Page 2 of 3
FAR FROM HEAVEN While many films sacrifice emotional investment for the sake of stylistic innovation and vice versa, this one fearlessly tackles both facets and emerges a winner on both fronts. In crafting what turns out to be one of the best films of the year, writer-director Todd Haynes (Safe) has made a glorious-looking picture that's almost fetishistic in its desire to replicate those Technicolor-soaked melodramas from the 50s, in particular the ones from cult director Douglas Sirk. Haynes pulls off this verisimilitude -- everything from the colorful costumes to the dialogue to Elmer Bernstein's score smacks of "old-school" Hollywood -- yet he also nails the oversized emotions and barely repressed attitudes, resulting in one of the most affecting "weepies" of recent times. Julianne Moore, in what may endure as the performance of 2002, stars as a content housewife in 1957 Connecticut whose life starts to unravel once she discovers that her husband (Dennis Quaid) is a closeted homosexual and that she's feeling an attraction for her gentle black gardener (Dennis Haysbert). Foregoing any semblance of irony or camp or even dreamy nostalgia (traits that invariably affect any 50s-set flick made today), Haynes has instead come up with a straight-faced triumph that works as both a poignant love story and a piercing social commentary. 1/2
FEMME FATALE Director Brian De Palma has spent most of his career courting controversy, so why expect different results from his latest release? Already running the gamut of critical opinion since its opening (from an F by Entertainment Weekly to four stars from Roger Ebert), this deliriously over-the-top thriller features both the best and worst of De Palma. A convoluted, twisty yarn about a shapely thief (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, channeling Sharon Stone) who double-crosses her criminal cohorts, assumes a new identity and makes a patsy out of a tabloid photographer (Antonio Banderas), Femme Fatale includes some terrific set pieces that remind me why I revere his style so much -- yet ultimately becomes burdened with several self-conscious sequences that make me wince at how he's frittered away much of his latter-day career. Woe to the audience member who approaches this with a straight face -- the writer-director is clearly in a playful mood here (love that blood-stained shirt, "seven years later") -- but even accepting this in the right frame of mind can only provide it with so much leniency. 1/2
FRIDA First, let us be thankful that it's the Salma Hayek version, not the proposed Jennifer Lopez one, that made it to the screen -- after all, who wants to see a Frida Kohler biopic that would doubtless find the Mexican artist putting aside the paintbrushes (and putting a part in her unibrow) for a career as a glamorous songbird? Seriously, as far as screen biographies of artistic sorts go (always a gamble, since it's hard for film to accurately convey the creative process at work), this one apparently ended up in the right hands, as director Julie Taymor (Broadway's The Lion King) uses various colorful conventions -- an animated sequence designed by the Brothers Quay, the melding of actual people and artwork, the stunt casting of Edward Norton, Antonio Banderas and Ashley Judd in small roles -- to effectively touch upon the key incidents in Kahlo's life, from the trolley accident that kept her perpetually in pain over the years to her brief fling with Leon Trotsky (Geoffrey Rush). Still, the film's centerpiece is her long, complex relationship with husband and fellow artist Diego Rivera, and it's the robust performances by Hayek and Alfred Molina that ultimately give Frida its soul.
HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS The second chapter in the Harry Potter saga (following last year's Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone) concerns itself with the boy wizard's sophomore session at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. There's an evil presence lurking in the halls of the venerable institution, and, needless to say, Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) and best buddies Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermoine (Emma Watson) find themselves smack in the middle of the mystery. As before, groundskeeper Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane) offers them friendship, schoolmaster Albus Dumbledore (the late Richard Harris) offers guidance, Professor McGonagall (Maggie Smith) offers discipline, and Professor Snape (Alan Rickman) offers opposition. And there's even a new teacher on the premises: the vain Gilderoy Lockhart (scene-stealing Kenneth Branagh), who's more interested in promoting himself as a hero-celebrity than in actually teaching the kids anything of merit. Chamber of Secrets, on a par with its predecessor, cuts no corners as far as the visual effects are concerned, yet the real magic in the series remains the interaction between its human players, most notably the three perfectly cast kids.