MILDRED PIERCE

MILDRED PIERCE
Written by Todd Haynes and Jon Raymond
Directed by Todd Haynes
Starring Kate Winslet, Guy Pearce and Evan Rachel Wood

There are some dream projects that just make me shiver with an almost lustful anticipation. HBO’s 5-part miniseries, MILDRED PIERCE, is definitely one of these projects. James M. Cain’s 1941 novel of the same name has been interpreted on film before (in 1945, directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Joan Crawford in the title role) but never has it been given this kind of honour. Directed by Todd Haynes, one of today’s most fascinating filmmakers, and starring the inimitable Kate Winslet as the 1930’s heroine, MILDRED PIERCE pays homage to Cain’s work by allowing it the time to breathe and settle into the subtle and sumptuous epic that it was always meant to be.

Mildred is a mother first, no matter how trying it is for her to fill the role. When we meet her, she is baking pies to bring in a little extra cash, now that her cheating husband (Brian F. O’Byrne) is no longer bringing home what he used to when business was booming. Shortly thereafter, she kicks him out and decides to take control of her life for her daughters, Ray and Veda (Quinn McColgan and Morgan Turner). With the classes crumbling all over Los Angeles, Mildred is desperate to maintain a certain lifestyle for her girls but to accomplish this, she must go through one obstacle after another. And some of them are pretty devastating! It is Mildred’s determination and resolve that define her though and soon she is achieving great success amidst her emotional turmoil. And it is Winslet’s extraordinary ability to oscillate almost imperceptibly between her internal and her external emotional expression that makes Mildred so captivating. You never know where she will go and what she will do next but you always know that she will be fighting fearlessly no matter what. It’s inspiring.

The MILDRED PIERCE cast is rounded out by Guy Pearce as Mildred’s playboy boyfriend, Melissa Leo as her best friend and Evan Rachel Wood as her mortal enemy, the grown version of her daughter, Veda. The mother/daughter conflict seems almost secondary at first but as it builds, and it does so with great insight and delicacy thanks to the tender hand of Todd Haynes, it becomes apparent that this relationship is the central one in Mildred’s life. It drives her to succeed at all costs but also tears her down to absolutely nothing all too often. To an outsider, many of Mildred’s actions might seem selfish but to those who know her, Mildred’s motivation is almost always for other people and more often than not, for Veda. It is a testament to Hayne’s talent as both a filmmaker and a writer that we actually come to know Mildred well enough to know this about her.

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CARNAGE

CARNAGE 
Written by Yasmina Reza and Roman Polanski
Directed by Roman Polanski
Starring Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz and John C. Reilly

Penelope Longstreet: Why can’t things be easier? Why does everything have to be so exhausting?

There are some plays that seem as though they could never be adapted for the screen and Yasmina Reza’s “God of Carnage” is certainly one of them. Although I have not myself seen it on stage, I can imagine its physical scope is quite limited as all the action takes place in one apartment over the course of a few hours. On stage, this can be riveting, as long as the conversation itself is sharp and insightful and as long as those partaking in said conversation give brilliant performances. On film, one location with the same four characters can be a static stand still. Fortunately for Reza, all involved in the film adaptation of her play, now called CARNAGE, are precisely the right people to keep things moving.

At the CARNAGE helm is infamous director, Roman Polanski, a man who has seen his own fair share of carnage in his life. Reza herself collaborated with Polanski on the screenplay so the fundamentals are firmly intact. Essentially, two couples meet to discuss an altercation that took place between their boys in a playground that resulted in one of the boys losing teeth. Things naturally don’t go as well as anyone had hoped. And who does Polanski amass to captivate us with their wit and humour? Four brilliant actors of course as the entire acting community seem to clamor to work with him. Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly play parents to the boy who lost his teeth while Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz play parents to the boy who was armed with the stick - sorry, who was carrying the stick - that knocked out the teeth. I don’t know about you but I can think of way worse people to be stuck in a room with for ninety minutes.

These two couples, as portrayed by this amazingly talented and dynamic cast, start out as sensible, civilized adults who are doing what they all think is right according to societal standards given the situation at hand. After all, what matters most is the well being of their children and ensuring that they come out of this as positively as possible. It’s the fact that the children are involved though that makes their exercise so futile to begin with. Their children were in a fight and hurt each other. The natural impulse for these parents would be to protect their children no matter what. And so it is not at all surprising to watch as their facades slowly but surely fade away to reveal not only their anger over the current situation but also the deep seeded disgust that has been festering in all of them for as long as they’ve had to hold it in. And given how polite our Western society can be at times, I’d say they’ve been holding back for a very long time.

Polanski does everything he must in order to keep a picture that almost never leaves the living room feel like it is in constant motion. Much of that comes from the rapid unravelling of the characters themselves. Their descent is delicious making CARNAGE a truly stimulating experience. Still, I imagine that if these four people exhibited just as much passion on stage, the immediacy of it would make their madness that much more meaningful.

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CONTAGION

Written by Scott Z. Burns

Directed by Steven Soderbergh

Starring Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Lawrence Fishburn, Jude Law, 

Marion Cotillard and Gwyneth Paltrow

Dr. Ian Sussman: Blogging is not writing. It's graffiti with punctuation.

I’m not sure I can in good conscious recommend CONTAGION to anyone at all. It’s not that it’s a bad film; it’s just that seeing it has potentially damaging consequences on your psyche. About ten minutes into watching it, you might become hyper aware of your surroundings. Coughing noises will become amplified while your armrest might suddenly feel stickier than it did when you first sat down. In fact, by the time you’ve gotten home from seeing it - after touching door handles, staircase railings and, god forbid, other people - you may never want to leave the house again.

Directed by Steven Soderbergh, CONTAGION stars many an Oscar winner, from Matt Damon and Gwyneth Paltrow to Marion Cotillard and Kate Winslet. For all it’s familiarity though, it presents like a faceless production to demonstrate just how feasible this scenario really is. There is no real character development - there is no time for that - just different people reacting to a common foe. The enemy here is a new disease named MEV-1. It is considered novel because humanity has never seen it before and Soderbergh paints what he believes to be a very real picture of how the planet would handle something like this. As you can imagine, we don’t do very well.

CONTAGION is not as infectious as it could be. With so many plots in the air, some are almost forgotten and Soderbergh is none too subtle about how lackadaisical we all are with everything we touch. Still, with this much talent on screen and Soderbergh’s brilliant eye, CONTAGION remains a tense thriller with plenty of casualties and horrifying moments. Perhaps the most dire thing about it though is the hard reality that even in our darkest hour, humanity still exudes selfishness and greed, leaving every man to fend for himself. Sure, it’s a theory but it’s a plausible one and really just another argument to stay indoors.

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