Seven Pounds

There is a terminal heart patient who answers to the call of Emily Posa (Rosario Dawson). She runs a pressed wedding card business – the one that used to be run in the days of old. The one which had to be worked upon manually to set the print or the one that is semi automatic. Machines which are over 50 years old at least. She is weak but by her own claim – and I must agree to it – used to be – unauditably hot.

Then there is a a blind man who is called Ezra (Woody Harrelson). He works at a call centre for a meat packing business but is a vegan by choice and a virgin by chance. Quite a weird combination right? And an unfortunate combination which one has to accept I guess. He likes the local waitress at a café a lot but has never gotten around to tell her that in as many words. Just doesn’t have the courage.

There is a middle aged woman who has two children – a boy and a girl. She is called Connie Tepos (Elpidia Carrillo). She is a Spanish immigrant – a legal one thought. Divorced. Her current boyfriend is a no good person. He beats her up quite often. And despite the best efforts of people close to her, she refuses to report it to the cops and get her boyfriend behind bars. Sigh. The vagaries of the female mind.

What connects these three to Ben (Will Smith) who seems to be a man on the verge of a suicide and has a past that keeps flashing through his head? Is it the car crash which seems to be a fatal one? One that obviously involving 7 people whose names he keeps calling out in absolute angst. Ben visits each one of these people, representing the Internal Revenue Services, and tries to help them in some way or the other. Connie Tepos gets his house. Emily gets a relief for her tax payments. And Ezra gets a gentle push towards that waitress of his after receiving a very rude earful from Ben.

Written by Grant Nieporte, Seven Pounds is the kind of movie I should have seen at the time of release itself. And I have no clue to how I missed it. The screenplay is written extremely well to figure out the story only towards the end. While one gets reasonable clues as regards the past, one doesn’t really get clarity on the reason for Ben’s actions till the very end. The editing by Hughes Winborne and the music by Angelo Milli create an extremely haunting aura around the movie.

Full credit to director Gabriele Muccino (The Pursuit of Happyness) for giving us another poignant and heart wrenching story that has been executed to near perfection. But be forewarned that Seven Pounds could result in a lot of exercise for the lachrymal glands. That one of the best actors of our time – Will Smith – leads the cast is just an added reason to watch the movie. I have never seen Woody Harrelson in such a helpless role ever in the recent or distant past. Everyone in the cast seems to have given the movie a 100%. Even the poor Hotel owner who has to endure Ben’s nuances and the horse (read great Dane) that Ben gets along with him for a day or 2 when Emily is at the hospital. Seven Pounds easily makes the cut to anyone’s must watch list. 7.5 on 10.

Trailer on http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi1057359641/

Flypaper

Rob Minkoff directed the best animation movie of all time – The Lion King. I somehow find it hard to believe that. Primarily because in Flypaper he kind of forgets a few basic tenets of good story telling. Firstly, ensure that it doesn’t get too predictable. No matter how hard you try to confuse the you know what about every single person who is sitting in the auditorium, you have to give credit to the audience’s intelligence that they can and will put 2 and 2 together to come up with the answer before you tell them the answer. And if the audience’s answers match yours then you are out of business. Therefore it is best to build the intrigue slowly but surely and not go about at a frenetic pace in an attempt to really build the tempo up and keep the excitement levels and adrenaline levels as high as you possibly can through a 90 minute session.

Next, if you indeed want to keep the frenetic pace up through the 90 minutes then you need people who can be associated with the frenetic pace and can keep themselves calm, cool and composed during the time. Ashely Judd – fair enough. Patrick Dempsey – no way. Bad casting mate. What you get at the end of it is an effort which borders on the other side of overacting and not as much as an expression of someone who has a borderline case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

Thirdly, get your support cast to contribute and not look like a bunch of idiots. Give them roles which have some meaning at least. And roles which are not put into this mish mash because there is a requirement of a support staff. And once you have done that, please ensure that you get them to put in the effort that is expected of them to get the end result to meet the mark. Not just hang in there for the sake of hanging in there. Surprising that Minkoff got all of this and more right in the Lion King and then went about unlearning every single thing that he did right to give us a mish mash which is neither an action movie nor a robbery movie nor a drama and not even a comedy. It just has a little bit of everything. And the ground rule to be followed is that you cannot try to be everything to everyone. Just be great at one thing for some people.

Nevertheless, Minkoff’s effort cannot be dissed completely. It does have its good points with the likes of Ashley Judd as mentioned before and the fact that he does attempt to give us some excitement. You will not fall asleep during the movie for certain – mind you I was totally jet lagged and hadn’t slept in a while but still managed to sit through quite comfortably. Just that it seems a bit inane after a while. Still give it 6 on 10.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi4287863833/

The Help

Who is Tate Taylor? Male. Aged about 42. Has acted in bit parts in about 7 movies to date including the much acclaimed Winter’s Bone and starting with the not so acclaimed Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion (Mira Sorvino, Lisa Kudrow). He was classmates and great friends with Kathryn Stockett who made it to the big league as an author when her book titled The Help was published in 2009 – spending over 100 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller List. Well turns out that Taylor chose his friends wisely and eventually his projects too. His first movie as a director– Pretty Ugly People – wasn’t received too well. But I guess he fell hard and learnt really well. With “The Help” he has pretty much dispelled all doubts that people may have had about his capability to direct and write screenplay. Kudos to the winning pair for having given us one of the better movies from Hollywood this year (at least those released in India).

Something that has never ceased to amaze me is the absolute racial discrimination that existed (some say it continues to exist) in the southern states of the US – especially one town called Jackson in Mississippi. Now my information is limited to what I have seen in documentaries and movies but it has always made me feel so much better of the world that we currently live in. Kathryn Stockett has picked up the topic of coloured household helps in 1960s who had to face probably the most organized and gut wrenching experiences through their lives. Young American women in the 60s had their lives pretty much cut out I guess with college followed by marriage and eventually a litter to manage. But the ones bringing up the kids were called “The Help”. They were pretty much surrogate mothers and responsible for everything else @ home. Only to watch the kids grow up exactly into what their parents were and look the other way when it came to the topic of being treated equally. Painful right?

The movie is slow alright but keeps you engaged through great screenplay and fantastic performances. Viola Davis in superb the role of Aibileen Clark – who first decides to break the shackles by agreeing to interview with Eugenia 'Skeeter' Phelan played by the extremely talented Emma Stone. And Octavia Spencer in the role of the spunky Minny Jackson was as good. One cannot but appreciate the performances of the supporting cast – despite their not so positive roles – namely Bryce Dallas Howard. And then there was Jessica Chastain. Both are clearly asking Hollywood to take more notice.

I don’t remember the last time I saw a movie which was so dominated by female characters – all powerfully essayed. Long and as mentioned earlier, slow, but must be added to your watch list for the year. Not necessarily on the big screen but watch it because there are at least 3 Oscar nominations coming up – Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress. Mind you this is from the limited number of movies released in India this year. I hope I am right. If not, there are at least 5 more movies to be seen for performances which are much better. Good news either ways. 7.5 on 10 from my side for The Help.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi809278745/