Love, Simon, Said, Marco

I had never gone to the movies by myself for the first 22 years of my life, up until this weekend. With a mom too tired and friends too busy, I took myself on a little personal-date to my local cinema to meet a boy named Simon.

Love, Simon (2018) is the first feature-length film featuring a gay teenage boy as the main protagonist with romantic aspirations, released by a major film studio. Many people wonder why it took so long for such an achievement to occur. Still, those who've seen the film are likely to forgive this cinema sin, because the result of years of waiting is so undeniably satisfactory. I sat down in my theater seat to meet a boy named Simon, but I soon learned that it was so much more than just his story told. Simon's journey is a collective one, and each person in his life impacts it in some meaningful way, as Simon impacts theirs. Yes, this film is a coming out story, but it's also very much a "coming in" one as well. Growing into the person you've always known you could be if you were just given a little push in the proper direction. Love, Simon is itself the little nudge of progress that Hollywood needed to catch up with a culture that's ever-evolving and ever-expanding.

Boy meets Girl, and Girl meets Boy is not the only narrative worth telling. Love, Simon has many successes, but its most historic one may end up being how unapologetic it is. Simon notes that "everyone deserves a great love story" but more importantly than that, everyone deserves to have their love story shown, represented and respected. In the span of an hour and fifty-five minutes, Love, Simon achieves all this and more with hardly a single blemish. John Hughes would surely be proud, but more importantly, millions of LGBTQ people and their allies are.

This is not going to be a very long review, at least compared to many others of mine, mainly because I believe that Love, Simon is a film that is better experienced than analyzed. The nuances in the young cast's performances cannot be lauded enough, but better we spend time admiring certain aspects of the film, that might otherwise get overlooked in other mainstream reviews.

Love, Simon crafts a modern gay love story in a world obsessed with technology, as Tony Hale's character, Mr Worth humorously reminds us several times during the film. While the plot uses FaceTime, Gmail, Blogging and Cell Phones as means of both communication and self - expression, it does not become subservient to these technological tools. Love, Simon will age well over the years, because it does not let modern technology over-power its key character-building moments or hamper its story structure with un-engaging sequences of character's thumbs fiddling away at a keyboard. They serve the plot instead of making it feel dated and disassociated. When you watch Breakfast Club (1985) or Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986), the 80s vibes are not diluting the quality of the work and Love, Simon is spared the same fate by being utterly charming; texts, blog posts and all.

The one glaring scene I found to be a weak link in the otherwise immaculate plot happens to be a rather critical one, Simon coming out to his sister. I could not track Simon's indifferent annoyance towards a sibling he had been nothing but loving and supportive toward since the film started. Furthermore, her reaction itself felt indifferent, and her tears unearned. I understand Simon's frustration at this point in the story, but it didn't feel like Simon would really share this hidden piece of himself with his adoring sister in such a harsh and hollow way. It was unsubstantiated melodrama in a film that effortlessly avoids forced sentimentality for the majority of its running time. I also didn't believe that she would have seen the post that outed him in the first place, which is what instigates the conversation because the blog seemed exclusive to high school students and she is clearly in a younger age bracket. The scene is just not as well thought out as Simon's later personal conversations with both of his parents. A film such as this can be forgiven for such narrative hiccups, though other's may find them as irritating smudges in an almost spotless story. Back to the positive end, the film makes great use of cutaway segments similar to Family Guy but with more context. Moments that take place in Simon's mind surprisingly speak more about our culture and conventions then they do about Simon himself, such as a funny, but thoughtful sequence dictating the unfairness of heterosexuality being the default sexual orientation in modern society.

In the end, I was happy to have seen the film by myself. It's hard to explain exactly why, but it felt more personal like I was physically alongside Simon and his friends as their lives changed for the better, and by viewing their heartfelt experiences, mine did as well. Director Greg Berlanti, screenwriters Issac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger and author Becky Albertalli gave us a story worth celebrating regardless of sexual orientation. At the end of the day, you want Simon to turn out fine not because he's gay, but because he's an incredibly decent and loving person. The film reminds us to celebrate and encourage the goodness in others, so that our own goodness may itself be shown. Appreciating Simon's story, his struggles and successes made me reflect on how I celebrate and embrace those around me, and to ensure that I keep doing so to the very best of my ability. That's why I love Simon because, by the end of the film, you feel like he loves you too.

The Cloverfield Paradox: Where Do We Go From Here?

Ten years ago, something found us. The something turned out to be an exercise in viral marketing and the revitalization of a rather worn-out genre of filmmaking, found footage. Helmed by producer JJ Abrams, Cloverfield (2008) became an unexpected hit because - well it was literally, unexpected! Nobody was quite sure what the film was about, or even titled months leading up to its release. While it became apparent, thanks to its carefully crafted trailers and online ARG (Alternate Reality Game) that it was going to be some kind of monster film, the excitement built up as movie goers pondered the applicability of giant treacherous creatures stomping around cities in a Post-Godzilla and Post-9/11 world. Cloverfield was lauded by some and derided by others for its ambitions, but the film nonetheless created a strong cult following. For years fans begged and pleaded for a sequel, and the creators teased the idea numerous times to the public. In 2016 after these pleas from the fandom had seemingly quieted, a trailer was released for a film titled 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016) starring John Goodman and Mary-Elizabeth Winstead. That film was set inside of a bomb shelter after a young woman awakens inside it, having been rescued by a paranoid man following a car crash. The man tells her that the world outside is no longer safe as some kind of apocalyptic event has occurred. The film ended up bearing little to no relation to the first movie other than similarities in themes and a few Easter Egg nods to the previous film's canon. The producers claimed they were at a creative crossroad, believing Cloverfield could either become an anthology series, with each film being independent of one another narratively or alternatively the film's plots could be connected in some way by a future film bridging the two together. Fans like myself were excited either way, as long as more skillfully crafted thrills were coming our way in a reasonable time.

Only a couple of months following the release of 10 Cloverfield Lane it was revealed that a film previously titled The God Particle would be the third entry in the Cloverfield Franchise. The film was to tell the story of a team of astronauts testing a particle accelerator on their space station with disastrous consequences. This film's pre-production was handled similarly to that of its predecessor. It was taken over by Abrams and his team in the middle of production and reworked into a story that adheres more to the Cloverfield Aesthetic. The film's release date was pushed several times within the last year, and rumors surfaced that the film was moving to Netflix, a rumor that proved to be true when during the Super Bowl a trailer appeared announcing the film would debut on the streaming service immediately following the game. Questions were raised regarding the motivations for this move, was it to appease the audience or relieve the stockholders at Paramount?

Now that leads us to The Cloverfield Paradox (2018). The film contains a cast of diverse international talent including the magnanimous Gugu Mbatha - Raw (who will most certainly win an Oscar someday) as well as John Ortiz and Zhang Ziyi among others. The cast does their jobs successfully. Chris O'Dowd does particularly well as the comic relief character while David Oyelowo is rather wasted in a lead role that leads to nothing much in terms of depth. In this revised version of the original script concept, these astronauts are testing out this particle accelerator as a possible boundless energy source for a world going through a severe energy crisis below. When their mission finally proves successful, and the particle accelerator fires off properly, the celebration is short-lived as the crew soon find that the Earth has disappeared, possibly destroyed by their experiment and that's not the only thing gone awry.

The Cloverfield Paradox is, unfortunately, the weakest entry in the Cloverfield Cinematic Universe to date, but cannot be written off as a flop altogether. It possesses incredible potential in numerous areas, including the talent of its cast and the beauty of its set design, but the story missteps and falters too many times in its second and third acts for it to be indeed considered a success, not only as a third Cloverfield film but as a science-fiction film in general. If a language of questions guided the first two films, this film is guided by a language of theories, hundreds of different ways to put the pieces together to form some sort of coherent picture. Still, after a while, it just starts to feel like the laziness of storytelling rather than an avant-garde methodology. Many of the bizarre occurrences in the latter half of the film are explained away as being a result of the astronaut's unintentional intrusion into a reality that is not their own, but that doesn't forgive plain old silliness. A character's detached appendage writes down the location to where a crucially missing piece of the ship's navigational instruments is, and that location is ridiculous and nonsensical in itself! There is a fine line between the unusually grotesque and the grotesque use of the unusual. The idea of a dimension fighting back against intruders in violently fantastical ways is intriguing, but Paradox is all promises, no deliveries. The trailer said it would give the answer as to why the first film's monster attack occurred, it does in a way, but the answer is flaccid because it hinges upon the convoluted idea of multiple alternate realities in which stakes and continuity are thrown out of a figurative air-lock in favor of an infinite amount of interpretations for the causality. Apparently from here on continuity will not be an issue for each Cloverfield Film, because each occurs in its own version of reality. This would come off as more inventive if it didn't seem like JJ Abrams and Co are just too busy with other commitments to properly tie these stories together. Now I am not knocking the "alternate dimensions" idea in totality. Rather I have serious issues with how the creators worked it into this film and the franchise itself. The idea of separate worlds, similar yet different in distinct ways, is an interesting notion, and in regards to Ava's (Gugu's character) personal character arc, it is used with some iota of emotional depth, but this is not enough to justify its inclusion into the narrative. If you're using a plot device like a paradoxical time-warp theory, you better be prepared to back it up, this film is not prepared to do so.

The B-Plot of this film is so obviously inserted as a poorly constructed afterthought that it is painful to watch. Ava's husband, Michael, awakens in the middle of the night following the accelerator mishap in space to find the city in a state of extreme distress after some large scale attack. He goes off into the night to the hospital. He's a doctor of course to help those injured. He finds a little girl amongst the rubble of a destroyed building and leads her to safety after learning that the hospital is destroyed. The two find shelter in a convenient bomb shelter made by a friend of his (a possible nod to the second film of the series) and are forgotten about until the ending. This subplot serves little to no purpose whatsoever other than to tease the Cloverfield fans with the idea that the monster has returned to cause more havoc thanks to the failed energy experiment. Why does any of this matter in the end? We never learn much to anything about the situation on the ground, and the ending gives us little explanation as to why Michael is distressed to learn that his wife is returning to Earth? We could guess, but after a whole film of guessing, we're exhausted and just want a damn clear answer! Which brings us to the last image of the film...

You've probably read by now about how the monster seen at the end of the film, though appearing similar to the original Cloverfield Monster, is much larger in size. So what does this mean? Is this the same monster grown-up or repositioned in time due to the particle accelerator incident? Is it an older, adult version of the same species, is it the original creature's mother? Why does Michael use the plural term when referring to "these things" are there more of them? I have no idea and frankly neither did the filmmakers I believe. Clover (as fans have affectionately nicknamed him) is simply thrown in at the end in a semi-respectable CGI shot to give fans some kind of fanatic dog treat. Listen not everything has to be explained or spelled out, a large part of the allure in the Cloverfield Franchise comes from the creators allowing space for the audiences' minds to wander and explore. Still, there comes a time to deliver some semblance of an answer so that the exploring can continue in a meaningful way. The map has to be drawn out to some extent. Plainly, I don't know enough about the situation going on on Earth during the film's climax, and that makes the final reveal feel cheap and underwhelming, rather than suspenseful and exciting as it should be. This franchise deserved better, this cast deserved better, and the patient fans most definitely deserved better than what this film ended up giving us. It comes off rushed and half-hearted and the worst crime is that it didn't have to. Had the team behind it given more attention and care to the abundance of plot and story elements it already had at hand the film could've been a more than worthy third entry in the series. It should be noted that I find little to no fault with the film's director, Julius Onah, who does the best he can with what he's given to work with after JJ's team came in and took over the production. His direction is efficient and pleasing to the eye, it just gets jumbled into the mess that the producers and others brought onto the film later.

 At the end of the day, The Cloverfield Paradox deserves to be admired for its ambition in its marketing strategy, releasing itself following the Super Bowl by surprise and for its well intentioned attempts to tie this confused franchise together. It's an entertaining thrill ride that occasionally feels inspired rather than indebted to better equipped Sci-Fi films of the past. As for the future of this troubled franchise, my greatest hope is that Abram's and his team dedicate a bit more of their creative attention to a devoted and hard working fan-base that hasn't (for the most part) given up on them just yet. The tagline for this film was "The Future Unleashed Everything" for this film's sake and for the sake of this film franchise, let our expectations hold the belief that "everything" has yet to be unleashed.

A Post about The Post (2017) in a Post - Fake News World

I first heard of The Post (2017)  last year in my Screenwriting 4 Class at Brooklyn College. My professor broke us up into groups and assigned us to read one Blacklist script a week. Those of you who are not familiar with it, The Blacklist is a list of the "best" un-produced scripts that came across the desk's of Top Hollywood Executives over the last year. Being selected for the list often can result in a film being produced as early as the following year. My group was assigned The Post during one of the first weeks of the semester. I had never heard of the Pentagon Papers or Kay Graham before in my life. Politics has only recently cemented itself into a place of great importance in my reality since a reality television star became a prominent and all-around problematic figure in it.

Liz Hannah's script is the ideal example of what constitutes smart and engaging writing for film. The story moves at a lightning pace and yet takes careful consideration to pause at times and allow the characters and the audience alike to reflect on the momentous events unfolding around them. It had no "action" sequences or racy sexual occurrences within its 118 pages and was extremely dialogue-heavy, along with being a period piece. This story was quite unlike what we are accustomed to seeing as we walk into a movie theater these days, and yet it's not. The content of this all-too-true story transcends the plights it may face in the manner of its execution. The film tells the story of governmental deceits being exposed after years and years fermentation and metastasizing. It divulges, with great detail the tireless efforts of impassioned journalists to make these unknown violations to their sanctity and security public, even if that meant utter professional and financial ruin for those involved on both sides. Underneath all the cagey and cool Sorkin-Esque conversations had between Ben Bradlee and his crack team of Washington Post journalist is unstoppable irrigation of honesty and moral integrity. They will let nothing stop them from exposing the truth because lives have already been lost and thousands upon thousands more are at stake as the Vietnam War blindly rages on in 1970s America. These people aren't goliath-like beyond recognition to us everyday folk; they are everyday folk, just like us. That's what makes such a profoundly vital narrative as this one so beautifully grounded in contemporary times. We know people like Katherine Graham, the question is, do we respect them as much as we should? Our bosses, co-workers, hell even our mothers and grandmothers. We see people in positions like Ben Bradlee's, cave under pressure, but we also see people who don't. He could have stopped pursuing the publication of the government documents countless amounts of times, but he didn't and neither did Kay. We are these people, or at least we can be, and that is what this script and ultimately this film, made as a result of it, proves to us. The best cinema informs and inspires its audience. The Post does just that, and a great amount of that credit deserves to go to its original screenwriter Liz Hannah.

Now when traveling the bridge between page and screen it is only natural that Liz Hannah collected some passengers along the way. These include cinematic icon Stephen Spielberg as director and acting titans Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep as the film's two dauntingly disagreeing leads. My professor had stated that when and if this film were to be made the role of Katherine Graham would have to go to a Hollywood Icon and I myself had envisioned the likes of Lauren Bacall as the head of the Washington Post when I first read the script, though she like Graham is long deceased. It was no surprise then when Meryl Streep was cast of course. In the hands of Spielberg however, the story shifted as it was translated to film. 

As preparation for writing this review, I reread the original script after seeing the final film. I noticed that while the general story arc remained intact, the anatomy of several scenes and sequences were retooled. These alterations were most likely by Josh Singer, the screenwriter assigned to make revisions to the script. In typical Spielberg fashion a more fantastical opening is given, showing soldiers active in Vietnam. However, this element would have been a stronger inclusion had it been repeated sometime in the middle of the film, after audiences learned about the falsities spread by the US government regarding the war. Seeing the false narrative spun by the bureaucrats, followed by the actual soldiers in the midst of a harrowing battle could have helped visually sell the importance of the main character's overall goals even more effectively. A scene of the Pentagon Papers actually being stolen is also added in what seems to be a cutaway from a spy thriller. While these selections may seem a bit unnecessary, they do add an element of flair that catches the audience's attention early on. The problem is, the film struggles to keep their attention at times throughout the middle half.

Some have accused the film of being boorish, and to me, it's not as simple as that. While the original script illustrates a newsroom setting that even inexperienced individuals like myself or my parents can comprehend, the finished film lingers at times in tedious expositional and intellectual garble that should be better left in a stenographers notepad then on a movie screen. The early scene between Kay and Fritz in her office comes to mind, as does portions of Kay and Ben's first breakfast meeting, which is done much more efficiently in the original draft, with its cornerstone focus being the value of a Style section for the newspaper and not the repercussions of being snubbed from attending Nixon's daughter's wedding nuptials. The playful subtext on the subject of disagreeing "styles" was just more... well, playful. Many of the revisions elevate the plot and its thematic undertones as well, including the added scenes between Kay and her daughter and Ben and his wife, played exquisitely by actress Sarah Paulson in a perhaps intentionally small role. These scenes reinforce the humanity in the character's dealing with the revelations and consequences of reporting on inhumane crimes against the masses. I do not know how the decision to publish truly went down, whether Ben was at Kay's house or not and whether the party was still ongoing or not. Still, the version shown in the film was the most powerful reiteration of this historical piece of journalism. Kay's weighty glances around the room as she holds the phone in her hand contrasted well with her airiness upon announcing she was going to bed after deciding to publish. These actions showed a woman in constant flux, trying to be what every man thought she wasn't, a leader.

Regardless of scenes included or excluded, lines omitted or added in, the release of The Post during this current political climate in the United States is unquestionably reflective and pragmatic. When the President is calling the media fake every day on his own social media profiles, we can't believe that the days in which a president could threaten imprisonment toward those who'd seek to question his authority are over. Nixon thought that journalism was below him and the current administration seems to believe the only value the press has is how it can stroke the insatiable ego of the Commander in Chief with tiresome accolades and meaningless commendations that amount to nothing in the grand scheme of things. The Post tells the story of those who weren't afraid to push back, to disavow the nonsense of necessary secrets and "alternative facts" and reach for something much more tangible, the truth. My hope is that this film and its courageously true story continues to encourage us to look forward with a sense of obligation towards the truth, not only within our government but within our everyday lives as well. Better to have nothing, than to not know what one truly has. If truth becomes second fiddle, what kind of music are we really listening to? Kay and Ben had everything to lose and more, but that didn't stop them from joining together and telling the story that had to be told. As a writer, I can only hope to honor their legacies by doing the same in every facet of my life, be it personal, professional or even political.

Those of you unsure or hesitant toward considering the validity of such a philosophy consider this; Where would the world be if things like the Pentagon Papers and Watergate remained hidden, forever concealed. That version of reality is fake news, but only thanks to the work of journalists like those at the Washington Post and New York Times and their stories will not be forgotten thanks to filmmakers and writers like Liz Hannah, Josh Singer and Stephen Spielberg.

Murder on the Orient Express (2017): All Aboard for Another Agatha Adaptation

The first time I was exposed to the mysterious world of Agatha Christie was in middle school. I got up one morning to get ready for school and in typical me fashion turned on my television almost first thing. I often would find myself attracted to the first film or television show that popped on screen—anything to entertain me as I ate my cereal and brushed my teeth. One fateful morning as my TV screen became illuminated I came to see a group of eccentric individuals having some trouble aboard a steamboat on the Egyptian Nile. This film was Death on The Nile (1978) another popular cinematic adaptation of the Queen of Crime's literary works. I was instantly engrossed, and my passion for the murder mystery genre was forevermore solidified. My mother upon discovering my newfound love for mystery, mayhem and pudgy funny Belgian man had one thing to say:

"Wait till you see the one set on a train."

I read Murder on the Orient Express before ever watching Sidney Lumet's 1974 adaptation. In the middle of reading the book, I remember running into the kitchen as my mother was prepping dinner and exclaiming; "I know who did it, I don't know why, but I know who!"

I was right as it turned out. There's no cinematic critique in this part of the review. I just thought I'd earned some bragging rights.

Many critics have been critical of the idea of remaking one of the most well-known murder mysteries of all time. What's the point if a majority of people know the conclusion? Does adding in a few snazzy twists and tricks retool the whole package into something new and exciting? Why not leave well-enough alone? As I've said before, I am a believer in remakes if done for the right reasons. Some stories deserve to be retold and updated for modern audiences so that they can be exposed to the narrative philosophies of a piece of visual art they would otherwise normally not give attention to.

When I went to the movie theater to see Kenneth Branagh's adaptation of Christie's most known novel, my expectations were limited, yet specific. I was not preoccupied with how the director/actor was going to portray Hercule Poirot, nor did I stress over the obvious alterations made within the characters and plot as presented in the film's trailers. My concerns lied mostly with the handling of the ending, not the solution to the crime as much as the consequences of it. Few critical reviews that I read touched upon how the characters react to the solution to the crime and the emotional toll it ultimately has on all those involved in the complicated case. This is such a crucial aspect to the story, in my opinion, because the ending is the very thing that strikes everyone the most about this particular mystery. Poirot is left with a moralistic dilemma at the end of this story, and in every single incarnation of it, he handles that dilemma differently. Before I dive into the climax though, I'd like to take a closer look at other elements of the film, so I'll spread out this review using Three C's; Cinematography, Cast and Conclusion.

Cinematography

The film is shot on vintage style 65mm, and this gives it an appropriately nostalgic touch in nearly every scene. While at times it does make the CGI landscapes even more apparent, the crispness of the color and the depth of field in the shots is undeniably grand. Branagh makes some questionable camera shot choices, especially upon the discovery of the corpse, done by an awkward, out of body overhead shot of the hallway that lasts far too long than it should.

I also found some exterior panning shots of the train obstructive and distracting, such as when we are first introduced to Mrs Hubbard. We can't get a proper feel for her character because she is overshadowed by the cluttered narrow train-car set around her. The use of black and white in the flashbacks during the film's climax is undoubtedly not nuanced, but it is an effective method still. That approach made me instantly think of the television detective series Monk, which always featured it's denouement sequences as a black and white flashback. The film's lush looks are suitable for this particular genre of film. Movies hardly ever look this pretty anymore, especially when they have to do with violent murders and avalanches.

CAST

A film such as this doesn't really require an all-star ensemble as a necessity, but more so as an indulgent decadence. Murder mysteries are simply more fun when you have familiar faces as suspects. Your favorite stars turned criminals and victims before your very eyes. The previous cinematic adaption was populated with the likes of Hollywood royalty such as Ingrid Bergman, Sean Connery and Lauren Bacall. The updated version features the talents of Michelle Pfeiffer, Judi Dench, Johnny Depp amongst many others. Does the new film utilize its star-studded cast as well as it's predecessor? The answer is yes, and no. Josh Gad, for example, has plenty of scenery to chew on as Hector McQueen, as Anthony Perkins did in the original. They both get to swim around in the emotional turmoil of complicated familial relationships. Gad with his father and Perkins, of course, with his mother. Judi Dench, on the other hand, is in all honesty rather wasted as Princess Dragomiroff, a thankless role that should be far more important in both film adaptations of the Christie tale. Johnny Depp is serviceable as Ratchett, though in a somewhat cartoonish way that makes you grateful that his part in the film is short and bittersweet. The ever-popular Daisy Ridely turns Mary Debenham into something of a feminist heroine. She is tender and nurturing yet unapologetically sly and resilient. Vanessa Redgrave is proud, no doubt. Kenneth Branagh's Poirot is, of course, being lauded as a triumph and he truly is. He imbues the character with a precise balance of humor and severity that allows him to function on a humanistic level, which is sometimes lacking from the character in previous incarnations. He is not just the cardboard cut-out of a talented detective, but a man in his own right, one with a past in his heart and a need for balance in his Belgium bones. A special shout - out also deserves to be given to young Lucy Boynton, who portrays Countess Andrenyi. Though she has little to do, she handles her big scene with enrapturing theatrical gusto. Her character is vulnerable yet fiery while, Sergei Polunin who portrays her temperamental ballet dancer husband comes across as humorously over the top. It is also odd that the actor is a ballet dancer as well and yet he has no scenes in which he actually does any dancing. He and Depp don't know when to rein in their performances and they at times make the film come off as insincere and hammy. Pfeiffer struggles at times as well, never convincing us of Mrs Hubbard's high society ignorance and gossipy spirit the way Bacall did so effortlessly in the 1974 version. This is a true shame too because as her character arc reaches an important point in the ending, Pfeiffer truly shines. This transformation feels forced and almost too late because of her vapid characterization throughout most of the preceding film. 

Two characters have had their ethnicities changed, and one is a completely different race altogether. An Italian becomes a Cuban, and a Swede becomes Hispanic. The alteration of Arbuthnot from a white Colonel to a black doctor in the 1930s was quite a bold choice. While some critics claim these diversified casting changes add little to the story, I believed they played an important part in the overall plot. First and foremost, they are used as a motivation for Poirot to investigate the crime himself. A character points out to him that the police will likely pin the murder on a minority amongst the passengers if they don't have a credible answer for them when they arrive. Not only does this add some much-needed conflict and plausibility to Poirot decision to take on the investigation, but we as an audience are also reminded of how little we've progressed in society as minorities today are also still at high risk of being wrongly accused and imprisoned for crimes they did not commit. The interracial love story between Arbuthnot and Debenham is slightly underserved, but a welcomed progressive change nonetheless.

New elements in the film are mostly good. The problem is they don't get explored as elaborately as they could have been. The cast function decidedly well all in all, despite having little chance to interact with characters other than Poirot meaningfully. This is especially true for Dench and Pfeiffer who despite having a close secret connection between their characters, share no significant interaction with one another throughout the entire running time. In many ways, the train itself is the most important character, defined not only by its aesthetic beauty but also by it malevolent aura as it steams across a snowy tundra.

Conclusion

Much of the hype given to Murder on the Orient Express over the years is in regards to its surprising ending. This surprise is not only in regards to the discovery of the murderer's identities but also the repercussions of the development itself. What makes this story so distinct for me is its moral complexities. This is not a clean-cut tale of wrongs turned right and justice prevailing for all those harmed. There is an abundance of hurt still present at the story's end, in both the book and this remake. Justice is not as easy to come by in this particular Christie story; in fact, it is something that is deprived, stolen even from not one lone person, but twelve. I fear, however, that many have misinterpreted the significance of this narrative and why it is truly so timeless. It is not Poirot's ingenious deduction skills or the overtly complex methodologies used to execute and cover up the crime itself that makes this story important. It's the reasons for doing so in the first place. This murder was an act of love, fuelled partly by hate and thirst of revenge, yes, but enacted with a sense of duty and yearning for the precious things that had been taken from the murderers, their loved ones. Though the crime is solved, it is left for the audience to decide the morality of the choices made by all the characters involved, detective and suspects alike. It is appropriate that Poirot identifies the killers as "wounded souls", but the most glaring revelation made at the film's conclusion is that Poirot's own soul may have been tainted by his decisions in the film's final moments. Can he live with this disorder out there in the world, or has order been restored in his eyes and the meaning of the word "order" redefined?

What I ask someone after they experience Murder on The Orient Express, whichever version that may be, is a very pointed question. I believe this question sums up the entire meaning and thematic purpose of the story and how it unfolds:

"What would you do for the ones you love?"

A wife, a daughter, a sister or a friend, it doesn't matter who, what matters is the special place they hold inside you and what you would do if that part were torn out with no numbing anesthetic to quell you. When your entire world falls apart, the law is no longer your savior, and God appears mute to your tribulations, what would you do? How would you survive? What lengths are immeasurable for you to forego? Penelope Cruz's character comments near the film's end that justice is buried with the dead. If that's true, it can never be reached, and maybe that's what frustrates and upsets the audience and Poirot the most at the film's conclusion. The unreachable comfort of justice. The purification of the tarnished soul.

"There was right, there was wrong, now there is you." - Hercule Poirot

Murder on the Orient Express (2017) is a film about crimes that go unsolved, prison sentences that are not delivered and lives that become unlivable. Kenneth Branagh explores the dark, tragic depths of such eviscerated souls quite effectively in the film's climax. He doesn't make it clean and easy as does the 1974 version with smiles and champagne glasses clinking in solidarity. Nor does he make it as morose as David Suchet's BBC televised version a couple of years ago with literal tears in Poirot's eyes as he stumbles away from the train. It is a perfect balance of mystery, murder and melancholy. A recipe certainly refined by Dame Agatha Christie herself after so many successful years of writing. While some may feel this film veers into the melodramatic, again I'd inquire to them how'd they react if in a similar circumstance to that of the film's ensemble. Besides, a murder mystery is supposed to have a flair for the dramatic, not just the realistic.

I would definitely recommend Murder on the Orient Express to anyone if only to encourage provocative conversation afterwards regarding the films thematic content and to grant them the pleasure of viewing such nostalgic filmmaking at a time when Hollywood is filled with buildings exploding and fast cars racing. As for the idea of Kenneth Branagh continuing as Poirot in future cinematic adaptations of Agatha Christie's work?

I think my "little grey cells" and I would enjoy that very much.

Our Souls At Night

Nothing quite caps off a Friday night out with your parents than watching a movie on Netflix. Yes, I realize how absurd that statement sounds, but the fact remains a Red Lobster Margarita tastes phenomenal regardless of who sits beside you in the booth. Anyways, two weeks prior we watched Barefoot in the Park (1967) starring Jane Fonda and Robert Redford, in preparation for the release of the duos the FOURTH film together Our Souls At Night (2017).

The film tells the story of two neighboring widows who decide to begin sleeping in the same bed at night to combat the loneliness of heartbreak and aging. Though they have lived within yards of each other for years, Louis Waters and Addie Moore (Redford and Fonda respectfully) hardly know each other. One thing that instantly intrigued me as I sipped a Corona on my couch and watched Redford eat a late-night frozen dinner in the opening scene was how quickly the inciting incident of the film takes place. The 101 minute running time takes no reservations for the sake of subtly. Addie shows up at his doorstep within the first ten minutes and makes him a proposition of a lifetime, sort of.

We don't always need to know the exact psychological inner workings of our protagonist minds. Some ideas are so alluringly fascinating that they don't need justification. What I am saying is, I'm glad we don't spend 15 minutes at the beginning of the film with some schmaltzy montage consisting of Louis and Addie sleeping alone and being, well lonely. Instead, we get right to the good stuff, the proposition of companionship. We shouldn't learn too much about either of them before the arrangement begins, because as the film progresses we see that it is during key scenes of them preparing for bed, that the characters begin revealing their true inner-selves to us and, of course, to each other.

My dad commented early on during the film that I found quite striking, even though it was something I was already quite aware of as a film student. He noted that sometimes in film, all you need is a really good premise, a story no one else has thought of yet. That can frequently be enough to hook an audience. Of course, as a film student, I also know that you can't rely on the premise alone. A movie about two people who sleep together but don't actually SLEEP together (I mean sex, how's that for subtly?) could easily be dreary, tear-jerking tissue waster. Our Souls at Night avoids this, however. Its most considerable saving grace being the immaculate chemistry between its two iconic leads. Redford's reserved timid-ness in his portrayal of Louis harkens back to his performance as Hubble in The Way We Were (1973). Fonda is more of a minx, creating a character who takes a bit more time to figure out, but her hidden depths are worth the wait thanks to the actress's penchant for balancing brash humor with tender emotion. Her eyes strain with guilt tinged tears as she recalls the death of her young daughter years prior in a particularly memorable scene.

The film is a slow boil, allowing the strangers to evolve into lovers in an unforced organic manner that is rare of most commercial films in today's world. Their first kiss isn't even shared until well past the film's halfway mark. While this romantic turn hardly comes as a surprise, its inevitability feels somewhat less gimmicky by the film's delicate handling of their cautiously bred intimacy. One fault of the film that should be noted is its waste of actress Judy Greer in only a single scene as Redford's daughter. Why such a talented actress continues to be given such thankless roles as this one is beyond me, it's good time this stops. How can we bring about the next generation of Fonda's and Redford's when talented actors and actresses who've put the work in are given so little to show for it?

Overall the film is a compelling romance, reminding us to appreciate that stories featuring older couples can be just as emotionally engaging and sexy as ones featuring those atop People's Sexiest Person Alive List. Fonda and Redford are worthy of quality work such as this, and where it falters, they bring it back to par with their seasoned expertise and acting wisdom. If they did another twenty films together, I'd watch each one with gleeful adulation at Old Hollywood still showing the New Kids how it's done best, with care.