Enchanted

“Enchanted”

USA. 2007. Directed by Kevin Lima. Written by Bill Kelly. Starring: Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey, James Marsden, Timothy Spall, Idina Menzel, Susan Sarandon, Rachel Covey, Jeff Bennett, Kevin Lima, Emma Rose Lima, Jodi Benson, Teala Dinn and Fred Tatasciore.

Rating: ★★★½

Enchanted is like a grand, livewire musical symphony of all the Disney fairy tales we grew up loving. We know all the ingredients: the beautiful singing princess in the tall tower, the prince in shining armor, the evil stepmother or queen who were probably one and the same to begin with anyway, the comical animal sidekick, and perhaps a little kissing to seal true love. And with its ingenious premise, Disney has found the most ideal place to create its own genre-bending musical comedy – New York City.

The movie opens with a brief bit of animation to introduce our heroine, Giselle (Amy Adams) in a musical interlude that walks the tightrope between being the most earnest musical number Disney never made and a hilarious parody exposing the old classics for all the frothy sugar that cynics throw stones at. From her tall castle in the land of Andalasia, she not only beckons one animal helper with her singing voice but calls an entire kingdom full of chipmunks, parrots, doves, owls, etc. And she meets her handsome Prince Edward (James Marsden) because, fate of all fates, they literally start singing the same song as a duet from miles apart and instantly know they are meant to be.

Of course, there is Edward’s evil stepmother, Queen Narissa (Susan Sarandon) who doesn’t want them to be. So right before her wedding day with Edward, she pushes Giselle into the real world where she ends up in, of all places, Times Square. This is where writer Bill Kelly and director Kevin Lima correctly reject the route of placing animated characters in the real world and instead rely on the absolutely enchanting (yes, enchanting, with not a hint of pun intended) performance by Amy Adams.

She no doubt has to be because her character possesses the infectious energy of all her animated Disney precursors in a bottle. It is all hers to make an initial cynic like a divorce lawyer she meets, Robert Phillip (Patrick Dempsey) and all of us captivated by her utter naivete and sincerity so far as to wipe out thoughts of bringing her back to our own senses of grim cynicism. Indeed, enchanting is the best word to describe her performance, although I would also add delightful, radiant, magical, and, yes, brilliant. And these are all adjectives that everyone beyond the fortunate few who already saw her in previous works like Junebug and Catch Me If You Can can finally ascribe her to now.

By building a counterpoint in Dempsey’s character, the movie finds endless opportunities to comically run the gamut between chirpy fairy tale idealism and the cynicism that surrounds everyday reality including romance. That includes one particularly hilarious scene where Giselle starts sobbing after seeing one of Robert’s divorcee clients. And in one of the most hygiene use of roaches you’ll ever see, after he takes her in at the behest of his daughter, Morgan (Rachel Covey), she beckons all the animals in New York, including the roaches in the sewers, to squeaky clean his entire apartment.

The addition of Robert also adds some new wrinkles to the old fairy tale, particularly when Giselle starts heeding a concept unheard of in fairy tale land – dating. Robert is already dating someone else, Nancy (Idina Menzel) and Giselle has already met her handsome prince who is on her way to rescue her in the city. But as his defenses breaks down, it becomes anyone’s guess whose kiss Giselle will finally receive. That is, of course, if Queen Narissa doesn’t foil her plans first.

All of this is surrounded by the usual quality music by Alan Menken with lyrics by Stephen Schwartz. Being on familiar ground from previous works like Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Pocahontas and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, they deliver their song and dance numbers with a nudge and a wink, aided by the vocal talents of Adams and Marsden, who do all of their own singing. This is particularly true of Marsden, who outrageously camps up his singing and performance to reveal the typical handsome prince persona for the blow-hard, naïve goofball that he really is.

If it weren't for the news earlier this year that John Lasseter was reopening Disney's traditional animation department, I would have said that Enchanted is a worthy swan song to a filmmaking era. With the news, the movie plays like an unexpected yet somehow inevitable genre highlight that is hopefully nostalgic. And if that sounds like a paradox, it is, just as a winning, gentle and wholesome satire like this film should be. We just needed the beloved genre to redraw its curtain with a bang and this film has packed that, too.

Reign Over Me

“Reign Over Me”

USA. 2007. Written and directed by Mike Binder. Starring: Adam Sandler, Don Cheadle, Jada Pinkett Smith, Liv Tyler, Saffron Burrows, Donald Sutherland, Robert Klein, Melinda Dillon, Mike Binder, Jonathan Banks, Rae Allen, and Paula Newsome.

Rating: ★★★

The central fear that drives Mike Binder’s Reign Over Me is the fear of seeking help. Many critics have questioned why Alan Johnson (Don Cheadle) does not immediately call for help for his ex-roommate from dental school, Charlie Fineman (Adam Sandler) but is it that simple? Would it be easy to write off an old friend as insane and put on a label saying, “You need a shrink”?

That is even more complicated because they have not seen each other since their dental school years and vast emotional rifts has happened in between, particularly in Charlie’s life. Alan heard on the news about what happened to Charlie and how he has been leading a disheveled life far away from his successful former life and career. Stop reading here if you know nothing about this film.

As the trailers are a little too eager to reveal, Charlie’s family was on one of the planes that crashed on 9/11 and has emotionally shut down. So much so that he does not even or perhaps refuses to recognize people and places from his past including Alan as the two meet. But now that chance has brought them together, Alan does not want this opportunity for re-acquaintance to slip by.

This theme of the willingness to acknowledge brokenness is one that writer/director Mike Binder has explored in his past movies like The Upside of Anger. And like that previous film, his story wisely avoids raising its voice more than it is comfortable with. Some have stated that the film is making itself more sensationalistic by dealing with 9/11 and that Charlie’s anguish would be no different if his family had died from just another plane crash. But it is more courageous of Binder to tackle the subject in the low-key way that he does, devoid of any political commentary, because when all has been said, it is fundamentally the unnecessary loss of life that hurts most and makes the least sense.

Thus unfolds an effective portrait of these two men who have taken radically different paths but share the same basic apprehension towards something that many of us share: standing up to our problems. It is why Alan shares his conflicted thoughts to a psychiatrist, Angela (Liv Tyler) outside her office building instead of in her office and Charlie rides around in his scooter all the time, has cut all social connections and gets confrontational, sometimes even violently so, when anyone discusses his past. Ultimately, however, as someone who was not part of his pivotal past event, Alan takes it upon himself to be the outsider to which Charlie can finally share and face his own past. Alan finds some liberation, too, in rediscovering some of the fun “guy” activities that all of his academic work and busy family life had prevented him from doing.

All of this provides an acting showcase for Cheadle and particularly Sandler. Cheadle is as good as ever playing a man who tries to help his friend back on his feet without potentially alienating his wife, Janeane (Jada Pinkett Smith) and his kids in the process. Sandler, on the other hand, has finally found the role to express his true dramatic talent. There has always been a streak of hostility and self-destructiveness in Sandler’s comedic roles, and with movies like Punch-Drunk Love and now this one, he shows that he can portray damaged souls as well as anyone.

Unfortunately, Binder has not yet gotten rid of his urge to insert a smarmy character to overstuff his film with unnecessary dramatic conflict and some absurd comedy (as he did in The Upside of Anger where he himself played that role). In this film, it is a peculiar character played by Saffron Burrows who inexplicably comes on to Alan and every time she appears on screen, the story stops to a dead halt and caves into shameless contrivance, even marring the ending a bit. There are some mildly amusing awkward moments involving her but in a film where everything about the two men’s friendship feels so genuine, her character’s very presence, no matter how well the role is acted, is taking up superfluous room.

In the end, however, the movie’s basic message comes through strong and clear, which is the need to humble oneself first before beginning the process of healing. Of course, some will say that that sounds sentimental and any “reasonable” person in the film would just turn someone like Charlie to the mental hospital immediately. This movie asks us to walk a little in Charlie’s shoes before being quick to judge.

Lars and the Real Girl

“Lars and the Real Girl”

USA. 2007. Directed by Craig Gillespie. Written by Nancy Oliver. Starring: Ryan Gosling, Emily Mortimer, Paul Schneider, Kelli Garner, Patricia Clarkson, R.D. Reid, Nancy Beatty, Doug Lennox, Joe Bostick, Liz Gordon, Nicky Guadagni, Karen Robinson, Maxwell McCabe-Lokos, Billy Parrott and Sally Cahill.

Rating: ★★★★

The first important thing to make clear about Lars and the Real Girl is that it is about as much about life-size love dolls as Signs was about aliens. Many people will fear the repellent or laughable pratfalls this tale about a lonely man who introduces a female doll as his girlfriend could fall into (no less because the director Craig Gillespie previously helmed the crass and dreadful comedy, Mr. Woodcock). But Gillespie, who now announces himself as a fresh new talent to watch for, and first-time writer Nancy Oliver are too smart and too sensitive to vulgarize their innocent story and its immensely sympathetic and likable protagonist.

The second and more crucial thing to note is that the film’s unassuming, resolutely innocent quality turns this into one of the most poignant portraits of loneliness I’ve ever seen. Rarely has a film so touchingly treated loneliness and diffidence not as clinical symptoms to be fixed but as conditions that can be nursed and amended with unconditional love and acceptance. And the uncompromising and quietly ambitious way the movie presents this heartfelt and honest insight within its unusual story and characters is almost beyond description.

The film stars Ryan Gosling in yet another brilliant performance as Lars Lindstrom. He lives next door to his brother, Gus (Paul Schneider) and sister-in-law, Karin (Emily Mortimer). The struggle for Gus and Karin is that Lars so stubbornly keeps to himself. He drives to work solemnly, silently goes inside his house alone every night, attends church alone every Sunday and barely associates with either of them. He even refuses to come over for dinner despite Karin’s repeated pleadings, which he eventually does only because the pregnant Karin actually tackles him to the ground urging him to do so. And of course, he consistently resists the advances of Margo (Kelli Garner), a co-worker who has taken a liking to him.

One day, however, Lars announces that he has a girlfriend he met on the Internet. Of course, the girlfriend named Bianca is really a life-size love doll, much to the shock of Gus and Karin. No, she is not used for sex (he asks that Bianca have a separate bedroom in Gus' house because he is a devout Christian) but is really more of an imaginary companion for Lars. Gus can’t stand to bear the fact that his brother may be completely insane. But Karin somehow sees this as a unique stepping stone for him since he had never before so willingly communicated with them at all. The local doctor, Dagmar (Patricia Clarkson) agrees that accepting Bianca just like a real person may invaluably help Lars break out of his shell.

What elevates the story into the realm of a Capra-esque fable is how the people of his small town decide to go along with treating Bianca like a real person, too. Sure, they make some obvious small chuckles and snickers, which generate some big laughs in the beginning. But when the townspeople band together to care for Lars – after one of the unanimously churchgoing townspeople rhetorically asks, “What would Jesus do?” – we know that the film’s values are pure and will avoid any easy shots at smuttiness.

It goes without saying that Lars harbors some deep-seated pain inside and his counseling visits with Dagmar (in the guise of the latter nursing Bianca’s health) provide some of the best scenes in the film. A lesser movie would have resorted to some cheap flashbacks and psychoanalytic babble but the screenplay wisely focuses on how to deal with Lars’ issue of loneliness in the present instead of trying to explain away the past. That Dagmar and everyone else are able to project the pathos that Lars needs to heal entirely through Bianca makes it all the more subtly remarkable. And there is a transcendently sweet scene involving a teddy bear that I must not reveal because it should make your heart leap up as it did mine.

At the center, of course, is Gosling who just keeps on topping himself in his range and caliber of performances. All the characters he has played including a neo-Nazi, a district attorney, an inner-city school teacher addicted to drugs and now a shy and lonely young man have nothing in common other than the fact that they are so meticulously inhabited. Here, watching his complete command of tone between quiet humor and genuine sympathy, we almost get the sense he is creating this most unique character out of thin air (not to mention making Bianca into a symbolic character we actually care about).

The movie must have been a difficult high-wire act for Gillespie and Oliver. They, of course, supply the humorous reaction shots to touch on our instinctive responses to the sight of a life-size mannequin. But they sidestep any temptation for mockery and maintain complete sincerity as their fulcrum to successfully cross the tightrope between drama and light comedy, idealism and yes, even plausibility.

Lars and the Real Girl is easily one of the best films of the year and can only be called uncompromisingly moving. It is hard to describe in words the amount of courage and chances it takes to singularly bring out our capacity to express empathy and understanding. And in a world where some people are ostracized for being different or misunderstood, a movie like this is a warm antidote.