Boyhood Wet Dreams

 

THE HAND OF GOD (B+) - This is a gorgeous and heartwarming remembrance of an '80s childhood in Naples from Paolo Sorrentino, the aestheticist behind "The Great Beauty" and "Il Divo." In his latest big-screen extravaganza, you can detect the good, the bad and the ugly from both of those previous efforts.

Here, Sorrentino's avatar is teenager Fabietto (Filippo Scott), the youngest son of loving parents, Saverio and Maria (Sorrentino regular Toni Servillo and Teresa Saponangelo), with quirky siblings and even quirkier extended family members, whose group scene in the first part of the movie is worth the price of admission. Fabietto is a classic awkward teen -- not fitting in at school, pining for a girlfriend, and secretly harboring a pipe dream of making movies someday. 

His adventures have a shaggy-dog appeal to them, and the connective tissue here is a soccer hook -- the strong rumors that the legendary Diego Maradona (he of the "hand of God" goal in the World Cup) might come to lowly Naples to play, abandoning Barcelona. Maradona is a symbol of hope and excellence, and Fabietto draws inspiration from that sports hero, even when he learns to tamp down such boyhood hero worship after a tragedy strikes the family. Scott is a strong young actor, good enough to carry the movie and play off the goofiness of the broad-stroke characters that surround him. 

While Sorrentino's film, which also includes scenes of Federico Fellini filming a movie in the city, is flush with memorable visual flourishes (like a shot of a flare being shot from a boat toward a camera in the sky), it does get bogged down by the pitfalls that often trip up these misty-eyed trips down memory lane. Here is a list of tropes and cliches that get trafficked in, many with broad Borscht Belt tendencies:

• The crazy, hyper-sexual aunt who is just too beautiful for sane society.
• An uncle who insists that a sports figure or sporting event is a metaphor for life itself.
  
• The extremely foul-mouthed family matriarch. 
• The unseen sister who lives 24/7 in the bathroom and communicates only through the closed door.
• A teenage boy tenderly losing his virginity to a much older woman favoring him with this crucial rite of passage.
• The grieving person who somehow can't cry, even at the funeral -- until days or weeks later at some random, inexplicable moment completely devoid of context.
  

The good outweighs the hackneyed, though, and the genuine outweighs the myth, such that we root for Fabietto and will retain hope for him down to the final, contemplative shot of him.

BELFAST (C) - Frankly, I'm surprised they still make movie like this -- trite childhood remembrances in gauzy black-and-white, the wide-eyed boy, the attractive working-class parents (bickering over money, naturally), the wise grandparents, and the era-defining political strife that colors all their actions. God bless Kenneth Branagh for romanticizing his school-boy education in life and love, but lord this is sappy.

It's not so much the rote storytelling -- that's to be expected -- but rather Branagh's decision to present the scenes as if meant to admit that they were shot on a scrubbed movie set. Everything visual here is mannered and fussed over to a fault. It's as if Frank Capra wrote and directed an episode of the Boomer TV nostalgiafest "The Wonder Years." Nothing feels remotely authentic.

Branagh's avatar, blond little Buddy (an engaging Jude Hill), bounces about amid the Protestant-Catholic wars in Belfast in 1969. He crushes on a little blond schoolmate (his Winnie Cooper), scampers around the streets, falls in love with movies, and gleans wisdom from this wise old grandpa (Ciaran Hinds), who might as well be wearing a sign around his neck saying "I'm going to die by the end of the movie." His parents are played by Caitriona Balfe (TV's "Outlander") and Jamie Dornan ("Fifty Shades of Grey"), their marital relationship merely skimmed over -- this bland valentine makes you yearn for an NC-17 spinoff where these passionate parents could let loose like on the randier projects the two actors are known for.

I'm happy for Branagh, but I feel bad that he thinks this tame and ultra-conventional brand of cinema would be taken by the masses as insightful in any way. This sap is made uniquely insufferable by the presence of no fewer than 10 hoary Van Morrison songs -- which about sums up Branagh's level of creativity. Why do they still make movies like this?

BONUS TRACK

One highlight of the "Belfast" soundtrack is "Everlasting Love" -- apparently lip-synced by Jamie Dornan over an early version by London band Love Affair. It is a truly joyous scene between him and Balfe. Here is the perfect '70s R&B version by Carl Carlton: