Review: "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes"

The Planet of the Apes films are something of outliers in franchise storytelling. They are more interested in ideas than trying to out-compete the films that have preceded them. They mull over and chew on some weighty ideas and then put them into an interesting science fiction premise to make it all go down easier. A lot of it is clearly weighted in symbolism and metaphor, but the films at their best weigh their premises with such a strong emotional reality that they begin to take on a life of their own. This primarily comes from taking the implications of a given scenario or conflict and truly digging into the realities of those implications.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’ ending is writ into its title. We have several films that already inform us where the outcome of this is heading. The film is aware of this and its script, written by Mark Bomback, Rick Jaffa, and Amanda Silver, finds ways to make that inevitable ending perhaps the film’s greatest strength. The story tightens the screws continually, crafting a no-win situation where neither the apes nor the humans can truly win; where neither will be in the right, where they stand to lose so much more if they do go to war against one another. It is a good old fashioned tragedy; something the film’s final images, powerful and deeply moving, reinforce: this shouldn’t have happened, and yet there was no other way it could have happened. 

Dawn is set ten years after the events of Rise of the Planet of the Apes. A simian flu accidentally released by a research lab, who’s experimenting helped breed the super-intelligent apes at the center of the film, has wiped out the majority of humanity. A small band of survivors who seem to be immune to the virus have taken refuge in part of San Francisco. It is a world of post-apocalyptic grit and decay; human works still stand but they have come into disuse and disrepair. It is a visual template of darkness and somberness to match the progressively tonally dark and narratively ambiguous story. 

The apes have evolved significantly since the end of the last film. Their every movement is more human than simian now, and they have formed a human-like community, a ramshackle but impressive dominating wooden structure, a cross between fortress and jungle-gym, at the heart of a forest on the far side of the Golden Gate Bridge. They still speak mostly through signing but human language has gradually started coming into use. The film shows the day-to-day operations of the ape community. It lets us inhabit this place and fills it with details that make it feel lived-in – such as classes to learn the English alphabet or ideological underpinning like the mantra “Apes don’t kill other apes”. Director Matt Reeves, along with the special effects team, really has an eye for the physical presences of apes in the real world environment (like in shots of whole packs of apes swinging from branch to branch, shot underneath to accentuate the movement). Unlike the old films, the apes actually look like real apes. Their movements and body language signals small but crucial changes to physiognomy, but they still have more of the physical and genetic structuring of apes than of humans. 

The special effects for this film are stunning. This is some of the most seamlessly rendered CGI effects I have ever seen. Real people wore motion capture to make the apes have a real presence and to have a nuance of emotion; most notably, Andy Serkis reprises his role of Caesar, the leader of the apes, and it is one of those remarkable, deeply felt performances that it is hard to imagine another actor capable of pulling off. With each new performance using motion capture, Serkis has refined his craft, becoming less showy and more subtle with his work (His performance of Caesar is filled with small emotional cues and body language changes that are so understated that you don’t completely realize the small ways Serkis is thoroughly shaping your response). Serkis has long been ignored for his work due to playing parts where he effaces himself through digital effects work. Whether it is Gollum or King Kong, Serkis’ face isn’t literally present but without him these roles simply don’t work. Without Serkis it is just CGI imagery that we feel nothing for; with him, Caesar is a character as fully realized and as fully felt, and every bit as present as the other actors Serkis works with. 

Caesar has become the patriarch of this ape community. He’s a Godfather-like figure that quietly demands and commands the respect and loyalty of the other apes. He accepts the counsel of others – including the temperamental, formerly experimented upon second-in-command named Koba (Toby Kebbell), who holds a deep unyielding hatred towards humanity – but, at the end of the day, it is always his to make any given decision for what the apes do. Caesar is no longer the young ape he was in Rise. He’s grizzled with hints of grey hair and battles scars, and he is married to Cornelia (Judy Greer) with one son, Blue Eyes (Nick Thurston) – still in need of battle testing and feeling overshadowed by his father -- and another on the way. He is a no longer a freedom fighter but rather a family man with far more to lose, and he fears losing it every bit as much as the humans. 

The script and Reeves’ direction build up this world and that of the humans, filling out each with internal rules and conflicts and inhabiting them with various personalities. Neither’s perspective is privileged and neither side is outright made hero or villain. Instead, Reeves splits time between the two camps, creating sympathies amongst them, reasons to root for and like both, as well as reasons to dislike them. The split between point of views and the motivations behind them leads to a fascinating conflict where the film gives us the standard blockbuster action and spectacle but roots it in a morally and emotionally complicated narrative foundation. (That isn’t to say it isn’t entertaining. A film with an ape riding a horse firing off dual machine guns couldn’t help but be fun and thrilling. But Reeves choreographs the action and the events leading up to it in a way that gives it all a certain heft). Reeves is patient and deliberate, pushing the action into the third act.  

What makes the third act so deeply painful to watch when it arrives are the glimpses Reeves provides of the humans and apes setting aside their differences to live in harmony. Mistrust exists almost immediately when a group of humans, looking to use a nearby dam as an alternative power source, run into some apes and trigger happy, pithecophobic Carver (Kirk Acevedo) panics and shoots one of the apes. The situation is salvaged when perceptive, kindly Malcolm (Jason Clarke) recognizes that his party will be safe if they demonstrate that they intend no harm. Caesar, who was raised by humans and still bears some feelings towards them, sends the humans off with a warning to leave. 

Members of the ape community, including Koba, are torn over whether to go straight to war but are assuaged by Caesar’s choice for merely a display of strength. Reeves doesn’t get heavy handed with the parallels, abundant and apparent as they may be. For instance, it isn’t at all a coincidence that the leader of the human camp Dreyfus (Gary Oldman) starts considering war with the apes soon after the same conversation happens amongst the apes. At its core, there is a “we’re not so different you and I” message floating around in Dawn, but it is one of those rare instances where it really works because the film places it way in the background. It’s not an entirely subtle message but it is exceptionally subtly handled – placed as it is in subtext, situations and character arcs. The apes of the Ape movies have long stood in for minority groups (the older films have long been speculated to be about race and civil rights), but here they stand in for something else as well beyond those groups being othered. 

Dawn has a strong thematic center related to the world’s growing energy crisis. After the apes make clear they will not fight so long as both sides maintain their distance, it becomes apparent that this is not a tenable situation for the humans. The humans are running out of fuel and are in need of access to the dam in order to survive. This, of course, means violating the pre-agreed upon peace arrangements. Malcom comes up with a plan to bring a small group to parlay with the apes and come to an understanding. Hanging over this is Dreyfus’ warning that if the group hasn’t returned in three days’ time, the well-equipped humans will retaliate against the apes (very much a Chekov’s gun stockpile). From here arises the question of what any group of people, or nation, is willing to do, how far they are willing to go, in a world where resources are increasingly dwindling and finite. Survival is paramount for both sides, but everyone, whilst looking out for themselves, fails to see other possibilities or solutions. 

Malcolm is an almost impossibly decent person, which should rub us the wrong way, but the film shows him as not solely good-hearted but also discerning, seeing there is more to be gained from diminishing suspicion. (In deed, the true irony of the film is that its most fully formed, most human character is, well, an ape). It is tiny, subtle, organic writing like this that saves the film from feeling like it is inhabited by a bunch of non-entities. The humans at some times are a degree or two off from being underwritten, but the script has nice small moments where motivations and concerns are quietly delivered – such as the recognition that family members have died from the virus. The film is also helped by some really good performances with actors fleshing out characters by investing so much into small performances.  

Caesar and Malcolm slowly initiate a bridge towards trust but keep running into hiccups – with dissent and lack of trust from both of their sides causing breakdowns in their grasp for detente. Each of these stumbles feels like they could lead to something disastrous, but they prove themselves to be, instead, slippery steps towards an even more terrible, emotionally wrenching conclusion. The inevitable – the apes will ultimately come to dominate this planet; it’s just a matter of how – hangs over everything like a foreboding, terrifying cloud. Every redeemable, good act that moves forward diplomatic relationships is made all the more devastatingly bittersweet by how it only truly staves off what is always going to happen. (The film understands the power and meaning of small acts and gestures, ending on one such moment of shared human-ape connection/dissolution that is beautiful and deeply despairing in how it sums up everything the film has been trying to say throughout). In the end, Dawn isn’t science fiction. It’s a tragedy. By showing those steps, it makes the unraveling all the more moving and harrowing. Reeves understands the power of a slow moving  cataclysm; its power isn’t in knowing where you’re going but watching in terrified awe as you get there. 

Grade: A-

Review: "Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa"

I’ve never actually seen or heard any of the other many incarnations of the character of Alan Partridge – who’s appeared in multiple forms in television and radio appearances over the past two decades -- but in Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa there’s a sense of this character being fully formed on arrival. Steve Coogan slips into the role with an effortless familiarity, and the whole film's vibe gives off a reunion quality. But that doesn’t preclude enjoyment for any new arrivals to Coogan’s comically full of himself character. In fact, it leads to the film spending minimal amounts of time on introduction and a maximum amount of time on jokes and playing up the central premise.  

We find Partridge as a disc jockey at a small-time radio station in Norwich, a place slowly becoming more corporate and cold to compete in the crowded marketplace. This especially infuriates his longtime colleague Pat Farrell (Colm Meaney), whose program feels fuddy duddy amongst the digitizing and automating sea changes. When the station is bought out, Pat seems like the obvious candidate for the cutting block; something that is exacerbated when Partridge blunders his effort to defend Pat in front of the company board, arising out of the realization that the company is picking between Pat and himself for the axing. Pat snaps and, with shotgun at hand, he holds the station and many of its workers hostage. 

Partridge unwittingly becomes the mediator between Pat and the police, as Pat believes that Partridge is the only one who gave a damn about him before his firing. But Partridge’s narcissism and short-sidedness only protract the situation and turn it into a media spectacle. The film becomes a black comical take on the more dramatically rigorous work of a film like Dog Day Afternoon with Partridge playing up the media craze in hopes of securing his employment and spinning it into a lucrative job deal. 

Director Declan Lowney doesn’t add much to the way the film is shot. Lowney’s background is largely in television and the film has a lot of the functional filmmaking common in television shooting. Instead, the film’s script (credited to Neil Gibbons, Rob Gibbons, Steve Coogan, Armando Iannucci, and Peter Baynham) brings much of the film’s strength, playing to the chaos and stress of the hostage crisis as well as Partridge’s egotism. This is usually done by matching up the incongruity of the situation’s seriousness and how lightheartedly the film and the character’s tend to treat it. For instance, Partridge and Pat host a hit radio show from within the “siege” by drawing on viewers interested in the crisis. But perhaps, at the end of the day, it is best that someone like Lowney helmed the film as it is essentially an extended episode of television, with barely enough plot to sustain itself for ninety minutes. 

The film has some casual commentary on the changing state of media, especially for an aging medium like radio. But this is way in the background. More foregrounded but still low on the film’s mind are questions related to aging. Both Partridge and Pat are well into their fifties and looking back on a life that hasn’t gone entirely satisfactorily or as planned. Pat and his dark plans force Partridge to confront some of his delusions and selfish ways. Partridge is a massive dick at almost all times, but there’s something fundamentally sad about him. Like The Office’s Michael Scott, or, more appropriately, David Brent, he desperately wants to be liked but doesn’t quite realize he’s going about it in deeply misguided ways. At the end of the day, Partridge is going to do the right thing but it’s only after massive effort and radical outside circumstances force him to that point. 

In the intervening time before the buried conscience of Partridge arrives, Coogan delights in his role, one he has fine-tuned and honed over the years. Coogan simply knows how to play this character to the hilt. The film is farcical because Partridge is such an exaggerated figure. Initially the character was created as commentary on a particular type of media personality, and that satirical, self-consciously preposterous quality carries over into the film. Alan Partridge is a darn funny film that still manages to have a soft, mushy center focused on its characters and their endearing shortcomings.

Grade: B

Review: "In Fear"

The second most invaluable thing towards the typical success of a good horror movie is a great expressive face to focus in on. The first, of course, is a controlled sense of spatial relations and lighting to craft a sense of atmosphere and dread. In Fear has both and the second is especially promising with Alice Englert as half of a new couple, along with Iain De Caestecker, getting lost in the tangled woods of an English countryside.

Englert previously proved her mettle in the underrated Ginger & Rosa, another film, like In Fear, that kind of falls apart at the end but holds so much auspicious possibility prior to that. Director Jeremy Lovering provides a wonderful sense of maddeningly being lost and the world seeming to close in on you. The film nicely ekes out anxiety by making every last inch of its setting feel menacing and then cutting to Englert’s controlled but worried face. 

But though it boasts the necessary fundamentals to create a successful horror movie, In Fear is more than a little underwhelming. The film too often feels like it was being written as the production went along, and that's because it actually was, with the actors being left in the dark and forced to improvise with very little sense of direction as to where the story was going from Lovering. There is barely enough plot to sustain this and the actors desperately grasp to make something marginally substantial out of the thinness of the conceit at hand. That being: Tom (De Caestecker) invites Lucy (Englert) to a music festival and on the way there tells her he has made reservations at a tucked away hotel, all the better to jumpstart their two week old relationship. Lucy reluctantly agrees, and soon they find themselves in a maze of backwood roads that never seem to end and fold in on themselves. 

There seems to be a casual joke about the sexes here. Tom refuses to look at the map or stop and ask for directions. As he tries to assert his manhood and prove himself a worthy boyfriend, he sinks the two deeper into trouble.

The film gets a lot out of a little, pulling big scares out of small but freaky things happening, like the appearance and disappearance of items in the middle of the road. But at a certain point, it becomes clear Lovering (who is also credited with scripting the little of the film that was apparently penned) has no idea where he is taking this story or how to end it. In the end, it’s more frustrating than frightening. 

Grade: C+

Review: "They Came Together"

I’m not the right age to fully appreciate Wet Hot American Summer David Wain and Michael Showalter’s insanely true to detail send up of a very, very specific subset of movies set at summer camps. The films they lovingly parody were before my time and so my affection for them is at far more of a remove. They Came Together, Wain and Showalter’s follow up of sorts to Wet Hot featuring many members of that cast, more easily connects with a broader audience, but it’s also, in some regards, a less admirable, less ambitious effort. The film is every bit as specific in its comical ridiculousness, but it parodies a genre that is so much more obvious, and therefore tailor-made, for parody: the rom-com.

It’s an easier target than Wet Hot. However, Wain and Showalter largely avoid going for the easy or obvious joke. The film is broad enough that this could be any romantic comedy its poking fun at but filled with all sorts of tiny digressions that go after very exact works. That said, even when you can’t quite put your finger on what the film is making funny of, it still remains really funny. Wain and Showalter, as well as the many great comic talents they bring on board, have a background in sketch comedy, and it can be felt in the film’s go for broke quality. Don’t like one joke? Well there are a dozen more on their way to try to floor you. And the jokes run the gambit, from sly visual jokes to surreal, absurd blackout gags.  

They Came Together, starting with its unassumingly bland title, gets the fluffy genericness of rom-coms right, and it writes that into film’s every detail. Take the way everything is shot: the dull, pleasingly blindingly bright lighting and the carelessly under thought, boring directorial scheme of switching between one shots and two shots. Even the two main characters’ names Joel (Paul Rudd) and Molly (Amy Phoeler) remark upon the under-baked nature of the scripts for the genre – the characters never even receive last names. The couple’s story involve staples of the genre: Joel’s corporate company has designs to put out of business Molly’s candy store (a fantastic commentary on the inane, unlikely professions that often seem to only inhabit rom-coms). From there their close friends hope to set them up but they end up hating one another, but, of course, only to fall for each other. Only then for exceedingly pointless complications to set in, after which they get together. On the margins of the story, a revolving door of supporting players, including friends, siblings, and parents, arrive for one or two scenes to dissect all sorts of tropes from the genre.  

In the broad strokes, it’s every rom-com you’ve ever seen, and the film plays almost everything straight. If you passed this on television, you might be fooled for a while. But the devil is in the details, and They Came Together is constantly, slyly wild and flying off the handle. I’m not an avid watcher of the genre – among cinephile circles the genre has become one of the most poorly regarded and maligned – but I still found myself laughing hysterically. Much of this stems from the film working on another level. Much like Wain and Showalter’s previous effort, the humor comes from a general sense of out of left field silliness.  

But what really elevates the whole effort is how little disdain is shown. The film has affection for the works it’s mocking. It notes the idiocy and laugh at it, but it also kind of loves that idiocy. It’s easy to look down on something as too many spoofs do these days; it is another to make fun of something from a real place of good will and endearment.   

Grade: B

Review: "The Immigrant"

The Immigrant is a transportative film, taking us back to New York City in 1921 with stunningly detailed period piece accuracy. But it also absorbs us through the specificity of its experience; that of a woman fleeing World War I ravaged Poland. Ewa (Marion Cotillard) is an immigrant just off the boat from Ellis Island. Her sister Magda (Angela Sarafyan) is ill with tuberculosis and so the guards won’t allow her to leave and will likely deport her. This is only the beginning of Ewa’s troubles. She learns her aunt and uncle are not there to claim her and apparently the address they have provided her is false.

Some of this is clearly being orchestrated by huckster and small-time pimp Bruno Weiss (Joaquin Phoenix), who’s put upon kindness is a ruse to slowly manipulate her into entering prostitution – all in the name of security and the salvation of her ailing sister. Ewa doesn’t entirely understand this at first though. She is a highly devout Catholic who believes in the fundamental goodness of humanity. This despite the many trying, terrible experiences she will come to face in the days ahead. The film doesn’t paint Ewa as wholly innocent and pure though. Ultimately she is a survivor who is trying to make the best of an awful, desperate situation. 

Bruno brings Ewa back to a tiny apartment that he shares with other women he has eyed at Ellis Island and pulled strings in order to enter his web. The apartment is an excellent work of location scouting and production design. It is exceedingly cramped and worn down, and director James Gray fills out settings like this with carefully chosen period appropriate props and items, general tchotchkes (There is a whole essay to be written just about the film’s costumes. For instance, Bruno’s outfit speaks volumes about how he wants himself to be seen – a classy gentleman – but it always feels ill-fitting). Bruno runs a theater where bawdy burlesque performances are held, and Ewa joins in hopes of saving her sister – she believes she is sending payments for the cost of her sister’s medical treatment. Wealthy men ogle and cat-call at the women, who have learned to take it because they like Ewa have no other options – and that is because Bruno has made certain that is the case. Ewa believes this will be the full extent of her work, but by this point the film has already provided a sense that it is only the first of many small, accumulative tragedies that will fell Ewa. 

Ewa will come to meet Emil (Jeremy Renner), stage name Orlando the Magician, a theater performer who happens to be Bruno’s cousin. Both Bruno and Emil become fond of Ewa, for reasons that are entirely selfish and possessive. The film depicts Emil as a nicer, gentler man, but he is really just the lesser of two evils – an individual as consumed by his flaws and addictions just as much as the more obviously horrible Bruno. While we are always meant to feel a little disgusted by Bruno and his self-serving actions, Phoenix’s performance and James Gray and Ric Menello’s script do wonders to humanize the character; Bruno becomes sadder and more pathetic than initially imaginable. His first appearance is predatory but he is far more pitiable than that initial glimpse would suggest.

Gray and cinematographer Darius Khondji shoot the film like we are seeing dusty, faded photographs, slightly yellowed and greyed. The look of the film is understated, drifting into the background and effortlessly blending together with the story. It creates a sense of authenticity and realism, but it also fosters a dual sense that we are watching something dug up from recent memory. It is deeply evocative of its time and setting without calling too much attention to the incredible pains gone through to achieve period accuracy. Gray and Menello’s script doesn’t overplay the sense of disconnect between present and past mores and values. The film is delicate in its treatment of a cultural environment that looks highly different from our own, subtly noting gaps in beliefs. The most apparent of these come in the form of gender, where the treatment of women and their worth was far more patronizing and demeaning. The film, however, doesn’t pass judgment, rather casually emphasizing these elements to reinforce the complicated nature of Ewa’s circumstances. 

There is no denying the bleakness of the story. Gray doesn’t cut corners in his vision, slowly depicting every last detail of Ewa’s confinement and loss of agency. But in keeping the film’s perspective so fully aligned with Ewa, the film is sensitive and compassionate towards her experience and its desire to understand it. Cotillard’s performance is crucial to our identification. The film’s performances are all really subtle and unshowy (outside of occasional bouts from Phoenix’s manically mannered performance), and the writing downplays and understates a lot of the action. But Cotillard’s beautifully expressive face cues us into every haggard, pained feeling. Ava is a diminutive figure, but Cotillard always cuts through to an inner will and strength fighting to remain in a state of grace and dignity no matter how low she must stoop.  

The film is not directly hopeful. It has the blunt reality of the Italian Neo-Realists, refusing to sugarcoat or flinch away from hard truths and harsh realities. That can, at times, make the film a deeply harrowing film to sit through. Even as Gray demonstrates a gentle, even hand and sensitivity, moments like the first time Ava has to give her body over for money are overwhelmingly horrifying and painful to watch. The film never totally succumbs to being entirely unforgiving however. This is largely due to Ewa’s fragile faith. Her faith is increasingly put to the test, but she remains devout in her belief in God and His design and that God has a reason for testing her and will save her in the end. The Immigrant puts its central character through the ringer and us along with them, but it ultimately doesn’t leave you feeling drained but rather fuller. 

Grade: A-

Personal Post: "Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me", Stritch's Passing, and My Grandmother

I was planning on viewing and writing about Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me eventually. It sat on a lengthy list of films I needed to catch up on and I kept telling myself, “I’ll get around to it”. And so it ultimately is with a bit of shame and regret that I’m only watching this good film and amiable portrait of the great performer now, upon news of her passing.

It doesn’t feel appropriate to review the film now or to couch it in a conversation of that sort. The film gives us a glimpse of the octogenarian during her 86^th year of life and shows how she’s was as ruthlessly feisty and strong-willed as ever. Most performers would have retired long ago, but Stritch was a workaholic, who was as lively and alert as she was due to keeping herself active late in life. She’s a difficult personality – and “personality” is perhaps the most apt descriptor for the eccentric, steely, shit-talking Stritch. The film is largely an entertaining one, bolstered by Stritch’s ability to work an audience. She’s a great camera presence, who can tell a story or joke with effortless candor and sharp wit. She lets it all hang out, and she has no time for bullshit, speaking her mind with a defiant attitude that’s refreshing and alarming in equal measure. But the film doesn’t shy away from showing her flaws. She cursed like a sailor, dropping f-bombs with furious delight, she was egotistical to a fault, and she was a self-justifying alcoholic. The film also shows her insecurities and fears as she moves towards the last days of her life. She is sent to the hospital at one point for a diabetic attack, and from her bed she tearfully confesses how frightened she is. But Stritch has an odd way of putting a spin on it: “fear is exciting, isn’t it?” 

I kept thinking of my own grandmother as I watched. She is eighty years old, and yet so strong – and yet so frail. My grandmother’s fears are growing, and they only make my fears grow alongside them. In quiet, stolen moments, I can see her spark diminish. It’s still there, but it glows a little less brightly with each passing year. She keeps up with housework and occasional outings, and her activeness helps her be stronger than most individuals her age. But she’s painfully aware she has more days behind her than ahead. She has casually, wearily mentioned that she hasn’t got too many years left. I’m forced to do the decent, well-meaning, and regrettably false thing and assuage her fears, rebuking her comments. I know she’s right, but I refuse to let her give into her fears, real as they are – and hard as it is for me to fully relate and understand them. 

My grandmother is also a personality. Few like to spar with her anymore. They treat her as if already delicately in formaldehyde. I have family members who judge me for having heated arguments – often about the most inane, fruitless topics – but I do it for her as much as me. I can see the glimmer, the rare pleasure in her eye as someone takes time out to treat her like the human being and feisty, intractable force she is at heart. 

As Stritch notes, fear is exciting. But it’s also, in the vulgar parlance of Stritch, scary as fuck. But to see your fears and your worries and your concerns reflected in a film is helpful and informative and relieving.

Stritch lived one hell of a life, right up to the – I refuse to say bitter – end. My grandmother has as well – though she still has time.

"Life Itself" (2014)

My true film education didn’t begin in earnest until rather late in my junior year of college. I had watched films with some frequency but I was aloof and uncritical. That year I began writing, seriously and extensively, and filling in gaps in my knowledge and realizing just how little I actually knew. I also arrived late at the writing of Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert. I was cynical, but once rogerebert.com was formed I caught up on his work and was drawn in by the precision and generosity of his writing, like so many before me were. I now can’t get enough of his writing. I was only just getting into his work when Ebert passed away. I’m sure this is rambly, unnecessary and slightly incoherent, but it’s what crossed my mind as I watched the moving Steve James documentary about Ebert’s life. Life Itself is the sort of film that initiates those kinds of personal reflections as you watch it -- about film, about writing, and about life more generally, and that goes doubly so for anyone passionate about or interested in film.

Life Itself is based on Ebert’s memoir of the same name – passages of which are read by a voice actor passably recreating Ebert’s distinctive Midwestern drawl. The film begins with one of my favorite statements from the writer: “For me, the movies are like a machine that generates empathy. It lets you understand a little bit more about different hopes, aspirations, dreams, and fears. It helps us identify with the people who are sharing this journey with us.” Life Itself is not only empathetic but sympathetic towards its subject. It is affectionate towards and fond of Ebert, but it also never tries to paint him as anything less than human. He was, in the words of one friend, “nice, but not that nice”. He had terrible taste in women prior to meeting his wife Chaz in his early fifties -- the film understandably dedicates a significant amount of time to their relationship – and had an unhealthy obsession with buxom women that led him to briefly write films with skin flick director Russ Meyer. He struggled with alcoholism (We learn that he met his wife at AA; a fact she admits for the first time publically). He could also be quite arrogant and had an incredibly high opinion of himself. This could best be seen in his contentious relationship with fellow critic Gene Siskel, whom he co-hosted the television program Sneak Previews and later At the Movies. 

The film features standard documentary filmmaking on the whole: talking heads are interspersed with old footage and photos. The film’s most remarkable, powerful element was driven by outside circumstances. The film began production prior to Ebert’s death. Ebert insisted James film his time in the hospital leading up to his passing. Ebert tells James at one point, “This is not only your film”, and he helps provide such great, unexpected moments as his G-tube being suctioned out (disgusting but also kind of wonderful). Wearily but understandingly James responds, “It makes for a better story”. And that really is the case, as it turns a solid but familiar biopic into something more resonant and poignant. James cuts back and forth between the past and the present, and the worn down but still vibrant Ebert lying in a hospital bed colors so much of the largely chronological discussion of his life. Friends, colleagues and filmmakers (many whose career he helped launch, including Martin Scorsese, Werner Herzog, Errol Morris, Ramin Bahrani, and Ava DuVernay) warmly re-call Ebert’s life and the film becomes a memorial or elegy. 

The warts-and-all of approach of the film, especially in Ebert’s earlier years, paints him as a good but flawed person. Ebert’s greatest legacy arrived in his final years as he was diagnosed with cancer that took his jaw and his voice. Ebert dug deeper into his writing, utilizing the internet to engage more directly with fans and film lovers. Ebert’s writing become ever more personal, precise and lean in these years and his illness instilled a greater sense of empathy in him. He did his best work during these years. Similarly, the further the film moves along the more generous it becomes. Even his staunchest critics, Richard Corliss and Jonathan Rosenbaum -- who feel Ebert and Siskel devalued criticism and oversimplified the process to a simple thumbs up or thumbs down system (something the film dismisses a little too quickly and easily) – have a deep respect for the man. 

The film is a loving tribute to an important public figure that was influential and meaningful to so many different people who loved watching, and writing and arguing about films. The film is a love story: between Ebert and his wife, between Ebert and Siskel, and between Ebert and film. Ebert used to like to say that a film isn’t about what it’s about but rather how it’s about it. James doesn’t try to earn gravitas or to gloss or gussy up the story. He shoots the film in a direct, reserved way that lets Ebert’s life speak for itself. The film is emotional (I cried at more than one point) but those emotions come from a sincere, inviting portrait of its subject. 

Throughout watching the film I kept thinking of what critic Nathan Rabin wrote from Sundance where the film first screened; Rabin wrote, “Life Itself is a film worthy of Ebert, and that is just about the highest praise it can possibly get.” 

Grade: B+