Film is all about appearances.  While it does rely heavily on sound, no matter how a movie sounds, it still needs to resemble something coherent and consistent to matter.  While there’s a great deal of movies that are flawed from the conception stage onward, a strong, unwavering visual concept can go a long way.  Take, for example, Jonathan Demme’s Rachel Getting Married.  The story is dead simple:  Recovering drug addict Kym (Anne Hathaway) leaves rehab to attend her sister Rachel’s wedding.  The visual hook?  The whole thing is presented as though it’s someone’s home movies.  It’s a far cry from a glossy epic with sweeping crane shots; it even looks rough compared to The Wrestler.  But it absolutely draws the audience in.

The strength of the movie is that it seldom looks scripted.  And even when it does, it’s not performed that way.  The performances are far and away the best thing Rachel Getting Married has going for it.  Nar-Anon meetings look almost as though they just sent a cameraman and a handful of actors to the real deal, rehearsal dinner speeches look very much off-the-cuff, and the most raw emotional scenes look painfully legitimate.

The sense of handycam realism is assisted by the fact that a handful of characters are actually videotaping the whole thing.  Whether those cameras are props or actually shooting isn’t always easy to tell, but that’s not really important.  It makes the setting absolutely real.  Unfortunately, the DIY presentation is the film’s biggest weakness.  While it does capture some amazing performances by nearly anyone with more than a paragraph of dialogue, it too frequently lacks the sort of cohesion one would expect from a movie; even one edited on someone’s laptop.  While I can forgive the handheld shaky-cam as much as it typically bothers me, the movie is at least 10-15 minutes too long and loses it’s focus towards the end.

The appearance of spontaneity, however, does propel the story, and to say it turns the typical wedding movie on it’s head is an understatement.  It’s by no means a comedy, there’s no predictable plot turns, and it denies the audience full closure just as much as it denies the characters the same thing.

Anne Hathaway deserves an Academy Award for her performance, and it earns major points for making zero concessions in terms of realism.  And perhaps most importantly, even the most intense scenes don’t result in overacting or hamming.  But the final half-hour really should have been a final 15 minutes.  It’s a flawed film that can be afforded a lot of grace by virtue of it’s cast, but it’s still not quite what it could have been.

Verdict: B

I didn’t realize it until about a month ago, but Danny Boyle is one of my favourite filmmakers.  And I’ve only seen a handful of his work at this point.  I recently watched Sunshine, his 2007 sci-fi offering that’s equal part claustrophobic thriller and psychological space drama.  Visually, it was easily one of the most involving movies I’ve ever seen.  I have no hesitation in adding it to my (still quite short) list of movies I’d consider buying Blu-ray for.  Slumdog Millionaire, of course, has incredibly little in common with Sunshine.  I think the only comparisons are that both are in colour.  Danny Boyle’s back catalog is diverse to say the least.

There’s theoretically a lot working against Slumdog Millionaire.  For one, it has no recognizable actors.  Dev Patel is fairly well-known in the UK for his work on Skins, but Boyle’s leading lady is an unknown, and the bulk of the film uses child actors.  Second, a good deal of the dialogue is in Hindi.  And third, it’s plot, though appearing complex, is at least somewhat cliche.

But thanks to a smart script, incredible visuals, and strong performances, it not only works, it works almost perfectly.  Much like The Dark Knight, it’s one of those movies that is able to completely shut out the rest of the world while you watch it. It’s an almost pitch-perfect example of every element working to serve the story.  While there are some very strong elements (the cinematography/editing and music are outstanding), there are also no weak elements, and most importantly, no superfluous ones.

Much like The Wrestler, the strongest elements are the most prominent.  It’s impossible to ignore how gorgeous the movie looks and sounds.  Cinematography is something that Danny Boyle has always paid special attention to, even in 28 Days Later, which was shot on DV cameras (for both logistical reasons and creative reasons), but it stands out all the more when paired with AR Rahman’s Bollywood-inspired score.

Slumdog is still character-driven though.  The visuals, unlike a Bax Luhrman movie, don’t distract from the story so much as they add to it, and the film’s cast, especially the child actors, carry the complex screenplay admirably.  When paired with Danny Boyle’s less-than-mainstream sensibilities, the screenplay manages to subvert the usual expectations of a tale-of-destiny style love-story and replacing them with something more powerful.  There’s no tear-jerking monologue about lost love, and Boyle denies them a grand, romantic reunion.  But it manages to deliver on an emotional level despite that, and that deserves celebration.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a conventional movie made by an unconventional filmmaker, and as such, it manages to be more powerful than it’s story alone.  Slumdog Millionaire, however, takes it further and takes a conventional story and tells it in an unconventional way through an unconventional filmmaker.  The results of both films speak for themselves, but Slumdog speaks louder.

Vertict: A

Less is more.

It’s an ageless maxim, especially in the arts, but is it always true?  I’m a fan of simplicity myself.  As I get older, I find myself less and less interested in spectacle; especially if it’s at the expense of characters.  This is a major reason why Transformers was as boring to me as it was.  All some movies have going for them are special effects.  They’re great to watch on the big screen, but ultimately, there’s no attachment to the characters or their circumstances.

On the exact opposite end of the filmmaking spectrum is Darren Aronofsky’s drama The Wrestler.  No special effects, no quick edits, no fancy cinematography.  Unflinching realism is the order of the day, and absolutely everything is at the service of the character.  But does it work?

In this case, it does.  Mickey Rourke plays Randy “The Ram” Robinson, a professional wrestler two decades past his prime and doing matches for cash while working part-time at a grocery store.  He lives a relatively lonely life; he’s estranged from his daughter (Evan Rachel Wood) and really only communicates with a stripper (Marissa Tomei) and his fellow wrestlers.  After a brutal hardcore match involving barbed wire, staplers, silverware, and plate glass, Ram suffers a heart attack and is forced to face a life without wrestling.

The Wrestler is driven primarily by Mickey Rourke’s performance.  He’s very rarely not on-screen, and he’s only absent from two or three scenes.  Rourke is, thankfully, up to the challenge.  His performance is powerful in it’s own right, garnering sympathy even for his stupidest decisions and most avoidable mistakes, and making the most of his sparse dialogue.  His speech to the crowd in the film’s final match could have been played as cheesy and intentionally tear-jerking, but Rourke sells it without a trace of self-awareness.  How much of his performance is technique and how much is therapy is a matter of debate, but the product on-screen speaks for itself.  I’m going to join the chorus of film critics demanding a Best Actor win for this performance.

Marissa Tomei, however, deserves any awards and accolades that come her way as well.  In many ways, Cassidy is Ram’s female counterpart.  Neither are in careers that reward seniority, and both are no stranger to pain.  She serves as both a comrade and a foil, and is more than up to the task of matching Rourke’s performance.  Evan Rachel Wood is largely limited by the size of her role, but she too manages to produce a strong performance, albeit not as dynamic a performance as Rourke or Tomei’s.

The overall style of the movie is somewhat hit-or-miss though.  It’s shot almost entirely handheld, documentary style, and looks very low-concept.  It bears a strong resemblence to the 1999 pro wrestling documentary Beyond The Mat.  While this greatly enhances the effectiveness of the cast and Clint Mansell’s guitar-driven score, it’s minimalism and realism doesn’t always play out quite right.  Some cuts and edits feel awkward, and while the background characters add a lot of colour, it feels as though there’s some distinction from the written dialogue and improvised lines, whether that’s the case or not.

But it’s fundamentally a character study, and it’s a fascinating study of someone who put everything on the line until there was nothing left.  While it’s not a perfect film, it’s strengths simply can’t be dismissed, and that makes it’s weaknesses pretty easy to overlook.

Verdict: B+