Katherine Mallen Kupferer, Chloe Coleman
“MOUSE” My rating: B+ (In theaters)
120 minutes | MPAA rating: R
“Mouse” left me absolutely gutted.
But in the best way.
Stories about grief are problematical from the get-go. But filmmakers Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson exhibit a deft, delicate touch, eschewing big bombastic actor-ish moments and instead collecting little moments of real life that, once stirred gently together, blossom into something extraordinarily human.
The mouse of the title is Minnie (Katherine Mallen Kupferer), a freckled wild-haired high school junior in Little Rock in the early 2000s.
Minnie lives with her divorced mom (Tara Mallen…the young actress’s real-life mom) and a baby boy they are fostering in a perennially unkempt home on the tacky side of town. Minnie is quiet and unsure of herself — the bitchy girls call her “Mouse” both because she’s so low-keyed and because it’s a put-down reference to Disney’s lady rodent.
Minnie doesn’t care. Her best friend and confidante Callie (Chloe Coleman) provides all the social interaction and validation she needs. Callie may come from the ranks of the upper upper middle class (her home is a mansion compared to Minnie’s) but she’s a true-blue egalitarian. The girls are inseparable.
Until Callie dies in an auto accident. Suddenly everything Minnie has built her world on collapses.
The screenplay (by O’Sullivan and Thompson) develops several plot threads.
In one Minnie begins hanging out with Callie’s mother Helen (Sophie Okonedo), whose marriage has collapsed with the death of her only child. The relationship is mutually beneficial: Minnie enjoys living in a nice house where the meals aren’t always take-out or Lean Cuisine, while Helen can pretend she still has a child.
At the same time it’s queasily uncomfortable. Small wonder Minnie’s real mother is angry.
Another subplot involves Minnie’s first stirrings of love with a sardonic-but-empathetic video store clerk (Iman Vellani).
And then there’s the preparations for a high school talent show dedicated to the late Callie. David Hyde Pierce, in an astonishingly unforced performance, is the drama teacher tasked with curbing the worst impulses of his young charges.
Now all this may sound terribly downbeat. And you will find yourself fighting back tears (I’m thinking particularly of Helen’s visit to a support group for grieving parents).
But the film is often wryly funny, particularly in its deft observations on teen obsession (Audrey Grace Marshall plays a high school mean girl so self-absorbed you can only roll your eyes).
Laughter through tears…memorable stuff.
Penelope Cruz, Edward Norton, Seth Rogen, Olivia Wilde
“THE INVITE” My rating: B+ (HBO Max)
107 minutes | MPAA rating: R
Olivia Wilde’s “The Invite” is a comedy of discomfort.
You’ll start squirming early and keep at it for the better part of two hours.
The setup: San Francisco couple Joe and Angela (Seth Rogen, Olivia Wilde) are hosting a dinner party to get to know their new upstairs neighbors, Pina (Penelope Cruz) and Hawk (Edward Norton).
Angela, who wears her neuroses on her sleeve, is frantic to make everything just right. Joe is less eager. He already hates these newcomers because they have noisy sex that makes sleeping impossible…and reminds him that his own sex life leaves much to be desired.
Angela has gone all out with a huge charcuterie and cheese extravaganza…only to learn that Pina is vegan. Moreover, the visitors seem incredibly self-assured and confidant, and clearly deeply in love/lust. Whereas Angela and Joe are mired in a bog of bickering.
Turns out that Pina and Hawk have an ulterior motive…they’d like to invite Joe and Angela up for a little swinger action.
“The Invite” (scripted by Cesc Gay, Will McCormack and Rashida Jones) is very nearly as funny as it is wince-inducing. And it has been perfectly performed by this quartet of actors.
Comedy acting is widely underrated, but here we have four of the year’s best performances. In the wrong hands this could have been a holy mess, but Rogen, Wilde, Cruz and Norton deliver unexpected nuances of character. It’s laugh-out-loud funny but also real enough that just about everyone will relate to it on one level or another.
As director Wilde beautifully orchestrates this verbal farce, and her choice of music (dissident cellos providing emphatic accents) is dang near perfect.
| Robert W. Butler
