Wildlike

Bruce Davison and Ella Purnell contemplate Alaska.

(2014) Adventure (Greenmachine) Ella Purnell, Bruce Greenwood, Nolan Gerard Funk, Brian Geraghty, Diane Farr, Joshua Leonard, Ann Farr, Russell Josh Peterson, Bradford Jackson, Pamela R. Klein, Erin Lindsay King, Elias Christeas, Teddy Kyle Smith, Ching Tseng, Thomas Mark Higgins, Tom Okamoto, Leo Grinberg, Erick Robertson, Joe Tapangco. Directed by Frank Hall Green

When we read about teen runaways, often we look at them as anti-authoritarians who couldn’t handle being told what to do. We look down upon them, feeling that they are responsible for their own mess, and that certainly is true in some cases. The reality is that sometimes running away is the only option.

Mackenzie (Purnell) has come to Juneau, Alaska from Seattle because she really has no other choice; her father has passed away within the last year and her mother is entering treatment in Seattle for her drug dependency. She’s staying with her Uncle (Geraghty) who at first seems to be trying to be nice in the face of teen “whatever, go screw yourself” attitude and raccoon-like eye make-up from Mackenzie. She seems to warm up to him when he gives her an iPhone.

Then things get messy. A nocturnal incident leaves Mackenzie feeling vulnerable and alone; she knows she has to leave. So when the opportunity presents itself, out she gets. Armed with money she stole from her Uncle, she sets out to make her way home to Seattle but what she doesn’t realize is that Alaska is a big effin’ state.

Trying to get in out of the cold and the rain, she breaks into a motel room but it turns out that it’s not empty; Rene “Bart” Bartlett (Greenwood) has rented the room and he’s getting ready to undertake a difficult task – to hike through Denali National Park alone. When Bartlett discovers Mackenzie under the bed, she bolts, unnerving him.

For some reason she latches onto him and follows him to Denali and then into the wilderness, much to his chagrin. He tries to convince her to head back but she refuses and so reluctantly he takes the woefully unprepared girl along with him. What he ends up discovering is that he needs her as much as she needs him.

I’m not sure how to characterize this film, whether it is a coming of age film or an Alaska wilderness adventure or a social commentary. It has elements of all of these things and you wouldn’t be wrong in characterizing it as any of the three. It definitely has that in its favor; it is a tale told in a unique manner.

Also in its favor is the beautiful vistas we see throughout. Alaska is one of the most beautiful places on Earth and it just isn’t shown in movies nearly enough, probably having to do with the remoteness of most of the state. Filming here can be a challenge and the window of opportunity can be small seasonally speaking. Green, a first-time director who has hiked Denali himself on several occasions and has been a outdoors type for most of his life, knows Alaska well enough to choose some brilliant locations and to get the shots he needs. This is a gorgeous movie that will certainly inspire some to want to venture to the 49th state.

Also to its advantage is the performance of Purnell, who captures the look and attitude of a teen girl damn near perfectly. She’s got all the attitude in the world, affecting a “I don’t care” look that most teenage girls master at an early age but the inner vulnerability and scared little girl comes out at the right times. Mackenzie is 14 in the film and Purnell was 19 when the movie was made which is a bit of a relief considering some of the scenes she has to play here.

And there are a few scenes that are pretty difficult, particularly the one which is the cause of Mackenzie’s need to leave. It is handled respectfully, not in a prurient manner but more in a matter-of-fact kind of way. And yes, there is a creepy factor when you throw a teen girl and a middle-aged man into the same tent, but to Green’s credit (as well as Greenwood’s), the awkwardness mostly comes from the viewer’s own preconceived notion of why a middle-aged man would hang out with a young girl.

The movie doesn’t explain a lot of things, leaving the audience to kind of explain them on their own. We never get a sense of why Mackenzie follows Bart into the wilderness; it seems to be a random and spur-of-the-moment choice which, to b fair, is often how teen girls seem to act. I suppose it’s better to let us invent our own story rather than to spoon feed us but more framework would have been nice. There’s also a scene in which Bart and Mackenzie encounter a group of people testing out kites in which an important monologue is delivered but the music is so loud that it is difficult to hear what is being said.

Quibbles aside, this is a solid, well-made and beautifully photographed movie that will stick with you. Solid performances by most of the lead cast and a compelling story will leave you hooked. At present the film is on the festival circuit but hopefully it will be grabbed by a distributor for either a limited theatrical run or a VOD release. It deserves to be seen.

REASONS TO GO: Gorgeous Alaskan wilderness. Handles difficult subjects respectfully. Purnell gets attitude and look down pat.
REASONS TO STAY: A bit light in connecting the dots. Music overly loud in places it shouldn’t be.
FAMILY VALUES: Some disturbing sexual scenes and a fair amount of foul language.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Purnell, an English actress, spoke with an American accent from the moment she got off the plane in Alaska and stayed in that accent 24/7 until she got on the plane for home when shooting was completed.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 4/11/15: Rotten Tomatoes: no score yet. Metacritic: no score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Druid Peak
FINAL RATING: 7/10
NEXT: Tomorrow We Disappear

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The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

Lisabeth Salander has Mikael Blomkvist in stitches.

(2011) Thriller (MGM/Columbia) Daniel Craig, Rooney Mara, Christopher Plummer, Robin Wright, Stellan Skarsgard, Steven Berkoff, Yorick van Wageningen, Joely Richardson, Geraldine James, Goran Visnjic, Donald Sumpter, Ulf Friberg, Julian Sands, Moa Garpendal, Embeth Davidtz. Directed by David Fincher

 

Sometimes a movie is so good when it is originally made that it seems virtually unthinkable that it be remade. Most of the time, those remakes fall far short of the mark. Once in awhile however, the remake comes out with a voice of its own that offers something to the original, enhances it even.

Purists were aghast when the hit Swedish film The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was set for an American remake. There was some comfort in that Fincher, whose pedigree includes Se7en and Fight Club would be behind the camera but still there were shudders to think of what liberties and watering down Hollywood would do to the source material, the late Stieg Larsson’s novel (the first in a trilogy, all of which have been translated to film in Swede and all of them reviewed elsewhere on the site) which was grittier and more brutal than Hollywood tends to be.

Mikael Blomkvist (Craig), a crusading journalist and co-publisher of the left-leaning Millennium magazine has been convicted of libel against a wealthy Swedish venture capitalist named Hans-Erik Wennerstrom (Friberg). The judgment against Blomkvist essentially empties out his savings and puts Millennium at risk of failing. His co-publisher and lover Erika Berger (Wright) confesses that the magazine may have three months of life left at best.

Wennerstrom isn’t the only one looking into Blomkvist. A security firm is hired by lawyer Dirch Frode (Berkoff) to investigate Blomkvist and the operative of the security firm, Lisbeth Salander (Mara) is asked to turn in her report in person, something that makes her uncomfortable. It turns out that her report is pretty thorough and the few things that are missing are best left that way.

Berkoff represents reclusive industrialist Henrik Vanger (Plummer) who wants to hire Blomkvist to investigate the disappearance of his grand-niece Harriet (Garpendal) whom he believes was murdered by a member of his family 40 years earlier. There are certainly plenty of suspects; ex-Nazis who may not be as ex as they might have you believe; bitter, jealous and greedy, grasping money-grubbers, torturers, rapists and pederasts. Makes for quite a Christmas list.

At first Blomkvist is met with hostility from nearly everyone other than Martin (Skarsgard), Harriet’s brother who is skeptical that Blomkvist will find out anything new. Martin is running the family business now and not running it with much success. The once-vast Vanger empire is shrinking; once a great steel and railway manufacturer, they make most of their profits from fertilizer these days. Considering all the BS that is fed to Blomkvist, I’m quite certain he must have thought that appropriate.

As Blomkvist discovers that his e-mail was hacked by Salander (whose identity he doesn’t yet know), he is infuriated but begrudgingly realizes he needs a research assistant as he is making a little bit of progress but needs someone who can help him dig things up from corporate records at Vanger Industries. He meets Salander who proves to be skittish but intrigued; she isn’t very fond of men in general, having been raped brutally by her state-appointed guardian Nils Bjurman (van Wageningen). She did get her revenge however and proved herself someone not to mess with in the process.

Blomkvist and Salander turn out to make a formidable team and the lies and prevarications of 40 years of silence begin to slip away and they discover Harriet’s disappearance may be the gateway into a much more hideous secret – and that Harriet may not be the only victim. Worse yet, the killer is fully aware of their discoveries and has them both firmly in their sights.

When I found out about this remake, I was like most fans of the books and the Swedish versions somewhat troubled. I couldn’t see Hollywood allowing a movie to include scenes of graphic rape and torture, all of which were at the heart of the previous versions. I fully expected something sanitized and vapid. Then I heard that it was Fincher directing, and to be honest my reaction was “He’s probably the only director in Hollywood who could pull it off,” but I thought he might have difficulty getting the studio to allow him free rein to make the movie he wanted.

Surprisingly he did and we might have The Social Network to thank for it. The runaway commercial and critical success of that film has given Fincher greater clout than he’s had previously and might have allowed him to shut down studio interference in the project. Certainly the rape sequence and the torture sequence late in the film are as disturbing as those in the Swedish film and the book.

Craig was only able to do this film because of the delay in filming the latest James Bond. Here he plays a man unused to action, one more cerebral than some of the heroes he’s played lately and quite frankly Craig is up to the task. It is as different a role from Bond as you can get but equally as heroic, and if this franchise is successful will really put up Craig among the elite stars working today.

Mara is the breakout star here. One had to worry if she could fill the shoes of Noomi Rapace, who was so very central to the success of the Swedish trilogy.  Not only does Mara fill those shoes, she may well surpass them and will herself into stardom; this is a star-making performance to say the least. Salander is a tortured soul and certainly Mara captures that, but she’s also no longer willing to be a victim and the inner strength that makes Salander one of the most interesting heroines of all time is very much evident here as well. She may wear outlandish hair styles, provocative t-shirts and smoke far too much but she is also brilliant as well.

The movie is a bit longer than three hours long which was nearly more than my poor bladder could take – theater sodas are so darn large these days! It also fleshes out the Swedish film quite nicely, although the Swedish version ends with the death of the killer more or less with a brief coda showing a television report that covers the denouement between Blomkvist and Wennerstrom. The American version plays that out a bit further which frankly was unnecessary for my taste.

Still, this is some terrific filmmaking buttressed by some great performances, particularly in the case of Mara (Plummer and Skarsgard, both veteran actors, also deliver solid performances). It may be too intense for some, a bit too long for its own good but by and large this is a really good movie that doesn’t disgrace its source material in the least; if anything, it enhances it nicely and makes for a worthy addition to Larsson’s legacy.

REASONS TO GO: Mara does a star-making turn here. Based on one of the best-written thrillers in recent years. Great cast and production values.

REASONS TO STAY: The violence and sexuality can get very intense. Doesn’t measure up to the original in several critical areas. Overly long.

FAMILY VALUES: There is some very disturbing content here, including graphic rape and torture. There is also plenty of nudity and sexuality and a surfeit of naughty words.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The piercings that Rooney Mara sports as Lisabeth Salander are real; none of them are cosmetically or digitally enhanced. Mara got them for the movie.

HOME OR THEATER: Some of the empty vistas of Northern Sweden seem best on the big screen but it might not be a bad thing to see this at home in front of a roaring fire on a cold night.

FINAL RATING: 7.5/10

TOMORROW: The Artist