Gateway Cinephiles

2007
Director: Ben Affleck
Viewed: December 27, 2007
Format: Theatrical Print

B - In a year that gave us Zodiac, I almost feel bad for other crime thrillers. David Fincher’s masterpiece is a hard act to follow. Despite the long shadow over the genre in 2007, however, Gone Baby Gone stands as a remarkably effective work, shot through with flashes of genuine virtuosity. It’s a sleek slice of noir filmmaking that showcases the flowering talent of Casey Affleck and a captivating, blistered performance from Amy Ryan. Just as interesting is what the film portends for the future work of its director, an Oscar-winning screenwriter who does a bit of acting on the side. You may have heard of him? Ben Affleck?

Set in the multi-ethnic working-class Boston neighborhood of Dorchester, Gone Baby Gone chronicles the efforts of young private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro, hired to search for Amanda McCready, a missing four-year-old girl. Kenzie and Gennaro are a far cry from the hardboiled gumshoes of a previous era. Skinny local kids, they’ve built a middle class life in a shabby, crime-plagued urban neighborhood by finding people that the police can’t—or won’t—find. Kenzie is a deceptively confident and upright guy, but he lives in a shadowy territory where his drug dealer contacts sometimes request his assistance on questionable errands. Gennaro is Kenzie’s backup, not quite his equal in their dangerous line of work, but capable of selfless fortitude when it is required of her. Their effectiveness as investigators is rooted in their familiarity and attachment to their neighborhood, but their reputation as local do-gooders has its drawbacks.

Casey Affleck shines for the second time this year, bringing sensitivity and credibility to Kenzie from unlikely angles. It’s nothing close to his career-defining turn in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, but his presence is a haunted, sharply outlined upgrade to nearly every scene. Amy Ryan is sweeping year-end awards left and right for her portrayal of Amanda’s mother Helene, a broken, repulsive woman, full of juvenile defiance. I haven’t seen many reviewers note the commendable physicality of Ryan’s performance, which is entirely believable and never garish. She disappears into the role, but credit is also due to the wonderfully written part itself, which forgoes abrupt character turns for moments of authentic revelation. The casting of Morgan Freeman has lately become a lazy shortcut to paternal credibility. It’s therefore a small pleasure to see his police captain evolve into a more complicated character as the film plays out.

Gone Baby Gone is one of five novels by Dorchester native Dennis Lehane that feature Kenzie and Gennaro. In terms of its story and structure, the film is fairly unremarkable, and in more mercenary hands it might have dipped into outright banality. Granted, what Lehane’s tale does well, it does extraordinarily well. Namely, it utilizes the ambiguous, gritty conventions of hardboiled fiction to grapple with the place of children in America’s urban wastelands (both material and moral). It’s a shame, then, that those same conventions drag Gone Baby Gone down in places, rendering it inert whenever the filmmakers and performers go through the obligatory crime drama motions. The truth becomes extremely convoluted as the film progresses. It marches through successive tiers of exposition and flashbacks that border on tiresome in order to reach its resolution. Fortunately, that resolution is ultimately satisfying and vital to Gone Baby Gone’s thrust.

First time director Ben Affleck exhibits a steady and oddly seasoned hand in realizing the cruel themes and clear sense of place from the source material. The native Affleck has obvious affection for blue-collar Boston, warts and all, and he focuses his sentimentality to good effect here. It finds resonance in Gone Baby Gone’s fascination with locality and its entangling effect on devotion and responsibility. Affleck displays a modest, performer-centered style that echoes that most un-auteur of American auteurs, Clint Eastwood. Affleck is keenly aware that he is sketching a grubby moral rumination. While his private eye protagonists are endangered, often dizzyingly so, he skillfully focuses the tension on Amanda’s fate and the nagging ache of unresolved mystery, rather than on Kenzie and Gennaro themselves. Gone Baby Gone’s cinematographer and frequent Cameron Crowe collaborator John Toll has some duds on his record, but his bragging rights include visual triumphs such as The Last Samurai and The Thin Red Line. In Gone Baby Gone, Toll blends the tenebrous, greasy-gothic qualities of Fincher with the Michael Mann’s cool, pitiless eye for urban landscapes.

The admirable performances and Ben Affleck’s confident direction elevate Gone Baby Gone above rote crime drama strictures. It’s a refreshing inaugural accomplishment from Affleck, and a tantalizing peek at his talent for empathetic and vigorous storytelling.

2007
Director: Jason Reitman
Viewed: December 26, 2007
Format: Theatrical Print

A - What to make of Juno? The second comedy this year about unplanned pregnancy, Juno aims for a far trickier target than does its fratboy cousin, Knocked Up. Judd Apatow’s film was elevated by its perceptive and sensitive script, even as it coaxed forth conventional belly-laughs. Director Jason Reitman takes a riskier and altogether different track with Juno, plunging headfirst into a screenplay so densely packed with verbal acrobatics and hipster lingo that it risks unintentional self-parody. It might have, that is, if Diablo Cody’s script hadn’t also delivered such startling sucker-punches of genuine humanity, if the actors weren’t one of the best comedic ensemble casts I’ve seen in years, and if Reitman hadn’t brought it all together with such graceful efficiency and engrossing whimsy.

The comedy in Juno is of an unusual breed, more likely to elicit guffaws and gape-mouthed smiles of disbelief than hearty laughter. The dialogue comes very fast and brimming with puns and slang, forgoing realism for pure linguistic spectacle. To dub it “quirky” seems a woeful understatement and an abuse of the term. Juno’s characters have neither the sedate quality of Wes Anderson’s playthings nor the gawky nerd-chic of Napoleon Dynamite and its imitators. They are closer kin to Ghost World’s Enid, although unlike Clowes’ heroine, Juno MacGuff fortunately has a circle of friends and relatives who appreciate her and share her wry outlook. While Juno’s dialogue is undeniably amusing to absorb, such self-aware, brainy cuteness might have grown irritating after an hour and a half. Fortunately, Juno has so much going for it that its sins of excess on this count recede, becoming just another facet of its remarkable personality.

In her biographical details, sixteen-year-old Juno MacGuff is an improbable, even fantastical, creature. She possesses the intellect, wit, and tastes of a woman twice her age, declaring her adoration for the music of Patti Smith and the films of Dario Argento. She wields a hefty dose of prickly wit, but as a character she is ultimately so good-natured and industrious that it’s a hard not to fall in love with her. Following a bored Saturday night that culminates in sex with her best friend, Paulie, Juno finds herself pregnant. Turned off by an impersonal, grubby abortion clinic, she elects to give the impending baby to a childless couple. Despite her fierce mind, Juno is still emotionally immature and woefully naive. She imagines handing over the child after nine months, and everything returning to normal afterwards.

Of course, nothing turns out as predicted, for Juno or the audience. It’s so easy to get lost in the razzle-dazzle of Cody’s dialogue that her original, moving take on this well-tread melodrama sneaks up on you. Indeed, she may be counting on this. For all its Vaudeville punchiness, the joys of Juno lie in the unconventional and powerful places its characters take us. Juno’s parents are middle-class, middle-aged goofballs, but their family crisis reveals strength of character and experiential wisdom that Juno never anticipated. Vanessa and Mark, the wealthy couple that Juno chooses to parent her offspring, are initially utilized for humor—her via her yuppie perfectionism, him via his man-child misery. Yet perhaps more than any other characters, they travel along unexpected trajectories as the story unfolds. With the adoptive parents in the wings, the forthcoming infant is not a catastrophe for Juno and Paulie, but the fact of the pregnancy sets their relationship on a tipping point.

Reitman exhibits a smart, limber direction; as an example of comedic storytelling, Juno is essentially perfect. Nothing feels out of place, and every scene serves to move the narrative along at pace that feels simultaneously measured and completely natural. This is all too rare a thing in modern comedies, which often unwisely stretch the half-hour sitcom blueprint into a feature length film. Reitman employs a production design that is intensely textured and one degree off from naturalistic. There is enough realism to convince, but enough odd detail to captivate. Juno’s home, for example, has a cluttered, lived-in quality, with minutiae that unobtrusively match her family’s history and Midwestern character.

Much of Juno’s appeal lies in its uniformly strong cast. Ellen Page, liberated from the moral thorns that studded Hard Candy, shines with playfulness and geek-girl sexuality as Juno. Given that she does it so well, Page could have confined her performance to ninety minutes of smirking sarcasm. Instead she infuses Juno with lively sparks and vulnerable teen angst that, while familiar, are utterly believable. As Paulie, Michael Cera brings the same sublime, muttering discomfort he showcased in Superbad, but with a bit more sweetness. Cera is skilled at conjuring the awkwardness and beauty of adolescence, but I’m nevertheless eager to see him develop further as a comedic actor. The list of engaging performances goes on an on: Olivia Thirlby as Juno’s enthusiastic, loyal friend Leah; J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney as the bewildered, protective father and stepmother; Jason Bateman as Mark, striking notes of childish aimlessness, college-boyfriend charm, and unseemly attraction; and a completely astonishing Jennifer Garner as Vanessa, who enters the film as a Stepford kill-joy and evolves into its most sympathetic character.

To me, it seems that the widespread critical fascination with Juno’s quips and eccentric turns of phrase misses the mark. The snap and crackle of its funky wit is its most noticeable feature, but also its most trifling. Like the bountiful crop of freckles on the beautiful girl next door, Juno’s sardonic sensibility might be distracting to some suitors. Good riddance, I say. Juno perfectly executes the parameters of a family comedy for the twenty-first century, and then transcends them. She’s sweet, soft, and smart, and she’ll still be your best friend in the morning.