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Saw X (2023)
Lugubrious "traps" and a good plot: is this the long-awaited rebirth of Saw?
Unlike its predecessors, the first half of Saw X consists almost entirely of explanation and background. The storyline offers a deeper look into John Kramer's motivations, especially why he took his work so seriously and went over the top. The central plot point is a life-threatening brain tumor, which leaves him with only a few months to live. Out of sheer desperation, Kramer goes to Mexico for an expensive experimental surgery. But after undergoing it, he soon discovers that he has been lied to by the "doctors.
In this group of con artists, Kramer finds his new group of victims and then it is finally time for the well known "traps. Of course, most viewers come for this part of the film, but the first hour is certainly not slow or tedious. It presents intriguing character developments and good acting, even if it doesn't seem that way at first.
That unstable acting is perhaps the most surprising element of the film: the low quality in the beginning is completely intentional. Once the characters' doubles are exposed, the acting changes as well, and the actors suddenly portray all the actions and feelings very realistically. This element is unexpectedly well done, looks refreshing and provides an entertaining thread.
Yet the plot never goes so far as to leave the viewer with questions. The writers have done their best to tie up all loose ends tightly so that the traps can be consumed without any confusion. A strong plot is a welcome windfall, but of course that is not what one looks forward to most. For that reason, this review refrains from descriptions of the traps so that they can be experienced spoiler-free.
Besides the traps, the Saw films are also known for playful editing styles that recur in almost every installment. Consider, for example, the "hyperlapse" at the beginning of each staircase. This time, the fast-paced footage is used in a more creative way, emphasizing Kramer's panic as he unmasks the crooks. Thus the recognizable style gains substance even after all these years. The audio is also atrociously good; the surround sound lives up to its name. The technical design keeps the viewer enthralled.
As mentioned, most people don't go to Saw for a good plot or the intriguing editing. They want to see blood flow, preferably in large quantities, and expect the necessary fan service. Saw X has more than enough of both: not only are all the characteristic elements of the traps present (such as the memo recorders and the Jigsaw doll), but favorite Jigsaw apostle Amanda is back on display. There is even a bonus scene that every fan can feast on, hinting at a possible eleventh installment!
The hype for this film was great among fans, but to then live up to it is an admirable achievement. Director Kevin Greutert has managed to deliver a solid film, even beyond the traps. These, by the way, become increasingly nasty and are so realistically acted that the police were called during editing. Nastiness all around, but that makes it a two-hour feast.
Pain Hustlers (2023)
Looking away from overdoses
In Pain Hustlers, Liza is given an opportunity at a pharmaceutical company on the brink of collapse. Although Emily Blunt shines in her role as a shrewd saleswoman, the film pushes her in a predictable direction.
In Pain Hustlers, we see the opioid crisis unfold through the eyes of stripper and single mother Liza Drake. Through a combination of perseverance and luck, she manages to bring a new cancer drug to market. Although the film is based on the (fiction) book of the same name, parallels to real-life female con artists such as Elizabeth Holmes and Anna Sorokin are not to be missed.
Director David Yates seems inspired by The Big Short, a film about the financial crisis in which seriousness and satire are perfectly intertwined. Yates fails to establish a similar or at all consistent tone. Rather, it is as if he keeps switching between radio stations: the music is never on long enough to really touch. To keep the consumer's attention, the Harry Potter director uses the same tricks as his characters: a fast pace, flashy set-ups and big promises.
Most interesting is the dichotomy in Liza. After a tough existence as a single mother, she blossoms when she begins to understand the slimy lobbying game of the pharmaceutical industry. With the aforementioned associations with female con artists in mind, it is striking that Liza herself does virtually nothing illegal. Her male companions (played over-the-top by Chris Evans and Andy Garcia) are the cartoonish villains of profiteering capitalism. For some extra dollars, they easily look away from an overdose. Typically, though, the film pays regular attention to the victims but avoids any kind of systemic criticism.
The film looks away nicely as a sensational drama, but its concluding message (greed is a mortal sin) turns out to be a bland one. In Emily Blunt's chilly blue eyes there is constantly something glinting that is more rancid and interesting than such a moralistic lesson. Liza did not become a snake for the sake of biting, but for the sake of her scales. It is unfortunate that Pain Hustlers did not make that underlying aspect a main issue.
I Am Greta (2020)
A complicated portrait of a clear-eyed hero
In a year where so many activists and their causes are being (rightfully) spotlighted, it was practically a foregone conclusion that Greta Thunberg's crusade would be among them. Nathan Grossman's I Am Greta takes a closer look at her mission for climate change awareness, following the extraordinary young woman from her earliest protests in Stockholm to the moment of her impassioned speech at the UC Climate Action Summit in 2019 where she indicted world leaders for their inactivity with perhaps the most important issue of our current moment.
As undoubtedly essential as her efforts may be, Grossman's film captures the life of a young woman with much more ambiguity than one might expect, to lesser effect than one might hope. Following Thunberg not only through her speeches and public appearances as her celebrity on the world stage grows, but her family's management of her schedule and health while she deals with Asperger syndrome, I Am Greta reiterates the importance and urgency of climate change awareness voiced with merciless accuracy through her impassioned pleas, even as it hints that her motivations may be as self-serving as they are altruistic.
Grossman's film starts when Thunberg was just 15 as she begins her first climate demonstration, sitting alone outside Stockholm's capital with a stack of climate change facts under a rock for passersby. Her school strike slowly attracts the attention of the media, leading to a speaking opportunity at the 2018 United Nations Climate Change Conference, the first in a series of public appearances that makes her a star and a symbol among activists. From there, she and her father must figure out the logistics of traveling via automobile or train to attend these events, after she challenged her family to reduce is consumption and carbon emissions, including by not flying no matter the distance.
Grossman doesn't explain exactly when and how he knew what a "celebrity" she would become - or how he managed to win the family's confidence - but the filmmaker captures what become watershed moments in her fledgling career as an activist; he is present, for example, when a UN representative calls from Germany inviting her to attend the conference. But whether it's as a matter of Thunberg's disposition or possibly her disability, it becomes difficult to determine exactly how she feels about being hoisted up on a world stage to talk about issues that she believes are so vital, especially after we learn how alienated that she is socially from everyone outside of her family.
Given their dynamic - the disciplined Thunberg often seems more like a parent to her shambolic father Svante than the other way around - it's similarly hard to get a grasp on exactly how they feel about these opportunities for visibility. (Her father's career as an actor and her mother's as an opera singer are never mentioned.) It's clear that they love her, but is putting her behind some of the world's biggest microphones, and as a result, making her one of its biggest targets, a healthy trade off to compensate for her idiosyncratic emotional needs? Or is it good for the family to center itself around her activism at the expense of her parents' own ambitions?
Svante addresses Greta's well-being, but the rest is never explored, and it leaves major questions about the true cost of her activism, and about how important (and even possible) it is to not be a hypocrite when supporting a cause like climate change. Greta refuses to use air travel, but she also uses a microwave, Sony headphones and a Macbook; is the carbon footprint of these devices, not just in their use but in their making, small enough to legitimize them? To be fair, there are few people who more determinedly practice what they preach than Thunberg - culminating in a long boat trip from Sweden to New York for Climate Action Summit. But are there not compromises that can be made, or are being made elsewhere, especially when a young woman's health and comfort, both physically and emotionally, are at stake?
Again, what the film does best is showcase her campaign in the context of world leaders, from Emmanuel Macron to Arnold Schwarzenegger, and how her example inspires them, but reveals the differences between a principled teenager and politicians reporting to constituents, the media, and of course moneyed donors. Thunberg receives criticism that she doesn't create concrete solutions to reverse the effects of climate change, and honestly the movie doesn't adequately counter that criticism, instead focusing on her fiery speeches. She has the luxury to think about solutions without contemplating the potential economic realities, and the logistical feasibility, of accomplishing them. But is it truly her job to do otherwise? Meanwhile, addressing climate change through policy has by and large been purely cosmetic, a show of force rather than a real effort. That the movie doesn't indict these leaders or quite validate Thunberg's point of view - except as a sense of urgency that must be met to save her own personal sense of well-being - once again conjures some interesting questions.
These juxtapositions between a kid with special needs and one who's predictably stubborn, an activist with unshakeable beliefs and one whose beliefs become a tremendous burden given her age, a family trying to care for their daughter and one trying to hold it together, and between a cause of absolutely vital importance and one for which there are few immediate, easy solutions (at least in the eyes of the powers that be) form a fascinating tapestry that propels the documentary to its final scenes. Greta braves an ocean voyage, the ultimate expression of her commitment, expressing her doubts and desires to relieve herself of this burden, and then speaks in righteous anger in front of the world's leaders before presiding over the biggest climate demonstration in history. As much as it seems like a victory, a caption reminds viewers that five years after signing them, no countries have yet lived up to the requirements of the Paris Climate Agreements, and as many have been inspired by Thunberg, she faces more criticism from media pundits and political leaders than ever before.
What becomes clear is that Greta is, unambiguously, a hero. When her disability threatened to derail her life, she turned her fixation on climate change into a solution rather than a symptom. And so what she's experienced since then is nothing less than a hero's journey, fighting opposition, facing adversity, reckoning with the personal demons that would keep her from fulfilling her destiny. That she hasn't yet accomplished this enormous task is not surprising. But I Am Greta spotlights a more universal and important truth, which is that heroes are never perfect and seldom uncomplicated, because what they are fighting for is never easy.
The Irishman (2019)
An instant classic
If you're as strong as the sum of your parts, The Irishman is a diamond-clad instant classic.
Scorsese, De Niro, Pacino and Pesci. Together. It's the stuff of dreams.
With the instant excitement and anticipation that comes with hearing about a project like this is a natural worry that it won't fit in with their prestigious collective filmographies or, worst case scenario, that it might somehow besmirch their legacies. The fear was needless; this is as close to the magic of Goodfellas as you could hope for, but with added Pacino.
De Niro plays the titular role as Frank 'The Irishman' Sheeran and the film sees him recounting stories from his days as a mafia hitman and close ally of Jimmy Hoffa (Pacino), the head of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
The film deftly jumps from Frank's first encounter with the head of the Buffalino crime family, Russell (Pesci), to present day and everywhere in between with all of the actors aged and de-aged in a really effective way. The eyes, and sometimes the mouths, are the only giveaways, but it's never enough to be jarring. Once you get used to seeing them so excellently aged in line with the timeline of events, you stop even noticing it.
I wasn't sure how I felt about the whole premise of de-aging the cast to such an extent but seeing how much it's paid off shows that this really was the only option; you couldn't have employed a younger cast to cover the early years and come up with something as powerful.
This is very much an epic glory lap for these titans of the mob movie genre and they are all at the top of their games and handing in performances as strong as those from 20 years ago.
The almost three and a half hour runtime may sound excessive, but I could've gladly watched more. The Irishman is quintessential Scorsese and it feels like something special; the kind of film so excellently crafted that it feels both new and nostalgic.
Eighth Grade (2018)
Poignantly funny, wrenchingly wise and meltingly beautiful.
The new coming-of-age comedy Eighth Grade is one of the surprise successes of the summer, turning a tiny story of a 13-year-old girl's last week in the titular grade into a much larger tale of the universally awkward and cringeworthy experience of being an adolescent just trying to figure things out. Its hero, young Kayla (played by the remarkable Elsie Fisher), deals with trying to launch her YouTube channel, with a crush that goes nowhere, and with her feelings of inadequacy when compared to more popular girls or older teens she sees on her Instagram every morning.
The Artist (2011)
Beautifully told story
A silent film, in black and white, led by two French stars that are virtually unknown in the United States, it doesn't seem like the kind of movie that, outside of art-house buffs, would catch on with a broader audience. But, the Weinstein instincts were right on as the movie played like gangbusters to critics (who applauded several times through the screening at Cannes), but moreover, Hazanavicius' film is a pure joy. Wildly entertaining, with a big generous heart, "The Artist" is not just an exercise in old school filmmaking, it's a beautifully told story that is classic and timeless in feel.