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Posts Tagged ‘Hailee Steinfeld’

“THE EDGE OF SEVENTEEN”: Hilarious angst.

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on November 17, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Hailee Steinfeld

Hailee Steinfeld

“THE EDGE OF SEVENTEEN” My rating: B

204 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Teen angst has always been with us, but it’s rarely been captured on film with the insight  and hilarity on display in “The Edge of Seventeen.”

Hailee Stienfeld, who won an Oscar nomination for her first movie (2010’s “True Grit”), seems likely to snag another one for her performance as  Nadine, a 16-year-old whose emotional wisdom lags way behind her book learning.

“I just had the worse thought,” she confides. “I have to spend the rest of my life with myself.”

Nadine joins a short list of adolescent film heroines (like those of “Juno” and “Ghost World”) who have done heroic battle with the inanities of teenage life. And she has more than little of Catcher in the Rye‘s Holden Caulfield percolating through her bloodstream.

But as with those characters, behind Nadine’s assured bluster there’s an awkward child utterly terrified at the notion of adulthood.

Kelly Fremon Craig’s film starts with a backstory — how Nadine lost her beloved father to a heart attack. She resents his absence every single day, and the injustice of his passing leaves her riding an emotional razor blade.

She has found a substitute of sorts with Mr. Bruner (Woody Harrelson), her history teacher, whom she engages in combative, provocative banter. He finds Nadine exasperating and self-absorbed, but keeps being drawn back to her sardonic wit. These two could trade verbal punches all day long.

“The Edge of Seventeen” (a generic title that sounds like something generated by a computer program) centers on two major plot lines, neither of which may seem like a big deal to adults but which to Nadine are the alpha and omega of her existence.

The first is a betrayal by her best friend Krista (Haley Lu Richardson), who has had the temerity to fall for Nadine’s big brother Darian (Blake Jenner). Darian is a handsome senior jock — probably a Republican for crying out loud. He represents all the things about high school that Nadine despises.

And now Krista has gone over to the enemy.  It’s enough to make a girl act out in inappropriate ways. (more…)

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“THE KEEPING ROOM”: War is hell

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on October 29, 2015| 1 Comment »

Left to right: Hailee Steinfeld, ** and Britt Marling

Left to right: Hailee Steinfeld, Muna Otaru and Brit Marling

“THE KEEPING ROOM” My rating: B- (Opens Oct. 30 at the Alamo Drafthouse)

95 minutes | MPAA rating: R

The Civil War drama “The Keeping Room” opens with a quote from Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman to the effect that war is cruel — and that the crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.

Not a happy thought. Not a happy movie.

But despite a tendency toward preciousness, Daniel Bart’s period drama  effectively conveys the desperation, ugliness and moral vacuum of war — not by depicting the chaos of battle but by describing the plight of unfortunate civilians in its path.

Augusta and Louise (Britt Marling, Hailee Steinfeld) are sisters living on their once-prosperous family farm.  But all the men are off fighting for the Confederacy and things are slowly falling apart.  Their only companion is the slave woman, Mad (Muna Otaru).

In better days the sisters no doubt lived pampered lives — Louise, the younger, still exudes the attitude of a spoiled aristocrat — but the war has turned everything topsy turvey.  Now all three women must work the fields if they’re to keep eating.

Meanwhile a pair of  soldiers, Moses and Henry (Sam Worthington and Kyle Soller) are marauding their way around the countryside — raping, stealing and murdering with impunity. They claim they were sent by the Union Army to soften resistance, though it’s difficult to believe their murderous excesses are sanctioned.  Their clothing is a mishmash of civilian items and those scavenged from the dead of both armies. They may simply be deserters out to indulge their worst instincts.

A confrontation between the three women and the killers is inevitable — especially after Moses casts eyes on Augusta at a general store, determines to have her, and tracks her back to the homestead.

(more…)

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“BEGIN AGAIN”: Once more from the top

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on July 1, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Kiera Knightley, Mark Ruffalo in "Begin Again"

Keira Knightley, Mark Ruffalo in “Begin Again”

“BEGIN AGAIN” My rating: B (Opening July 2 at the Glenwood Arts)

104 minutes | MPAA rating: R

“Begin Again” is only half the movie that “Once” is.

But it should still be enough to jump start the career of filmmaker John Carney.

“Once,” of course, was Carney’s 2006 art house hit about a tentative romance between a Dublin street busker and a Polish immigrant. This mini-budget wonder, largely improvised and featuring an astounding soundtrack written by the two “stars” (Glenn Hansard, Marketa Irglova), introduced the Oscar-winning song “Falling Slowly.” It was a new kind of intimate musical, and a bittersweet romance of epic proportions. (It has gone on to become a hit on Broadway).

But the ensuing years have not been kind to writer/director Carney, who used his newfound fame to make two instantly forgettable features: the clumsy visitor-from-another-planet comedy “Zonad” (2008), which was released in the US only on home video, and the supernatural thriller “The Rafters” (2012), which as far as I can tell has been seen by practically no one.

Which brings us to “Begin Again,” an effort to recapture some of the magic of “Once.”

It’s about music. It’s about love.

And it’s actually not bad.

(more…)

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