Adulting

 

MONDAY (A) - Irish TV and stage veteran Denise Gough unleashes a powerful performance as an ex-pat American in Greece stumbling into a rebound relationship and getting stuck in Athens with a charming DJ (also an ex-pat) instead of returning to Chicago to resume her legal career. This is another subversive modern anti-rom-com, and it is the flawless followup by Argyris Papadimitroupoulos, who wowed in 2017 with the equally insightful "Suntan."

Chloe (Gough) has a head-clunking meet-cute with rascally Mickey (Sebastian Stan) on a loud dance floor not long after Chloe has a fuck-off phone conversation with her controlling ex-boyfriend Dimitrios. Chloe and Mickey will wake up from a blackout the next morning, naked in the sand as families are arriving at the beach. This won't be their only brush with the law, which lets the randy couple go free with a slap on the wrist. Chloe is due to leave the next day, but Mickey entices her to stay. This is a movie where the race to the airport to stop the object of affection from getting on that plane happens near the beginning of the movie, and not at the end. Thus begins a strained, complicated, fascinating relationship between these two directionless Americans adrift abroad.

Mickey has been in Athens a lot longer, seven years, and he's got a kid to show for it, though he's battling with his ex to allow him to have time with little Hector, who has a room waiting for him at Mickey's place, even after Chloe moves in with Mickey in way too short order. Tensions build, especially when the couple try to integrate their social circles or try to conduct business from home at the same time (she's an immigration lawyer). Even their epic sexual chemistry gets tested, as each of them wrestles with an issue without telling the other.

Everything here feels so lived in and real. No relationship is perfect, and smart good people make bad choices when they want to trust their gut and make that relationship work no matter what. There are fun and funny moments here, with an assist from strong supporting charactors-- Mickey's alcoholic pal Argyris (Yorgos Pirpassopoulos) is especially appealing as a one-man Greek chorus, and Chloe's friend Elli (Alkistis Poulopoulou) bursts with manic frustration at Mickey's immature friends. As Mickey, Stan exhibits a charm and looks that are a mix of Ryan Seacrest and Bruce Greenwood (thankfully, the latter wins out in the end). Gough, meanwhile, reveals layers of emotion and nuance via a character who is struggling to take control of her life; she is a revelation.

Papadimitroupoulos grabs us in the manic first half and then he gives us a good rag-doll shake in the second half. He organizes this from the start with a series of title cards that always announce a new time sequence beginning on a FRIDAY. He is suggesting that life and relationships, like weekends, always seem most enjoyable and promising at the start but that a case of the Mondays will always arrive. The filmmaker, by resetting the week at Friday throughout, builds tension, and "Monday" eventually morphs into a subtle horror film. Mickey and Chloe decide, for old times' sake, to go on a weekend club bender before little Hector is finally to arrive on that literal Monday, and things get out of hand, in spectacular fashion. 

Will these two get their acts together when Monday comes, and if they do, would that be a happy ending or a tragedy?

DAUGHTER OF MINE (2019) (B) - Another strong, forceful performance rescues this coming-of-age story from melodrama, barely. Alba Rohrwacher ("I Am Love") goes all in as the miserable town drunk who finally meets the girl she gave up at birth to another woman to raise 10 years earlier. That girl is the mousy Vittoria (Sara Casu), who has long bristled at not knowing about her birth mom, even though she appreciates the woman who so obviously, from a physical standpoint, is not her biological mother, Tina (Valeria Golino).

This maternal love triangle unfolds slowly, and little monosyllabic Vittoria is like a feral kitten who suddenly shuns Tina's utter devotion in order to explore her real roots with messed-up, ambivalent Angelica. Rohrwacher's Angelica is also feral and mad at the world. She wants to leave the small town but can't get her funding together and isn't willing to sell off her animals because they would end up slaughtered.

It seems like Vittoria knows that her birth mother is no good for her, but she aches for a connection to the woman that everyone in the small town knows she resembles. Angelica is an unrepentant alcoholic and man-chaser whose idea of feeding her child is to open a can of beans and dump it on the kid's plate. Golino struggles to rein in her instincts as the spurned woman here, sometimes overdoing the emotion. 

This sophomore effort from Laura Bispuri is grounded in some hard truths, and the world she creates is raw and lived-in. Even if the story gets a little far-fetched at times, Bispuri brings it all home with an uplifting ending.

BONUS TRACKS

A club classic bookends "Monday," Donna Summer's "I Feel Love":