“Nicole, you’re sleeping…”
I admire a film that is able to linger and I’ve read enough scripts to know that there is a difference between filling up scenes with mindless dialogue and slowing the action down in a way that’s inherently more lifelike. In fact, I now have an increased fascination with the films that don’t rely so much on plot points at all but characters and the everyday situations that they encounter. Because, if I’m honest, everyday situations often make up most of my life and they are most relatable to me. They’re the stories that feel the most genuine.
Just looking at Stephane Lafleur’s Canadian drama, Tu dors Nicole, a little bit of the mundane is evident. Sorting racks in a clothing store. Lazy afternoon bike rides. Lifeless neighborhood streets. Long summer days with the sound of crickets outside the window. Hot nights where you can hardly keep your eyes clamped shut due to the miserable heat that keeps you tossing and turning. It might all seem of little consequence and in many ways it is. But in the modern arena where every film must be the next big thing, the greatest spectacle imaginable and so on, it’s actually quite refreshing when someone dares to tone it down a notch.
There are some oddly weird moments throughout the film. Namely, Martin, a boy who has the vocal range of a 30-year-old man. And the traces of harp music whenever something especially enchanting comes to the fore. Then, there are the closing images of water spouting off into the atmosphere.
However, what’s at the core of Nicole is a story of adolescence coming into adulthood. It’s not so much a coming of age narrative as emblematic of that period of transition. And if Nicole had the fragments of a prototypical plotline it would be this.
The eponymous young woman (Julianne Cote) has recently graduated college and is working a menial job. Her parents have gone away for a little vacation leaving her behind with a list of tasks to complete in their absence. She would have the house to herself if it wasn’t for her older brother who is always jamming away with his bandmates in the living room and all throughout their house. Their backbeat is constantly reverberating through Nicole’s life. She hardly gets any peace and quiet.
And yet even in the tranquil moments, our protagonist still seems a bit melancholy. Mini golf isn’t as fun as it used to be. A trip to Iceland is more fun to plan for than it is to actually go through with. Nicole gets in a row with her best friend. She loses her job after taking a few articles of clothing home with her. But life continues like it always has.
In this case, black and white is not simply an aesthetic choice but an appropriate palette to reflect the underlying tone of this film. There is a listlessness, an apathy to Nicole’s life at the moment. The thing is it’s due to nothing in particular, at least nothing spoken aloud or seen overtly onscreen, but like life, it just is.
Our main hint comes from the title itself. Could it be that Nicole is asleep? She cannot sleep at night, because, perhaps she does her sleeping during the day–going through the motions without a great deal of purpose — without a goal to drive her. We’ve all been there. Maybe even a few moments ago. Growing up in this fashion is not always all it’s cracked up to be.
The question to ask at the end of this particular narrative is this: Have things changed? Not really. But so it is with the vicissitude of life. There will be highs and lows. Moments of vibrant colors and grayish doldrums. Quarter life crises and galvanizing flashbulb moments. Still, we keep on living, latching onto what gives our confusions and doubts even a shard of meaning. We aren’t meant to live life asleep.
3.5/5 Stars
“You’re silk on one side and sandpaper on the other.” – Richard Widmark as Jed Powers
Lou Gossett Jr. What a performance. He imprints himself on our brains just like the new recruits he berates, pushes, and toughens on a daily basis. He’s inscrutable. We want to hate him. We want him to get his comeuppance. Yet in the end, we cannot help but appreciate him. We are just like one of his recruits and that’s, in part, why this story works at all.
Watching An Officer and a Gentleman, it is rather amazing that it succeeds as part romance, part war drama since all its action takes place at an air force cadet school. They haven’t even reached the front yet. There are no explosions or bombs bursting in air. It even shares similarities with Fred Zinneman’s star-studded From Here to Eternity (1953) years before. But that story had far more star power and a climatic event like Pearl Harbor to build the story around. Here there’s nothing quite like that. But it’s not really needed. We are reminded that mankind is inherently interesting and when you throw a bunch of them together under duress it’s a formula for heightened emotions.
Certainly, the film functions because it has all the necessary components, a rebellious hero played by Gere, troubled pasts, innumerable odds and the like. However, breaking the film down to its simple plot points hardly gives the film the credit it is due. There are so many intangibles when you watch something on the screen that really gets to your gut. It’s not necessarily manipulation on the part of any one person, director, screenwriter or otherwise. It’s simply the emotional clout that the medium of film is capable of.
Richard Donner (Superman) has an understanding of the balance of grand spectacle and more subtle moments. The opening aerial shot and the tenuous desert rendezvous with a helicopter churning up sand capture our attention. But it’s the little bits of humor and vulnerability that make the showmanship of Lethal Weapon ultimately worth it. There’s a vibrancy that runs through Shane Black’s script in both the action sequences and character-driven moments.
“I can be smart when it’s important, but most men don’t like it.” ~ Marilyn Monroe as Lorelei
There is a lineage of psychological dramas most notably including the likes of Shock Corridor and One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. But one of their primary predecessors was The Snake Pit which is a haunting, inscrutable and thought-provoking film in its own right.
I’ve seen both versions of Father of the Bride and Steve Martin is fine and dandy but there is no better lovable curmudgeon than Spencer Tracy and he dons the role of the protective and skeptical father so effortlessly.
As a young boy, no hero was greater in my mind’s eye than Robin Hood and only Star Wars held a more honored spot in my childhood imagination. Because, to this day, Robin of Locksley remains the quintessential hero of mythical lore. Part historical truth mostly canonized myth and that’s the beauty of him. We can believe in him — see how he was in so many ways real but in the same instance larger than life.
From what I know from Robin Hood folklore, specifically Howard Pyle’s seminal edition, the film is surprisingly true to many of the origin stories and tales that have long since proliferated. As an audience, we become privy to the first meetings of Robin and the formidable Little John (Alan Hale) who lays him out in the local stream after a bout with quarterstaffs. Then, in another instance, Robin provokes the portly Friar Tuck (Eugene Palette) who happens to be a master swordsman and a lover of good food and drink. Still, other vignettes include Robin’s successful masquerade as a lowly archer who wins the grand prize at the Sheriff of Nottingham’s Archery Tournament.
For me, the reason very few heroes surpass Robin Hood is based on his innumerable qualities. He’s a superior fighter with bow, sword or staff. He’s blessed with a wonderful wit and impressive leadership capabilities. He wins over the girl with his charm. He gets to live out in the forest with his best friends, eating great food. But most of all, he’s a rebel with a heart of gold, robbing the rich to feed the poor.
It’s a B-picture title to be sure but with Robert Siodmak and such an ensemble, this is an enticing noir all the same. The well-to-do Quincy family of small-town America are an odd bunch, still holding onto their surname with pride as they slowly drift further and further into obscurity within the walls of their old mansion.
The dominating sister Letty, played by Geraldine Fitzgerald, is more aloof in her ways, veiling everything with a conviction that what she does, she does for the good of her brother. But it’s all really due to the fact that she cannot bear to let him go. In this way, she’s constantly controlling his life and undermining his happiness. She’s hardly your typical femme fatale, more cultured and refined than most, but there’s still something exacting about her.
4 Star Films 