Hick (2011)

 
Contrary to the brutally negative reception for this film, I found "Hick" to be a solid film with a powerful theme and an engrossing main character. I actually thought it was better than the director's earlier effort, "Lymelife" (2008.) Rory Culkin gave it his best shot, but the Suburban family dysfunction motif is so 'done,' and y'know, Emma Roberts plays the same damned character in every freaking movie she's in.

   The often-overlooked Culkin brother is in this too in a small part, but Chloe Grace Moretz runs the show as Luli, a sexually provocative yet heartbreakingly vulnerable 13-year-old and the product of drunk loser parents (Anson Mount and Juliette Lewis) living in small town, Nebraska. Disenchanted with her going-nowhere life, Luli hitches a ride from a limping young man (Eddie Redmayne,) a decision which turns out to be the most dire of her life.

   Chloe Grace Moretz is a good little actress, although she still has a lot of room to improve, and seeing her flounce around in her underwear and act sexually precocious might bother a lot of people. But it's important to remember that Moretz is not a little girl anymore, and is gradually working her way into more mature roles (maybe a little faster than we would like.)

   Luli is a dynamic character. Early on, as she points her revolver in the mirror and quotes lines from famous

Pubescent Moretz provokes controversy.

films, we see a girl who has been hurt to many times, and needs a lifeline of any kind to stay afloat. Later, when she asks her mother's boyfriend if she's pretty, our heart aches for her- we want to be there for this lonely, desperate girl, yet can only watch her fumble and fight with the challenges of an unusual adolescence through the screen.

   Unfortunately, the other characters are singularly nasty and unlikable, almost unbearably at times. Most of them seem to exist primarily to abuse, let down, and exploit Luli, to the exclusion of anything else. Redmayne gives a good performance as Eddie, the boy who picks Luli up, but by the end it is impossible to feel any sympathy for him.

   Just because we are traveling from one little hick town to another, does that mean the men can't show a little chivalry towards a struggling teenage girl? It is disturbing, but also ludicrous, how each odd character Luli meets seems to be indescribably broken and mean spirited. That said, I never got bored during this movie, and was fascinated by Moretz's little traveler.

   I've liked Moretz since "Kick-Ass," and she shows maturity and screen presence as the lead character. Watch this for her and Redmayne, if for no one else. While Redmayne is appropriately vile, the film finds an unlikely heroine in Luli, sometimes sour, sometimes sweet, but always compelling.
                                            Rating- 
                                                   6.5/10

When lines are crossed.

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011)

   Gentle and bittersweet, "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close" is the second movie adaptation of "Everything is Illuminated" author Johnathan Safron Foer's novel. Although the movie is littered with stars such as Viola Davis, Tom Hanks, and Sandra Bullock, newcomer Thomas Horn steals the show in a flawless performance as Oskar Schell, a troubled eleven-year-old prodigy struggling with his dad (Hanks') death in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

   Oskar could be rude, he could treat people sh**ty, but I immediately rooted for him. It helps that he reminded me of a friend of my brother's I'm fond of. While Oskar's dad was alive, he would send him on scavenger hunts. When Oskar rummages through his dad's closet and finds a key with a word on it, Oskar believes his father wants him to find the lock the key belongs to.

   Oskar probably has Asperger's, and that becomes a factor as he travels through New York City battling anxiety, loud noises, and his own worst fears about Urban terrorism. Meanwhile, his well-meaning mother (Sandra Bullock) tries to get through to her angry loner son. I wasn't sure about Sandra Bullock prior to this movie because I thought she was undeserving of the Oscar for "The Blind Side" but she was good here. You can't help but feel for her when her son throws angry words in her direction.

   Linda (the mom)'s unconditional love for her son touched me, as did her quiet grief, but Oskar and the otherwise unnamed 'The Renter' played by Max Von Sydow were my favorite characters. 'The Renter,' true to his title, rents a room from Oskar's grandmother and accompanies Oskar on his perilous quest.

   The only complaint I have with this movie is that the premise was very unrealistic. I mean, the word 'Black' that comes with the key could meet anything and Oskar is immediately on the right track. Not only that, but as Oskar looks for people with the last name 'Black,' he doesn't even think that not only is 'Black' a ridiculously common name, but there's no guarantee that if this 'Black' is a person, that they live in New York city!

   I liked Oskar a lot. I liked his way of looking at things. Thomas Horn interpreted Oskar honestly and touchingly. This is one of the most underrated child performances of all time (probably because the movie wasn't received well, for what reasons are mysterious to me.) I wanted him to be happy, and move beyond the tragedy of his dad's death and the tragedy of 9/11 in general. Many lives were affected that day, and this movie offers sympathy to both the lives lost and those left behind.

   To breach another subject, I thought the depiction of Asperger's  was very good as someone diagnosed with the condition. The funny, idiosyncratic things Oskar said seemed very typical for someone with AS, while his social anxiety was easy to relate to. A lot of movies exaggerate AS symptoms for 'Hollywood' effect, making the hero some kind of head-banging, socially defective prodigy. I mean "Rain Man," that was put out near the beginning of Autism research. But "Mozart and the Whale?" Seriously?

   And let's not forget how good the entire cast was throughout this movie. Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock, Viola Davis, Max Von Sydow, Thomas Horn of course... they all played their roles wonderfully and were touching and likable. I'd say Von Sydow and Horn were the standouts among this amazing cast. Von Sydow as the silent renter had no spoken lines, but managed to convey emotion like a pro. I'm going to have to diverge from the critics and say this movie is absolutely worth seeing. It's worth it.
                                           Rating-
                                                 9.0/10

Michael (2011)

A tricky film about a tricky subject, Michael is handled somewhat more tactfully than you might expect, but remains a tough watch. Left deliberately ambiguous by the oblique festival trailer and poster, which shows a man and a boy framed by puzzle pieces, it is a sometimes unbearably tense portrayal of human perversion.

   Michael (Michael Fuith), a weasily little man who you might expect for this kind of role, lives an inconspicuous existence in Suburban Austria. In reality, he is anything but ordinary -- he is the abductor and captor of ten-year-old Wolfgang (Markus Schleinzer), who is becoming increasingly defiant about his living situation.

Wolfgang lives in Michael’s padlocked basement, where he is periodically raped (obliquely implied by a non-graphic scene where Michael washes his scrotum after an encounter with the boy), bullied into submission, and given what Michael hopes is enough warm and fuzzy time and traces of a normal childhood to keep Wolfgang compliant.

   It is implied that Michael plans to kill Wolfgang once he reaches puberty. Living a nightmare, Wolfgang becomes more and more rebellious, culminating in an eventual escape attempt.

   The film is minimalism at its most intense, focusing on the practices that make Michael seem at times like a normal human being. He and Wolfgang occasionally seem to have an almost father-son-like relationship, washing dishes, purchasing a Christmas tree, and passing discreetly into the fray of a petting zoo. Sometimes you nearly forget anything’s wrong at all, until some pedophilic dirty talk or foreplay brings you back to reality and forces you to face facts.

   Something is terribly wrong. Wolfgang has parents somewhere who love and miss him, and psychologically, he is splintering, turning into the polar opposite of the unknowing boy Michael goes after later in the film.

   To ask for more excitement in a movie like this is to ask for a nasty brand of moviemaking. Despite its relentless ugliness and bleakness, Michael never sinks to the sewers of  child exploitation. As a critic, though, I would have asked for a more conclusive ending. Placing an ending like this in any movie, let alone a film of this intensity, seems, frankly, a little like cheating.

 Note - Praised by critics for its subtle take on its subject. Free of heavy-handedness and melodrama, the film’s director, Marcus Schleinzer, got several calls from grateful pedophiles, thanking him for his "non-judgmental" portrayal of their kind. It's sad to think there are people like that out there, who will probably never benefit from any kind of therapy an are best kept away from children for the rest of their natural lives.