The writer David Foster Wallace once famously said, “A huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded.” Self-deception happens to the best of us, but director Charles Stone III’s latest drama-turned-action flick throws in an additional curveball: how does one stay sane in the face of personal tragedy? Lila (Viola Davis), understandably, is scarcely in her right mind after her teenage son is murdered in a drive-by shooting. Her rage amplifies as a pair of cops offer the usual platitudes but seem no closer to finding Stephon’s (Aml Ameen) killer. Lila’s only comfort, however small it might be, is a support group with other grieving mothers who recite at the end of each meeting the Serenity Prayer: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change… Unfortunately, for Stephon’s murderer, Lila isn’t all that into accepting things.

Things shift from an interesting look into a mother’s pain (complete with the obligatory flashbacks to the days before Stephon’s death, just to remind us how tight-knit this single-mother household was), to a cat-and-mouse action thriller when Lila meets Eve (Jennifer Lopez) at one of her group meetings. Eve, who lost her daughter at an undefinable earlier juncture, is able to cut through the bullshit and say a lot of the things Lila is certainly thinking but too cautious to say: “You want the people who killed Stephon to feel what you’re feeling.” And with that, the pair of grieving mothers decide to take it upon themselves to do the police work they’re convinced the earnest Detective Holliston (Shea Whigham) and his legitimately lazy partner Alonzo (Chris Chalk) aren’t doing themselves.

For what seems to be, on the surface at least, a run-of-the-mill revenge flick fancied up with female leads instead of the generic blonde-boy-gone-bad, there’s actually (mercifully) a few bits of subtlety in both the performances and the script (by Pat Gilfillan) that carry the first half of the movie along at a promising rate. Lila’s grief, in the capable hands of Davis, never comes off as off-the-handle angry or even hopelessly grief-stricken—she appears on-screen as a mild tempered but strong woman, one who is going to defend the cheesy efforts of the women in the small group to Eve (“they’re just trying to help”), but at the same time isn’t going to get bullied around by a cop entering her home uninvited (“next time, call first”). We see the other women falling apart—one woman has convinced herself that, like Jesus, her son is coming back from the dead—but Lila, despite her love for that other Biblical passage—an eye for an eye—seems a bit more rational than the others. In fact, she takes the useless group advice to heart (“get a hobby”), and begins a project renovating her house. It’s because of Davis’ moving performance we don’t realize at first that our judgment might be just as clouded as Lila’s. As time goes on, some truths are unveiled: Maybe Detective Holliston isn’t so bad at his job. Maybe the women at the group do genuinely care. Maybe Eve, with her idea of a good night being to stake out Stephon’s potential killers, isn’t the best friend to have around. It’s interesting to realize how skewed the viewer’s perspective is by Lila’s inability to see anything good because, after all, that’s how real grief, real depression works.

But just as the character study gets cooking—complete with working class issues like running out of paid time off, caring for a remaining son with limited support, and starting a relationship with a good-natured man when you’re just not quite ready—in comes the vengeance of Lila and Eve, vigilante mothers taking on a hierarchical local gang, starting with the small fries and working up to the big boss. It’s just not as interesting as the drama that Davis and the support group thread seemed to be setting up, and retroactively, almost makes the earnestness in the acting in the first half seem not noteworthy, but bizarre. A twist near the end shakes the entire premise of the film and feels less “a ha” and more revealing of what the film lacks. Maybe the final dupe is that despite moving performances and an interesting B-plot—how working class mothers find support and healing—the A-plot is rather hollow. Davis is powerful as always, and Lopez actually hits the right note with her reckless, action-seeking Eve, but the performances don’t overcome that the more potent story was abandoned halfway through.

In honor of Oscar season being fully upon us, Oscar Winners Revisited is a new column that combines three of our favorite things: arguing about the Oscars, nostalgia, and passing judgment on others. These features hope to re-evaluate past Academy Awards results and see how well the winners and nominees held up versus the choices Way Too Indie Staff members would make today. We’ll be sticking to the big six categories: Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, and Supporting Actress. Make sure to visit yesterday’s installment on the 2011 awards, and check back on Way Too Indie tomorrow for another year’s batch of Academy Award winners, revisited.

Best Supporting Actress

Who Won – Octavia Spencer, The Help
Who Should’ve Won – Berenice Bejo, The Artist

The Artist cleaned up most of the major categories in 2012, earning wins for Best Director, Best Picture, and Best Actor. But I was bummed when Berenice Bejo’s dashing performance in the film failed to capture a win on Oscar night, falling to Octavia Spencer in The Help. Even to call Bejo a supporting actress in the silent film era throwback is kind of a stretch, she spends a great deal of time on-screen with Jean Dujardin. Her charming performance as the young dancer and love interest was done without saying a word. It’s hard to deny Octavia Spencer’s captivating performance, but part of me just wanted this to end in a tie between these two great actresses. [Dustin]

Best Supporting Actor

Who Won – Christopher Plummer, Beginners
Who Should’ve Won – Nick Nolte, Warrior

I’m tempted to award the newcomer Jonah Hill, the youngest nominee by more than 20 years, for his surprisingly textured work in Moneyball. Considering the combined age of the other four nominees totalled more than 250 years, it was unlikely the Apatow-bred actor was going to break through. Beyond Hill, 3-time Oscar nominee Nick Nolte may have delivered the most heart-wrenching performance in this group of actors. Christopher Plummer does solid work in Beginners, but likely garnered a lot of support due to the nature of his role and Plummer’s long career (at 82, Plummer became the oldest competitive Oscar winner ever). Nolte’s Warrior performance came as the sole nomination for a mostly overlooked but beloved smaller project (much like Plummer for Beginners), but his gravel-voiced vulnerability gives his role an emotional anchor. Both veteran actors are deserving of acknowledgement, but the more affecting performance scene to scene for me was Nolte’s. [Zach]

Best Actress

Who Won – Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
Who Should’ve Won – Viola Davis, The Help

Surprise, surprise Meryl Streep wins again. Okay, so maybe she doesn’t win all the time, but Streep has racked up a whooping 19 Oscar nominations. That’s enough nominations to make one wonder if she’s getting noms now solely based on her name, not her performances. Her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady wasn’t particularly impressive. In fact, most people that year expected Viola Davis to win since she won at the Screen Actors Guild. And rightfully so. Davis dominated the screen and our hearts when she’s forced to bite her tongue as a black maid serving her white employer. If there was one thing to take away from the 2012 Oscars, it’s that you should never count Streep out when it comes Oscar night. [Dustin]

Best Actor

Who Won – Jean Dujardin, The Artist
Who Should’ve Won – Brad Pitt, Moneyball

2012 lacked the type of standout male lead that drives most Oscars races. With all due respect to Demián Bichir whose surprise nomination came in a film not many had seen (including myself, although the role garnered acclaim from those who did), his inclusion feels like a reward in and of itself. Dujardin’s malleable performance in the lead of the Best Picture winning “silent” film The Artist certainly has a novelty the other nominated performances lack; however, as strong as Dujardin was in the movie, there are inherent limitations to the role. Brad Pitt’s role in Moneyball is by far the more conventional of these two performances. Yet Pitt is delivering a performance that exemplifies the qualities that has made him one of Hollywood’s biggest stars for decades. The ease with which he delivers his lines, the disaffected persona he portrays while still communicating a committed interest in his actions, and the subtlety of the role in comparison to Pitt’s other not-so-subtle standout performances make the part of Billy Beane a highlight of Mr. Jolie’s acting career. He’s no runaway winner, but Pitt is an appealing alternative to Dujardin here. [Zach]

Best Director

Who Won – Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
Who Should’ve Won – Martin Scorsese, Hugo

I don’t give Hugo the win for Best Picture and I don’t usually like to give splits in Director/Picture (though in 2013 I would give Cuaron Best Director and The Wolf of Wall Street Best Picture), but Martin Scorsese really deserved it this year. The 3D family film was in fact a much more deserving effort than his long-awaited win for The Departed five years earlier. Hugo saw the filmmaker working completely out of his comfort zone and he absolutely nails it, I’d be hard pressed to think of a more inspiring and heartfelt family film to be released this decade. His use of 3D is also incredible, the best use of the technique I’ve seen thus far, as if Scorsese had turned himself into a sort of modern day version of Méliès (sorry Terry Gilliam). Marty really knocked it out of the park on this one. [Ryan]

Best Picture

Who Won – The Artist
Who Should’ve Won – The Tree of Life

Other than Drive, The Tree of Life was easily my favorite film of 2011 it was one of the most beautiful, poetic, and awe-filled experiences one could have with a film so far this century. A philosophical and emotional epic that sees abstract filmmaker Terrence Malick operating on his most breathtaking canvas yet with the help of God’s gift to cinematography, Emmanuel Lubezki. It’s his most powerful film in a small, but nonetheless outstanding filmography (though Badlands will probably always be my favorite). It’s kind of incredible the Palme d’Or-winning film was even nominated at all (the expanded field helped I’m sure) and it definitely feels like one of those films where the voting body was saying “the nomination is your reward, but you have no chance.” Out of the other nominees only Hugo really comes close to The Tree of Life, though it seems unlikely Malick’s masterpiece ever would have taken home the top prize when competing with the Academy’s continually frustrating choices. The Tree of Life will stand the test of time though which is far more important and telling of a film’s impact. [Ryan]

Anyone interested how the acting categories may pan out for the Oscars had their attention on the 2015 Screen Actors Guild Awards tonight, as this award show is much more reliable than say the Golden Globes, though there were a lot of overlap winners in the film categories. In fact, Patricia Arquette (Boyhood), J.K. Simmons (Whiplash), Julianne Moore (Still Alice) and Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything) all repeated their wins in respected categorizes from the Globes two weeks ago. Redmayne continues his streak of edging out Michael Keaton (Birdman) who many consider to be the front-runner. This win might just shake things up for the category come Oscar night. Though Birdman wasn’t completely shut out, the film picked up the Outstanding Performance by a Cast award.

Orange Is the New Black picked up two awards on the television side of the awards, one for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series and Uzo Aduba (for the role of Crazy Eyes) won for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series. Kevin Spacey was the only Golden Globes repeat winner this year, earning Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series in both awards shows. Other winners included Mark Ruffalo (The Normal Heart), Frances McDormand (Olive Kitteridge) and Viola Davis (How To Get Away With Murder).

List of 2015 Screen Actors Guild Award Winners

Film

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role
Eddie Redmayne – The Theory of Everything

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
Julianne Moore – Still Alice

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role
J.K. Simmons – Whiplash

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role
Patricia Arquette – Boyhood

Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
Birdman

Television

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries
Mark Ruffalo – The Normal Heart

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries
Frances McDormand – Olive Kitteridge

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series
Kevin Spacey – House of Cards

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series
Viola Davis – How To Get Away With Murder

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series
William H. Macy – Shameless

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series
Uzo Aduba – Orange Is the New Black

Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series
Downton Abbey

Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series
Orange Is the New Black

Viewing an on-screen relationship from somewhere in the middle can be a difficult place to be in as a film viewer. Finding two characters in a juncture in their story when one’s had no time to form any sort of attachment yet, makes for the sort of film viewing that practically demands distance. The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby most certainly asks that of its viewers. Asking for patience in abundance as it fills us in on the current, past, and potential future of a young New York couple. And to make sure the severity of their rift is felt, the film opens with a suicide attempt.

Eleanor Rigby (Jessica Chastain) has a name inspired less by the Beatles and more by missed opportunity and a sense of fate. After a brief scene of young love between her and boyfriend Conor (James McAvoy), she’s seen biking down the Brooklyn bridge. With a sense of calculation, she leaves her bike and heads for the fence.

In the hospital, Conor, her now husband, flies to her side, panicked. But when she’s healed and it’s time to leave, it’s her sister Kate (Jess Weixler) who takes her back to their childhood home to stay with their parents. Her French musician mother Mary (Isabelle Huppert) awaits her on the front steps, glass of wine in hand. Her father Julian (William Hurt), the academic and therapist, is especially concerned and encourages Eleanor to take some classes while she figures out her life.

Eleanor enrolls and when her father encourages her to crash Professor Friedman’s (Viola Davis) class, she does so with hardly any real argument why Professor Friedman should allow her to join the class, but an unlikely friendship is sparked between the two and Eleanor finds her to be an encouraging outsider. A safe friend unaware of Eleanor’s tragic recent past.

Meanwhile Conor does his best to find out how Eleanor is, since she’s thrown away her phone, resorting eventually to stalking her at the school. He passes her a note in her class one day and upsets her enough that she leaves class. Despite what little we know of their former selves before this juncture in their relationship, it’s clear Eleanor has changed greatly and it’s equally true Conor wants to return to what they once had. One of them stuck in the ambiguity of who they are, and who they are as part of a couple after a major life change, and the other stuck in the remembrance of how good things once were.

It’s easier to understand The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby when one takes into account that it was originally two films. Him and Her. One focused on their relationship from Conor’s perspective, the other from Eleanor’s. At times throughout the film there seems to be much left unsaid, much that was most likely covered in the individual films that was cut to make Them work without being overwhelming.

But it’s exactly that hesitation that keeps The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby from true greatness. In his feature directorial début (or should we call it third film?), Ned Benson has crafted a tale of two people completely unable to communicate. And though the inability to communicate with someone at a juncture where grief makes it entirely hard to relate is realistic, as an editing and filmmaking tool it makes for somewhat frustrating viewing.

The emergence of the so-called “anti-romance” is a sign of the times, of the burgeoning destruction of the Hollywood ending in favor of realism and relatable romantic scenarios. And while I appreciate this perspective and the way it resonates in our modern world, I can’t help but always wonder where the realistic side character is, the one yelling at the main characters to grow up and just have a normal conversation. Bill Hader‘s Stuart, Conor’s best friend and chef at his restaurant, comes close. Doing his best to explain to Conor the egg shells he has to walk on around his friend when it comes to his marriage. And Viola Davis is truly fantastic as Professor Friedman, but her wisdom and usefulness to Eleanor seems to stem entirely on her not actually knowing anything about Eleanor and her immediate life. She just seems to accidentally give Eleanor the friendship she needs at a time when she accidentally needs it.

Plenty of conversations with their family members would seem to be the ideal pathway to character growth, but strangely it’s these scenes that drag the most. Much of the time spent skirting around the obvious topics needing real study.

The audience is only clued in to Eleanor and Conor’s central concern rather late in the film, though it’s not hard to figure out they don’t suffer from simple relationship troubles. Strangely Benson chooses to show flashbacks from the couple’s early days, before they were married and in the blissful throes of young love, rather than scenes from their marriage. In a sense it brilliantly shows the same blind spot the main characters seems to possess, an idea of when things were new and good, juxtaposed with the present when they seem so bad, while showing an unawareness of when they were just in the middle, living out their love on a day by day basis.

With all that anti-romance, anti-Hollywood ending, the characters fall into an age-old trap, resorting to reinventing themselves, albeit by returning to former passions and plans they once had before their marriage and troubles. So although the film won’t allow us to call its ending “sad” per se, it certainly doesn’t warrant the descriptor of “realistic”. Though I’ll give kudos to Son Lux for the musical placement, toying quite effectively with our hearts in a few key areas with some well-placed songs in a way that gives the implication of romance without actually showing it.

Chastain and McAvoy give phenomenal performances, every other scene playing out like the clip played by the Academy before they announce who gets the Oscar. But without the structure the story needs, their performances simply hit the screen as heavy and ineffective, the lack of insight into their psyches making for a detached relationship with viewers.

The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby has all the realism of watching a pair of friends go through a rough spot in their relationship, without any of the catharsis of being able to advise and yell at them as perhaps a good friend ought to.

Denis Villeneuve, the French-Canadian director of Polytechnique and Incendies, has seemingly hit the jackpot with his English language debut. Teaming up with a cast of terrific actors along with legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins, Prisoners sadly spends most of its time letting the incredibly talented people behind it build a hollow shell of a film. The mentions of spirituality, faith, and morally grey situations are laid out but never explored beyond the surface. Thankfully, with people like Villeneuve and Deakins at the helm, the technical mastery makes up for plenty lost in the lackluster screenwriting.

The film starts on Thanksgiving with two neighbouring families, the Dovers and the Birches, visiting each other for dinner. It’s only until well after the dinner that both families realize their youngest daughters, Anna and Joy, are nowhere to be found. Their concern eventually turns to panic as they realize someone took their children. Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) leads the investigation into finding the missing girls, while the two sets of parents grieve in their own ways. Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman) is furious at the police for being ineffective, while his wife Grace (Maria Bello) constantly takes pills to stop herself from going into hysterics. Franklin and Nancy Birch (Terrence Howard and Viola Davis) simply co-operate and hope for the best.

The only suspect in the case at this point, the driver of an old RV the kids played around with before disappearing (played terrifically by Paul Dano), is mentally impaired to the point where it would be impossible for him to have successfully kidnapped two children. The police let him go, but Keller is convinced of the man’s guilt and kidnaps him. At this point the narrative cuts back and forth between Keller’s torturing of Dano for information and Loki’s attempts to solve the case through more traditional means.

The moral issues that come with Dover’s actions are touched upon only when Franklin and Nancy get roped into helping him. Keller never shows any sense of guilt for what he’s doing, but Howard and Davis do excellent work showing how their characters feel like there are no other options but helping Dover out. Most of the cast ends up doing the leg work for their characters, as writer Aaron Guzikowski mostly boils them down to one or two traits (Keller’s a doomsday prepper, Loki is the classic determined detective, Franklin plays the trumpet). Davis and Bello get the worst material to work with, as Nancy amounts to nothing more than a blank slate and Bello is reduced to frequently wailing. With characters defined so broadly it’s hard for the film’s themes to resonate.

Luckily there is a much better film within Prisoners, and it comes out when the focus turns back to a standard thriller instead of shallow introspection. Villeneuve creates plenty of tension, especially in the film’s dark final act, and Deakins is on top form as always. There are plenty of things going on stylistically, like the way Villeneuve plays with the violation of space throughout the film, however, it’s one of the only interesting things going on for the first two-thirds. Prisoners can be quite good when it chooses to be a regular thriller. Unfortunately it decides to try for more, and comes up short in doing so.

Prisoners trailer:

Soon as I heard that Philip Seymour Hoffman was in a lead role in a new movie I immediately got excited. Unfortunately, when you hype up a movie too much it must live up to high expectations which most of the time result in disappointment, which is how I felt at the end of this movie. But don’t get me wrong, Doubt is a good film, just don’t hype it up too much.

Doubt is set back in 1964 at a Catholic school in the Bronx. At this church a nun (Meryl Streep) suspects something foul is going on between a priest (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and a young black student. She squares off against him to get him removed from the church. This proves to be a difficult challenge given the fact she has no real hard evidence.

The acting in this movie was amazing. Hands down, top notch acting by both Philip Seymour Hoffman and Meryl Streep. Philip is easily becoming one of my favorite modern day actor. For no real reason, I was never particularly a huge fan of Streep but this movie really changed my mind on her. I now have great respect for her talent. Amy Adams did an excellent job with her smaller supporting actress role. The drama between Hoffman and Streep was done very well, there was even a point in the movie where I got goosebumps from the argument that they were having. The movie was filmed very well, some interesting and unique camera angles. Not an easy thing to accomplish in such a dialog heavy movie such as this.

Since it is such a dialog heavy movie, I can definitely see this not being a movie for everyone. It’s dry, slow moving, and not a lot of action throughout. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing, I really do enjoy movies with those characteristics. I think the thing that hurt it the most is the conflict took too long to develop. Also it was lacked a strong plot, it’s entertaining, just not very complex.

So if you want to see some superb acting, look no further than Doubt. Just be warned that it’s a pretty dry and slow moving film that’s not for everyone.