SOMEDAY THIS PAIN WILL BE USEFUL TO YOU: Toby Regbo stars in coming-of-age tale from Roberto Faenza; Q&A follows

I can't say for certain, but in terms of movie genres, the coming-of-age film has got to be among, if not the most popular of them all. To its numerous examples, let's add yet another -- SOMEDAY THIS PAIN WILL BE USEFUL TO YOU -- which turns out to be one of the better, if odder, examples of the genre. It is also the third movie to open this week -- following The Oranges and Butter -- that features a starry ensemble cast of seven principal players. Go figure.

This movie also sports an interesting history (which you learn about in the interview that follows this review), starting with its choice of director -- Roberto Faenza, shown at left) who more than anyone, I suspect, got this project off the ground. The film -- with its lengthy but rather appealingly ironic title -- was written by Peter Cameron (The City of Your Final Destination), together with Mr Faenza and Dahlia Heyman, and tells the story of a young man whose divorced parents, pre-occupied and self-occupied, are not doing the job they should be with their offspring. Left to his own devices, the kid does some dumb things, some smart things and -- fortunately for us viewers -- some very entertaining things. However, and this is key to the success of the movie, nothing here goes over the top. There's little melodrama, and no crazy comic antics. (This is not Running With Scissors.) The tone -- exactly right, I think -- is measured, a little distanced, and rather thoughtful.

Our hero, James, is played by an attractive and very sensitive looking young actor, Toby Regbo (above), and while it is his movie to win or lose, he is helped immensely by the expert ensemble cast around him.

These performers include Peter Gallagher (above) as James' dad, a high roller who tells his son, over lunch, "It's not manly," after the kid has ordered a salad as his main course. (The movie is full of these precise, telling details.) His mom, Marcia Gay Harden (below) runs an art gallery offering some of the stranger installations you'll have seen, and since she herself has never grown up, she can hardly help set her son's course in that direction.

Grandma is played by a fine Ellen Burstyn (below, right). Clearly, James comes from a moneyed family, and while dollars don't solve everything, they can sure as hell help in a pinch.

Pinches come thick and fast in the film, one of which has James seeking help (he is forced to, of course) from a most interesting life coach (Lucy Liu, below), who again, plays things straight and avoids the more oft-used route of farce or frenzy. The scenes between Regbo and Liu are lovely, as is so much else in the movie.

"Else" would include some fine work from Stephen Lang (below, right, with Regbo) as mom's latest squeeze, a decent enough fellow, except for his gambling problem. Completing the ensemble is Deborah Ann Woll as James' older (and, like her mom and dad, utterly self-involved) sister.

I make no claims of greatness for this coming-of-age movie, but I am pretty certain that audiences who discover the film will not be disappointed in what they find. Someday... (you'll probably not see much more than this on most movie-theater marquees; well, maybe Someday This Pain...) -- from Film Buff and Four of a Kind Productions and running 95 minutes -- opens this Friday, October 5, in New York City at the Village East Cinema, and simultaneously on VOD.

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TrustMovies first saw Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You this past March, when it made its U.S. debut at the Miami International Film Festival. At that time the film's helpful publicist arranged a short phone interview for him with the film's star, Toby Regbo, and its director, Roberto Faenza (shown below, right, with actors Regbo and Lucy Liu). What follows is a condensed version of those phone chats, with TM in boldface and Faenza and Regbo in standard type:

Signore Faenza, first I want to tell you how much I enjoyed this movie -- one that takes the usual coming-of-age theme and handles it with unusual flair and thoughtfulness. When I looked at your resume on the IMDB, I discovered that you appear to have made a movie about Sabina Spielrein and Carl Jung a full decade before David Cronenberg did his version! 

Oh–-yes, The Soul Keeper. I wanted for 23 years to make this film, because we discovered the connection between Sabina and Jung and Freud, and I went to Russia to discover more about her, but we were prohibited at that time, and so we waited more and more.

I wish we had been able to see this film over here – and several of your other films, too.

The problem here in America is that it is difficult to have foreign films released. I also did a film in New York called Cop Killer (but it was called Corrupt here in the states). And another movie called Look to the Sky.

Yes, that’s actually in my queue on Netflix! But I didn't realize that you had directed it. So let’s talk about Someday... How did you come to direct this one?

The book was published first in Italy and then in America. When I read it I was familiar with the story, for it reminded me of Catcher in the Rye, a book that every filmmaker would love to have taken to film. I talked to the writer and found him amendable to my doing the film. Then money was raised both in Italy and in the US to make the film: 60% from Europe, 40% from America. The casting director, Avy Kauffman, was particularly helpful in opening so many doors for me. There is not a lot of opportunity in America for European filmmakers and their crews, because it is not allowed to use Italians on the crew. Only two crew member out of 105 could be from Italy. We should work more on changing this so that we can freely move between crews from both countries.

I agree completely. It's time for more cooperation across the boards.  Let's talk about the tone and the lovely consistency that movie has. Nobody too cute and quirky and over the top. How did you manage to not do this – as this is a trap that so many coming-of-age movie fall into?

I think the reason everything looks correct is that we have a look at the conflict between teens and adults. In the film I felt that we needed to be more protective toward the adults that most likely you, our character James, and the audience do not like. I understand that it is not their fault that they are the way they are. It is the way they were made. I tried to communicate this to the actors, and especially to Toby, who plays James, the lead character. It looks to the adults like James is abnormal, but this is not true. It is they who are not normal. The Catcher in the Rye in the father of all the novels of this theme. But when it was written, the world was a different place. Now this has all changed. Because, in the time of that author the world was not bankrupt as it is today.

I take it that by "bankrupt," you mean not just economically.

No, morally and socially. I don’t know anybody who likes the future we face. That future is really bad. The fact that the this world is coming and that you cannot be happy in this world affects our young people, I believe. There is no hope – and for this reason I believe that we should listen more to the young people. Because it is they who will suffer most from this situation.


From Signore Faenza, we moved to the movie's star, Toby Regbo (shown below)....

First of all, where does your name come from?

From Norweigian extraction, kind of, but shortened.

You played the young boy in Glorious 39. (Editor's Note: This is a film you all should see!) How was it to work with Stephen Poliakoff?

Really amazing. And to work with that cast of the best British actors!

It's not often you get that kind of picture of WWII. Poliakoff is so dense with ideas.

Yes, and he shows what war can do to a family and how war can tear people apart in the worst ways.

You were also in Lone Scherfig's film, One Day?

With Matthew Beard: We play a pair of horrible brothers who try to ruin her Anne Hathaway's date with Jim Sturgess.

What's your favorite film so far?

Mr. Nobody is probably the favorite thing that I have done so far: my first real experience with working with cinema. The director, Jaco Van Dormael, is an unbelievable visionary. There is a bit in his earlier movie Toto, the Hero, where you see the protagonist walking through the city where the background looks kind of futuristic. Mr. Nobody is the final realization of what he wanted to create in that scene, but did not have the resources to do. It’s an amazing film of parallel lives in the same universe and how they interact and connect.

Boy, I wish we could get the chance to see this film, but it has not been released here in the U.S. yet. You know, when I saw Someday... I had no idea you were British because your America accent was quite good.

I had a dialect coach for three weeks, and that helped a lot, but then you kind of have to forget about it and just do it or else it affects your performance.

Everything in the movie had the right tone.  That was quite an accomplishment, I think.

You have to try to be honest and play it real. Otherwise no one believes you.

Were there any times the director had to scale things down – not your performance, because you are the quietest person on screen – but some of the other actors?

No, no. They are talented and professional people. And they knew what they were doing. They were wonderful and they all made us feel welcome.

Can we talk about your upcoming work?

There's Treasure Island -- where I get to play a pirate!

Right -- and I noticed something called uwantme2killhim?

Yes! Brian Singer produced it, and it's directed by Andrew Douglas. It's based on an amazing true story, so it’s going to be quite something.

V/H/S: Found-footage, hexagonal horror movie (six directors), will scare you shitless

If you follow my reviews at all closely, you'll already know that I am not a big fan of hand-held camera-work, supposedly "found footage" (dat ol' Blair Witch agin!), and a lot of the other stuff that goes along with DIY movie-making. That said, if ever all the annoying-to-unnerving techniques used to "create your own movie" have managed to work together, often brilliantly, in one weird film, that would be V/H/S. This new compilation scare-movie, using six different directors and telling a bunch of jumbled-together tales, proves at once supremely old-fashioned and absolutely up-to-the-minute in the way it pulls us in, alternately amuses, bores and scares the bejeesus out of us, then finally kicks us into oblivion. All using the tried-and-true -- along with the brand-new.

I am now going to do something I almost never have done: using the film's press release to describe the framework here. "In V/H/S, a group of misfits are hired by an unknown third party to burglarize a desolate house in the countryside and acquire a rare tape. Upon searching the house, the guys are confronted with a dead body, a hub of old televisions and an endless supply of cryptic footage, each video stranger and more inexplicable than the last...." I do this for you because I found the framework the most confusing part of the film and probably would not have understood much of the above from what I saw in the film itself.

Once I got into the individual stories, however, I could -- sometimes barely -- get my bearings enough to enjoy what was going on. If this sounds off-putting, don't worry: It works better than you'll imagine because confusion is actually part of the enjoyment here. When we're off balance, the only slightly scary can become much more so.

Other than the wrap-around framework, there are five stories contained in the film. While some work better than others, not a one falls flat and at least a couple are supremely creepy. The directors include, from beginning segment to end, Adam Wingard (A Horrible Way to Die), David Bruckner (The Signal), Ti West (The Innkeepers), Glenn McQuaid (I Sell the Dead), Joe Swanberg (Alexander the Last) and Radio Silence. (That final "name" is actually a group made up of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett, Justin Martinez and Chad Villella, so I guess you could properly say that this movie has nine directors.)

Bruckner, McQuaid, West and Wingard all have bonafides in the fright department; Swanberg, who doesn't (though some people find his films horrors of a sort), fits into things perfectly well, while the Radio Silence guys, reasonably new to film-making, come through just fine. I'll leave each plot for you to discover, but will say that, for sheer off-balance fear, Bruckner and the Radio Silence Boys got me where it hurts. Ti West, of all people, manages to scare us on a deeper psychological level, with Swanberg (below) one of the stars in his segment.

Not all of this 93-minute movie works, but when it does, it has you, one claw around your throat, the other caressing your balls. And as annoying as those hand-held moments can be, I think you'll agree that, over all, you ain't seen nothin' quite like this one.

V/H/S, via Magnolia Pictures' Magnet division, opens Friday, October 5, all over the country, in a limited release and in a surprising number of cities. In New York City, it will open at the Landmark Sunshine Cinema, and you can take a look at all other currently scheduled playdates (with cities and theaters) by clicking here. Meanwhile, as is often the case with Magnolia's movies, it has already been playing via VOD for nearly the past two months.

NYFF50: Lee Daniels gets it just right with THE PAPERBOY, playing the festival tonight and opening theatrically this Friday

One of the most "fun" times I've ever had at the movies came from watching a new director named Lee Daniels go so far over the top in a movie called Shadowboxer that he very nearly ended up coming back through the bottom. This classic (of sorts) film, if you haven't seen it already, is a must. It stars Helen Mirren and Cuba Gooding, as a pair of mother/(step)son assassins who are also lovers (you're probably beginning to get the point already) and boasts an every-bit-as-terrific group of actors in supporting roles. This is must-see camp, whether intentional or unintentional, I haven't quite figured out.

Mr. Daniels, shown at left, then went on to a little movie called Precious, which Oprah got hold of and the rest is tinkered-with history. Precious, too, was over-the-top, but because it had an oh-so-needy protagonist at its center, the film came off as more "serious," even though many of us had some trouble accepting it quite like that. It was also filled with good performances (no doubt about it, Daniels corrals top actors and lets them strut their stuff), but whether the filmmaker was more interested in shocking us than entertaining and/or edifying us was up for grabs.

Now comes THE PAPERBOY, a new melodrama/mystery/
memory film, which plays tonight at 8:30 at the New York Film Film Festival (as part of its Tribute to Nicole Kidman: The actress, one of the film's stars, is shown at right) and then opens theatrically on Friday. Finally, I believe, Daniels has hit his mark almost perfectly. His new film is as shocking, sleazy, sexy, ugly and, yes, entertaining, as you could want. And when the filmmaker deals with subjects such as race, class, "otherness" and sexuality, he nails these, as well, deeply and beautifully.

The Paperboy is one of those non-judgmental movies that will drive some people crazy (all of Daniels films are and do, I think). Set in the 1960s American South, it offers a look at an entitled, white, small-town newspaper-owning family led by Scott Glenn (above), whose two sons -- played by Zac Efron (below, right, as a young man still trying to discover what he wants and needs) and Matthew McConaughey (below, left, who has moved to larger, more sophisticated surroundings as a noted reporter in Miami).

Into their lives comes one of the town's sluts (a particularly fine performance by Miss Kidman), who appears to have a predilection for prisoner lovers. Just now she's fixated on a man found guilty of murder (a commanding, shocking turn by John Cusak, below), whom she and McConaughey believe is innocent.

Stir these elements, as Daniels has done (he also co-adapted the screenplay from a Pete Dexter novel, with the help of Mr. Dexter), and you have one hell of a rip-roaring and equally unsettling film. On the envelope-pushing side, the filmmaker gives you one of the most shocking sex scenes I've yet to witness on film -- one that we, as well as the other characters present, can't take our eyes off. Later there's a post-sex scene that is equally shocking.

What gives the film its peculiar oompf is its consistent refusal to judge the behavior of its characters. It sees this behavior fully, understands it and allows us to do the same, and this goes miles toward helping us identify to some extent with everyone we see (including the character played by Cusack, who proves the most difficult of all).

Race is personified via Macy Gray (above), who is fast becoming one of my favorite actresses. Playing the maid (and kind of big sister/nanny to Efron) in the household, she captures the intimacy of her role, as well as its difficulties in navigating the rest of the family. Efron himself may have his best role yet, which he handles with the proper mix of youthful insistence and charm, along with a very normal need to rebel. His relationship to Kidman's character proves particularly painful and fulfilling.

McConaughey has already hit three home runs this year: Bernie, Killer Joe and now this (which makes Killer Joe look tame). As the brother with his own baggage and secrets, the actor is marvelous, giving a quiet, deeply felt performance. Also in the cast is David Oyelowo (at left, above and below), who is quite good as the "British" newsman working with McConaughey.  

I suppose I should not credit the movie as being great, and yet it seems to me that everything it tries to do, it achieves. At the very least The Paperboy is a great exploitation movie. From Millennium Films and running 107 minutes, the film screen at the NYFF this evening, and then opens across the country this Friday -- in New York City, the Los Angeles area, San Francisco, DC, Chicago and Fairfax, VA -- and in many more cities the following week. Click here (and then click TICKETS on the choice bar at top right) to see the complete listing of playdates, cities and theaters.

Jim Field Smith and Jason A. Micallef whip BUTTER into an odd, off-key amusement

A strange mix of satire, sweetness, sentimentality and snark, BUTTER would seem to be the kind of movie that wants to have its cake (with butter-cream frosting, of course) and eat it, too. One of the film's surprises is how often it manages to get away with this. Butter is the second ensemble movie I've covered in as many days to have a crack cast of seven actors, all working at the top of their form. This alone makes both films worth seeing. If yesterday's The Oranges outshines the expensive spread in just about every way, in this case second place is perfectly good enough. Butter, despite some flaws, is definitely worth seeing.

Written by Jason A. Micallef and directed by Jim Field Smith (who's shown at right), this is one of those American "heartland" movies that our heartland states most likely despise -- even though, on balance, the population comes off no more or less likable than the New Jersey-based folk of The Oranges. (The heartland's problems, as pictured here however, may strike some viewers as a tad less sophisticated, if no less important, as those on the east coast.)

The plot involves the yearly butter-sculpting competition and the Picklers, Bob (Ty Burrell, two photos below, at right) and Laura (Jennifer Garner, below). Bob is always the winner in the competition, and so, after many years of this, the town's mayor asks him to step down and give others a chance. He does, sadly, which annoys the hell out of the nasty, grasping and ambitious Laura, who decides to enter the contest herself.

Complications ensue, involving an exotic dancer at the local strip joint (Olivia Wilde, below, left, in a very different role for this young lady -- which she handles with utter, low-end aplomb) and an uber-sweet/sad/silent orphan girl named Destiny -- yikes! -- played by Yara Shahidi, who -- despite the filmmakers' stacking the deck so strongly for her than we are inclined to root against her -- is quite appealing.

Also in the cast are the likes of Ashley Greene (shown at bottom, center) -- who, though she proved of no particular note in those Twilight movies, here registers more strongly as the Pickler's daughter -- and Hugh Jackman (below) in a smaller and rather different role as an old flame of Laura's called in to help.

Best of all, perhaps are the "nice" couple who come to the rescue of young Destiny. As played by Rob Corddry (below, left: This kind of role is quite a change for our Rob, who more often plays Mr. Snark) and Alicia Silverstone (below, second left). These two add a note of normalcy to the proceedings, which are ever threatening to go totally out of control. (This actually might have  been the best choice for the film.)

The biggest problem with Butter is its unevenness. Does it want to be a satire? A feel-good film? An expose of the heartland? A political movie? (According to Wikipedia, the film is said to be a satire of the 2008 Democratic Presidential Primary, but you couldn't prove it by me.) All of the above? By the finale, we really don't know. But we have laughed a good deal, while enjoying a bevy of fine performances, in a film about a subject of which, till now, we knew next to nothing. These days, you could do a hell of a lot worse.

Butter -- from RADIUS/TWC (please do something about your atrociously feeble web site!) and running 90 minutes -- opens this Friday, in the Los Angeles area at the AMC Loews Brodway in Santa Monica, and in New York at the Beekman, Empire 25, Village 7 and the Kew Gardens Cinema (in Queens).  Elsewhere? Who knows where or when?  Tell The Weinstein Company to improve on this.

Julian Farino/Ian Helfer/Jay Reiss' THE ORANGES: so good it seems European

How do you properly market a "family" film as good, intelligent and different as is THE ORANGES? Especially when neither the movie's title (which simply tells us that part of New Jersey in which the action is said to be set) nor its poster art and copy have much to recommend them. And yet this film itself is quite wonderful.

Why? Because its attitude is so, well, European. By that I mean grown-up, as though the filmmakers (who include the director, Julian Farino, shown at right, and screen-writers Ian Helfer and Jay Reiss) have been around the humanity block a few times and know whereof they speak. Their movie has to do with two sets of families -- neighbors whose kids kids have been friends since practically birth -- and the various friendships, couplings and uncouplings that take place over a certain course of time. Their movie also has to do with happiness and how this "h" word fits into the rest of our lives (and our responsibilities).

The movie is never judgmental but it also never lets its characters off the hook. They get away with nothing and pay for everything. Actions have consequences here. The characters learn this, and we watch them do it. Best of all, the unfolding never becomes phony or full of unduly cheap laughs. Instead it is graceful and honest, alternately funny and sad, and sometimes surprising, too.

You could not ask for a better cast, with each performer used wisely and well. Beginning with Alia Shawkat (above) who plays the angriest family member, a girl just beyond her teens who has never been quite as pretty or popular...

...as her ex-best-friend from across the street (Leighton Meester, above, as a young lady who is having big trouble finding herself).

As for the two sets of parents, Meester's are played by Oliver Platt and Allison Janney (above, with Ms Janney on the right),

while Ms. Shawkat's progenitors are essayed by Hugh Laurie (at right) and Catherine Keener (below, left). Three of the above actors are always expert (not being a TV watcher, I know much less about Mr. Laurie's nine-year career on House), and they are as good here as they've ever been. (Laurie's fine, too, in a particularly tricky role.)  Mr. Platt, who last year played opposite Keener in Please Give, is wonderfully funny and always real, and Ms Janney gives us what is fast becoming her special schtick -- officious and brittle with a heart long buried -- about as well as it can be done.

Ms Keener has maybe the best role here, and she is dazzling, never more so than when she finally takes her sudden revenge. This actress has the ability to register all kinds of feelings, almost, it seems, at the same moment. In doing this, she keeps us beautifully off-balance, while giving herself quite the acting workout. And yet the work never shows. It's all part of this quite under-sung and delightful actress' repertoire.

Shawkat has a sibling, too (played by Adam Brody, below), who has a wonderful scene with Meester, early on. Brody is such a good actor (see Death in Love and Damsels in Distress for two more examples) that my one disappointment with this movie is that he was not used a bit more.

That's a minor quibble. The Oranges is finally so smart but unshowy and so much fun that I can recommend it wholeheartedly. From ATO Pictures -- this film is my favorite of everything this new distribution company has so far released -- the movie opens this Friday, October 5,  in major cities (often at several theaters in each) all across the country. To see a complete listing of cities and theaters, simply click here.

NOW, FORAGER: Jason Cortlund & Julia Halperin's food movie you can believe in

TrustMovies enjoys the occasional food documentary, but what he really craves are good narrative food movies. From Like Water for Chocolate to Mediterranean Food, Mostly Martha to Soul Kitchen, Perfect Sense to the film under consideration here, these movies -- having to do with one of the most important of our five senses -- usually offer some interesting ideas about the other four, as well. Really: can you be heavily into taste without also at least somewhat appreciating the visual, audio, tactile and scented? I think not. These movies are usually so damn sexy, too -- and just as often in ways that transform, maybe transgress, certainly titillate, and just possibly open up new uses for an orifice or two.

Now, I admit that the films are also over-the-top, romantic, feel-good affairs that have but a nodding acquaintance with reality as most of us know it. Which is one of the reasons so many of us flock to them. They take us out of our everyday experience. Which brings us to the film under consideration here. NOW, FORAGER (which wins my "favorite title" award for this year) resolutely goes against nearly all that I have stated above. Almost totally unsexy (its protagonists seem too tired after their day's at work to even think about it), unshowy and unaware of much of anything besides fungi (this is a mushroom movie) and taste, the film, from Jason Cortlund and Julia Halperin (shown above, with Ms Halperin on the left) instead shows us the mundane lives of  its foodie couple who forage for wild mushrooms in New Jersey then sell these to upscale restaurants. You know what? The movie fascinates, all the same.

This is the life of a "food" couple as we've seldom if ever seen it: close to the bone, frugal, fixated (on those 'shrooms) and finally at odds. Both parties, Lucien (played by Mr. Cortlund, in an affectless performance that works remarkably well) and Regina (played by the excellent Tiffany Esteb), though they are American-born-and-bred, come from a Basque heritage which they infuse into their culinary concoctions. While Lucien is happy enough living hand-to-mouth, Regina would opt for more security. They argue a lot ("Are you done being grouchy?" she asks him) and finally she decides to take a kitchen job that will ensure them a more permanent income.

Along the way we learn an awful lot about mushrooms -- more, in fact, that I have ever known (and I like fungi) -- and we see some absolutely gorgeous specimens, too (whew, that Lion's Mane!). We learn that, in picking, sometimes a second opinion is necessary. She: "Well, it won't kill anyone." He: "It could mean permanent kidney damage."  And the food preparation on view here beats out a lot of what we've seen at three-star restaurants.

Finally, it's the two main characters, whom we get to know surprisingly well, who make the movie consistently smart and real. We see them, warts and more warts -- particularly Lucien, who can't seem to acknowledge much of anything about himself, his needs, or how he perceives his significant other. Regina is more open (well, she's a woman) but even she has some problems that bear working on. (Really: She's willing to sell a semi-deadly mushroom to a restaurant?)

The movie acknowledges how the workplace controls us, even when, in Regina's case, it's extremely welcoming and helpful (on her first job, at least; her second proves a little more daunting). For his part, Lucien -- after discovering how, even in the field of wild mushroom foraging, power controls all -- accepts temporary, catering-a-party employment from a woman who proves the very picture of clueless entitlement. The scenes involving this gig are spectacularly good: riveting and real but never going over-the-top.

There's no getting around how "small" this movie is. (It's difficult to even imagine its playing in most multiplexes.) From its concerns to its characters, Now, Forager is a tiny independent piece of minor film-making. Yet it's success is absolutely major. The movie, from Argot Pictures, opens this coming Wednesday in New York City at the IFC Center. (Hey -- that's a multiplex!)  You can view all its upcoming playdates, with cities and theaters, by clicking here.