Brad Pitt & Marion Cotillard Revisit WWII In Robert Zemeckis’ ALLIED

Now playing at a multiplex near everybody:

ALLIED (Dir. Robert Zemeckis, 2016)

This is Brad Pitt’s third World War II movie (not counting the 2009 short BEYOND ALL BOUNDARIES), but while in Quentin Tarantino’s INGLORIOUS BASTERDS * and David Ayers’ FURY he was a gruff, hard ass Sgt. Rock-style Nazi-killing machine with nicknames such as “The Apache” and “Wardaddy,” here he’s a suave, dapper intelligence officer. But don’t worry, he still kills plenty of Nazis.

The premise in this WWII tale, which is Pitt’s first film with director Robert Zemeckis of BACK TO THE FUTURE and FORREST GUMP fame, is that our hero’s wife may be a German spy.

Marion Cotillard, whose second WWII film this is (Pierre Grimblat’s 2001 drama LISA was her first), plays French Resistance fighter Marianne Beausejour, who meets Pitt’s Max Vatan on a dangerous mission in Morocco to kill a German ambassador. Before long, they fall in love and consummate it in an intense love-making scene set in the back of a car in the middle of a sandstorm.

That’s one of the movie’s most memorable moments as it’s heated and convincing enough to make Angelina Jolie feel like her real-life split from Pitt is beyond justified, but unfortunately the film lacks enough of such stunning scenes to make it ultimately worthwhile.


After Max and Marianne get married and have a daughter while living in London and dream about having a house together across the pond in Medicine Hat in Alberta, Canada, Max is told by a SOE (Special Operations Executive) Officer portrayed by Simon McBurney (who really ought to play Roman Polanski someday) that there’s strong evidence that Marianne is a spy. If she’s found guilty, Max will be forced to kill her or be executed himself for not following orders.


So Max does what he can to prove her innocence including traveling to a veterans hospital to question an acquaintance named Guy Sangster (an almost unrecognizable Matthew Goode) about whether his wife is who she says she is, and a French prison to interrogate a one-armed drunk to corroborate the same. The latter is another effective sequence with genuine suspense and a thrilling shoot-out, but, again, there’s not enough of this action to really make this movie a must.

One of the film’s major problems is that it looks so phony. From Pitt and Cotillard’s heavy, unnatural looking make-up to obvious use of green screen to the soundstage sets (especially in the rooftop scenes), the whole thing never not comes across like a glossy Hollywood production.

I’m sure that some of these aesthetics are intentional in its attempt to make an old fashioned CASABLANCA-type romance involving espionage and intrigue, but I was distracted by how Pitt looked like BENJAMIN BUTTON when he reached his pretty boy stage, and how artificial the surroundings appeared.

The conclusion is far from satisfying in its predictability and there are some character threads that don’t add up to much like that of Max’s lesbian sister, played by Lizzy Caplan. Jared Harris is used more successfully as Max’s sympathetic commander, but it’s a part Harris could play in his sleep (Harris’ role in CERTAIN WOMEN is certainly a much more challenging one).

Still, ALLIED is passable entertainment, and many folks will be swept up in its charms, as limited as they may be. It stars two appealing movie stars, who do display considerable chemistry, and it moves along at a brisk pace. If only its screenplay, by Steven Knight, was more fleshed out and there was more authentic grit in its visuals.



As is, it’s a fairly forgettable affair that I doubt will have much traction this season.

* Will Fonvielle of the fine blog Filmvielle pointed out that August Diehl, who appeared in INGLORIOUS BASTERDS, also makes an appearance in this film. I consider that a callback.

More later...

CERTAIN WOMAN Is Certainly A Slow Moving, Artsy Indie

Now playing at an indie art house near me:

CERTAIN WOMEN

(Dir. Kelly Reichardt, 2016)

Kelly Reichardt’s sixth full length feature begins with a long shot of a train barreling through a mountain-filled Montana landscape. It’s a shot that’s lingered on with no movement except for the train as it approaches the camera.

As many shots are lingered on throughout, this image symbolically sets the slow, thoughtful tone for this drama based on three short stories by Maile Meloy from her 2009 collection, “Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It.”

The first story concerns Laura Dern as a lawyer in Livingston, Montana, who is dealing with a desperate client named Fuller (Jared Harris), who has suffered a workplace injury and was screwed over his worker’s compensation. Despite that Dern’s character, also named Laura, has repeatedly told him that his former employer was legally absolved of paying him anything on top of the settlement he previously accepted, Fuller demands a second opinion. So Laura takes him to see another lawyer and because it’s a man, he accepts it when he tells Fuller the same thing she’s been telling him for eight months.

Later on the phone to her lover Ryan (James LeGros), who we briefly met in the film’s first few minutes, she laments: “It would be so lovely to think if I were a man, people would listen and say ‘okay.’”

However, Fuller isn’t through and later that night Laura is awoken by a call from the police alerting her that Fuller has taken a security guard hostage at her former place of employment. Outfitted with a bullet proof vest, she goes in to try and talk him down. Don’t expect any real suspense or action here, the situation gets pretty mundanely diffused.

The second story involves Michelle Williams, in her third film for Reichardt, as Gina, part of a married couple with a daughter (Sarah Rodier) who are camping near a plot of land on which they intent to build a house. Williams is married to LeGros’s Ryan, Laura’s aforementioned lover, but that never comes up again.

Instead the premise of this vignette revolves around the couple negotiating with Albert, an elderly gentleman (René Auberjonois, best known for the ‘80s sitcom Benson, and several Robert Altman movies) for a pile of sandstone on his property.

Gina is frustrated that Albert only regards Ryan in their request for the sandstone, but he agrees to give it to them. When they come to load it on to their truck, Gina waves to Albert who’s watching from his window but he doesn’t wave back.

Onto the third and final story, which posits a downbeat Kristen Stewart as Beth, a lawyer who is teaching a class on educational law in Belfry, Montana, that a local ranch hand named Jamie (Lily Gladstone) sits in on. Jamie happened upon the class while walking through town one night and obviously develops a crush on Beth, who obliviously fans the flames by going out to dinner with her at a nearby diner after class several times.

Jamie even brings one of her horses from her stable one night so that they can ride to the diner on it together. When Jamie learns that Beth has quit the job because of the long commute, Jamie drives to find her in Livingston. Jamie sleeps in her car overnight, then, via help from the same firm that Laura works at, tracks Beth down to her law office and approaches her in the parking lot in the film’s most awkward, cringe-inducing moment.

Although there are connections between these stories, they don’t satisfyingly intersect. We get a follow-up with what happened to Fuller in an epilogue in which Laura visits him in prison, and shots that loosely conclude the other narratives, but folks may be left wondering how or why these tales are interwoven. They indeed share the perspectives of marginalized women in the vast open spaces of Montana, but their personal connection is too abstract for proper impact.

If one embraces the slow pacing, and studies the intricacies of the acting (all the ladies work is sharp here, but newcomer Gladstone is particularly strong), they can get immersed in the subtle nuances on display – in other words, acknowledge it as a true art film – but that may take more patience and concentration than most people are willing to give.

Reichardt’s films, which include OLD JOY, WENDY AND LUCY, MEEK’S CUTOFF, and NIGHT MOVES, are all cut from the same artsy, contemplative cloth. They are character studies that offer slices of bleak life that often play to meager audiences at indie art houses. Her brand of minimalism isn’t meant for the multiplexes.

CERTAIN WOMEN is certain to baffle or bore (or both) many folks, and I myself had some issues with its length and some moments that felt off, but it’s the kind of movie that I’m glad somebody is still making. Its 16 mm look, shot by Reichardt veteran, cinematographer Christopher Blauvelt, along with its parsed dialogue makes it feel more like real life than most movies.

That is both its curse and its charm.

More later...