In Better Hands

 Poorly conceived Hysteria still proves necessity is the mother of invention

By

Morgan P Salvo

Sometimes a filmmaker’s lofty ideas get in the way of execution. Such is the case with Hysteria, a flick that just scratches the surface of the never-ending fun and/or pathos that should be derived from such a touchy subject matter. Director Tanya Wexler tells the story of the invention of the first vibrator with quaintness and cuteness instead of the raging satire it so richly deserves. The opening prologue of “based on a true story” is followed by the smug … “really,” leading us to believe that this might be a flick with wit and vigor, but what we get instead is a romantic comedy period piece with the vibrator saga as backdrop. Personally I feel the Victorian period is boring unless a werewolf gnaws on someone’s neck.

The plot of the first female massage gizmo is that women are diagnosed with hysteria and bad thoughts stemming from lack of love or attention so they are treated by vaginal stimulation to orgasm as treatment. The specialist in charge of this method, Dr. Robert Dalrymple (Jonathan Price), concludes that hysteria stems from an overactive uterus. He employs a young intern, Mortimer Granville (Hugh Dancy), to help with the overload of clientele.  Granville’s success in manually stimulate patients results in him getting a sore wrist, hand and cramped fingers so his wacky inventor friend (Rupert Everett) and he come up with the first electronic massage unit, or as we today know it, vibrator. Needless to say the device scores a bull’s-eye.

We also follow Granville’s medical career at the orgasm clinic and his relationship with two sisters vying for his attention. We know exactly where this movie is going as Mortimer is first smitten by the more conventional daughter and daddy’s little girl Emily Dalrymple (Felicity Jones) then the feisty rebellious Charlotte Dalrymple (Maggie Gyllenhaal) who defies all logic and operates a shelter on the wrong side of town. Let’s see…in true formulaic movie convention will he go for the safe choice or take a chance and cast all lube by the wayside? And what about all that darn vaginal stimulation - what’s to become of the masses of unsatisfied hysterical women? Well, all these questions arise and everything is dropped like a gently aroused hot potato to hone in on the romantic comedy aspect of this trite and extremely unsatisfying flick.

The portrayal of orgasms vary in degree of silliness (and not believable in the least) avoiding any form of eroticism. The Vibrator stimulation scenes are beyond stupid (as though someone would really sing opera in the saddle). An interesting highlight is that the examination room (or “pleasure cage”) doesn’t have gynecological stirrups of a clinic bed, but rather is more like a velvet-curtained puppet stage shrouded in mystery.

 As though coming direct from the Women’s Channel there are jabs at chauvinism while upholding women’s rights but in the end it’s all about the phony fairy tale idea of doing the right thing and falling in love with the right person. The sub-plot of Maggie running a shelter to tug at our hearts strings is just another phony manipulation of Rom-Com ideology. In the hands of a more seasoned filmmaker, Hysteria could have hit all its high notes and really delivered on what is a very intriguing story. Instead we get the glossed-over and dreadfully serious fact that in its day hysterectomy was essentially a woman’s lobotomy.

The flick’s last third involves a super stagey, unbelievable courtroom scene and the ending is sewn up way too happily with a hard-to-tolerate kiss. Sadly Wexler’s vision for Hysteria is just a tepid telling of what could be a hilarious or deeply serious (not to mention erotically charged) story choosing instead to suck the life out any hopes under its own pretentions. This movie is all touchy feely (pun intended) but in all the wrong places. Credits include a history of vibrators from hybrid feather duster to pocket rockets

Hysteria

Starring Hugh Dancy, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jonathan Pryce, Felicity Jones, Rupert Everett, Directed by Tanya Wexler

Rated R

2 stars

Model Citizen

Blind Faith reveals more than meets the blind eye 

By Morgan P Salvo

Bernie has a trifecta of actors I usually can’t stand (Jack Black, Mathew McConaughey, Shirley MacLaine) and a director who has never impressed me. More importantly Richard Linklater has perturbed me in a way no other director has with his fingernails-on-a-blackboard over-wordy agendas and use of mostly bad acting to deliver the goods. All this has changed, at least for the most part, with Bernie.

The film is based on the true story of Carthage Texas’ Bernie Tiede, (Black) who was an assistant funeral director (“they don’t call them morticians anymore”), singer for the church choir, director/actor for the town’s community theater and all around nice guy seeking acceptance. Without giving too much away Bernie befriends the town’s meanest widow, Mrs. Nugent (MacLaine), who’s rolling in dough. They start taking trips together and hanging out way too much, sparking the gossip machine in the small town but mainly everyone just thinks its fine. That is all except Lloyd the accountant (Richard Robichaux) and DA Danny Buck (McConaughey) who both smell a rat. Mrs. Nugent becomes more demanding of Bernie’s attentions and, as this is a story being told in the past tense, we get the feeling that something is not going to go well for at least one of the main characters. The shape of things to come takes on a crime mystery feel for that last third. Bernie also morphs into a reminder of political rhetoric that if you keep on saying something it must be true... a term used for sociopaths as well.

 This is Linklater’s tribute to his home state fusing interviews with real people (happy to talk to the camera) and real actors, all very believable. Bernie reads a lot like the Errol Morris documentary Vernon Florida but with a plot. Witty and to the point Linklater, finally restrained, redeems himself by sticking to telling the story, including only small doses of wordy prose-like dialogue.

Even though all the actors were fine I would’ve liked to have seen all three main characters played by relatively unknowns, that might have allowed for them to shine and we become more vested in their plight and stories. That said, MacLaine exhibits her finely honed cantankerous spirit with her standard frowning “ bitch-from-hell” old lady role but actually has a little bit of an arc before retreating back to devil woman status. MacLaine has come a long way from the days as a leggy showgirl. McConaughey, sporting a funny haircut, actually made me laugh but over the years he seems an enigma of few great choices overshadowed by wretched movies. Black does a fairly mesmerizing job for a while then falls back on merely posing and there was way too much of him singing, although very lyrical, beautiful and poignant, it was overkill. Plus Black has gotten so fat it’s downright creepy to see his tubby girth paired with MacLaine’s withered freckled flesh--- yeesh!

 Focusing on only seeing the good and turning a blind eye to facts the result is that people will believe what they want, no matter what. Linklater pulls off a slick flick incorporating a great world view of Texas that while entertaining, lacks emphasis. Suffering from no real dynamics there’s an absence of high drama or suspense thanks to the director’s laid back even keeled approach. This leaves us with nothing but warm-hearted sentimentality which is great to an extent but ends up a prime example of less is not more it’s just less.

Highlights of this flick are seeing the resurgence of Sonny Davis (Last night at the Alamo) and ending credits with real footage including the real imprisoned Bernie talking to Black.

Bernie

Starring Jack Black, Mathew McConaughey, Shirley MacLaine, Richard Robichaux, Sonny Davis, Rick Dial

Directed by Richard Linklater

Rated PG-13

2 ½ stars

Trickery and Deceit

 Snow White and the Huntsman is too Grimm for it’s own good

By Morgan P Salvo

June brings us Snow White and the Huntsman, the second Show White movie installment of the year. Unlike its earlier counterpart Mirror Mirror the actual line of “who is the fairest of them all” is uttered and unlike Mirror’s attempt at wit and coming off like a bad cartoon, Snow White and the Huntsman comes off like a combo of Lord of the Rings, Time Bandits and Apocalypse Now (okay, maybe one scene).

The reinventing of the familiar plot has the evil queen (Charlize Theron) holed up in her castle fighting age off with a frenzy, sucking air out of young maidens or plucking life out of handsome stable boys hearts with her talons. Then there’s a mirror (looking like a big Zildjan cymbal) that tells her she’s still the fairest. That is until the mirror designates an imprisoned Snow White (Kristen Stewart). Snow escapes, the Queen’s sadistic brother (Sam Spruell) is dispatched to find her, a brave yet drunken Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) protects her, along with despicable hobo-like dwarves found along the way. Then it’s a journey back to the land where Snow comes from, rally up the banished troops to takeover the evil castle. All the while the Queen doth age and uses all her evil sorcery to thwart Snow White’s efforts. We all know how this will end, with good triumphant over evil, but its fun to see how the fable is either distilled or ramped up. However this flick is merely a boring quest saga peppered with adventure and at times meant to please Twilight fans and worshippers of Hemsworth’s hunkdom.

First time Director Sanders shuns his past of making commercials, creating a vision like Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood or Game of Thrones with a non-stop onslaught of different lands and sets of CGI greatness. There’s an impressive Dark Forest with its twisting gnarled branches, nasty monstrous troll and clams that ooze motor oil. The Enchanted Forest is something altogether spectacular with its fairies, mushrooms-with-bulging- eyeballs and a stag-like creature with tree branches for horns. This is a psychedelic Disney-like fairyland that’s looks like H.R. Pufnstuf on acid. 

Trickery and deceit is at the base of this movie and following suit the PG-13 doesn’t work for cinematic battle scenes. We need to see at least one spray of blood or a lopped off head. Wisely to overcome this burden some of the black army are just a weird conglomeration of obsidian meshed together to form fighting soldiers that when sliced by sword shatter and explode.

Another similarity between the two flicks is that both have Academy Award winning actresses to play the wicked Queen: coincidence or challenge? Wherein Julia Roberts was scurrying about spouting ineffective one-liners, Theron holds her ground and emanates evil from her various perches. Although both actresses have a field day with this role, Theron, is betrayed by some unworthy dialogue rendering her merely adequate. Stewart’s rallying of the troops monologue is also laughably weak, but to Stewart’s credit she actually smiles and only bites her lip once (that I noticed). Hemsworth, trading his Thor hammer for an axe, didn’t bother me so much as he is perfectly cast. But he has to do something about that permanent scowl. Spruell (sporting an evil blonde Prince Valiant haircut) is a formidable villain wreaking havoc on the sojourn.

As with Mirror, the seven dwarves are the best thing. Drawing heavily from the Lord Of The Rings influence the dwarves are played by a slew of barely recognizable actors in flawless CGI fitted dwarf bodies. It’s a laugh riot to discern British actors like Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone, Nick Frost, Toby Jones and Eddie Marsan through this CGI extravaganza. Still, I liked that Mirror actually used little people.

Using some of the original Grimm ideology with the poison apple signifying temptation and the relationship between queen and brother might be more that just sibling love, this flick tells a decent story that’s still good for the kids, though there were WAY more kids at Mirror than this.

Thankfully the love story isn’t handled all mushy and corny as in Mirror, in fact SWATH keeps the love interest at bay which is refreshing. It’s actually about more important things like storming the castle than “let’s make out”. Yet... This flick is Way too deadly serious  there is a lot of crying in this movie--- you know the kind where you watch someone’s sad face until a tear or two slide down their face. I think Denzel started all this in Glory. Hell there’s more crying in this movie than the first Spiderman, and that’s a lot.

Where Mirror was a slow-paced dimwitted waste of time Huntsman’s slow moving speed is deliberate with its storytelling. Even though there are moments of greatness in this flick, it still lacked oomph. I think there’s an even greater film within these intentions still waiting to be made.

In the end this flick is a more adult version than the cute predecessor, and Grimm’s mythology is messed with more clearly. Still Snow and Huntsman lacks the punch to send it into the heights of memorable. I’m already getting hazy on the memory except for the acidy flashback of The Enchanted Forest.

 

Snow White and the Huntsman

Starring Kristen Stewart, Charlize Theron, Chris Hemsworth, Sam Spruell

Directed by Rupert Sanders

Rated PG-13

2 stars