Half Nelson
While this summer won’t go into the books as anything above average, intriguing films are still around, gaining word-of-mouth acclaim. Half Nelson, produced by Jamie Patricof and directed by Ryan Fleck (in association with Anna Boden), won the Critic’s Choice Award at the Sundance Film Festival, and is currently playing at Sag Harbor Theater. The flick features rising star Ryan Gosling as a troubled Brooklyn junior high school history teacher. His is a troubled soul. By day he influences young minds. But by night he has a worsening drug problem.
Shareeka Epps gives a sensitive portrayal as one of his students who catches him getting high. But this is the catalyst to an evolving relationship of mutual self-discovery. Rounding out the fine supporting cast is Anthony Mackie, as the student’s older brother, who’s suspicious of her friendship with her dysfunctional teacher. The nearly inescapable wrestling hold that is the title is a perfect metaphor for this compelling movie about a young man caught in a vice, at the most perilous crossroad of his life.
Sherrybaby
With her title performance in this edgy indie, Maggie Gyllenhaal solidifies herself as an A-list star, capable of the most demanding roles. Coming off the bland Trust the Man, she plays a hard-luck parolee trying to stay clean and regain custody of her daughter. The little girl has been living with Sherry’s brother and his wife, and each day pushes her farther away from her memory of her mother.
Sherrybaby (written and directed by Laurie Collyer) explores the underside of society. Sherry has endured sexual and physical abuse, an unwed motherhood, and prison, and now faces a bleak future. She refuses a job in a factory, which sends her back to prison. Respected character actor Giancarlo Esposito gives a new dimension to the conventional role of the skeptical, impatient parole officer filled with doubts about her ability to return to society. But he relents and gives her the job she craves, working with preschoolers in day care.
Brad Henke and Bridget Barkan give stark performances as her daughter’s guardians, and the drama increases as they realize that Sherry will probably never make a fit mother. The long pauses in the dialogue give the look of a documentary. Filmed in just 25 days in New Jersey, the world Sherry inhabits is unforgiving. Gyllenhaal, whose credits include the quirky Secretary and the powerful World Trade Center, shows an astonishing range and an understanding of her character—the type of role Charleze Theron often plays. Hers is a day-to-day, sometimes hour-by-hour existence.
As with Half Nelson, there’s another member of the supporting cast who propels Sherrybaby past the ordinary: Danny Trejo. This real-life former inmate of San Quentin, so good in Con Air, portrays a drug counselor whose relationship with the troubled but determined woman is key to her conquering her inner demons. The brutally frank Sherrybaby is sometimes difficult to take, and it provides a tour-de-force for Maggie Gyllenhaal.
Idlewild
No, this is not a movie about the old airport now known as JFK. It’s set in a small Georgia town by that name during the Depression, where the only diversion in town is a raunchy speakeasy masquerading as a church. Behind its closed doors is the hottest night-club for miles around, with illegal hooch, loose women, gangsters, and danger every night. The movie depicts the lifetime friendship between a brash young gambler, played by Antwan A. Patton, and André Benjamin. Benjamin’s character works in his father’s mortuary by day, but by night he tickles the ivories and composes music at the nightclub.
If those names sound familiar, you’re probably a young fan of OutKast, the rap group in which they perform as Big Boi and Andre 3000, respectively. Their acting styles are simple and direct, and since this is a movie that gets better as it moves along, they need only move with the flow of events and let their characters develop naturally—which they do. This is a tableau of African-American life in the Depression-era South. To be sure, it’s highly stylized; we never see much of the poverty that colors that terrible time. Instead, it’s a movie about a trigger-happy gangster, Terrence Howard, at first working for the local crime boss, Ving Rhames. Events unfold quickly, and this soon becomes a fast-moving story of a rising singer, superbly played by Paula Patton, her adoring pianist, and their dreams of a better life. Some special effects were superfluous. Nevertheless, Idelwild, with cameos by Ben Vereen and Cicely Tyson, is sassy and brash.
Surviving Eden
This moderately funny movie spoofs reality shows and their dysfunctional contestants. “They’re bad for you,” says the co-producer of Surviving Eden, the Survivor-like show, well played by Best in Show’s Jane Lynch. “It scratches the itch but leads to stupidity.” Oh, do they ever scratch the itch! Michael Panes portrays the nerdy winner, who quickly loses half his body weight, takes on the appearance of Peter Sellers, and treats everyone around him like dirt. Until his money runs out.
Saturday Night Live alumnus Cheri Oteri plays a runner-up, a canine euthanasia worker who tries to dominate the winner’s newfound wealth. Savannah Haske plays another contestant who is a soon-to-be former nun.
The jokes are mildly amusing, and the premise begins to wear thin, but then the story kicks into gear, leaving the impression that it’s as quick as the notoriety of contestants on such frivolous TV programs. “Fame is fleeting,” said George C. Scott as the great general at the end of Patton. Ironically, those words appear at the beginning of Surviving Eden, and they are just as apropos.
Jeffrey Lyons has been a film critic since 1970 and has reviewed nearly 15,000 movies and 3,000 plays. The son of Broadway columnist Leonard Lyons, whose “The Lyons Den” was the most respected column of its day (1934-1974), he is the critic at WNBC-TV, and is seen on 200 NBC stations. His “Lyons Den” radio reports are heard on more than 100 stations nationwide.
