Movie Nation

“Miss Julie,” August Strindberg’s 19th century drama about class and that Darwinian fixation of the nobility, “breeding,” comes to austere life in an adaptation by the Swedish actress-turned-director Liv Ullmann. She has re-set the Swedish tale in 1890s Ireland, and uses canny casting to underline the connections between class distinctions, then and now.
Though the play is dated and was and remains the very picture of minimalism, Strinderg’s naturalism and a spirited cast give it a pulse that throbs with life.
John (Colin Farrell) is valet to a baron, but a valet with big dreams. Dashing and handsome and a little worldly, he has an intimate relationship with the cook, Kathleen (Samantha Morton). They’re engaged. But John wants more than this simple, servile life.
Which is probably why he endures the dizzy, needy flirtations of the baron’s daughter, Miss Julie. The fact that she’s played by Jessica Chastain helps. “The mistress of the house” is lovely, a little lordly, and likes to dance with the hired hands
On Midsummer’s Eve, the baron is about to return from a trip, so it’s just the three of them in the great house. And Miss Julie is beside herself with…it could be desire, or boredom with a hint of madness. She cannot stay away from John.
“I’ve chosen to forget all rank,” she purrs, imperiously. “And so should you.”
Kathleen and John are powerless in this situation. They’re just the rich young woman’s playthings. Not that John isn’t above playing, or scheming where this play could lead him.
But “They don’t think like that. Not THOSE people.”
During that long afternoon and night, John tries to juggle two women with competing agendas, even as both realize his fecklessness, that he probably doesn’t have the “choice” he thinks he has — between the frumpy, built-for-working-class-comfort Kathleen and the flighty and rich Miss Julie.
Chastain suggests rather more cunning than the typical Miss Julie, a character almost bipolar in her lurch from flirtation to “know your place” snobbery. Morton (“The Messenger,” “In America”) gives away hints of soulfulness in the wounded but never dangerous Kathleen.
And Farrell, given a role of limited canvas but no constraints, reminds us how rare it is for him to have a chance to show us what a wonderful range he has. John’s scheming, masked by compliant servitude, is interrupted by eruptions, a go-for-broke, roll-the-dice gamble on changing his destiny with the mercurial Julie — if only he can catch her on the right moment in her bipolar wanderings.
“Miss Julie” is a handsome production, its few settings (indoors and outdoors) painterly and period-perfect. It’s entirely too long for a filmed chamber drama of such limited stakes. But Ullmann’s adaptation reminds us that the gap between “those people,” now called “the one percent,” and the rest of the world will always be ripe for conflict, drama and tension, no matter how much we evolve.

MPAA Rating: unrated, with adult situations
Cast: Jessica Chastain, Colin Farrell, Samantha Morton
Credits: Written and directed by Liv Ullmann,adapted from the August Strindberg play. A Wrekin Hill release.
Running time: 2:10

Still waters may run deep, as the old saying goes. But “Beside Still Waters” there’s nothing deeper than “The Big Chill.”
Yes, it’s another knockoff of “Chill” and “Return of the Secaucus Seven”, another gathering of young “old friends” at a remote summer house or in this case, lake cabin, where old feelings are stirred up and old yearnings given in to thanks to opportunity and alcohol.
Co-writer/director Chris Lowell’s excuse for plopping eight late 20somethings in remote, woody Michigan, is the death of Daniel’s parents.
Ryan Eggold (TV’s “The Black List”) is Daniel. He’s grieving, but he’s over the whole condolences thing. They died in a car wreck near the cabin, an accident he won’t talk about. So he’s loaded the bar with booze and invited all the childhood friends who did not make it to the funeral for “a moving out party” in his parents’ honor.
There’s boisterous practical joker Tom (Beck Bennett), who is newly-laid-off, and James (Brett Dalton of “Agents of S.H.E.I.L.D.” ), an actor who gave up the struggles of the stage for cheesy a reality TV show. Abby (Erin Darke) and Martin (Will Brill) are married, but his unemployment has ruined their sex lives.
Charlie (Jessy Hodges) is a free spirit who has a romantic history with most everybody there.
And of course, Daniel’s willowy ex Olivia (Britt Lower) shows up with her new fiance (Reid Scott) who is, by the formula in play here, the “straight-laced one.”
They drink, play cards, drink, do the silliest coed drinking game ever — “whisky slap,” as in “You take a shot of whisky, I slap you.” — skinny dip, couple up and guilt-out over coupling up during the course of that last weekend in the cabin.
Hey, at least there’s no stalker in the woods, no bigfoot watching them, no ghostly presence.
These flesh and blood folks have flesh and blood issues, of course. Most of them, we can see coming, even the ones that aren’t overused and banal.
The nostalgia is weak, the “betrayals” somewhat less than scandalous, the dialogue unquotably bland. Did this play in the same festivals as last August’s “About Alex”? Because “Beside Still Waters” makes that imitation “Chill” seem like Shakespeare, by comparison.
Daniel has a writerly bent — he’s always quoting Hemingway, researching “The Lost Generation” and drinking like Papa & Co. At least “Waters”, like Hemingway’s sentences, is mercifully short. Not short and punchy or short and catchy. Just brief, because even they know there’s no sense dragging out material this played.

MPAA Rating: unrated, with nudity, drunk driving, profanity and frank sexual discussions
Cast: Ryan Eggold, Britt Lower, Beck Bennett, Erin Darke, Jessy Hodges, Bret Dalton, Will Brill, Reid Scott
Credits: Directed by Chris Lowell, written by Chris Lowell, Mohit Narang. A Tribeca release.
Running time: 1:16

The evolving state of Britain’s soccer hooligans is explored, one bloody beating or brutal brawl at a time, in the imported Brit drama, “Green Street Hooligans: Underground.”
It’s the third in a series of films about the two-fisted fans of West Ham United Football Club — their lives, their fights, their loves. Hey, if your favorite sports franchise was nicknamed “The Hawthorns,” you’d probably fight, too.
In America, men may gather, paint their faces and tailgate themselves into a stupor before football games where they root, root root and bet bet bet on the home team. In Britain, they gather in ancient pubs, sing fight songs and drinking songs and stagger to games where the singing continues. And every so often, afterwards, they get into a scuffle over whose side is best. Head-butting is often involved.
They call themselves “The Green Street Elite,” but the coppers have cracked down so much on hooliganism that the soccer fan street brawls that made the evening news are mostly a thing of the past. “Underground” is where that fighting has drifted. The premise of this third film in the “Green Street” saga is the discovery that the brawls have been formalized, taken into back alleys where five-on-five fights take place and the last five standing win and move on in “the standings.”
That’s what Danny (Scott Adkins) discovers when he tries to learn how his younger brother, Joey (Billy Cook) was killed. Danny is a brawler who got out, a mixed martial artist who trains other fighters in a gym in a nicer part of town. But back in the day, Danny was “The Guvner,” the punishing puncher who led the G.S.E. into action. Win or lose on the pitch, the lads always had an eye for a punch-out with Tottenham or Arsenal backers.
Realizing his old mate, the cop (Joey Ansah) will never get to the bottom of Joey’s murder, Danny picks up a few pints at The Abbey Inn, G.S.E.’s watering hole. And The Guvner’s back in the thick of it, sniffing around for clues as to who knows what, and what they’re not telling him or the cops.
The slang in gritty Brit films is always fun — “You’re bang out of order, mate. “Jog on” (get lost). Every line punctuated with “Oy!”
Adkins, an accomplished screen pugilist, is sort of a Jason Statham — with hair. Good looking enough to merit the attentions of the impossibly pretty and out-of-place barmaid (Kacey Barnfield), tough enough to mix it up with the toughest.
The British title of this was “Green Street 3: Never Back Down,” which tells you how worn this modern spin on the fight picture is. Hollywood got to this sort of barefisted, off-the-books brawling years ago, and often.
The milieu is barely gritty enough to get by, so director James Nunn stages the fights with split screens (three images) and lots of blood-spurting slo-mo. Nothing original there, either.
And however well executed this formula fight picture might be, Americans may find the idea of grown men — well-past their testosteroned teens — beating the daylights out of each other for wearing the wrong scarf to a soccer match a tad pathetic.

MPAA Rating: R for brutal street fights, language throughout and a scene of sexuality/nudity
Cast: Scott Adkins, Kacey Barnfield, Joey Ansah, Jack Doolan, Billy Cook
Credits: Directed by James Nunn, written by Ronnie Thompson. A Wrekin Hill/Lionsgate release.
Running time: 1:33

Clever title, taking us back to James Bond’s arch nemesis, the extra-governmental crime syndicate that kept Sean Connery and Roger Moore so busy all those years.

Clever, too, in reviving  “Spectre” in an age of Al Quaeda and ISIS.

Ernst Stravro Blofeld will make his return as the original supervillain — played by Christoph Waltz, a two-time Oscar winner who is pushing 60 and is utter master of the narrow range of villainy he tends to play.

Look for “Spectre,” starring Daniel Craig, opens Nov. 6.

Took them long enough.

Ethan Hawke found his groove as an actor sometime, I figure, in the late 90s. His indie film connection to Richard Linklater led to the “Before Sunrise” trilogy with Julie Delpy, and eventually to “Boyhood,” Linklater’s masterpiece, the movie that may win the Texas tyro filmmaker an Oscar.

I’ve interviewed Hawke as the various Linklater films have opened over the years. But the memorable chats are always about the offbeat genre fare that he takes on — “The Purge,”
Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead,” “Daybreakers.” He’s had decent luck with chancy films that were never destined for big box office or critical acclaim. In his latest, “Predestination,” he is a time traveling agent of some sort, on his “last mission.” That’s the one description of the film I’ve seen that sticks. I will see if before talking with him, but I thought I’d ask for your submitted questions first.

How about it? Something you’re dying to ask Ethan? Comment below, and thanks for the help.

You missed one of the best movies of the year? Top 20, if not Top Ten list material? You weren’t alone. It opened meekly, dropped off screens too quickly, and that’s a crime.

No worries. Hollywood’s dead post-“Hunger Games” stretch means theaters are scrambling to find patrons. Oscar contenders are rolling out slowly, and “Nightcrawler” could well be that. Well, the National Board of Review is no Oscar indicator. But an honor is an honor.

o Friday, it re-opens wide, back in theaters until “Exodus” and other big releases of the holiday season chase it off.

Here’s a link to my glowing review of Jake Gyllenhaal’s finest hour. Read it, and make  plans to go.

Reese Witherspoon finds a role worthy of her in “Wild,” playing a woman who hikes her way out of a tragic past, one painful, traumatic step at a time.
A find-yourself-by-testing-yourself drama in the “Into the Wild” or “The Way” mold, “Wild” sends Cheryl (Witherspoon) on a self-imposed spirit quest to make amends for the self-inflicted damage she’s done to herself and others. A hiking novice with a writerly bent, she is drowning in a quagmire of needle drugs and degrading sexual encounters when she sets out to trek the Pacific Crest Trail.
Her goal is simple, to “walk myself back into the woman my mother thought I was.”
And with every step, every rookie hiker’s mistake, Cheryl remembers that mother (Laura Dern) and catalogs the ways her own life has gone so terribly wrong at such a young age.
Cheryl Strayed is the name she takes upon her divorce. She “Strayed” from Paul (Thomas Sadoski). And even though he is supportive, even though they got matching tattoos celebrating that divorce, even though he promises to send her letters and care packages at addresses along her hike, they can never be together.
Cheryl, a Minneapolis waitress, will march from the Mojave Desert north to Oregon and Washington. She will do it alone, a pretty blonde with no wilderness or long-walk background, relying on her wits, her resolve and the kindness of strangers to get her through.
That, and the poetry of Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost and Adrienne Rich.
What saves this from becoming some indulgent and precious “Hike, Pray, Love” is Witherspoon’s earthy turn in the leading role, and the rich, nurturing presence of Dern, seen in flashbacks as the single-mother who raised Cheryl.
Mom is mercurial, always smiling, always positive even when her kids ignore her when she goes back to their high school to get her own diploma. Dern lets us see the hurt beneath the smiles, the pain that explains their situation long before the movie spells it out for us.
Even lines as corny as “Put yourself in the way of beauty,” and “Try and do the kindest thing” ring true coming from Dern.
As he did with “The Dallas Buyers’ Club,” director Jean-Marc Vallée covers this inner and outer journey with a minimum of fuss. The flashbacks and their revelations, filling in the puzzle, are sparingly doled out. The stunning scenery Cheryl hikes through is barely noticed.
The humor comes from Cheryl’s salty fury at all the stuff she does wrong, from the wrong-sized hiking boots, to the overstuffed pack that threatens to “turtle” on her.
Lone hiker Cheryl is unusual enough in the mid-90s to provoke incredulous looks and sexist leers from the many men she encounters. Vallee wrings tension out of every nervous encounter she has with men in the middle of nowhere. Will this one be a folksy friend, a trail guide or that hunter-biker rapist one hears stories of?
Witherspoon, dressed down and bloodied up on the trail, nude and wasted in many of the flashbacks, wholly commits to this quest and makes the psychological journey work in concert with the physical one. When Cheryl walks out on a counselor, we get what she means when she suggests there is no “talking” cure for what ails her. Like Forrest Gump and the hero of next spring’s Robert Redford Appalachian Trail trek, “A Walk in the Woods,” sometimes the only way out of your past is to put one boot in front of the other and start walking.

MPAA Rating: R for sexual content, nudity, drug use, and language
Cast: Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern, Thomas Sadoski, Gaby Hoffman
Credits: Directed by, written by Jean-Marc Vallée, screenplay by Nick Hornby based on the Cheryl Strayed memoir. A Fox Searchlight release.
Running time: 1:55

Sasha and Paige are more than best-friends. They connect, they finish each other’s sentences.
They’re “Life Partners.” And as such, they have rituals — date night consists of drinking, watching “Top Model” together and mocking it, and spying each other in traffic is a queue to stage a fake “road rage” tirade for their own amusement, the more shocked onlookers the better.
They have figured out their future.
“I guess we’re gonna end of dying alone, like planned.”
But they’re gorgeous and they’re hitting their late 20s. They both seem to get they’re peaking, they’re facing adulthood and it’s time to get on with it.
Sasha (Leighton Meester of “Gossip Girl”) is gay, an aspiring folk singer-songwriter (totally NOT a cliche), bar-hopping and barely getting by on her own as an inept receptionist.
Paige (Gillian Jacobs of “Community”) isn’t. She’s an environmental lawyer with a house, a Prius and a little more urgency in her days.
So as adorable as their banter is — “Which one of us is a lesbian?” — as close as they are, Sasha and Paige are headed for trouble.
Their gay BFF’s, Jen (Gabourey Sidibe) and Jenn (Beth Dover), can sense it. Sort of.
“Oh my God, why is every lesbian named ‘Jen’?'”
“Life Partners” is a slight and somewhat demure romantic comedy/friendship comedy built around two mildly interesting characters.
Sasha is prone to hooking up with women so young they still live with their parents. She likes the “dumb lesbian drama” of her life, the gay bar scene, its attendant comic rituals (sex toy “swordfight” competitions), “How many lesbians fit in a Subaru?” contests and “pride” parades.
Paige is a control freak, never apologizing, judgmental but indulgent of her new beau, Tim “the doctor.”
Tim (Adam Brody, who broke out of “The O.C.”) may be a doctor, but he’s “only” a dermatologist. He’s dorky, too fond of “message” t-shirts and is obsessed with firing off snatches of dialogue from his favorite movies, which naturally includes “The Big Lebowski.”
But he’s enough to come between the “Life Partners,” to ruin “Top Model” wine-drunk sleepovers and all that comes with them.
The most fun elements here are the fake road rage scenes and assorted cute slices of communal lesbian life.
Meester, the third choice for the lead (Kristen Bell and Evan Rachel Wood both dropped out), manages a perky “butch” walk and handles Sasha’s sweet cluelessness well. But she’s a character with no edge, which goes for the film as well. You get the feeling Sasha is still exploring her sexual options, just from the lack of heat with her various hook-ups. That’s not the way the character was written, and that arm’s length treatment of Sasha’s sexuality makes the film feel 15 years out of date.
Jacobs is even more generic, though she has some very funny scenes with her mom (Julia White of “Transformers”). Brody is stuck playing a shadow of a cliche. You want to know why actresses roll their eyes at the way the male-dominated film industry portrays them on screen, check out the grab bag of shtick director/co-writer Susanna Fogel and co-writer Joni Lefkowitz saddle Brody with here. Do they KNOW any men?
But Jacobs and Meester click, on some level, and there are enough sparks of life in each performance that we buy them as the pals they say they’re are, even if we can all-too-easily see the break-up that they never suspect is coming.

MPAA Rating: R for language and some sexual content
Cast: Leighton Meester, Gillian Jacobs, Adam Brody, Gabourey Sidibe, Beth Dover

Credits: Directed by Susanna Fogel, written by Joni Lefkowitz and Susanna Fogel. A Magnolia release.

Running time: 1:32