxtrolls (2014)

Featuring the vocal talents of Ben Kingsley, Isaac Hempstead Wright, Elle Fanning, Dee Bradley Baker, Nick Frost, Richard Ayoade, Tracy Morgan, Jared Harris, Toni Collette, and Simon Pegg

Directed by Graham Annable and Anthony Stacchi

The one thing The Boxtrolls has going for it is that the stop-motion animation from Laika Studios (who brought us Coraline and Paranorman) is stunning.  Not only are the characters they create richly detailed and incredibly fluid in their motion (a little too fluid thanks to some computer animation techniques), but their production design from the costumes to the sets is astonishingly rich and creative.  (And, to the studio's credit, they've improved in these hands-on areas with each subsequent film they've released.)  Unfortunately, something with the story of The Boxtrolls doesn't measure up to what the animators and designers bring to the table.

Many years ago, a young boy was taken away by some underground creatures who come to the surface at night to collect trash which they turn into treasures in their dwelling.  Believed to be kidnapped, the community of Cheesebridge has since felt that these creatures whom they've named the Boxtrolls (because they wear disposed boxes as their clothing) are to be captured and killed for what they did.  The town puts their trust in Archibald Snatcher (Ben Kingsley), a slimy sleazeball of a guy who seems to be ridding Cheesebridge of the Boxtrolls, but really has a much more nefarious scheme in mind.

The Boxtrolls themselves aren't the least bit evil despite what the townsfolk may think.  Eggs (Isaac Hempstead Wright), the young boy they "took" nearly a decade ago, has grown up with the creatures as his good friends and family.  One evening when he ventures up to the surface for the first time, he comes across Winnie (Elle Fanning) -- his first encounter with a "human" -- who after years of being told by her father (Jared Harris) that the Boxtrolls are nasty, discovers that the creatures may be friendlier than anyone could have ever imagined.  Together, Eggs and Winnie attempt to change the town's mindset towards the Boxtrolls and take down Archibald Snatcher in the process.

There's a promising story here, but the flow of things doesn't quite click perhaps because there's too much fighting for attention.  While the Boxtrolls are cute and oddly cuddly, the relationship between Eggs and Winnie leads to quite a bit of humor, and Archibald is amusingly evil (in small doses), I can't help but think some story editing would've helped things out.  Rather than move along swiftly, more often than not the film feels like it's meandering without any real direction and its conclusion feels oddly unsatisfying.

Still, despite it's somewhat major problems, I always found myself glued to the screen because of the aforementioned stellar visuals.  Laika always brings a sense of quirkiness to all of their films and I sometimes think that strive for uniqueness feels as if they're trying a bit too hard.  They've got what it takes to make a great film (see Paranorman as an example), but they just need to spend a little more time in the story department.

The RyMickey Rating:  B-

Movie Review - Maleficent

Maleficent (2014)

Starring Angelina Jolie, Elle Fanning, Sharlto Copley, Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple, Lesley Manville, Sam Riley, and Brenton Thwaites

Directed by Robert Stromberg

Perhaps it's faint praise to tout Maleficent as being better than Disney's recent live action interpretations of Alice in Wonderland and Oz: The Great and Powerful considering that the former was horrendous and the latter was nothing to write home about.  Still, if Disney's going to insist on reinterpreting family classics, they're gradually starting to learn from their previous disappointments.

Moreso than their previous attempts, Maleficent draws greatly from Disney's animated classic Sleeping Beauty (yes, the Disney Discussion will be returning in September after a very long hiatus), twisting that story to its own whims.  In the animated film, Maleficent was pure evil, but here this formerly friendly fairy only turns fiendish when a neighboring kingdom's ruler tries to take over her home.  Years later, still hellbent on revenge thanks to an additional subplot involving stolen fairy wings (naturally), Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) hears that King Stefan and his wife are expecting a baby.  When the young Aurora is born, Maleficent appears at the festivities and curses the girl to prick her finger on a spinning wheel and fall into an unending sleep upon her sixteenth birthday only to be awakened by true love's kiss.  Sound familiar?  The remainder of the tale follows the storyline of Sleeping Beauty quite closely -- three fairies Knotgrass, Flittle, and Thistletwit (Imelda Staunton, Lesley Manville, and Juno Temple) -- raise the growing Aurora (played by Elle Fanning as a teen) in the woods away from all civilization in hopes that this will keep her safe.

However, unlike the previous Sleeping Beauty, Maleficent keeps a careful eye on Aurora and begins to feel sorry for what she's done to the girl who played no part in harming her.  This gentle, kind, magnanimous Maleficent is the change -- and it's not necessarily a change for the better.  For starters, Angelina Jolie is fantastic when she plays the title character for all her deliciously over-the-top scenery-chewing evilness.  Let's face it -- Maleficent is a quintessentially evil character and Jolie really embodies that aspect of the role.  However, when the film forces her character to downplay the nastiness and embrace niceness, things begin to falter a bit and become much less interesting.  Jolie certainly still is a presence, but it's not quite the presence we really long for her to be here.  Fortunately, as Jolie's Maleficent turns disappointingly kind, we're also able to see the innocence of Elle Fanning's Aurora which she displays perfectly to a tee.  You can almost see why Maleficent decides to befriend Aurora -- almost -- until you realize that this bastardization of a true cinematic villain is kind of boring to watch.

Still, despite my qualms which I admit are rather important in the grand scheme of the film, I liked Maleficent.  Maybe it's because I went in with such low expectations, but Jolie's performance certainly is solid.  I only wish she was able to be as gloriously evil as her title character should've been allowed to be.

The RyMickey Rating:  C+

Movie Review - Somewhere

Somewhere (2010)

Starring Stephen Dorff and Elle Fanning

Directed by Sofia Coppola

In the opening shot of Somewhere, director Sofia Coppola plants her camera at the edge of what seems to be an oval racetrack in a desert.  A car speeds into and out of the shot multiple times, racing around the track at great speeds, yet going nowhere at the same time.  I'm all for movies that have a slow, methodical pacing as long as it gets somewhere in the end.  [One of my top 20 films of 2010, Cairo Time, fits into that description.]  Sofia Coppola's Somewhere, however, much like that car that just continues to loop the track, doesn't go anywhere.

I fully get that the tone and pacing of the film is supposed to evoke the melancholic, depressed emptiness of Stephen Dorff's character Johnny Marco, a moderately successful actor living in L.A. who is seemingly going through a midlife crisis.  As he beds attractive woman after attractive woman, it's obvious that he's not satisfied in life, simply bored with his day-to-day routines [there's that racing around the track going nowhere metaphor for you].  When Johnny's ex-wife drops their daughter Cleo (Elle Fanning) off for an extended stay, Johnny's life begins to take on meaning...or at least I think he thinks it does.  He still finds himself sleeping with whatever hot woman knocks on his door, but I guess he realizes that there's more to life than that.  The epiphany Marco comes to at the film's end unfortunately comes off as slightly laughable as opposed to emotionally satisfying.

Oddly enough, it's not that Johnny's not a believable character.  There is more than a semblance of truth in the character of Johnny Marco.  There just isn't a good enough story surrounding the character in order to make me invested in the outcome.  Stephen Dorff and Elle Fanning certainly try to reel me in and Dorff in particular is actually quite good, but they're just not given anything to work with.

In the end, Somewhere is too minimalist (and obvious despite attempts to be deep and meaningful) for its own good.

The RyMickey Rating:  C-

Movie Review - Phoebe in Wonderland (2009)

Starring Elle Fanning, Felicity Huffman, Patricia Clarkson, and Bill Pullman
Written and Directed by Daniel Barnz

This is another one of those indie movies with characters that are too smart for their own good. However, what saves this movie from the downfall of recent flicks I've watched like Gigantic and Sherman's Way is that the story is interesting and nearly every actor is strong, particularly a winning performance by Elle Fanning.

Phoebe (Elle Fanning) is a nine year-old girl who lands the lead role in the school play Alice in Wonderland. Phoebe has some psychological issues, the biggest being obsessive-compulsive disorder (and a moderate case of Touette's, too). Phoebe loves the play and excels at it, but her imagination oftentimes gets the better of her and she envisions the play literally coming alive all around her which oftentimes causes problems with her fellow classmates. Her parents (Felicity Huffman and Bill Pullman) seem to be in denial about their daughter's issues and it certainly seems to be putting a strain on their marriage.

The film belongs to the young Elle Fanning and there is something so beautiful and simplistic about how she plays the difficult role of Phoebe. The role could easily have veered towards over-the-top and showy, but Fanning is something special. From the opening scenes, she conveys so much with a simple raise of a lip or eyebrow. There must have been something in the water that those Fanning girls drank as babies (Dakota is her sister), because they both have amazing talent. There's one scene, in particular, where Phoebe breaks down completely in her mother's arms that was amazingly powerful. Speaking of Phoebe's mother, Felicity Huffman is touching and I was quite surprised by how well-written and thought-out her role was (kudos to the screenwriter).

In addition to Fanning and Huffman, Patricia Clarkson takes the clichéd role of the over-the-top drama teacher and makes it her own. Although her role wasn't without its faults (she falls into that "too quirky" indie character category and is forced to play that inspirational teacher role), Clarkson brings something special to the table. One of the most powerful scenes in the movie belongs to Clarkson -- when the word "fagot" [spelling is correct] is found written on a young male member of the play's costume, her anger is real and visceral. After criticizing the culprit for not spelling the word correctly, she makes them read the definition of the word -- "a bundle of sticks" -- and then says one of the best lines I've heard this year -- "Does anyone want to own up to idiocy as well as cruelty?" Although I had slight problems with her eccentric character, Clarkson can deliver a well-written line with gusto and meaning.

In addition to my slight problem with Clarkson's character, the school's principal (played by Campbell Scott) was a guy that was so inadequately able to run a school that the character took me out of any type of reality that the film was trying to create. The same could also be said for Phoebe's wiser-beyond-her-years sister. Once again, it's that pet peeve of kids being too smart for their own good...why not just make the kid normal? It's disappointing that the screenwriter who created two stellar characters in Phoebe and her mother wasn't able to continue the quality with the other folks in the movie.

Despite its faults, Phoebe in Wonderland is a perfectly "nice" movie filled with some winning performances. Fanning, Huffman, and Clarkson alone are worth the price of the rental (or the current streaming via Netflix). Sure, it's warm, sentimental, and a bit treacly, but sometimes, you're in the mood for that sort of thing and this movie's good at it.

The RyMickey Rating: B