THE WASHINGTON POST • FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2010
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BRAN NUE DAE
A musical romp to nowhere
by Michael O’Sullivan
“Bran Nue Dae” is so light and airy, it al- most floats away on its own breeziness. Set in 1969, the musical follows the ad- ventures of Willie (Rocky McKenzie), a shy aboriginal teen who runs away from his re- pressive Australian boarding school to re- turn to his girlfriend, Rosie (Jessica Mau- boy), before she becomes too involved with the handsome singer of a rock band (Dan Sultan). Along the way, Willie falls in with a
charming wino (Ernie Dingo) and later a quirky hippie couple (Missy Higgins and Tom Budge) who give both of them a lift in their psychedelic VW minibus. The dramatic tension, such as it is, con- sists of what little suspense Geoffrey Rush manages to generate in the character of Fa- ther Benedictus, the stern German priest who runs Willie’s school and who has taken off in hot pursuit of his wayward charge. His accent will remind some viewers of Clo- ris Leachman as Frau Blucher in “Young Frankenstein.” Like hers, his utterances are accompanied from time to time by the clap of distant thunder and a flash of lightning. It’s all too cute by half. Ballast is added to the silly proceedings with a vaguely racial theme: “There’s nothing I would rather be than to be an aborigine,” Willie sings at one point, “and watch you take my precious land away.” That song — one of the best in a
largely forgettable bunch — is accompanied by Rockettes-style kicks, which don’t do much to add punch to the lyrics. It feels churlish to be critical of such exu-
berance, which comes across as less ironic than naive. One yearns for a bit more grit in the gears, something that actually threatens to derail the proceedings, something to matter, to be at stake. As it is, the story sails by, mostly unimpeded, toward its feel-good conclusion and is likely to be forgotten even before the final credits have faded from the screen.
osullivanm@washpost.com
PG. At AMC Loews Shirlington and Landmark’s E Street Cinema. Contains a mild vulgarity or two, suggestive song lyrics, brief drug use, underage drinking and slapstick violence. 88 minutes.
B½
flipped from 24 RAFY
Milla Jovovich returns to the screen in Resident Evil: Afterlife 3D.”
ALSO OPENING
Resident Evil: Afterlife 3D A widespread virus has turned its victims into the undead. Alice (Milla Jovovich) tries to find survivors and get them to safe haven in Los Angeles only to find out it’s a trap. This movie did not screen for review. R. At area theaters. Con- tains strong violence and language. 97 minutes.
film’s central plot shift. At one point, after Bryce has ignored Juli’s feelings once too often, making yet another insensitive com- ment, she comes to the realization that he’s a big fat jerk. At which point he starts mooning over her. Their feelings for each other flip-flop, get it? But the title has yet another meaning. Based on the 2001 teen romance by au- thor Wendelin Van Draanen, which al- ternated between chapters told in Bryce’s voice and chapters told in Juli’s voice, “Flipped” also switches between narration by each of its protagonists. Unfortunately, what seems like it might be a clever idea in a book doesn’t entirely work on film. Rath- er than adding humor, paradox or irony to the telling, the dueling he-said, she-said voice-overs for the most part rehash what we’ve just seen, making the narrative seem twice as long as necessary. In other words, the voice-overs often merely explain what we’re already watching on screen: “I walked home,” Bryce tell us, in one of many statements of the obvious, “with the dirty dishes clanking in the picnic basket.” Set in 1963, each new “chapter” is in- troduced with a tone-setting snippet of music taken from a period pop song: “A Teenager in Love” here, “I Know (You Don’t Love Me No More)” there. After a while,
even that gimmick starts to feel intrusive and heavy-handed. And speaking of heavy-handed, there are a couple of downer subplots that, at times, threaten to swamp the little film in a tsu- nami of bathos. One scene, in which Juli and her father (Aidan Quinn) visit her de- velopmentally disabled Uncle Daniel, is particularly hard to watch. As Daniel — played by Kevin Weisman, channeling Na- than Lane — freaks out over spilled ice cream, the film veers wildly, if only mo- mentarily, off course. Anthony Edwards also makes an espe- cially unpleasant appearance as Bryce’s dour, judgmental father. Whether he’s ful- minating at the dinner table about the state of the Bakers’ lawn or giving Bryce’s older sister (Cody Horn) the back of his hand for talking back, he comes across like someone who wandered onto the wrong soundstage by mistake. Perhaps from the Neil LaBute film next door. He brings a jarring touch to a movie with the look — and all the subtlety — of a Nor- man Rockwell painting sprung to life.
osullivanm@washpost.com
PG. At area theaters. Contains two mild obscenities, a brief slapping scene and shots of a snake eating a raw egg, which is kind of gross. 90 minutes.
B½
JOAQUIN AVELLAN/COPYRIGHT TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX
Danny Trejo is a fearless Mexican police officer in “Machete.”
Also Playing
Capsule reviews of recent releases playing in area theaters. Movies not reviewed by The Post will be marked “NR” for not rated. For older movies, see the Movie Directory.
BBBAGORA
“Agora” takes place in fourth-century Egypt, where in Alexandria the astronomer and philoso- pher Hypatia (Rachel Weisz) regularly gathers cir- cles of students to explore the governing princi- ples of the universe. Although Hypatia is an athe- ist and her father, Theon (Michael Lonsdale, reliably grave and leonine as always), is pagan like most of their countrymen, the nascent faith of Christianity has claimed the hearts and minds of many Egyptians, among them Hypatia’s ser- vant, Davus (Max Minghella), and her student Synesius (Rupert Evans), who will eventually be named Bishop of Cyrene. As tensions rise, the conflict finally culminates in a brutal attack on the city’s legendary library. Hypatia resolutely sides with reason over zealotry — her interest lies only in preserving the scrolls that hold the in- stitution’s vast stores of human knowledge. (NR, 126 minutes) Contains strong violence. At the Ava- lon.
BBTHE AMERICAN i’m still here from 24
mos, waxing philosophical over a drop of water — all appear genuinely mortified and/or confused by Phoenix, who becomes increasingly incoherent, disheveled, over- weight, abusive and paranoid as the film goes on. This isn’t “Borat,” however. If Phoenix is making fun of something — the cult of ce- lebrity, perhaps? — it isn’t clear what. And if he’s sticking a thumb in Hollywood’s eye, why are we the ones wincing? But if the film is real (and that’s a big if),
it depicts a tragedy in the making. Which raises a couple of additional questions: What possible reason would Affleck have for recording his brother-in-law’s seeming
descent into madness, except as a kind of intervention, holding up a mirror to him as if to say, “Look at the monster you’ve be- come.” And what possible reason would Phoenix have to agree to be filmed? As de- lusional and drug-addled as he seems, it’s hard to imagine anyone who has worked in movies not being able to see what a train wreck a film like this would be. At one point, Phoenix is shown lamenting his dwindling finances. At another (immedi- ately following his infamous, mumbling appearance on “The Late Show With David Letterman”), he jumps out of the limo car- rying him from the show to cry on the side of the road.
A far more likely explanation is that “I’m Still Here” is some strange blend of fact
and fiction, moments that are partly stolen and partly staged, with nothing to distin- guish the two. That’s not especially helpful as a cri- tique. But it does mean that there’s a bit more artifice here than meets the eye. Whether that artifice rises to the level of art or remains a weirdly voyeuristic therapy session is anyone’s guess. In ei- ther case, it’s an acutely uncomfortable experience.
osullivanm@washpost.com
R. At area theaters. Contains prodigious obscenity, nudity and drug use and fistfights. 108 minutes.
BB
George Clooney brings his most somber, fur- rowed game face to the role of a hit man named Jack, who as the movie opens finds himself am- bushed on an isolated, ice-covered Swedish lake. The odd gunshot notwithstanding, the scene transpires in almost complete silence. It turns out that both the setting and the soundtrack antici- pate the chilly study in solitude and emptiness that proceeds to unfolds. Once Jack dispatches his would-be foes in Scandinavia, he departs for Italy, where his boss (Johan Leysen) suggests he lie low for a while in one of Abruzzo’s medieval hill towns and await further orders. When Jack starts to work on a high-test rifle for a gorgeous client named Mathilde (Thekla Reuten), he also begins to visit a nearby brothel, strikes up a car- nal friendship with Clara (Violante Placido), a hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold character. (R, 103 minutes) Contains violence, sexual content and nu- dity. Area theaters.
BBBANIMAL KINGDOM
This dark Australian drama wastes no time shock- ing its audience with the breezy way it handles bleak material. A woman, overdosed on heroin, sits crumpled on a couch as paramedics try to re- vive her. But her teenage son can’t seem to peel himself away from the television. When his moth- er dies, J (James Frecheville) moves in with his es- tranged grandmother and meets the rest of his fearsome relatives: four uncles, who demon-
movies continued on 28
— Ann Hornaday
— A.H.
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