Movies : December 2005

23 December 2005

Brokeback Mountain

Wyoming (impersonated by Alberta) is where two men ask for work from a less-than-scrupulous foreman (Randy Quaid) and find themselves herding sheep in a National Forest for the summer. It is 1963; Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) are both products of broken homes, and besides keeping the sheep together and shooting at coyotes and complaining about the endless cans of beans, there is not much for them to do. Both have plans to marry, as would be expected of them, but that summer they forge a bond through sexual activity that will follow them the rest of their lives. Perhaps as a short story the passage of the years was more ably conveyed, for the production design is not quite up to the task: the two leads keep their damn sideburns long for more than a decade, and Ennis’s poverty saddles him with the same turquoise Ford F-150 for the rest of his life. Their devotion at the first reunion initially feels more like exposition than natural emotional consequence, and marks the film’s sole misstep in my eyes, but that is no fault of the performances which are assured. The devastation felt by Ennis’s wife Alma (Michelle Williams) especially rings true.

133 minutes.

16 December 2005

The Family Stone

The family Stone is large, well-off, and collectively smugly satisfied with its liberal bona fides, but just can’t stand the idea that the eldest son Everett (Dermot Mulroney) might marry an uptight, hard-charging businesswoman he met while being successful in Hong Kong. Perhaps it wasn’t the swiftest idea to have Meredith (Sarah Jessica Parker) first visit the family during its Christmas week when the entire clan is gathered together in the big New England house where one might presume that Kelly (Craig T. Nelson) and Sybil (Diane Keaton) are taking advantage of a few generations’ worth of fortune. Amy (Rachel McAdams) is just so mean to Meredith that nothing goes right, but the laughs start with her NPR tote bag. Careening from slapstick to clumsily handled pathos, with a creepy switch of romantic attractions involving Claire Danes as Meredith’s sister, the production can elicit the laughs but misses the mark otherwise.

104 minutes.

12 December 2005

Syriana

It’s difficult to imagine that a movie filled with so many characters, its plot touching on so many current issues, could be so stultifyingly boring, yet there it is. George Clooney’s CIA agent Bob serves as the primary character as he flits about the world leaving bombed-out storefronts, disaffected offspring, unhappy foreign governments, and suspicious investigators in his wake.

127 minutes.

Entries subject to editing at any time. Last edited on: 24-Dec-2005