Sorry Angel (Plaire, aimer et courir vite)

The French sure do love their ménage a trois.

(2018) Drama (Strand) Vincent Lacoste, Pierre Deladonchamp, Denis Podalydės, Clėment Mėtayer, Adėle Wismes, Thomas Gonzalez, Quentin Thėbault, Tristan Farge, Sophie Letourneur, Marlėne Saldana, Luca Malinowski, Rio Vega, Loïc Mobihan, Mathilda Doucourė, Eric Vigner, Tibo Drouet, Jean-Frėdėric Lemoues, Teddy Rogaert, Thibaud Boursier, Adėle Csech. Directed by Christophe Honorė

Paris in 1993 was as ever beautiful, seductive and cosmopolitan. For the gay community, it was also the era of AIDS, a time when great numbers of that community fell victim to the disease. Jacques (Deladonchamp) is a successful playwright and a single father. He has been suffering from writer’s block in his career but also sort of in his life as well. His love life is in neutral, particularly since he’s contracted the disease himself. He continues to carry on essentially as before but he knows his time is short. While on a trip to Brittany for an arts festival, he meets Arthur (Lacoste) who is a 22-year-old film student who has become increasingly sexually indifferent to his girlfriend Nadine (Wismes). He is on the cusp of discovering his bisexuality and he falls deeply in love with Jacques when they have a chance encounter in a movie theater.

Jacques returns to Paris and his friend and neighbor Mathieu (Podalydės) who has become something of a confidante and who may harbor romantic feelings of his own for Jacques. For his own part, Jacques is reluctant to start something he knows he can’t finish but at the same time he is extremely drawn to Arthur and his youthful exuberance. Jacques wonders if he wants to spend what time he has left alone or with someone he loves.

Honorė is a distinctively French director whose films often have a bittersweet quality to them, although not to the degree here. This is a movie that seems to me to have come from a deep place inside the director. Unfortunately, films of that nature sometimes lead to overly long movies and this one is definitely guilty of that.

There are some moments of sheer joy (a dance in the apartment between Arthur, Mathieu and Jacques is a highlight) and moments of dizzying pathos. Lacoste does a really good job as Arthur and while Deladonchamp is a fine actor, his Jacques is prone at times to being a little more inwardly directed to be truly approachable. All in all, this is a good movie that I wish I could have connected with more deeply but the length and Jacques’ occasional remoteness prevented me from doing so.

REASONS TO SEE: It’s Love in the Time of Cholera for the AIDS generation.
REASONS TO AVOID: The movie is way, way, WAY too long. At times the film gets pretentious.
FAMILY VALUES: There is profanity and plenty of sexual content.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: During the course of the film, Arthur makes a big deal about being from Brittany while his two roommates are Parisians, Lacoste is actually from Paris while the actors playing the roommates are not.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 3/5/19: Rotten Tomatoes: 87% positive reviews: Metacritic: 75/100
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Love in the Time of Cholera
FINAL RATING: 4.5/10
NEXT: Dead Pigs

Lean on Pete

We all need somebody we can lean on.

(2017) Coming of Age Drama (A24) Charlie Plummer, Steve Buscemi, Travis Fimmel, Amy Seimetz, Steve Zahn, Chloë Sevigny, Rachel Perrell Fosket, Alison Elliott, Jason Rouse, Lewis Pullman, Justin Rain, Frank Gallegos, Teyah Hartley, Kurt Conroyd, Dennis Fitzpatrick, Jason Beem, Rusty Tennant, Tolo Tuttele, Francisco Garcia, Joseph Bertot, Dana Millican, Julia Prud’homme. Directed by Andrew Haigh

When we are desperate, it’s like we’re drowning; we reach out for whatever might be at hand in order to save ourselves. Often what we find is the most unlikely of life preservers.

Charley (Plummer) is a typical teen; he’s not high on high school but he is a decent football player and enjoys the camaraderie of the team. He lives with his dad (Fimmel) on the wrong side of the tracks in Portland – his mom has been out of the picture for some time now – and his Aunt Margy (Elliott) has had a huge argument with his dad and the two don’t speak to each other anymore although Charley still remembers Margy with some fondness.

Dad is a bit of a ne’er-do-well who has trouble hanging on to jobs but not, as it turns out, to the bottle. He’s initiated a romance with a married (but separated) woman who is kind to Charley. Charley is more focused on getting ready for the football season – it is the middle of summer after all – and while out running he stumbles into a world he never knew existed.

Del (Buscemi) raises quarter horses for racing on the independent circuit which means fairs and carnivals and on tracks that the English with their peculiar sense of understatement might term “dodgy.” He does so with a mixture of gruff charm and world-weary irascibility. Charley is quite taken with him and manages to get a job mucking out stables, walking the horses and doing whatever menial task Del needs done. Charley becomes enamored with a horse named Lean on Pete who is nearing the end of his usefulness to Del which means the equine is one step away from being ground into pet food in Mexico. Charley doesn’t know that though.

However, things change as they inevitably do and not for the better which Is usually the case for people like Charley. He ends up taking a journey with Pete that will take him to unexpected places as he vaguely searches for his Aunt and some sort of normal life that seems to be completely out of reach for him. This might be his only chance to get one.

This looks on the surface very much like “a boy and his horse” kind of movie in which the horse teaches the boy something about courage and determination and helps the boy turn his life around. This isn’t that kind of movie at all, however. Based on a novel by Oregon-based writer Willy Vlautin, the film has a number of unexpected turns of events that in at least one instance caused a startled “Oh!” to pass my lips That’s not easy to do, I can tell you.

Buscemi who remains an independent film icon has been on a bit of a hot streak for the past several years following Boardwalk Empire. His performances have become less quirky and more grounded and as a result he’s become more relatable as a performer. He in fact has become an actor whose films I will see just by the virtue that he’s in them. He’s absolutely magnificent as a tough guy who quite clearly does not have a heart of gold and is not a father figure; he is a survivor who has gotten that way by not getting too attached to people or horses He’s not a bad guy but he isn’t above cheating to win a race. Del exits the movie fairly early on and when he does, the movie isn’t as good.

Plummer though plays Charley so low-key as to be almost comatose. For good or for ill much of the movie’s success rests on his young shoulders and at the moment, at least for me, he’s not up to the job. I don’t feel drawn to Charley and I was indifferent as to what happens to him. In a lot of ways, I felt like I was marking time while viewing the film which is certainly not the reaction any filmmaker wants but quite frankly there are entire sequences that could have been easily cut without effecting the integrity of the film.The truth is that this is a 90 minute movie in a two hour time slot.

Plummer does get the bond between Charley and Pete just right to be fair, and that might be enough to draw horse lovers into the film and that’s an audience that quite rightly will probably appreciate the movie more than someone like me who is more of an admirer of horses than a lover of them. The movie has gotten some fairly praiseworthy reviews from critics I normally trust but I have to say that I didn’t connect with the film as much as they obviously did. Perhaps it’s just me after all.

REASONS TO GO: Buscemi is outstanding in his role. Horse lovers will be drawn to this film without a doubt.
REASONS TO STAY: Plummer plays this way too low-key. The movie is way too long by about half; there are entire sequences that could have been cut without harming the movie.
FAMILY VALUES: There is a fair amount of profanity, brief violence and a disturbing image.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The film was shot in chronological order.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 5/17/18: Rotten Tomatoes: 92% positive reviews: Metacritic: 80/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Flicka
FINAL RATING: 5.5/10
NEXT: Back to Burgundy