The remarkable Beanie Feldstein anchors Coky Giedroyc/Caitlin Moran's HOW TO BUILD A GIRL

How remarkable is Beanie Feldstein? Well, she was aces doing that supporting role in Lady Bird, then grabbed the brass ring as one of the leads in Booksmart. Just the other day, some of us learned she could sing, too, during that wonderful 90th birthday celebration for Stephen Sondheim (watch it here). This week the Los Angeles born and raised actress opens as the star of HOW TO BUILD A GIRL, in which she plays the daughter of a very working class British family, with an acccent that seems -- to my ears, at least -- spot on. She also absolutely anchors this oddball little movie via her laser focus, boundless energy and ability to make us care, no matter how "offbeat" be some of her choices..

With a screenplay adapted from her own novel by Caitlin Moran (shown at left in the photo at right) and directed by Coky Giedroyc (at right), the presumably somewhat autobiographical novel-to-movie is so utterly and fully inhabited by Ms Feldstein that you could just about believe that she wrote and directed it, too.

This is not to take anything away from the talent and work of Ms Morgan and Ms Giedroyc; I am merely pointing out how perfect a kind of creative collaboration the combo of these three women provides. As odd as the tale is and further becomes, everything somehow works. And Ms Feldstein goes from a believable 16-year-old to so much more in the space of a mere hour and 42 minutes.

Morgan's theme, built right into her title, is how we become who we are and/or can be. All of us, men and women, have gone through this with varying results, and of course, we're still working on it. But most of us may not have started with quite the bizarre family situation that our hero Johanna has. Nor will we have taken the even more bizarre route that our heroine travels.

Our girl is clearly a writer from the outset. What to write about is the big question. Her journey takes her from a local televised poetry competition to penning reviews for a completely male-run music magazine to writing a feature rock-star profile, and finally to learning that, in this society, snark plays (and pays) better than praise.

Along the way, we spend time with her family: a music-besotted father (the always wonderful Paddy Considine) and kindly, caring, smart-ass brother (Laurie Kynaston, above, left), and finally and especially that particular rock star named John Kite, played with singular intelligence and delight by Alfie Allen, below. You can easily understand how Johanna could fall in love with this guy, as well as how he could be charmed to distraction by our girl.

How it all unravels and re-ravels proves increasingly joyous, if somewhat fraught, with a fine cameo from Emma Thompson (below, left) near the finale. As coming-of-age movie go, How to Build a Girl is singular and most welcome. I can't wait to see the result of Ms Feldstein's next role -- playing Mary in a movie version of Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along. Though if, as promised, director Richard Linklater takes as long on this one as he did on Boyhood, TrustMovies won't live long enough to see it. Damn!

From IFC Films and running 102 minutes, the movie opens in three actual theaters (hooray, but yes, they're drive-ins) in Glendale, Arizona; Sacramento, California; and Ocala, Florida) and on ditial and cable VOD this Friday, May 8 -- for purchase and/or rental. Go for it!

CAPITAL IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY: Justin Pemberton's necessary documentary of Thomas Piketty's even more necessary book

If ever a tome was needed to help correct the world's ever-growing inequality between the wealthy and the rest, it was Thomas Piketty's CAPITAL IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY, published in French in 2013 and the following year in an English-language translation.

Though an immediate best-seller internationally, TrustMovies suspects it was one of those books more talked about than actually read by the intelligent masses (yup, I didn't read it either). For those of us who didn't -- and even maybe for those who did -- here comes the movie version (a documentary, 'natch) directed by Justin Pemberton that, after a bit of a shaky start, goes on to become one of those must-see movies that may change the attitude of many lucky enough to view it.

Mr. Pemberton (shown at left), along with M. Piketty (shown below), make

their point via history, economics, statistics and even psychology. Regarding that last, the experiment shown here involving wealth, entitlement and the results of a Monopoly game played without anything resembling a level playing field should open your eyes and leave your mouth agape. That aforementioned point is how hugely the gap in western countries between the very wealthy and the remaining populace continues to widen -- along with how unhealthy this situation clearly is.

Piketty, who, along with Pemberton and Matthew Metcalfe, adapted his own book to the screen, has certainly managed to make his information come across as intelligent, important and more than a little timely.

It is Piketty himself who acts as initial narrator, speaking to us in French (with English subtitles) and popping up from time to time, along with a number of other smart, well-spoken talking heads (including economic analyst Rana Foroohar, above) who, together, make a very good case for why this enormous income disparity is so destructive for so many.

Initially, the documentary took some time to involve me and to lift off. I suspect this is because the film spends a good half hour offering a look at history and telling us things that, if we've also seen other fine docs such as Capitalism and No Gods, No Masters, we'll already know. Add to this, Mr. Pemberton's penchant for filling up the screen with so much of everything as to be distracting (see above and below).

Yet, as Capital in the Twenty-First Century moves along, it gathers such a head of steam that is soon becomes so vitally interesting and packed with more and more with succulent examples and pertinent information that, once finished, you may want to watch it all over again, just to make sure you got the whole thing.

By the time it gets to -- and sticks with -- this twenty-first century,  you'll be absolutely hooked, as Piketty and company explore everything from globalization and its discontents to the country of China (above) -- and why the Chinese (below) are faring better than are we in the west.

This is not simply a slap on the wrist or some dire warning without an accompanying solution. Piketty offers some good ones -- involving taxation and the monitoring of offshore tax havens, among others. Yes, this'll take work. But what that is worthwhile does not?

More to the point, this change demands both the will and the work. But with so many of our current politicians (just as those of the past, above) --- of either stripe -- in hock to the wealthy and the corporate, will and work are, as ever, in short supply. And now we have the current Corona virus to makes it all more difficult. Still, this is a documentary that demands to be seen, discussed and acted upon. We shall see.

From Kino Lorber and running 103 minutes, Capital in the Twenty-First Century was supposed to open theatrically this Friday, April 3 (click here, then click on PLAYDATES, to see the should-have-been theatrical venues). If not available theatrically, surely the film will soon be seen via digital streaming. I'll try to keep you posted with any updates here....

Al Pacino's back in Barry Levinson's THE HUMBLING -- for better and for worse

What a frustrating experience is THE HUMBLING, the new film from director Barry Levinson, with a screenplay by Buck Henry from the novel of the same name by Philip Roth. Interesting, sometimes riveting -- but only in fits and starts -- the film also gives Al Pacino a juicy role which he alternately embraces and makes mincemeat of. He is not helped by Mr. Levinson, who at times seems to have deliberately decided to work in distance or long shots when what is so clearly called for is a close-up (though the director might have worried that his scenery-chewing star would once again decimate the drapes). Whatever: The Humbling might be better titled, The Fumbling.

The real problem, however, is most likely due to the source material itself. I haven't read Roth's novel, but the mostly negative criticism of it -- absurd, slight, disposable, ill conceived, and simply going-through-the-motions -- also reflects the state of this movie version. Over the years, Mr. Levinson (shown at left) has excelled in a variety of genres -- from drama to comedy to horror (see his very good and frightening film, The Bay, if you haven't already). Perhaps here, working with such a problematic tale, he has simply let it "wag" him, rather than the necessary reverse. Or it may be that a movie that jumps so many genres, as this one does, is simply not part of Levinson's metier.

But let's start with the good things, including Pacino, who, even when he's over-doing it, proves fun and often funny. Given his professed love of Shakespeare and the nice job he did with Shylock, one easily identifies with the character he plays here, Simon Axler, renowned stage actor who has recently had a bad few years.

Then there's Greta Gerwig (at right), who certainly comes into her own in the role of Pegeen, a needy, messed-up adult who, as a child, had been enamored of Simon and now comes back into his life as a possible -- if highly unlikely -- love interest. Ms Gerwig plays pretty much a femme fatale (or at least a femme maudite) here, but she manages to keep us, as she does Simon, off-balance, alternate-ly charmed and annoyed.

Somewhat wasted (due to her tiny role), Kyra Sedgwyck, above, still impresses with her strength and anger, while Diane Wiest and Dan Hedeya (below, right and left, respectively) provide some humor, as well as additional back-story.

Of the entire cast, it's probably Charles Grodin (below, left) who best nails his small role as Simon's agent, followed by Nina Arianda (at bottom, right), who has the most preposterous role of all, but manages to make it seem at least possible, if not probable. The movie might have worked better has Gerwig and Arianda switched roles: The former's easy goofiness might have better served the maybe-crazy/maybe-not wife, while the latter's drive and heavy-duty acting chops might have turned Pegeen into something approaching memorable.

As it is, the movie meanders from incident to incident, emotion to emotion, stopping for something real and then something ridiculous -- finally leaving all its characters, especially Simon, hanging out to dry. The Humbling has a lot in common with another recent movie about actors and acting: Birdman, which offers fine performances, fluid camerawork and simply no point -- no "there" there -- at all. (Both films, in fact, have a scene in which our heroic actor gets locked of his theater during a performance.)

From Millennium Entertainment (recently renamed Alchemy, which had better get -- and fast -- a decent web site up and running) and lasting a little too long at 112 minutes, The Humbling, which may humble some of those involved here, opens this coming Friday, January 23, in New York City at the AMC Empire 25 -- and elsewhere, too, though nothing has yet been posted as yet on the movie's site. Check back in a few days, and maybe someone will have updated the thing. Also, as I understand it from the web site, the film will be available simultaneously via VOD and digital streaming.

Austrian Writers on Film at AFA with Ophüls' LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN

The ongoing monthly series, Austrian Writers on Film, a collaboration of Anthology Film Archives and the Austrian Cultural Forum NY, gets a special jump-start this coming Thursday, April 29, at 7:15 & 9:15 with a screening of the popular-with-film-buffs-but-rarely-screened LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN -- the Hollywood adaptation by Max Ophüls (shown below) of the Stefan Zweig novella.

Devoted to the intersection of cinema and Austrian literature, this series features films written by, adapted from, or even directed by renowned Austrian novelists, dramatists, poets, and other writers.  The May selection will be Michael Haneke’s French-language (but Vienna-set) film of contemporary Austrian author Elfriede Jelinek’s The Piano Teacher. And June will see the U.S. premiere of what AFA calls "a truly remarkable example of Austrian silent cinema, long thought lost": Hans Karl Breslauer’s The City Without Jews, an adaptation of novelist Hugo Bettauer's satire that proved all too on-target in the decades that followed.

The AFA tells us that April’s screening of this Zweig adaptation (the writer is shown at right) has been scheduled to coincide with a special event taking place at the Austrian Cultural Forum New York on Friday, April 30: a panel discussion entitled “The New World of Yesterday: Stefan Zweig’s Utopian Nostalgia”, which will focus on Zweig’s work and his final years in the Americas. For more information, click here.

Any Max Ophüls film, particularly when it is screened, as here at the AFA, in 35 mm (and in a beautifully preserved print, courtesy of the UCLA Film & Television Archive)  is worth seeing a number of times -- even if, as for me in the case of his Earrings of Madame D..., you are not particularly enamored of the film.  Ophüls' visuals -- his camera movement, sets, costumes and the like -- are so beautiful to behold that these carries you effortlessly along.  And Letter's black-and-white cinematography (by Franz Planer) moves from the merely beautiful to the often breathtaking.

Letter from an Unknown Woman (which might have better been titled Letter from a Clueless Woman to a man with a very poor memory) is one of the master's four Hollywood efforts, which, in terms of sophistication and morality, rank a tad lower on the chart than do his European films. America's attitude toward sex and adultery (among other topics) is forever behind that of Europe in terms of both our humanity and hypocrisy.

That "Letter" remains as fine a film as it is, comes as something of a surprise.  Released in 1948 and running only 86 minutes, it tracks the obsessive love of a woman, starting in her teen years, for a handsome classical pianist who remains a unrepentant roué throughout. As portrayed by Joan Fontaine (above, who makes a surprisingly convincing schoolgirl early on) and Louis Jourdan (below, right, nicely navigating the difficult route between rotten and redeemable -- and as sexually compelling as ever), this two-
some remains fairly riveting, even by today's standards.  Fontaine's elegant, often sweet beauty predates that of Grace Kelly, without the latter's layer of stone beneath the supple veneer.

Letter's screenplay, from Howard Koch (and an uncredited Ophüls), is barely a patch on what the filmmaker would give us in the following decade's Lola Montès.  Still, if you didn't manage to DVR it on its recent showing via TCM in high definition, then get to AFA this Thursday. I will try to say more about upcoming screenings, particularly The City Without Jews, as their playdates approach....

AFA extends very special thanks to Andreas Stadler, Martin Rauchbauer & Alexander Bogner (Austrian Cultural Forum), Nikolaus Wostry & Helmut Pflügl (Filmarchiv Austria), Todd Wiener & Steven Hill (UCLA Film & Television Archive), Gary Palmucci (Kino International), and Kathryn Brennan (Paramount).

About The Austrian Cultural Forum New York
The Austrian Cultural Forum New York (ACFNY), an agency of the Republic of Austria, is located in an extraordinary architectural landmark building in Manhattan. It is the Cultural Section of the Austrian Consulate General in New York. It offers free admission to all of its events, which are not-for-profit and frequently engages in cultural events with social, charitable and educational context and purpose, in cooperation with Austrian and Austrian-based artists. It is a cultural, academic, and intellectual meeting place for Austrians, Americans, and citizens from all over the world.

ANTHOLOGY FILM ARCHIVES is located at 32 Second Avenue, New York, NY 10003, (212) 505-518.  Click the link for more information, directions, tickets, and what have you.