"TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY" dir. TOMAS ALFREDSON

Evoking the murky grit, shadow skulking, and moral vagueries of classic espionage films like Coppola's "The Conversation" and De Palma's "Blow-Out," Tomas Alfredson's take on John le Carre's "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" is a stately and entrancing mindfuck, capable of both brutal violence and an aching yearning. While the narrative approaches near alienating levels of complexity (and how could it not, dealing with spy/counterspy operations at such high levels of national government?) the measured, impeccable performances and Alfredson's gorgeous, haunting mise-en-scene coupled with Alberto Iglesias's Lynchian netherworld jazz score create an aura of suffocating claustrophobia and crumbling allegiances. Depicting the Cold War as seen through a fog of tangled emotions and sickening near hallucinatory setpieces, "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" is a symphony of noir-tinged elegance and aristocratic pomp, with each character struggling to reduce the influence of their own humanity to a narrow point capable of allowing the necessary distance demanded by total national security. Nothing here is sacred, be it egoism or romance, and all are prone to shatter at the hands of adversaries. The corruption runs deep, scarring all involved. The psychological constructs that are erected throughout the film become glass houses and by the end of it all, few escape unscathed by the flaying shards.
1973. The film opens with a botched operation to scoop up a potential Hungarian defector in Budapest who supposedly has the name of a mole in "The Circus," the British intelligence division overseen by the equally enigmatically monikered Control (played masterfully by John Hurt, channeling the spirit of Orwell's "1984" .) Control has long suspected the existence of such a mole; when confirmation comes from field agent Ricki Tarr (Tom Hardy), Control dispatches agent Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong) to broker the meet. Things spiral out of control: Pirdeaux is shot, and in the aftermath Control and his right hand George Smiley (Gary Oldman, all sophistication and cool understated intelligence) are forced into retirement. Control dies from illness soon after; Smiley settles in to comfortable domesticity.
1974. Smiley is called out of retirement to investigate Tarr's allegations. Smiley assembles his team and undertakes a covert investigation, treading lightly under the auspices of new Circus head Percy Alleline (Toby Jones, an impish delight) and his deputy Bill Haydon (Colin Firth, playing it very straight and very British); Alleline's promotion was based on the strength of his heading up Project Witchcraft, delivering highly sensitive Soviet documents that Alleline trades with American intelligence. Smiley conducts a series of interviews with ousted Circus operatives and employees, gradually putting the pieces into place. When Smiley finds Tarr hiding in his home, the dominoes begin to fall with startling rapidity, unveiling a tangled mess of surveillance, lust, and murder that goes back to Soviet mastermind and spy ringleader Karla.
Anything else would begin to spoil the fun. Suffice to say it all begins to fall apart. Despite the script's "down the rabbit-hole" convolutions, the major thrust of the narrative is easy to grasp. Fully appreciating the level of depth and the film's multiple layers requires multiple viewings; hints and insinuations blossom into full-on revelations, connecting the characters' relationships in subtle and scandalous ways. The interconnectivity is fairly stunning, illustrating the beauty and complexity a film is capable of with such a panoramic cast. The relationship between Prideaux and Haydon, for instance, is handled with a minimalist grace that is reminiscent of Samuel Fuller's treatment of similar subject matter in "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia"; the overwhelming beauty of matching a tear with a bullet hole amplifies the intimacy between the two, as well as the emotional devastation the events they're wrapped in have wrought on both men. A lesser director would have relied on crass dialogue and even crasser action, but Alfredson treats the confrontation with an almost ethereal translucency, the grey area magnified to a blinding sheet of denial. The recurring Christmas party scene also paints a picture of rampant, errant emotion struggling to be kept in check. With minimal expository dialogue and an astounding job of acting by all the players, "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" elevates itself to a melodramatic level of tragedy virtually free of contrivance. Looks of yearning and nervous backwards glancing amp up the paranoia to near deafening levels. This is a space full of ruin and sorrow; all of the muted colors and soft focus reflect the growing sense of weariness and loss that everyone involved begins to feel.
Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema does an astounding job with Alfredson's vertigo-inducing color schemes, transforming them into putrid washes of back alley paranoia and sickly swirls of crawling menace. In van Hoytema's hands, the Christmas party becomes a tension fueled nightmare of spy/counterspy and sexual repression while a torturous interrogation turns into a brutal, splattering murder scene in a matter of milliseconds. Alfredson's desire to dwell on the bloodshed isn't quite as elegiacal as it was in "Let the Right One In" (these are intelligence agents rather than vampires) but it is atmospheric, showcasing the director's deft hand in weaving horror film aesthetics into a fairly narrowly formatted genre. The effect and mastery is similar to that displayed by Peter Jackson in his criminally underrated "The Lovely Bones"; horror out of context but gruelingly and squeamishly effective. Alfredson, like Jackson, is more than willing to remind people where his approach truly comes from; van Hoytema allows him the palette and toolbox to achieve it. "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" uses violence as something of a moral counterweight, as though to suggest the reality of consequence resulting from what these people are actually involved in. While it's intense, artistic, and disturbing, it's never once exploitative: every drop of blood serves the story.
This film isn't a reinvention so much as an homage. The tropes of the genre and style remain intact, the unrelenting bleakness found at the center of the best Cold War evoking films channeled effectively via double-crosses and selfishness. Alfredson keeps his distance throughout; even the few moments of warmth allowed Smiley vanish in the face of the daunting corruption at hand. Some may accuse the director of coldness or remove, but it's what the film necessitates in order to be as engrossing as it is. Much like Anton Corbijn's "The American," the focus is on the process of the game, the endless manipulations and red herrings as Smiley opens up door after rotted door. The illusory quality of each new twist lends the proceedings a psychedelic edge, George Smiley on the precipice of the Big Nowhere. The soundtrack references the free-willed spirit of the late 1960's while simultaneously burying it under the reflexive repression and private political shame of the 1970's. Like "The Conversation," this is a film burning with deep sexual undertones, the surface gloss of spy vs. spy an involved ruse meant to obfuscate the troubling questions of desire and loyalty. Alfredson isn't holding back-he's just injecting ideology with displaced teenage lust. Smiley is plagued with memories and regrets; the mole becomes a metaphor for Smiley's attempt to grasp his own failures and impotencies.
There's no happy ending here, because there's hardly any ending at all. Every man involved (and they are all men) is torn apart. Even Smiley is forced to confront the gravity of the future, the rapidly changing face of the political landscape and the uncertainty threatening his own little slice of the world. Alfredson's advancing oppression splashes the skies in a deluge of grey; the clouds roll in as the years roll on. By 1974 a storm was building, ballooning itself on a detritus of hubris and the ever-growing tower of splintered egos; self-congratulation would become the echoing testimony to fuck-up after fuck-up. "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" may only represent one fleeting, anxious moment in the Cold War timeline, but it captures the boiling antagonism and distrust that defined it better than any film in decades. That it does so in the transposed frameworks of horror and sexploitation, and produces something so elegant out of them, allows it to transcend the tag of mere history and pass into the realm of something far more hallucinatory.

"DREW PETERSON: UNTOUCHABLE" dir. MIKAEL SALOMON

Lifetime Network original films have become a genre onto themselves, much the same way that SyFy original productions have found their unique niche in the cable machine. Both networks churn out a very particular style of product: SyFy an endless parade of genetically crossbred monsters pitted against one another as they rack up (mostly human) collateral damage, Lifetime an endless parade of tearjerker/true crime melodramas usually zeroing in on damaged relationships and spousal abuse. The quality of the films is never high, nor is it expected to be. In that sense, Lifetime's recent production of "Drew Peterson: Untouchable" represents a new level of professional ambition veering ever-so-slightly away from the tawdry; the treatment of something so topical and current demands a more refined approach to narrative and structure. For Lifetime, it wouldn't do to just rehash the facts in a wash of muted colors and tear-stained faces: the audience needs to be hypnotized in order to be properly horrified by the sheer brazenness of Drew Peterson and his bloated narcissism. Who better to inhabit and ultimately realize that moon-sized ego than Rob Lowe?
The film plays out almost exactly as the case itself did. Modern day lothario Drew Peterson became the focus of a police investigation and a national media frenzy after the inexplicable disappearance of his fourth wife, Stacy Ann Cales (played by Kaley Cuoco of "The Big Bang Theory"), in 2007. A police officer himself, Peterson was long suspected of murdering his third wife, Kathleen Savio, by forcibly drowning her (though the death was initially ruled an accident); Savio's family maintained that Peterson was responsible, and that Savio's death was the terminus point of a destructive relationship laden with psychological torment and abuse. Peterson constructed a bravura persona defined by gross misogyny and a feeling of imperviousness that bordered on the godlike; his second wife Victoria Connolly described him as "a legend in his own mind." Lowe's portrayal certainly makes that the crux of Peterson's personality, imbuing him with a swagger and arrogance difficult to reconcile with his lackluster physical appearance and outdated opinions of women. Lowe's Peterson is pure caricature, the epitome of mindless villainy, the guy you love to hate-not far from the reality.
Told mostly through newscasts and other media appearances shot through a simple narrative of elliptical discovery, "Drew Peterson: Untouchable" looks to do little other than give the audience a straight run-through of the events, barely rising above the level of an episode of "America's Most Wanted." The sheer force of Peterson's bloated self-confidence occupies the screen en-masse at all times; even when coating his obvious insecurities with the threat of violence (such as when he drops in on Stacy and a male friend having lunch and accuses her of adultery) he remains the controlling force. Peterson's world is the world as made by Peterson, defined by his suspicions and allowing for little outside influence. The view is singular to the point of anachronistic, with Peterson inventing his own versions of events and effectively feeding his own delusions. Perhaps most troubling is his attack on Stacy at her sister's funeral, where he confronts her about sleeping with her sister's husband, asking her later to tell him "...how many times you banged him." Peterson's apparent need to be cuckolded speaks volumes about his actual levels of confidence; the only intimacy available to hi is blind rage. His hostile suspicions more than make the case for him committing violence against his wives (a theory the film wholeheartedly endorses); Stacy's awareness of this violence and her constant relegation to it elevate the inevitable melo-tragic result.
The film hinges on Lowe's performance and little else. I wouldn't have watched this, except i happened to run across a ridiculous scene during some late night channel surfing and was immediately sucked in by the over-the-top charisma in Lowe's performance. Out with buddies who paint Peterson as the ultimate ladykiller ("I'll bet Drew gets more tail than anyone in this place," one toadie blathers), Peterson rises to the challenge and approaches two young ladies at the bar, telling his friends that "Big Daddy's gonna get it done." Lowe, looking like Mike Ditka vacationing in Hawaii, saunters over and immediately seals the deal. I was struck by the absurdity of it and made myself watch the film the next time it aired. While there's little remarkable about the actual film itself (director Mikael Salomon has done serviceable work for television and feature film for years, but nothing mind-blowing), Lowe completely gives himself over to the role, enjoying every minute of portraying this hammy, over-confident blowhard. In scene after scene, Lowe chews it up: emerging from his garage in majesty on his motorcycle, strutting out of his front doors in an American flag bandana and aviator sunglasses while mugging insanely for the camera (looking a little like a patriotic Unabomber), and terrorizing his suspicious neighbor Karen (Katherine Dent, giving her small role more than it deserves) by raising and lowering her garage door (seriously?) as he delivers the film's titular line: "I'm untouchable, bitch." The fun Lowe seems to be having is infectious to the viewer. Peterson is repugnant, but we can't get enough of him. In this sense, the film works masterfully, illustrating the grotesquerie of Peterson's media appeal and our fascination with domestic brutality. Stacy recedes under the weight of Drew; his posturing and performance all but erase her memory, and the community at large begins to lose sight of the fact that she's probaby dead. She's collateral damage in Peterson's personal thrillride. Cuoco's abysmal performance does little to actually give Stacy any depth: she's either a battered and terrified wife or a strong take-no-shit lady. Cuoco can't decide; the scenes where she stands up to Peterson feel like rote line recitals. There's no emotion; Cuoco makes the viewer feel as though nothing is at stake. Even her attempts at assuaging her own guilt over her imagined complicity in Peterson's crime against Savio feels empty. While the real Stacy certainly suffered, Cuoco's portrayal is merely insufferable; Lowe overwhelms her at every turn.
Peterson's odyssey has the feel of phantasmagoria, one unbelievable contrivance after another. His steadfast denial of involvement in either of his wives' disappearances has made him something of a self-styled pariah. Though Peterson has yet to go to trial (he is in prison waiting to face charges of murder against his third wife) Lifetime allows no presumption of innocence: in perhaps the film's penultimate scene, the camera slowly heads up the stairs and pans to Peterson's open bedroom door, where he's seen standing menacingly across from a large blue barrel supposedly containing Stacy's body. The scene is rendered in ghastly, sickening greens and jaundiced yellows; it's ethereal, surreal, and slightly skin-crawling. Peterson and his friend are then seen loading the barrel into the back of Peterson's SUV. Apparently based on a confession from Peterson's body-dumping accomplice, this scene destroys any pretense to objectivity the film may have had; rather than the studied (in theory) portrait of an American crime that "Drew Peterson: Untouchable" could have been, it instead becomes another gas-soaked log on the media fire. Lifetime films are about opportunism in the same way that episodes of "Law and Order" were "ripped from the headlines," but here there's an absence of resolution both laughable and disturbing. Is the film meant to be taken seriously as a meditation on the problem of abuse, or is it mere camp thought up for the sole purpose of seeing Rob Lowe mug it up beneath a bushy moustache? Or does the real purpose lie somewhere in between, giving viewers a vague, blurred comment on the commensurability of tragedy and consumerism?
The answer seems to lie in the film's bizarre final scene in which Peterson is processed at prison. In grueling slow motion, we're treated to Lowe stripping down in a lurid, grinding, mockery of a striptease, laughing to himself as two state police officers look on impassively. The world is watching, and it loves what it sees. To Drew Peterson, it's all a joke; death, sex, and masculinity are all intertwined in a cosmic stew of entitlement and desire. "Drew Peterson: Untouchable" scrapes the muddiest bottom of narrative storytelling while hyping up the most sensationalistic aspects of a bizarre, fragmented series of events. The gargantuan ego at the center of them makes for a fascinating character study, but Lifetime's treatment of the Drew Peterson saga is the equivalent of a lightbulb flickering in a void.

"A DANGEROUS METHOD" dir. DAVID CRONENBERG

Intricately layered and hypnotically complex, David Cronenberg's brilliant adaptation of Christopher Hampton's stage play "The Talking Cure" (in turn based on John Kerr's book "A Most Dangerous Method") takes on the deep-rooted neuroses associated with want, lust, and desire as exemplified by the destructive and symbiotic relationship between Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortenson), Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender), and Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley). Eschewing almost every trace of the "body horror" that defined his formative work, and even the radical violence that punctuated his last two films, here Cronenberg burrows in the hidden recesses of psyches and intellects in torment and crafts a piece that explores his interests in indulgence and transformation in greater detail than almost anything he's done. It almost feels like Cronenberg's been working towards this film his entire career: it isn't hard to trace the trajectory from the repression-gnawing parasites of "Shivers" to Jung's embrace of his most primal sexual instincts in "A Most Dangerous Method." Both involve violence and arousal as by-products of the grotesque (or the unexpressed); that Cronenberg is here dealing with something close to an accounted actuality rather than horrific fantasy makes the thematics presented all the more shattering when ultimately realized. There are consequences to pleasure, emotional and potentially deadening.
Opening on a hysterical, near-epileptic Spielrein being carted up to a sanatorium, Cronenberg immediately establishes the fractured, frightening tone of the film. Spielrein's condition is violent and halting, causing her to stutter and contort herself. Given over to the psychiatric care of Jung, he decides to implement Freud's radical "talking cure," a theory that laid out the groundwork for all of modern psychoanalysis. By removing himself both visually and emotionally, Jung gets to the heart of Spielrein's psychosis-her early and continued sexual excitement arising from her father's disciplinary beatings years before. Two years later, cured, Spielrein begins medical studies herself, hoping to become a psychiatrist as well. Jung's successful treatment of Spielrein grants him an audience with the much admired Sigmund Freud, and the two form an antagonistic bond that ultimately tests the beliefs of both men as well as the strength of their individual theories of psychoanalysis. Freud's approach is clinical and rooted in sexuality; Jung opens himself up to the possibility of mysticism and parapsychology, to Freud's growing distaste. When Spielrein confesses a sexual attraction to Jung the idea of it gnaws away at him and he reluctantly acts on it; from there Cronenberg's film becomes a cavernous parade of defeat, humiliation (both sexual and professional) and self-doubt as Jung, Speilrein, and Freud commence an odyssey of interaction that spans years.
The principal actors all turn in exemplary performances here. Fassbender caps off a stellar year with a portrayal of Jung as a man haunted by the realisation of his own desires and his crippling fear of acting on them. Watching his restraint erode away as he desperately tries to keep it in check, and its resultant effect on him, is mesmerizing. Mortenson is all cool, clinical detachment as Freud, playing up the Master's need to exert authority as well his subtly condescending ridicule of any psychological theory not beholden to his own. And Knightley is simply stunning in her depiction of Spielrein, bringing her from the brink of madness to the cool and composed manipulator she becomes at the end of the film (i would be surprised if she didn't receive an Academy nod.) The three entwine themselves beautifully, like an intellectual threeway where the only rule is climax denial.
The deterioration of Freud and Jung's intensely competitive and adversarial relationship allows for an illustration of differing psychological approaches that highlight several of Cronenberg's authorial themes. The film's lush evocation of myriad sexualities, and Jung's growing awareness of his own ravenous sexual appetite, references previous Cronenberg works like "Crash" (where the outre fetish begins to have a strange and hypnotic allure to the film's protagonist); the exploration of sadistic and masochistic tendencies in relationships recalls "Videodrome"'s strange "Samurai Dreams" programs found inbetwixt the white noise of late night television reception. Cronenberg's subtle treatment of the idea of transformation comes into play in "A Dangerous Method" as well, with Jung's shifting ideological alliances and growing personal awareness acting as a less visceral mirror to Seth Brundle's grotesque reawakening in "The Fly." Cronenberg's world is packed with the bizarre; here it's just dressed more politely. Spielrein's initial fits are nothing if not agonized representations of the consequences of repression. So too Jung's state at the end of the film, hollowed and carved out, dreaming of the apocalypse and wondering how it all spiraled out of control, another major concern in this work. Control is constantly switching hands, especially between Spielrein and Jung: when she comes to him asking to begin a sexual relationship, Jung has the power to grant or deny her wish. When he in turn becomes infatuated, the power reverts. Jung weeping into her skirts, begging her to stay, is perhaps the film's most openly vulnerable moment; Jung never allows himself this concession to emotion again. Spielrein late seeks to inflame and dominate Jung by working with Freud. Freud in turn exercises authority over Jung by never conceding to having his own dreams analyzed by his protege. This constant circle of domination is a brilliant illustration of Freud's threepart divided self, with each character variously inhabiting the roles of id, ego, and superego.
Of course sex is at the root of the film, as it is in so many other Cronenberg statements. Jung has difficulty accepting Freud's idea that every human psychological frailty stems from sex, but even more difficulty recognizing the proof of the theory in his own actions. After their initial meeting, Freud sends a troubled colleague, Otto Gross (Vincent Cassel, in full on sleazy magnetism mode), to Jung for treatment. Jung cannot process Gross' lustful approach to life, taking the most issue with Gross' nonchalant attitude towards doctors sleeping with patients. Gross believes in pure freedom, shorn of repression and open to all experience; Jung believes in certain ethical standards that he cannot reconcile with his own desires. This conflict inevitably becomes the constant antagonist in Jung's spirit; when he tells Spielrein of his apocalyptic dreams, he's not just filling her head with evocative nightmares-he's telling her that his experiences with her have utterly ruined him and hollowed him, and that he can't heal the wounds their union has inflicted. It's a harrowing scene, given life by Fassbender's crumbling restraint and growing self-doubt. Cronenberg isn't endorsing a full-on de Sadean approach to pleasure at any and all costs, but he is suggesting the harm inherent in self-denial. As there are consequences to pleasure so too are there consequences to repression, whether it's supernatural dwarves born of rage or a lifetime of sadness and regret.
The haunting final shot of Jung sitting alone in his lakeside chair gazing out at the water suggests both the unknowable expanse of human emotion and the fallibility lurking within the idea of self-restraint. The atmosphere is distinctly forlorn, yearning, and wretched, allowing Cronenberg to map out the terminus of desire and the subtle onset of obsessive self-reflection. Jung's twilight years were spent in an increasingly dreamlike state; his work became more artistic and vague and his theories more involved with parapsychology and the notion of the spiritual in the everyday. The pressures and professional antagonisms he was facing from both his colleagues (Freud openly denounced him) and himself (he never seems to have recovered from his experiences with Spielrein) forced him into a life of speculation and a transference of the supernatural as a substitute for fulfillment. For all its intelligence, wit, and sophistication, this is very much a film shot through with an aching, hopeless sadness. The question of possibilities is defeated by reality and the brooding weight of existence. Love is of the moment, to be seized. It cannot be cultivated or hoped for or achieved; Jung's mistake is his failure to act on this truth, made even more punishing because he knows it as a truth. "A Dangerous Method" serves as Cronenberg's multifaceted warning against fallacy, against preconception, against propriety. No one ever gets what they really want. Sometimes other people get hurt.

"THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO" dir. DAVID FINCHER

Arriving fashionably late to the party, David Fincher's adaptation of Stieg Larsson's blockbuster novel "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" is a gripping, taut procedural that hypnotically shreds three hours away while elevating the source material to a breakneck state of breathless storytelling. Obviously aware of the Swedish version directed by Niels Arden Oplev in 2009, Fincher doesn't seek to outdo or compete with it in any way, instead paying respectful homage by utilizing some of what worked in the original and fleshing out some of what didn't. Fincher's resultant film is one more self-contained and narratively rich, especially as far as the main characters are concerned; in Fincher's world the reasons as to why the characters are who they are are explored in greater and more evocative detail, giving us versions of Mikal Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) and Lisbeth Salander (the fabulous Rooney Mara) that feel more like actual people than harshly drawn archetypes. Appropriately, "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" has a greater emotional resonance than its Swedish forebear, opening up a new dimension to a story almost everyone knows, as well as a new textural element to Fincher's film work.
The question isn't so much whether this is a good film (it is) or even a necessary one (still not sure, as much as i like it) but rather how it differs from the original. I liked Oplev's film very much, finding it incredibly dark and atmospheric; in my mind it approached a level of quality to that found in Jonathan Demme's masterful "The Silence of the Lambs." I found myself wondering if even Fincher could do any better a job with it, growing more and more excited as its release drew near. I'm astonished at how far apart the two pieces are in composition, pace, and tone-they really do stand as two separate works from two very different directors. It could be argued that Oplev's version already dipped into the David Fincher pool; few modern directors have had so distinct and psychological a take on the serial killer template. Oplev borrowed all the grime of his "Girl" from Fincher's "Se7en" and quite a bit of its exposition from "Zodiac"; in turn Fincher seems to have borrowed the best bits of his "Girl" from another Scandinavian source, Erik Skjoldbjaerg's 1997 film "Insomnia" (later butchered in the Americanization process by Christopher Nolan). Oplev's and Fincher's films are mirrors of one another, two faces of one coin; its evident Fincher spent some time with Oplev's film by way of some key set pieces that seem almost identical and by way of his meatier narrative exposition. For all its successes, Oplev's film was lean on plot details. Fincher and screenwriter Steve Zaillian correct that and fill out "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" to a point where every scene is crucial; one missed bit of dialogue and the whole thing comes unraveled.
The plot is labyrinthine but remarkably linear. Recently disgraced journalist Mikal Blomkvist is facing public and financial ruin as the result of a lawsuit for libel lobbied against him by a wealthy industrialist suspected of criminal activity. Blomkvist accepts an assignment from the wealthy and retired Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer) on his island town of Hedestad, to root through forty years worth of private investigation and find out what happened to his niece Harriet year ago. Vanger suspects someone in his extended family of murdering Harriet; Blomkvist has the necessary skills to root out the truth. The Vanger family tree is a shitstorm of Nazis, misogynists, and abusers; as Blomkvist gets deeper into the truth he hires troubled ward of the state and hacker extraordinaire Lisbeth Salander to assist in his research. Lisbeth, recently self-delivered of her own abusive relationship with her guardian Nils Bjurman (Yorick van Wageningen), more or less leads Mikal to the reality of what happened to Harriet. Together the two end the taint of corruption that has plagued the Vanger family in the form of prodigal son Martin (the superb Stellan Skarsgard, playing fabulously opposite his character in "Insomnia") and reunite Henrik with Harriet.
The actual investigation really only informs the latter half of the film. The majority is taken up detailing Mikal and Lisbeth's separate paths to their working together. Lisbeth's history is rife with abuse, degradation, and betrayal; her encounters with the sadistic Bjurman are just as frightening to behold here as they were in Opvel's film. Fincher has never shied from violence, preferring a realistic approach to it rather than a stylized one, and here that approach works to ensure a deeply unsettling intensity to Lisbeth's rape and revenge. Mysteriously gone is any retelling of Lisbeth's crime against her father; rather than show it in image Fincher allows Lisbeth to tell Mikal, in about two sentences, how she came to be a ward of the state. The difference in interpretation here is striking, and points to how differently the two directors actually view the character of Lisbeth; Fincher's approach to her is what makes me prefer his version.
In Opvel's film, Lisbeth (played by Noomi Rapace) is an absolute loner with little use for anyone; her past has so destroyed and shaped her that the only defense is complete and total removal. She is severe rather than awkard, crushingly confident, and infuriatingly distant. Opvel played up all Lisbeth's hard edges and allowed for little emotion in her character; the result is a difficulty in appreciating the complexity of her relationship with Mikal (the two make love once, and it's viewed as a fluke event.) Fincher's Lisbeth is a different thing entirely, a fragile and damaged person who projects a thorny exterior to protect against a deep and continuous hurt inflicted against her by those she trusted most. As played by Mara, Lisbeth is an intensely sensitive person; her actions seems to have far more meaning and her motivations are much more clearly understood by Fincher's focus on the personality behind the facade. Her eventual relationship with Mikal is then seen in a different light, the first time Lisbeth has opened up and chosen to trust another person. When Mikal ultimately betrays that trust (as everyone in Lisbeth's life has) the emotional devastation Lisbeth feels is palpable; Fincher's portrayal ultimately answers the riddle of Mikal and Lisbeth's troubled relationship that made so little sense in the two Swedish follow up films. Mara's stunning work as Lisbeth adds to the empathy; Mara looks both haunted and hollowed, and the few moments of joy that Lisbeth experiences are warming. Fincher's Lisbeth is someone we feel for; Oplev's Lisbeth is someone who we aren't even sure feels herself.
That warmth carries over into Fincher's actual look for the film. Gone are all the harsh angles and deep focus and lurid colors of Opvel's nightmare; instead Fincher washes his Sweden out, painting a country under the throes of near endless winter. Colors are muted and soft, lights are bright and glowing. It's a huge deivatiation from the director's earlier work; even "The Social Network" was more foreboding than "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo." This composition is another reference to "Insomnia," Sweden as an eternal blinding white, the ultimate blanc noir behind the Coen Brothers' "Fargo." "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" exists in a dreary haze where even the dark recesses are bathed in sickly white; interesting that so many secrets are hidden amidst so much visibility. Opvel's film had an opulence and austerity that Fincher ultimately rejects; again, his realistic approach frames the story he's trying to tell. Rather than fantasy and exaggeration, Fincher opts for reduction and believability. A character as extreme as Lisbeth cannot be rendered in caricature; Fincher's composition reflects that ideal and effectively allows us in to her world.
Earlier i raised the question of this film's necessity. It's something i'll probably never really be sure of; the issue is complicated further by the fact that i prefer this version over the Swedish one. The more i think about "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" the more i get the layering Fincher has weaved in to it; it's technically flawless film by a director at the height of his craft. Fincher's decision to allow an emotional attachment to his characters further demonstrates his sensitivity and understanding of what makes a great, unique film; while the deeper philosophical concerns found in "Se7en" or "Fight Club" are absent here, "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo"'s warmth and respect for its main character elevate it to a level those films had a hard time reaching. Fincher usually deals in darkness; with Lisbeth Salander he's letting in a little light. "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" may not be definitive, but it's a wonderful start. Here's hoping Fincher chooses to finish out the series.

"YOUNG ADULT" dir. JASON REITMAN

The opening scenes of Jason Reitman's "Young Adult" introduce us to the banality of human wreckage in the form of binge drinking leftovers, mountains of clutter and waste, and the crumpled form of Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron) passed out beneath the anonymous arm of a one-night stand. From there the film embarks on a troubling exploration of delusion and personal emptiness, resulting in Reitman's finest work to date and one of the year's better pictures focused on the ennui of modern existence as experienced by the thirty-something set. Questions of expectation and the measures of success as an adult are held up for reassessment, with the suggestion that living in the past is preferable to facing the yawning unknown of living in the present. There is no redemption in "Young Adult," very little hope, and nothing even beginning to approach empathy or compassion. It's a sad, fucked up world full of dead dreams and unfulfilled promises, and for most of us, memory offers the only respite.
In Mavis Gary, Reitman and writer Diablo Cody introduce us to a character who is rapidly approaching the nadir of her life. A ghost writer of a failing series of young adult novels, Mavis spends her days on the couch assimilating youth culture via television and her nights drinking til she passes out. While working on what's to be the final book in her series, she receives an email from her high school boyfriend's wife, announcing the birth of their new little girl. In a blink of her delusional eye, Mavis decides to head back to her hometown of Mercury, MN, and rescue boyfriend Buddy Slade (Patrick Wilson) from the shackles of adult responsibility, convinced they're meant to be together and her quest is righteous.
Mavis' campaign to win Buddy back makes up the brunt of the film's narrative, and its appropriately transfixing and unbelievable. As she attempts to insinuate herself into Buddy's life, she enlists the help of former classmate Matt Freehauf (Patton Oswalt, most likely providing his own wardrobe), a nerdy outcast who still bears the considerable physical and mental scars of a vicious high-school beating; in Matt, Mavis finds a foil for her self-loathing and uses him as a mirror to remind herself of her supposed stature as one of "beautiful" people who've just hit a snag in life. Matt, for his part, enables Mavis even as he tries to get her to abandon her plan, treating her to home distilled whiskey and puppy-dog crush adoration that borders on pathetic. Neither can let go of their high school selves, and in the two of them we begin to see the crippling effect of memory and nostalgia: everyone's an outcast in their own way, but it just sucks way worse for some.
This is a troubling, disturbing film. Mavis's delusion is never exaggerated or apologized for: it simple is, and we have to accept it as a part of her makeup. We know she's troubled (she suffers from trichotillomania alongside her borderline alcoholism) and plagued by self-esteem problems, but her behavious is so selfish and ultimately deplorable that there's no room for pity. Mavis seems determined to destroy herself, and her obsessive crusade to break up Buddy's marriage only leads to an inevitable breaking point. Buddy himself is a bit of an engima; he still has something invested in Mavis, for all his professed love for his wife and daughter. When the two share a brief, drunken kiss on Buddy's front porch i couldn't help but feel he should bear some of the responsibility for Mavis' mental state, but Reitman and Cody let him off the hook. Buddy gets it all, while Mavis and Matt are left wanting for something even beginning to approach happiness.
And what exactly is that "all"? "Young Adult" never really makes it clear, and that's part of the reason for the film's efficacy. If a wife and family are the true measures of success in the adult world, then yes, Buddy has it all-a decent job and the security it provides, a cool wife (she plays in an all-mom band called Nipple Confusion), and a new kid to keep it all alive. We're led to believe that Mavis is fighting this ideal, and that she wants Buddy back to reject this series of expectations. Her parents mourn the dissolve of her first marriage without considering the why; it's frightening to think that the posturing of adulthood comes before the actual satisfaction of their child for some parents (when Mavis matter-of-factly confesses to them that she thinks she might be an alcoholic, their reply is blank stares and denial.) Mavis' mission then becomes an act of rebellion, another grab at the brass ring of youth. Only her tearful collapse on Buddy's front lawn reveals the truth. While a bit of her confessional is over the top (a better screenwriter would have approached it differently, or excised it completely) it does offer some kind of answer for Mavis, an answer that Matt couldn't get at when he tries to get Mavis to view her life in perspective to the world around her. Again, the issue of Mavis' selfishness quashes any hope for empathy; the only person i felt any real joy for in the film was Matt, when he finally gets to realize part of his own dream (as sad as it is) in the wake of Mavis' breakdown.
Perhaps most troubling, though, is Reitman and Cody's decision to allow Mavis to continue her delusion. The final chunk of "Young Adult" reinforces Mavis' view of herself and her world and gives the distinct impression that she'll live her life the exact same way she has, nothing learned. Self-inventory is an impossibility for a character this damaged. It's a bold choice to present someone so flawed and let them revel in their own emptiness; if nothing else Reitman and Cody should get the award for balls in American film for 2011. In that sense this film reflects reality far more effectively than did their previous effort "Juno"; whereas that world became bogged down under the weight of its own pretense and stylization, "Young Adult" seems almost neo-realistic in its portrayal of psychic damage scarring across an entire generation. Maybe it's troubling precisely because it's so correct: the world is full of Mavis Garys and Buddy Slades, and neither represents anything close to what i want.
Reitman and Cody have made an amazing film. It's unsettling but magnetic, over the top in its believability but 100% correct in its illustration of malaise on the cusp of depression. In detailing the virulent strain of sadness that haunts our adult lives, "Young Adult" demands that we consider and reevaluate our expectations, even if none of its characters do. Mavis Gary and Buddy Slade are warnings, archetypes extended to the point of caricature to make a point. There is no right way to be an adult, no matter what the world tells us. We just have to do the best we can, and not hurt other people. It's the only way to really grow up.

"SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS" dir. GUY RITCHIE

All the principals return for Guy Ritchie's late period career revival attempt, trading on the first film's considerable success and upping the ante with more blockbuster action and moody set pieces. Victorian England has rarely looked as beautifully grey and dour as it does in Ritchie's vision, a washed out stage for all of his hero's free-association clairvoyance and rampant ass-kicking. Indeed, it only takes about five minutes before Sherlock Holmes (Robery Downey, Jr.) finds himself in a pickle that only his fists can get him out of, just one of many such conundrums that will befall the beleaguered detective across the film's two hour runtime.
The action picks up almost immediately where the last film left us, with Watson's (Jude Law) nuptials drawing ever closer and Holmes on a debilitatingly obsessive quest to unmask Professor James Moriarty (Jared Harris) as London's "Napoleon of crime," responsible for a number of bombings attributed to anarchist groups within the criminal underground. Holmes is a wreck, getting by on a diet of coffee, tobacco and cocaine; Downey plays up the fatigue beautifully, perhaps fueled by his own past experiences. Holmes is gaunt and hollowed out-his investigations of Moriarty partly responsible, but more wounded by the impending loss of his only friend to domesticity. In the spirit of celebration, Holmes drags Watson out to a stag party and ropes him into one last great adventure spanning several European nations that becomes little more than a cross-country pummeling tour with an occasional wisecrack thrown in.
What made the first installment so much fun was the nitpicking banter between Holmes and Watson; Downey and Law played off each other so quickly and sharply their Holmes and Watson seemed more hotheaded brothers than business associates. Here that back and forth is tossed off in favor of Ritchie's confusing action sequences (more than once i found myself wondering what the hell was going on) and large scale landscape shots (which i don't mind, as the art direction here is meticulous), resulting in a less-than-fulfilling experience as we accompany Holmes towards his inevitable face to face with Moriarty before he ignites World War whatever amidst a Swiss castle full of European dignitaries.
That isn't to say parts of the journey aren't thrilling or fun-they are, and there are still moments of brilliance as Holmes and Watson affectionately grate on one another (Watson's train ride to his Brighton honeymoon is especially entertaining, proving that when he's on Ritchie can fuse lightning action with lightning humor as well as he ever did in "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels"), fight (a shootout and chase through a French forest is probably the film's highlight for me, a slow-motion electric carnival of bullets and splintered wood that has to be seen to be believed) and argue their way to the film's finale. Ritchie makes us want to see Homes and Watson end up together; Holmes needs Watson to keep him sane and involved in the real world (his mapping out of potential actions in this film seems almost astral and syrupy) while Watson needs Holmes to make sure he doesn't become just another Englishman, fallen into complacency and squandering a burning talent. There's an investment in the pair that more or less ensures this series can go on indefinitely, and with the addition of an actual arch-villain for Holmes to lock intellects with there's more than enough material to strike paydirt one more time.
It isn't here, though. Ritchie's reimagining plays off witticisms and aristocratic snarkiness, and "A Game of Shadows" doesn't deliver enough of either to elevate it to the status of its prequel. Holmes' final stare down with Moriarty (over a chessboard, of course) is fun, but never quite nails the aura of desperation that we're expecting, especially considering what's at stake. Their previous encounter in an abandoned warehouse fares better, allowing us to see the depth of Moriarty's madness, but still devolves into another explosion-laden destruction spectacle. The emphasis is too much on action, not enough on fun. The big reveal here (as Holmes recounts everything he's taken notice of across the film) is fairly mind-blowing and might prompt repeated viewings to figure out if everything's actually where Ritchie says it is, but it all serves a reckless adherence to the Hollywood formula (something the first film was such an enjoyable antidote to.) I understand sequels are big business; "A Game of Shadows" certainly could have been much, much worse. It simply seems Ritchie is content to keep working, giving audiences what studios think they want, rather than what they've all actually asked for in the context of the first film. "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows" is better than average but disappointing in its ultimate failure to live up to its predecessor's potential. Ritchie can go further. Here's hoping round three reunites everyone again, this time with feeling.

"INNI" dir. VINCENT MORISSET

Standing in stark contrast to Sigur Ros' last concert/documentary film "Heima," director Vincent Morisset films the band almost exclusively in the live setting, focusing on the tremendous and at times overwhelming emotional power of the music made physical. Sigur Ros are a band of unusual force, able to summon great swathes of catharsis as well as hushed and intimate declarations that seem to speak to each listener individually; Morisset captures both extremes here, showing a band at the absolute height of their craft. The cathartic moments taeke center stage here, perhaps as a response to "Heima"'s more affirmative examination of the Sigur Ros experience, creating a piece rich in mood and atmosphere and way heavy on intensity.
The band performs a full set intercut with minimal moments of archival footage dating back to earlier moments of their career; specific attention is paid to the members struggling to answer such insipid questions as "How would you describe the music?" The interviewers asking these things almost seem malicious, trying to trap the band into admitting to some sort of pretense on their part in the ultimate realization of their sound. Sigur Ros have been accused of artistic distance in the past and acute reservation regarding discussion of their work, but these interviewers' inability to grasp the ethereal, incredibly personal quality of the band's music speaks to a shallowness on their part. Their refusal to simply let it exist, to be a matter of shared communication and organic creation between the band members (and audience) is insensitive to the point of critical density. The need for definition indicates the discomfort Sigur Ros' intensity of vision can cause; you either get it and respond to it or you don't. The critics in Morisset's film don't get it.
In watching "Inni" the band's self identification as a heavy metal group seems only half in jest. The guitars roar like hurricanes throughout, filling the air with the plaintive and yearning screams of frustration Sigur Ros uses them to summon. This is a loud show; even the near moments of silence when only Jonsi Birgisson's impassioned vocals ring solo seem deafening. This is a band that can summon up something real and pure and inexplicable that other bands are incapable of approaching. The emotional impact of the music is shattering, unlike anything i've felt across years of listening to thousands of bands and records. There is something special about Sigur Ros. They know it, their fans know it, and both are unafraid of it. The concert becomes less a performance than a transference of something otherworldly; for those attuned to the right frequency a Sigur Ros show is more about sound being given over in order to inhabit you than a simple run through of some songs. It's a deeply personal experience, and even just watching the film allows for most of that communication to reach out.
From a visual perspective, Morisset chooses simplicity and favors the austere pallet of black and white to render this most otherwordly of bands. The film is grainy, shadowy and at many times unfocused but it all works; never once do you feel like you're in the presence of an amateur director. The choices presented are all done for their stylistic effect and relationship to the music. Reality seems to waver in and out, and the crushing physicality of much of the music almost demands the heavens above break in two. The archival footage plucks you from those cradling moments of performance, breaking the thrall. The use of color here only reflects the importance, the towering life, of the performance footage. Color seems drab and dead, black and white seems alive and crackling with electricity. The film's penultimate moment (which could really be any, depending on your personal relationship with the songs) for me comes in the final song, a performance of "Popplagio" that begins in the archival footage and carries over into the concert proper, a flawless transition that highlights the song's endurance as well as the clarity of vision Sigur Ros have possessed virtually since their formation. "Popplagio" builds to a shuddering, sky-cracking crescendo that culminates in a torrent of shards of something (rain, paper, who knows what?) flying across the stage; the band seems to be playing in the middle of, and simultaneously summoning, a blizzard. It's achingly beautiful, emotionally draining, and enthralling to the point of trance.
In that capacity "Inni" functions as a perfect companion piece to Sigur Ros' recorded output. While "Heima" sought to humanize the band and clarify some of the mystique surrounding them, "Inni" gives over to that mystique completely and becomes a piece that perfectly summarizes the "experience" of Sigur Ros. This is as close as you could come without being there; despite its hyper stylizing you never once feel that you're being made to view the band in any specific way. The film, much like the music, is for you and you alone, open to your personal interpretation and most especially your emotional reaction. Morisset has created a portrait of something enigmatic and treasured. That portrait is now part of that enigma.