MOVIE REVIEW: The Turning

Posted on by Caless Davis.

Rating: PG-13 / Running Time: 1 hour and 34 minutes

“The Turning” is a film that leaves much to the imagination in its confusing and jumbled mess of a horror adaptation. Based on the novel “The Turn of the Screw” by Henry James, we follow a woman named Kate (Mackenzie Davis) who gets a job watching over a couple of children who lost their parents to a tragic car accident. As she becomes comfortable with her new live-in arrangements, she starts to notice something is off with these two kids and the gigantic mansion they reside in. Strange noises, frightening nightmares, and visions of a ghastly looking ghost put her mind and body into panic mode. Once she hears stories of the mysterious deaths that have befallen previous employers of the estate, she immediately fears that her life is in grave danger and that these kids are not so innocent after all.

Brooklynn Prince is such a gem in this film with her boundless energy and cute sassiness she brings to her character. She is turning into a young prodigy to watch over the next five to ten years. Finn Wolfhard displays the angst and darkness that subsides underneath the exterior weird vibe of this haunted setting. He and Prince represent the only shining hallmarks of the film. The character of Kate suffers from a lack of layers that would have helped the audience connect to her intense plight. There is nothing to really point out who she is as a character except that her dad died and her mother currently stays in a mental institution; none of this backstory allows an insight into her wants, needs, or desires which makes her story all the more unfulfilling. Ultimately, the cast is talented but gets the short end of the stick due to an abomination of a screenplay setting the blueprint.

If a story is structured well, it starts the viewer off with a general premise that is easy to follow while traveling through a series of events that will be capped off with a climax. This film decides to do it the hard way and produce a narrative that lacks consistency and relies cheap scare tactics and a confusing ending. Just when I thought I was seeing another generic haunted house film, the last 20 minutes stray far away from the original premise and result in a non-ending without resolution. We don’t get answers to questions such as: Are the kids operating under the control of spirits, is the main character going crazy, or is another entity responsible for the prevalence of terror surrounding the property? It is like a person starts to drink a glass of water that tastes like water until the last couple of gulps start to taste like vodka. A poor attempt at an ambiguous ending plays off like the writers of the film had written themselves into a corner and could not find the way out. This adaption of the novel got ahead of itself trying to put on a modern twist while lacking an ambitious vision. There is no jolt of excitement present in the moments that are supposed to live up to the horror name, every “scary” scene is nothing more than ghosts appearing out of nowhere or characters responding to strange noises all around the house. The film’s direction and editing are a step below average, as well, characterized by stuck in the mud pacing and no style to separate itself from any other run of the mill “haunting” film.

I caught the vibe of “The Conjuring” when the trailer of this film debuted and sure enough, I spotted out the familiar played-out tropes those films have used ad nauseam. No good times are to be had with this film and now it finds itself fading into the populated graveyard of mediocre January films. “The Turning” doesn’t know what it wants to accomplish as a horror experience and then expects the audience to put all the pieces together.

Caless Davis is a Seattle-based film critic and contributor to the Feelin’ Film Podcast. He loves any discussion of film and meeting new people to engage in film discussions on any subject. You can follow him on Twitter and Instagram.

You Should Be Watching: October 25 – November 1

Posted on by Jacob Neff.

Back after a brief hiatus, welcome to You Should Be Watching, my weekly opportunity to introduce you to a variety of great films, gems of the past and present, available for you to stream from Netflix, Amazon Prime, FilmStruck, and anywhere else streams are found.

STREAMING PICKS OF THE WEEK

The Florida Project

Year: 2017

Director: Sean Baker

Genre: Drama

Cast: Brooklynn Prince, Bria Vinaite, Willem Dafoe, Valeria Cotto, Christopher Rivera, Mela Murder, Caleb Landry Jones, Aiden Malik, Macon Blair, Sabina Friedman-Seitz, Karren Karagulian, Sandy Kane, Carl Bradfield, Gary B. Gross, Sonya McCarter, Josie Olivo, Rosa Medina, Perez Jasineia, Ramos Kit 

Sean Baker’s spotlight on the world of the hidden homeless, filled with shockingly authentic performances and focused specifically on the children, is conflicting to experience. It’s the joy and wonder of kids being happy-go-lucky and saying the darndest things despite being surrounded by poverty, but they’re kids who are also often heavily influenced by crass and insensitive parents who are not necessarily the best of role models, so you’ll also hear them spouting obscenities towards others that show extreme disrespect. Of course, they’re just mimicking, they rarely have ill will toward anyone.

It’s easy to be angry at the parents in this film, specifically Halley (Bria Vinaite), for her unethical behavior and horrible influence on her daughter Moonee (Brooklynn Prince). But you also can’t help but feel sad for her desperate condition and whatever history she’s had that led to her being in it. Willem Dafoe’s tremendously understated performance as the compassionate, good guy hotel manager is the emotional bridge we need to connect with these people. He’s a responsible manager, but he also cares about these people under his care.

That’s the power of this film. It’s a window into a fragile, vulnerable people who have fallen through the cracks of society. It’s an appreciation that children are resilient and can find and bring joy to hopeless circumstances. And despite law and order needing to be kept, it’s a plea for compassion over condemnation.

The Impossible


FREE WITH ADS

Year: 2012

Director: J. A. Bayona

Genre: Drama, History, Thriller

Cast: Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor, Tom Holland, Samuel Joslin, Oaklee Pendergast, Marta Etura, Sönke Möhring, Geraldine Chaplin, Ploy Jindachote, Jomjaoi Sae-Limh, Johan Sundberg, Jan Roland Sundberg, La-Orng Thongruang, Tor Klathaley, Douglas Johansson, John Albasiny, Gitte Witt

This is ostensibly a typhoon disaster movie, but unlike the majority of films in that genre, this is based on a true story. And as such, director J. A. Bayona’s intention seems to be to strip away any element of fun from the watching and replace it with overwhelming shock and horror and ultimately compassion as the family we’ve just started to get to know with Ewan McGregor playing the father and Naomi Watts the mother are brutally battered and separated from one another by the rushing waters and debris.

Watching this film, you feel every bit of misery the characters carry. There’s the physical misery as in the case of the wife and mother Maria, who is constantly in danger of losing her leg or worse. There’s also the emotional anguish of her son Lucas. Played by a supremely talented young Tom Holland (Spider-Man: Homecoming), he carries the film and is its emotional center. As far as Lucas knows, his father and brother died in the typhoon, so he’s out of his mind desperate not to lose his mother too. In the midst of horror, it’s beautiful to watch him learn to take that compassion and desire and turn it outwards to try to help all the other people desperate to find their loved ones.

Certified Copy

  

Year: 2010

Director: Abbas Kiarostami

Genre: Drama, Romance

Cast: Juliette Binoche, William Shimell, Jean-Claude Carrière, Agathe Natanson, Gianna Giachetti, Adrian Moore, Angelo Barbagallo, Andrea Laurenzi, Filippo Trojano, Manuela Balsinelli

Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami has an uncanny ability to weave of reality and fiction together and to challenge the viewer’s understanding of both. Watching this film feels like cinematic sleight of hand. On the surface, Certified Copy feels like an alternative version of Richard Linklater’s Before Trilogy, but while the latter is content to present an imitation of reality, the former thrives on manipulating our very perception of it.

English author James Miller (William Shimell) is in Tuscany touring his new book, also titled Certified Copy. While there, he encounters French antiques dealer Elle (Juliette Binoche) and they end up spending an afternoon together driving through the surrounding countryside and walking through the villages, finding themselves having deep philosophical conversations that force them to come face to face with the emotional baggage they’ve long been carrying. The deeper they go, the more they connect, the more they argue, the more intimate they become with their thoughts and feelings and emotions, the more reality becomes blurred as to what their relationship actually is to one another.

Kiarostami’s direction is brilliant, making full use of his environment, angles, props, and amazing production design to enhance the emotional beats and themes. Shimell gives a strong performance, but he is mostly stoic throughout. Binoche, on the other hand, covers a wide range of emotions, and she doesn’t hesitate to act flustered, hopeful, angry, coy, or passionate as her character is at a particularly volatile and vulnerable time in her life.

COMING AND GOING

LAST CHANCE (last date to watch)

NETFLIX

October 27
Bridget Jones’s Baby (2016)

October 31
The African Queen (1951)
Amélie (2001)
Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008)
Jurassic Park I-III (1993, 1997, 2001)
The Land Before Time (1988)
Oculus (2013)
The Reader (2008)

November 4
A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (2014)

AMAZON PRIME

October 30
The Green Butchers (2003)
Leaving Las Vegas (1995)
Mad Max (1979)
Thief (1981)

October 31
Barfly (1987)
Bull Durham (1988)
Children of Men (2006)
Eight Men Out (1988)
The Elephant Man (1980)
Fearless (2006)
Full Metal Jacket (1987)
Ghostbusters I & II (1984, 1989)
High Noon (1952)
Jacob’s Ladder (1990)
Jaws (1975)
The Monster Squad (1987)
Sleepless in Seattle (1993)
Sneakers (1992)
There Will Be Blood (2007)
United 93 (2006)
The Usual Suspects (1995)

FILMSTRUCK

October 26
Barry Lyndon (1975)
Ace in the Hole (1951)
Aguirre: The Wrath of God (1972)
Footlight Parade (1933)
Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)
Guys and Dolls (1955)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Some Like It Hot (1959)
Stalag 17 (1953)
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
Sunset Boulevard (1950)
Tabu (2012)
What’s Up, Doc? (1972)
Witness for the Prosecution (1957)

October 31
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

November 2
Alphaville (1965)
Army of Shadows (1969)
Bob le Flambeur (1956)
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
Le Trou (1960)
Libeled Lady (1936)

November 9
The Big Sleep (1946)
Dark Passage (1947)
Dogville (2003)
Petulia (1968)
To Have and Have Not (1944)

November 16
The Asphalt Jungle (1950)
Let There Be Light (1946)
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)

HULU

October 31
13 Going on 30 (2004)
28 Weeks Later (2007)
Babe (1995)
Barfly (1987)
Bull Durham (1988)
Eight Men Out (1988)
The Elephant Man (1980)
High Noon (1952)
Jackie Brown (1997)
Point Break (1991)
Rabbit Hole (2010)
Rescue Dawn (2006)
The Rock (1996)
Sixteen Candles (1984)
Sleepers (1996)
Spaceballs (1987)
There Will Be Blood (2007)
This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
Unbreakable (2000)
Witness (1985)

JUST ARRIVED

NETFLIX

God Knows Where I Am (2016)
The Night Comes for Us (2018)

AMAZON PRIME

12 Angry Men (1957)
Bend It Like Beckham (2002)
The Big Country (1958)
A Bridge Too Far (1977)
Devil (2010)
Donnie Darko (2001)
A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
Man from Reno (2015)
The Proposition (2005)
A Street Cat Named Bob (2016)

FILMSTRUCK

The Americanization of Emily (1964)
Billy Budd (1962)
The Candidate (1972)
The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)
Dial M for Murder (1954)
Dracula (1958)
I Walked with a Zombie (1943)

HULU

Burn (2012)
Ever After (1998)
Ghost Stories (2017)
Janis: Little Girl Blue (2015)

Jacob Neff is a film enthusiast living east of Sacramento. In addition to his contributions as an admin of the Feelin’ Film Facebook group and website, he is an active participant in the Letterboxd community, where his film reviews can be found. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter to keep up with his latest thoughts and shared content.

MOVIE REVIEW: The Florida Project

Posted on by Aaron White.

The Florida Project (2017)


Going In

Sean Baker first came onto my radar with 2015’s Tangerine, the unique and moving story of a transgender girl searching on Christmas Eve for the pimp who broke her heart. Oh, and it was also shot almost entirely on an iPhone 5s. This made Baker a must-watch director for me. His newest film, The Florida Project,  follows the life of a 6-year girl and her single mother over the course of one summer. Not much more detail than that is known other than the film also stars Willem Dafoe in what critics are calling one of his best performances. The simplicity of its plot and incredible amount of positive critical buzz make this one of the movies I am most excited for this fall.



COMING OUT

Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within the other person’s frame of reference. To use a common metaphor, it is the ability to “walk a mile in someone else’s shoes.” If there is one thing that The Florida Project evokes it is empathy, something our world could do with a hefty dose of right about now.

Sean Baker’s latest is a phenomenal film. Willem Dafoe anchors a cast of unknowns, including leads Brooklynn Prince (Moonee) and first-time actress Bria Vinaite (Halley). Both Prince and Vinaite are a revelation, turning in stunningly powerful performances as a homeless/jobless single parent and her mischievous 6-year old daughter. Set entirely over the course of one summer, this family lives in a run-down motel on the outskirts of the nearby Disney World. Moonee is not just a rebellious child, though, and that is what makes The Florida Project effective. Both she and her mother are both good and bad, living in that gray area that most of us do. Moonee could very well be seen as gifted, as well. She is incredibly creative and self-sufficient for her age, and a natural leader, but those rebellious tendencies that she has learned from her mother are ever-present. Hally, her mother, is also not a one note character. We don’t know exactly how she got into the situation she is in, but how she deals with it is the interesting thing. Her desire to provide for her daughter is never in question, but her methods of doing so definitely are. Watching her progressively poor choices was painful – she is a parent who thinks that she is showing love but doesn’t understand fully what that means. She is in many ways as much a child as Moonee when it comes to raising her daughter.

Willem Dafoe does indeed turn in one of his career best performance as the hotel manager and the only male influence in Moonee’s life. Like most characters in the film, he has the best of intentions but leads us to question whether the choices he makes truly what’s best for Moonee and her mom. Dafoe’s character could even be seen as a surrogate for the viewer, a man who is not in the same situation but on the fringe, trying to figure out how to interact and support without overstepping his bounds.  This is a movie about adventure, friendship, and innocence lost. The story is powerful from start to finish and it all leads up to an intense ending sequence that I haven’t been able to shake for weeks.

Verdict

The Florida Project wowed me in a way that few films have in 2017. I resonated deeply with its primary theme of empathy. As a parent myself, watching it was sometimes difficult but always worthwhile. With any luck, many will see this poignant film and begin to look a little more closely (and with more compassion) at those outside the margins as they go about their everyday lives. The Florida Project is unforgettable – a definite must see.

Rating:

Aaron White is a Seattle-based film critic and co-creator/co-host of the Feelin’ Film Podcast. He is also a member of the Seattle Film Critics Society. He writes reviews with a focus on how his expectations influenced his experience. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter to be notified when new content is posted.