PieceofMine

A great, understated film, natural in every way: in its writing, its acting, its lighting, its camerawork. An organic family drama that flows loosely from one anecdotal stop to the next, perhaps what is Ilo Ilo's best quality is how each small drama feels both incredibly detailed and specific but also broadly relatable as well. Small gestures and glances inform this coming-of-age story with rich nuance; while the friendship between nanny Terry and 10-year old Jianle takes center stage, elements of class struggle, cultural differences, the secrets between husbands and wives, religion, are all espoused in extraordinarily fair ways. There are no villains here, only downtrodden, frustrated individuals, all deserving, all engendering our sympathy.

Writer-director Destin Cretton's Short Term 12 is a marvel, an intimate look into the life of a young woman named Grace, a mature, resourceful, and damaged caretaker at a juvenile housing facility. From first shot to last, the film is stunning; it is emotionally vast, beautifully and intimately shot, and an incredibly acted success. Short Term 12's subject matter lends itself to immediacy, and so the film presents its characters in stride, building up Grace, her paramour co-worker, ally, and confidant Mason, and the teenagers in their care with small, detailed brushstrokes for example, we learn who Mason is primarily through his natural storytelling ability as he introduces the facility to a new staff member; with anger-brimming older boy Marcus, it's a profound but not unbelievably polished rap session. These moments are expository without ever feeling forced or out of place; Cretton's mantra seems to favor an almost voyeuristic naturalism above all else. There are a few scant moments where the writing takes a turn for the more forced, especially when the script plays for laughs and the jokes stand out from the rest of the dialogue because they are so obviously structured for punchlines. These are easily forgiven, however, as the film quickly slips into its deeply sympathetic stages, teasing out the wracking pain and broken pasts buried within these kids, who quickly demonstrate that they're far more than the band of colorful misfits they initially present as. The aforementioned Marcus as the facility's veteran resident and a newcomer, Jayden, whose attitude and scarred over past most closely resemble Grace, play the primary fulcrums for Mason and Grace to pivot around. Instead of one great urgency that drives the narrative forward, there is a looser, short-story style that weaves its way through the film, thus adhering to its dropped-in, naturalistic feel. The conflicts these kids (and other adults!) introduce and the sympathies they engender are utilized as ways to explore, primarily, Grace's own frustrations, weaknesses, aspirations, and pain. Grace is the all-encompassing center stage here, and at its core, the film is very introspective, an elegant psychological portrait that strikes a near-perfect balance between what it shows and what it leaves for the viewer to surmise. So, of course, we must talk about Brie Larson's superlative, sumptuous performance as Grace. This is as close of an embodiment of the now mythical strong female character as you're likely to see all year. She's immediately admirable and likable it's clear that she cares for these children and operates with a generous compassion and patience, but her balancing flaws are what make her truly stand out. Instead of a few individual negative traits (like the general impishness that infects every manic pixie dream girl derivative, or, say, emotional volatility because, you know, women are crazy), her demons form an almost terrifying certainly tragically cohesive whole. She's constantly receding from some past open wound, and it makes her at times prideful, stubborn, defiant, pitiful, and difficult. Her past and her person come together to form a character that understands how to fight through pain, and demonstrates courage through her resilience and fire, but is never quite sanctified and all the more laudably grounded for it. Though in broad strokes it is a rich and comprehensive and powerful portrayal, there are a few **** moments where the direction does seem to recede into comfortable cliche do we ever need another shot of a character looking vacant and troubled in the shower? Still, a few of these are easily forgiven, and the larger picture painted is still breathtaking. This centerpiece that is Grace owes equal dues to Cretton's heartfelt script and Larson's performance, the latter of which runs the gamut between optimistically aloof, passionate, distant, angry, and, when earned, triumphant, and she leaves nothing on the table. Larson would stick out like a sore thumb, however, if her supporting cast didn't all rise to the challenge to extend the tapestry of her character into a fully realized world populated with all sorts of interesting. As Mason, John Gallager Jr. gives a far less showy but quietly stellar performance as Grace's partner in all things; if I had to nitpick, there are moments where he suffers from Gary Stu syndrome, but he has enough to do to quickly rise up as a formidably substantial character on his own. When Grace runs into adversaries, instead of being heartless bureaucratic hardasses like the DMV caricatures administrative types are usually presented as, they offer counter-arguments that are both logical and passionate, and Grace is far from always right. But we continue to root for her in tremendous ways, because she seems so knowable, because she's heartwrenchingly thorough, because this story, in spite of its sometimes angsty trappings, comes across as so personal and real.

Before Midnight is, of course, the third (and not necessarily final) film in Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke, and Julie Delpy's winsome, organic, intimate series that follows the stories of lovers Jesse and Celine. The film picks up nine years after the ambiguous ending of Before Sunset and well, you're not interested in the plot. Jesse and Celine are together, of course, because how could the film exist otherwise? And what, really, can I say? Was there any doubt that I would gush about this film before I even set eyes on its beautiful opening shot: a throwaway close-up of Ethan Hawke's Jesse and his son, Hank's, shoes? Call me a biased reviewer. Maybe I'm doing it wrong by allowing this film to be the third act of a singular, indivisible story. The truth is, it was going to take a disaster of tremendous proportions for me to not love this film. I can say with absolute certainty that such was not the case. As far as judgment rendered goes, there's a pretty simple rubric. Have you seen the first two films? If not, go see them now. There is absolutely zero reason to watch Midnight out of context, even if it does stand strong as an independent entity. Now, did you love the first two films? If not, you should probably kill yourself with robotic haste, so bleak is the world you must inhabit. If you've seen both Sunrise and Sunset and are still breathing, you will see this film. You will almost assuredly love it. Few things in the world are so simple and so certain. Instead, I'll waste everyone's time by drawing some fairly moot and humble and utterly small comparisons between the three films. Sunrise is the most unapologetically romantic film of the series, as is to be expected. Midnight ranks a close second, however, due to a level of passion and tenacity that was understated in Sunset. Where Sunrise basks in the warm afterglow of the fading day and the comfortable fabric of young love, and where Sunset is more about two individuals coming to terms with their own lives in relation to each other, Midnight is about the sundering chaos of a binary star system, two supergiants pulling and pushing on each other, bound in an endless dance of growth, destruction, and renewal. Midnight is by far the most intense of the three films; Sunrise is warm, Sunset is cool, and Midnight spans the daring gamut from lukewarm comfort into a nuclear firestorm. Sunrise is all about possibility, where these two people might ever go. Sunset is about evaluation, the strange and complicated states they're suspended in. Midnight is about both the past and the future, looking to both with remorse and hopefulness, and not with the intellectual and emotional curiosity of Sunset but with pinned resignation and patience and pity and an entirely different kind of hope. Before Midnight is a powerful film. In comparison (and by no means diminishing the potency of the other two films),Sunrise is a carefree frolic through the grass, Sunset is a careful dance of courtship between two experienced partners, and Midnight is a bare knuckle brawl of devastating emotional honesty that is only possible between two people who have known each other for so many years and therefore possess the arsenal to really hurt both their partners and themselves. It is the biggest film of the three in scope; it introduces what may almost amount to a supporting cast, and in the first act, I almost feared that the focus of the film had unraveled a bit. But by the halfway point, we have returned to the relationship at the core of this (so far) trilogy. But it also spans the largest portion of the emotional gamut; it doesn't deal as heavily in the ethereal idealism of the first film or the calculated sophistication of the second, but runs all the bases and spreads further outward and onward, exploring new emotions and histories and anything else that's ripe for the picking. Midnight is also the funniest of the three; with cruelty there is the merciful counterbalance of humor, made all the more wry and sharper by the irony and acridity that surrounds it. There is little else to say about what Midnight accomplishes without ruining the film. This is by far the most plot-dependent of the three films (though still not very), and there are emotional surprises to be had along the way. It is the most beautiful of the three films, especially in its opening act, and especially in a scene filmed at a group dinner that uses light so expertly and beautifully that it is numbing in its sheer visual skill. It is also the messiest of the films. Sunset remains the closest of the three to perfection. Sunrise had some of the unsteady hand of a young auteur, but Midnight sometimes strays by way of its own ambition, a quality that the first two, especially Sunrise were too cool to have. It lacks the almost calculated efficiency of Sunset but is a more daring film, one that renews my love of these two souls, one that has me counting the days until we may revisit their lives again