Terror in contemplation

At the end of the first act of A Delicate Balance by Edward Albee, two old friends of the main characters suddenly show up at the house late at night, quite unexpectedly.  The friends simply want to stay.  Why?  They are afraid.  When they are in their own house, they are afraid?  Of what?  They don't know.  So they come to stay, indefinitely.  Later, they leave suddenly, for no apparent reason.

 But that was an Important New York play, not genre entertainment.  In genre, specifically "horror", the idea is to induce fear, or at least memories of fear in the viewer.  This usally is accompanied by a certain risibility, either out of the social embarassment inherent in being reminded of our own natural propensity to be afraid, even when it makes sense to be.  Or the audience could be laughing because the movie is laughable, often the case in horror (that is, the film is literally incapable of stirring horror because the conventions have been so terribly flouted-- the thing to be feared is so patently unconvincing that the audience's suspension of disbelief is stretched past the breaking point).

Take Shelter (2011) inverts the horror genre (which Boris Karloff rightly preferred to call "terror").  It does not aspire to induce terror in the viewer (except perhaps as an ancillary effect) but to observe the onset and effect of terror on its protagonist.  It goes so far as to keep the terror vague and unnamed.  It could be alien invasion, severe weather or anxiety attacks.  Or two of those.  Or all of them.  Or none of them.

Some writers might want to analyze the effects in this film, which I find immaterial, or add up and decipher the clues about what Michael Shannon's Curtis is sensing.  The film could be The Birds or Close Encounters ont the one hand or it could be Shock Corridor on the other.  OK, nowhere near as vulgar and crazy as Shock Corridor, but the protagonist could still be crazy.

The real trick the film pulls off is that virtually nothing happens.  Oh, Curtis buries a container in his back yard and gets fired, so there are money problems.  His daughter is deaf and there's some hashing out her education and Curtis's connection to her.  But mostly it's nothing, not even at the dramatic climax of the film.

And yet it plays.  Part of this may be due to Mr. Shannon, who has developed from an offbeat day player to a haunted, virtually Shakespearean leading man (albeit in this case, Shakespearean despite being almost completely inarticulate).  He proves the old saw that essentially films are about faces.  The picture above gives a bit of a hint.

Incidentally, Jessica Chastain has now become, for me, a Don Cheadle Actor.  This category has nothing to do with Mr. Cheadle's talent or his style.  It is simply that Don Cheadle's presence in a film as a fairly reliable guarantee that the film will not be insufferable crap; that it had the potential, at least at the outset, to be a very fine film.  Many, many times it is, but even if it is not, it still repays viewing.  The day Don Cheadle appears in a Transformers movie I will pull my knit hat down over my eyes and sit in the corner, mumbling and rocking and peeling the labels of empty Jack Daniels bottles.  (I hope Mr. Cheadle does not hear about this and does not have a cruel sense of humor.)

Decent

It is remarkable how a movie can give you almost exactly what you expect, with few if any surprises and still be completely delightful. So it is with The Blind Side (2009) a film of decent sentiment and a refreshing reticence that both mirrors the character's own proclivities and prevents the film from becoming bathetic or self-congratulatory.

There's this thing my sister does when a really good part of a movie is coming. You know, the part where Jimmy Stewart tells off the villain, or Harpo destroys the stuffed shirts or the con men trick the crooked bank president. She drums on her lap very rapidly, sometimes accompanying with a sotto voce "goody goody goody." I know exactly what she means. The anticipation of delight sometimes outweighs the moment of pleasure itself. And one doesn't have to have seen the film before to know when the good bit is coming. In The Blind Side, there is the moment when Michael returns to football practice after a stern but clarifying talk with his adoptive mother (played by Sandra Bullock). You know now he understands what he has to do. And in case we weren't sure, the film slows down and the music begins a low thrumming rhythm. And although nothing that follows is remotely surprising, it is oh, so satisfying, as Michael begins to demolish every tackler in sight.

The film has an odd shape and each of the three acts feels quite separate from each other. And I am sure people are going to comment that the only Black social or family life seen is broken or degenerate. Only individual black characters are allowed dignity or accomplishment--they apparently can't be trusted in groups. That problem may be built into the story, but I am surprised it does not seem to have been addressed by the filmmakers.

You'll see the term "tearjerker" tossed around in connection with this movie--people are bound to make comparisons with Remember The Titans and others of that ilk. But what is remarkable is the film's reluctance to jerk tears. Oh, they may come, but not due to any manipulation. Led by Ms. Bullock's extremely focused, detailed and disciplined performance, the film never begs, never pleads for its characters. It allows them to earn the emotional responses, just as Michael's true-life family and mentors made sure he earned his rewards. Well done.