Rosaline

 Rosaline (2022)

Starring Kaitlyn Dever, Isabela Merced, Kyle Allen, Sean Teale, Christopher McDonald, Minnie Driver, and Bradley Whitford

Directed by Karen Maine

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  C

Movie Review - Beyond the Lights

Beyond the Lights (2014)

Starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Nate Parker, Minnie Driver, and Danny Glover

Directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood

From a young age, Noni always had some strong vocal chops and her mother Macy Jean (Minnie Driver) took full advantage of trying to exploit them at local talent shows around London.  As time passed, that exploitation found itself being amplified many times over and twentysomething Noni (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) finds herself on the cusp of superstardom after having been featured in the successful songs of a famous rapper.  After winning a Billboard Music Award for her collaboration, Noni finds herself devastated as opposed to happy as her industry is simply pushing her sex appeal rather than her talent.  Saddened, Noni attempts to commit suicide by jumping off her hotel balcony, stopped only by the valiant efforts of a young cop named Kaz (Nate Parker).  Regular guy Kaz reminds Noni that she's worth more than the music industry is making her out to be and, much to her mother's chagrin, Noni begins to question her calling in life.

Beyond the Lights certainly has something to say about the music industry's incessant push to sexually exploit its female stars and director-screenwriter Gina Prince-Bythewood places this misogynistic tendency front and center in the film's less successful first half.  While I certainly understand the importance of setting up Noni's sexualization, these attacks of the industry as a whole seem too obvious and sometimes over-the-top.  As the film progresses, though, and Noni begins to question the true price of fame on her psyche, Beyond the Lights blossoms into something with much more depth than we're used to seeing.

At the center of the film is a nice performance from Gugu Mbatha-Raw who shows us a complicated woman in Noni.  The allure of fame, the need to please her mother, the vulnerability she feels when she discovers she may want something different for herself -- all mix together to create a complex creation that really comes alive in the film's second half.

Similarly, Mbatha-Raw's performance is matched by Minnie Driver whose role as Macy Jean could've simply been that of a typical stage mom, but instead is a smart woman whose drive for herself and her daughter was never meant to be destructive, but may well just be that.  While Macy Jean may see Noni falling apart at the seams, she pushes these issues away in order to travel on the road to success.  Macy knows that her daughter's got a set of pipes, but she also knows that the only way to stardom is through the lens of the male gaze coupled with female objectification.

Beyond the Lights is much more successful in its second half as Noni comes to grips with leaving behind her fame, disappointing her mother, and falling in love with a man who has drastically changed her outlook on life.  It's in this part of the film that I feel Prince-Bythewood gives us a taste of something we don't often see in films, abandoning some of the stereotypical tropes of the first half and allowing us to glimpse the slow unveiling of Noni's true self beyond the lights of fame.

The RyMickey Rating:  B

Movie Review - Stage Fright

Stage Fright (2014)

Starring Allie MacDonald, Douglas Smith, Brandon Uranowitz, Kent Nolan, Minnie Driver, and Meat Loaf

Directed by Jerome Sable

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

The world was asking for a horror-musical mash-up, right?  We've longed to see a serial killer sing as he (or she) slashes up victims, haven't we?  If you've been eagerly waiting for this new genre of film...Stage Fright won't help quench your desire.  I think it's possible that this weird conglomeration of genres might work in better hands, but writer-director Jerome Sable's not the guy to make it succeed.  Obviously, Stage Fright was completed on a low budget, but it's simply not very good, reeking of a recent film school student's attempt at making a movie.

The film opens following the Broadway debut of The Haunting of the Opera as Broadway diva Kylie Swanson (Minnie Driver) is murdered in her dressing room by a phantom-masked assailant.  Cut to ten years later and Kylie's daughter and son Camilla and Buddy (Allie MacDonald and Douglas Smith) are working in the kitchen at a camp for blossoming stage kids run by Roger McCall (Meat Loaf), the producer of their mom's musical that brought about her demise.  As the young kids arrive at the camp, someone doesn't want people to forget about the tenth anniversary of Kylie's death.

Not much about Stage Fright is good.  The musical numbers are poorly written and staged.  The acting is lukewarm at best.  The motive behind the killer's actions is much too obvious to be interesting.  The whole thing falls flat quite frankly, making me wonder if this mash-up could ever be a success.

The RyMickey Rating:  D-

Movie Review - I Give It a Year

I Give It a Year (2013)

Starring Rose Byrne, Rafe Spall, Anna Faris, Stephen Merchant, Minnie Driver, Simon Baker, and Olivia Colman

Directed by Dan Mazer

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

I Give It a Year started out so promisingly.  Through a quickly paced montage, we see how Nat and Josh (Rose Byrne and Rafe Spall) meet and fall in love, leading up to their wedding.  Their reception is filled with hilarity thanks to Josh's best bud Danny (Stephen Merchant), but then the film skips ahead about eight months and Nat and Josh find themselves sitting in a marriage counselor's office talking about how they jumped into things too quickly and may not have been as compatible as they thought.  Through flashbacks we see that Josh has never really gotten over his girlfriend prior to Nat, an American named Chloe (Anna Faris) and the fact that they're trying to remain friends puts a strain on his current relationship.  Nat, on the other hand, is finding herself falling for an American herself -- a businessman (Simon Baker) whose suave and debonair demeanor is a bit more of a perfect match for her than Josh's lovable carefreeness.

Unfortunately, as I look back upon the film, I realize that even the humor that I enjoyed wasn't natural to the film itself.  In those opening minutes, I laughed more times than I can count thanks to Stephen Merchant's inappropriate speeches at the wedding and the reception.  However, Merchant's character seems out of place and affected as opposed to being intrinsic to the plot.  Similarly, the aforementioned marriage counselor (played by Olivia Colman) is a caricature rather than a real person.  The same could be said for Minnie Driver's best friend character whose purpose other than to provide a snarky comment here or there is beyond me.

The film doesn't help its leading actors either.  Rose Byrne and Rafe Spall -- both of whom are perfectly pleasant to watch and are fine in the acting department -- are bland and aren't given anything to do except stand around and get pissed off or glare at their partner so that doesn't help matters either.  Simon Baker is nothing except "The Perfect Guy," so his character is a bit yawn-inducing.  And poor Anna Faris is given a purportedly hilarious scene involving her character's experimentation in a threesome that is so incredibly out of place, I found myself cringing at writer-director Dan Mazur's taste levels.

I Give It a Year wasn't offensively bad, but I can't say it's worth your time either.

The RyMickey Rating:  C-

The Personal Canon - Return to Me

The Personal Canon is a recurring column discussing my favorite movies of all time.  While they may not necessarily be "A" rated, they are the movies that, for some reason or another, hold a special place in my filmgoing experience.

Return to Me (2000)

Starring David Duchovny, Minnie Driver, Bonnie Hunt, Jim Belushi, David Alan Grier, Carroll O'Connor, Robert Loggia, and Joely Richardson

Directed by Bonnie Hunt
***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

This was my first watch of Return to Me in several years.  It was a film I simply became enamored with when I first watched it thanks to its endearing love story, its simplicity (despite its absolutely absurd premise), and its old-fashioned humor, and I was worried it wasn't going to hold up.  Seeing as how this review is posted under the heading of "The Personal Canon," it's pretty obvious that I still adore the movie.  I'm a sucker for a good romantic comedy and Return to Me is a film I love.

The reason the film was even on my radar upon its release in 2000 was because I'm a huge fan of Bonnie Hunt.  Now, Mom, if you're reading this, please don't take this the wrong way, but I always thought if I had to choose another mother for whatever reason, Bonnie Hunt would be a good substitute.  She exudes warmth but also has a wry sense of humor that when making a dig at its intended "victim" still comes with a hefty dose of heart.  That quality is certainly on display in this film which she both directed and co-wrote.  Granted, she may not have the greatest directorial eye -- there are a few incredibly corny moments at the beginning which resort to unnecessary flashbacks -- but despite her rather by-the-book visual sense, she allows her created characters to shine.

And goshdarnit, the characters in Return to Me are people that you want to get to know and become buddies with.  You want to head down to O'Reilly's Italian Restaurant run by the Irish Marty O'Reilly (the great Carroll O'Connor) and Italian Angelo Pardipillo (the equally great Robert Loggia) and sink into a booth while Marty's lovely granddaughter Grace (Minnie Driver) sings a tune while taking your order.  It's Grace whom the story revolves around who, at the film's start, is in the hospital on death's door awaiting a heart transplant.  As fate would have it, a heart comes Grace's way.  After a simply lovely evening out with his zoologist wife (Joely Richardson), a terrible car accident kills Bob Rueland's (David Duchovny) spouse leaving him emotionally devastated and Grace with Bob's wife's heart and a new lease on life.  You know where this is going, right?  Bob and Grace end up meeting a year later and fall in love in perhaps the sweetest, most innocent romance captured on film since the 1940s...and, since this is the cinema, after all, the truth will inevitably be discovered.

Yes, the plot is silly, but it works...trust me.  It works because the actors sell the innocence and purity of a movie that could've been made decades earlier (the Dean Martin-heavy soundtrack fits right in, in that respect).  David Duchovny and Minnie Driver have never been better as they get us to truly care about them despite the fact that we are well aware that there's going to be trouble for this couple up ahead. But the supporting cast around them is what really helps Return to Me shine and lifts it to that extra level.  Carroll O'Connor is absolutely darling -- sure, that's a silly term to use nowadays, but his good-natured, strongly Irish-Catholic grandfather is a joy to watch in both his interactions with Grace and his old man buddies.  When he sits in a church pew and prays for his granddaughter's surgery to succeed, we can't help but want the same thing even though we've only just met his character mere minutes before.  Jim Belushi and Bonnie Hunt are also hilarious and certainly worthy of a mention as the uncouth husband-and-wife duo who only want what's best for their good friend Grace.

I've recommended this movie to a lot of people and I've yet to have one person come back and tell me they disliked it.  There's something so innocently charming about Return to Me, and it's the film's lack of irony and refusal to stoop to raunch that makes this a film I can keep going back to year after year.  It's a love story that can be enjoyed by my twenty-four year-old brother or my eighty-five year-old grandmother or my fifty-eight year-old dad.  And that's a testament to its quality, in my opinion, and it's a testament to what makes a great film.  [And since this flick is streaming on Netflix, there's no excuse not to watch it.]

The RyMickey Rating:  A-


Check out my other Personal Canon films like Requiem for a Dream and United 93 by clicking this link.

Movie Review - Conviction

Conviction (2010)

Starring Hilary Swank, Sam Rockwell, Minnie Driver, Melissa Leo, Peter Gallagher, and Juliette Lewis

Directed by Tony Goldwyn

There's nothing wrong necessarily with being a by-the-books drama.  Sure, it may not win you accolades, but sometimes a movie doesn't call for tricks or surprises.  Conviction, a true life drama about a man wrongly accused of murder and the sister who vowed to free him, doesn't have any tricks up its sleeve.  Unfortunately, it also doesn't have any emotional drive up its sleeve either and that ultimately knocks what is a perfectly acceptable film down a couple of notches.

In 1980 Massachusetts, a young woman is murdered and Kenny Waters (Sam Rockwell) is taken in for questioning related to the crime.  While nothing happens for two years, in 1982, Kenny is arrested and convicted of the murder.  Knowing in her heart that her brother is innocent, Betty Anne Waters (Hilary Swank) decides to head to law school to get a degree to help her brother appeal the ruling.  Things aren't easy for her and she finds herself having to jump over many legal hurdles, but, let's be honest here, there really wouldn't be a movie if things didn't turn out for the best.

And it's that inevitability that is part of the reason there isn't a huge emotional arc in play here.  To me, director Tony Goldwyn is to blame because he fails to let the strong brother-sister bond between Betty Anne and Kenny emotionally grab the viewer.  Yes, he tries, but there was nothing there to pull me in.  Instead, I was watching a perfectly adequate drama that felt a little more distant than it should.

That criticism said, all of the actors here are quite good.  Hilary Swank is perfectly suited for the working class, slightly rough-around-the-edges Betty Anne, and Sam Rockwell plays Kenny surprisingly tenderly  with enough hints of anger to make him a possible suspect.  Minnie Driver as Betty Anne's friend, Melissa Leo as the female cop attempting to make a name for herself with Waters' case, and Juliette Lewis as a witness for the prosecution all make the most of their roles as well.

Conviction is certainly a decent drama and one that was worth watching.  It's just that it could have been better had the director somehow created a more emotionally charged relationship between all parties involved.

The RyMickey Rating:  B-