Spotlight: Too Depressing for a Funny Title

Watching Spotlight feels like watching the functioning of an efficient and well-oiled machine. A nuts & bolts procedural from a suitably restrained director that's supported by a top notch cast of actors delivering grounded and realistic performances.

There's almost no directorial flair or intense moments of theatrical performance. In fact you'd be surprised to realise that for a journalism drama there's not even that much in the way of actual drama. For a subject as provocative as child abuse in the catholic church the film remains surprisingly muted. Nobody on the Spotlight team reporting on the church end up publicly shamed for their investigation. Nobody is harassed on the street, ostracised from their community or driven out of their home by angry churchgoers. Hell, the characters even remark with surprise that The Boston Globe isn't being picketed once the scandal is revealed. Yet as santised as the film is it still somehow works as a compelling story.

A big part of that is the clever script by Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer. It presents the real life events of Spotlight's investigation as accurately as possible but with a coherent beginning, middle and end. Opening with the arrival of Marty Baron (Liev Schrieber) as the new editor of The Globe. Baron's role is not only to organically establish the Spotlight Team and what they do (basically long-term investigations of major scandals) but also position him as the outsider, to whom things are done differently, who can encourage the team in ways they ordinarily wouldn't thinks. While the focus then mainly shifts to Spotlight and its investigation Baron remains on hand as the 'big picture' guy, the one less concerned with the individual priests and more the system that allows them to avoid prosecution.

The central theme at play here is willful ignorance. The fact that all of Boston could have seen what was going on if they had the will or consideration to look. So it's no surprise that once Spotlight does look, the evidence begins to pile up and up. Witnesses are brought out of the shadows, patterns in the movement of priests from parish to parish start to emerge and important documents, thought to be sealed under court order, quickly come to light. Information that Spotlight thought buried was, in fact, right under their noses the whole time. The almost effortless success of their investigation soon reveals that the films key conflict is not 'Will this come to light?' but 'Can we really stomach what we're about to discover?'.

To its credit Spotlight is never gratuitous with the grim reality it is unearthing. Most of the crimes committed are discussed in retrospect but with the long-term damage visible in it's victims. It's a testament to the emotional weight that even bit players like Michael Cyril Creighton and Neal Huff can bring to an already stellar cast. The only downside it that this has little impact on the Spotlight team themselves. There are a few tidbits here and there, including Mark Ruffalo's big climax that will likely feature whenever an awards show reaches the film in its nominations. However the scarcity of these scenes causes them to clash with he film's otherwise down-to-earth aesthetic and dialogue.

Yet for all its faults Spotlight works as a piece of journalistic drama. Communicating the procedures and perils of investigative work in the modern era (albeit the modern era of the early 00s). More a process of arranging appointments and tedious legal battles. It may not be cinematic but it is damn compelling.

Last Stop Fruitvale Station

If you pay attention to the news in the US it does feel that not a month goes by without some example of Police abuse or gun violence disproportionately against African Americans. From Oscar Grant to Trayvon Martin to the assault of an ASU professor by campus police last month.  For this reason Fruitvale Station, which focuses on Grant, feels like a microcosm of this issue and an opportunity to speak out. The beauty of it however is that there is no hostility felt here, only tragedy. Toxic factors such as inequality and racial profiling certainly contributed to Grant being arrested on that BART station on January 1^st 2009 but they are the set dressing. The centrepiece is simply a man.

The film opens with the amateur footage of the incident bystanders captured on mobile phones. Making the ending abundantly clear and setting the tone of finality that hangs over the rest of the film. Everything Grant does, be it noble, ignoble, profound or mundane is seen through the lens as his final actions on earth.

Those actions walk a fine line between humanising Grant and deifying him. His last day is primarily one of endeavouring towards change as he attempts to regain his supermarket job, forgoes selling a quantity of cannabis large enough to pay his rent and adopts the wisdom of Oprah. The film takes the time to highlight what a struggle this is for Grant, with the financial demands of his family weighing down against the desire to rise above. It’s a conflict fully realised by leading man Michael B. Jordan, the sadness on his face as he confronts life’s hardships is truly precious.

Jordan is by far the highlight of the film, his casual charisma endearing us to Grant throughout, even in his darkest moments. The way he evades confrontation shows us a man who has committed wrongdoings out of weakness. To go back to ‘selling trees’ as he calls it would be taking the easy way out and the resolve on his face convinces us that he is determined to change.

The film is also thick with domestic mundanely that make Grant relatable. From being harangued by his mother for calling her while driving to slipping his daughter extra treats. The point, making us feel kinship with Grant, is heavy handed but the execution is not. In fact nothing about the film is too heavy handed, even when we finally make it to Fruitvale.

The BART officer that arrests Grant and his friends is the archetypical rage-fuelled beta male. Aggressive, hulking and casually discriminate, every horror story about police officers who abuse their authority made flesh. The twist though is that he is not the one who pulls the trigger.  That is left on Officer Ingram (Chad Michael Murray), a young, flustered and over-eager new cop who you can almost believe would mistake his gun for his Taser.  

While the film hinges on this final tragic moment it’s only made tragic by the joys and troubles injected by the supporting cast. Octavia Spencer makes Grants mother a much more complex character than your typical put-upon matriarch. With her friendly jabs at Grant we see a caring and sympathetic figure but one whose patience has a threshold. Her scene in a flashback to Grant in prison serves as one of the films highlights as she reluctantly turns her back on a son who refuses to change.

Melonie Diaz has little to do as Grant’s girlfriend Sophina besides voice the reasonable objections to Grant’s behaviour. But she sells the role as a frustrated wife and mother who’s also capable of listening, considering and forgiving. And credit where credit’s due the film manages to show Grant bonding with daughter Tatiana (Ariana Neal) without making it overtly saccharin.

Fruitvale Station is a film about nuance, presenting a character with human weaknesses on the final day of his life. It does not aim to provoke outrage or rally against injustice but simply inform on a very real tragedy.

American Hustle: The Strange Effects of Bradley Cooper

Does anyone else have this problem? Lately it seems like whenever I watch a film starring Bradley Cooper it feels like time passes much more slowly. I first noticed it during The Place Beyond the Pines and just put it down to the film being badly in need of a good editor. After all the film spans multiple years, characters and generation and it would only take a little tweaking to the story a more fluid feel and spare my legs the DVT.

American Hustle however follows the same ensemble through events that spanned a few years yet somehow feels longer than the time Solomon Northup spent picking cotton. Partially because all notion of progression over time is lost in a series of non sequitar scenes with seemingly no bearing on the bigger picture. The actual mechanics of the Abscam Scandal, on which the film is based is lost among petty confrontations as the main players try to out-annoy each other. It's like Ocean's Eleven if you replaced all the exposition and heist planning with George Clooney and Brad Pitt engaged in a series of slap fights. Entertaining yes, but it robs the film of drama.

The film can't seem to make its mind up on what it wants to achieve from act one. As Cooper's FBI Agent Richie DiMaso rumbles con artists Irving Rosenfield (Christian Bale) and Sydney Prosser/Edith Greensley (Amy Adams, donning a variety of ostentatious accents) he blackmails them into lining up four additional arrests. Then it's just altruistic politician Carmine Polito, then it's a prominent mob boss, then it's ten congressmen, which point it needs a really elaborate con to arrest my interest.

The film is so bloated and unstructured that it ends up pushing potentially interesting story elements to the margins. Irving's doomed friendship with Carmine and Jennifer Lawrence's standout performance as his oblivious wife barely get a look in. Particularly egregious when you consider how much Lawrence has featured in the films marketing relative to her actual screen time.

Lawrence's role, both in characterisation and accent, is practically a microcosm of the films goofy tone and over-the-top aesthetics. Big hair, low-cut dresses and valour suits. All of which work for a consistently comedic tone which the film carries for the majority of its run...right up until it doesn't. Suddenly the film takes a really dark turn, the kind the Coen Brothers could make work but comes out of left-field in director David O. Russell's hands.

It isn't helped by coming around the fifth act when you're already hoping for an ending. Nor the fact that the culprit is DiMaso, the petulant, perpetually dissatisfied perm-job who's been begging for slap the entire film. And while his actions make sense in terms of his character the fact that everyone keeps working with him adds a grim air to subsequent scenes.

American Hustle's worst crime is simply not knowing what it wants to be. An outlandish premise and thoroughly game cast are the ingredients for a fun, campy crime caper. But the total absence of pace, tension and context makes the film little more than disposable fun. Then ruins the fun in its determination to emulate Goodfellas. In fact at one point a cameo from a Goodfellas star elevates the films entire mood and quality into something truly nail biting. As though Scorsese is sending a cinematic messenger to Russell saying 'You think you're ready to take the reins, you ain't ready to take 'em an I ain't givin' 'em up.'