In Natalie Erika James' RELIC, characters peel away the present to discover the past

One of those What's-going-on-with-Granny? movies that proves -- for awhile, at least -- good enough to work on two out of three of the levels it tackles: horror and family history. Whether RELIC works on its third and probably most important level, which seemed to TrustMovies to be about unconditional love, will depend on how well this new film, the first full-lengther directed and co-written (with Christian White) by Natalie Erika James (shown below) holds and convinces you throughout its too-little-content-for-90-minutes running time.

Relic lost me around the mid-way point. I continued with it, but more out of a sense of reviewer's duty than enjoyment or interest. The plot follows a dutiful daughter (Emily Mortimer, above center) and her own daughter (Bella Heathcote, above, right) who come to visit Grandma (Robyn Nevin, above, left) because there seems to be a problem.

The two women arrive at an empty house with Gran missing. Once she returns, it is very soon clear that this old woman is a danger to herself and to others: a textbook example of someone who must be taken into some kind of protective custody.

But, instead of acting like intelligent, caring adults, mom and granddaughter turn into horror movie clichés who waste our time by walking down long dark corridors for the usual effect but to no particular purpose. Chills melt, suspense flails and dies, and we realize most of this exists merely to provide filler and vamping.

So we wait for the conclusion that works as both metaphor and reality -- well, the reality of a horror movie, at least. And while it does prove somewhat interesting and different, it also arrives as too little too late. Ms Mortimer and Ms Heathcote are as good as their roles allow but only Ms Nevin rises to the memorable. She is simultaneously classy, scary and impressive indeed.

Cinematography, set design and special effects are also as good as possible, considering -- especially the manner in which the house is made to mirror the dementia of its occupant. Otherwise, though, Relic seem to me to be yet another example of an idea worth maybe forty minutes stretched to unseemly proportions.

From IFC Midnight, the movie hits select theaters, drive-ins and digital/VOD this Friday, July 10. Click here for more information.

Elizabeth Chomko's family/dementia drama, WHAT THEY HAD, finally opens in South Florida

The critical verdict on WHAT THEY HAD, the new film (her first) written and directed by actress Elizabeth Chomko, seems to be that it is very well-acted (it is indeed) but otherwise fairly forgettable. Some critics have also declared that it is all about an older woman, Ruth (played by Blythe Danner), descending into dementia. Wrong. The character is clearly already demented, even as the film begins. The movie's real theme is how the family members surrounding Ruth deal with her dilemma, as well as why they choose to do this. Or not.

All this makes the movie more complicated than you might initially expect, and Ms Chomko (pictured at left) provides enough decent dialog and varied situations to give her characters the opportunity to unveil themselves in relatively believable fashion, even as we audience members begin to understand them more fully.

Chomko's ace-in-the-hole is her very smartly chosen cast, each one of whom turns in an excellent performance. As the older generation, Ms Danner (below, left) and Robert Forster (below, right) as her husband, Burt, offer up some beautifully layered work: she moving easily between a demented state and some brief times that approach normalcy, he as the loving but hugely stubborn caretaker who refuses to admit the need for further help.

The younger generations are shown via Ruth's daughter (Hillary Swank, below, left) and grand-daughter (Taissa Farmiga, below, right), both of whom have their own rather typical but also highly detailed and believable way of dealing with the situation.

Best of all perhaps is that terrific actor Michael Shannon (shown below, second from left), playing Ruth's and Burt's son, Nick, who grows increasingly freaked out by the nighttime wanderings of his mother, particularly after she, in one of her "elsewhere" moments, has made a sexual advance toward him.

During the course of this 101-minute movie, the family's history spills slowly out, with perhaps a little too much exposition, though not a deal-breaking amount, and some welcome humor generated along the way. Parents and children have their defining moments and a certain amount of "closure" is reached. What They Had may not be groundbreaking in any way, but the situation it deals with head-on is one that many of us will have to face -- first as caretaker and finally, perhaps, as patient. Ms Chomko's film proves a decent addition to the growing sub-genre of aging-parent-with-Alzheimer's.

From Bleecker Street, the movie -- after opening last month in major cities -- hits South Florida this Friday, November 9. Look for it in the Miami area at MDC's Tower Theater, in Boca Raton at the Living Room Theater, and at the Movies of Delray and the Movies of Lake Worth.  Wherever you live around the country, to find the theaters nearest you, simply click here -- and scroll down.

Time, memory, mortality, character converge in Michael Almereyda's MARJORIE PRIME

It's the future, right, so this must be sci-fi? Yes, but writer/director Michael Almereyda has more on his mind than space ships, aliens, replicants or time travel. His latest film (his last one, the personal-history/documentary, Escapes,  just opened a few weeks back), MARJORIE PRIME, is more concerned with the way we use the latest technology we're given, and then -- as in Spike Jonze's wonderful Her, and the British TV Black Mirror segment, Be Right Back -- goes just a few steps beyond where we currently find ourselves and into quite a new world. This world looks a lot like our own, yet allows us to do so much more -- the end results of which are both helpful and maybe not so. With new technology comes new challenge.

In my last review of Mr. Almeyerda's work, I noted how empathetic this director, pictured at right, so often is. Here, that empathy extends to the "Prime" of the title (there are, it turns out, a number of these). A "Prime" is a kind of holographic creation of a recently deceased person, whom those left behind -- wife, husband, daughter, whoever -- can use to assuage the grief, guilt and any of those many feelings/problems that remain unresolved once a loved one has died. The first Prime we meet in the film is Walter, Marjorie's late husband, embodied here by actor Jon Hamm (shown at left, above and below), as a younger version of the man. Marjorie herself (played by Lois Smith, shown at right, above and below) is now aged and suffering from off-and-on dementia.

The film's other leading characters are Marjorie's adult daughter (Geena Davis, below) and her husband (Tim Robbins, further below), who clearly have mixed feelings about this use of a Prime, even if, as it does indeed appear, this is helpful to mom.

Almereyda, who both wrote and directed, gives us movies that are always intellectual feats. This one is just such a film -- and even more so than usual, I would say. It is supremely elegant and quiet, full of discussion about the uses and mis-uses of memory, along with how it works. Characters' memories allow us to see flashbacks of certain important moments, as well as to better understand the ongoing relationship between these four people, one of whom, Walter, exists almost only as a Prime.

Along the way, two other characters also become Prime, which makes for some surprise and further investigation (of mortality and grief, among other things). In Jonze's Her, the "machine" develops feelings, personality and much else that we might call human. Almereyda's Primes seem to do so, as well, but on a much less obvious scale and manner.

While the filmmaker and his creations are subtle and never push for our sympathy, they do empathize with our human feelings and failings -- and very well, too. Yet the film itself is rigorously unsentimental.

The performances are striking, intensely specific and deeply felt. The ensemble works beautifully together, keeping us ever on our toes as we watch and listen intently, calibrating who these people are -- both humans and their Primes -- and how much the latter are becoming, or at least mimicking quite beautifully, the former. All the actors are terrific, but Mr. Robbins, ever under-rated, is as good here as I have seen him.

The movie's final scene is one of great beauty, sadness, and surprise. You will wonder at it in both amazement and acceptance. Almereyda, like Jonze, seems non-judgmental (hence, perhaps, his great empathy), and unlike Black Mirror's Charlie Brooker, he does no finger-wagging. In any case, he has come up with one of the most unusual films of the year -- a must-see, I think, for thinking audiences.

From FilmRise and running 97 minutes, Marjorie Prime opens this Friday, August 18, in New York City at the Quad Cinema, in the Los Angeles area at Laemmle's Playhouse 7  and Monica Film Center, in San Francisco at The Roxie, in San Rafael at the Smith Rafael Film Center, and in Arlington, MA, at the Regent Theater.  The following Friday, it will open in another ten venues. Click here (then scroll down) to view all currently scheduled playdates, theaters, and cities.

Sebastián Silva/Pedro Peirano's OLD CATS opens in NYC--3 years late but still welcome --plus a Q&A with the filmmakers

Good movies will out. Some of 'em, at least. OLD CATS, the follow-up film by Sebastián Silva (co-written and co-directed by Pedro Peirano) to his wonderful The Maid, was first seen here in New York City at the 48th New York Film Festival in 2010, with a supposed U.S. theatrical release to follow that winter. We're still waiting. Or we were -- until today, when the film finally opened for a week-long run as part of MoMA's film program.

In assessing these two films, as well as his follow-up to Old Cats -- Crystal Fairy, which already opened here last month to good reviews and pretty good box-office -- it is now clear to those of us who appreciate this filmmaker's work that he has maybe never created a movie character he didn't like (at least to some extent). Look for a villain in his films and you'll come a cropper. These are all folk on the road to learning, and if that sounds preachy or tiresome, it's not. The films of Silva (above, right) and Peirano (above, left) offer too much fun and are far too interesting to be mistaken for sermons.

In Old Cats, which really is a lovely movie, the filmmakers shows us yet another dysfunctional family: an older couple, Isadora and Enrique (Bélgica Castro and Alejandro Sieveking, with those titular cats), well into their 80s, when their building's elevator breaks down, leaving Isadora, who is now coping with the onset of dementia, a kind of prisoner, ten flights up.

This is also the day that Isadora's daughter Rosario (Claudia Celedón, above, right) and her butch lover who likes to be called Hugo (the wonderful Catalina Saavedro, above, left, who starred in The Maid) arrive on the scene with a plan (yet another cockamamie scheme, it would seem) that will supposedly make everyone rich.

What happens is both expected and then not. The filmmakers observe their characters well and discover flawed folk who keep trying to make things work but fail as often as they win. Silva and Peirano do not judge, but they do see clearly and allow us to do the same. We come out of their film happy, sad and chastened. Things are never easy, particularly as age and its ravages overcome us.

Much of the film takes place, by necessity, in the older couple's apartment. But smartly -- both plot-wise and visually, for a wonderfully enjoy-able and sometimes frightening outing -- the characters and we take to the streets. There, Silva and Peirano prove just as knowing and sly, with the same fine understanding of human nature, as they are when boxed into the apartment. There's an epiphany of sorts, but nothing major. Silva's too subtle for that.

As I mentioned earlier, the movie opens today, Tuesday, August 20, for a week's run at MoMA. So for all you Silva completists out there, don't let this one go by unseen. I would hope there will be a DVD release eventually. More on that when I get some answers from the distributor...

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At the Q&A back in October of 2010, following the NYFF screening of Old Cats, both Sebastián Silva (below, right) and Pedro Peirano (below, left) were present and happy to answer a number of questions from various viewers. Below is what I have now, three years later, been able to retain from my scribbled notes taken during the pair's Q&A....

Your film deals with the claustrophobia of family. What draws you to this subject? 

SS: I have a huge family (Editor's note: See The Maid for verification of this.) Relationships are strong and sometimes terrifying. And there are no boundaries. For me family relationships are so universal, and they mirror that of the whole society.

PP: I come from a small family. All women. It's a horrible situation! (Everyone laughs.) Part of my idea here was to use a kind of "thriller" format for this movie.

Can you talk a bit about your collaboration?

SS: Pedro is very experienced in collaborating. He does amazing writing, and he always knows every detail. I'm dyslexic, and so maybe more daring and not afraid to make mistakes. But he always knows what's right and wrong!

PP: The main things is always how to get the characters into trouble. In terms of writing, Sebastián always creates the problems for the characters that I must then come and save.

I have two questions: You have three strong and famous women playing these characters. How was that to deal with?  And also, since the one couple is lesbian, how it is for homosexuals in your country?

PP: The three are actually very good and very old friends, so that made it easier. What was really interesting here is that we had three generations and thus three different styles of acting.

SS: For instance, Bélgica Castro who plays Isadora is 92 years old and has never improvised on film, so this was very difficult for her. She'd suddenly stop and say, "Just give me the line!"

PP: Regarding the question of homosexuality, things are changing. Discussions are taking place, on top of the remains of older discussions.

SS: In any case, our film is not categorized on the web as a gay film. No! That's only a part of it.

You do old age so well. Was this due to the script or to the actress?

SS: When you're 92, like Bélgica, you know old age. We were actually worried about this, so we researched, too, about the portrayal of mental illness.

PP: I also am upset by the theme of age and I liked the opportunity to work on this. Our older actors who play the couple are actually married -- they're 92 and 87 -- and the film was shot in their apart-ment in which they've lived for 30 years, so in a sense we got a lot of research from that alone. A lot of real data: all the pills and the dynamics of how they lived. How they wake up in the morning and what they do each day. We invaded their house and learned a lot!

What about the animals?

SS: Oh, boy. We had no experience directing animals. When we wanted the cats to move, we had to use these cans of air, which we had to squirt at them. Then they moved.

PP: And when the elevator broke, we had to carry everything downstairs.

SS: The Maid was shot in my father's house, and now this film was shot in the actors' apartment. From now on, I want to find locations that are lived in!

PP: The hardest part, in a way, was that the apartment was real and so were the actors who lived in it. But the characters were not. They were so different from the actors, and that made it very odd.

Is this part of a new wave of Chilean cinema?

SS: I don't believe in this. Now it is all more individual, random. In Mexico, yes; Uruguay, yes. But in Chile there us no new wave yet. Small films are being made, with not much support from audiences. But fortunately, because of video, movies are cheaper to make!