Russia's mammoth Oscar-shortlisted, LEVIATHAN, and a small American documentary, MENTOR, have a lot in common. Filmmaker Q&A

Normally, TrustMovies wouldn't think of comparing a nearly two-and-one-half-hour shortlist nominee for Best Foreign Language Film from Russia with a tiny little 78-minute American documentary about a high school in the town of Mentor, Ohio. But since both films were caught by me in the same week, and both deal heavily with bullying -- LEVIATHAN by the powers-that-be in a Russian coastal town, MENTOR by the entitled students of an upper-middle-class Ohio high school, abetted by the school's administration and further up the line by the state itself -- I can't help but want to cover these two interesting movies together.

Though Leviathan arrives laden with laurels (and freighted with symbolism) -- from film festivals, Cannes to Munich, Seville to São Paulo -- and is certainly a worthwhile movie, it is Mentor that proves the more important film. Bullying, it seems, is the watchword of our times. And though most folk imagine it has all to do with school kids and their peers, bullying is a behavior which, when rewarded -- as our modern world more and more tends to do -- simply carries right through the bully's entire life, whether he be Barack Obama, going after inconvenient whistle-blowers or Vladimir Putin going after just about anyone who disagrees with him. Strength and numbers create schoolyard bullies, access to power and resources create the adult variety. Once either type is allowed to flourish, the bully grows more difficult  to control. These days -- as both these movies demonstrate -- almost no one even bothers to try.

Or when they do try, as, again, both films show us, they are doomed to fail. If co-writer (with Oleg Negin) and director Andrey Zvyagintsev (shown at right) had decided to make a documentary film rather than the narrative he's created in Leviathan (and I am certain he could have, as more than enough incidents worth documenting exist in today's Russia), he would probably be in prison or dead just now, rather than tub-thumping the Oscar and Golden Globe circuits. So he chose, rather sensibly, to create a fictional tale of some lovely seaside property, coveted by the Mayor of the town, who uses eminent domain and his many lackeys (he seems to be in league with just about everybody we meet, from judges to churchmen to police) to wrest control of said property from its rightful owner, while paying him a pittance rather than market value.

In Mentor, filmmaker Alix Lambert (shown at left) who earlier made the Independent Spirit Award-nominated The Mark of Cain, takes us to the town of Mentor, Ohio, chosen in both 2006 and 2010 as one of America's ten top cities in which to live, and does a superlative job of indicting Mentor High School for failing to stop the bullying that has led, over several years, to the suicide deaths of five students. Ms Lambert concentrates on two of these deaths, as we meet the Vidovic family, whose younger daughter, Sladjana, killed herself in 2008; and the Mohats, Jan and Bill, whose son Eric killed himself the year previous.

What makes this film and its documenting so appalling is that while the bullying was apparent to the student body and to many of the teachers and the administration, nothing -- and I do mean nothing -- was done by those in charge of the school to prevent it. Mentor, by the way, is a much stronger film than the more-talked-about but all-over-the-place Bully.

While the Mowats (pictured above) did not know about the bullying their son was going through because the boy chose to keep it from his family, the Vidovics (below) knew just about everything, as Sladjana would come home day after day with horror stories that drove the parents to visit the school often to plead for help. None was ever given.

There is a section of the film in which Ms Lambert chooses to simply show us, one after another after another, the daily printed records of visits to the school nurse because of physical bullying incidents. This section is shocking and finally devastating. The girl was once pushed down a flight of stairs by one of the school's top football players. The reason given has got to be among the most offensive and stupid I've ever heard.

Mentor, Ohio, evidently wanted to keep secure its reputation as one of America's top cities, which meant sweeping any untoward behavior under the proverbial carpet. The children of its upper middle class bourgeoisie feel entitled, and that entitlement has grown into a kind of class warfare between the entitled and the outsiders. Mentor has a fairly large Croatian population, too, of which the Vidovics are a part, who are considered "lesser" by their wealthier and/or less-speech-accented counterparts.

What happens to the law suits of the two families is indicative of the manner in which these suicides were handled right down the line. As usual, power makes its hold over the individual known, so that nothing can be addressed and no justice achieved. (The Mowats note that they were shunned by former friends, once they pursued their lawsuit.) Also, as usual, in documentaries of this sort, no school official or representative would agree to be interviewed by the filmmaker. If the film ends up one-sided, there was hardly much recourse. The side shown, in any case, is clearly pro-justice. (The photo below is of Eric Mowat.)

In addition to visiting at length with the two families, Ms Lambert also corrals three very intelligent and knowledgeable experts: Dorothy Espelage, Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, an expert on the study of Bullying; Kenneth D. Myers, the attorney who represented both families in their suits against the school; and Meghan Barr, a reporter for the Associated Press, who became interested in the story after reading about the Mentor suicides and then exploring further. The information and evidence that these three offer is more than conclusive. It would have been interesting, too, to know more about the other three suicides. But perhaps those families weren't talking. (You can read more about this in the Q&A at the bottom of this post.)

If the last few minutes of the film seems a bit repetitive and overly sentimental, Mentor will still leave you about as angry as a documentary can. You -- and certainly your children -- won't want to get within five hundred miles of this disgusting school and its surrounding community, unless, of course, you're one of those duly entitled who enjoy pushing girls down the stairs or get your jollies from appearing at her funeral and laughing aloud with your friends over the dress she's wearing in her casket. Yes, the bullies did that, too. (The photo above is of Sladjana Vidovic.)

Mentor -- from Garden Thieves Pictures and running 78 minutes -- was released to DVD last week, and can also now be seen via Amazon Instant Video, for sale or rental, and on SnagFilms and iTunes.

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Interestingly enough, if Leviathan were set here in the USA, its bullying mayor (acted by Roman Madyanov, shown above) might have played football for and then graduated from Mentor High School, taking with him a slew of his pals and gals to fill various slots on his town's payroll. But Leviathan takes place in a coastal corner of modern Russia, from which we expect little but corruption and drunkenness. The film delivers both --
in spades.

Filmmaker Zvyagintsev (Elena, The Return) understands how to weave corruption, bullying, love, infidelity, parenting, some deep psychological problems and a good dose of metaphor and symbolism into his mix and keep us glued to the screen. He refuses to explain everything, however, or even to allow us to know with any certainty what has happened at some major moments.

We accept all this, I think, because so bleak and unforgiving is what we are viewing that it really doesn't finally matter much what did occur: Might will overcome decency in every case, for this being Russia, it's all just business as usual. And, as good as Leviathan is, this is also its biggest problem: the sense of been there/done that that hovers over the movie in its entirety. Whether it's a throw-away American spin-off like A Good Day to Die Hard, an excellent documentary such as Khodorkovsky, or Leviathan, we've seen it and seen it and seen it all again.

You could hardly ask for better performances from the fine cast assembled here, however. They go a long way toward making the movie so watchable. Aleksey Serebryakov is terrific as our put-upon hero, with so many problems of his own (he's a hot-headed drunk) that he barely needs this additional one. Ditto Elena Lyadova as his spouse, a second wife unloved by the family's problemed son, a sad disturbed boy given unsettling resonance by young actor, Sergueï Pokhodaev.

The fly in the ointment, who initially looks more like the family's savior is Dimitri, Dad's best friend and even more to certain other family members. As played with understated strength and grace by a gorgeous hunk named Vladimir Vdovichenkov, "Dimi" proves a wild card in more ways than one. We meet this family's friends and co-workers, the religious crew, judges, police and more. And by the end of this often wonderful and always wearying movie, you may want to shrug and paraphrase those immortal, final words of the popular Polanski classic:
"Forget it, Jake. It's modern Russia."

Leviathan, from Sony Pictures Classics, in Russian with English subtitles, and running 140 minutes, opens tomorrow, December 25, in New York City at Film Forum and the Lincoln Plaza Cinema.  In the Los Angeles area, look for it on Wednesday, December 31, at Laemmle's Royal, and then on January 9 at the Playhouse 7 and Town Center 5. The movie will eventually play the limited release/arthouse circuit across the country.

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TrustMovies had a very quick telephone chat with filmmaker Alix Lambert, shown below, on Christmas Eve, just to ask a few question about her oh-so-necessary documentary, Mentor. My questions/comments appear in boldface, while Ms Lambert's answers are in standard type.

TM: I have to say that I liked your film even better than Bully, about which, only two years later, I can barely remember most of the specifics. Your film sticks so closely to the two families and what happened to them and builds its case against the school very well. 

Alix Lambert: Thank you.

TM: Why hasn’t this film been seen and covered more? 

AL: (she laughs) I would love to know the answer to that. When you make smaller independent films, you have a harder time because of funding. Making it is one thing, but getting it out there can be really frustrating. You finally finish it, you feel proud of it, and then it’s…. You just want to get it out to the world so that it can be used in a way that is educational.

TM: Did Ohio/Mentor try to sink it? 

AL: I don’t know about sinking the film. They certainly have been hostile toward me. I received a lot of threatening messages. But I have no reason to think that they are trying to sink it. On the other hand, I have also gotten a lot of emails from people who are really appreciative of the film but must remain anonymous because of their connections to the school or community.

TM: Your film mentions five suicides but you cover in depth only two of these. Did you try to reach or include the other families in your film? 

AL: I did contact other families but there were things that influenced my final decision to go with only the two. These were the two families that brought a lawsuit, so it was clear that they wanted their stories to be public and to be talked about. I always feel that one must err on the side of caution -- and not put someone through something when they’ve already been through something so horrible.

You want to make sure your people really want to participate. Also, the more you kind of spread things out among a lot of different people, you water them down. It's true that in The Mark of Cain you see many, many people. But in this one I am focusing on just two families. And because these other families were not sure they wanted to go public, I didn’t want to press them.

TM: Anything you want to say that you aren’t usually asked by journalists? 

AL: Hmmm... (She thinks) Well, just to say that what I would really like is to see people treat each other more kindly.
A little empathy can go a long way. 

Tim Burton's BIG EYES is one of the filmmaker's most "normal" (and therefore oddest) movies

What fun is BIG EYES, the new film from that master of the oddball macabre, Tim Burton! Much of the fun occurs as we realize, while the movie meanders along, that is it very little like any other Burton work we've seen. It's so... gosh... normal. Sort of. Then we get to thinking that, really, this is the perfect subject for this oddball director: the story behind the story of those hugely popular paintings of the 1950s (and into the 60s), signed with the name Keane, of waif-like, big-eyed children designed to produce that cloying "Ooooooh" sound that eventually morphed into what was heard from the audience on countless Oprah television shows. Those children, and those paintings, were just so adorable that you could puke.

At least, that's what TrustMovies thought of the "art" when he was a very young man, and his opinion hasn't changed now that's he an old one. Still, he very much enjoyed the movie based on this tale that Mr. Burton (shown at left) has brought to the screen with such bizarre finesse. And there is indeed something macabre about the fact that so many Americans could fall for something so utterly kitsch as these cutesy/sad kids, each new one more nauseatingly sweet than its predecessor. But some of us did. Though art critics and dealers told us we were nuts, we just kept at it. And Burton's movie becomes a kind of rich, ironic guffaw at our expense that we were so taken in, not just by the ridiculous "art" itself, but by the husband-and-wife team responsible for it -- every bit as fake as its simpering product.

Burton begins his film with, appropriately, an unreliable narrator: a sleazy reporter played quite well by Danny Huston (below, right). The look of the film is an immediately recognizable (for us ancients, anyway) 1950s America, as though it were being photographed by television of that same era (except in color, which TV didn't have back then). We meet a sad-but-adorable Amy Adams (above), just divorced from her husband, and taking her young daughter with her on the road to a new life.

That life happens in San Francisco, where she gets help from an old and more sophisticated friend (played by Krysten Ritter, below, center), and soon meets and marries yet another loser (but one who at least appears to have a lot going for him) named Walter Keane (played in his best slightly-bizarro fashion by Christoph Waltz, above, left). Burton's film, written by the smart and successful team of Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (Ed Wood and The People vs Larry Flynt), doesn't want to be too clever or stylish about its story -- which is already plenty strange enough to carry us easily along. Without giving the store away, let's just say that the art, and the people who created it, leave a lot to be desired in the "truth" department.

The film will probably be seen as "early feminist," given the movie's time frame and the education of its main character in the ways of men and art. But this is somewhat problematic, since Margaret Keane was quite complicit in her being taken advantage of by her husband. And although the movie makes much of the triumphant court case involving hubby vs. wife, it fails to note that the case was overturned some years later, and Margaret got none of the money she was supposed to have been awarded.

The art world of the time is seen mostly via the gulled public, but also through the eyes of a snippy gallery owner (played delightfully by Jason Schwartzman, above) and The NY Times art critic, John Canaday, played expertly by Terence Stamp. No less than Andy Warhol is supposed to have cited the Keane work as genuine art because it was so popular, but then few thinking people would accept a Warhol statement as anything approaching the genuine.

Whatever. The film is mostly great fun -- with one definitive Burton touch in the scene in which all the characters we see suddenly have those huge Keane eyes -- as it tells (all from Margaret's viewpoint, to be sure) its rags-to-riches-to-something-less tale of would-be art, and the fart who sold it to us.

Big Eyes, from The Weinstein Company and running 105 minutes, opens across the country (well, L.A., NYC and Chicago, at least) in a limited release this Thursday, December 25. More cities will follow soon.

Marion Cotillard shines in the Dardenne brothers' ultra-progressive film, TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT

There could hardly be a better time for a movie like TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT to appear. That it was bypassed by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences' shortlist for this year's Best Foreign Language Film is ridiculous. But, hey, that's Hollywood. (Bring back The Blacklist, boys!) Its tale -- of an employee at a solar-energy manufacturing facility who is suddenly down-sized by her bosses via a vote taken by her co-workers on whether they will receive a large Christmas bonus in lieu of the employee's holding on to her job -- is a near-perfect look at the joys and rewards of Capitalism in the workplace. What that employee, Sandra -- a fierce and fragile performance by the wonderful Marion Cotillard (above and further below, in pink) -- decides to do about her situation makes up the heart of this unusual movie.

One of, and maybe the best of the films to come from the Belgian brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne (shown at right, with Jean-Pierre on the left), the movie taps into so much that the western world is experiencing today regarding employment, family, health (mental and physical) and the idea of Socialism vs Capitalism.

After the initial shock of the news abates, Sandra's husband and her best friend/co-worker urge her to demand another vote (the first one appears to have been rigged by a boss who intimated that if the crew voted to keep Sandra, another of them might be downsized). The remainder of the movie details Sandra's search for her co-workers over a weekend spent urging, cajoling, asking and hoping for their support.

If all this sounds a bit predictable, the result is anything but. Responses from the co-workers run the gamut. That bonus of one thousand Euros is nothing to sneeze at, and some of the workers need the money rather desperately. Yet each situation is different, and its result often surprising.

Among the most moving is Sandra's meeting with an employee (newcomer Timur Magomedgadzhiev, above) to whom she acted as mentor. Another, taking place in a laundromat at night, reveals as much about the situation of Sandra's co-worker as it does her own situation. Some meetings lead to anger and, in one case, violence.

Through it all Sandra's husband (played by Fabrizio Rongione, above) encourages and helps his wife along. She certainly needs this for, as we soon learn, Sandra has had a severe bout of depression, for which she was given a leave of  absence from work.  There are times throughout the movie when viewers may wonder just how capable Sandra is of actually doing her job.

It is greatly to the Dardennes credit that they don't hand us characters who fall easily or completely into heroes and villains. Best of all, they let us see and understand how Capitalism works to undermine the worth of the individual by keeping everything focused on profit, while ensuring that the workers fail to see their situation from a collective perspective.

In the process the Belgian brothers may have created a new kind of genre -- one especially appropriate for our times -- the "employment thriller." What will happen to Sandra's job takes on increasing suspense, and the outcome may surprise you. It and its movie go beyond mere good and bad, happy or unhappy endings, to confront the entire situation in a manner more subtle, thoughtful and humane.

Two Days, One Night -- from Sundance Selects/IFC Films and running a brisk 95 minutes -- opens this Wednesday, December 24, in New York City at the IFC Center and Lincoln Plaza Cinema, and in Los Angeles at in the Los Angeles area at Laemmle Theaters, beginning January 9.  

"Get action!" THE ROOSEVELTS: AN INTIMATE PORTRAIT, Ken Burns' 14-hour PBS series

This "Sunday Corner" piece is written by our 
oft-time correspondent, Lee Liberman

For the non-history-minded, this recent PBS series may be too big a pill to swallow. But for those drawn to the antecedents of 21st century politics, there is much to like -- history even more dramatic than our own -- plus plenty of domestic drama, politics, and the making of the West. The series is a refresher on World Wars I and II, the Great Depression and recovery as acted upon by our greatest family dynasty -- the Roosevelts. Full of family neuroses and 'yes we can' progressivism, it is told mostly with still photography, narration by Peter Coyote, and voices of actors Meryl Streep as Eleanor Roosevelt, Edward Herrmann as Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Paul Giamatti as Theodore Roosevelt (in descending order of effectiveness).

The series was written by Geoffrey C. Ward, historian and writer (above, left), and produced and directed by Ken Burns (above, right), who once again manages to make old stories come alive. The PBS series premiered on September 14, the anniversary of vice-president TR's ascension to the presidency on the assassination of President William McKinley, September 14, 1901.

Twentieth century Roosevelts, rich and patrician, were imbued with doing good that took the form of advocacy for more/better government and social policy. TR's was the Gilded Age of robber barons, boss politics, and income inequality; the efforts of all three Roosevelts to right the imbalance changed the relationship between government and people. The bold Roosevelts deserve Shakespearean treatment to convey the liveliness of their place on the stage, but Ken Burns and his minions do an engaging job in documentary form.

We know FDR's ambitious legislation that spurred recovery from the great depression of the 1930's, launching the social welfare infrastructure we have today (under bitter assault from then to now by Ayn Rand-imbued Republicans) and his robust leadership of the US role in WWII from his command post in a wheelchair, a polio victim at 39. We know that his wife Eleanor's liberal feminist and civil rights politics continued beyond her husband's death until her own in 1962, advancing human rights and the birth of the United Nations. But more hidden in the veil of history is the manic, whirlwind dynamism of Teddy Roosevelt (above).

Senator Elizabeth Warren served up a TR trust-busting moment in our own gilded age of income inequality when she excoriated deregulation of a few big banks recently. TR (1858-1919) is interesting now because his Roosevelt branch was thoroughly Republican, yet TR was radically progressive -- he believed that government was needed to manage the modern industrial state, regulate Wall St and corporate corruption, and help the needy. His Bull Moose platform created the base upon which his Democratic cousin FDR later built the New Deal.

TR dropped out of law school to became a NY state assemblyman at a time local politics was no-way a gentleman's vocation, aiming to reform boss politics. A naturalist, he stormed the West and launched the conservation movement, also authoring a four-volume saga called "The Winning of the West". On the other hand, TR had a John McCain-like commitment to a strong defense. His isolationist opponents called him an "egomaniacal, warmongering imperialist". In the photo at left are shown, left to right (standing): TR and brother Elliot, and (seated) friend and later second wife Edith, and sister Corinne.

The first Roosevelts came to New York from Holland in 1644 and every subsequent generation was born in Manhattan, building their fortunes in banking, sugar, real estate, manufacturing. TR came along in 1858 --asthmatic, sickly, and inclined to depression. His father counseled 'action' to offset weakness and ill health (life itself is an ongoing battle -- you must make your body). TR took the advice and lived in a constant storm of mental and physical action -- booklearning, writing, speech-making, perpetual athletics, and extreme adventuring were his means to "get action," "be sane". (If there is one flaw in the Ken Burns ensemble, it's Paul Giamatti voicing TR. Giamatti calls to mind the sober John Adams he played in the 2008 HBO miniseries, his voice lacks the robust, urgently active personality of Teddy.)

An early tragedy reflects TR's drive to action. While a young state legislator, he was recalled to Manhattan where both his mother and adored first wife Alice lay dying at their home on 57th St; both died the next day. It is easy to imagine the blow, his letters to Alice having revealed the depth of his love for her. He sold the family home and did not run for re-election but headed West to the Badlands, later buying a ranch in N.Dakota. (In the photo, above, Theodore is shown at center.)

TR gradually gained respect of the locals as a cattle rancher and used total physical immersion to dispel his grief. "Black care rarely sits behind a rider who is fast enough," he wrote. The time in the West helped him transcend loss, shed Northeast trappings and, he believed, made him the man who could be president. His coiled fist, shown below, trademarked his tightly wound ambition.

Elliot, TR's younger brother, had been the healthy handsome charmer thought most likely to succeed, but drug and alcohol addiction led to his death at 34, shortly after his beautiful wife died of diphtheria. Their plain ten year old daughter Eleanor grew up lonely, bereft of close parenting. (Below is shown the young Eleanor Roosevelt with her father.)

Eleanor's cousin Franklin, of the Democratic Hyde Park Roosevelts,  had been a serious only child, overly-doted on by his mother. FDR and Eleanor met on a train and married at 20 and 22. As the story of their marriage unfolds, it suggests that their intellectual interests drew them together, not emotional compatibility.

Franklin, the center of his own universe, had been lavished with love and support; Eleanor was herself too needy to dote on him or her children (she bore 6). Franklin's mother ran the household. Although not soul-mates, a loyal political partnership grew in which Eleanor later remade the office of First Lady. She became her husband's counselor and conscience, pressing him for social legislation, protections for the elderly and infirm, worker benefits, civil rights and opposing Japanese internment during WWII. There was plenty of blow-back from conservatives incensed at her views and that they came from a woman.

Following Eleanor's discovery of Franklin's attachment to her personal secretary, Lucy Mercer, the first couple renegotiated their relationship; their domestic spheres grew more separate while they remained politically conjoined -- as one imagines royal and upper class unions made for political reasons. Franklin had long relationships with women in his employ for whom he was their only cause. Eleanor sought companionship with men and like-minded feminist women, including one much reported relationship with a woman reporter who lived in the White House for a time. Still the first couple presented a united front.

FDR followed his cousin TR's path to the White House. They both served in the NY State legislature, as asst secretary of the Navy, as governor of New York, and then as president. FDR's vociferous opposition to Herbert Hoover's laissez-faire response to the depression led him to promise "relief, recovery and reform" -- a "New Deal" for the American public.The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) led to jobs building dams; The Works Progress Admin (WPA) created jobs building streets, parks, libraries, and schools. Social Security remains a backbone for seniors and the disabled. Bank regulations insured checking accounts and reduced speculation, minimum wages and work rules were set for workers.

Isolationism stopped FDR from entering WWII, but he wanted to, finding inventive ways to assist the Allies with military supplies and equipment lease. Depriving Japan of access to oil led to its attack on Pearl Harbor, turning public opinion around. From that moment he and Winston Churchill became the right men for the right time. FDR's radio talks (known as Fireside Chats and shown being listened to eagerly, above and below) led him to become the pastor of the nation -- the Chat preceding D Day reached likely 100 million listeners and was one of the largest moments of mass prayer in human history, comments biographer Jon Meacham.

The oldest member of the D Day invasion was General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr, the son of TR, who died a month later of a massive heart attack and was awarded the Medal of Honor, posthumously. TR's pilot son Quentin was shot down and killed during WWI. FDR's son Elliot flew 300 missions in WWII. Yet the Roosevelts were hammered in the press as much as our own leaders. Nepotism was one charge and snipers accused Eleanor of wasting money on her progressive causes. Accusations of communism/socialism dogged them. Bad-mouthing has its own notorious tradition even enveloping the Roosevelts whom most now revere as icons.

FDR, a smoker with a heart condition, died of a cerebral hemorrhage after his 4th election to the presidency in 1945 leaving Harry Truman at the helm. TR died in his sleep in his bed in 1919 of an embolism, having aged beyond his years after an expedition on the Amazon. Eleanor died in 1962 of TB and other ailments, having been a delegate and instrumental in the creation of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Harry Truman called her the First Lady of the World.

Altogether a memorable catch-up on public affairs of the 20th century, this series makes one forget that its medium combines old photographs and rare film clips, the subject matter portrayed by historians. A book, including some 800 pictures (the cover is shown above) accompanies the documentary. A gallery of pictures from the series can be found here. Available on disc and sure to be rebroadcast, Ken Burns' The Roosevelts is likely to receive notice during the coming awards season. 

Nicolas Cuche's ANYTHING FOR ALICE: a cute French rom-com with politics and philosophy

If you're looking for something different in rom-coms (and aren't we all, just about all the time), you could do a lot worse that the new one from Rialto Pictures (via the company's more mainstream division), ANYTHING FOR ALICE (Prêt à tout is its original title). Last year Rialto gave us another winning rom-com that offered something a bit different, The Stroller Strategy, and this new one proves a fine follow-up, as it details the budding romance between two college students, a dorky but charming young man and the politically exuberant, beautiful young woman for whom he falls.

As directed by Nicolas Cuche (shown at right) and written by Laurent Turner (The Prey), the latter with some help from Sabrina Amara and Eric Jehelmann, Anything for Alice, like The Stroller Strategy before it, revolves around, among other things, the plight of a single mother, although in this case, our heroine becomes that mother before she meets the man who is so interested in her. What distinguishes this little rom-com, aside from its sprightly nature and good performances, is its interest in the workplace, class distinctions, and the uses of money. The film is particularly funny regarding knee-jerk values and their representation by us humans on the left and the right.

The premise of the film (way over the top) works surprisingly well, too, so far as the fantasy rom-com formula is concerned: that a fellow suddenly come into a lot of money would purchase an entire factory so that his lady love, who works there, might continue to have a job. The would-be couple in question -- the titular Alice and the suddenly wealthy Max -- are played by Max Boublil (above, left) and Aïssa Maïga (above, right), both astute charmers who know their way around the rom-coms tropes.

What this factory produces is a drink called Bang -- a kind of French version of our own Tang, a drink evidently much beloved by Charles De Gaulle. A lot of fun is had about this substance and its manufacture, and you do not have to be French to appreciate it. The movie is also full of surprising and very funny moments -- such as the destruction of a Rolex watch, together with the reason for doing this -- that keep the pace quickening and the laughs coming fast. Once our hero owns the factory, working conditions do indeed change, in ways both good and not so.

Overall, Anything for Alice is a funny and original fantasy of what might happen if you or I, or maybe many of those we know, found ourselves the recipient of just tons of money. In its way, the movie is a kind of twist on the 1940s Hollywood comedy Brewster's Millions, but with all the spending done for a different reason. (In our current "downer" times, Brewster's is a movie ripe for another remake, as the first one pretty much sucked. I wonder why this hasn't yet happened?)

In the supporting cast are a number of fine thespians, but special note must be made of the actress who plays Max's mom, the delightful Chantal Lauby (shown two photos up). Also very good are Max's two best pals (played by Redouanne Harjane, above, left, and Steve Tran, above, right), and a young and promising newcomer,  Idriss Roberson (at right, three photos above), who plays Alice's son, a boy with a bad case of ochlophobia.

You can view Anything for Alice right now, in West Los Angeles at Laemmle's Royal. Elsewhere? I certainly hope so, though I find no other cities scheduled as yet. But maybe the movie will surface soon on DVD and/or digital streaming. If you're a fan of rom-coms-with-smarts, it's very much worth seeing.