I like movies that are offbeat, that ask you to come along and accept their premise, then take the time to flesh out their characters. Such a film is A Little Help, an engaging drama set on Long Island in the summer of 2002. Jenna Fischer, well-known as the receptionist on TV's The Office, here plays a dysfunctional dental hygienist. Her marriage is becoming stagnant, and she's beginning to ask questions about herself and what she really wants out of life. It's probably due to suspicions about her husband's fidelity and the difficult transition their son is making into adolescence.
Daniel Yelsky has the challenging role of a boy at a crossroads-how to bond with his mother but also establish his independence. This is interrupted by a family crisis after which the self-doubting mother receives unwanted help from her own dysfunctional parents, Leslie Ann Warren and the always-colorful Ron Leibman. The film then carefully develops its characters, including her relationship with her adoring brother-in-law, Rob Benedict, and her annoying sister, Brooke Smith. It looks genuine because these people have been fleshed out. We probably all know relatives like this. I applaud this film's honesty in tackling unpleasant situations.
I also liked the honesty of but don't endorse Hood to Coast, a somewhat ponderous documentary about a locally famous annual event in Oregon. It focuses on four teams competing in the world's longest relay race. Actually, 1,000 teams compete, each comprising a dozen long-distance runners. We meet a wide variety of competitors, each spinning tales of his or her training and running accomplishments. The race covers 197 miles and stretches from Mt. Hood to the Pacific Ocean. All well and good, but to this reporter, at least, long distance running is boring and stories about it are even more so. There's a reason no one outside the Pacific Northwest knows about this race. Nobody else cares.
Life Above All, filmed near Johannesburg, South Africa, is an astonishingly absorbing movie based on a novel published seven years ago. It deals with 12-year-old Chanda, a girl whose poor family is mourning the death of her baby sister from AIDS as the movie begins. Chanda's mother and alcoholic stepfather have contracted the disease as well, so she has to care for her younger siblings while going to school. This is a powerful family saga of people trying to survive in the poorest windswept village you ever saw. We come to know several of the villagers, who fear the shame and stigma the disease brings to their village even more than AIDS itself.
Young Khomotso Manyaka delivers a superbly underplayed portrayal of a girl whose childhood has been taken away and who is determined to face unimaginable challenges. The rest of the cast, all South African actors, help to paint a tableau of incredible poverty, superstition, but ultimately one of quiet, dignified determination.
The Devil's Double is a true story about one of the most venal people of our time: Uday Hussein, the evil son of Saddam Hussein. British actor Dominic Cooper plays both Hussein and Latif Yahia, a Kurdish-born veteran of the Iran-Iraq war, spotted by the son of the despot and forced against his will to be Uday's double. This is a chilling look at the reign of terror Uday let loose around the palace, in nightclubs, even at a wedding, where he raped the bride and drove her to suicide on what should have been the most wonderful day of her life. The cocaine-addicted sadist and sexual predator struck fear into the hearts of everyone while his double was forced to be his stand-in on battlefields, under the constant threat of death. One atrocity is followed by another so as to strain belief that one man could be so cruel and vicious and have so many willing henchmen follow his psychotic commands. New Zealand director Lee Tamahori, who made the incredible Once Were Warriors and Mulholland Falls, spares nothing in depicting the horrors Uday inflicted on anyone who displeased him. Cooper's performance is so strong, it's plausible that when the director yelled, "Cut Print That's a wrap" the actor might've taken a long, hot shower to rid himself of his character forever.
For a change of pace, I'd seek out Lucky, a quirky, sometimes bizarre black comedy starring Ari Graynor as a receptionist in a company where Colin Hanks is his coworker. Although she has eyes for a handsome upper management executive, Hanks becomes the immediate object of her affection after he wins the Iowa state lottery-or at least appears to. I won't divulge what it is that makes this comedy so offbeat and sinister. Ann-Margret does a very funny turn as Hanks's possessive, often oblivious mother. Graynor, who's had small roles in other films, shows a wide range of comedic emotions, perfectly in sync with the tone set by director Gil Cates, Jr., the namesake son of the great producer-director. Veteran Jeffrey Tambor completes the principal supporting cast as a suspicious detective.
