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In Praise of the Creative Adaptation

December 24, 2016 in Book Matters, Film Matters, Listing, Reviews

Adaptations that take artistic license with their source material may disappoint diehard fans, but they often are the best kinds of films when it comes to igniting the imagination. Tis the season of top-everything lists, so let’s take a moment to honor some super-creative, super unconventional adaptations – many of which are better than anything in theaters right now.

“Clueless” (1995)
Jane Austen’s books are so witty and romantic that each one lends itself perfectly to cinema. I’m a huge fan of “Sense and Sensibility,” the Ang Lee-directed, Emma Thompson-penned adaptation. Ditto for the BBC adaptation of “Pride and Prejudice” (ignore the Keira Knightley version) and Whit Stillman’s “Love & Friendship,” a silver-tongued adaptation of Lady Susan. But the most creative Austen adaptation has got to be director/screenwriter Amy Heckerling’s take on Emma, in which Alicia Silverstone plays Cher, a beautiful, rich, Beverly Hills high school A student who can’t stop herself from meddling in other people’s business. The cast is a who’s-who of soon-to-be-stars (Paul Rudd plays her ex-stepbrother/current love interest; the late Brittany Murphy plays Cher’s fixer-upper) and the plot is a Cracker Jack box of sparkling wordplay, ‘90s fashion, sly edits, and a moral compass that would please Austen herself. Continue Reading →

The Grind of ‘Silence’

December 23, 2016 in Book Matters, Film Matters, Reviews, Spirit Matters

It has taken Martin Scorsese nearly thirty years to make “Silence,” his adaptation of Shusaku Endo’s 1966 award-winning novel about spirituality in the face of profound human suffering. In the intermediary, he has released a bevy of less weighty films, most recently “The Wolf of Wall Street,” which treads as far from “Silence” as Donald Trump does from Barack Obama. Yet what distinguishes the Academy Award-winning director’s work is in full effect in both films: a fascination with ritual coupled with an epic scale. True, “Silence” trains its lens on abstinence and self-sacrifice, but it does so with the over-the top commitment with which the “Wolf” stockbrokers snort drugs off hookers’ asses.

Adam Driver and Andrew Garfield play Fathers Garrpe and Rodrigues respectively, two Portuguese Jesuit missionaries searching for Father Ferreira (Liam Neeson), their mentor who has gone missing in Japan. It is the seventeenth century and Christians have been intent on spreading the good word in Asia, whether or not that word is welcome. The rumor is that Ferreira has absolved his faith and taken a Japanese name and wife, but the younger priests feel in their hearts that this is slander and that their teacher needs rescuing. So they set off on a slow boat, armed only with what they can carry on their backs – mostly Christian artifacts. Continue Reading →

‘All We Had’ Is Not That Bad

December 20, 2016 in Book Matters, Film Matters, Reviews

I’ve never really understood the Katie Holmes phenomenon. She was appropriately terrible on the ‘90s WB dramedy “Dawson’s Creek” as an ugly duckling who remained fascinatingly awkward upon blooming into a swan. Afterward, “Pieces of April” aside, she didn’t have much of a career to be eclipsed by her headline-grabbing, mid-aughts marriage to megastar Tom Cruise. In fact, until recently, Holmes’s biggest achievement seemed to be escaping the notoriously tenacious claws of Scientology by winning custody of daughter Suri after leaving her couch-jumper of a husband.

So it’s a headline unto itself that “All We Had,” the tabloid star’s directorial debut, is un-terrible. But faint praise aside, it would be an admirable effort for any first-time filmmaker, let alone a lady not exactly known for weathering lean times. An adaptation of Annie Weatherwax’s eponymous novel, it focuses on problem drinker Rita (Holmes) and her precocious fifteen-year-old daughter, Ruthie (Stefania Owen, “The Carrie Diaries”), as they navigate poverty and homelessness. Understated yet deeply felt, Holmes’ portrait of people who only have known hard times never strikes a false note, even when Josh Boone and Jill Killington’s adapted screenplay wanders too far afield. Continue Reading →

"All, everything I understand, I understand only because I love."
― Leo Tolstoy