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 - Lamb

Lamb (2016)

Starring Ross Partridge, Oona Laurence, and Jess Weixler

Directed by Ross Partridge

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

I don't even really know what to say about this one.  How do you write a review about a movie that, at its conclusion, made you feel so wildly uncomfortable, disconcerted, and unsettled?  Lamb begins rather innocently with fortysomething David (Ross Partridge) dealing with the loss of his father.  Following the funeral, while sitting in a parking lot, David is approached by seventh-grader Tommie (Oona Laurence) who asks him for a cigarette.  Tommie looks like a burgeoning prostitute, adorned with high heels, a hot pink purse, and a short skirt and David decides to take it upon himself to help the young girl out of the inevitable hole she's going to slide down if she continues on this path.  They form an odd friendship that then morphs into a kidnapping situation (albeit a voluntary one on Tommie's part) as David takes Tommie to his father's farm to show her the beauty of the world outside the slummy and slimy part of town in which she lives.

Ultimately, I have no clue what Lamb is trying to convey.  David is fully aware that his actions could be construed as those of a pedophile, but he's not one...or is he?  In the film's final moments, the "L" word gets thrown around and when you bring "love" into this equation it starts to make things a bit gross.  I understood what Tommie was getting from the relationship -- a chance to escape her lazy parents and her untrustworthy friends with someone who seems to genuinely care about her well-being -- but what was David's reasoning to embark on this adventure?  It's still unknown to me.  This odd relationship never gelled and only succeeded in making this viewer highly uncomfortable.  In what is essentially a two-hander, Ross Partridge and Oona Laurence are both fine, but Partridge who also directed and adapted this film from a novel is never really able to define why his character does what he does.  With the protagonist's motivation for his increasingly odd actions left unexplored, the film feels unbalanced.  Maybe your mileage will vary and I will admit that I wasn't ever bored watching this odd piece, but I simply can't recommend Lamb.

The RyMickey Rating:  C-

Movie Review - Bad Moms

Bad Moms (2016)

Starring Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell, Kathryn Hahn, Oona Laurence, Emjay Anthony, Annie Mumolo, Jay Hernandez, David Walton, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Christina Applegate

Directed by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore

I'm not a fan of Hangover-styled comedies where adults act raucous just because they usually can't in their normal lives so admittedly Bad Moms had an uphill battle to work for me, but with its essentially non-existent story, directors and co-writers Jon Lucas and Scott Moore have crafted one of the worst films of 2016.  Color me unsurprised upon looking at imdb.com that Lucas and Moore were the genius writers behind The Hangover and its sequels -- certainly shows that their quality of penmanship hasn't improved all that much in the past decade as they still mine for comedy in alcohol, drugs, and raunch but in the basest way possible.

The failure of Bad Moms has absolutely nothing to do with the women at its center -- a trio of moms who find their homelives in various states of disarray as their status as "Mom" has taken over all other aspects of their identity.  Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell, and Kathyrn Hahn are the reasons I stuck with this one for its entirety -- well, that and the fact that I watched it on a long car ride home from vacation and had nothing better to do.  Together, the trio are engaging and really do attempt to make the most out of a bad situation.

That bad situation, however, is simply unsaveable.  Sure, there are moments of levity -- many of them coming from Hahn's carefree, sex-crazed character -- but this film has almost no story to latch onto and its characters are so underdeveloped that it makes its 100-minute runtime feel interminable.  Were it not for the aforementioned cast -- which also includes Christina Applegate in a thankless and underdeveloped villainess role and Oona Laurence and Emjay Anthony as Kunis' kids -- there would've been no way I could've made it until the end.  Acting crazy doesn't always equal laughs as writers Lucas and Moore have more than proven looking at their resumés.  The public has spoken for some reason, though, and their style of pedestrian screenplay seemingly does the trick -- not for this reviewer, however.

The RyMickey Rating:  D-

Movie Review - Pete's Dragon

Pete's Dragon (2016)

Starring Oakes Fegley, Bryce Dallas Howard, Robert Redford, Oona Laurence, Wes Bentley, and Karl Urban

Directed by David Lowery

The original 1977 Pete's Dragon doesn't hold a particularly fond place in this Disney fan's heart simply in that it wasn't a staple in my household growing up.  I was hoping that would bode well for the prospects of Disney's 2016 remake, but unfortunately the updated version was a bit of a disappointment.  Although it was well acted, I found the film to be rather dull, lacking enchantment considering the somewhat whimsical subject matter.

While driving with his parents through the forests of the Northwest United States, a horrible car accident occurs and leaves six year-old Pete the only survivor.  Wandering the woods with no one to help him, Pete comes across a green, furry dragon whom he names Elliot and the two become close friends.  Six years later, an eleven year-old Pete (Oakes Fegley) is discovered by Grace (Bryce Dallas Howard), a national park ranger, who brings the young boy back to town.  Despite having the luxuries of modern-day conveniences, Pete misses his friend Elliot, but he has a difficult time convincing people that his dragon/friend/caretaker is real.

Throw in some bad (though not necessarily "evil") loggers, Grace's somewhat kooky father (played by Robert Redford), and a bit of an unnecessarily destructive climax involving a bridge collapse and you end up having a film that feels like it needed a little more focus in order to succeed.  As mentioned, the acting across the board is quite good, but the cast isn't given much to work with here.  This is a kid's movie about a dragon for goodness sakes -- it should scream "fun" and "enchanting," but director and co-writer David Lowery's film lacks any charm and fancifulness.  While Lowery crafts a film that looks good and creates a believable atmosphere for its characters (including the computer-generated Elliot) to inhabit, I found myself not wanting to spend all that much time with them with the heavy dreariness that seems to permeate throughout the piece.

Once again, as is often the case, Disney's live-action remake machine disappoints.

The RyMickey Rating:  C

Movie Review - Southpaw

Southpaw (2015)

Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Forest Whitaker, Naomie Harris, Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, Oona Laurence, and Rachel McAdams

Directed by Antoine Fuqua

I am by no means a boxing film aficionado, but perhaps my journey into the realm of the Rocky films earlier this year has soured me to any other film outside of Stallone-headed series.  Granted, it's not like Balboa's story wasn't filled with clichés, but some of the flicks at least felt well-written with realistic dialog.  The same can't be said for Southpaw - a film so riddled with silly words and typical storylines that I couldn't invest myself in what I was seeing despite a decent turn from Jake Gyllenhaal as Billy Hope, an undefeated boxer who, after a family tragedy, finds himself spiraling out of control, struggling to make ends meet and unable to keep his daughter Leila (Oona Laurence) who is taken away by Child Protective Services.

Southpaw has moments of almost dramatic brilliance -- a pivotal scene involving Billy and his wife Maureen (Rachel McAdams) as tragedy strikes; ten year-old Leila angrily and heartbreakingly slapping her father -- but they're surrounded by silliness in a script by Kurt Sutter that does his characters no favors.  It also doesn't help that director Antoine Fuqua's lensing just can't compare to that of Ryan Coogler's who breathed life and vigor into Creed's boxing scenes while Fuqua's appear generic and bland.

Gyllenhaal is solid here, but he's had better performances in the past few years and that's in part due to the fact that Billy Hope feels like an amalgamation of clichéd roles from other sport films.  Forest Whitaker plays Billy's new coach spreading sanctimonious wisdom seemingly culled from self help books every time he opens his mouth.  Oona Laurence is a bit of a bright spot as Hope's beleaguered daughter, but she's given some ridiculous scenes towards the film's end that stifle her character's emotional arc.  Overall, I really don't have much good to say about Southpaw which admittedly is a bit shocking because I had heard plenty of positive things about it.  In this reviewer's opinion, though, it's certainly not even close to being a knock out.

The RyMickey Rating:  D+