Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a pair of reviews for a couple flicks that have played Toronto that haven't gotten much coverage yet. The first is AMERICAN GUN, a rather fantastic sounding film. The second is THUMBSUCKER, a quirky indie flick that got a lot of good buzz out of Sundance earlier this year. Enjoy!
Hi, Harry
Longtime reader, first review ever, yadda-yadda. I'm in Toronto for the festival, working for a company that I cannot name that has several films here this year. Anyways, one of my colleagues decided to go chase Canadian women instead of do their job earlier tonight and so I got kicked down a pair of tickets to a film that I knew very little about: AMERICAN GUN.
And so, here I sit in my hotel room, pondering the unexpectedly affecting experience that I just had. This is a small film from a first-time director named Aric Avelino, who's a young black filmmaker from Orange County, California, who looked to be in his mid-twenties. Avelino co-wrote the screenplay with Steven Bagatourian, who looked like he was about the same age. The movie was produced by IFC Films and the cast is superb: Whitaker himself, Marcia Gay-Harden, Donald Sutherland, Nikki Reed, Tony Goldwyn, and a whole lotta other familiar faces. Blink and you'll miss the magnificent Melissa Leo, formerly Detective Kay Howard on the greatly missed HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREET, here playing Harden's best friend. Also deserving of major attention are Arlen Escarpeta and Chris Marquette, a pair of young actors who I'm not familiar with, but both of whom deliver searing performances in parts that demand a lot of them.
Rather than try and sum up the sprawling, multi-layered plot (it's complicated as hell, but it involves a Columbine-style shooting and its lasting effect on a small town, three years later... Okay, that's only one of the three locations profiled in the film, but it's far too late right now for me to get into the rest of it). I'd really rather discuss my emotional and critical reactions to the story itself, without giving anything away. Basically, in a rather ambitious, Altman-esque fashion, AMERICAN GUN draws a series of parallel portraits of characters who all come from vastly different parts of America and seemingly have very little in common. Slowly, we begin to see common threads emerge: none of these people can communicate with their loved ones. And the guns that haunt this movie like specters are not singled out as the sole cause of these characters' misery, but rather they are presented as symptoms of problems that go far deeper. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the guns in the film seem to function as metaphors, and do so quite effectively.
This is not at all a violent film, at least not in the traditional sense. It is, however, violently emotional. At times, especially in the scenes between Harden and Marquette, the levels of naked emotion on display are unusually frank and viscerally disturbing. I'm sure that many reviewers will draw obvious comparisons between this movie and TRAFFIC or CRASH, and one can see why, but that wouldn't be fair to the unique energy and spirit of AMERICAN GUN. The dialogue has a naturalistic, unscripted quality to it that seems all too rare in contemporary American cinema. There's a smattering of funny lines and the dialogue is smart and punchy throughout, but rarely does it feel "written." It has the realism and stark naturalism of KIDS, coupled with a well-edited story that has an abundance of fantastic, unforgettable scenes. Harden's portrayal as the mother of a Columbine-like high school shooter is a devastating, painful thing to watch. But even through all of this undeniably dark and heavy territory, the film stayed compulsively watchable to me and though it has a slow, 70's-style rhythm to it, the movie is damn sharp, with very little fat to it at all. To speak in the parlance of children's breakfast cereal metaphors, the story seems to be just about all "crunch berries," if you will.
After the film, Avelino was funny and articulate, emphasizing that his movie was about people, not guns. And he's right. AMERICAN GUN is not some dry polemic about gun control, which is kind of what I was expecting going in. Rather, it's an emotionally wrenching, exquisitely shot, uniquely American story, that offers a stellar example of smart, complex American cinema. Okay, that's all. I'm off to bed now. If you can use this, please just call me Almond Boy. Thanks, Harry.
Thanks for the review, man. This next one is a little lite on opinion and detail, but I'm still greatly anticipating the flick!
hi harry,
i just saw thumbsucker last night at the toronto film festival. i have to say after sitting through john torturro's musical romance and cigarettes (which i could get into but won't because it just made me ancey for two hours), thumbsucker was a great surprise for first time feature director mike mills.
it's a bit hard to describe but the main character justin (lou pucci, i think) is a 17-year old with a thumbsucking problem. his parents which were played by a great cast of vincent d'onofrio and tilda swinton try different ways to get him to stop but it isn't until his hippie dentist, keannu reaves hypnotizes him and gets him to stop that things really get going.
the story is simple enough about a kid who wants to fit in, be responsible, please his parents, make good and all of that. but the way in which it happens and the consequences of how he gets there are really the exiting and interesting part of it. i won't spoil it too much, but drugs play a big part that helps justin really start to explore and gain confidence. vince vaughan has a small role as a debating club teacher in the high school. he's got his funny moments as vince usually does but he is also playing against type as the "teacher" and "mentor".
benjamin bratt has a tiny and kind of useless role. could have really been anyone. but all in all, a great flick worth seeing when it opens in wide release. oh yah. and don't bother seeing romance and cigarettes.
if you use this you can just call me joel. that's me after all.
