bob_meg

Magpie could be my favorite film of the year. It's an absolutely merciless, perfectly scripted, acted, and directed revenge thriller focusing on a mother of two (Ridley) who's literally being driven insane by her husband (Shazad Latif), a washed up writer who's philandering is finally becoming more than evident.

Magpie was written by Ridley's husband, Tom Bateman, and it's obvious how much fun they had making this, given the sharpness of the performances all around and the intense, meticulous pace of the script and its reveals. It's one of those films that flies by, like a great roller coaster ride.

Much of this tension is generated from Ridley's performance, which is controlled to the point of snapping as her Latif, playing the douche-bag pony-tailed loser hubby, pursues an actress who's working with his and Ridley's daughter on a period film set in the English countryside. It's hard to channel rage effectively without making it seem like an overreaction, and Ridley does this well, but also keeps us off-kilter as the details of her backstory don't come to light until the final act.

An extremely satisfying film, in a year filled with movies that sort of leave us hanging, which I usually don't mind. But in the case of Magpie, the level of tension it builds deserves a... smashing ending. You get that, and more.

Red Rooms brings together so many layers of interconnected relevance to today's "values" that it's easy to shrug it off as some artsy foreign film with a glib and titillating agenda. As another reviewer summed it up quite neatly: "It watches YOU" --- much like the all-seeing all-knowing AI Bot that seems to be Kelly-Anne, Red Room's (anti?)-heroine's, only real "friend."

In probably the most intensely calibrated performance of the year (or decade?) Juliette Gariepy plays the part as a semi-pro poker player would, never giving much indication of what drives her fixation on the brutal serial killing/torture case that she's obsessed with to the point where she'll sleep on the street, instead of in her posh glass towered apartment, just to be assured a seat in the courtroom.

Why is Kelly-Anne, a deceptively glammed-down model, so interested? You're going to find that you'll have made a boatload of assumptions about her in about the first fifteen minutes of the film (much like you do when you watch a True Crime case, unless you have rigorous detective-style self-discipline). I don't, and I found that it really made this a fun watch.

Pascal Plante takes so many risks with Red Rooms that it's almost overwhelming at times, veering into territory that maybe David Lynch or Lars Von Trier *might* be able to pull off or be comfortable with (Gariepy's last day in court comes to mind, for it's surrealness alone).

It's that scene, plus many others that give you real clues into Kelly-Anne's true character and motivation, and it comes together beautifully in the final act. What makes it even more intriguing is that, by the end, Plante doesn't hold this character up as a role model or heroine. She's obviously got some serious issues, yet I loved that neither the script nor the director put her in a box for us and tied the bow.

Go ahead and try to box this film. Red Rooms will rip through any wrapper you try to cover it with, and more power to it for doing it in such an elegant, understated way.

With Laurie Babin, who is heartbreaking and a treat to watch as the naive groupie Kelly-Anne takes under her wing.

This is one of those films where you see the trailer and think "How in the hell are they going to pull this off?" It's going to require taking risks, a lot of dramatic tension, some very funny dialogue, and anecdotes we haven't heard about 100 times in 50 years.

Jason Reitman (barring Ghostbusters sequels) can make some pretty decent films when paired with a writer who colors outside the box and digs deep into characters (Diablo Cody, for example, with Juno and Young Adult). Gil Kenan does not appear to be one of them, given this film's "insert the crowd pleaser here" script.

It seems like Kenan and Reitman are a little too cowed by the mythos of SNL to really try anything outside of too-timed "bits" that smack of bad sitcom or over-the-top dramatics that don't really generate any tension.

The cast is, by and large, pretty terrific... except for Gabirel LaBelle. Labelle often seems just befuddled and gaping-mouthed, characteristics I don't often equate when conjuring up the Lorne Michaels *I've* read about and seen over the past half century.

"Michaels was kind of a cypher" Reitman says in the film's commentary. Fair enough, and likely true, but it doesn't help to have this unknowable entity at the center of each scene. Many people have complained that the original core SNL cast is given rather short-shrift, and they're right. Again, Reitman says in the commentary "I wanted people to get to know not only the 80 some characters but the background actors as well...." And that was green-lit?

If you're an SNL fan, this is worth a watch, simply because it's a fascinating glimpse at how a show like SNL can even exist, week to week, without it being a seismic train wreck. Reitman manages to impress us in this regard. As a technical masterwork, it hums. And there are many fine performances (cameos?) here that pop: DaFoe, Simmons, Tracy Letts, Cory Smith's Chase is particularly good.

Cooper Hoffman maintains a hot wired mix of anxiety and bravura as Dick Ebersol... it's probably the strongest performance, with the most face time in this picture.

But having Phillip Seymour Hoffman for a dad, I'd say he's got a bit of an advantage in the genetic gift arena --- I'm guessing you'll see more of him soon and I for one can't wait. Jason Reitman comes from good stock too, but in this case he's maybe not playing to his strengths. In Saturday Night, he's drowning.

There's a scene at the end when LaBelle hires Josh Brener (playing legendary writer Alan Zweibel) at a hellish comedy club that exemplifies two things: first, the exaggerated facts of this piece and it's near miss misanthropy.

If Josh Brener, a subtle almost lethally understated comedic actor, had been cast as Lorne, this might have been a very funny movie.