LIVE BY NIGHT Review

The problem with Live by Night is that it is both too much and never enough. Ben Affleck, who has proved himself a strong storyteller in his screenwriting and directing skills, certainly has a fine ambition in his latest effort, but it simply never seems to pan out the way he originally imagined it. This is to the point that Live by Night is as big, extravagant, and sexy a gangster drama as one could hope to get made in the studio system today and yet the story is nowhere near as compelling as it should be to make the amount of effort put into the costumes, production design, and other period details matter. The question on my mind as the film came to its one too many endings-none of which are satisfactory, I might add-was, "how did this happen?" How did a filmmaker such as Affleck, with a story he himself adapted from a Dennis Lehane novel (Gone, Baby, Gone, Mystic River, Shutter Island, The Drop), in this time period, and with a star-studded cast that features stand-out performances from the likes of Chris Messina and Elle Fanning end up sinking as quickly as a dead body attached to a boulder in a river? There is seemingly never a clear answer as to how so many promising parts can come together to form a subpar whole, but with Live by Night the majority of as much seems to fall on the script never knowing exactly what type of story it wants to tell and as a result, the momentum of the pacing never finding its footing well enough to keep viewers invested. There is always more material in a novel than a two hour movie can handle and it seems rather than relay what was more or less the same story the source material was telling through the prism of a single perspective or theme that Affleck instead attempted to cram in as much of Lehane's novel as he could resulting in the film feeling more than overstuffed while still leaving the viewer hungry for more. When talking of adapting a book for the screen director David Fincher said, "The book is many things. You have to choose which aspect you want to make a movie from." It seems Affleck might have learned a thing or two from his Gone Girl director as this lack of a singular viewpoint is exactly what Live by Night is missing; delivering so many characters, ideas, and plot strands it's hard to care about any of them.

THE FINEST HOURS Review

Watching The Finest Hours is like going to a restaurant you know and trust and despite being satisfied when you leave, feeling as if there was definitely something lacking. The contents are all inviting and have an undeniably charming quality to them, but upon consumption you simply aren't as full as you'd hoped given the dish wasn't as rich as it had the potential to be. The Finest Hours is a handsome film, directed by Craig Gillespie (Million Dollar Arm, Fright Night, Lars and the Real Girl), and features both impeccable costume design and an earnest soundtrack not to mention a story that is genuinely thrilling. Pair these strong qualities with an all-around impressive roster of cast members not only in the key roles, but in supporting and minor parts throughout and it's nothing short of a guarantee that the film wasn't going to at least be a rather solid venture. And it is. In fact, that's exactly what The Finest Hours turns out to be with there not necessarily being any issues other than the fact it doesn't feel like an exception in the long line of cinematic adventures we're given throughout the year despite the story being one of an exceptional heroic act. For this reason, the movie adaptation of the story and of Casey Sherman and Michael J. Tougias' novel feels as if it is something of a missed opportunity in representing a story that could have really produced a great or even "exceptional", piece of fiction. Instead, The Finest Hours gives audiences what we expect in that it is consistently engaging, naturally tense in moments, and hits just the right amount of emotional beats to make the harrowing rescue mission all the more affecting in the end. It is in this emotional connection though, that the film doesn't connect as often as it should. Even without the love angle from which the film comes at the story there should be more than a handful of emotionally charged moments given both men at the head of these dueling narratives are staring death in the face. And yet, we never feel as emotionally invested in the proceedings as the characters clearly are. There is a disconnect and while it doesn't destroy the film, it certainly keeps it from realizing its full potential.

WHILE WE'RE YOUNG Review

Before we start anything here, it should be noted that I've only seen two other Noah Baumbach pictures. While I've generally enjoyed what I've seen so far and certainly have an interest in earlier films such as The Squid and the Whale and Margot at the Wedding as of this writing I've only seen Greenberg and the rather infectious Frances Ha. I state this at the beginning to preface that while I found his latest, While We're Young, to be much more accomplished and substantial on first viewing than anything I've seen of his prior work I wouldn't be surprised to find out he was repeating himself in some way, on some major themes. Heck, some of what Ben Stiller's character goes through here feels like it has some shades in his titular Greenberg character, but I honestly don't remember that film well enough to say for sure. That concern aside, what I do know for sure is how strong this film hit me, how its ideas are universally relatable despite depicting a very specific niche and simply how magnificent the writing is. While the dialogue is quick and forms full characters who have specific and individual mindsets intact I can't imagine the hours poured over the page by Baumbach in order to create this natural ease with which each of these characters speak. In a word, the characters and the dialogue are more than archetypes or composites of several other people, but they are authentic and authenticity is essentially what While We're Young is all about. Baumbach, who both wrote and directed this film, is a man of forty-five. Stiller, who in real life is forty-nine, plays a very specific forty-four year-old and in that small detail it is apparent that Stiller serves as the Baumbach surrogate. Wondering how he came to be on the other side of life, the one where striking and profound realizations such as knowing things exist that he'll never do must be accepted. It is a film that both acts as a study in adjusting to getting older while at the same time dealing with accepting the generational differences of the current young people and the culture that existed twenty years prior. The film opens with the quote from Henrik Ibsen's The Master Builder where Hilda suggests to Solness that he open the door to the younger generation he fears. The thing is it's not whether he opens the door or not that's the real decision, but how far.