Home-vid debut for old-fashioned, don't-miss, highly collaborative film, THE ETRUSCAN SMILE

One of those rare examples of a huge international collaboration -- an Israeli directing duo (Oded Binnun and Mihal Brezis, shown below, with Ms Brezis on the left), five screen-writers adapting a popular Spanish novel by José Luis Sampedro, filmed in Scotland and San Francisco and featuring actors from both sides of the Atlantic -- THE ETRUSCAN SMILE works better than you could possibly imagine, thanks to the skill, talent and sheer love gifted by everyone involved. Sure, the plot is probably as recycled as anything you've lately (or formerly) seen, yet every would-be cliche is either turned a tad askew or simply brought to such pulsating and believable life that you don't simply go along with it, you fucking embrace it.

Let's start with the movie's star, Brian Cox (at top and below): If this versatile and amazing actor is not considered one of England's "national treasures," along with the likes of Maggie Smith or Judi Dench, it must only be because he has fought so long and hard for Scottish independence from Britain. Here he plays an aging fellow named Rory, diagnosed with a disease for which he must travel from his home on the beautiful coast of Scotland to the USA for proper treatment, and to the San Francisco home of his estranged son, his daughter-in-law and his new grandson. Yes, you can easily predict the outcome, but getting there is so filled with beauty, fun, small surprises and spot-on performances that it's the journey, as they say, and not destination that proves most important.

Mr. Cox, utterly penetrating, specific and aglow -- whether he's the star bad guy, as in the current series Succession; a mere supporting player, as in the recent what's-going-on-here? thriller Last Moment of Clarity; or merely the best Winston Churchill I've yet seen -- adds luster to anything in which he appears. He's also a gracious, giving actor who never seems to "hog" the screen. Consequently, all the supporting performers shine, too, including the very fine JJ Feild (below, right, one of the great movie villains in the delightful and under-rated thriller, Not Safe for Work) and Thora Birch (below, left) as, respectively, the son and daughter-in-law.

Rosanna Arquette (below, left) is lovely, too, as a museum official and unexpected romantic interest, while actors like Peter Coyote (at center, two photos below) and Treat Williams (three photos below) bring the necessary professional-polish-plus to their roles.

Sub-plots such as the son's wanna-be chef career, the protection and survival of original Scots languages, and the too-helicopter parenting of that grandson are nicely woven into the whole, so the movie bounces along beautifully throughout.

Speaking of that grandson, TrustMovies does not usually have all that much to say about performances by very young children, but the little boy in The Etruscan Smile (shown at bottom and played by two youngsters, Oliver Epps and Elliot Epps) is as adorable as any kid this age I've seen on film.

My spouse noted that the filmmakers must have spent literally days and days getting all this amazing footage of the child. Either that, or those Epps toddlers are just naturally happy little scene stealers.

A word also must be said the for the sparkling and often gorgeous widescreen cinematography (by the great Javier Aguirresarobe) whose exteriors or Scotland (above) and interiors of lush apartments and/or museums (below) help make this a don't-want-to-take-your-eyes-off-it movie experience.

It is also a very moving one. We were not dried-eyed by the finale, nor do I suspect you will be. But all your attention here, as well as your smiles and tears, are well earned. This is old-fashioned, classy, story-well-told moviemaking at its finest.

From Lightyear Entertainment, running 107 minutes and distributed in the USA via MVD Entertainment Group, The Etruscan Smile, after a virtual theatrical release in April and May, is available now on home video via DVD, Blu-ray and digital streaming. 

FRANKIE may not be up to the usual level of Ira Sachs movies, but it's still worth a view

Why? As they say in the real estate trade, location (I'll spare you the cliché of repeating this word another two times). FRANKIE, the new film from Ira Sachs (Love Is Strange, Keep the Lights On), has been filmed in Sintra, Portugal, in one of the loveliest locations -- the inside and outside architecture, as well as the lushly verdant landscapes -- I've seen in a movie in some time. Consequently just about every scene features a view or two that is drop-dead gorgeous. Another reason the film is worth seeing is its terrific international cast: Really, are you going to pass up a movie featuring Isabelle Huppert, Brendan Gleeson, Marisa Tomei, Greg Kinnear, Jérémie Renier, Pascal Greggory and the remaining international cast with whom TrustMovies was not as familiar but who are very, very good.

Mr. Sachs' (the filmmaker is shown at left) gift for largely doing away with exposition (or couching it so very well that we don't even notice) seems to have somewhat deserted him here so that we get more expo than we do action or plot.

There are probably times in which this would not mater. But here it eventually stalls the film to the point that we grow impatient for more to happen.

More never comes, so we fall back on the gorgeous cinematography (by the fine Rui Poças)  and the excellent work from the performers, for whom every moment rings true -- even if the movie as a whole doesn't quite make it. And then, Sachs drags his finale on well past the point of no return.

The tale told is one of internationally famous film star (played by Huppert, above) hosting a family-and-friends get together in Sintra during which much is revealed (much of which we, if not some of the other characters, already know). Revealing any of what is revealed risks spoilers -- in a movie that boasts so little plot that even spoiling a single thing seems too much.

So let's just concentrate on that cast of characters at this extended-family reunion to which a couple of outsiders are included. Ms Tomei (above) plays one of Huppert's dearest industry friends (she does hair for movies, as I recall) who brings along a director of photography (Mr. Kinnear) who surprises her with a sudden proposal.

Mr. Gleeson (above, right) essays the role of Huppert's current hubby, while Mr. Greggory plays her former spouse and M. Renier (below, right) is grumpy/sexy as Huppert's grown son who's equally concerned about his mother's health and what he'll inherit, once she has departed.

As I mentioned, we get all this via exposition that's not up to Sach's usual abilities, but the performances are good enough to carry us along, while the background locations, with their eye-popping visuals, keep us happy.

From Sony Pictures Classics, in mostly the English language with some English-subtitled French and Portuguese occasionally tossed in, and running 98 minutes, Frankie, which opened in our cultural centers a few weeks ago to not-so-hot critical notices, hits South Florida tomorrow, Friday, November 22, in the Miami area at AMC's Aventura 24 and in Boca Raton at the Living Room Theaters -- among other possible venues (Sony's Frankie website has not been updated to include any actual theater locations at this point in time).

Matt Sobel's TAKE ME TO THE RIVER: family drama full of innuendo, shock and withholding

Having not a little in common with last week's much better movie, The Automatic Hate, this week's opener, TAKE ME TO THE RIVER, is also a family drama about the past and secrets and how all this inevitably catches up with us. It features some fine performances, along with direction that pushes these to the fore, while paying attention to the place-specific (Nebraska) visuals and to a screenplay (also by Mr. Sobel) that dispenses with almost everything except the insistently heavy-handed and secret-laden plot.

The filmmaker, pictured at left, begins and ends his films with his "first family" in the car, arriving then departing from a family reunion that has turned into a kind of disaster. (Can you think of a family reunion in movies that has not? TrustMovies is certain that there must have been one or two, but he can't remember them just now.) The film's similar beginning/ending duplicates those of another, also much better movie, from a few years ago, The Way Way Back. What goes on in between, however, is quite different.

So eager is Mr. Sobel to get right into things that he practically dispenses with any of the reunion, other than an immediate family photograph and some odd "bonding" between Ryder, the teenage son from California (played by Logan Miller, above, right), and one of his cousins, a wise/bizarre-beyond-her-years little girl named Molly (played quite wisely and bizarrely by Ursula Parker, below).

Something very strange happens, which immediately divides the reunion into us vs them (Molly's dad, played with unusual anger and creepiness by Josh Hamilton -- below, right -- is the primary "them"), and this leads the film's several main characters, into even stranger things.

The filmmaker, I think, can be given credit for not wanting to answer all the questions his plot raises. But when the characters themselves do not bother to ask the most important questions here -- one in particular: What happened to Molly? demands an answer -- believability soon goes out the window.

Much is made, going into the movie, about Ryder's homosexuality and whether or not this should be kept from the Nebraska relatives. His mom (Robin Weigert, above, left) and dad (Richard Schiff, above, right. who also, coincidentally, played one of the protagonist's dads in The Automatic Hate) suggest exactly that, but by the end of this strange movie, that homosexuality seems to have been used mainly to demonstrate this family's predilection for deviant sexuality of all kinds. Golly, it just must be in our DNA!

Of course it is. But so is our need for explanations, answers to questions, and in fact, the need to ask those question. Instead Take Me to the River is content to offer up innuendo, a little sexual shock and perhaps incipient lobotomization in place of characters who act alive and alert. (Unless perhaps, Mr. Sobel is saying something about America's "red" states and what they spawn).

Well, the movie's certainly edgy and thought-provoking. I just wish it were a little more real. From Film Movement and running 85 minutes, it has played a number of film festivals across the country over the past six months and now opens this Friday, March 18, in New York City at Landmark's Sunshine Cinema and the following Friday, March 25, at Landmark's NuArt in Los Angeles. You can see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters by clicking here and then scrolling down.