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Brothers
Tonight I saw a drama about a drunken ex-marine's sons who are given to shedding single perfect tears of man-pain and shouting things like: "Sam! You're my brother! You're my family!"
But it wasn't as good as Supernatural.
I actually went out with two friends to see Avatar, but by the time we got to the ticket machine, they only had front row seats left. No thanks at the best of times; certainly not for a 3D movie.
The only other movie playing that we could agree on was, ironically, one that we had all dismissed at supper as being unappealing but probably full of good performances: Brothers. This is the Jim Sheridan movie about a good boy brother named Sam (! for fans of Supernatural) who goes to war in Afghanistan and comes back broken (Tobey Maguire) and a bad boy brother namedDean Tommy who has just come out of jail for an armed robbery (Jake Gyllenhaal).
The film did feature good performances, as expected, from Natalie Portman (how is it that she's extra beautiful in figure skates?), Sam Shepard, Mare Winningham, and a little bonus from Clifton Collins Jr. But there were also amazing performances from the little girls who played Maguire and Portman's daughters. The older one (Bailee Madison) was exceptional in a very sophisticated role as a little girl who internalizes, internalizes some more and puts up a brave face until she totally and completely loses it. Her performance kicked the ass of Maguire's: he was going through a similar character arc, but instead of really selling the emotional truth of the role, he played it by losing weight and rolling crazy eyes. I usually like Maguire more than Gyllenhaal, but Maguire proved to be the weak link in the movie while Gyllenhaal was spot-on. Like the the older daughter, I didn't like her broken daddy; I liked Uncle Tommy better!
To be fair, Maguire was not helped by the script and direction, which sometimes wanted low-key psychological veracity, and sometimes wanted high melodrama. The weakest parts were the scenes in Afghanistan, where Maguire's character is taken prisoner by the Taliban. For a film about complexity, the villains in this piece are Near Asian beard-twirlers, and the film settles for some simple parallels between Sam and Tommy as sibling brothers and Sam and another soldier as brothers in arms. But it misses the chance to parallel the soldiers and the "enemy combatants" as brothers in a global-human sense (ETA: it is hinted at in an early scene in which one of the girls answers Sam's teasing question just before his deployment: "Who are the bad guys?" "The ones with the beards!" Maguire's character is clean shaven, Gyllenhaal's is bearded). Plus, their father's service in Vietnam casts the shadow of a parallel MIA narrative that never actually solidifies.
So while it was better than my low expectations led me to expect, Brothers was a largely unfulfilled promise.
But it wasn't as good as Supernatural.
I actually went out with two friends to see Avatar, but by the time we got to the ticket machine, they only had front row seats left. No thanks at the best of times; certainly not for a 3D movie.
The only other movie playing that we could agree on was, ironically, one that we had all dismissed at supper as being unappealing but probably full of good performances: Brothers. This is the Jim Sheridan movie about a good boy brother named Sam (! for fans of Supernatural) who goes to war in Afghanistan and comes back broken (Tobey Maguire) and a bad boy brother named
The film did feature good performances, as expected, from Natalie Portman (how is it that she's extra beautiful in figure skates?), Sam Shepard, Mare Winningham, and a little bonus from Clifton Collins Jr. But there were also amazing performances from the little girls who played Maguire and Portman's daughters. The older one (Bailee Madison) was exceptional in a very sophisticated role as a little girl who internalizes, internalizes some more and puts up a brave face until she totally and completely loses it. Her performance kicked the ass of Maguire's: he was going through a similar character arc, but instead of really selling the emotional truth of the role, he played it by losing weight and rolling crazy eyes. I usually like Maguire more than Gyllenhaal, but Maguire proved to be the weak link in the movie while Gyllenhaal was spot-on. Like the the older daughter, I didn't like her broken daddy; I liked Uncle Tommy better!
To be fair, Maguire was not helped by the script and direction, which sometimes wanted low-key psychological veracity, and sometimes wanted high melodrama. The weakest parts were the scenes in Afghanistan, where Maguire's character is taken prisoner by the Taliban. For a film about complexity, the villains in this piece are Near Asian beard-twirlers, and the film settles for some simple parallels between Sam and Tommy as sibling brothers and Sam and another soldier as brothers in arms. But it misses the chance to parallel the soldiers and the "enemy combatants" as brothers in a global-human sense (ETA: it is hinted at in an early scene in which one of the girls answers Sam's teasing question just before his deployment: "Who are the bad guys?" "The ones with the beards!" Maguire's character is clean shaven, Gyllenhaal's is bearded). Plus, their father's service in Vietnam casts the shadow of a parallel MIA narrative that never actually solidifies.
So while it was better than my low expectations led me to expect, Brothers was a largely unfulfilled promise.
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