GENUINELY TOUCHING: Departuresby MALCOLM FRASER
MATTHEW HAYS and
CHRISTOPHER SYKES
Bandslam
If there is one positive to take away from upbeat teenybopper flick Bandslam, it’s that millions of mallrats and Miley Cyrus fans might be exposed to some genuine music history for the first time. With a soundtrack boasting everyone from Nick Drake to Velvet Underground (even a shout-out to legendary NYC punk club CBGB), that might just be enough to casually look between the fingers during some of the most poorly acted scenes since High School Musical 3.
Chief offender is Aly Michalka, who is better known as half of sister duo and YouTube sensation “Aly and AJ.” Proving once and for all that 30 million hits can propel you to headliner status regardless of talent, Michalka plays the lead singer in a fledgling band of misfits who aim to win a battle of the bands competition.
Fortunately young audiophile Will (Gaelan Connell) moves to town and helps right the ship. Connell takes on a managerial position and convinces the band to take on new members in search of a fuller sound. The result is Arcade Fire-clone I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On, an eclectic amalgam of percussion, brass and strings that provide Michalka the necessary vehicle for her fingernails-on-chalkboard vocals.
Vanessa “We’ve All Seen Your Boobies” Hudgens rounds out the bunch as emo/love interest Sa5m (“the 5 is silent”). When Michalka mercifully can’t continue, Hudgens fills in for the big gig. At a shade under two hours Bandslam is far too long, but David Bowie does make a cameo. Just in case this movie doesn’t already sound weird enough. (CS)
Departures
Winner of the Best Foreign Language Film trophy at last year’s Oscars, Yojiro Takita’s drama is a mixture of dark humour and raw, primal emotions laid on thick. Daigo (Masahiro Motoki) is a young cellist in Tokyo. When the low-rent orchestra he plays for is disbanded, he decides to sell his instrument and move back to the small town he grew up in. There, he finds a job ritually preparing corpses for burial—a job he finds so embarrassing that he keeps it from his wife (Ryoko Hirosue). In between gigs, which provide both morbid hijinks with his irascible boss (Tsutomu Yamazaki) and plenty of sad moments, he deals with the feelings of abandonment caused by the deadbeat dad who left him during his childhood.
With so much death and loss, Takita is dealing with heavily weighted subject matter, and he doesn’t hesitate to tug at the heartstrings—abetted by an orchestral score that occasionally veers into the mawkish. The film is also a bit long and suffers from some pacing issues—the last 40 minutes consist of a back-to-back series of slow and sentimental scenes. But these flaws are redeemed by the highly likeable cast, particularly Motoki, whose personal journey through the story is genuinely touching. Takita manages to pull off whimsy without cutesiness and black humour without nastiness (both tough balancing acts), and if he paints in broad strokes, it only drives home how the film’s stories and themes are universal. (MF)
Adam
A number of warning flags pop up in the first reel of indie drama Adam. Having read the press kit, I was prepared for the film’s big reveal: lead character Adam (Hugh Dancy), a 29 year-old Manhattanite, suffers from Asperger’s Syndrome. As the opening credits roll, scenes of a meticulously organized apartment are cut together with a funeral procession. A solemn, piano-driven soundtrack accompanies Dancy as he crosses his father’s name off the “Household Chores” list. So basically, one groan-worthy cliché after another.
When Dancy runs into an attractive new neighbour (Rose Byrne) while attempting to do his laundry, those groans should have kicked into overdrive. But there’s a chemistry the two actors share that’s the saving grace of the film. Byrne’s presentation of an elementary school teacher who slowly realizes her handsome neighbour isn’t a reclusive weirdo but a highly intelligent astronomy buff—albeit with a neurological disorder that doesn’t allow him to grasp the concept of irony or sarcasm—is nuanced and remarkably maternal.
Asperger’s is explained to Byrne by a fellow teacher as a functional form of Autism (“Autism Lite” is how director Max Mayer conveys the affliction to the viewer), which serves to both justify and simplify the transition between the two from friends to lovers. Dancy’s brutal honesty and quirky behaviour is challenging for both Byrne and the audience. Inevitably, a cotton candy-sweet love affair develops, and viewers must choose for themselves if the movie manages to hover safely between twee love tale and exploitative attempt at explaining Asperger’s. I for one vote for the former. (CS)
TEMPORAL TURMOIL, AUTISM LITE AND SOULLESS MANWHOREDOM:
The Time Traveler’s Wife, Adam, Spread
The Time Traveler’s Wife
Based on the bestselling novel by Audrey Niffenegger, this film’s central conceit is that, at any given moment, our hero slips into another time zone. This, naturally, makes having a long-term relationship rather tricky, as one minute you’re with him when he’s 20 and the next when he’s 40. It also means that whenever he first appears in a time zone, his clothes haven’t come with him so he’s naked (he’s played by Eric Bana, so it’s actually quite hot).
His romantic interest is Rachel McAdams, who is so in love with him she’s willing to put up with the time-travel nuisance. Bana must spend a fair bit of time explaining how his “time condition” makes his life difficult—which means she often seems less like a romantic interest and more like a crappy device for exposition.
If you’re willing to suspend your disbelief for this, then go for it, but you’d better also be willing to dispense with any good taste too. The Time Traveler’s Wife is essentially Slaughterhouse Five meets The Love Boat; what’s intended as intriguing just ends up being rather irritating, with this exercise in maudlin being made worse by the cloying performances. Not so surprising, really, given that director Robert Schwentke is the same man behind that slice of cinematic genius Flightplan. I kept wishing Bana would slip back in time and stop this film in preproduction.
But to be fair, The Time Traveler’s Wife does pack a revelation. Whaddaya know? Schlock is timeless, after all. (MH)
Spread
There’s something so very sad about watching Ashton Kutcher play a soulless manwhore who fucks his way to a life of privilege in modern-day Hell-Lay. Isn’t the adage “Life imitating art” and not the other way around?
In that sense, Kutcher was the go-to guy for the part of Nikki, a fresh-faced con who beds older women to ensure he has a million dollar roof over his head. The character—whose internal monologue spouts forth such gems as “Ladies, if you want tits, go to Canada. I can’t tell you why but they do them better up there”—would be right at home in a Bret Easton Ellis novel, or as one of Neil Strauss’s misogynistic sidekicks in The Game.
Kutcher’s latest mark is Samantha (Anne Heche), a lawyer with a spread in the Hills that’s impressive even by L.A. standards. Clad in a designer tee and ass-hang jeans, Kutcher licks, sucks, fingers and fucks his way into Heche’s heart, while continuing to nail as many 90-pound socialites as possible behind her back.
He meets his match with Heather (Margarita Levieva), a waitress who drives a $100,000 car. Predator becomes prey as Kutcher falls for the beautiful young hardbody and the two must choose between love and a life of financial freedom.
Spread is not nearly as bad as it should be, but that’s not enough to spare it from the doldrums of R-rated mediocrity. Will someone please let Kutcher know he’s only embarrassing himself at this point? (CS)
ALL FILMS OPEN THIS FRIDAY, AUG. 14
| 
