Reviews

David Mamet, Eric Bogosian, Alexander Payne, and a million other misanthropic storytellers in film and out are all obsessed with familiar literary conceits regarding the middle-class and their American equivalent in Suburbia. The would-be cultural critics who point their pens and cameras on the American bourgeois insist this glossy sheen covers a subdura of rot and horror. Think of the opening scene in Blue Velvet — the camera leers at a pristine lawnscape before sinking into a layer of munching insects. But satirists, especially weirdoes like Lynch and Todd Solondz, often lack subtlety when brutalizing their subjects. Todd Field has beaten them all by doing the opposite, by pulling us so close to the drama we're blinded with ambivalence. Few films have been more disturbing, more quietly devastating.

Field's debut, In the Bedroom, based on an Andre Dubus short story, applies a scalpel to the internal and external horrors of a Maine seaside hamlet. Dr. Matt Fowler (Tom Wilkinson) and his wife, Ruth (Sissy Spacek), live quiet, relatively happy lives, respected in the community as people a bit better than their present stations. Matt is a family practitioner, a man of gentile affability who yearns for everyone to like him, something a family doctor yields easily; he's generous and naïve to a fault. Ruth is a bit more complicated — a former academic and professor, she's been reduced to pawning her knowledge of Eastern European folk music onto a high school choir, something she probably resents. Theirs is a well-meaning but facile relationship — they've long since stopped telling the truth in favor of being nice to one another. And both are somewhat guilty of projecting casual disappointments onto their son, Frank (Nick Stahl).

Frank is a general success story — a bright young kid possessing the self-effacing affability and good looks impossible not to like. His parents, and indeed the rest of the community, adore him. What Frank lacks in brute masculinity he makes up for in sexual prowess; he's run through a string of girlfriends, but the latest his parents find troubling. Natalie (Marisa Tomei) is a much older, freshly separated (but not divorced) mother of two young sons. Frank is allured by Natalie's beauty and unassuming nature; Natalie is allured by, well, everything Frank is. It's easy to see how the relationship would be mutually flattering, but Natalie is probably Frank's way of rejecting his parents. Ruth thinks the relationship is socially detrimental and will ultimately distract Frank from the architecture school he's poised to leave for at summer's end. Matt is concerned as well, but too proud of his son for romancing a woman he and his friends see fit to ogle. Matt beams with pride, even when his son damns him for marching eagerly in his own father's footsteps.

To complicate matters, Natalie's not-quite-ex-husband, Richard (William Mapother), lurks in the fringes. If Frank is impossible not to love, Richard is impossible not to hate. He's the worst kind of man, whose brute anger and stupidity are matched by a slight physical ugliness, drunk with an entitlement so internalized he can't fathom when others don't give him what he wants. Natalie has left him, but he barges into her home regularly and harangues her for not wanting him, let alone canoodling with a younger man. Richard represents the brute atavism found in lower-class caricatures; he even says at one point: "No, I don't change; everything around me changes." Field hints that class miscegenation is at the heart of this conflict, but only just. Richard's family wields some power and money, but from a decidedly lower social echelon. In any case, it will only end in Frank's blood. And when that end comes, it's more harrowing than any horror film. Field blankets the entire film with dread, with suggestions of violence both emotional and physical. The middle section of the film, wherein Matt and Ruth confront a grief they're incapable of dealing with (who would be?), is as troubling as the actual death. The two can't talk to one another, to console or to blame, as each holds the other responsible for Frank's death; did Ruth push too hard or Matt not enough? Their marriage suppurates under guilt and resentment, and Field doesn't sully the atmosphere with actual words, but lets the emotions play in an understatement that mirrors Bergman or Ozu. Ruth wants to reach out to someone, to express the inexpressible. Matt, like so many men, can't describe what he feels even when he wants to; mostly he tries to pretend nothing has happened. I've never seen a portrait of grief to match In the Bedroom's quiet desperation.

When the words finally arrive, they're screamed and hissed, the tension erupting from its horrible concealment. And maybe the two can forgive one another, but the sheer injustice of their loss gnaws at them, all the worse when it seems Richard will get off on a lenient manslaughter charge. Matt is galvanized with the masculine drive to fix things somehow, to mend his marriage and avenge their wrong at the same time. And with regards to the middle-class expressing the inexpressible, his options narrow to a grim inevitability.

Richard's death, so implicitly yearned-for by character and audience, is nothing to celebrate; it's as horrible and damning as Frank's. Revenge might restore the balance Matt and Ruth yearn for, but the damage it will surely wreak on their humanity is truly disturbing. Field has crafted a vision of bourgeois America of devastating darkness — that lower-class crimes of passion will be met with a savagery borne of cruel calculation: which one is really worse? In the Bedroom is a film of horrifying human truths, executed with patience and skill, and all of it should break your f*cking heart. It is one of the most magnificent films of the decade.

No matter how unconventional optimism may be, to look at the world with joy need not be viewed as an act of complete ignorance or deep denial, but should be considered as a recognition of a hope that is in fact greater than the atrocious times we could ever take on. It is the truth about optimism one can learn from Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky.

In this craftily dramatic vehicle, a persistently charming and charismatic thirty-year-old London primary teacher Poppy (Sally Hawkins) always has a smile on her face, and does her best to brighten the days of those around her by making small talk and cracking jokes. For the past ten years, Poppy has lived with her best friend, Zoe (Alexis Zegerman), a fellow teacher whose sardonic attitude towards life functions as the unblemished counterbalance to Poppy's enthusiastic charm. After her bike is stolen, Poppy decides that it's time she took driving lessons. Almost instantaneously, Poppy and her uptight instructor, Scott (Eddie Marsan), clash. Yet, it seems that there's more to this teacher-student relationship than surface appearances would suggest. After accompanying her colleague Heather (Sylvestra Le Touzel) to a tango class taught by a particularly passionate instructor (Karina Fernandaz), Poppy connects with kindly school social worker Tim (Samuel Roukin). Naturally, Tim can't help falling for a woman of such boundless compassion, but that's another story for her increasingly jealous driving instructor who reacts to the news of her most recent romance. How this touches not only Poppy's worldview but also the outlook of those around her makes us reexamine the unsinkable sense of optimism in truthful and deeply life-affirming exploration.

At first, that seems to be all there is to the story, but this film is about a great deal more, and goes very much deeper. The genius of Leigh lies in establishing a loose, semi-improvised narrative with innumerable scenes which will not drive the narrative structure forward, but offer us lustrous behavioral and psychological sagacity into characters that we would almost certainly miss in more tightly scripted films. As a whole, the film benefits not only from the excellent performances, but from its warm emotional core and its infectious love of people, topped off by a mature temperance about human limitations that thoroughly authenticates everything preceding it. Happiness is one of the most enigmatic and oftentimes the most elusive of all human qualities, and Leigh's seriocomedy explores eternal optimism through Poppy as his ongoing canon of odes to working-class leading quiet lives of discomfort and disconsolateness. This practically plot less story is developed by Leigh's traditional means of collective cast improvisation, and it may require a brief, uneasy moment of acclimation, but that's mostly because Leigh's vision is so singularly, uncompromisingly compassionate. The extraordinary Hawkins, confronts the ills of the world with high-spirited exuberance and a series of lighthearted witticism. She makes the character work, especially during the quiet scenes. To achieve that, she must smile, influence people with her vivacious nature, reflect her unshakable optimism, and be lively at almost all times, and do it naturally and convincingly. In one scene where she works with the little boy, we see that she's not at all superficial, but can listen, observe, empathize and find the right note in response. It's easy to feel distanced from her at first glance because her attitude feels both extremely grating and contemptibly naive. Yet Leigh masterfully spends much of the story dissipating our misperceptions about this most peculiar young woman. Her free-spiritedness, for some, may indicate her lack of intelligence. One of her best scenes may be viewed as surreal and theatrical, but profoundly effective. In the shadows under a rail line, she hears a strange chanting coming from an abandoned lot, and meets an agitated, mentally ill vagrant (Stanley Townsend), mumbling and ranting about real or imagined fears and injustices. It is possible nobody has spoken to him in days or weeks. She listens to him, speaks with him, asks if he's hungry. From her nervous back-and-forth movements, we know she shares that fear and it soothes him like magic. She speaks to the man not patronizingly, but completely on the level. As she does, Leigh cuts to a close-up of the man's face, as grateful tears well up in his eyes. Poppy skillfully exudes humanism, and shows us that such humanism truly has merit. It would help if we were all a little bit more compassionate and vulnerable to one another. We also get these glimpses into Poppy's deeper regions. Poppy reminds us that in these cynical, materialistic, intolerant times we are still capable of enjoying life, appreciating simple pleasures, being happy. Little do we know that our happiness is usually predicated on a particular lifestyle and shared only with similar subscribers. We should, like Poppy, embrace diversity.

The other essential performance is Marsan who pulls us into Scott, making us feel the poor man's inner rage, turmoil, and deep-seated confusion, to such a degree that he nearly out- acts Hawkins. As an evidently fuming/uptight/repressed/cynic/misanthropic/irascible/misogynist driving instructor Scott, whose intensely confused affinity with her sudden blazes up into a devastating emotional battle. Gravitated to Satanism as a way of life, Scott, as Poppy's spiritual opposite, repeatedly screams, "En-Ra-Ha, En-Ra-Ha, En-Ra-Ha," at her during their lessons and orders her to "focus on the eye at the top of the pyramid!" We can see early on that he doesn't believe any of Poppy's efforts to alleviate his anger, and indeed, that her attempts in his direction are not merely wasted but seriously counterproductive. The limits of this humanism are revealed here. The beleaguered relationship between them brings Poppy to a moment of life- changing disenchantment that will transmit her with a very small more degree of wisdom than she initially demonstrated.

As invigorating as it is to find a film that leaves you smiling, it's something much more exceptional to discover a film that makes you think about what a commitment to happiness really means.

Uzak is a glorious film, a classic. The basic plot is astonishingly simple to describe - Yusuf, a man from a rural part of Turkey, visits his cousin, Mahmut, in Istanbul, hoping to find a job there. The cousins share a tense time living together in the same flat until, eventually, Yusuf leaves. All of this unfolds slowly and methodically, in a manner that some viewers and critics have found infuriating. Indeed, at times the film seems to almost revel in its inaction - in particular, hints at possible romantic relationships come to nothing as the girls involved quite literally drift out of the picture. Although not a great deal ostensibly happens in Uzak, a great deal is said by the film - particularly on the topic of modern existence. The film's characters are almost always depicted as alienated and anesthetized - Mahmut photographs tiles for a living; people hardly talk to each other; watching television seems to be the universal past- time; and even familial bonds have broken down, as Mahmut bitingly refers to Jusuf as a 'little prick' and a 'filthy son of bitch'. The theme of a dehumanized people is crystallized by one recurrent image in the film - that of Mahmut sat recumbent in an armchair, watching TV. This image (always shot from the same angle, always static - much like Mahmut's life) keeps reappearing; the same each time apart from the differing programs on the screen. Mahmut's unerring attention to the television comes despite the fact that, at one point, he complains:

"The G**Damned thing has 90 channels but there's only sh*t!"

He is clearly a man that has been neutered by TV (porn seems to make up a significant proportion of what he watches), and by the trappings of modernity more generally. And hence one of the film's great triumphs is to make alienation recognizable; holding a mirror up to our own lives. Indeed, it is remarkable how 'real' and true-to-life the film seems - on this matter, I have already mentioned the effectiveness of the slow pace, but I would also draw your attention to the aftermath of the first sexual encounter of the film. In this scene, his mistress having just (wordlessly) departed, Mahmut lies back on the bed only to place his hand in some sticky, sexual residue, which he promptly wipes with a tissue. This is clearly no romanticized view of the world; no Hollywood portrayal of 'love-making', but a presentation of the less-than-perfect realities. Ceylan, I would contend, is a documentarian at heart, taking photographs which capture what is there for us all.

The decay on display here is not only spiritual but also economic. Yusuf goes to Istanbul, in search of work, because both he and his father have been told that they no long have jobs in their local factory. However, the city offers little relief from financial hardship - ships lie derelict and rotting in ports along the Bosporus (overshadowing the humans who created them), and the job-seeking process is nothing more than a series of delays, broken promises and refusals.

Uzak, however, is not devoid of optimism - we can see this through the subtle redemption of Mahmut which occurs at the end of the film. As should be clear from what has been written above, Mahmat's life is one that seems to consist wholly of taking photos of tiles; watching television; keeping his flat tidy; and having inconsequential, unfeeling sex. By contrast, there is a certain impulsiveness and innocence to Yusuf (at one point, he follows around a number of girls that he's interested in), that draws one towards him and demonstrates that he is a more complete and less tormented man than his cousin, despite his (Yusuf's ) poorer financial situation.

Watching so acute and affecting a portrayal of loneliness, ineffectiveness and eventual redemption, the viewer comes to realize that he is being granted special access to the very soul of the filmmaker - only a man who has experienced this trio firsthand can make a film such as this. And, indeed, Nuri Bigle Ceylan made Uzak in what might be called a solitary manner (I like Telerama's description of him as 'L'Artisan Solitaire') - he employed a sparse crew of five, and entrusted to himself many of the film-making roles. Not only did he direct this film but he also wrote it, photographed it, co-edited it, and produced it for his own company (nbc films). We even recognize Ceylan in the character of Mahmut - not only does Mahmat drive a car and live in a flat which, in real life, belong to Ceylan, but Ceylan used to also be a photographer. Although I'm reluctant to use a word which is often so casually applied, Uzak is undeniably the work of a true auteur. But this film does not just represent the maker's past but also, we suspect, his nightmares. When Mahmut's friends comment that:

"You used to say you'd make films like Tarkovsky."

We see clearly what Mahmut is: that is, the failure that Ceylan feared he might become. The references to Tarkovsky that are littered throughout the film thus become more than, say, the 'nods' and ejaculations of some art-film Tarantino - they are an integral part of so personal a story. Whilst it is true that Ceylan is influenced by Tarkovsky, I would argue that, in a certain respect, the references to the Russian master's work are far from flattering - in Uzak, watching a Tarkovsky film is seemingly no worthwhile pursuit but the sad remnant of a forgotten dream; something that can be switched over for pornography (as Mahmut does). It bravely asks: can't mere film-watching be enervating and soulless; a barrier to true human experiences? Shouldn't we be going out and making our own films? One suspects that Ceylan, as someone who has literally been saved by film-making, would answer with a resounding 'Yes!' to these questions.

"You couldn't change the past," the narrator of Little Children tells us at the movie's close, "but the future could be a different story."

The lives of the men and women who live in the very paragon of bland suburbia appear to be crunchy (and even somewhat unforgiving) on the outside, but inside they break, well, just like a little girl. A veritable sea of emotions, from love, despair, neglect, and hate churns below their pristine, everything-in-its-place veneers.

The placidity of this particular neighborhood is jolted by two things: the arrival of a sex offender (Jackie Earle Haley) and the emergence of a relationship between married-but-not- to-each-other Sarah and Brad; both events, directly and obliquely, are remarked upon by the nattering nabobs of middle-class conservatism in the town, particularly the rather particular hausfraus and soccer moms.

Sarah Pierce (Winslet) is a distant mother and wife; when she and her daughter Lucy visit the neighborhood playground, she sits away from the other mothers. As an indirect result, Lucy doesn't play with the other boys and girls on the see-saws or merry-go-round - she just plays quietly. Meanwhile, as the empty-headed women babble to each other (but not Sarah), a newcomer enters their midst - a stay-at-home father, Brad, whom they mockingly call (behind his back, of course) "The Prom King." Sarah's marriage seems empty and devoid of purpose. Brad, for his part, is married to a breadwinner - his wife Karen (Jennifer Connelly) is a documentary filmmaker who's completely absorbed with her work. Like Sarah, Brad is a little emotionally distant from his wife and their son, Aaron, so it's no wonder he and Sarah become constant companions throughout the long, hot suburban summer, spending their days either at the park or at the public pool.

The other main story thread involves the community's reaction to the presence of Ronnie McGorvey, convicted as a sex offender for flashing a young boy. Soon, there are fliers on telephone poles, and an angry outrage group is formed, led by ex-policeman Larry (Noah Emmerich), who seems to be more upset with Ronnie's existence than anyone else in the town.

At its core, the movie is about repression, shame and "settling" - staying with someone just because they provide you comfort but no love is no reason at all, the film explains. Committing adultery just might be an okay act, even with children involved, as long as it means a better life for the principals. Brad and Sarah transform from nodding acquaintances to good friends who take care of their kids together (Aaron and Lucy even grow to become friends, although up to that point they'd both been loners.) When the opportunity arises for them to become more, though, they take it - an act that's not easy to conceal from the prying eyes of the neighbors, let alone their respective spouses and certainly not their children. How long, if at all, can they possibly hope to maintain the charade that they're just friends? Perhaps the thought that their own, current marriages are charades in their own right gives Sarah and Brad reason to believe they can perpetuate the sham against their spouses.

Meanwhile, Ronnie attempts to cope with living as a sex offender. He lives with his doting mom, who believes there is good in everyone; she realizes that what Ronnie did was wrong, but that it was an accident, and she tries in vain to protect him from the rest of the community, which is by and large out to lynch him. But the brilliant caveat here is that Ronnie is by no means a victim - not only did he do what he was accused of (although he shows remorse and a lot of self-hate), but he shows that he's capable of more of the same. In fact, that's the genius of Todd Field's film - not only are people flawed, but they're believably flawed. In Little Children, people make decisions for selfish reasons, and there's no wondrous epiphany that somehow saves the soul and good standing of the poor decision maker - people live with what they've done, or they don't make the decision in the first place.

Winslet and Haley were nominated for their work here; the first-ever nomination for Haley, who was probably best known as Kelly Leak in the Bad News Bears films. He's eerie and creepy and utterly human as Ronnie McGorvey. You never really feel sympathy for the deviant, but you might feel a twinge of unease. For Winslet, this was the fifth nomination for the beauteous Briton, and it's astounding that she hasn't yet won. Then again, she's only 31 years old!

Little Children is a stark, seamless, unsettling story that grabs a hold of your psyche and twists it almost to the breaking point, relying on strong performances by Winslet, Haley, Wilson, and Emmerich as well as a tortuous plot that provides quite a jaded look at the tranquility of suburban life

About two-thirds of the way through Notes on a Scandal, one of the characters appears to go completely berserk with no provocation at all. Just so nice one minute and then BAM! completely loony the next. At first I thought this was a strange lapse on the part of Patrick Marber, the screenwriter; why have someone go around the bend without giving some sort of cause?

But then in the final third of the movie, it all falls into place. And when one does learn what the impetus is behind the seemingly unwarranted outburst, the logical plot points do align, and all is more or less aright with the world. And the way that the apparently loose strand was tied up (although not too neatly) quickly restored my faith in the film.

The stentorial Dame Judi Dench plays Barbara Covett, a self-described battle-axe of a teacher at a London high school, who befriends the school's new art teacher, Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett), a willowy tree branch of a woman who appears to be much more style than substance. During an altercation between students, Barbara saves Sheba with some quick thinking and impromptu discipline, and the two become fast friends. Both teachers are outsiders among their coworkers: Barbara the tough-minded contrarian and Sheba the tall, almost flighty blonde, and soon they're enjoying lunches together and lunches and drinks after work. You know, good bonding.

Until, of course, Barbara learns that Sheba's been having an affair with one of her underage students. But rather than turn Sheba in to the school authorities, Barbara instead decides to use the information to her advantage, eliciting a promise from Sheba to call off the affair immediately and return (metaphorically) to the loving arms of her older husband, Richard (Bill Nighy, lately seen with appendages on his face in the Pirates of the Caribbean movie), and her two young children. Barbara's intentions seem pure - why involve the school and police when the two friends can work it out on their own? After all, that's what friends are for.

But then Stuff Happens, the insane behavior to which I alluded in my first paragraph. And that causes a sea change in the way the friends view each other. Who is doing the right thing for whom, exactly? Is Barbara betraying Sheba's confidence? Is Sheba half as bad as we've seen her made out to be? And a chain of events is set into motion that destroys people's lives but falls just short of being a bona fide tragedy, since no one has the good grace to die of shame.

Dench is beyond superb. I'm so used to seeing her in regal, all-knowing roles that it's refreshing to see her as a more vulnerable - and darker - character, allowing her to really plumb its depths. Barbara, who narrates, can be a cold, scheming bitch with a real axe to grind but also the kindest, empathic woman in the room. Well, for the right people, the kind of people she wants to spend the rest of her life with, perhaps. And Blanchett has never looked better, lighting up the screen with her bewitching, haunting eyes; it's easy to see why her students think Sheba's so wonderful. Heck, even the male teachers want to knock boots with Mrs. Hart.

As the movie races to its denouement, one's never sure for whom one should be rooting, which to my mind is a hallmark of well-made thrillers. There aren't really any winners in this one, just shattered dreams and lost opportunities. Huge kudos to the pitch-perfect cast and the artful direction of Richard Eyre, who directed Dench in Iris (2000).

Michael Moore, America's living embodiment of Thomas Paine, gives us a measured, and uncommonly evenhanded look at America's health-care industry as compared to those in Canada, England, and France. Although pocked by spurts of pomposity, Sicko uses the "cruel to be kind" method of educating its viewers about the issue of universal health care in the United States. "Look at the other civilized countries," Moore says; "their systems work. When other countries make better cars, we drive them. When other countries make better wine, we drink it. So how come, when other countries have better health-care systems, we don't adopt those systems?"

Moore's plea to the American consumer is an emotional roller coaster, and that's understating things. Excluding people who have no health insurance at all, he describes the difficulties of several individuals across the country, all covered by health insurance, in receiving adequate medical attention. Heart-rending stories are told about people denied tests and procedures that would have ultimately saved their lives, as the HMOs deemed the efforts as "experimental" or the patients' status as "not life threatening." Moore includes sworn testimony (before Congress) and interviews of former or current medical reviewers, i.e., people who decide whether a claim will be rejected or accepted. It's pretty damning stuff.

But of course, it's the health-care system of other countries that are sometimes held up as the ideal to which America should aspire. But that's socialist propaganda, you say. Government-supported health care? Bah. Socialized medicine is just another way for the commies to get to us and destroy our way of life. But it turns out that's not quite the case; Canadians, for instance, pay nothing for health care and still enjoy comparatively low taxes while living longer than Americans. Oh, and they have a lower infant-mortality rate too; but then again, so does nearly every other civilized nation. Things are bad enough in the US that Moore's Canadian relatives get temporary health care before visiting him in the US, just in case something goes wrong. And some American citizens steal across the border to get themselves some of that free medical attention when they can't get it here.

Moore also examines, in a touching, gut-wrenching look, the plight of many September 11 first responders. As most people know, the air around Ground Zero in New York was dangerously bad for quite some time after the attacks. Many firefighters, EMTs, and policemen risked their lives to pull others from the wreckage. But there were also many volunteers who happened to be in the area who ran back to the flames and into the smoke to help others. These people, says the government, aren't eligible for much care related to their injuries. After having been constantly lauded as heroes for months after the attacks, many of the first responders were ignored, left to fend for themselves as their health slipped further and further. One man - a man who risked death to help strangers - has two bad lungs and must cart around a breathing apparatus to survive; he can't even sleep on his back or stomach, because he just can't breathe.

The only true instance of bombast on the part of Moore is when he takes a few of these 9/11 workers to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to receive the same level of medical treatment as the "enemy combatants" in the prison. He's denied, of course, so he traverses Havana for help and easily finds it. An inhaler that costs one of the 9/11 workers over a hundred dollar - when several are needed monthly - costs under one dollar in Cuba. Same inhaler, same medicine for a fraction of the cost.

I realize that even though this is a documentary, Moore does have an agenda to push, as he does with all of his films. But what is his motivation? Is it merely to poke fun at big, bloated insurance companies and the government? Or is it to raise awareness of a national crisis? Moore's point isn't that health care should definitively be offered to everyone for free, it's just that there are a huge number of people in America who are actually covered but can't get proper medical treatment. It's a national disgrace, Moore implies, and he's precisely right. Understandably, we often have to throw money at war machines to gain a political edge, but in doing so we tend to completely neglect the sheer humane practice of making sure everyone has the opportunity to get well.

Are you the kind of moviegoer who just doesn't cotton to subtitled films? If you're like me, you have enough trouble following the spoken words and the images on the screen without also having to wrestle with text. For me, it's especially tough when the movie depends strongly on dialog for its success. So for the most part, I avoid subtitled movies. I'll watch 'em, but it darn well better be an awesome film.

Pan's Labyrinth is an awesome film, and I mean that it's both awe-inspiring and excellent. The movie is full of lush imagery that at times cascades gently over the viewer, lulling them into acquiescence, and other times jarring him into reality. It's simultaneously beautiful, arresting, dreamy, and terrifying.

The story centers on young Ofelia (Ivana Baquero), a bookish sort who's been uprooted by her mother Carmen (Ariadna Gil) to live with her new stepfather Capitan Vidal (Sergi Lopez) in a remote military stronghold in Spain during World War II. The Franco government has just assumed control, and Vidal's troops are there to fight rebels stationed in the woods, all while rationing food to the needy villagers around them.

As if this situation weren't unnerving enough, Ofelia's mother is very late in her pregnancy (by the Capitan, of course), and the pregnancy isn't proceeding smoothly; in an ominous sign, the caravan ferrying Ofelia and Carmen to the castle has to stop when Carmen becomes ill.

On top of dealing with these very real problems, Ofelia finds herself drawn to a huge labyrinth located in the garden of the vast estate. The housekeeper, Mercedes, warns the imaginative Ofelia not to enter the labyrinth, because its myriad turns would be very dangerous indeed for her young charge.

In the middle of her first night in the castle, Ofelia awakes and finds herself drawn to a pit near the labyrinth. Descending its narrow stone stairs, she finds Pan (Faun in Spanish), a servant of the Lord of the Underworld. Pan tells Ofelia that she is actually the Princess of the Underworld, and that she must perform three tasks so that she can leave her human body and return to be by the side of her father.

To describe these three tasks would be to give away a bit too much, but suffice to say that they aren't as simple as saying one's prayers or sneaking a loaf of bread away from the kitchen. But Ofelia does choose to complete them; she decides that given the evil of her malignant, torturing stepfather (a despot in training during the Fascist regime), she would rather follow her limitless imagination.

Meanwhile, a parallel storyline involves the rebels, who have a source inside the castle: Mercedes. Vidal is determined to root all of the rebels out of the woods and exterminate them all, and they are equally determined to overthrow him and return freedom to the masses. As well, Carmen's pregnancy becomes even more difficult, and it is only a matter of time before the three threads come to a head.

Perhaps the most striking of the many visual desserts in the movie is that of the Pale Man, one of the demons that Ofelia must encounter during her travails. The scene is a banquet table with a lush array of foods and drinks. At one end sits a creature. The creature is tall, but humanoid in shape. It has long arms and arrow-sharp fingers with nails resembling talons. It is hairless and virtually skinless as well, and it has no eyes. Its mouth is a gaping maw, bereft of lips; a cold, stark, ugly beast that immediately fills one with horror and dread. On the table before the creature are two eyeballs; when the Pale Man is aroused, it grasps the eyeballs with its gnarled hands and slaps them into the palms, then holds the arms at head's height in order to see its prey.

Guillermo del Toro's film is highly imaginative, almost decadent in its lushness, evocative in both beauty and ugliness, in Ofelia's innocence, Carmen's and Mercedes' love, and Vidal's demonic cruelty. Vidal is a terrible sight, a by-the-book murderous fiend who will stop at nothing to completely eradicate everyone who opposes him, including the weak and the infirm. Lopez's performance is gut-wrenching, despicable, and sincere. The precocious Baquero, as Ofelia, is a perfect foil to the haunting Vidal, combining her natural, wide-eyed naivete and curiosity with resolve, intelligence, and self-sufficiency.

This original film is Mexico's 2007 entry as Best Film in a Foreign Language for the Academy Awards, and it really should win. Had it been in English, I have no doubt it would have been considered for Best Picture. It really is that good; don't let your aversion to subtitles prevent you from seeing this one.

Sean Penn's, Into the Wild is an alternately enthralling and wrenching portrait of a young man who ran from his problems and searched for peace and found paradise and, in turn, anguish and despair. Chris McCandless' journey is a gripping travelogue that's both a cautionary tale and a vicariously exhilarating experience; man, it looked like he had a whale of a good time, but man, did it end badly for him.

First and foremost, what makes Into the Wild work so flawlessly is that even knowing the final outcome doesn't change the overall effect that movie will have on the average moviegoer. Based on McCandless' real story, the movie pulls few punches in how the protagonist is depicted; he's neither a saint nor a sinner, just an idealistic (and not naive), troubled college graduate who feels adrift from literally everything: parents, life, friends.

Chris (Emile Hirsch) is a highly intelligent Emory College grad, the son of a NASA scientist (William Hurt) and an entrepreneur (Marcia Gay Harden). But unlike other privileged young citizens, Chris has no intentions of enjoying the gifts and wealth his family and connections have afforded him. Instead, he gives away his life savings of $24,000, abandons his beat-up Datsun, leaves his family behind (without telling them), and sets off on a trek around the country.

Chris's travels take him literally all over the country, across the midwest (where he runs a grain harvester for Vince Vaughn), to the Rocky Mountains, to the Grand Canyon, the Hoover Dam, Las Vegas, even down to Mexico, winding up at his ultimate resting spot: deepest, darkest, remotest Alaska. The story is told in two timelines, one of the present (the time shortly before and after Chris discovers an abandoned bus in the Alaskan wilderness), and one of the past, the events leading up to Chris's Magic Bus time. And the two timelines are brilliantly juxtaposed with each other by director Sean Penn, who doesn't just show us a perfectly linear chronology of how Chris came to be in an abandoned bus; he shows us the story behind the adventurer, the believer, the angel, the tactiturn rebel, the iconoclast.

So what made Chris McCandeless decide to ditch everything and live off the land like some latter-day flower child? I'll explain no further than to say that his upbringing, under the commanding, demanding eyes of his overachieving, arguing parents, played a huge role - but perhaps not the only role. In short, Chris decides he simply does not wish to be part of the rat race; he does not wish to be trapped in a meaningless job working for a meaningless company doing trite, soul-destroying things. He wants to live and learn on his own. And that's where the inspirational aspect of this kicks in. He sets out to accomplish something undefined (i.e., the abstract Find Himself) and winds up absorbing more knowledge through his experiences than most people do through their lonely lives of quiet desperation.

Along the way, Chris meets myriad people, and it's genuinely touching how much of an impact he has on their lives as he passes through. In particular, Catherine Keener plays an aging hippie whose love for her soul mate (Brian Dierker) has begun to fade; the mere presence of the Christ-like Chris magically changes that, for the better. (A lesser film might have had Chris and Jan sleeping together to foment complications in everyone's relationship.) Chris tells everyone he meets that his ultimate goal is to live in the Alaskan wilderness, consequences be damned; everyone tells him not to do it.

The impression we're finally left with of Christopher McCandless is that of a clever, thoughtful, engaging young man who had more demons than a nightmare of Clive Barker dopplegangers. Haunted by his own harrowing childhood, he escaped as literally and figuratively as he could, living by the seat of his pants over thousands of miles of gravel, sand, and asphalt. His motives might have been a bit selfish (he never did try to contact his family, the film tells us), but his heart seemed to be in the right place otherwise. Which made his demise all the harder to bear.

Hal Holbrook, playing a crusty benefactor to Chris in the Arizona desert, earned an Oscar nomination, and it's well deserved, but even stronger accolades are due to Hirsch, who underwent tremendous physical changes just to play Chris McCandless properly. And the final scene, the waning moments of Chris's life, is so vivid and packed with emotion that you almost can't bear to watch, peeking instead through crossed fingers. Hirsch is so excellent in the role that it's a travesty of some magnitude that he wasn't more widely recognized for his grueling, gutty performance. Even more so when you realize the guy later played Speed Racer and previously had been best known for being Judd Hirsch's kid.

Good Night, and Good Luck is a singularly gripping, powerful movie about the epic battle between a blustery, Red-obsessed senator and a resolved veteran newsman. Photographed in stark black and white and infused with a real 1950s feel, George Clooney's sharp homage to one of the greatest journalists America's ever known is utterly captivating and discomfiting.

Edward R. Murrow (David Strathairn) was one of the biggest stars in CBS News as the host of "Person to Person" and "See It NoW." When he gets wind of a soldier who's been fired from the Air Force for a tenuous Communist connection, Murrow springs into action, choosing to use Senator Joseph P. McCarthy's own words and actions against him, rather than attacking the man.

What Murrow did was nothing short of astonishing. This was the mid-1950s. The press genuflected to royalty (i.e., politicos) much more than exercised genuine critical analysis of it. What's more, McCarthy's fellow senators did little to prevent the man from running roughshod over the rights of those suspecting of being "card-carrying Communists." With no press to question him and no colleagues to rein him in, McCarthy had carte blanche to root out the evil-doin' Reds from all facets of American life.

The stand that Murrow took - putting the reputations of himself, producer Fred Friendly (Clooney), and the CBS network on the line - took an incalculable amount of courage. One misstep by Murrow and his team, and his career would be over. (As it turned out, his undoing of McCarthy was also his own undoing, but that was less his fault than the fault of CBS chief William Paley.)

More than fifty years have passed since Murrow won by decision over McCarthy (the senator was censured by his colleagues, which allowed him to remain in the Senate but severely diminished his influence), but the events that take place in this film resonate deeply today. Indeed, it is not unimaginable to see a politician like McCarthy run amok in a avaricious grab for power and prestige. The passage of time, however, allows us to reflect perhaps a bit more objectively, to examine the fight for the civil rights of every man, woman, and child in the United States. How far have we come in the ensuing half-century? Who are the Murrows of today?

Strathairn is nothing short of remarkable. He's not an especially large man, but he has such gravitas in this film that he seems to fill the screen even when he's merely sitting in the background. He is a man of many faces and expressions, and every one of them seems to ring perfectly true. Strathairn has knocked around Hollywood for more than a quarter century, earning scores of accolades from his peers and the media, but he's never been a leading man in a such a widely praised film. Indeed, he's the kind of actor who disappears into roles, who is a superb character actor, adding color and depth to every role he touches. He's been nominated for an Academy award at this writing, and he stands a good chance at bringing home the statuette. It's long overdue.

Strathairn is ably supported by a well-picked cast, including Robert Downey Jr. in his fortieth comeback, Frank Langella as Paley, and Clooney as producer Friendly. Even more beneficial, though, is the look and feel of the movie, and the near-flawless direction by Clooney. Clooney wisely stuck to the main tet-a-tet between Murrow and McCarthy, rather than building up Murrow as a character first; indeed, there's little else in the movie besides the row with McCarthy. For one thing, we learn virtually nothing about the personal lives of Friendly and Murrow. And that omission works very well within the structure of this film.

Good Night, and Good Luck is a mesmerizing glimpse at how the power of the press can be used to uphold the rights of man, and a chilling snapshot at what can happen if ego and authority go unchecked.