Christopher Schroeder

Category: movie

  • Too Much for Tuner

    Too Much for Tuner

    Most credible critics recommend Tuner, a new movie written by Daniel Roher and Robert Ramsey, which surprises me.

    Niki (Leo Woodall), who has hyperacusis and no longer plays piano, works as a piano tuner with his father’s friend Harry (Dustin Hoffman). On a job, he meets Ruthie (Havana Rose Liu), a piano student whose dream is apprenticing for a famous maestro (Jean Reno). They meet a second time with Harry, who is soon hospitalized and then dies, leaving behind big medical bills.

    To pay these, Niki uses his hypersensitive hearing to help criminals crack safes, and later gives Ruthie a stolen watch, which is a replacement for the one from her grandmother that she left on a train. She wears this watch to her audition, and learns in conversation with the maestro that it has been stolen, which ends her relationship with Niki. Niki manages to restore her reputation with the maestro, and his own with her.

    This movie, which is directed by Roher, intriguingly mixes genre conventions and offers lavish visuals and appealing performances, especially from Woodall and Hoffman. These however cannot compensate for its specious plot, which overshadows everything else.

    This story is filled with implausible circumstances. Niki for example memorizes cryptocurrency account recovery codes despite being ordered at gunpoint to destroy and then consume the document, and later reconstructs these codes to access the account, but he neither steals this money nor offers this information even after he is kidnapped to obtain these codes, which forces him to miss Ruthie’s audition performance.

    These circumstances also appear at the center of the story. For instance, the maestro recognizes the watch he had stolen from him on Ruthie’s arm in his discussion with her about the apprenticeship, and agrees to avoid the authorities, and apparently still offer Ruthie the apprenticeship, after Niki offers to obtain the second stolen one — both had been secured by the maestro’s grandparents before they departed for a concentration camp — from his co-criminals who are apprehensive about keeping stolen goods from Holocaust victims.

    This pattern is only reinforced by the conclusion. Niki, who has lost his hearing from a beating after he was caught by his co-criminals while retrieving the second stolen watch, is nonetheless asked by the maestro to tune his piano, but Niki first plays it, and demonstrates both his proficiency and credibility, for his ex-girlfriend, who is moved by the moment.

    Such situations stretch the suspension of disbelief past the point of breaking at least for some. Those who can overlook all these coincidences will have an entertaining experience. The rest might realize that Niki, who tells Harry early in the movie he’ll never getting back the time he spent trying to understand Harry’s joke, was more right than they realized.

  • Reality For Few

    Fantasy Life, which is a new movie written and directed by Matthew Shear, is a more substantial story than some critics seem to think.

    Sam (Shear), a law-school dropout, agrees to babysit his psychiatrist’s (Judd Hirch) granddaughters and soon thereafter finds ways to spend their mother Dianne (Amanda Peet), an unemployed actor. Dianne, who does little to discourage Sam’s attention, nonetheless ends the affair almost before it begins but uses it to needle her estranged, and increasingly inebriated, husband (Alessandro Nivola) and their parents over dinner in her parents’ summer home.

    Dianne’s husband, who drives away and then crashes his car, recovers in his parents’ home, but she eventually invites him home. Dianne later encounters Sam between sessions in another psychiatrist’s office, and asks him to meet her in a nearby coffee shop after hers, and they discuss their lives and split dessert before going their separate ways.

    Most credible critics seem satisfied with this movie, which some nonetheless consider “slight” or even unoriginal. I however found it perhaps more subtle and refreshing, which made it even more satisfying.

    The directing and acting are accomplished enough to support this unconventional plot. Dianne, who initiated their meeting and later hears the limitations of her belief after her new psychiatrist mirrors it back to her, seems incapable of expressing herself, and retreats into the less challenging topic of Sam’s missing money. Sam for his part seems relieved that Dianne doesn’t challenge his account of his life since he left after that disastrous dinner and in return accepts Dianne’s retreat.

    Both in other words recognize, and resign themselves to, unfinished realities, and neither pushes for more, which are choices only mature people, however messy, could make. Such lessons are ones many of us could learn, which is why it is a more substantial, and significant, story.

  • Towed Too Far

    Credible critics think well of think well of Tow, but I think it’s misfocused, and thus a middling movie.

    This movie tells the trust story of Amanda Ogle (Rose Byrne), a Seattle woman living in her old Toyota Camary that is stolen while she is interviewing for a job and then towed and sold. She discovers that she needs more than the court order she obtains, so she accepts the offer from a non-profit lawyer named Kevin (Dominic Sessa) and the kindness of Barb (Octavia Spencer), a homeless shelter manager, and others who are staying there, and eventually succeeds.

    The predictable focus of the movie, as written by Jonathan Keasey and Brant Boivin and directed by Stephanie Laing, is Amanda’s persistence. She is called a hero near its end by a reporter who wants to write about her experiences and efforts.

    This focus is reinforced by a successful ensemble, which enables Byrne to make the most of this character. It is reiterated by the apparent replacement of these actors by the people whom they’ve been portraying in a closing scene, which lasts longer than expected.

    The problem is that the Amanda’s efforts are less engaging than her need for connections and community. Amanda is reluctant when her car is towed to rely upon anyone, and must learn how to trust, and be trustworthy, again.

    This process starts in the shelter where Barb tells Amanda for example that her failures are familiar, and thus ones she can overcome, and where Amanda in turn mirrors this tough love to Denise (Ariana DeBose) and supports Nova (Demi Lovato), who is pregnant. Beyond the shelter, she forms semi-functional connections to her lawyer Kevin and even a tow-yard employee named Cliff (Simon Rex).

    Amanda admits to others in one of the support group sessions that she is an alcoholic and an addict who cannot without her car even see her estranged daughter (Elise Fisher). This admission initiates the emotional resolution much as if not more than the successful verdict.

    These moments however aren’t enough to dislodge the hero narrative at the center of this movie, which makes it messy, and not one that can ultimately hold the attention of its audience.