This week, we have two mainstream studio films and two smaller independent ones. Let’s begin with the latter two.
The theme and subject of “Denial” is a fascinating one: In 1996, respected American writer and scholar Deborah Lipstadt was sued for libel by David Irving, an English “historian,” noted (if not respected) for, among other things, the view that the gas chambers at Auschwitz were a myth. When she denounced him as a Holocaust denier, they wound up in an English courtroom. Would that the film made of this event were as fascinating as the subject but, alas, no. Rachel Weisz plays Lipstadt, and she is either miscast or the script has rendered the character so uninteresting Weisz can’t rescue it. Timothy Spall’s Irving is both repellent yet curiously human (sort of like Gollum in the Tolkien trilogy). Playwright David Hare’s script only shines during the courtroom scenes; everything else is flat and uninvolving — a sad waste of talent and subject.
“A Man Called Ove,” adapted from the novel of the same name, is a sentimental and predictable story — crusty curmudgeon made human by new neighbors and young children — but at least it wasn’t an American-made film. That one would have starred Bill Murray or Jack Nicholson in the title role; there would have been adorable, large-eyed children and many heartstring-tugging moments. This Swedish version mostly avoids that and takes advantage of a fine cast while mixing comedy and drama without pushing it into soap-opera land.
I am a voracious reader, so I tip my hat to the makers of “The Girl on the Train” in that, even though I read the book when it first came out last year, I was totally surprised by the film version’s ending revelation. Admittedly, this speaks to my inability to retain the details of everything I’ve read, but it also attests to skilled filmmakers. While it’s not a great movie, I found it absorbing for the most part, an intriguing use of the unreliable narrator (which has been over-used in the past few years), gorgeous photography and a fine script by Erin Cressida Wilson. However, it is marred by way too many close-ups of the recently divorced, alcoholic main character of Rachel, as played by the talented Emily Blunt and a sometimes-awkward use of flashbacks that confuse rather than illuminate.
“The Accountant” is, like “The Girl on the Train,” not a great film, but totally worth seeing. Christian Wolff, the accountant of the film’s title, is a good role for Ben Affleck, whose face easily registers both blandness and lack of expression. He does a fine job as an adult with high-functioning Asperger’s whose alienated character is brilliant with numbers while morally ambiguous. The first three-quarters of the movie had me in its spell, dealing as it did with Christian’s chilling childhood training by his career-military father, the adult Christian’s cooking the books for various underworld clients, his brief and hopeless connection to an interesting woman (the wonderful Anna Kendrick) and the government’s simultaneous search to find out who and where he is. Overly violent films turn me off, and this one teetered on the edge a few times, but the story required it… until the last 20 minutes of the two-hour-plus movie, which devolved into a superhero cartoon-like killing spree and an awkward “surprise” ending that I could see coming a mile away. Standout performances are by Jon Bernthal as a one-call-kills-all executioner for hire and J. K. Simmons as a government investigator on the verge of retirement.
Next week begins the flood of new films deemed Oscar-worthy by their producers. I can’t wait.