Family Values

 

SENTIMENTAL VALUE (A) - Norway's Joachim Trier makes intricately emotional films for adults. And he has the talented Renate Reinsve in his regular troupe. Here, they reunite from "The Worst Person in the World" to tell a powerful story of a successful man trying to reunite with the daughter he has long neglected.

 

Reinsve (above left) is Nora, a theater actress (who has a TV show under her belt) with a chronic case of stage fright. She and her sister are estranged from their father, a well-known filmmaker who abandoned them and their mother when they were kids. Now that their mother, a psychologist who worked out of their beloved childhood home for years, has died, the father has returned to reclaim the family house. Gustav (Stellan Skarsgard) also seeks to kick-start his dormant career with a screenplay he presents to Nora, asking her to star in the film. She rejects the offer without reading the script, because she cannot imagine working with him. 

Gustav turns to an American star, Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning) to play the role and to shoot the film in the family house that he, too, grew up in -- including a scene depicting his mother's suicide in the 1950s. The production bumbles along, as Gustav tries to adapt the film in English and Rachel struggles to find the right accent and overall tone for the role meant for Gustav's daughter. Nora -- stunned by the end of an unhealthy romantic relationship and convinced that she is only 20 percent sane -- bonds with her sister, Agnes, and her tow-headed nephew.

No one can so subtly convey a range of emotions, sometimes within seconds, like Reinsve. Her face at rest is a placid mask, like Isabelle Huppert's, but both actresses speak volumes with their eyes or a flick of an eyebrow. Skarsgard turns in a melancholy performance as a 70-something drunk and aged playboy. 

The ringer here, though, is Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas (above right) as the sister, Agnes, who grounds the film (as a trained historian, she delves into her grandmother's mental troubles that followed working with the anti-Nazi resistance). She adds nuance beyond the typical daddy-daughter drama and steals every scene from her heavyweight co-stars. And it's a cliche to suggest that a building is an additional character in a film, but Trier makes that childhood home come alive, using arch camera angles to suggest a knowing and seeing being that lurks in the four walls.

About halfway through I paused to register my gratitude and luck at getting to enjoy this in real time, and then I dove back in, never once checking the time but instead savoring every moment of the two hours and 13 minutes, not a second wasted. The final 20 minutes perfectly tie up these loose ends, at least to the extent it is possible to heal generational wounds.

D(E)AD (A-minus) - Film experiences don't get much more joyous that this absurdist comedy about a man who stalks his family after he dies. The film's website succinctly explains the plot: "Tillie (Isabella "Izzy" Roland), a floundering young woman and her charismatic, alcoholic father (Craig Bierko), struggle to resolve their fractured relationship in the weirdest possible way: after he dies, his ghost appears in mirrors to haunt everyone in the family but Tillie."

Roland wrote the screenplay (directed by Claudia Lonow, Roland's real-life mom) and it positively sizzles with snappy dialogue and a galloping plot that careens across 96 giddy minutes thanks to a talented no-name cast. It is a clever take on the father-daughter dynamic, with Tillie flabbergasted throughout as to why her dad is snubbing her, even in death. Roland slips in some serious insight amid the mayhem.

The rich cast includes Roland's fellow comedian Vic Michaelis as her type-A sister, Violet; Lonow, a TV veteran, as Frankie, who is driven crazy by the reappearance of her dead ex-husband; Brennan Lee Mulligan as a deadpan phone-center drone who becomes a target of Tillie's crush; and veteran comic Eddie Pepitone as a Rabbi brought in to conduct an exorcism. 

This plays like an extra-long episode of your favorite sitcom, and I mean that in a good way. It is an "Addams Family"-like romp with a sharp modern sensibility and terrific comic timing. Don't miss the truly independent gem made for $250,000 in Kickstarter funding.

HAMNET (B) - In which Chloe Zhao goes medieval on our asses. The director of "The Rider" and "Nomadland" spirals back centuries to show us William Shakespeare and his wife, Agnes, grappling with the death of the son who inspired "Hamlet."

If you can make it through the brutal slog that is the film's first hour, the second half (after the child dies) cobbles together a decent story of an estranged couple, brought back together in the final 20 minutes with the debut staging of "Hamlet," leading to a profoundly moving final scene. But that first hour is a chore, and I was tempted to just walk out. Jessie Buckley (Agnes, a nature lover and borderline "witch") and Paul Mescal (earnest wordsmith Will) are pitted against each other in an emotionally wrenching crying contest for more than an hour. Both performances -- rendered often in extreme close-ups -- crank the pathos to 11. Toss in a couple of screeching childbirths and the truly horrific death throes of an 11-year-old boy, and it's virtually unwatchable.

Buckley ("Wild Rose," "The Lost Daughter") and Mescal ("Aftersun") are formidable talents. But Zhao -- who has worked wonders with amateur actors, successfully mixing in Frances McDormand in "Nomadland" -- pushes her stars too far into the realm of misery porn. 

In the end, however, Buckley and Mescal finally get a reprieve from the maelstrom. At the climax, the world suddenly goes quiet ("The rest is silence") and they exchange a long glance -- her leaning on the stage like a groupie, him in the wings, triumphant, and we are reminded of their implicit, unspoken connection that whole time. It is a stunning moment of filmmaking that makes it worth the effort to tough it out until the end.