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Druk (2020)
An Ambiguous Love Letter to Booze
Another Round is a 2020 Danish drama from director Thomas Vinterberg. It stars Mads Mikkelsen, Thomas Bo Larson, Magnus Milang, and Lars Ranthe. The film follows these 4 as a friend group of high school teachers that set off on an experiment to test a theory that humans naturally have a Blood Alcohol Content that's 0.5% too low. Oh you Danish people. I found this film extremely entertaining.
And it WAS so entertaining from the get go. The opening scene of Another Round drew me right in from the start and the camera work was a big part of that.
I have a pretty low tolerance for egregious shallow depth of field in film. It just comes off like a cheap trick to me for some reason. This film did it right. Another Round used focus like any part of a film should be used - as a thematic tool. It's a fairly simple connection - moving in and out of focus depending on how coherent your character is - but the cinematographer for this film did it with restraint and artfulness to the point that u was swooning over it by the 2nd act.
That said, the time it took to get to that 2nd act felt like nothing. This film flew by, even at two hours long. The plot is just such a fascinating concept that I lost track of time right along with the characters.
Another Round is a cautionary tale that knowingly qualifies itself. I think people will interpret it differently depending on their background, but that's my interpretation of the ending.
A cautionary tale without being a lifetime film, a celebration of alcohol without a blind eye to the morning after, and an unclear message that allows you to draw your own conclusions. I loved Another Round.
8/10.
Hillbilly Elegy (2020)
Self-indulgent adversity drama
Hillbilly Elegy is a 2020 adversity drama directed by Ron Howard and starring Amy Adams, Glenn Close, and Gabriel Basso. This Oscar bait is an adaptation of a rags to riches autobiography of a dude named J. D. Vance - - and I don't know if it's just the way the film presents it, but it comes off quite self-indulgent.
The film follows Vance narrating the story of his life as we jump back and forth between his troubled childhood and a crossroads he came to during his university education where he was forced to choose between family and career. Typing it out loud, it seems pretty obvious that this story was going to put Vance on a bit of a pedestal. And that it certainly did.
I understand the old montra that "no one is going to tell your story except you", but I just got the sense that the main character/autobiographer here is tipping the scales of reality a bit too much into the realm of his own heightened perception of some self-assigned moral high ground. Don't get me wrong, it does seem like an inspirational story and I'm sure Vance overcame adversity on his path to success, but he comes off a bit self-obsessed and self-righteous throughout this film.
And yeah, it shouldn't come as a surprise.
When YOU are the main character of the story that YOU are writing about your life, you're probably going to be a bit biased. But this film takes that trapping to a whole new level. Vance writes himself as a perfect angel that can do no wrong. He's always either the victim or the the righteous defender and I'm sorry but real life is rarely that black and white.
Alright, maybe I'm a little sensitive to this type of thing or something. It's my biggest complaint. But it's not my only complaint.
Being the story of this man's whole adolescent life, there's quite a bit of story to tell, but it comes off feeling more like a highlight reel of trauma than a screenplay. The dramatic moments are all back to back to back to back to back so there's barely any room to breath and get to know characters before they're all yelling and smacking each other. The end result is that I barely cared about anyone for most of the film.
That said, there were a handful of legitimately effecting dramatic moments that nearly sucked me in and I think they really would have if not for this horribly cliche music. This score is straight out of a Hallmark film. It's injecting emotion into scenes artificially by using the established language of awful scores like this to tell the audience how to feel. And so any scene that almost sucked me into all of this accelerated drama was immediately undercut by the score.
The other biggest undercutter of dramatic scenes was the child actor playing Vance. - Look. I understand child actors are always kind of a dice roll. But when it's literally your main character, I think the casting process should probably be a BIT more rigorous. I won't critique a child too much. But yeah. Not great casting.
My final nitpick is the camera work. I think this camera team must have been allergic to tripods or something. This is like the life-story drama version of shakey cam. It's extremely distracting.
I'm really not sure what Amy Adams and Glenn Close are doing in this movie. Maybe they owed Ron Howard a favor. Their hair and makeup looked pretty good I guess. Oscar worthy??? Sure. Not quite suicide squad level, but sure. Somehow not the worst nomination.
3/10.
Minari (2020)
A subtle statement about the Asian-American experience
Minari is a 2021 A24 film about a Korean family moving away from the city and building a farm. Steven Yeun, Han Ye-ri, Alan Kim, and Youn Yuth-jung play the family following the American dream in this small, quiet drama. Everything technical is on point here but the script just didn't have the punch I crave from a family drama on this level. This film definitely has something to say about the Asian experience in America, but it says it with real subtlety. Possibly too much subtlety. It's just not particularly memorable. Great performances, though.
Judas and the Black Messiah (2021)
A historical drama with some real personality
FINALLY, a historical drama with some real personality in the script. JBM is a 2020 film about the murder of Chicago Black Panther Chairman Fred Hampton and the black FBI informant that aided in it. Daniel Kaluuya and Lakeith Stanfield both brought so much vigor and vulnerability to these roles. The script honestly demanded it of them through all of the jumps and twists it takes as the story progresses. I love the string-filled, off-kilter, Get Out style score as well. Really enjoyed this one.
El agente topo (2020)
A docucomedy that plays with documentary form
The Mole Agent is a 2020 documentary/comedy about an old man hired and sent into a nursing home as a private investigator for a client that wants to know about the wellbeing of her mother. I had so many guesses about where this film was headed and none of them came true. I don't know if I've ever watched a film that's so heartwarmingly sweet and heartbreakingly sad simultaneously throughout the film. I love that this docucomedy played with the documentary form and I really enjoyed it despite the film having a difficult time sticking a landing.