To Leslie

 

Director Michael Morris

Willie Nelson circa 1965

Andrea Riseborough

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TO LESLIE        B-                                                                                                                     USA  (119 mi)  2022  ‘Scope  d: Michael Morris

You’re living, right?  I’m sorry it ain’t a fairytale.  We all should have done things differently.  But you’re what’s wrong with you.  Not anyone else.                                                    —Sweeney (Marc Maron)

A small, low-budget indie film that likely would have been reduced to the ashbins of history if not for a sudden announcement that British actress Andrea Riseborough was nominated for a Best Actress award that created quite a stir, seemingly coming out of nowhere, with some questioning the legitimacy of the nomination, especially considering the last-minute social media blitz by some of the industry’s most celebrated artists, like Jane Fonda, Kate Winslet, Charlize Theron, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Aniston, Amy Adams, Paul Schrader, and Edward Norton who pushed for her nomination, with Cate Blanchett praising Riseborough as well during her acceptance speech at the Critics Choice Awards, and even former President Obama revised his best films of the year list to include this film based on her performance, yet the outcry of foul play led the Academy Board of Governors to conduct an investigation to see if any guidelines were violated, but found nothing awry, so the nomination stands.  Opening at the South by Southwest festival, the film had made only $27,000 at the box office on the day the Academy Award nominations were announced.  By contrast, heavy favorites Viola Davis and Danielle Deadwyler, black actresses in THE WOMAN KING and TILL, films that made $92 million and $10 million dollars respectively, were all the talk of pre-nomination festivities, both widely considered favorites in the category, already nominated in the SAG awards (Screen Actors Guild Awards: Homepage), while Riseborough was not.  Putting things in context, Halle Berry remains the only black woman who has ever won the Best Actress Oscar in the Academy’s 95-year history.  Despite claims of the age-old Hollywood white favoritism, Riseborough’s raw performance as a broken alcoholic who contends with a recurring cycle of addiction in the barren outskirts of West Texas fits the formula.  Having seen her in Rowan Joffé’s Brighton Rock (2010), James Marsh’s Shadow Dancer (2012), Eran Creevy’s Welcome to the Punch (2013), Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014), and Armando Iannucci’s The Death of Stalin (2017), Andrea Riseborough’s performance in this film is nothing like those earlier roles, as it’s more demonstrably physical, a showier, Brandoesque kind of performance that typically turns heads, fitting the formula of what wins Oscar nominations, raw and earthy, getting ugly, kind of like Halle Berry in MONSTER’S BALL (2001) or Charlize Theron in MONSTER (2003) when they won, but nonetheless took the Academy by surprise because so few people actually saw this film.  Shot in 19 days for less than $1 million dollars, there was no money in the budget for even a single ad, while Netflix spent $25 million dollars on an ad campaign to put Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma (2018) into contention for a movie that itself cost a reported $15 million, leading to ten Oscar nominations, winning three, including Best Director, yet no one contended there was any hanky panky in that process.   

This film fits the clichéd formula used in Bruce Beresford’s TENDER MERCIES (1983), where Robert Duvall won a Best Actor Academy Award playing an alcoholic country singer whose career nosedives, sinking to the bottom of the barrel, eventually atoning for his sins and finding redemption in a wonderfully accurate portrayal of small-town life in Texas, another barebones film that was critically lambasted and died at the box office when it was initially released in only three cities, receiving no studio backing, yet surprisingly received 5 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, with Horton Foote also earning an Oscar for writing the Best Screenplay, and now the film is remembered fondly, setting a standard for authenticity that few other films are able to match, including this one, while also initiating a trend in more personalized independent filmmaking.  Alcoholism is a prominent theme in Billy Wilder’s THE LOST WEEKEND (1945), George Cukor’s A Star Is Born (1954), Douglas Sirk’s Written On the Wind (1956), Richard Brooks’ Cat On a Hot Tin Roof (1958), Mike Nichols’ Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), John Cassavetes’ A Woman Under the Influence (1974) and Opening Night (1977), Sidney Lumet’s The Verdict (1982), Barbet Schroeder’s BARFLY (1987), Mike Figgis’ LEAVING LAS VEGAS (1997), Ken Loach’s MY NAME IS JOE (1998), Jeff Preiss’ Low Down (2014), Alexandre Rockwell’s 2021 #9 Film of the Year Sweet Thing (2020), and David Fincher’s Mank (2020), yet the most apt comparisons may be Bent Hamer’s Factotum (2005), exploring the seedy world of Los Angeles as it follows a fictionalized world of drunk poet Charles Bukowski, and Scott Cooper’s CRAZY HEART (2009), where Jeff Bridges won Best Actor and Best Song Oscars as a down-and-out country singer on the road, with Duvall appearing in and producing the film.  Riseborough as Leslie Rowlands offers a virtuoso performance who rages and howls at anyone and everyone with a proud defiance, becoming a grotesque portrait of self-destruction, opening in front of television cameras in an enthusiastic moment of euphoria after winning the town’s largest $190,000 lottery, her ticket purchased at the local bar, a single mom promising she’s going to make a better life for herself and her young son by buying him a guitar and a new house, but instead impulsively buys drinks all around and irresponsibly squanders her fortune in short order, leaving her destitute and alone, losing her son in the process.  Morris is a British television director making his film debut, shot on 35mm by Larkin Seiple, and written by Ryan Binaco, who is also a producer, inspired by the life of his own mother, though we never see her downward spiral, revealing only the aftermath years later when she’s already scraping rock bottom, immediately realizing she’s her own worst enemy, a shamelessly ungrateful and unsympathetic character, where watching her make an endless series of bad choices makes this a difficult watch, where literally no one is ever happy to see her.  There’s nothing prettified about this film, as it’s unsparingly bleak.

In the event some are still under the illusion that winning the lottery is the answer to all your prayers, you might consider reading an old Reddit posting from nearly a decade ago shared by redditor u/BlakeClass that sounds horrifying, while CNBC reports that many lottery winners file for bankruptcy within three to five years after winning.  As we witness her descent, getting kicked out of seedy motels for nonpayment of rent, to living with her grown son James (Owen Teague), who she hasn’t seen in six years, eying her with suspicion from traumatic experiences in the past, yet reluctantly opens his doors so long as she promises not to drink, but Leslie quickly violates his trust, stealing from friends, drinking and having sex with neighbors to pick up some extra drinking money, where he’s had it with her, "you're a drunk" - To Leslie YouTube (1:51), angrily putting her on a bus back home to some nondescript small town in Texas, where she’s met by a biker couple, Nancy and Dutch, Allison Janney and Stephen Root, working together for the first time since the popular TV show The West Wing (1999-2006).  Nancy, her former best friend, has no patience and is still infuriated with Leslie for abandoning James at such a tender age, where it fell upon her to explain her mother’s absence to him, raising him for a few years after she left, where she’s looking for any excuse to kick her out of their home.  Leslie readily obliges by drinking once again, leaving her few options other than hitting the bar and trying to pick up strangers, using them for drinks and money while dancing to Waylon Jennings blaring on the jukebox, Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way - YouTube (2:54), only to end up disappointed, as it leads her nowhere except back out on the street, with Nancy getting all into her face at one point, vindictively shaming her in public, “You know she left her kid?  You know she drank all that money away?  Had every chance and pissed it down the gutter!  And her son?  Left him.  That boy was thirteen.  Ain’t got food, and he’s scared all alone without his mama.  Just so you could go out drinking thinking you’re hot shit!”  With her self-esteem plummeted, she has become the butt of all jokes and the laughingstock of the entire town, who view her as an abysmal failure, she ends up sleeping next to a dumpster at a dingy motel, but gets shooed away in the morning by the manager Sweeney (Marc Maron), leaving her pink suitcase behind, which his partner Royal (Andre Royo) recognizes, knowing her entire story, viewing her as trouble with a capital T.  But as she keeps hanging around, Sweeney inexplicably offers her a job cleaning the rooms, including room and board, a pretty sweet deal, but she drinks away her salary and is on the verge of losing that job as well, but has an epiphany moment listening to the last song after staying far too long in a nearly deserted bar one night, Are You Sure by Willie Nelson from his album ... - YouTube (2:42), a little-known gem from his third album in 1965 when he was clean shaven in short, slicked back hair and wore suits when he performed, which pretty much only sold in Texas.  It’s the money shot of the film, at first having to laugh at how autobiographical it is, yet the creeping loneliness of the song is spot on, causing her to get serious for perhaps the first time, swearing off the alcohol and going through withdrawals on her own, where her physical sufferings mirror the mental struggles coping with her failed life, aided by Sweeney, who is a kind and forgiving soul, perhaps due to his own experience with an alcoholic ex-wife that led to his divorce, finally offering her a chance that no one else has ever given her.  While it leads to an improbable finale that all too easily wraps up all the loose ends in a tidy bow, the film does represent a fearless style of acting, where Riseborough has been around for a while, and it’s nice to see her finally get recognized.   

The Way, Way Back

THE WAY, WAY BACK          C+               

USA  (103 mi)  2013  d:  Nat Faxon and Jim Rash

It’s like spring break for adults.         —Susanna (AnnaSophia Robb)

Beware of false advertising when it comes to summer movies, where one of the first out of the block, released over the 4th of July weekend, is THE WAY, WAY BACK, where a plethora of reviews are calling this similar in tone to LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE (2006), but don’t for a second believe it.  While the two films share the same studio, Fox Searchlight, which is trumpeting the dubious connection in their ad campaign, and has two members of the same cast in Steve Carell and Toni Collette, both are a huge disappointment.  This is the same studio, by the way, that sued director Kenneth Lonergan and considered his film 2011 Top Ten Films of the Year #2 Margaret unreleasable, so it sat unseen on the studio shelves for 6 years before releasing the film for a single week, making sure as few people as possible saw the film.  And for those looking for laughs and a feelgood comedy…oops, we’re sorry, but this is a film about the devastating consequences of divorce and adult bullying, where the lives of kids are secondary and get tossed around like leaves in the wind.  What’s missing in this film is any hint of character development, which was the strong suit of MISS SUNSHINE, filled with memorable, and even lovable, characters.  Not so here, as Steve Carell plays the most obnoxious person in the universe, rivaling Ben Stiller in GREENBERG (2010), a loathsome character the audience will simply hate, while Allison Janney plays the second most obnoxious person in the universe, the crazy neighbor next door who constantly has a drink in her hand and whose high-pitched, hysterical laugh can be heard throughout, that insincere kind of laugh that only gets louder as the jokes get less funny.  What these two have in common is their tunnel vision ability to ignore and alienate kids through the absolute worst parenting techniques, where the example they serve is little more than pathetic.  What’s worse, the film uses their infantile behavior for comic laughs, reversing the roles, where it’s the adults who act recklessly and irresponsibly, while most of the children are all much more mature. 

Written by Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, the duo who co-wrote (along with the director) Alexander Payne’s The Descendants (2011), though this was written before that film, where there appear to be two separate stories, the first of which involves the dysfunctional world of adults, where without any back story, a divorced mother Pam (Toni Collette, another troubled woman) and her painfully shy 14-year old son Duncan (Liam James), tag along with her new overbearing boyfriend Trent (Steve Carell), and his typically superficial daughter Steph (Zoe Levin) and head to Trent’s summer house on the beach in Massachusetts.  The title references the position in the car where the anti-social Duncan chooses to sit, in the way, way back of the stationwagon facing in the opposite direction of the other occupants.  When they arrive, Betty (Allison Janney) enthusiastically announces she’s off the wagon and greets them as an alcoholic disaster waiting to happen, while making excuses for the blasé behavior of her own two kids, Susanna (AnnaSophia Robb), a moody teenager a few years older than Duncan, and Peter (River Alexander), the youngest and most ignored kid in the movie, who has a problem with one traveling eye, so his mother continually wants him to wear a patch out of sheer embarrassment.  By the end of the film, however, the kid is adorable.  Another couple joins them, Kip (Rob Corddry), the neighbor with a boat, and his promiscuous wife Joan (Amanda Peet) that Trent continually leers at.  While these adults have backyard barbeque and drinking parties that go on into all hours of the night and morning, occasionally indulging in a little weed as well, buying from one of the neighbor kids, they make Duncan’s life a living hell, especially Trent, who steamrolls him every chance he gets, literally squashing any sense of self-esteem, continually making him feel worthless.  The only worse movie parent that comes to mind is the Reverend Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum) in The Night of the Hunter (1955), and he’s a psychopathic knife-wielding murderer.

If you’re not bored to tears by the first half, where the generic sounding indie music is equally bland, showing no originality whatsoever, usually the staple for these kinds of films, as they’re usually about rebellious individuality, thankfully the film has a second half, where Duncan finds a water park on the other end of town, which may as well be another movie.  While never reaching the sarcastic humor and observational honesty of Adventureland (2009), similarly set in an amusement park, this one includes still more infantile adults, like those working at the park, which includes both writers in amusing roles, and it also includes the co-manager Owen, Sam Rockwell, who is staggeringly hilarious in his role.  Besides being a natural born clown that thrives on doing comedy bits and being the center of attention at an amusement park, causing grief to his more responsible wife Caitlin, Maya Rudolph, the other co-manager who actually has to run things, Owen turns out to be the friend that Duncan has been looking for, offering him a job there for the summer.  Owen literally turns the kid’s life around, placing him in situations where he has to find his way, and then trusting that he’ll succeed, actually giving him a life that he never felt like he had.  Trent only gets worse, twisting the screws of bad taste, while Duncan actually develops a friendship with the pretty girl next door, Susanna, while concealing the job, the developing relationships, and everything else from his family, who were ignoring him anyway except to berate him and boss him around.  While Duncan is the star, he’s only mildly effective in the role, perhaps overly passive, and not all that interesting, while Sam Rockwell steals every scene he’s in, literally altering the focus of the film, becoming the only character worth paying attention to, delivering one of the best performances of his career.  Because Rockwell is so funny, one might overlook the complexity of his growing friendship with Duncan, the way he nurtures the kid and treats him like an adult, even as he has his own personal growing up issues that need to be worked out.  It’s a killer of a performance, one that deserves to be in a better film, which may be why the studio is hyping this film to be more than it is.  In truth, the film raises some unpleasant social issues and then leaves them hanging at the end of the picture, never addressing the reality of what actually matters.