Vladimir Rakhmanin
Staff Writer
In Part I, I reviewed the first five nominees for Best Picture – The Artist, The Descendants, Hugo, Midnight in Paris, and Tree of Life. In Part II, I will cover the remaining four films – Moneyball, War Horse, The Help, and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.
Moneyball
My original reaction to Moneyball was not a positive one. For one, it was a sports film – the genre, which holds such classics as Jerry Maguire, has recently left me cold, with the inclusion of (in my opinion) weaker films such as The Blind Side. It was also about baseball, a sport which is extremely unpopular here in Europe. It’s easier for us to relate to films about American football due to the sport’s vague resemblances to rugby – the closest thing we have to baseball here is rounders.
Nevertheless, no matter what your preference in sport is, Moneyball is a fascinating glimpse into an industry that mostly works outside the eyes of the public – and how one man tried to change it. Based on a true story, this dialogue-heavy film is tells the story of an unsuccessful baseball team, which suddenly claimed a streak of twenty wins under the watchful eyes of a GM (Brad Pitt) and his unlikely advisor (Jonah Hill). The majority of the film is a captivating discussion of intuition vs. statistics, as Brad Pitt’s character attempts to rebuild his team using a new scientific approach. The enthusiasm of the leading pair is really infectious, and the many arguments that they have with the ‘old-timers’ on the Board of Directors are very interesting to listen to.
The acting is fantastic. Brad Pitt, whom I’ve come to respect a lot over the past years, once again transforms into a new character with ease. The final scene, involving the key choice that his character has to make, is one of the most genuinely emotional things I’ve seen this year. Jonah Hill, who is usually a favourite for raunchy teen comedies such as Superbad, is surprisingly good in his first dramatic role – his nomination for Best Supporting Actor is well deserved.
The films main weakness is unavoidable – the fact that this is a true story makes the plot a little muddled. A backstory into Brad Pitt’s character is essential to make us sympathise with him, but the way it’s presented is a little confusing. Nevertheless, these slight problems don’t detract from what is a great drama, and a solid sports film.
War Horse
Based on Michael Morpurgo’s novel, War Horse is a story of a young boy’s friendship with his horse, Joey, during World War I, and what occurs when Joey is sold into the army by the boy’s father. Yes, you read that correctly. Now, I have not read the book or seen the play, so I’m not sure how the story is dealt with there, but the film version was a recipe for disaster. The story seemed completely preposterous – when the trailer hit YouTube, I thought it was some kind of joke. But then I saw who was directing.
Steven Spielberg has been working overtime this year, producing films such as the massively underrated Super 8, and directing films like the excellent Tintin. If anyone could have transformed a sentimental animal story into a war epic, it was him. And that he did.
For a start, the attention to detail is magnificent. Every set that appears in the film looks like a window into the past. The colour palette is great, as well – lush green fields contrast with hellish blacks and browns of the battlefield. The war scenes are masterfully done; it’s no surprise, though – this is coming from the man who directed the Omaha beach scene in Saving Private Ryan. The scale and scope of the production reminded me of films of a bygone time – a certain cavalry charge clearly takes inspiration from the classic Lawrence of Arabia.
While this is clearly not Best Picture material, and it may not fully portray the horrors of war, War Horse is a very good large scale war epic, over the course of which Spielberg does the impossible – he makes the audience feel as much towards the titular horse as for the actual soldiers fighting the war.
The Help
Based on the 2009 smash hit novel, The Help is the story of the rise of the Civil Rights movement during the 1960s. This is a proper film, with a proper story, and characters. In world where Hollywood is so preoccupied with cheap thrills and completely incoherent plots, it’s a refreshing to see a film that tells a full story, from beginning to end, that is pretty engaging all the way throughout.
The main draw to the film is the acting. Performances from Emma Stone, Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer are all great. The Academy clearly thought so, too, as both Davis and Spencer are nominated for Best Supporting Actress. The intentionally bright colour scheme is fun, giving the film an all-round pleasant look.
No matter how well done the film is, though, there are quite a lot of faults here once we dig beneath the surface. For a start, the plot, even though it is very engaging, suffers from serious Hollywood-ization. The sympathetic characters are very two-dimensional, with clear heroes and villains. This probably wouldn’t have been much of a problem if the filmmakers hadn’t decided to choose such an emotionally-charged theme. Instead of a proper look at racism in the 1960s, we get the ‘Disneyland-meets-Oprah-funfair-tour’ version.
Also, a certain culinary surprise clearly doesn’t belong in the film. While payback against the villains definitely has to be shown on-screen, I’m not sure why it has to be so vile, and clashing with the film’s tone.
I don’t expect The Help to win Best Picture in any situation – there are simply too many better films competing for the award. I do think, however, that Davis and Spencer have a shot at Best Supporting Actress. Even if it is a slightly ‘dumbed-down’ version of the civil rights movement, it’s still a fun way to spend an afternoon.
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
And now we come to the black sheep of this year’s nominees. Currently the lowest reviewed of all the potential Best Pictures, this is a story of a young boy named Oskar, whose father dies in the 9/11 disaster. A year after his death, Oskar finds a key in his father’s vase, which he believes is part of a scavenger hunt that his father left him to complete.
The intro sequence is the best part of the film. It consists of a slow motion shot of a man falling from the towers against a blue backdrop, as the title slowly appears on the screen. I was so impressed with it, that I was very close to getting angry at all the reviewers who panned the film – but then the protagonist began to speak. Thomas Horn is not a bad actor – it’s just that Oskar, his character, is unbelievably obnoxious and annoying. Every time the pretentious voice-overs with elaborate metaphors about the sun and God knows what else started, I felt an immediate urge to leave the cinema. Lines that are meant to be funny, in particular the ‘banter’ between Oskar and the receptionist, who is played by John Goodman, come across as witless, and, even worse, disrespectful when compared to the melancholic tone of the rest of the film.
A certain montage of quickly edited shots, which I’m sure must have worked well in the novel on which the film is based on, is the most unintentionally hilarious scene in the film. Oskar’s shouts of incoherent sentences about ‘loud things’ have zero emotional charge, and the scene simply looks ridiculous.
What hurts the most is the exploitative nature of the film. Many films about tragic world events have appeared years after the event had occurred – Platoon, for example, which was shot in the mid-eighties, years after the Vietnam War had ended. It’s about time that we got a proper 9/11 film – instead, we get sloppy melancholic drivel. It’s depressing to think of the films that could have appeared in the category in Extremely Loud…’s place (Drive, We Need To Talk About Kevin). This is indeed a black mark on what is otherwise a fairly decent list of nominees.
