Ill-Informed Gadfly

In his fantastic new movie “Happy-Go-Lucky,” Mike Leigh finds optimism and irrepressible energy in his usual working-class London setting. And he does it without sacrificing his vaunted realism. Happiness, in Leigh’s world, is a force of will, and the emotional strength of his lead character, a buoyant primary school teacher named Poppy, is remarkable. Poppy’s chin-up reaction to the theft of her beloved bicycle keys us in to her resilient spirit. It also establishes the framework for the story, as Poppy tries to advance her meager station by taking driving lessons. An increasingly hostile instructor, played with pinpoint rage and pathos by Eddie Marsan, tests her resolve, along with other dilemmas that carry undercurrents of violence and despair. By conventional standards, not a heck of a lot happens in “Happy-Go-Lucky,” and that’s in part a testament to Leigh’s working method, in which the plot and dialogue take shape during extensive rehearsals with his actors. Nonetheless, the stakes are high for Poppy, as Leigh reveals the precariousness of her cheerful attitude. As Poppy, Sally Hawkins delivers an extraordinary performance. Her laugh seems to well up from deep within, yet Hawkins also summons the grit and determination that lurk beneath the smile. Among others in the standout cast, Alexis Zegerman as Poppy’s droll roommate and Kate O’Flynn as her disaffected sister show the many ways life can — and by all rights should — get you down. Yet their closeness to Poppy sustains them. “Happy-Go-Lucky” is a feel-good movie that works hard for its warm-and-fuzzy vibes.

In 1990, at age 43, Oliver Stone won an Academy Award for Best Director for “Born on the Fourth of July.” It was his second such honor, following his win three years earlier, for “Platoon.” Stone became the 16th man to receive more than one directing Oscar; Steven Spielberg and Clint Eastwood have since joined the exclusive club, which also includes such luminaries as Billy Wilder, David Lean, Elia Kazan and Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Stone’s vanquished foes that year were also impressive. He defeated Jim Sheridan, for the lyrical “My Left Foot”; Woody Allen for one of his best movies, “Crimes and Misdemeanors”; Peter Weir for the well-crafted if cloying “Dead Poets Society”; and Kenneth Branagh for “Henry V,” arguably the best Shakespearean film ever made.

The previous year, 1989, had been a great one for movies. In addition to Sheridan’s, Allen’s and Branagh’s films, it was the year of “Do the Right Thing,” “Casualties of War,” “The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover,” “Drugstore Cowboy,” “Enemies, A Love Story,” “sex, lies and videotape,” “Batman,” “Say Anything,” “Heathers,” “The Abyss” and “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.”

Most of these movies have secured their place in the film-historical firmament, either as bold artistic statements or superior popular entertainments. (”Enemies” is sadly overlooked, and “Munchausen” is more of a personal obsession.) I can’t gauge, exactly, how the reputation of “Born on the Fourth of July” has held up over the years, but I think just listing it alongside these titles makes it look wobbly. To be fair, Stone’s movie is more than just a shallow awards-grabber: It’s personal and passionate. It’s also shrill and histrionic, showy and uneven. Stone and his star, Tom Cruise, try to tell an epic tale of American heroism and political awakening. But they’re so busy insisting on Ron Kovic as an iconic figure that they lose sight of the gritty details that would create a fuller, more rounded portrait. A small example that speaks to their approach: Cruise, no whiz at accents, attempts some understated Long Island inflections. When he speaks softly, he gives Kovic a distinct voice, with a sensitive, boyish lilt that suggests the uncertainty behind his gung-ho patriotism. But much of the dialogue in “Born on the Fourth of July” is SHOUTED, and when Cruise yells, he just sounds like Cruise.

The outline of the plot is well known: After high school, young Kovic joins the Marines and volunteers to serve in Vietnam; during his second tour, a gunshot severs his spine, leaving him paralyzed from the chest down. Eventually Kovic comes to terms with his disability and becomes a prominent voice in the antiwar movement. I’m not sure, though, that Stone is really interested in the specifics of Kovic’s physical and emotional journey. He positions Kovic as a symbol of everything wrong about the war in Vietnam. Kovic develops remarkable dexterity and independence — traveling solo across the country and to Mexico. Yet to Stone, Kovic’s wheelchair is a prison, a constant reminder of his shattered manhood. Stone is obsessed with the sexual side effects of paralysis, and I imagine this movie has contributed to the misconception — corrected by the documentary “Murderball” — that men with spinal cord injuries can’t get erections. In this respect, Kovic was simply unlucky. Stone’s limp-dick fixation reaches a nadir when Kovic antagonizes his devout-Catholic mother by shouting “PENIS! BIG ERECT PENIS!” She responds, “Don’t say penis in this house!” Stone and Kovic himself adapted the screenplay from Kovic’s autobiography, but I don’t care if Kovic remembers this exchange verbatim; on screen, I didn’t believe it.

So much of the talk in “Born on the Fourth of July” is fraught with Meaning. Scenes are framed not as conversations but as political arguments. Stone struggles to convey the reversal in Kovic’s convictions through action. The third act feels rushed and incomplete: After confessing to the family of a fallen comrade about the young man’s friendly-fire death, Kovic abruptly transforms into a full-blown antiwar activist.

As Stone’s filmmaking, well, I often say that actors win Oscars not for the best acting, but for the most acting. The same goes for Stone, whose showy, subjective camerawork is sometimes spot-on, sometimes distracting. The chaotic, hallucinatory combat sequences include some of his best work, as Stone and the peerless cinematographer Robert Richardson manipulate light to show how “the fog of war” clouds the vision and judgment of a terrified grunt. Stone also fashions an underfunded veterans’ hospital into a chamber of horrors. But often he’s just whirling the camera around, using slow motion and sound effects and extreme closeups and shifts in film stock as unnecessary italics. It’s frenzied, immature filmmaking. (Compare it to the restraint shown by Brian De Palma, often unjustly criticized for his visual excesses, in “Casualties of War,” one of the great Vietnam films.) Two years later, in “JFK,” Stone would find the perfect material for his techical gifts and high-octane style. Wrong as the premise was, the process of unraveling a conspiracy galvanized Stone to do his best work; he captured the outrage of so many who feel the story of Kennedy’s assassination was never fully told. Stone was nominated for a third Oscar for “JFK” but didn’t win — too outlandish and incendiary. Looking back now, though, it’s almost impossible to believe that by then, he was already film royalty in the Academy’s eyes, thanks to his whiz-bang-boom veteran’s story.

“Let the Right One In” is a delightfully wicked revenge fantasy that speaks to anyone who was ever an introverted and persecuted 12-year-old boy (or girl). It taps into that universal desire, one felt more acutely by those who live inside their heads, to find someone accepting and appreciative, someone who’ll help you fight the battles you’ve been longing to wage. This soul mate could be a buddy or a romantic partner. In this inventive and deadpan Swedish movie, Oskar (Kare Hedebrant), finds, in one person, a bit of column A and a bit of column B. Eli (Lina Leandersson) appears to be the girl of his dreams. But when he asks her age, she says she’s 12, “more or less.” (Oskar finds this strange; he knows his age to the day. But he doesn’t pry — he’s too infatuated to press her for uncomfortable answers.) She also asks him if he’d still like her if she wasn’t a girl. At this point, the audience knows what Oskar will figure out at his own deliberate pace: Eli is not a girl, exactly, and she’s certainly not 12. She’s a vampire.

As long as you’re not turned off by blood, as long as you’re down with off-kilter and transgressive humor, Tomas Alfredson’s movie offers a bounty of pleasure. It hits you at odd angles. Set in the early 80s, in the dead of winter, in a Stockholm suburb dominated by dreary, Soviet-style housing projects, it introduces Oskar as he practices pulling a knife on an imagined foe. Oskar is not squeamish: He collects newspaper clippings about murder and mayhem. When a police officer visits his class and asks how investigators might know that a body found in a burning home belongs to a murder victim, Oskar knows the answer: no smoke in the lungs. But outside his fantasy life, he is a helpless victim, unable to fend off the merciless bullying of a classmate.

Eli moves into the apartment across the hall, accompanied by an older man. His job, we learn, is to procure blood for her. We are free to imagine how this relationship began and how long it has lasted. But if the old guy were ever a reliable partner for Eli, he’s lost his nerve entirely. His ineptitude is quietly hilarious. His strategy is to drug an unsuspecting victim, string him up by his ankles, cut his throat and collect the blood with a funnel. But his execution is inefficient, and he’s spooked by an obstacle as unthreatening as a dog. When he has to dispose of a body, he dumps it in a drainage pond where it’s sure to be found. Unable to count on her partner, Eli does the dirty work herself, biting necks. But this leaves her vulnerable to possible discovery. She preys on a band of slow-witted barflies who gradually begin to suspect that all is not well in their town.

The courtship of Oskar and Eli is remarkably sweet. He offers her a piece of candy, which she tries to eat. When he sees her vomiting, he gives her a stiff-armed hug. And she helps him confront the bullies with some timeless advice: Hit back. She really is the perfect girlfriend: She’s cute, if a bit pale, with dark hair and big, haunted eyes. She doesn’t go to school, so she exists outside the binding social order. And Oskar knows that if he ever gets in real trouble, she can come to his aid.

Alfredson does well with longish takes and forceful editing, although he falls victim to excessive artiness at times. Several scenes begin with a moving camera that starts out in the wrong place and gradually demurs to reveal what needs to be seen. But his feel for the material is spot on: He maintains a dryly funny-creepy tone, punctuated by the occasional outrageous image. He delights in taboo-busting. Yes, you’re supposed to laugh — the audience I saw it with mostly just seemed nervous — but you’re also supposed to be emotionally invested. Conventional horror fans will likely just find it strange and chuckle to mask their discomfort. I like movies that intentionally stir conflicted feelings, and “Let the Right One In” evokes some truly guilty pleasure. Innocent people die, and you want to revel in it, but you’re aware that you’re not witnessing cosmic justice. Instead, “Let the Right One In” makes you feel the capriciousness of a coldly indifferent universe. In the world of this movie, a doomed, preadolescent romance between a boy and a vampire is as warm and fuzzy as it gets.

Ed Harris’s beautifully made and thoroughly entertaining Western deserved to do bigger business, but its quick exit from theaters is no surprise. It’s old-fashioned, and the violence is realistic — quick and ugly and decisive. It’s grittier and more austere than James Mangold’s popular “3:10 to Yuma” remake, with its outre clothes and stylized gunplay. And “Appaloosa” lacks “Yuma’s” psychological hooey, instead developing an honest relationship between roving lawmen Virgil Cole (Harris) and Everett Hitch (Viggo Mortensen). These actors are simpatico: devoid of vanity, taciturn yet emotionally aware. For the villain, Harris shrewdly casts Jeremy Irons, an Englishman with a showman’s instinct. Irons has an iconic moment at the beginning, when he strolls out of his house, coolly guns down a sheriff and his two deputies and saunters back inside. His languid stride will give you chills.

There’s one weak link in “Appaloosa,” and sadly, it’s a major one: Renee Zellweger’s dreadful performance as Allison French, a conniving widow. She’s the linchpin of the story, but the casting makes Virgil’s attraction to her beyond inexplicable. I feel sorry for Harris; for all I know, she was foisted upon him by New Line Cinema. (I’m convinced Zellweger has dirt on every exec in Hollywood.) How could such an uncompromising director not notice her amateurish bumbling? Everyone else is acting; Zellweger is playing dress-up. She’s overbroad and tone-deaf. Virgil explains the source of his interest in Allison — in his line of work, the only unmarried women he comes across are prostitutes. Yet as Everett’s hooker girlfriend, Katie, Ariadna Gil is a pro in every sense — smart and sexy and in tune emotionally with those around her. Thanks to Zellweger, Everett’s willingness to sacrifice his relationship with Katie for the sake of Virgil’s future with Allison is an even more profound act of friendship than it’s meant to be.

Nonetheless, “Appaloosa” comes together gracefully — Harris really must be a good director. Adapted by Harris and Robert Knott from a novel by the old warhorse Robert Parker, it’s a well-told tale, and Harris’ widescreen images tap into the primal appeal of the Western genre. You feel the craggy beauty and hair-trigger fragility of frontier life.

When you get very close to launch, suddenly it’s like someone turned on a big electric light bulb. You think, you know, “I think we’re really going to go. I think it’s going to happen. We’re gonna … LEAVE!” — Apollo 11 astronaut Mike Collins

“In the Shadow of the Moon” is a remarkable documentary that captures the seat-of-the-pants ingenuity and innovation that fueled the Apollo missions. With our space program a shambles, it’s all the more remarkable to be reminded that 40 years ago, we had developed the technology required to land on the moon and get back safely. Yes, the space race of the 60s was fueled by less-than-wholesome motives — competition with the Soviets for strategic domination of the skies and beyond. But as executed, the moon missions put a beautiful face on humankind. The rockets we would use to fly there, then-President Kennedy says in a telling clip, would include new metal alloys, some of which had not yet been invented. Within six years of that speech, we had invented them, so to speak. Realistically, it’s hard to top a moon mission — the next step in exploring the solar system, a manned mission to Mars, would take nine months each way, presenting huge logistical challenges. (Among other things, as my colleagues at The Associated Press reported, NASA would have to prepare for the possibility of both sex and death in space.) As a result, the Apollo astronauts interviewed for this British-made documentary remain, as the film puts it, the only human beings to have visited another world.

Director David Sington unearthed wondrous footage, and his technical skills are impressive. In the audio commentary, he describes finding silent footage of Mission Control, then synching it painstakingly to the audio he unearthed from another source. On screen, it’s seamless. Also among Sington’s gems: an appearance on the game show “I’ve Got a Secret” by Neil Armstrong’s parents. Their secret: “My son became an astronaut today.” The host, Garry Moore, even asks how they would react if Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon. “I would just say God bless him, and I wish him the very best of all good luck,” Armstrong’s mother says.

The reclusive Armstrong was the only Apollo astronaut who did not agree to be interviewed. Sington tells the story of the Apollo missions in their words, without narration. They come through brilliantly. And one of the coolest things about this compulsively watchable movie — I rented it from Netflix, kept it for months and watched it twice, not including a run-through of the commentary — is that it gives a starring role to Collins, the guy who didn’t get to walk on the moon. At the time, orbiting the moon while Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin shuffled about below in their marshmallow-man suits, Collins was described as “the loneliest man in the universe.” He demurs, saying it was hard to feel lonely with Mission Control yapping in his ear all the time. Then as now, Collins shows no bitterness that he was passed over for a moonwalk. And he puts his experiences in context while recalling, in vivid language, the immediacy of the moment. What a spectacular rush it must have been to be part of the Apollo program. The risks were grave. The White House had prepared a statement that Nixon would read in case the astronauts were unable to return, left to suffocate on a foreign heavenly body. Collins notes how lucky he was even to have gotten such an opportunity: He was born in 1930, as were several of his fellow astronauts. He was the right guy at the right time, and he wore his good fortune graciously.

You may feel a tinge of cynicism during the opening reel of “Rachel Getting Married.” You may worry that this acclaimed film is merely an excuse for the milquetoast Anne Hathaway to slap on some fake tattoos and spout some “Juno”-style snark. It’s a legitimate but unfounded concern. “Rachel Getting Married” quickly turns glorious. First-time screenwriter Jenny Lumet, daughter of Sidney Lumet, announces her formidable talent when Hathaway’s Kym delivers a rambling, self-centered toast to her sister Rachel. Kym cloaks her vulerability in bravado and mordant humor, and as she keeps talking, director Jonathan Demme teases out the tension in the room. Kym, a recovering addict fresh out of rehab, can’t help but dredge up the unspeakable pain she’s caused those closest to her. Hathaway taps into this anguish and delivers a complex and fully realized performance. Rosemarie DeWitt as Rachel and Bill Irwin and Debra Winger as their divorced parents are equally brilliant. They explore the disparate reactions to domestic trauma. Irwin cuts loose with emotion, hugging and laughing and worrying. Winger does the opposite, clamming up and shutting down — until she’s cornered. And DeWitt reveals the unflattering limits of Rachel’s generosity and compassion. If Lumet’s words lay bare the characters’ disputes, Demme’s direction helps resolve them. After all, what’s a family gathering if not a collision between seething resentment and unconditional love? Using natural light and handheld cameras, Demme creates a warm, inclusive vibe. The liberal Connecticut milieu feels like home for him, a place where cultures mingle easily and art and music are paramount. “Rachel Getting Married” teems with vitality — it’s raw and intimate and ultimately redemptive.

Seth Rogen, whose meteoric rise I predicted in this space two years ago, has hit a wall. Instead of expanding upon his relaxed, good-natured comic persona, he’s using it as a crutch, losing his edge and his inventiveness. I almost always use the word “amiable” to describe Rogen, but his amiability is starting to wear, because he doesn’t take it anywhere exciting or new. He’s a comfortable old shoe — at 26. He was freer and more inventive in a throwaway supporting role in the dreadful “You, Me and Dupree” than in his two star vehicles this year, “Pineapple Express” and “Zack and Miri Make a Porno.” In “Pineapple” he was unfocused, shifting from what-me-worry cool, which suits him, to neurotic kvetching, which does not. And in “Zack and Miri,” he’s just a hairy, blubbery void — soft, unthreatening and dull. The same goes for the movie, another uninspired bit of raunchy schmaltz from writer-director Kevin Smith, who forces actors to declaim his awkward, compound-complex laugh lines like they’re reciting Shakespeare. Smith is infamous for his indifference to what his movies look like, and he botches the one sight gag that could get a buzz out of the audience. (In “Clerks,” the big gross-out moment worked because it is discussed but not seen.) Nothing in “Zack and Miri Make a Porno” is surprising. The title, and a one-sentence synopsis, say it all: Platonic best friends make a porn movie to save cash and fall in love. The End. Elizabeth Banks is more professional than Rogen, with her unforced empathy and appealing insecurities, and Craig Robinson (Darryl on “The Office”) has some winning moments, but the movie is a piffle, sluggishly paced and at best sporadically funny.

Clint Eastwood directs actors like a dinner-theater hack and composes music like an autistic 3-year-old. Yet somehow he’s revered as a great American filmmaker. I don’t expect his latest, “Changeling,” to make fawning critics realize that “Million Dollar Baby” was asinine and “Flags of Our Fathers” was unwatchable. But perhaps it will invite closer scrutiny in the future. Eastwood’s shoddy technique gets a pass because he explores serious themes, like the toxic legacy of violence. In “Changeling,” he drains the vitality from a remarkable true story about a single mother whose 9-year-old son disappeared in 1928 Los Angeles. Instead of solving the case, the police department tried to replace her boy with another. The act was so brazen that it carries some weight even in Eastwood’s stodgy reenactment. But “Changeling” is a lecture on the ills of police corruption, not a drama that reveals a betrayal of the public trust. The second and third acts are simply dreadful — written, shot and performed as if by clueless amateurs. Angelina Jolie, looking frail and pallid, makes a few game attempts to sketch the personality of the wronged mother. But she and Eastwood see the heroine as little more than a victim: If she’s not in tears, she’s on the verge. The rest of the actors reveal their purpose the minute Eastwood introduces them. The man is not subtle, and his clumsy filmmaking wears on you as the narrative loses its juice.

In the engrossing police-corruption drama “Pride and Glory,” director Gavin O’Connor finds rueful ironies in the home lives of a family of New York cops. Detective Ray Tierney, who compromised his professional integrity just once, lives on a leaky houseboat while his divorce is finalized. His brother Francis, a captain who tolerates corruption from the men in his command, is losing his beloved wife to cancer. And their brother-in-law, Jimmy Egan, who is deeply corrupt — and a drug dealer and a murderer — enjoys domestic bliss. Of course there’s a reckoning on its way for Jimmy, and Colin Farrell plays him with a nervous bravado. But “Pride and Glory” is about the cost of doing the right thing. Edward Norton plays Ray, who emerges from self-imposed exile to investigate the slayings of four officers. He sports an ugly two-inch scar on his cheek and much deeper psychological wounds. O’Connor is brave enough to treat the source of Ray’s anguish elliptically, allowing Norton to communicate Ray’s wounded self-worth. This may be the best performance of Norton’s accomplished career. Like the movie, it’s a triumph of understatement. Characters talk to each other, not to the audience, and remarkably, O’Connor doesn’t employ a single flashback. He can’t avoid a few ragged moments, lapses in pacing or lucidity that induce frustration. But the sensation is fleeting, and “Pride and Glory” reestablishes its vise-like grip on your senses and intellect.