Posts Tagged ‘The United States of Leland’
Awake (2007)
Not sure why I never heard of this movie except from browsing Netflix. About 45 minutes into it, I seriously thought about giving up on it. It wasn’t because the movie was bad. It wasn’t. It was just disturbing. Hayden Christensen (from Shattered Glass and Anakin Skywalker from the Star Wars movies) is a billionaire Wall Street whiz. A weak heart renders him into surgery at the hands of his trusted friend and doctor, played by Terrence Howard (from Crash and Iron Man). His girlfriend, and fiance later on in the movie is played by Jessica Alba (TV’s Dark Angel, Fantastic Four, and Into the Blue). Lena Olin (The United States of Leland, Chocolat) plays his mother.
A side-plot here: Christensen and Alba are in love, but Olin is against it. I guess a pretty major theme of the movie is “Mother knows best.”
So Christensen undergoes surgery, but doesn’t go under because the anesthetics don’t work on him. According to a tagline at the beginning of the movie, “Over 21 million people are anesthetized every year, and about 30,000 don’t go under. They stay awake.” It’s a scary thought, but I can’t imagine it to be the way the movie depicts. Nonetheless, very interesting.
There’s a twist, but I’m not going to spoil it here. I’d say the film’s worth checking out. Jessica Alba actually gives a pretty convincing performance here, which is surprising. Terrence Howard is pretty good, as is Lena Olin. I haven’t seen Christensen in enough movies to judge his acting, but it wasn’t bad. The monologues get tiring pretty quick, but I guess they were necessary in this case.
Awake was written and directed by first-timer Joby Harold.
Lars and the Real Girl (2007)
I’m going to get right into it. I saw the preview for Lars and the Real Girl a while back and didn’t think much of it. Honestly, how good can a movie about a guy and a plastic doll be? Ok, it can be pretty good. But the previews didn’t sell me.
Two weeks ago, a friend recommended it over dinner. So I thought I’d give it a shot. Ryan Gosling had a string of movies that I really enjoyed: Fracture, Half Nelson, The Notebook, The United States of Leland, Murder by Numbers, and Remember the Titans. And Emily Mortimer, who I loved in Dear Frankie, and Patricia Clarkson, who I loved in The Station Agent, both costarred.
Spoiler here. Gosling is Lars. He’s a loner. He hates it when people touch him. And he’s delusional, which is why he went and got himself a plastic girlfriend. Midway through the movie I remember thinking to myself, “There had better be a killer ending…” There wasn’t. The meat of the story is how the town embraced this fake girlfriend of his and plays along. I guess it was touching in that sense.
No knock on Gosling’s performance, nor those of the rest of the cast, but I thought the story was pretty lame. It had its moments. There were definitely some funny parts. But funny in the sense that what was happening was so ridiculous, not actually funny.
The only other film on director Craig Gillespie’s resume is Mr. Woodcock. I haven’t seen that one yet, but will consider it since I’m a big Billy Bob Thornton fan. It’s dry humor, that’s for sure. Maybe a bit too dry for me.
