Netherlands Archives - Page 2 of 3

Stardust (2007) + Interview (2007)

August 14, 20072000s, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Canada, Drama, Family, Fantasy, Netherlands, Robert De Niro, Romance, Theatrical, UK

STARDUST
***½/****
starring Claire Danes, Charlie Cox, Sienna Miller, Robert De Niro
screenplay by Jane Goldman & Matthew Vaughn, based on the novel by Neil Gaiman
directed by Matthew Vaughn

INTERVIEW
*/****
starring Sienna Miller, Steve Buscemi
screenplay by David Schecter and Steve Buscemi, based on the film by Theo Van Gogh
directed by Steve Buscemi

by Walter Chaw I do wonder about films that don't seem to be about anything, but I'll say this at the outset: Matthew Vaughn's Stardust, based on a book by Neil Gaiman, isn't about anything at all–and it's wonderful. Far from empty-headed, though, Stardust is a deeply meaningful series of sweet-nothings, wholly apolitical even in a macho supporting character revealed as a cross-dresser and hair stylist; and by its end, it wins not in spite of being so exuberant in its indulgence of flamboyant clichés, but because it is. It's so much better than the trailers and Gaiman's track record as a novelist (his métier is decidedly rooted in the comics) would lead you to believe, while the inevitable comparisons to The Princess Bride are misleading because The Princess Bride is a piece of shit. A beloved piece of shit, but a piece of shit just the same. On the contrary, Stardust is extremely well-made despite an opening half-hour that boasts of a few too many long establishing shots, directed with real snap by Guy Ritchie's former producer Matthew Vaughn (who did the same with Layer Cake) and executed by a stellar cast that includes a literally incandescent Claire Danes as a fallen star named Yvaine and Michelle Pfeiffer as a hideous bitch goddess, which, given that Stardust follows on the heels of Hairspray, appears to be the vehicle of her late-career comeback. More difficult to embrace is Robert De Niro as the film's Dread Pirate Roberts, a fencing mentor who happens, in this incarnation, to be a ballroom-dancing guru as well. The instinct is to recoil, but damned if it isn't the first De Niro performance in his self-parodic period that's both spot-on in its auto-satire and funny to boot.

TIFF ’06: Black Book

September 25, 20062000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Belgium, Drama, Espionage, Film Festivals, Germany, Netherlands, Thriller, TIFF, UK, War

Zwartboek**/****starring Carice van Houten, Sebastian Koch, Thom Hoffman, Halina Reijnscreenplay by Gerard Soeteman & Paul Verhoevendirected by Paul Verhoeven by Bill Chambers The word on Paul Verhoeven's Black Book (Zwartboek) around the TIFF was that it's "Showgirls meets Schindler's List," which is a cute bit of shorthand but decidedly misleading, not that I can begin to imagine what that movie would be like. All it really means is that we're never going to let Verhoeven live Showgirls down, so who can blame him for going back to Holland, where he's still an object of veneration? Alas, you can take Verhoeven…

Lifespan (1976) [Uncut Special Edition] – DVD

July 6, 20061970s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Belgium, Drama, DVD, Esoterica, Mystery, Netherlands, Sci-Fi, Thriller, UK

*½/**** Image B Sound B Extras C-
starring Klaus Kinski, Hiram Keller, Tina Aumont, Fons Rademakers
screenplay by Judith Rascoe, Alva Ruben, Alexander Whitelaw
directed by Alexander Whitelaw

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Lifespan appears to be comprised of inserts from somebody else's movie. It huffs and puffs in expositional voiceover largely because it hasn't written any self-evident drama–we see loving shots of scenic Amsterdam and a lot of people walking in/out/through buildings, but nothing that might actually clue us into what the hell is going on. You could (as the special features on the film's DVD release do) insist that this is a Last Year at Marienbad-esque ploy, since there are other elements to support that thesis. Alas, Alexander Whitelaw is no Alain Resnais, and his rudimentary exploration of the meaning of eternal life sounds most like a biology student on the make. Aside from a bit of gratuitous skin, there's almost nothing to watch–but all sorts of terrible, pretentious things you never need to hear.

The War Within (2005) + Paradise Now (2005)

November 4, 20052000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Crime, Drama, France, Germany, Israel, Netherlands, Palestine, Theatrical, Thriller, War

THE WAR WITHIN
**/****
starring Ayad Akhtar, Firdous Bamji, Nandana Sen, Sarita Choudhury
screenplay by Ayad Akhtar, Joseph Castelo, Tom Glynn
directed by Joseph Castelo

PARADISE NOW
***/****
starring Kais Nashef, Ali Suliman, Lubna Azabal, Amer Hlehel
screenplay by Hany Abu-Assad, Bero Beyer, Pierre Hodgson
directed by Hany Abu-Assad

by Walter Chaw Two films, one by New Jersey filmmaker Joseph Castelo, the other by Palestinian lenser Hany Abu-Assad, begin to make inroads into what is perhaps the most inscrutable phenomenon of the so-called War on Terror: suicide bombing. They’re important films, I think, mostly because suicide bombers, like the Japanese Kamikaze pilots of WWII, make it easier to generalize and dehumanize/demonize the enemy as faceless zealots. Every manned car-bomb, every explosives-strapped martyr, creates ideological schisms on either side–more so and deeper, I’d offer, than conventional missiles or rifle shells do, because here we’re striking at the very heart of the way we perceive life and the afterlife: holiness and sin, valour and cowardice. If there’s ever to be some sort of olive branch in this millennia-old conflict, it has to start with an agreement not only to recognize the humanity beneath the atrocities committed by both sides in the name of defending home and hearth, but also to admit that centuries-old texts about the supernatural are piss-poor signposts pointing the light of right reason.

Heights (2005); Mysterious Skin (2005); It’s All Gone Pete Tong (2005)

June 22, 20052000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Biopic, Canada, Comedy, Coming of Age, Drama, Music, Netherlands, Romance, Theatrical, UK

HEIGHTS
**½/****
starring Glenn Close, Elizabeth Banks, Jesse Bradford, James Marsden
screenplay by Amy Fox, based on her play
directed by Chris Terrio

MYSTERIOUS SKIN
*½/****
starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Brady Corbet, Elisabeth Shue, Michelle Trachtenberg
screenplay by Gregg Araki, based on the novel by Scott Heim
directed by Gregg Araki

IT’S ALL GONE, PETE TONG
**½/****
starring Paul Kaye, Beatriz Batarda, Kate Magowan, Mike Wilmot
written and directed by Michael Dowse

by Walter Chaw Obsessed with doors and passages, façades and captured images, Chris Terrio’s Heights takes on the dour, dark, and twisted interpersonal machinations of The Scottish Play its diva Diana (Glenn Close) rehearses for some of the 24-hour period covered therein. Heights is a sexual film steeped in betrayals and unmaskings at its root, clothed in symbols for discovery and disguise that are almost literary in their uniform complexity. It’s therefore through a cloud of signs that its insular roundelay emerges. Wedding photographer Isabel (Elizabeth Banks), daughter of Diana and fiancée of Jonathan (James Marsden), is fired from her job on the day–on the hour, almost–that a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to cover a foreign war is offered her by an ex-boyfriend. Jonathan, meanwhile, has an ex-boyfriend of his own to suppress as pretty young actor Alec (Jesse Bradford) catches Diana’s eye in the hours before she discovers her husband is honouring their open marriage with her understudy. Questions of female sexual jealousy abound, hand in hand with the ruthless barbs of ambition (the price of success weighed against the cost of failure), tied into a messy bow by big ugly truths and the inescapability of our pasts.

Mindhunters (2005)

May 17, 20052000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Crime, Finland, Horror, Mystery, Netherlands, Theatrical, Thriller, UK

*/****
starring LL Cool J, Jonny Lee Miller, Kathryn Morris, Val Kilmer
screenplay by Wayne Kramer and Kevin Brodbin
directed by Renny Harlin

by Walter Chaw Based ever so loosely on Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, Renny Harlin’s latest disasterpiece finds the Finnish fool at the helm of a slasher-cum-“CSI” episode, oiled-up and ready to apply a dangerous level of nihilism in the pursuit of cheap thrills and bad splatter effects. In Mindhunters, a few of the FBI’s finest criminal profilers-in-training congregate for one last test under the Al-Pacino-in-The Recruit tutelage of crackpot Harris (Val Kilmer) at a remote military facility that’s home to a phantom cinema where The Third Man plays on an eternal loop.

Alexander (2004)

November 24, 20042000s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Biopic, Drama, France, Germany, Italy, Morocco, Netherlands, Romance, Thailand, Theatrical, UK

*/****
starring Colin Farrell, Angelina Jolie, Val Kilmer, Jared Leto
screenplay by Oliver Stone and Christopher Kyle and Laeta Kalogridis
directed by Oliver Stone

by Walter Chaw SPOILER WARNING IN EFFECT. Oliver Stone's Alexander is packed tight to the girders with catchphrases like "By the sweet breath of Aphrodite" and "By Apollo's eye" and "By Dionysus yours is the very soul of Prometheus!" It's stuffed to the gills with sword-and-sandal histrionics and props that become kitsch artifacts the instant they're rolled out for display in this awards season's gaudiest rummage sale. If it's not going to set anybody's codpiece on fire, Alexander at least lays claim to being one of the funniest movies of the year. It would have worn the title Oliver! more comfortably, opening as it does with Virgil's "fortune favours the bold" and ending, after a ridiculously long time, with the not-stunning revelation that what Stone has done is imagine the travails of a fourth-century B.C. Macedonian king as his very own. Conspiracies abound, popularity in the court of public opinion fades, bottomless campaign budgets are squandered in faraway lands for mysterious personal reasons, Oedipus rears his travel-worn head, and gay subtext begins to feel a little homophobic because it's subtext. Rosario Dawson in all her animalized glory? No problem. Colin Farrell giving Jared Leto a little peck on the cheek? Not in this house, buddy.

Festival Express (2004) [2-Disc Set] – DVD

November 5, 20042000s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Concert Doc, Documentary, DVD, Music, Netherlands, UK

***/**** Image A- Sound A (DD)/A+ (DTS) Extras B
directed by Bob Smeaton

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover JULY 30, 2004. We are so inundated with directives to be entertained that we've lost track of those few entertainments that don't smack us hard in the face with their laboured irrelevance. Simple, innocent pleasures have been replaced by exercises in industrial power that make you feel guilty for looking anywhere beyond them or for anything milder than their artificial amplifications. Surrounded as I find myself by these faceless giants (i.e., virtually every studio film released this summer), I find I am thankful for anything that features some fine music, a few good stories, and a wistful memory of a more innocent time before the entertainment industry was totally corrupted–something like the rock documentary Festival Express. If the film boasts of no miracles, neither does it have any pretenses of miracle-making. It asserts the pleasures of pleasure-making instead of the crushing weight of its force.

Father & Son (2003) – DVD

November 3, 20042000s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Drama, DVD, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Russia

Father and Son
Otets i syn
**/**** Image C+ Sound B+
starring Andrev Shchetinin, Aleksey Neymyshev
screenplay by Sergey Potepalov
directed by Alexander Sokurov

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover After Alexander Sokurov's Russian Ark, I was ready to accept almost anything Sokurov did–a TV movie, some Wheaties ads, those trivia slides before the show starts, anything. Surely in the wake of the dense, virtuoso track of that earlier film, I could expect more philosophical fireworks, more challenging juxtapositions, more dazzling movements. Alas, it was not in the cards: Sokurov's follow-up Father & Son turns out to be the same old homosocial militarism familiar to a million lesser talents, tarted up with elite finery. (Think Top Gun with Tchaikovsky instead of Kenny Loggins.) Though the controversy surrounding its alleged homoeroticism is a red herring inasmuch as it fails to consider other sources (the film is about the mortal flesh of religious painting, not the pornographic bodies of pop), it's all in the service of the ain't-boys-grand, I-love-a-man-in-uniform vagueness that might be profundity but also suggests Tony Scott with a haircut and a new suit.

Love Me If You Dare (2003) + Valentin (2002)

June 10, 20042000s, Argentina, Authors: Walter Chaw, Belgium, Comedy, Drama, France, Italy, Netherlands, Romance, Spain, ZERO STARS

Jeux d'enfants
ZERO STARS/****
starring Guillaume Canet, Marion Cotillard, Thibault Verhaeghe, Joséphine Lebas-Joly
screenplay by Jacky Cukier & Yann Samuell
directed by Yann Samuell

VALENTIN
**/****
starring Julieta Cardinali, Carmen Maura, Jean Pierre Noher, Mex Urtizberea
written and directed by Alejandro Agresti

by Walter Chaw Former animator Yann Samuell's Love Me If You Dare (Jeux d'enfants) is painfully, dedicatedly unwatchable. It's vile and perverse in a puerile way that bears no discernable fruit. For a romantic comedy, it's conspicuously lacking in romance and comedy, and for a dark, satirical look at the Hobbesian baseness of human love and nature, it's astonishingly childish. The picture is the equivalent of a little boy eating a worm to impress the little girl he has a crush on: a tireless series of schoolyard transgressions portrayed in the whip-pan jack-in-the-box way of Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Amélie that shares with that film a strong thread of misanthropic mischief, but reveals itself the classless poseur in its constant keening for attention. Love Me If You Dare is so awful that its constant "hip" references to George Lucas films not only somehow make Kevin Smith seem current again, but also suggest of all things a rom-com directed by the clown-prince of Skywalker Ranch himself. There's an idea gnawing in my head that the reason this picture was so popular in France has something to do with a failure to translate the satirical dimensions of a film that succeeds so spectacularly in alienating its audience, yet, like Roberto Benigni's Pinocchio (the Italian version of which Jonathan Rosenbaum proclaimed one of the best films of 2002), whatever's happened in transit has handily transformed any rewarding subtext into a rising din.

Rana’s Wedding (2003) + Osama (2003)

April 8, 20042000s, Afghanistan, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Drama, Netherlands, Palestine, Theatrical, United Arab Emirates

Al Qods Fee Yom Akhar
***½/****
starring Clara Khoury, Khalifa Natour, Ismael Dabbag, Walid Abed Elsalam
screenplay by Liana Badr, Ihab Lamey
directed by Hany Abu-Assad

OSAMA
*½/****
starring Marina Golbahari, Arif Herati, Zubaida Sahar, Gol Rahman Ghorbandi
written and directed by Siddiq Barmak

by Walter Chaw About thirty minutes into Hany Abu-Assad’s Rana’s Wedding (Al Qods Fee Yom Akhar), an old Palestinian man sets a small table down outside his building in Israeli-occupied Jerusalem, places a typewriter on top of it, and watches as Rana (Clara Khoury) is almost shot by an Israeli patrol when her cell phone is briefly mistaken for a revolver. The moment isn’t commented upon, and the next scene finds her wondering, as she’s wondered for the first parts of the film, where her true love is on this, the day that her father demands that she marry one of the suitors he’s approved for her or leave for Egypt to continue her schooling. The deadline sends Rana careening across the country in an increasingly complex quest to assemble the right people together to allow her to marry the man that she loves–the one who “understands me, and puts up with me when I’m angry.” The line is funny as the sentiment is familiar–it’s a grace note in a picture that somehow cloaks its ferocity in a sheath of gentility. Make no mistake that not commenting on the Israeli/Palestinian situation is not the same as avoiding the Israeli/Palestinian situation; as political films go, Rana’s Wedding is high among the films finding release in election year 2004 (Osama, The Fog of War, Broken Wings).

Metal and Melancholy (1994) + Crazy (1999)

November 14, 20031990s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Documentary, Netherlands, Theatrical

Metaal en melancholie
***½/****
directed by Heddy Honigmann

CRAZY
***½/****
directed by Heddy Honigmann

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Where has Heddy Honigmann been all my life? Hidden amongst the well-intentioned sheep and voyeuristic wolves that usually crowd my stays at the Hot Docs documentary festival is her ferocious intelligence and shattering compassion–which, when combined, results in wrenching, haunting films that stand alone and put most other documentarians to shame. Like no other filmmaker, she shows people caught in the crossfire of forces beyond their control, and like no other filmmaker, she captures the creative ways in which people adapt to the environment created by those forces. Furthermore, there isn't a shred of liberal self-congratulation anywhere to be found–there is no distance from the pain of her subjects, and there is no escaping the surge of confusion at the situations in which they find themselves. Her films are direct, unpretentious, and highly articulate in their evocation of the people and places they describe.

Party Monster (2003)

October 24, 20032000s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Biopic, Crime, Drama, Netherlands, Theatrical, Thriller

***/****
starring Macaulay Culkin, Seth Green, Chloë Sevigny, Natasha Lyonne
screenplay by Fenton Bailey & Randy Barbato, based on the book Disco Bloodbath by James St. James
directed by Fenton Bailey & Randy Barbato

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover By all rights, Party Monster shouldn't work as well as it does. Not only is it flip about matters of grave seriousness (in this case, the murder of a Hispanic drug dealer by Club Kid impresario Michael Alig), but it hasn't got much on its mind beyond the endless debauchery afforded by its subject matter, and consequently gives all other matters the rhinestone-studded shaft. But despite all of this shallowness, the film is surprisingly engrossing; as Alig falls into his downward spiral, it becomes a harrowing reminder that, per the film's much-abused Blake quote, the road of excess can often lead to the path of destruction.

Enigma (2001) [Special Edition] – DVD

September 23, 20032000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, DVD, Espionage, Germany, Mystery, Netherlands, Romance, Thriller, UK, War

**½/**** Image A- Sound A- Extras A-
starring Dougray Scott, Kate Winslet, Jeremy Northam, Saffron Burrows
screenplay by Tom Stoppard, based on the novel by Robert Harris
directed by Michael Apted

by Walter Chaw The easy thing to say is that the Mick Jagger-produced Enigma is enigmatic–it's more difficult to pinpoint the exact reasons why. Stars Dougray Scott, Kate Winslet, and Jeremy Northam are fine, Tom Stoppard's screenplay would on the surface surely seem fine, and Michael Apted's polished, if unremarkable, direction is the very definition of just fine. So the onus must fall on the material adapted, Robert Harris's follow-up to his much-lauded Fatherland, which promised a Ken Follett romantic espionage page-burner while delivering a staid and occasionally incomprehensible period bodice-ripper crushed under the dual gorgons of the sophomore jinx and the Tom Clancy "guess I'm not very good at dialogue" bogey. Enigma's problems begin and end with its inability to overcome the essential faults of its inherited plot, its most interesting aspect–WWII cryptologists at London's Bletchley Park–subsumed by a run-of-the-mill mystery and a never-in-doubt love story. It appears the curse of many historical fictions that attempt to familiarize the "long ago" with a "universal" romantic story arc dooms Enigma's period and historical detail to function as mere decorative flourish.

Tsui Hark’s Vampire Hunters (2003)

June 20, 20032000s, Action, Authors: Walter Chaw, Hong Kong, Horror, Japan, Netherlands, Theatrical, Vampire

The Era of Vampires
*/****
starring Chan Kwok Kwan, Ken Chang, Suet Lam, Michael Chow Man-Kin
screenplay by Tsui Hark
directed by Wellson Chin

by Walter Chaw An incomprehensible bit of garbage produced and written by legendary Hong Kong filmmaker Tsui Hark, Vampire Hunters juggles at least three plots and drops each of them repeatedly and egregiously. Its lore is confused and its heroes are unremarkable but for the unusual degree to which they’re inept and disinteresting. The promise inherent in a chop-socky wuxia opus concerning a quintet of fearless vampire hunters and a cadre of zombies is almost infinite, making the abject failure of the piece something almost awe-inspiring. Though it’s tempting to blame director Wellson Chin’s propensity to stage fight scenes in unrelieved murk, the real culprit of the piece may be a bad guy who looks and moves a lot like a mannequin on a string. William Castle, eat your heart out.

Evelyn (2002) [Special Edition] – DVD

April 2, 20032000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, DVD, Family, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, UK

*/**** Image C+ Sound B- Extras B+
starring Pierce Brosnan, Julianna Margulies, Aidan Quinn, Stephen Rea
screenplay by Paul Pender
directed by Bruce Beresford

by Walter Chaw It seems as though “inspired” in the phrase “inspired by a true story” is the operative word as the 2002 Christmas season presents to us a rotten couplet of films “inspired” by true stories that, in all likelihood, were pretty interesting prior to the whitewashed variety of “inspiration” dished out in most high profile biopics. Headliner Antwone Fisher (a rancid piece of garbage I like to refer to as “Good Antwone Fishing” or “Finding Fisher-er”) gains esteem just by the association of twinkly-eyed Denzel Washington behind the camera (and stentorian Denzel in front), while small foreign film Evelyn will probably gain esteem by dint of its small and foreign status. (Just like its cute-as-a-button titular waif.) Like so many horrible movies of this mongrel breed, however, both Antwone Fisher and Evelyn are so uncompromising in their saccharine manipulations that nurses should stand at theatre entrances, passing out hypodermics of insulin.

DIFF ’02: The Damned

October 22, 20022000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Czech Republic, DIFF/SDFF, Drama, Film Festivals, Netherlands, Thailand

Zatracení**½/****starring Jan Plouhar, Jan Révai, Isabela Bencová, Dana Vávrováwritten and directed by Dan Svátek by Walter Chaw The first drug-themed film to be shot in the Kingdom of Thailand, Czech director Dan Svátek's The Damned is a handheld, vérité version of Return to Paradise (or Brokedown Palace, or Midnight Express) as two Czech nationals find themselves adrift in an island nirvana before being spirited away to a third-world prison. A handful of gritty, genuinely affecting Blair Witch moments, aided immeasurably by a gorgeously vigorous performance from Czech star Jan Révai, lend the picture an H-tinted immediacy and, now and again,…

DIFF ’02: Springtime in a Small Town

October 20, 2002****/****, 2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, China, DIFF/SDFF, Drama, Film Festivals, France, Hong Kong, Netherlands, Romance

Xiao cheng zhi chun****/****starring Wu Jun, Bai Qing Xin, Hu Jingfan, Lu Si Siscreenplay by Ah Chengdirected by Tian Zhuangzhuang by Walter Chaw Something like a Renoir film or a Brontë novel, Tian Zhuangzhuang's first feature film in nearly a decade Springtime in a Small Town ("Xiao Cheng Zhi Chun"), a remake of the Fei Mu's 1948 classic, is painterly and patient--a map of the inner rhythms of love and jealousy and sacrifice drawn with a master's steady stroke. The film introduces its three main characters in the same gently swooping style: the sickly scholar in the antebellum ruins of…

TIFF ’02: Ken Park

September 12, 20022000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Comedy, Drama, Esoterica, Film Festivals, France, Netherlands, Teen, TIFF

***½/****starring Tiffany Limos, James Ransone, Stephen Jasso, James Bullardscreenplay by Harmony Korinedirected by Larry Clark & Ed Lachman by Bill Chambers Making Happiness look like Dumbo, Ken Park does not push the envelope--Ken Park runs the envelope through a paper shredder, douses it in lighter fluid, and sets it aflame. And then urinates on the ashes. The latest from Larry Clark, the film was co-directed by veteran cinematographer and frequent Steven Soderbergh collaborator Ed Lachman, and if you're worried that this Zaphod Beeblebrox would result in the muting of Clark's voice, think again. If anything, we sense the pair playing…

The Good Girl (2002)

August 7, 20022000s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Comedy, Drama, Germany, Netherlands, Romance, Theatrical

**/****
starring Jennifer Aniston, Jake Gyllenhaal, John C. Reilly, Tim Blake Nelson
screenplay by Mike White
directed by Miguel Arteta

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover The Good Girl is a sitcom that dreams of one day becoming an opera. Like its heroine, the film feels a great dissatisfaction with modern life, and like her eventual paramour, it goes to great lengths in order to articulate such a feeling. But also like these characters, The Good Girl is both too timid and too inarticulate to truly get its ideas across. Instead, the film resorts to “quirky” indie-film types armed to the teeth with wisecracks; offering none of the ambiguity that its narrative thrust seems to warrant, its flaws kill the movie’s aspirations and make sure that it stays in the generic backwater it so dearly wants to escape.