The Spectacular Now (2013)

Directed by: James Ponsoldt
Country: USA

Review: I really enjoyed this inspired coming-of-age tale, based on Tim Tharpe’s novel and directed by James Ponsoldt (“Smashed”). The film’s success has much to do with the brilliant performances by Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley, who were capable of involving us in their illuminated romance, and intense life of dramas and dilemmas. Setten (Teller) is a 18-year-old rollicking young boy whose appetence for parties and girls are letting him more and more afar from succeeding in the studies. Completely lost in his little schemes, addicted on alcohol, and dumped by his girlfriend, Setten’s life will take an unexpected turn after his encounter with Aimee (Woodley), an ‘invisible’ High School colleague who seemed to have very little in common with him. She will help him to abandon the spectacular life of now, and take a deep look into his own feelings, and most of all, into the future. The ability of letting everything happen in a logical sequence and natural manner, without forcing the situations, was what I appreciated more in this bittersweet drama. It also doesn’t give the common illusions that everything can be solved in one’s life. In turn, it describes perfectly how to keep the life going with hope, without pretending that problems don’t exist. If “Smashed” showed some signs of Ponsoldt’s cleverness and accuracy behind the cameras, “The Spectacular Now” stepped up one level, foreseeing a bright future for this young talented filmmaker.

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In The Family (2011)

Directed by: Patrick Wang
Country: USA

Review: “In The Family” is the first feature film from actor/writer/director Patrick Wang, whose simplicity and modesty bring sufficient motives to keep an eye on future materials from his authorship. The film depicts the story of Joey Williams (Wang) and his battle, without the law on his side, to keep the custody of Chip (Sebastian Banes), the 6-year-old biological son of his deceased partner Cody (Trevor St. John) whose sister, Eileen (Kelly McAndrew), became the legal guardian of the child. 169 minutes filled with long static shots, never seemed too much to depict this story about gay rights, in which the powerful silences can speak volumes and the emptiness of a shattered life feels real. In truth, the film gained much more with its introverted side, since it goes better with Joey’s personality, than if a vivid portrayal had been made. Detailed and unhurried, “In The Family” never reached my emotions deeply, but on the other hand, presented some other virtues, including enough surprising factors that were determinant for its success. Friendship, love, family relations, and prejudice, were addressed with both straightforwardness and sincerity. Its beautiful ending, along with natural and convincing performances, helped “In The Family” to stand out as a humanist, realistic, and unaggressive tale about a good man that was forced to go against a family that he considered his own.

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Byzantium (2012)

Directed by: Neil Jordan
Country: UK / USA / others

Review: With “Byzantium”, Irish filmmaker Neil Jordan returns to the vampire tales, almost a decade after the popular “Interview With A Vampire”. The script was written by Moira Buffini for a teleplay, and tells the story of reserved Eleanor (Saoirse Ronan) and her sociable mother Clara (Gemma Arterton), two vampires whose secret lasts for 200 years. In contemporary world they are hiding in a coastal hotel of England named Byzantium, but we are constantly traveling in time through flashbacks to understand how they were condemned to eternal solitude and got dependent of human blood to keep on living. When their life seemed to become stable again, Eleanor broke a fundamental rule when she fell in love with a waiter who was dying with leukemia. When she wrote to him, revealing her story and secret, Clara had to intervene with all her determination to protect her daughter. Occasionally violent and visually attractive, “Byzantium” failed to fascinate as a story. Not so dark or vibrant as I would like it to have been, the plot showed lack of cohesion in some scenes, which led to a sort of narrative discrepancy. Its disenchantment along with tensionless resolutions proved that Neil Jordan and his vampires already had better days.

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Jug Face (2013)

Directed by: Chad Crawford Kinkle
Country: USA

Review: Chad Crawford Kinkle’s first feature film, “Jug Face”, is a limited exercise on horror/thriller. The story centers on Ada (Lauren Ashley Carter), the younger child of a weird, southern couple, who got pregnant from her brother. To complicate the things even more, her family belongs to a backwoods community that made a strange pact with an evil spirit that dwells in a pit. From time to time, The Pit demands the sacrifice of a chosen inhabitant whose head is sculpted in a jug. Unfortunately, the next victim would be Ada and her unborn son, if she didn’t have stolen the jug face. From that moment on, she became haunted by the visions of their god-creature who they called The Pit, having frequent seizures in which she could see several killings. At the start, the weird ambiance was catchy, provoking distressing sensations, but as the killings were occurring, the film loses some consistency, especially after we realize that the story won’t take us anywhere, considering the few community members that remained to be sacrificed. Kinkle gave good indications on direction, showing that in a near future, he might be capable of impress us in a good way. For now, “Jug Face” was simply a somewhat bizarre film, which was not so gripping after all.

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Our Children (2012)

Directed by: Joachim Lafosse
Country: Belgium / France / others

Review: “Our Children” is the most compelling Belgian drama since Dardenne brothers’ “The Kid With A Bike”. In its first moments we get to know that something terrible had happened to Murielle (Émilie Dequenne) and her family. To find out exactly what, we just have to follow her life from the moment that passionate Mounier (Tahar Rahim) asks her to marry him. Mounier is a Maroccan descendent whose adoptive father, Dr. Andre Pinget (Niels Arestrup), always supported and protected since childhood. After the couple’s third child has born, they started to struggle with lack of space and money, so they decided to move into Andre’s place. This increasing dependence on him will bring tragic consequences to their relationship, with Andre constantly trying to control the couple’s wills and ideas in an overwhelming way. Another parallel subject, though secondary, that is compellingly depicted in the film has to do with immigration and marriages of convenience. With a finale that gave me the creeps, “Our Children” was able to create such intensity, sadness, and tension around the story, that I felt suffocated just by watching Murielle’s expressions. The performances were simply superb, leading Dequenne to win the Un Certain Regard Award for best actress at Cannes, while Lafosse showed to be a filmmaker with exceptional maturity, presenting us another extraordinary accomplishment in his career.

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Shell (2012)

Directed by: Scott Graham
Country: UK

Review: Scott Graham’s first feature film “Shell” was based on his 2007’s short with the same name, being a compelling drama set in a remote place of Scottish Highlands, and centered on a father-daughter relationship. Shell (Chloe Pirri) doesn’t have a very stimulating life for a 17-year-old girl. She lives in the middle of nowhere with her epileptic father, Pete (Joseph Mawie), who owns a garage and a gas station, where she works daily as attendant. At night she cooks their meal, and watches her father washing himself. She has to keep an eye on him whenever she can due to recurrent epileptic crisis. Sometimes the chilling cold that sweeps the region in the middle of the night, makes her jump from her bed to her father’s, creating a visible discomfort. It was very clear that Shell’s dream was to leave the place, and so, the only contact she have with the outside world was when somebody arrived to fuel or ask for help. This kind of situations created a tense jealousy in them that made me suspicious about this familiar, yet strange dependence. Using a minimalist concept, Graham knew how to cook thoroughly this story, increasing my curiosity about what the characters feel and think. The grave silences and revelatory looks speak for themselves, and the film runs patiently towards its freeing ending. Penetrating and uncomfortable, “Shell” is an outstanding film that shall not be ignored.

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Apparition (2012)

Directed by: Vincent Sandoval
Country: Philippines

Review: Faith is put to the test in the small Adoration Monastery, located in the middle of the woods in Rizal, Philippines, where a group of devoted nuns dedicate themselves to simple daily tasks and prayers. Set in 1971, when president Marcos declared Martial Law, the film tries to make a parallelism between religious and political ‘silences’, addressing the guilt and remorse that accrue from behaving impassively when facing certain reproachable happenings. The story follows Sister Lourdes, a young nun who happily joins the isolated Monastery, becoming close of Sister Remy whose inclination for political action is in her blood. After the Mother Superior has pointed them as external nuns, they will take advantage of the little freedom granted to attend political meetings in town. Certain day, when they were coming back to Monastery, Sister Lourdes was caught and brutally raped by three rebels in the woods. Since that moment, a diabolical curse falls in the Monastery and peace will no longer be part of the nuns’ daily life. Even if some long shots, especially those with prolonged crying and agony, could have been slightly improved, Vincent Sandoval’s sophomore feature was quite creative, exploring the heaviness in each scene to convey the oppressive sadness of its characters. In soft pale colors, and frequent close-ups, here is another perspective of Philippines’ tough reality, leaving us with the essential question posed by the nuns: why God wants us to go through all this?

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