Mare of Easttown

 Mare of Easttown (2021)

Starring Kate Winslet, Julianne Nicholson, Jean Smart, Angourie Rice, David Denman, Guy Pearce, and Evan Peters

Directed by Craig Zobel

Written by Brad Ingelsby

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  A

Wonder Wheel

Wonder Wheel (2017)

Starring Kate Winslet, Justin Timberlake, Jim Belushi, and Juno Temple
Directed by Woody Allen
Written by Woody Allen
***This film is currently streaming via Amazon Prime***

Summary (in 500 words or less):  Twentysomething Carolina (Juno Temple) arrives at Coney Island in the 1950s after she has become a made woman for telling the FBI secret info about her mobster husband.  She finds her father Humpty (Jim Belushi) and his new wife Ginny (Kate Winslet), the latter of whom is a bit unhappy as the put-upon wife in her marriage so she seeks comfort in the arms of a young lifeguard Mickey (Justin Timberlake).  The lives of these four become intertwined, causing them to do things they may never thought they'd have been able to do.

Click here for my Letterboxed review

The RyMickey Rating: B-

The Mountain Between Us

The Mountain Between Us (2017)

Starring Idris Elba, Kate Winslet, Dermot Mulroney, and Beau Bridges

Directed by Hany Abu-Assad

Written by Chris Weitz and J. Mills Goodloe

Summary (in 500 words or less):  When their flight to the East Coast is cancelled due to bad weather, strangers neurosurgeon Ben Bass (Idris Elba) and photojournalist Alex Martin (Kate Winslet) decide to pool their money together and get a local private pilot (Beau Bridges) to fly them to their destination.  Midflight, however, the pilot suffers a deadly stroke and their plane goes down in the mountains of Colorado.  Desperate to survive in the frigid landscape, Ben and Alex band together to make it to safety.

• The Mountain Between Us is unfortunately about forty-five minutes too long...and it's not all that long to begin with at 110 minutes.  
• Despite being anchored by two very strong and capable performances from Idris Elba and Kate Winslet, the film pushes a romantic chemistry between the duo which the survivalist pic didn't really need.  
• Director Hany Abu-Assad's film works best in its first act in the lead-up and immediate aftermath of the plane crash and then falls apart when it pushes Elba and Winslet to fall for one another which just ends up coming off as laughable.  It leads to one of the silliest and foolishly shot sex scenes I've seen in a while.
• It's a bit of a shame the film's script takes this flick where it eventually goes because there were pieces at the beginning that made this seem more promising than it ended up being.

The RyMickey Rating:  C

Movie Review - Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs (2015)

Starring Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet, Seth Rogen, Jeff Daniels, Michael Stuhlbarg, Katherine Waterston, Perla Haney-Jardine, Ripley Sobo, and Makenzie Moss

Directed by Danny Boyle

Told in three acts in "real time" with each detailing the forty minutes leading up to a product launch, Steve Jobs is a unique experience of a film told in a provocative way by director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin who have created something I've yet to see before that quite frankly shouldn't have worked, but proves exceedingly successful.  Providing excitement through dialog -- a rarity in art nowadays -- Sorkin and Boyle have crafted not so much a biopic, but a look at how a man's psyche and emotional state can both change over time and remain disappointingly the same.

There's certainly no way that prior to the 1984 launch of Macintosh, the 1988 launch of the Next computer system, and the 1998 launch of the iMac that Steve Jobs (Michael Fassbender) received visits from Apple CEO John Sculley (Jeff Daniels), Apple programmer Andy Hertzfeld (Michael Stuhlbarg), colleague Steve Wozniak (Seth Rogen), ex-wife Chrisann (Katherine Waterston), and daughter Lisa (played at the three stages by Makenzie Moss, Ripley Sobo, and Perla Haney-Jardine). There's also certainly no way that this group of people conveniently visited Jobs so that their respective story lines with the Apple founder/genius could progress in their respective manners.  There's also certainly no way that in the moments leading up to some incredibly important product launches, a man like Jobs would allow himself to be pulled away from such pivotal career moments to deal with crumbling personal and workplace relationships.  Yet, for some reason, thanks to the rather ingenious storytelling by Aaron Sorkin, this film and its rather obvious regimented set-up works.

Rarely do I write a review where I find myself giving tons of credit to the screenwriter, but in the case of Steve Jobs, I think what Aaron Sorkin does to create an atmosphere where the obviously manufactured set-ups work is something of a revelatory experience.  Part of the reason I think the three act structure is so hugely successful is Sorkin and director Danny Boyle's insistence to have the scenes play out in real time.  As Jobs's right-hand woman Joanna Hoffman (Kate Winslet) tries to wrangle her boss into prepping for his big event(s), we in the audience find ourselves gradually inching towards the edge of our seats desperate to see whether everything will be resolved by the time Jobs needs to take the stage.  As the film progresses and the second and third acts begin, we in the audience are now aware of the gimmick and the insistence of Sorkin to have Jobs meet up with all the aforementioned people, and the anticipation we felt in Act One grows even more as we now find ourselves desperate to discover how Jobs's relationships will either become positively or negatively affected by his actions.  This concept is a writer's conceit but it, along with Sorkin's fast-talking, highfalutin dialog, works.  (Seriously, how often do we hear the words "halcyon" and "somnambulant" in movies?)

Three paragraphs in and I've yet to discuss what may very well be the best cast assembled for a 2015 release when the RyMickey Awards roll around next year (there's a ways to go still, though).  There's not a bad egg in the bunch and everyone bites into the Sorkin mile-a-minute pitter-patter style with gusto and rolls with it.  Michael Fassbender is great as Jobs, although the film admittedly doesn't quite give the character the emotional arc it actually thinks it does -- his comeuppance at the hands of his teenage daughter while bitingly written and believably acted is the only aspect of the film that feels a tad contrived (and that's saying something in a film whose structure is entirely contrived).  Still, Fassbender is in every moment of the film and his interactions with each and every actor feel natural, real, and never forced.  Great work is also had by Katherine Waterston and Kate Winslet -- two women playing very different roles, neither of which are easy by any means, but both of which are absolutely necessary for the title character to be a fully realized one.  Quite surprising is Seth Rogen's take on Steve Wozniak.  Usually the star, Rogen is relegated to second banana, but his Wozniak is a character desperate for attention from his father figure in Steve.  Much like Jobs has all but abandoned his daughter (a pivotal Act One moment that resurfaces in subsequent acts), he has also left Wozniak behind and Rogen's depiction of Woz's woeful despondency and his deteriorating relationship with Jobs is the emotional crux of the piece for me.  (Their showdown in Act Three is fascinating stuff.)

Although I've heaped much praise on Aaron Sorkin, credit is also due to Danny Boyle who has created a rhythm in Steve Jobs that causes this talky, play-like film to move at a breakneck pace.  I'm not sure I've ever seen a film so chockfull of dialog that felt this fast-paced to me and the real time aspect of the three acts ingeniously keeps the tension palpable.  Kudos also to the concept of utilizing three different types of film -- 16mm, 35mm, and digital -- creating unique visual imprints in order to capture the various acts.

Whether or not Steve Jobs depicts the exact psychological journey of Steve Jobs "The Man" I don't know; but I do know that the film showcases talented folks in front of and behind the lens who have crafted a cinematic experience that still has me thinking about it nearly a week after watching it.  There aren't too many films that I experience in a theater that have me wanting to rush out and see it again -- and there certainly aren't many biopics that make me feel that way -- but Steve Jobs did just that.

The RyMickey Rating:  A-

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+

Movie Review - Labor Day

Labor Day (2013)

Starring Kate Winslet, Josh Brolin, Gattlin Griffith, Clark Gregg, and Tobey Maguire

Directed by Jason Reitman

To the credit of writer-director Jason Reitman, his Labor Day feels very much like a film that could've been made in 1950s Hollywood.  Rightly so or not, had it been made all those decades ago, the film would've at least carried with it a tone of nostalgia for a bygone era and its somewhat ludicrous premise could've at least been glossed over a tiny bit by chalking it up to being from "the good ole days."  Instead, Labor Day was made in 2013 and despite taking place in the mid-1980s, the film feels incredibly dated (quite honestly, were it not for certain conveniences, one could easily have been fooled into thinking the timestamp of the film's plot was 1955).  Don't get me wrong -- I'm all for sentimentality and I don't necessarily look harshly upon movies that try to tug at your heart.  Unfortunately, Labor Day labors a bit too much to pull the heartstrings and proves to be Mr. Reitman's most disappointing film to date.

Kate Winslet is Adele, a depressed single mom trying to raise her teenage son Henry (Gattlin Griffith) in a small rural town.  Recently divorced, Adele has grown more and more sheltered as years have passed, relying on her son to perform errands seeing as how she nearly panics stepping foot into something as mundane as a convenience store.  While braving the real world with Henry at a grocery store one afternoon, Henry is confronted by a mysterious man named Frank (Josh Brolin) who is bleeding from a wound in his side.  He asks Henry and Adele to take him home with them and when they initially resist, Frank gently forces them by proposing the notion that he could hurt them if they don't.  Upon arrival at their house, Frank tells them he is an escaped convict and that he only wants to hide out in their house for a night after which he'll leave.

A decent enough premise, for sure.  However, Adele hasn't had a man around the house for some time and, thanks to some laughable foreshadowing via a golden-hued flashback, she's longing for a man's touch.  Following a pie-making session -- complete with slow motion edits of hands criss-crossing each other and that ever-reliable golden hue -- we know where this story is headed.

Ultimately, I could almost have bought into this immediate connection between Adele and Frank.  However, Reitman hits us over the head so many times with how good a man Frank is -- he teaches Henry how to throw a baseball, he's kind to kids with cerebral palsy (yep...don't ask how that factors in), he fixes things around the house, he cooks -- that it all just becomes eye-roll-inducing after a while.  We are treated to flashbacks of Frank's former life, too, that prove maybe he isn't as bad a guy as he was made out to be.  The whole thing just becomes too treacly and heavy-handed for its own good.

Josh Brolin gives a nice performance here bringing a gentleness that you don't often see from him and young Gattlin Griffith is also quite good.  Kate Winslet's Adele, however, feels a bit too overwrought.  I couldn't help but think I was watching her act rather than seeing her fully embody her character.

Jason Reitman has proven himself worthy in the past.  Unfortunately, Labor Day is a disappointment.  You're better off watching his last flick Young Adult -- criminally under-seen and under-appreciated.  It's streamed on Netlfix in the past, so it may very well pop up there again.

The RyMickey Rating:  C-

Movie Review - Carnage

Carnage (2011)

Starring Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz, and John C. Reilly

Directed by Roman Polanski

Based off a Tony Award-winning play, Carnage graces us with a quartet of wonderfully talented actors in a showcase for their skills.  However, the film which takes place in real time mostly within the confines of the apartment of Penelope and Michael Longstreet (Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly) should have felt more claustrophobic than director Roman Polanski is able to provide.  It's not that a movie like Carnage which is essentially four people talking with each other for eighty minutes should be "tension-filled", per se, but as the film progresses, there should be an ever-escalating sense of excitement...a building towards something grand at the conclusion.  It's not that the ending of the flick disappoints, but the roller coaster ride the film should have provided was full of too many valleys and not enough hills.

After their two sons get in a tiff on the playground resulting in one striking the other with a stick causing damage to two teeth, the aforementioned Longstreets get together with Nancy and Alan Cowan (Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz) to try and patch things up.  Things begin quite civilly, but it's soon obvious to both parties that despite being on their best behavior, the "adults" here are really just play-acting, trying to put on their best fronts.  As criticisms of the others' parenting skills begin to be bandied about as if they were deadly bullets, the two couples begin to devolve into children fighting on the playground, albeit with a much better vocabulary.

Carnage certainly succeeds because of the four actors onscreen.  The very nature of the project calls for the quartet to be viewed pretty much the entire time (one would assume in the play, the actors would never leave the stage) and each holds their own with no one overshadowing anyone else.  It's always nice to see Jodie Foster onscreen (which actually happened twice this year with this and The Beaver) and here she's at her most neurotic.  It doesn't help her character that John C. Reilly as her husband tries to be the peacemaker rather than stand up for his wife.  If I had to choose a standout star from the bunch, it would have to be Reilly who has the comedic chops for a role like this.  In the end, he seems the most relatable to me (perhaps the reason why I liked him the most) in that, at times, his character appears to spout what the audience is feeling about these childish adults.

Kate Winslet is also wonderful as the uptight Nancy and she works very well with Christoph Waltz who continues to prove that he is quite adept at dark comedy (a category in which one could certainly place 2009's Inglourious Basterds).  Carnage is a film all about about personal interactions and it is pivotal that the cast mesh and flow together which is successfully achieved here.

However, something about the flick doesn't quite click and I have to think the problem lies in the direction since the blame certainly doesn't fall onto the actors.  I have to wonder what this story plays like on a stage where all four actors are present all the time.  In a film, we cut away to certain reactions and only every so often are treated to shots with the entire quartet in our field of vision.  If we had that stage-like ability to constantly be mindful of all four actors, I have to wonder if the edge-of-your-seatness of the "what are they gonna say next" tension inherent in the script would be elevated.  Of course, Roman Polanski wasn't going to shoot the movie with nary a one shot of of an actor, but it simply further goes to prove the difficulty at times of transferring plays to the big screen.

This isn't to say that Carnage is a failure.  It's far from that.  There are many laughs to be had and for sheer acting talent, the film is recommendable.  But if the film has done anything, it's made me desperate to want to see the film performed by a talented stage ensemble (**cough**I'm talking to you, University of Delaware Resident Ensemble Players**cough**).

The RyMickey Rating:  B-

Movie Review - Contagion

Contagion (2011)

Starring Marion Cotillard, Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, Bryan Cranston, Jennifer Ehle, John Hawkes, Sanaa Lathan, and Elliot Gould

Directed by Steven Soderbergh

Contagion is a modern-day version of those 70s "classics" like Earthquake and The Towering Inferno.  Let's put a bunch of well-known actors into a plot, throw in a natural disaster, and see who makes it out alive.  Unlike those special effects-laden films of a few decades ago, however, Contagion is actually good.  

Really good.  

And genuinely frightening.  I do think that, in the end, Steven Soderbergh's thriller about a new strain of deadly virus wreaking havoc on the world hopes that it feels "important."  And while it certainly paints a rather grim picture of what would happen should such an incident occur, I can't help but think it seems more "fluffy" than "substantial," but that's certainly not a bad thing in this case because it still succeeds at nearly every level.

The film opens on a black screen with the sound of someone coughing.  And already the mood is ominous.  We discover (thanks to a subtitle on the screen) that we are in Day 2 of this new viral outbreak and we see the young and vibrant Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow) sitting at an airport bar talking on the phone with a man whom she just slept with.  All seems fine...except then we realize that Beth is the person whom we heard coughing mere seconds ago.  And Soderbergh makes it very clear via his directorial choices that Beth is passing this thing along to others -- the close up of the bowl of peanuts that she just ate from, the handing of a credit card to the bartender.  We're in for trouble and Soderbergh isn't hiding that from us.  The very fact that he makes these incredibly mundane things manage to appear so scary is a credit to him.

From there, the film branches off into various storylines -- some following "normal" citizens like Beth and her husband (Matt Damon), with others focusing on members of the Centers for Disease Control and their attempts to discover the origins of the virus (which is where folks like Laurence Fishburne, Kate Winslet, and Marion Cotillard come into play).  Never staying with any of these plotlines for extended periods of time allows the viewer to never tire of any of them and always keep them longing for more.  Much like the disaster flicks of the 70s, no one is safe here.  Big stars (all of whom perform very well here) are going to bite the dust and this certainly increases the nerves that the viewer feels.

Admittedly, the film is bogged down with the character of Alan Krumwiede (Jude Law), a blogger who says that he will show the public the truth behind the secrets that the government and the CDC are hiding.  Anytime the plot veered into his territory, I kept wanting it to head to someone else.  His conspiracy theories just didn't seem well developed and, quite frankly, bored me (as most ludicrous conspiracy theories do).  Fortunately, as stated, the film doesn't stay on any one character for long and we find the plot quickly shifting to others.

Still, despite that one fault, I couldn't help but find myself absolutely enthralled by Contagion.  On the edge of my seat thanks to Soderbergh's creative direction, this is a completely believable real-life horror story the likes of which I hope we never see actually happen even though it positively could.  Time to grab that hand sanitizer...

The RyMickey Rating:  A-

Movie Review - The Reader (2008)

**Available on DVD**
Starring Kate Winslet, David Kross, Lena Olin, and Ralph Fiennes
Written by David Hare
Directed by Stephen Daldry

I read the novel this flick is based on early on in my Book-a-Week Quest and I didn't care for it at all. I found the book quite melodramatic and I hoped that the movie would not have fared the same.

Copying the summary from my book review, a fifteen-year-old boy, Michael, falls in love with Hanna, an older woman in her 30s, and they begin a torrid love affair. Years later (after they have since separated), his former lover is on trial for crimes she committed as an officer at a Nazi concentration camp. Michael watches the trial as part of a college class and it brings all his feelings for his former lover back to the surface, only this time he is seeing Hanna in a much different light.

The movie followed the book very closely. Unfortunately, that's not such a good thing. I just don't get the emotional arc of this story. It seems like two separate tales -- a story of a "forbidden" love affair and a brief history of one aspect of the aftermath of the Nazis -- that just so happen to be related by a tenuously loose thread. I just couldn't get into the story in the movie or in the book. However, the only thing I found odd is that I enjoyed the love affair much more in book form and I enjoyed the trial much more in movie form...go figure.

Although Kate Winslet got much buzz and an Oscar for her role as Hanna, I found the young David Kross to be the star here. I believed in his childlike innocence at the beginning of the film, his sexual awakening in the middle during the love affair, and his conflicted feelings during Hanna's trial. He was definitely overshadowed by Winslet in the run-up to the 2009 Oscars and that is unfortunate. As far as Winslet is concerned, she was much better in Revolutionary Road (rent it...now!). In this, I felt that she was a little weak -- at times, I felt like I was watching her "act" (which is rarely the case with the talented Winslet). Additionally, although this isn't her fault, I didn't believe her as she aged...the make-up was poorly done.

A quick side note about another supporting actress in this one -- I was quite impressed with Lena Olin in one of the film's final scenes where she discusses the aftermath of the trial with Ralph Fiennes (who plays the elder Michael). That final scene, simple as it was, actually raised the bar of the movie for me a little. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to make me feel that the film's nothing more than a much more expensive made-for-television film.

The RyMickey Rating: D+

Oscar Note: So, having seen all five 2009 Best Actress nominees -- Anne Hathaway in Rachel Getting Married, Angelina Jolie in Changeling, Melissa Leo in Frozen River, Meryl Streep in Doubt, and Kate Winslet in The Reader, the winner without question to me is Anne Hathaway. Had Winslet been nominated for Revolutionary Road, it would've been a much tougher decision.

Movie Review - Revolutionary Road (2008)

starring Kate Winslet, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kathy Bates, Michael Shannon, and Kathryn Hahn
directed by Sam Mendes
screenplay by Justin Haythe

Revolutionary Road is not a happy movie. You're not going to walk out of the theater skipping and whistling. It's intense, it's emotional, it's shocking at times, and it's one of the best movies of 2008.

Set in the mid-50s, DiCaprio and Winslet are married couple Frank and April Wheeler. From the outset, it's obvious that things aren't perfect in their relationship. With Frank languishing in a job he hates and April stuck in the home with their two children, neither is satisfied in their day-to-day life. With the hope of getting them out of their respective ruts, April devises a plan to make a big move with the whole family -- creating a new life and traveling away from their life on Revolutionary Road.

It wouldn't be a movie (or at least as nearly as an intriguing one) if everything went perfectly. And things definitely do not go perfectly.

Elevating the story to a whole new level is the excellent work by DiCaprio and Winslet. Both really deliver pitch-perfect performances. With the help of director (and Winslet's hubby) Mendes, I truly felt transported into the 1950s setting. Corny as that sounds, between the dialogue, the set design, and the costuming, it didn't feel like a movie made in this decade.


Jumping back to Winslet and DiCaprio for a minute, both were just stellar. Despite the fact that his recent films (The Departed, The Aviator) actually showcased his talent, I wasn't expecting much from DiCaprio. But his tone was perfect in this film...not many people can say "swell" and make it sound believable, but DiCaprio eases right into the 1950s setting. As good as DiCaprio is, Winslet is better. Talk about talent, Winslet never seems to disappoint. She was stunningly gorgeous, and can say so much with just her facial expressions.

There is a particular scene towards the end of the movie shared by only Winslet and DiCaprio as they sit at a kitchen table and it was just heartachingly beautiful...and the scenes that follow that one just make it resonate even more.

I also don't want to forget the great supporting turn by Kathryn Hahn as the Wheeler's next door neighbor. While initially providing some much needed comic relief, she makes the most out of what could've been a throwaway role. Kathy Bates and Michael Shannon are also serviceable in their roles, although if I had anything to pick at, Bates seemed a tad over the top, making her role of the elderly, slightly nosy, neighbor a little cliché.

It's a shame this seems to be only getting buzz for Kate Winslet's role (she received a well-deserved Golden Globe for this role), as I truly think it's one of the best films of '08.

The RyMickey Rating: A-