The Sisters Brothers

THE SISTERS BROTHERS             B+      

France  Spain  Romania  USA  (121 mi)  2018  ‘Scope  d:  Jacques Audiard

An eclectic work that defies expectations, where the social realism of French director Jacques Audiard, maker of such searingly dramatic works as The Beat That My Heart Skipped (De battre mon coeur s'est arête) (2005), 2010 Top Ten Films of the Year: #10 A Prophet (Un Prophète), Rust and Bone (De rouille et d'os) (2011), and Dheepan (2015), is traded in for his first English-speaking movie, a somewhat eccentric yet luxuriously beautiful American western set in Oregon and California during the Gold Rush days of 1851, tempered with humor and personality, becoming more of a buddy movie with two oddball characters sharing the lead, the always cantankerous Sisters brothers, Charlie and Eli, Joaquin Phoenix and John C. Reilly, hired assassins who have developed a reputation for professionalism, as they always get their man, yet the gist of the movie is their relentless bickering and in-fighting that takes place along the way.  Perhaps unexpectedly, we see the names of uncompromising film directors Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne as producers, also Cristian Mungiu, while the driving force behind the film was actor/producer John C. Reilly securing the rights of the book, as the mournfully comic film is adapted from Canadian author Patrick DeWitt’s 2011 historical novel that pays homage to the unscrupulous immorality prevailing throughout the American West.  In the Gold Rush era, a mad and obsessive spirit induces “thousands of previously intelligent men and women to abandon their families and homes forever,” but most ended up down on their luck, demoralized and emptyhanded, as only a few realized their dreams, and even then what wealth they obtained soon fizzled out from the inflated prices that quickly adjusted to the gold standard.  In this fever dream of unlimited opportunity, we meet the Sisters brothers in action, carrying out a night assault on an unlucky group of eight stuck in a farmhouse, every one killed with ruthless precision.  But it isn’t the blood or gore that stands out, instead these two brothers have an endearing way of communicating, chatting endlessly, as they’ll get caught up on a particular word and then hound the other mercilessly for using it.  It’s a stand-out script co-written by Audiard with Thomas Bidegain that feels remarkably fresh in a genre film, recalling some of the magic from Taylor Sheridan’s equally imploring Hell or High Water (2016). 

Receiving their orders from a notoriously secretive man known as the Commodore, Charlie tells his brother that he’s been assigned as the lead man, getting a majority percentage in their pay, and, accordingly, he’s been issued a new horse.  Eli is a bit startled, as this is all news to him, wondering why he should have to ride the same beaten-down horse.  But it fits their profile, as Charlie is the extroverted sociopath who gets all the attention, executing men with a sadistic relish, seemingly without a care in the world, though it’s clear he has a screw loose somewhere, getting blind drunk on too many occasions, with the more thoughtful and introspective older brother Eli inevitably forced to play second fiddle and look after him, as he’s done all their lives.  Both scarred from brutally painful and traumatic childhood experiences, they had a ruthless father who was an aggressive drunkard that routinely beat their mother, where it was the boys themselves that eventually put an end to it, though Eli still regrets that it was Charlie who killed him, feeling this was the older brother’s responsibility.  Nonetheless, a special bond has developed between them through the years, with Eli contemplating getting out while they’re still alive, retiring quietly, perhaps running a general store.  Charlie, of course, has to laugh at that, thinking they’re on top of the world, earning top dollar, feeling invincible, so why on earth would they stop now?  Killing is the only thing he’s really good at, taking great pleasure in his dominant skill, and while it’s clear they inherited bad blood from their father, they believe they’re putting it to better use.  So it’s on to the next mission, with the Commodore hiring a more discerning detective tracker John Morris (Jake Gyllenhaal with a weird accent) to find one of his enemies described as a thief, Hermann Warm (Riz Ahmed), a chemist with a secret formula for finding gold, with Morris expected to hold him until the Sisters brothers finish him off, but not before extracting his valuable secret.  While there is plenty of ground to cover, Audiard’s leisurely pace allows time to pass, paying respect for the great distances, as these were epic and often laborious journeys filled with peril (often of their own making), where the film becomes a compelling weeks-long odyssey of new discoveries.  Shot by Benoît Debie in the forests and mountains of Romania and Spain, the majestic scenery is reminiscent of Peckinpah’s early film Ride the High Country (1962), as is the back and forth banter between two highly skilled actors working at the top of their game, where perennial second banana Reilly literally steals the picture as an outlaw with a heart of gold. 

Curiously, both Phoenix and Reilly have performed variations on Johnny Cash, with Phoenix nominated for an Oscar with his biographical portrayal in WALK THE LINE (2005), while Reilly did a character based on the renowned exploits of Cash in his irreverently obscure film, WALK HARD:  THE DEWEY COX STORY (2007).  They are terrific together, where Phoenix is more manic and terrifying, but the more laid back and accommodating Reilly is really the heart of the picture in what amounts to a role of a lifetime.  Part of the beauty of the film is that nothing ever goes according to plan, instead we are treated to the bizarre twists and turns in the road.  An informed character study, we only learn the brother’s backstory late in the film through belated developments, as each in their own way is challenged to rise above their past and make amends, chartering new and unfamiliar territory, where at one point when they hit the Pacific Ocean Charlie announces, “I think this is further than we’ve ever been before.”  “You mean ― in conversation?” asks a clueless Eli.  Foreshadowing a new playing field, all the central characters meet at some point, each in some ways changed by the others, where people actually make a difference.  But it’s no easy transition, as stubborn and hard-headed frontier individualists are usually the last to recognize internal conflict and adapt to change, but here blind ambition and disturbing forces challenge each of them, albeit differently, offering at least some of them a chance at redemption.  Audiard always does an excellent job probing the depths of masculinity, finding layers of humanity underneath that defy the stereotypes, where these two brothers are polar opposites, yet perhaps the two of them together form a more perfect union.  Can bad people change?  Usually there’s no incentive to do so, as they continually get what they want by being bad.   But this film speaks to an era of lawless savagery that finally succumbs to the pressures of a more decent civilization.  Audiard beautifully integrates that into the story and pieces it together, pointing to a more hopeful direction that literally springs out of nowhere, painting a darkly humorous yet insightful portrait of the American West, where the unending violence is near impossible to escape, yet salvation is rarely achieved at the barrel of a gun.  The music of Alexandre Desplat is never overpowering, but offers a sense of restrained elegance, like a spiritual awakening, which may be the underlying key to the film.  The pressures of their dark past clearly haunts Eli, who seeks a different outcome than his more untamed brother, where the cruel hostilities of the world eventually take their toll, as you can’t keep challenging fate forever.  It’s like playing Russian roulette, where the consequences are ultimately devastating.  But Audiard is up to the task, finding tenderness where you least expect it, offering a picture-perfect finale that finds a grace note, transcending all moral boundaries.     

Nocturnal Animals

NOCTURNAL ANIMALS               B-                   

USA  (117 mi)  2016  ‘Scope  d:  Tom Ford              Official Facebook Page         

Do you ever feel like your life has turned into something you never intended?

—Susan Morrow (Amy Adams)

A chillingly cold neo-noir film that is about 90% production values, and the rest relies upon some intriguing acting, but in Tom Ford films, a man whose success came first as a fashion designer, it’s the overall setting that matters, as that tells you what’s important.  This is more of a slow descent into the murk from the director of A SINGLE MAN (2009), using cynicism as an excuse to tell a Macbethian ghost story that was clearly inspired by Michael Haneke’s Funny Games (1997), where by the end, all that’s left is revenge.  The overall mood of loveless detachment leaves little to the imagination, filled with white, wealthy, and entitled people who couldn’t be more unhappy, never looking into the mirror at the source of their own sterile emptiness, living in glass houses with extravagant views, leading fatalistic lives that are doomed from the start.  Refusing to take a chance on Edward Sheffield (Jake Gyllenhaal), a poor yet aspiring young writer whose sensitivity attracts the attention of Susan Morrow (Amy Adams) as a young woman, marrying him, but eventually leaving him as a lifestyle choice, as she prefers to be married in an economic status that provides her the special comforts of life.  Now married to a philandering husband Hutton (Armie Hammer) who looks the part, cutting a dashing figure, but they are little more than eye candy to one another, someone they can be seen in public with and not be embarrassed.  This special class privilege has its limitations, as there’s absolutely no spark of electricity between them, yet in the best tradition of a well-polished upbringing, they remain civil and polite, uttering meaningless phrases to one another, where he uses the pressures of work to constantly be away from home, but this is just an excuse to be with other women, as he’s apparently not so good at making money, though he looks the part, instead her lucrative art gallery supports them both, even though she’s lost any interest in any of the artworks she’s purchased, feeling no connection to any of it, calling it junk culture, where she is literally suffocating from the meaninglessness of being surrounded by “all junk,” yet she remains wracked by guilt at the way things ended with her first husband when she simply walked away.  So it comes as a surprise when after a twenty year absence a manuscript arrives in the mail with his first book, entitled Nocturnal Animals, where curiously it's dedicated to her.  At that point, the film divides in two, one a look at her life, complete with flashbacks mixed into the present, along with a second track that follows the violently sadistic story of the novel that seems to have personal implications.  Ford effortlessly interchanges them, with each mirroring the other, yet despite this artistic device, the viewer can always separate truth from fiction. 

Opening with one of the strangest opening scenes on record, naked, excessively obese women dancing on display at an art gallery, performance art images that are both provocative and disturbing, much of it in slow motion, surrounded by photographers and customers ogling them, where this is an uncomfortable glimpse into the vapid culture of contemporary modern art, forcing the audience to view the grotesque.  This is the prelude for what follows, with Ford adapting Austin Wright’s 1993 novel Tony and Susan, following upon a flashback theme from their early romance where Susan feels she is too cynical to be an artist, while she thinks Edward is overly naïve to be a writer, too insecure and weak, creating a culture gap that he was willing to explore further, thinking love is something you hold onto and don’t let go, but she ran out on him for a wealthier guy, a decision that still haunts her.  The trashy pulp novel is shockingly violent, set in a world of pure evil and malice, with Gyllenhaal doubling as Tom, the self-loathing husband and father who is too meek to prevent a roadside hijacking where three men in another car drive him off the road, with psychopathic rednecks from West Texas seizing his wife and daughter for sick fun while leaving him helplessly abandoned in the middle of nowhere, somewhere in the vast emptiness of an unending desert, a superbly filmed sequence, easily the highlight of the film, where the intensity jolts her into a panic mode, as the material is emotionally devastating.  The title comes from Susan’s habit of not sleeping, where she roams the empty premises of her luxurious home in the Hollywood Hills overlooking the flickering lights of Los Angeles at night, mostly alone, where she reads the novel over the course of several nights before Edward is due to arrive in LA.  Her own husband is off in New York somewhere doing as he pleases, while she is running her gallery somewhat dazed and lost in thought, as this fictionalized world of the novel has a grip on her that is more viscerally real than her own ghostly, waking life existence.  As if to embellish this virtual reality theme, where it’s easy to get lost in the concept of an alternate universe, Susan is greeted at work by one of her staffers, Sage Ross (Jena Malone), who is obsessed with watching her newborn baby all day long on her new cellphone app, where like Skype, she can communicate with her baby at any time, gleefully showing this device to Susan, where it’s the latest on modernized and mechanized motherhood, but Susan is caught in a surreal moment of her own, where one of the faces from the lurid novel she’s reading appears instead, causing her to drop and shatter the phone.  Not to worry, as the latest iPhone version is coming out in just a day or two.  Like a choreographed dance routine of misdirection, interweaving an intersection of technology, fiction, flashback, and reality where an appearance/reality theme prevails throughout the whole film, the director accentuates all the sleek and shiny surfaces, while revealing a ghoulishly ugly underside, themes also expressed in Terrence Malick’s incendiary view of Hollywood culture in Knight of Cups (2015).

Continuing with the novel’s lurid expression of wounded masculinity, Tony makes his way up the highway and finds an isolated farmhouse to call for help, where Detective Bobby Andes, a terrific Michael Shannon who’s hard as nails, arrives to investigate, quickly locating the abandoned naked bodies of his wife and daughter, shot gratuitously in a statuesque pose, each subjected to untold horrors leaving them both raped and murdered, leaving Tony wracked with guilt for failing to prevent it.  Tony’s character is clearly a reflection of how she perceived Edward in the past, as she recalls the intimate details of their past romance, where her domineering mother, the almost unrecognizable Laura Linney, warns her that marrying Edward would be a big mistake, that “the things you love about [Edward] now are the things you’ll hate in a few years…”  Ignoring her advice, almost as an act of childhood rebellion, she ultimately becomes exactly what she despised in her youth, where a phone call to her husband in New York reveals what she’s suspected all along, that he’s in the company of another woman.  As she continues reading, a year goes by before Andes contacts Tony with two suspects, one dead and one alive as a result of a recent robbery gone wrong, with a third man getting away.  Unable to identify the dead man, the one in custody was one of the three men on the road, immediately charged as an accomplice to murder.  Finally tracking down the third man, Ray (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), who Tony also identifies, he is quickly released from custody due to insufficient evidence, setting up the final sequence, where Andes acknowledges he’s dying of lung cancer, maybe has a year left to live, but would like to get this over with before he dies, asking if Tony is willing to go outside the law and improvise.  It’s the first opportunity to alter the power dynamic of this cat-and-mouse game, to turn it around, where up until now he’s been sadistically toyed with by these rednecks.  Finally he has an opportunity to confront them face-to-face, where he has a chance to exact justice by his own hands, seething with anger and the opportunity to rectify this pervasive feeling of helplessness.  Shocked by the dark content and raw emotion of the novel, Tony’s interior wrath reveals the anguish he’s felt since Susan walked out on him, where he’s making it plain to see in vividly graphic terms.  Among other things, the film is about regret, having a chance to correct previous mistakes, something looming in the back of Susan’s mind, anticipating the opportunity to see Edward again.  The way it plays out, on both ends, in the story and in real life, is unexpected, as things don’t go exactly as planned, where the director turns this into a kind of game or writer’s exercise where he has the last laugh, becoming a kind of parody of life, bordering on the insincere, exerting near imperious power to make sure Susan feels the same kind of dark hole of helplessness as Edward, both ensnared by the vacuous Hollywood allure where a gay artist (Michael Sheen) in a heterosexual marriage is heard to proclaim early in the film, “Our world is a lot less painful than the real world.”