Quick Take: Rifkin's Festival

 

I wasn't sure I was allowed to like Rifkin's Festival. For that matter, I'm not sure I was even supposed to watch it. These days, choosing to participate in the release of a Woody Allen film - whether by acting in it or just paying to see it - comes with a built-in moral dilemma. Whatever decision you make, it's somehow considered to reflect your belief about whether the director molested Dylan Farrow.

Frankly, Rifkin's Festival is too lightweight and inoffensive a film to bear that kind of moral weight. At it's best, it evokes the kind of longing and romantic preoccupations that characterized Allen's films of the '70s and '80s.

Mort Rifkin (Wallace Shawn) is a writer and former film studies professor married to a movie industry PR rep (Gina Gershon). He tags along with her to the San Sebastian film festival where she's preoccupied with the young, hot French film director whose PR she handles (Louis Garrel). Rifkin believes Garrel's new film is pretentious and overpraised; he also believes his wife may be having a affair with her client. Feeling a little queasy, he seeks out a doctor, Joanna Rojas (Elena Anaya), who shares his intense love of  classic European film and with whom he begins a rather sweet, wistful flirtation. And when Mort sleeps, his dreams are scenes from his favorite European films, but with his wife, friends and family members playing all the parts.

It's those dream sequences that make the film, skillful reproductions of famous moments from Breathless, 8 1/2, Jules and Jim, The Exterminating Angel and others, but tweaked and played for laughs. The 8 1/2 parody is every bit as visually sumptuous and exciting as the corresponding scene in Fellini's masterwork, and a parody of  Bergman's Persona  - with Gershon and Anaya in tortured, overlapping extreme close-up -  made me laugh out loud twice in the space of about 20 seconds. (It's every bit as funny as the corresponding Persona parody played by Diane Keaton and Jessica Harper in Love and Death, yet the premise is completely different.). 

Shawn is particularly good here, playing what is essentially a stand-in for Allen himself - or at least, the characters Allen used to play. There's more warmth and yearning in his performance than there is neurosis; he makes a potentially very annoying character into a likable and sympathetic man. He and Anaya establish a lovely chemistry that had me seriously rooting for them to wind up together. And the beautiful shots of San Sebastian, Spain only add to the romantic vibe - more great work from cinematographer Vittorio Storaro.

So that's the best of Rifkin's Festival. At its worst... well, its disappointments are pretty much the same as those in most of Allen's decreasingly satisfying recent work.  Too often, the dialogue feels as though it came from a rough draft rather than a finished script, with actors delivering large chunks of plot exposition as if giving junior high book reports on the situations they're portraying. (Douglas McGrath's delivery of the doctor's back story is a particularly glaring example). And even though his characters have cell phones, Allen still hasn't figured out how they actually work. When Shawn asks McGrath for the doctor's home phone number - even though both men are clutching their phones at that moment- McGrath fumbles for a pen and piece of paper to write the number down.)

And that moment with the confusion over the cell phones isn't the only scene in Rifkin's Festival that feels like it was written by your out-of-touch, politically incorrect grandpa. There are throwaway moments here and there that made me cringe a little. (In one, a very attractive young woman - we'd have called her a 'starlet' back in the day - is offered the role of Hannah Arendt by a lascivious film producer. It doesn't play well on this side of the Me Too movement, even though Allen's intentions are benign.)  However, I'm not inclined to quibble over the occasional moments of outdated humor. At 86, Allen is still managing to crank out a movie a year, which is a remarkable thing. He may not have another Annie Hall or Crimes and Misdemeanors in him. But if we can get a few more Rifkin's Festivals, I won't complain.

2021 in Review: These are Not the Best Films of 2021 (or are they?)

 

This is the final post in a series looking back at film and television in the past year. Previous entries in this series can be found here, here and here.

Before we get to this year's list, a couple of standard disclaimers:

Why is this list called "NOT the best films of 2021"?

Because, as my blog title proclaims, I am a PART-TIME cinephile. I am not a professional film critic, just a cinema-loving civilian, so to speak. I don't prioritize seeing every single movie out there to the exclusion of time spent with friends, family or other interests. If a particular film doesn't appeal to me at all, I feel no compulsion to follow critics' recommendations to see it. (And when I do, I frequently regret it. Last week, I watched the Palme D'or-winning Titane, a movie that takes the cinematic "body horror" genre to a whole new level of gory depravity. It can't even tell you how badly I want those two hours of my life back.)

Not that I didn't make a solid effort: I saw 104 of the films that were released last year, and that's a personal record of which I'm ridiculously proud. But it's still only about half of what a professional film critic would see in any given year, and I never got around to a number of the year's best reviewed titles. (These would include The Green Knight; Cry Macho; The Disciple; This is Not a Burial, It's a Resurrection, Zola and Red Rocket.)  A few others (Drive My Car, Memoria, The Souvenir Part 2) had only brief, late-December runs at arthouse theaters in Chicago neighborhoods I no longer visit after dark. (Or during daylight hours, for that matter. Google "Chicago crime rates" to learn more.)

Which brings us to the second standard disclaimer on my year-end posts:

The eligibility requirement for consideration on my list is that the film must have entered general release in the Chicago area during the calendar year of 2021. (Film festival screenings alone don't count.) This means that some films generally considered to be from 2020 were considered for my 2021 list.  (among them Nomadland, The Father, Promising Young Woman, The United States vs. Billie Holliday) It also means that some 2021 films, which either opened here just this week or are yet to arrive (Parallel Mothers, Flee, Petite Maman, Cyrano, The Worst Person in the World) will be considered for my 2022 list.

And there is yet another disclaimer that I haven't applied before. It's been a very emotional year for me. I inherited my deep love of movies from my father who passed away in 2020, and I've felt his loss even more acutely this year, especially as I've watched so many movies he loved - or would have loved, if he'd lived to see them. As I'll explain in some of my capsule reviews, I've found it difficult to sit back and look at films with a cool, critical eye this year. I've chosen a fair number of my favorites based on my intense emotional reactions alone.

In spite of all that, however, I think you'll find that the list below doesn't look all that different from most professional critics' "Best of 2021" selections. So perhaps, despite my limitations and periodic laziness, these really are the best movies of the previous year.

I've included 'where to stream' information for all ten entries; "Available to rent on the usual platforms" is shorthand for 'Amazon, Apple, Google Play, Redbox and Vudu.'

In reverse order of preference:

Pig (directed by Michael Sarnoski)

I haven't seen a Nicholas Cage film in years (hyper-violent schlock doesn't much appeal to me). And when I heard that Cage was a playing a disheveled hermit whose life comes apart when his beloved pet pig is stolen, I can't say I was eager to end my long run of Cage abstinence.  But the respectful, even rapturous, reviews for Pig piqued my curiosity, and I have to say, those reviewers were correct. Cage's performance is superbly measured, suffused with melancholy and tightly controlled anger. Not just any actor  - let alone one whose character is unshaven, unwashed, dressed in rags and bleeding profusely from multiple face wounds -  can convincingly summon the quiet moral authority to shame and intimidate a celebrated chef in his own restaurant. Have I piqued your curiosity now?

Pig is available to stream on Hulu with a subscription or to rent on the usual platforms.

The Last Duel (directed by Ridley Scott)

Ridley Scott made two movies this year; House of Gucci may have brought in more box office receipts, but this is the better film.  The setting is 14th century France.  Matt Damon and Adam Driver are knights (or squires? I'm still a little fuzzy on their titles.) Damon is a bit of a doofus whose loses the king's respect, but still manages to marry a beautiful woman with a sizable dowry (Jodie Comer). Driver, the far savvier member of the court, parties with the apparent Hugh Hefner of the 14th century French nobility (an unrecognizably blond Ben Affleck, providing comic relief), but yearns for Damon's wife. So while Damon is away, Driver stops by his estate and basically helps himself to Comer. Was she raped? We get three versions of the story - one each from Damon's, Driver's and Comer's point of view. This conceit works remarkably well, with subtle as well as obvious differences in nuance and inflection in each telling. Much as I hate to employ cliches, I truly was on the edge of my seat as that last duel was fought to determine Driver's guilt or innocence (because, especially in those days, a woman’s testimony counted for nothing.) Medieval history meets the Me Too movement, with a particularly fine script by Damon, Affleck and Nicole Holofcener. 

The Last Duel is available to stream on HBO platforms with a subscription or to rent on the usual platforms.

Mass (directed by Fran Kranz)

Probably the hardest to watch of any film on this list, but the writing and acting are so exceptional that it's worth the effort. In a church basement, two couples meet to talk. One couple are the parents of a boy killed in a school shooting; the other are the parents of the shooter.  The conversation is tense, emotional - and ultimately breaks through to forgiveness and shared sorrow, well befitting its church setting even though God is never directly invoked.  The actors - Ann Dowd, Martha Plimpton, Jason Isaacs and Reed Birney - all do stunning, exceptional work. Mass will leave you emotionally shredded, but also awed by what it achieves.

Mass is available to rent on the usual platforms.

The Hand of God (directed by Paolo Sorrentino)

You can read my rapturous review from the Chicago International Film Festival here. I don't have much more to say, except to confirm my love for this film, even without the big screen experience. I've since re-watched in on Netflix and it held up beautifully. I particularly love Sorrentino's incarnation of his own family - their humor, their naughtiness and obvious love for one another other are a joy to witness.

The Hand of God  is available to stream only on Netflix with a subscription.

Annette (directed by Leos Carax)

No one has a lukewarm reaction to Annette. You either give yourself over fully to its surreal, grand operatic styling or you declare it irredeemably bonkers and turn it off in disgust. Obviously, I'm in the first camp, but even I can admit that it may be the year's weirdest movie. (Even considering that it lost the top prize at Cannes to the story of a young woman who has sex with a car and ends up pregnant. See my disdain for Titane expressed above.) Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard play, respectively, an iconoclastic stand-up comic and a opera singer who fall in love and have a baby (the titular Annette) who is played by an animated puppet. Simon Helberg (best known as Howard from The Big Bang Theory) has a very affecting supporting role as the orchestra conductor who yearns for Cottilard. If I didn't tip you off sufficiently with the above reference to grand opera, this is an entirely sung-through musical with a few infectious, memorable tunes, but mostly just dialogue sung as recitative. (The opening number, May We Now Start,  had damn well better get a Best Song Oscar nomination.)  Annette has a little to say about say about toxic masculinity, and a little more to say about parents who use their children to fulfill their own needs without ever seeing them for who they really are. But, mostly, it's just consumed with its own crazy/glorious vision.

Annette is available to stream only on Amazon Prime Video with a subscription.

West Side Story (directed by Steven Spielberg)

I have found it impossible to process my feelings about this film in any kind of intellectual terms. My reaction to West Side Story is purely emotional. This is the first of two films on this list which brought me to tears, repeatedly, without me being able to fully understand why I was crying. Sometimes I think it was just because I’d forgotten how beautiful that Leonard Bernstein score really was. But in other scenes, I felt my heart swelling with joy (most notably during the America number, which in this version spills out into the streets and ultimately gets the whole neighborhood dancing.) I know as a critic, I'm supposed to to put my emotions aside and look carefully and analytically at whether the revisions made by Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner actually make sense or enhance the original musical in any important way. I can’t do that with a cool eye, but my heart tells me they succeeded.

West Side Story is not yet available on streaming. A streaming release date has not yet been announced.

Licorice Pizza (directed by Paul Thomas Anderson)

To quote my own thoughts from my previous post (re: the French film One Sings, the Other Doesn't): "Sometimes the best recommendation for a film is that its characters are just fun to hang out with." That's definitely the appeal of Licorice Pizza. Its cast is headed up by two fine young actors; both are charming and instantly likable, but neither is intimidatingly beautiful. They look and act like people you might actually know. Cooper Hoffman (son of the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman) and Alana Haim stumble through a year or so of adventures and misadventures around the fringes of the early 70s Hollywood scene.  There's not much plot to speak of, just an amiable rambling from experience to experience. There are fun cameos from Sean Penn and Christine Ebersole as barely fictionalized versions of William Holden and Lucille Ball respectively, plus a screamingly funny one from Bradley Cooper as hairdresser-turned-producer Jon Peters. Only in this case, Peters' identity is in no way camouflaged.  This week, Bradley Cooper told Stephen Colbert that Jon Peters made it possible for him to finance his version of A Star is Born by deferring his own fee. (Peters had been a producer on the Barbra Streisand version.) I wonder how he feels about seeing Cooper portray him as angry macho dickhead who seduces women by offering to make them peanut butter sandwiches.

Licorice Pizza is not yet available on streaming. A streaming release date has not yet been announced.

Nomadland (directed by Chloe Zhao)

This is a sad story. But when I remember the film, it's not the sadness I think about, but rather its beauty. The gorgeous musical score and the breathtaking cinematography that takes in so many natural wonders of the western United States. The sense of community that develops between the modern-day nomads who have lost their homes and live out of their vans and trucks, while eking out meager livings from temporary service jobs.  Many of the characters in the film are real-life nomads who are profiled in the non-fiction book on which it is based. I've not read the book myself, but people who have read it assure me that their actual lives are a good deal more dire and hardscrabble than the film version fully depicts. Still, I respect Chloe Zhao for finding something transcendent in the lives of people whose hardships we barely know. She turns the story into visual poetry, anchored by a reliably brilliant performance by Frances McDormand.

Nomadland is available to stream on Hulu with a subscription or to rent on the usual platforms.

Belfast (directed by Kenneth Branagh)

Here is the second film on this list to have brought me to tears, repeatedly. Belfast is a lot of things, all at once, seamlessly interwoven with one another: a child's-eye version of life in a Belfast neighborhood at the start of The Troubles; a warm-hearted, autobiographical reminiscence of family life; and (least predictably) a window into a film director's earliest formative influences. (In Branagh's case, they range from John Ford westerns to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.) It's shot in impeccable black-and-white by cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos and acted to perfection by a cast including Judi Dench, Ciaran Ciaran Hinds, Jamie Dornan and Outlander's Caitriona Balfe. It's sweet and sentimental, but never cloying. As with West Side Story, I find it nearly impossible to convey my appreciation of this beautiful film in intellectual terms alone; it, too, worked its magic directly on my heart.

Belfast is available to rent on the usual platforms. (However, as of 1/16, premium pricing is still in effect which means a two-day rental will run you $19.99.)

The Power of the Dog (directed by Jane Campion)

Until just a few days ago, The Power of the Dog was bouncing between second and third place on this list. Then I decided I to watch it a second time on Netflix. (I'd previously seen it on a big screen at the Chicago International film festival, as I wrote about here.) 

When I re-watch a movie - even one I really love - it's no big deal to me to hit "pause" now and then so I can go to the kitchen to make a cup of tea or fix a snack. I might even return a text or read a quick email every so often. It's not like I don't know what's gong to happen next.

But, even though I wanted to do some of those things during The Power of the Dog, I simply could not will myself to divert my attention for one millisecond.  I was too completely absorbed in every fine detail of the performances, the dialogue, the cinematography. Where my initial experience of the film was mainly about being blown away by Benedict Cumberbatch, this time I took special note of the fine, nuanced work of Kodi Smit-McPhee and Jesse Plemons. Because I already knew how the film would end, I was able to watch closely for the clues to that final, heart-stopping twist that were carefully sprinkled throughout its final chapter. It was the most rewarding second viewing of a film I can remember, and it pushed Jane Campion's magnificent psychological thriller/Western into the number one slot. Definitely the year's best film - and many 'real' critics agree!

The Power of the Dog is available to stream only on Netflix with a subscription.

A few more thoughts:

Honorable Mention: CODA, Dune, The Father, Lamb, Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time, Promising Young Woman, Quo Vadis Aida?, Supernova, Undine

2021 Nominees to the Academy of the Overrated: Titane, Spencer, The Card Counter*

(* The Card Counter was demoted from Honorable Mention last night after I watched director Paul Schrader's 1992 film Light Sleeper, which is pretty much the same movie, just set in the world of drug dealing instead of casino gambling. I had to deduct points for self-plagiarism.)

2021 in Review: The Best "Not New but New to Me" Movies I Watched

 

This is the third in a series of posts looking back on the past year in film in television.

I retired from my corporate job on December 31, 2020, in the midst of both an icy winter and the second wave of a global pandemic.  As a result, I was stuck at home with no pressing commitments during daylight hours and a very long list of classic films on my "to see" list.  Take a wild guess how I spent my time...

I watched 274 movies in 2021: 98 of these were new 2021 releases, 34 were repeat viewings of old favorites, and the remaining 142 films were pre-2021 movies I was seeing for the first time.  What follows are a list of my favorites of those discoveries - not necessarily the best of them, but those I found most memorable and that I'd watch again in a heartbeat.

In no particular order:

Unfaithfully Yours (1948; dir. Preston Sturges)

I took full advantage of the Criterion Channel's library of Preston Sturges comedy classics in early 2021.  Most I had seen before (albeit sometimes as long as forty years ago), but  Unfaithfully Yours had eluded me for years.  

My takeaway from all those Sturges films, especially this one, is how delightfully racy and adult they manage to be, even when governed by the rigors of a notoriously puritanical production code.  Unfaithfully Yours kicks off with a famous orchestra conductor (Rex Harrison) arriving home from a European tour. He's greeted at the airport by a rather large coterie of friends, but the only person he really wants to see is his wife (Linda Darnell); it's painfully obvious that he can't wait to get her in the sack.  When he finally extricates himself and Darnell from the crowd, Sturges immediately cuts to a scene of the two of them hastily tying on dressing gowns, having just arisen from a rumpled, shared bed. (They're not actually shown in the bed, that's how Sturges got away with it.)

I'd forgotten - or, more likely, never really knew - what a skillful and delightful comic actor Rex Harrison could be.  There's a whole fantasy sequence in the film's middle where Harrison imagines murdering the wife he thinks is cheating on him, along with the suspected lover. It's followed by a series of mishaps when he actually tries to actually carry out the fantasized plan. Harrison is brilliant in both.

The 1986 remake, with Dudley Moore in the Harrison role, isn't really as bad as critics claimed. But, not surprisingly, this original film is the gold standard.

The New World (2005; dir. Terrence Malick)

The gorgeous cinematography and the impressionistic emphasis on imagery over straightforward narrative is entirely to be expected from a Terence Malick film. What's unique and especially notable in this historical drama about the  romance of John Smith and Pocahontas is that most of the story is told from Pocahontas' point of view.  Colin Farrell and Q'orianka Kichler (who more recently appeared on the television series Yellowstone) play the legendary lovers, but their story is not nearly the romance of legend. Pocahontas is banished from her tribe, Smith chooses to go an expedition to the East Indies and leaves her behind.  What follows is a sometimes painful exploration of her assimilation into white European culture before finding another love and reconciling the disparate societies in which she has lived.  I really can't believe it took me so long to get to this film; it is superb.

La Piscine (1969; dir. Jacques Deray)

I watched this during the languid, sweltering final days of the summer when it was too hot to be outside but too soon to think about donning sweaters or carving pumpkins. Turns out, that was the perfect moment to appreciate its sensual pleasures. Often called 'the most stylish French film ever made," La Piscine wraps the loosest of plots around its visual delights. Chief among these is the vicarious thrill of watching gorgeous people in skimpy bathing suits languish around the pool at a luxurious vacation villa. Alain Delon and Romy Schneider, two of the most beautiful actors in European cinema (and former offscreen lovers) play host to one of Schneider's former lovers and his gangly daughter (Jane Birkin). There's sex, heartache, betrayal and intrigue - but also scenic coastline drives, Henri Courreges couture, and sumptuous poolside breakfasts. In a pandemic summer when our travel options were severely limited, this was a particularly welcome escape.

Jesus of Montreal (1989; dir. Denys Arcand)

A group of French-Canadian actors mount a outdoor production of the Passion that attracts large audiences but challenges and angers the local Catholic hierarchy. Meanwhile, the actors' lives begin to conform to the storylines of their characters, particularly the actor playing Jesus (Lothaire Bluteau, also known for his role as a Jesuit priest in a later Canadian film, Black Robe). I've always liked films or books that present fresh perspectives on the Gospels, and I found this one thoroughly engrossing, with modern allegorical takes on familiar New Testament stories that were illuminating and respectful. Interesting that writer/director Denys Arcand is a lapsed Catholic turned atheist; I wouldn't have guessed that after seeing his film.

Birth (2004; dir. Jonathan Glazer)

One of the weirdest movies I've ever seen, but unaccountably mesmerizing. Nicole Kidman plays a  widow who's about to remarry. A young boy who lives in her building shows up out of nowhere at a party in her home, claiming to be the reincarnation of her late husband.  There's a terrific extended scene of Kidman attending the opera with her fiancé which consists entirely of her in a tight close-up as she struggles to get her mind around the idea that the boy may actually be her husband. You have to see to believe it, but Kidman pulls it off beautifully. It may be the single greatest piece of acting she's ever committed to film.  There's a trancelike vibe to this film that pulls you in from the very first scene and seduces you into accepting its bizarre premise. It's like walking into someone else's dream.

Army of Shadows ( 1969; dir. Jean Pierre Melville)

Melville's tribute to the WWII French Resistance is a film about heroes that feels entirely non-heroic.  Lino Venturo plays the Nazi's most wanted Resistance fighter, but he looks and acts like a middle-aged accountant who nonchalantly signed on to a covert operation. He's almost Monty Pythone-sque at times, particularly in one sequence where he parachutes into enemy territory having no prior experience with skydiving but no discernible concern over what he's about to do.  He just gets on with it.  There are still a few nerve-shattering moments of suspense, and a fine performance by Simone Signoret as a fellow Resistance fighter, but the understated, almost detached tone of the film has the strange effect of making its characters' exploits even more honorable.

One Sings, the Other Doesn't (1977; dir. Agnes Varda)

The 1970s saw an outpouring of films about female friendship, several of which I watched in the past year, including Claudia Weill's Girlfriends and Jacque Rivette's surreal, epic-length Celine and Julie Go Boating. But I have a special fondness for this film. Although it's not among Varda's most acclaimed work, it has a pleasant, rambling vibe and highly likable performance by Valerie Mairesse as a feisty singing feminist. Her friendship with a more traditional wife and mother (Therese Liotard) is the focus of a story that underscores its subtle political points with music, humor and affection. Sometimes the best recommendation for a film is that the actors/characters are just fun to 'hang out' with. This is one of those films.

Fedora (1979; dir. Billy Wilder)

Wilder's penultimate film is a bit of a call back to his earlier classic, Sunset Boulevard. It takes awhile to find its groove; the initial scenes are uncomfortably stilted, which I think is partly attributable to the source material. (It's based on a section of Tom Tyron's Crowned Heads, a novel I found clunky and unreadable, even as a teenager.) William Holden goes in search of answers when a revered, aging film star is found dead; the story that evolves is weird, shocking - even grotesque- but ultimately tragic. The tone is more elegiac than sardonic. It's shot through with a weary sadness, as if Wilder were subtly acknowledging that the film industry as portrayed here is passing into permanent oblivion.

The Running Jumping and Standing Still Film ( 1959; dir. Richard Lester)

A delightfully daft little film - just under eleven minutes long - conceived by Peter Sellers and directed by Richard Lester (billed as Dick) just a few years before his career took off with A Hard Day's Night and other classics of swinging 60s Britain. I discovered it on the Criterion Channel around the anniversary of my father's death (that's significant because my father was a diehard Peter Sellers fan; I watched a  lot of Sellers' films that week just to feel close to Dad again.)  It's just a series of absurd comic sketches starring Sellers, Spike Milligan and a few other British actors. It's very, very funny - and shows clearly the lasting influence that Sellers and Milligan would have on Monty Python and other British comics. You can watch the whole thing here for free.

2021 In Review: Not the Best TV/Streaming Series of the Year

 

This is the second in a series of posts looking back on the past year in film and television

For the last eight years, I've been publishing my list of the year's best films under the self-deprecating moniker of "NOT the year's best films." This year, I've decided to qualify my list of the best television/streaming programming in the same cautionary way.

Frankly, I don't know how it's is possible for ANY one writer to definitively name the best television/streaming experiences of a given year, because it can't be possible for any single person to actually SEE enough of them to make that determination.  With the ever-proliferating amount of programming available through the airwaves and in cyberspace, how can any individual person cram it all in within the space of 365 days?  

My tastes ran counter to audience and critical perceptions in many cases. I tried, but could not get on board with Mare of Easttown, The Great, The Other Two or Dickinson, to name but a few. I never got around to SO many other popular shows or series that friends recommended; the unseen series include, but are not limited to: Squid Game, Yellowstone, Insecure, Call the Midwife... the list goes on and on...

As always, there are some eccentric choices here, and some you may not have heard of, but I hope I can convince you to seek some of them out.  There are a few honorable mentions - and dishonorable mentions as well - following this list.

In reverse order of preference:

10. The United States of Al (CBS)

In which an Afghan man, Al, moves to Columbus, Ohio to live with the family of a combat veteran he befriended while serving as interpreter for the US Marines.  It's asking a lot for a standard American sitcom to provide laughs within story lines about PTSD and the many controversies surrounding the US occupation of (and ill-timed exit from) Afghanistan. I'm continually surprised at how deftly and delicately this show handles the required shifts in tone.  Adhir Kalyan's Al has an appealing sweetness that thankfully stops short of outright naivete.  The humor is gentle, goofy and seldom brilliant, but the show's ability to balance difficult subject matter with earned laughs is something to cherish.

9. Women Make Film (Turner Classic Movies/Criterion Channel)

The structure of this documentary series is as unpredictable and iconoclastic as its creator, the film critic and scholar, Mark Cousins. Subtitled "A New Road Movie through Cinema," it includes a number of actresses (among them Tilda Swinton, Jane Fonda, Debra Winger and Thandie Newton) who are shown driving various vehicles down deserted roads while providing introductory narration to clips from the work of probably every woman who ever sat in a director's chair (183 directors in all). It's an almost 15-hour journey, loosely organized into 42 sections (with titles like "Tone," "Believability," "Meet Cute," "Bodies," and "Song and Dance") and it's best enjoyed over gradually over several days. A binge would probably be the cinematic equivalent of eating yourself into a coma.  In all honesty, it's probably a bit too much for casual film fans. But serious cinephiles will gobble it up, and then go looking for the full versions of all the featured films.

8. Pretend It's a City (Netflix)

I recall getting my hands on Fran Lebowitz's  first book, Metropolitan Life when I was around 18; she was acerbic and sophisticated in a way I desperately wanted to be, but secretly knew I never could. Lebowitz isn't to everyone's taste, but - like her good friend Martin Scorsese, who produced this series - I still find her curmudgeonly commentary to be absolutely hilarious.  Here she lets loose on everything and everyone, although her main subject is how New York City has changed for the worse since she first escaped there from her New Jersey hometown in the early 1970s. Lebowitz, who no longer writes, tells great stories from a bygone era that she seems to miss even more than she lets on. I think you must have spent significant time in NYC to fully appreciate this series. (I haven't; I've made 7 short trips there in the last 18 years, but had no experience of the city prior to 2004.) Nevertheless, I enjoyed her cranky commentary, especially her disdain for people who don't look where they're walking (an experience which is not unique to her city.)  If Fran's humor is your kind of humor, this a very enjoyable way to spend about 3 hours.

7. The Kominsky Method, Season 3 (Netflix)

The final season of Chuck Lorre's buddy comedy is down by one buddy, opening with the funeral of Alan Arkin's character - after which his client/best friend (Michael Douglas) learns that he is the executor of Arkin's estate. The season arc shows him dealing with Arkin's greedy offspring and enjoying an unexpected career resurgence. But the greatest joy of these final episodes is the appearance of Kathleen Turner, Douglas' frequent 80s co-star, as the ex-wife who comes back into his life. Turner and Douglas have such enjoyable chemistry whether sparring or surrendering their defenses to become friends. Seeing these two actors together again adds a bittersweet layer of nostalgia that makes this last season seem even better than it probably is.

6. Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy (CNN/HBO Max)

How many of us made it through some of the coldest, darkest days of the pandemic lockdown by vicariously traipsing though Italy and a delectable series of culinary adventures with the impeccable,  urbane Stanley Tucci as our guide?  (And how many of us winced a little when he took off his mask to get up close with cheesemakers and chefs to taste their wares? ) I'm sure I'm not the only one who created a post-COVID bucket list after watching this; mine is topped by that pasta with fried zucchini  that Tucci learned how to make from a chef on the Amalfi coast. Food porn and travel porn at their absolute best.

5. Hacks (HBO Max)

Generational clash comedy, smartly written and played. The brilliantly funny Jean Smart plays a Joan Rivers-esque comedienne whose Vegas career is winding down; a deadpan millennial (comic Hannah Einbinder) is called in to help her write new material.  They clash - repeatedly - but find their way to a productive and cooperative partnership over the course of ten episodes. This story arc may sound predictable, but a synopsis doesn't account for the delights of their chemistry, the unexpected complications in the deployment of Smart's backstory, or the surprising layers and subtlety of Einbinder's work. The women's performances ultimately fit together like (for want of a better cliché) a hand in a custom-made glove. HBO has ordered a second season; I'm looking eagerly forward to it.

4. The Handmaid's Tale, Season 4 (Hulu)

The Handmaid's Tale began, back in 2017, as a brilliant, visually stunning adaptation of Margaret Atwood's chilling dystopian novel. It then proceeded to lose credibility and strain its audience's patience over the next two seasons, losing sight of Atwood's carefully plotted logic and devolving into recurring torture porn. (Also Elizabeth Moss' June got away with a stunning series of crimes, but inexplicably evaded punishment every time.) Frankly, this season opens in the same sensationalistic mode, but quickly finds it footing when June finally gets over the border to Canada and starts processing her grief and trauma along with prior escapees. This season delves into the realities of post-traumatic stress with unflinching authenticity; June is unable to connect with her husband and undone by even a trip to the supermarket.(In a memorable scene, she stops transfixed in the potato chip aisle, unable to even comprehend the variety of chip flavors she has to choose from. After years of living on adrenaline while fighting for her daughters and her own life, it’s the mundane tasks of regular daily life that prove impossible.)  The season winds up in a bloody but satisfyingly cathartic finale. Hulu has purchased the rights to Atwood's own sequel, The Testaments; it remains to be seen if that novel will be incorporated into the final season of The Handmaid's Tale or becomes its own series. Either way, the seeds of that sequel's plot have been cleverly sown in this season.

3. The White Lotus (HBO Max)

Director Mike White has worked steadily to perfect his specialty - cringe comedies that spoof  the privileged classes  - through his earlier HBO series Enlightenment and the films Beatriz at Dinner and Brad's Status. This is his wildest and most barbed satire yet. The interactions between the moneyed guests at a posh Hawaiian resort and its overworked, underappreciated staff are often painfully funny, but sometimes just painful. There's a skillfully delivered blend of outrageous hijinks and honest heartbreak throughout. Standout performers are Murray Bartlett (the guest services manager who progresses from smooth, professional calm to a manic, drug-addled revenge seeker over the course of six episodes) and Jennifer Coolidge as a pathologically needy guest.

2. Only Murders in the Building (Hulu)

I love Steve Martin and Martin Short individually, but together they can be a little too precious. (I'm not a fan of their self-indulgent, two-man traveling stage show, which I've actually seen live). So I'm happy to report that this Hulu series exceedingly surpassed all my expectations. Short, Martin, and Selena Gomez (their unlikely, but effectively deadpan co-star) are all residents of a New York apartment building in which a murder occurs. They form an unlikely alliance to solve the crime, and Short creates a true crime podcast based on their investigations. That both Short's and Martin's character are washed-up, struggling showbiz types adds some poignancy and wistful humor to their storylines, as does Martin's tentative romance with a musician played by Amy Ryan. I could tell you so much more, but I think it's best to go into this show cold. Let me assure you, you will be dazzled by 75-year-old Steve Martin's still impressive physical comedy skills in the final episode.  

1. Ted Lasso (Apple)

This summary is the toughest of all to write, because what else is there to say about this most delightful of series that hasn't already been said? I came late to Ted Lasso, only getting to Season One around the time that Season Two was starting, but I greedily binged it all and felt sad when there was no more left to watch.  The genius of Ted Lasso is not just the infectious optimism of its title character, but that it evolves into a surprisingly complex and nuanced story without ever losing that optimistic spirit. Characters who you'd expect to be difficult or villainous prove to be sweethearts, while at least one character who seems harmless becomes a villain. Back in the days when my Jason Sudeikis fandom was limited to an appreciation for his hilariously inaccurate Joe Biden impersonation on SNL, I'd never have guessed he had a show like this in him.  Shout outs as well to Hannah Waddington and Juno Temple as the series' highly unlikely but highly enjoyable gal pals.

Honorable Mention:  These shows narrowly missed inclusion on this list:

Physical (Apple)

Dopesick (Hulu)

Hemingway (PBS), 

Maid (Netflix)

The Shrink Next Door (Apple)

Landscapers (HBO Max)

DIShonorable Mention:

The Morning Show, season 2 (Apple) - Good actors struggling, mostly unsuccessfully, to make the insane scripts believable. This is the Aaron Sorkin-iest show that wasn't actually made by Aaron Sorkin, with lots of angry face-offs and rapid-fire, super-intense dialogue delivered at the highest possible emotional pitch. Unfortunately it's more Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip than The West Wing - the stakes are rarely high enough to justify the intensity.

Nine Perfect Strangers (Hulu) - Best summed up by a commenter on Vulture's recap of the penultimate episode: "I feel duped by this dreadful mess of a shitshow."  Another example of good actors trying desperately to make sense of a nonsensical script. (It apparently takes giant liberties with the source material; they don't work.) The final episode almost managed to pull off a satisfying conclusion, but it was a classic example of too little, too late. 

And Just Like That (HBO Max) - The first season is still in progress, as of this writing, but it's unlikely to get much better. Carrie, it's time to surrender the stilettos - you're 55 with a bad hip, for God's sake! And we all miss Samantha, right?  Even so, I was kind of digging the (probably unintended) dark comedy of Big's minimalist chic funeral, including the very minimalist eulogies. The brief resurgence of Carrie's friend, Susan Sharon, to remind us "what a prick" he was gave us the only laugh-out-loud moment of the series so far.

2021 In Review: My Favorite Documentaries of the Year

 

This is the first in a series of posts looking back at the films and television shows of the past year.

I'm currently on track to see well over 100 of this year's films by the time I publish my "Not the Best Films of 2021" here in mid-January.  It's been a terrific year for movies, too - so much so that I'll have a very tough time limiting that upcoming list to just 12 films.  So this year, I've decided to honor my three favorite documentaries of 2021 in their own separate post. Here they are, in no particular order.:

Some Kind of Heaven (director Lance Oppenheim)

The Villages - Florida's sprawling, sun-drenched, candy-colored retirement community - look like a retiree's paradise at first glance.  Lots of trim, tanned seniors tool around in golf carts between water aerobics classes, dance parties and evening cocktails, and everyone looks healthy and happy. But  director Lance Oppenheim looks a little closer and finds the hell-on-earth experience beneath the shiny surface for a handful of its residents. A recently widowed woman, who can't quite get on board with the forced cheerfulness and relentless organized group activity, can't afford to move back to be with her family in New Jersey.  Another struggles with  her husband's addiction and mental health issues with little support or understanding from the the community around her.  A would-be lothario lives out of his van and sneaks onto the property daily to hang by the pool and search for a wealthy widow to take him in. 

Oppenheim's direction is extraordinarily subtle. He captures, with no apparent irony, the aspects of life in The Villages that are genuinely appealing, yet also accords tremendous sympathy and dignity to those who aren't well served by the community's perpetually sunny and upbeat vibe.  He doesn't push an agenda so much as gently, but persistently, excavate the details of his subjects' lives. The result is both fascinating and heartbreaking.

Some Kind of Heaven is available to stream on Hulu with a subscription, or to rent from Apple TV.

Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go For it (director Mariem Perez Riera)

It's hard for me to write about this film without sounding like Rita Moreno's press agent. I can't help it.  I adore her, and I can't quite separate my fandom from this testament to Moreno's talent, passion and survival instincts. And why should I?  With seven decades of show business experience behind her - and a willingness to expose the skeletons in her closet (and everyone else's too) - Moreno's recounting of her own life story is a surefire hit. She's so brutally honest, passionate, opinionated, angry, funny and full of life that there's little for a director to do but point a camera at her and let 'er rip. (And, of course, insert a generous supply of film clips from her career along the way.)

As a young child, Moreno and her mother left Puerto Rico (and her father) for New York. She got her first film contract while still a teenager and spent years struggling with Hollywood's sexual predators and racist typecasting before breaking through to an Oscar-winning performance as Anita in West Side Story.  Even then, her career proceeded only in fits and starts, in tandem with a tempestuous, years-long on-off relationship with Marlon Brando. She followed it with therapy and a stable marriage to a man who was never entirely comfortable with her outsized show-business personality. Meanwhile, she worked steadily on television and the stage. Now 90, Moreno has both the feisty energy of a much younger woman and the filter-permanently-removed frankness of a seen-it-all nonagenarian, committed to both activism and art. The happy result is a documentary that's equal parts entertainment, education, and inspiration.

Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go For It is available to stream on Netflix.

Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time (Director Robert Weide)

I've already reviewed this in a previous post (you can read it here.)  Since seeing it, I've spent a fair amount of time reading both Vonnegut's own work and other people's assessments of him; as a result, I'm forced to admit that Weide's documentary is a tad more hagiographic than I initially realized. Some of the most difficult and contradictory aspects of Vonnegut's personality aren't acknowledged at all. (One example: Vonnegut, a survivor of the Dresden firebombing and passionate opponent of the Vietnam War, owned a sizable amount of stock in Dow Chemical, the manufacturer of napalm. Wouldn't you like to know why? I would.)

Even so, I remain extremely fond of this film, if only because it allows me to spend time with one of my most cherished authors.  It has saddened me to realize, as I've read up on Vonnegut in the last few weeks, that many reviewers still dismiss him based on his special appeal to sensitive young people.  Their position appears to be that his writing itself is adolescent, that it won't hold up for older, wiser readers. Frankly, this is bullshit. 

Just yesterday, I finished re-reading Mother Night, Vonnegut's mournful 1961 novel about the aftermath of World War II and the thin, malleable boundaries between collective guilt and personal culpability for its horrors. It's infused with the kind of world-weary heartache that only an experienced adult can understand; I was much more moved by it this time - emotionally shattered, in fact - than I was or even could have been at 16. And, for the record, I turn 62 next month, which makes me 23 years older than Vonnegut was when he wrote it. 

Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time is available to rent from Amazon or Apple TV.

What I Watched This Weekend: House of Gucci and Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time

 

If you see House of Gucci primarily to admire Lady Gaga's much-touted, Method-inspired performance, you won't be disappointed.  

If, however, you are hoping to indulge in a glamourous story of love gone wrong, draped in high fashion and shot in exquisite Italian locations, you might want to rethink your multiplex selection. The tragic fall of the house of Gucci, it turns out, comes down mainly to fraud, tax evasion and family members who sell off their shares - plot twists that are painfully difficult to make interesting, let alone comprehensible. Even an estimable director like Ridley Scott can't quite pull it off. As for the fashion, the only runway show we see in any detail is Tom Ford's first show for Gucci, which comes very late in the film.

House of Gucci has some good moments, primarily in its first half when Gucci heir, Maurizio (Adam Driver) and his wife, Patrizia, are wildly in love and struggling with Maurizio's indifference to his inherited wealth. Patrizia, a secretary in her middle-class father's trucking company, is canny and calculating in ingratiating herself with Maurizio's elegant, moneyed family, but also very much in love with her husband. Gaga nails the complexity in her character without hitting a single false note.  A lesser actress might have made Patrizia into a hot-headed gold digger, but Gaga makes her a little harder to get a handle on. She's conniving, but she has better business instincts than anyone born to the Gucci name, and you can feel her genuine pain in not being taken seriously.

Gaga, undeniably the films' VIP, tears into her role with full-bodied relish. You can't take your eyes off her. That she is the clear standout in a cast which also includes Driver, Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons, Jared Leto and Salma Hayek, marks her as an actress whose continuing career should be exciting to watch. (Whereas Leto is the least compelling member of the ensemble.  Playing the family buffoon, he overacts the hell out of his role, affecting an accent that sounds more like an Italian waiter in a Bugs Bunny cartoon than any real person.)

Unfortunately, as Patrizia and Maurizio's marriage comes apart - and Gaga has less to do - the film also loses its way.  By the time she hires hitmen to assassinate her estranged husband (which should have been the dramatic high point of the film), you barely care anymore. And that's mostly because, House of Gucci is just too damn long.  At two hours and 37 minutes - especially when preceded by 25 minutes of coming attractions - it makes for one butt-numbing night at the multiplex.

Like Robert Weide, the director of Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time, I discovered Vonnegut's writing at the age of 16 through his novel Breakfast of Champions and read his books near-obsessively over the next few years.  He was funny and mournful at the same time, an iconoclast who said the true things no one else would say aloud.  And he was from Indiana, which blew my young mind because he was like no one in my Hoosier experience.

Weide, best known as the Emmy-winning director of Curb Your Enthusiasm, embarked on making a documentary about Vonnegut when he was just 23, after a friendly exchange of letters with the author. That documentary, only just completed after nearly 40 years, not only presents a robust and challenging assessment of Vonnegut but also chronicles his close friendship with Weide.

There are obvious dangers when a filmmaker grows too close to his subject, not least a lack of objectivity which can too easily devolve into hagiography. Then there's the potentially problematic nature of a filmmaker who injects himself into the subject's story.  

Thankfully, Weide manages to sidestep both these potential pitfalls. Vonnegut is portrayed as far less than saintly in extensive interviews with his children (his own three, plus the four nephews he took in when his beloved sister and her husband both died in the same week). As youngsters, they were witnesses to the writer's early, struggling days when he was prone to wild mood swings with unpredictable fits of rage and anguish.  Although their adult remembrances are tempered with some forgiveness and understanding, the picture they paint is uncomfortable at best.

As for Weide's recurring presence in the film, it's clear the two men did have a genuinely close friendship as evinced by the many warm, appreciative answering machine messages the writer left for Weide over the years, all played back here.  Weide manages to make himself an inoffensive stand-in for all of us who discovered and worshipped Vonnegut as young people.  If anything, I envied Weide's friendship with Vonnegut and wished I'd been brave enough to write him a fan letter myself.

I particularly enjoyed the footage of Vonnegut in his hometown of Indianapolis, where he enjoyed a privileged and mostly happy childhood as part of a socially prominent family. (His father was an architect, whose buildings I hope are still standing in downtown Indy. The family also owned a popular chain of hardware stores.) He's seen chatting with Shortridge High School classmates at his 60th reunion, swapping World War II reminisces with the fellow veterans in his class, and he comes off as a regular Hoosier guy.

Although he dismisses the notion in one of the film's interview segments, World War II forever scarred and shaped Vonnegut's world view. As a young soldier, he was captured by the Germans and placed in a prison camp near Dresden.  After the horrific firebombing of that city, he and fellow POWs were tasked with excavating, stacking and burying the hundreds of dead bodies trapped in the rubble.  It took him years to finally come to terms with this trauma in his masterpiece Slaughterhouse Five. The experience becomes a recurring touchpoint in this documentary; even the title of the film is a reference to the novel's most famous line: "Listen: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time."

Unstuck in Time is exhaustive in scope, yet some chapters in Vonnegut's life remain mysterious. Little is said about his second marriage to photographer Jill Krementz. It's implied there was trouble in the marriage; apparently, Vonnegut lived alone in his final years. Yet the two never divorced, and Krementz herself does not go on the record here.

I can't speak for viewers who are unfamiliar with Vonnegut, but to those of us who idolized him, this film is pure heaven. It's easily the most engrossing and entertaining documentary I've seen in years.  And it sent me straight back to Vonnegut's work. With the exception of Slaughterhouse Five, which I revisited about ten years ago, I hadn't touched one of his books since college. But this morning I downloaded Breakfast of Champions to my IPad and starting reading it again for the first time since 1976.  I was stunned at how prescient it was, right from its opening chapter - how in tune with our current day its initial sentiments were.  Here's a sample from that first chapter:

"The teachers told the children that (1492) was when their continent was discovered by human beings. Actually, human beings were already living full and imaginative lives on the continent. That was simply the year in which sea pirates began to cheat and rob and kill them.

Here was another piece of evil nonsense which children were taught: that the sea pirates eventually created a government which became a beacon of freedom to human being everywhere else.  There were pictures and statues of this supposed imaginary beacon for children to see...

Actually, the sea pirates who had the most to do with the creation of the new government owned human slaves. They used human beings for machinery, and, even after slavery was eliminated, because it was so embarrassing, they and their descendants continue to think of ordinary human beings as machines."

Wow!! I can assure you that no one said this kind of stuff out loud in 1973 - at least no one in Indiana anyway. Vonnegut was "woke" about 50 years before "woke" was anything other than the past tense of "wake."  

I think it's time for a Kurt Vonnegut revival. I can imagine young people once again embracing him, turning to his novels for a dose of sanity and humane good sense in a world where neither of those things is much in evidence.  And it's time for me to re-visit his books myself. I first read them as an unsophisticated, unworldly teen. I'd like to see how they'll hold up for me now that I'm older than Vonnegut was when he wrote most of them.

Quick Take on: Spencer

 

In Spencer, director Pablo Larrain clearly wants you to see Princess Diana as a woman trapped in an uncaring, archaic system, deprived of love and close to madness. Unfortunately the Diana of this bizarre fantasia actually comes off as a spoiled sourpuss who’s pissed off at having to spend another Christmas with the in-laws. 

Larrain doesn't do traditional biopics. His 2017 film Jackie focused in on Jacqueline Kennedy's life in the days just following her husband's assassination; it was a psychologically astute and keenly observed study of a woman in the grip of post-traumatic stress. But that film succeeded because it was rooted in actual events and had some connection to reality.

With Spencer, Larrain  and screenwriter Steven Knight have thrown objective reality out the window and turned a Christmas holiday with the royal family at Sandringham into a psychological horror film with Diana as a tormented woman losing her grip on sanity.  It's all tense, jarring string music on the soundtrack,  and castle rooms filmed to look ominous and imposing.  Even the ghost of Anne Boleyn shows up to convince Diana she is doomed. 

Anyone who's watched The Crown already knows that the Windsors are a pretty insular clan who follow an odd but firmly entrenched series of rituals with unquestioning fealty. As depicted, both in that series and in Spencer, those rituals seem fairly harmless. Is it really such a chore to eat at pre-arranged meal times, show up for an annual family photo, go to church with your mother-in-law? No one in the family comes off here as menacing or unconcerned about Diana, just a little stuffy. Even Prince Charles tries, not unkindly, to help Diana understand what she signed up for in the way of duty and sacrifice. (When he tells her she has to be able to do things she hates, that’s not being mean. That’s pretty much the definition of adulthood.)

The lesson doesn't take. Diana continues to obsess about Anne Boleyn's fate and to act out a series of petty rebellions and clueless disruptions: A refusal to show up on time for any meal. Complaining about having to exchange presents on Christmas Eve rather than Christmas Day. Entreating the estate's chef to talk with her about how dreadful pheasant hunting is when that poor guy is just trying to make sure the Christmas dinner is served on time.

In real life, Diana was hurt by her reputation within the family as being unstable, and Larrain unwittingly gives credence to that characterization of the princess. In addition to the Anne Boleyn stuff, she deliberately injures herself with a wire cutter, wanders the grounds alone late at night, and deliberately leaves her curtains open while undressing  - even after she's been told that tabloid photographers with long-lensed cameras have been snapping pictures of her. 

About that pheasant hunting... Maybe it's me, but an opposition to pheasant hunting is not the hill I'd choose to die on in a quest to bring the monarchy to its knees. For one thing, it's not necessarily an aristocratic or wasteful endeavor. I grew up in an area of rural Indiana where hedgerows in the fields made for an excellent pheasant habitat. My father and uncles shot pheasants every year; I watched my mom pluck their feathers and clean their carcasses in our kitchen. My family and I ate those pheasants, too, which was helpful when the grocery budget was tight. Stag hunting, with its apparent objective of providing trophy heads to hang in castle rooms, seems far more offensive to me. But then, Peter Morgan has pretty much worked that "dying stag as metaphor for threatened monarch" to death in both The Queen and The Crown. Maybe that's why Larrain chose to focus on pheasants.

"But how is Kristen Stewart's performance as Diana?" you may be asking.  Stewart is too good an actress to be bad, but her utter lack of resemblance to the princess is jarring, especially with the memory of lookalike Emma Corrin's brilliant work on The Crown so fresh in our memories. They didn't even take the trouble to give Stewart contact lenses to transform her pale green eyes into Diana's famously big baby blues. She gets the mannerisms and voice right, however, and ultimately just about gets me on Diana's side. But not quite.

Everything we know about Diana that makes us sympathetic to her plight is missing from Larrain’s film. There is virtually no mention of the charity work to which she was so devoted and even less evidence of her famously empathetic and caring personality. Charles’ infidelity is obliquely referenced  while Diana’s extramarital affairs appear not not to have happened at all.   By limiting the action to three days at a sprawling estate and reducing the conflict to just Diana’s resistance to hoary rituals, Spencer reduces the real tragedy of its heroine’s life to an isolated episode of despair, to be solved with fast food and pop tunes in the final scene.