June 26 - July 2
The Monster, On Body and Soul, Locke
- The Monster [2016] - 44
The Monster is a metaphor film. Similar to things like The Babadook, it’s not really a monster movie. Dissimilar to The Babadook, The Monster is poorly acted, frustratingly told, and ultimately entirely forgettable. While I understand what the creators were going for with this and the pieces are there if you want them to be, the way the story is told simply isn’t engaging enough to suggest the audience should be doing the extra legwork to puzzle it out.
- On Body and Soul [2017] - 62
Some movies have all the right ideas, then keep adding more and more… and more. On Body and Soul is a very cute movie at it’s core: Two people learn they are sharing the same dream and investigate what it means when their subconscious minds seem to be tied together. He is a stern foreman, she is an awkward outcast who doesn’t know how to people very well. It’s got the makings of a great romance and the female lead is absolutely fantastic. The problem is that the film never decides on a tone. There are extremely graphic parts [slaughtering of a cow, an attempted suicide], laugh out loud funny parts [her telling her therapist she’s trying to learn about human interaction by watching porn - “I’ve watched two or three series, I think I’m starting to understand.”], and there are some genuinely touching moments like when she practices her conversations the next day using Lego people as stand-ins. It all ends up being a confused mess that doesn’t really mean anything, and that’s entirely too bad.
- Locke [2013] - 92
I’m a fan of “single location” films in general. I think they’re interesting and the creativity that has to be put on display to make them work is often fun, even when the film falls a little flat. 2013’s Locke, however, is anything but flat, though it is incredibly simple. For 85 minutes you will go on a car ride with Tom Hardy. He will call his wife and have a difficult conversation, call his boss and a coworker while sorting through a major work issue, and he will call someone to whom he owes a bit of grace. That’s it. And yet… this film is absolutely brilliant. Hardy sells the roll and the reality of his situation with a subtle performance that exemplifies what it means to be quietly emotional, the writing is genuine, and the entire thing has a strangely authentic air to it that makes what should be an entirely boring film something that I’d easily recommend to almost anyone.
