Story

It is a story of a young man, who grew up in Can village in Canakkale, Western Anatolia. He returns to his hometown after graduating from a university in Canakkale city as a teacher. But he is not particularly happy about returning, as he doesn’t like his hometown or its people. Also, he will most probably be appointed to a teaching position at remote Eastern Anatolia, as well as he has to attend compulsory military service. His family is not doing very well. They have a land parcel in the outskirts of Can, where his father spends most of his free time.

But there is another side to this young man. He is an aspiring writer and has written his first book. He is desperately looking for a sponsor to publish this book, asking for not a very large sum, but gets rejection on every occasion. The plotline revolves around his relationships with his father (in the context of his father’s reputation as a gambler), rebellion to authority and bending one’s own principles when the worldly desires demand it.

Writing

Very much in the NBC-style, the plotline of “The Wild Pear Tree” aims at setting up the psychological scene for the resolution of the hero’s internal conflict. He does it in a superb manner, although it takes more than 2.5 hours of screen time to achieve it. That sends some people to sleep, but keeps most viewers on their toes for the entire time. I prefer books to movies, because books can explore and reflect characters deeper. NBC’s plotlines are the closest point that ‘a movie’ gets to ‘a book’. That’s what makes him stand out.

Directing

Another signature that NBC put in his movies used to be amazing cinematography. He likes longs shots, too – to much so that, his earlier movies (like “Once Upon a Time in Anatolia“) at times did resemble a collage of stunning photos with audio captions. “Winter Sleep” (2014) was the ultimate meeting point of his cinematography and scriptwriting – beautiful scenes within an indulgent storyline. “Wild Pear Tree” did not live up to the NBC-level cinematography, which was mostly due to the editing. The editors also did not appreciate the still shots that accompanied lengthy conversations that we are used to see in the NBC movies. The jump cuts between the conversing characters or with the environment would have, maybe, not stood out in any other movie. However, for an NBC movie it felt quite quirky.

Acting

And one more negative point for the movie comes from the choice of actors. Particularly, the main character (Sinan) and his father (Idris) did not fit their roles well. Their acting was on the highest level and I cannot say anything about that. However, the personalities did not seem to fit the characters. Comedian Dogu Demirkol plays Sinan, who was trying to be as casual as he could, to hide his professional traits. However, occasional sarcastic grins did slip through. As for Idris (Murat Cemcir), his strong voice, sharp gaze and more theatrical manner of acting curtained the true nature of the Idris character.

Summary

I thoroughly enjoyed yet another piece by Nuri Bilge Ceylan. A Cannes-regular (and winner) and never been nominated for the Oscars, he certainly knows how to leave lasting impressions. His dialogues in “The Wild Pear Tree” are deep and views are protrusive. However, this time his masterpiece was partially spoiled by sub-NBC-standard casting, editing and cinematography.

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Story

It’s the last days of summer break and parents of Maddie – Deanna and Dan – are dropping their daughter at her dorm. Deanna is very emotional, Maddie after all is college senior. But she will be even more emotional when she’ll find out minutes later that Dan wants a divorce after so many years together. Deanna is heartbroken and devastated. While trying to figure out what to do and how to live her life, she remembers one thing that she didn’t have a chance before getting married – she never graduated from college. And now after so many years, Deanna decides to re-enroll and complete her last year and get her diploma! And wouldn’t it be even cooler if she enrolls in her daughter’s college?

Writing

“Life of the Party” tries a lot to be a good comedy. It sets up a nice and heartfelt story for hero. Deanna is caring, emotional and lovable character. We feel for her emotional struggles. Her husband leaves her and by all means, she should just cry herself to death, but instead she concentrates all her strength in doing something completely opposite, that is build her career from scratch. We truly root for her.

Deanna (McCarthy) and her new gang

But that where good things end for the film. Comedy part is very mellow and dry. “Life of the Party” misses a great opportunity with the setup. Whereas one can envision hundreds and hundreds ridiculous things that could have happened to sweet, but completely out of place person like Deanna, we get some extremely mediocre laughs. And there is a reason for that – McCarthy herself wrote the script. So none of the laughs are diminishing or humiliating her character. And while it is good, this also is completely in opposite with the setup of the film. Deanna must have been ridiculed for being in the school and hanging with her daughter and creating a gang, etc. Instead we get everyone cheering and welcoming her, and Deanna even gets a young stud to fall for her.

Acting

Melissa McCarthy lives for her roles and Deanna in “Life of the Party” is no exception. McCarthy totally embraces her on-screen persona. There is not a hint of under or over-acting in her performance. It is heartfelt, relatable and extremely lovable. She is also backed by solid supporting cast, but among them Maya Rudolph just outshines everyone. Including McCarthy. She steals every scene and is probably the best thing in the whole film. My only complain to her performance is that there is not enough of her.

Summary

“Life of the Party” has an interesting setup and very lovable hero, but the film is just not that funny. Really feels like a lost opportunity for everyone.

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Story

Marlo’s due date is on Monday. She is mother of 8-year-old girl and 4-year-old boy. Third one is apparently an accident but she and her husband, Drew, are ready to welcome new baby to their family. But, maybe Marlo is not so much excited after all. She had postpartum depression after giving birth to second child. And now she is visibly irritated, tired, annoyed, absent, and ready to quit. As a birth present, her loaded brother Craig offers to pay for a “night nanny,” a person who looks after the kid during nights, while parents get all the rest they need. Marlo is hesitant, she doesn’t want a stranger near the baby. But after she gives birth, everything starts falling apart. To the point that one day she realizes that she maybe should accept that help after all. And the help arrives in the face of young, slim, energetic and adorable Tully, who is there to take care of Mommy.

Writing

Diablo Cody, writer of Juno, wrote this film. Remember who that is, I will speak a lot about her screenplay, because it’s messed up to the core. So messed up, that I actually don’t have words to describe it. I will do my best:

Marlo (Theron) crashes despite children running around

First of all, film is advertised and presented as a comedy. But the comedy is extremely situational and fake. Character of Marlo is basically same quirky, sarcastic and ironic Juno character, but aged 30 years and not getting any smarter. At least Juno was cute and adorable. Marlo is anything but. Comedy in the film arises either from supporting cast telling something borderline irrational to Marlo and her rolling her eyes and/or Marlo replying something sarcastic. It’s like watching a stand-up special. And not the one that everyone wants to see.

Second, just like Juno, Diablo Cody’s script is full with witty remarks and poster taglines. They are delivered so spontaneously and in such a robotic matter, that you can see how the screenwriter and director (it’s his fault here too) basically tries to force feed you the wisdom. Essentially, you can take the whole script and strip it down to 15-20 Confucius-like sayings.

Marlo (Theron) is not sure how she will handle the birth

Third, even if you decide to forego all these limitations and accept the comedy as a face fact (I actually did that just to give film a chance), “Tully” has another surprise for you in the pocket. Last third of the film gets weirder and weirder and culminates in a such freaking ending that made me think what the fuck did I just saw. And retrospectively we realize that “Tully” was never a comedy! Everything that were even remotely funny to that point suddenly become scary and nauseatingly horrible!

Fourth, I hated how the father was portrayed. He is so cliché – it is just mind-blowing! He is accused of coming home late (despite the need to make more money, family is barely making ends meet), he complains about the frozen pizza (roll-eyes), he plays video games at night (oh my God!), he sleeps soundly when she wakes up to feed the baby, etc. Surprisingly, Marlo NEVER during the course of film asked ANYTHING from her husband. I specifically looked for it. Did she ever tell him to go pick up the kid in the middle of the night? Did she tell him to take care of rest of the children? Nope. But that’s his fault, of course.

Directing

Jason Reitman teams again with Diablo Cody to do “Tully”. But unlike Juno, this film doesn’t have a feel-good attitude. Maybe because the character of Marlo is not that adorable and cute, or maybe (I really hope this is the case) it’s because of the ending that Reitman didn’t want to risk to make the rest of film so riskily frantic. Regardless, he does more or less good job with framing and interesting montage in the middle, when baby is born. It shows everything there is to know and gets to the point. Marlo is struggling and we follow these struggles extremely close. There are some prophetical dream sequences (which dreams in the movie are not prophetical, you tell me?), but their presence was really dubious. Why include them at all?

Tully (Davis) watches Marlo (Theron) feed the baby

Acting

It is good to finally see Charlize Theron in a role that makes her show her full spectrum of acting ability. She is on top of her game and I am happy to see her perform so well after such duds like ridiculous “Atomic Blonde” and plain stupid “Gringo.” This is not Oscar-worthy performance, mind you, but she is extremely believable as a struggling mother. The only thing, she seems very radiant when Tully starts helping her. Very visibly radiant. I will blame that on make-up department. Rest of the cast are uneventful. Mackenzie Davis plays free-spirited Tully, she is cute and energetic and fun – basically everything that Marlo isn’t. She plays well, but she drowns next to Theron. Ron Livingston plays “absent-minded” father of the family. He does his job – he is not there.

Summary

Despite advertised as comedy, “Tully” offers very little fun, instead showing actual tragedy and struggles of being a mother. That topped with ridiculously horrible ending make viewer question even the very little laughs that we got through the film. Screenplay is full of fake, witty remarks that the cast delivers them in robotic manner. The characters are barely sympathetic and with the ending even that sympathy goes away. Charlize Theron finally gets a role that lets her shine, but still can’t save this film from totally pissing me off.

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Story

We don’t know why or when creatures came. They are just here. All we need to know is that they are a) blind, b) hunt by sound, and c) have no apparent weakness. Under these conditions, all you can do to survive is to be ABSOLUTELY quiet. You communicate with sign language, apply chalk/ash to the walking grounds so that no noise is made when you walk, always be barefoot, step only on marked areas (no hardwood cracking!), use corn leaves as plates to absorb sound, eat with your hands and under NO circumstances put batteries in a toy. Lee Abbott’s family lives just like this in farm. With his wife, Evelyn, they raise their children, teenage deaf girl Regan and ten-year-old boy Marcus. They are expecting addition to their family – Evelyn is due soon. But how can you be quiet, when all you want to do is SCREAM?

Mother (Blunt) tells deaf daughter (Simmonds) to stay quiet

Writing

Film is written by John Krasinski, Bryan Woods and Scott Beck, based on Woods’ and Beck’s story. First of all, let me tell you the script of “A Quiet Place” should be thought in film school. This is one of very unique films that successfully avoids so many cliches. Let me tell how it would have looked if done by your regular screenwriter. First, you start with a text on the screen. Very small font. Then the voiceover of some veteran actor, Anthony Hopkins maybe, will read you what you can read yourself. “They appeared out of blue on day bla bla bla.”

Then there would be existential Day 0 montage, people waking up early in the morning, going to work, drinking coffee. Then, of course, there are news reports of “unspecified weird activity” and “military has taken over the city to contain damage”, which literally no one cares to notice. Creature breaks into the house. Girl is taking shower. She doesn’t know there is a creature lurking and it grabs her. She screams and we cut to the title screen. Which slowly rolls out under funky old rock-n-roll ballad, that has nothing to do with the weird stuff film is about. Matter of contrast. If that sounds familiar, welcome to the club. Scene I described is literally how Zach Snyder’s “Dawn of the Dead” begins. Which, don’t get me wrong, I think is one of the finest horror films of recent. All I am saying it is full of cliches.

“A Quiet Place” is not. Who cares where the creatures came from or what they want or why? All we need to know they are here and they hunt by sound. Film is not about them, it is about being a parent and about taking care of your family under this circumstances. About teenage girl who thinks her parents hate her. Of young boy who is afraid of growing up and accepting responsibility. Mother who knows all the pain she will have to endure to give birth to a child in a world, where baby can not make a single sound. And about father who secretly lives in terror knowing that one single mistake and everyone will be dead.

We don’t even know their names! Since 95% of time characters communicate through sign language, they don’t call each other out. I found out they actually had names from Wiki. There is no expositional BS, like “oh, it is your last day at job today bla bla” or “I wish I was getting married to your sexy marine scientist fiancee”. All information we get is from the screen. Makes you think and wonder. And to that I announce “A Quiet Place” deserving an Oscar nomination next year.

Just to be fair, there are also inconsistencies. It is not perfect. I had several questions like “well, if creatures did XXX, then why not they YYY?” or “why didn’t they think about using ZZZ or just ƏƏƏ them with ÜÜÜ?” But despite this the script pushes you to ignore these minor details and put your disbelief aside. It’s what we came to love M. Night Shyamalan’s works for. Very few films of present can claim that they achieved this.

Mother (Blunt) tries to hide from creatures when she is in labor

Directing

Speaking of Shyamalan, Krasinski’s directorial work reminded me of him a lot. He deliberately avoids jump scares (at least, as long as film can afford that) and masterfully builds suspense. There is literally one scene (no spoilers, I will try) that made me grab the armrest and my heart almost sunk. It is the scene where Evelyn wakes up. There are no jumps scares in it. She just looks around and we look around and then Evelyn and the audience, AT THE SAME TIME notice “something”. It is done so masterfully that half of the audience went “Holy F$%$!” In execution, I can compare it to same feeling I got from Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” photo moment, Hitchcock’s “Birds” walk to the car scene, Steven Spielberg’s “Jurassic Park” T-Rex appearance, Shyamalan’s “The Sixth Sense” ring drop, Ridley Scott’s “Alien” ending with sleeping xenomorph, James Cameron’s “The Terminator” locating Sarah Connor in club. This is how big it is.

What I also enjoyed was despite the fact that Krasinski is coming from indie background, he keeps “indie” to the minimum. There are no weird angles, long shots, extreme close-ups or superwide establishing shots, no shaky footage, no film grain, shadow plays or anything else you expect from an indie horror film. He plays it safe, thus avoiding building artificial tension through cinematography, instead concentrating on the story and edits to do their job. His twists appear to be twists to the characters, not the audience. It’s Chekov’s Gun principle all over. “If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired.” Film foreshadows the whole plot. Film builds tension by letting us know EXACTLY what is going to happen and we just sit and watch and anticipate when that will happen. Nail scene, for example.

I also enjoyed how the design and execution of creatures. Just like in the “Alien”, we don’t get to see the full creature until almost the end. For the most part, creatures are just silent killers in the night. We don’t see them, we mostly just hear them or catch a glimpse of teeth and claws. Again it all comes to the point of why exactly do we need to see them if the film is not about them? At the same time, film avoids ridiculousness of “Cloverfield”, a film which is about a monster, but without a full shot of said creature. “A Quiet Place” balances it’s monsters. They are shown when they are needed to be shown, not a second early, not a second later.

Father (Krasinski) wants us to stay quiet, no matter what!

Acting

“A Quiet Place” literally is a silent film with subtitles. This by itself is an enormous undertaking for a director, since he needs to always show who is talking. On the other hand it is tremendous strain on the actors who need to play with their facial expressions, not mouth. They have to be believable and convey exact reactions. John Krasinski plays father and his real life wife, Emily Blunt, plays mother. Their screen chemistry is natural (no surprise here), at the same time they both are able to deliver heartfelt, pure emotions. Emily Blunt is obviously a much greater actor, and Krasinski understands that, both as an actor and director. For the biggest emotional scenes, he gets behind camera and let’s her wife deliver amazing performances all on her own.

Millicent Simmonds, a deaf actress, plays teenage girl who is going through abandonment issues, gives another edge to the character. Unlike others, she doesn’t need to pretend to be silent. She IS silent. Noah Jupe plays her younger brother who doesn’t want to grow up and face real world. He wants to forget all that happened and stay child for as long as possible. He is also very believable and relatable character.

Summary

Innovative, masterfully crafted, heartfelt, engaging, and at the same time, disturbing, bone-chilling, frightening, and suspenseful, “A Quiet Place” shows that horror film doesn’t need nauseating inducing violence, cheap jump scares and cliche elements to be successful. John Krasinski, despite admitting not be grown up on horror films, delivers an instant horror classic. Supported with strong performances of the cast this film deserves recognition. And that ending. That is the most satisfying (I am not saying good or bad) ending I have seen since “Inception”.

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It’s a story of how one decision leads to other decisions, which lead to big consequences, which lead to even bigger consequences. Happily married couple Nader (Peyman Maadi) and Simin (Leila Hatami) are in the court trying to get divorce. She wants for the family to move out of Iran, they have only 40 days to do so. He doesn’t want to leave because of his father with Alzheimer’s disease. Pivot point is their 11 year old daughter, who currently stays with Nader, in hopes that family reconciles. As a result of separation agreement, Simin leaves their home to stay with her mother. Nader is forced to hire a housekeeper Razieh to look after his father while he is out of the house. She needs money, so even though she hasn’t asked for permission from her strict religious husband about working in another man’s house (approval of which is required according to tradition), she agrees to do the job. Next day Nader walks in the house to find his father is left alone in the house tied to the bed, with Razieh apparently out running her personal errands. He throws her out, when she comes back. Next morning he learns Razieh is in hospital and he is being called to the court. You can’t stop this snowball anymore.

I was very surprised by the ability of the cast to remain as natural and realistic as possible. As a matter of fact, I never saw any fake reaction or motion by any of the actors, including young 5 year old girl. There’s not a single overacting or underacting that I did notice. The film is done on the fraction of the budget of regular Hollywood movie (estimated budget of $500,000), but acting can kick ass of any random high profile Hollywood production.

I guess it all comes to directing abilities this time. Asghar Farhadi lets the actors proceed on the topic without interrupting the dialogues with meaningless shots of random stuff or trying to make the framing cinematic. He gives you pretty much basic idea of a cut where camera just follows what the actors say or do, without trying to be present. In return, you have some scenes with the ingenuity of a good theatrical presentation. And I bet, this movie would have make a great theater drama. The natural appeal of the dialogues and reactions adds a big value for the film. There’s only other film I can compare the acting to – “Glengarry Glen Ross” by James Foley. But that movie had the likenesses of Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Kevin Spacey, Ed Harris and so on. This one can match it, if not overshadow, by using local Iranian actors.

The main topic of the film is pride, lies, and honor. At some point of the film you know that the conflict could have been solved and that route of snowball going downhill could have been stopped if any of the characters would have really tried to swallow pride and act correctly. But no, you have an interesting moment where there’s not a single likable character in the film. And everyone has some part in the ensuing madness. Some are doing it on purpose, someone are forced to do it. You don’t see this much on film. Here I’d like to give another example – “Crash” by Paul Haggis, which follows similar pattern of random people connected and acting through a snowball effect. But there the main topic was racism and prejudice.

There’s a good reason this film would have never worked if it was filmed in Hollywood. I’m sure they would have included a big deal of racial discrimination issue into the story. And sure there would be tons of establishing shots, trying to show how the people lived before, how they struggled. But no! You have totally different mentality. Totally different approach for the viewer. Viewer is respected. He is not considered a dumb being that needs to be thrown a bone of explanation and clarification. All you need is on the screen, everything else you can deduce on your own.

Film manages to create certain uneasiness by plot progression. And although at times I felt like it was pushing me apart, it manages to keep me connected, up until the end you can’t just walk out of it. The end, which made me actually smile, was a really good touch by director. Film got nominated for 2 Oscars (Screenplay and Best Foreign Feature), but I’m sure it should have been nominated for another 3 at least (Best Picture, Editing, and Directing). Unfortunately, the Academy did decide to stick with other films. I’m sure this film will get its truly deserved recognition by the cinema lovers as soon as they see it.

This is a must-watch film.

9/10

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