FILM REVIEW: THE TIME TRAVELLER'S WIFE

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Roadshow Films

I read Audrey Niffenegger's bestseller at the tail end of 2004, and having seen Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind earlier in the year, thought it would make for an excellent reunion piece: Michel Gondry's directorial whimsy coupled with Charlie Kauffman's playful way with the story's time jumping narrative, and Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet as the time-crossed lovers.

Alas, the studio behind this film version didn't get my memo, so instead we have at the helm German director Robert Schwentke, best known for the Jodie Foster thriller Flightplan, and Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams as our lovers. Fine actors on any given day, the pair do the best they can with what they've been given but as often proves the case, a great book rarely makes for a great movie.

Unlike Dr Who, travelling through time and space in his police box, Henry (Bana) has a rare genetic disorder which sees him disappear from the “present”, and mostly at inopportune times, to other times of significance in his life. Another unfortunate side effect of this travel is that he arrives sans clothes. When reading the book, I thought nothing of a 30-year-old Henry walking naked from the woods to greet a 6-six-year old Clare (the future McAdams); on-screen however, and even in the buff guise of Bana, it's more than a little creepy.

We first meet the adult Clare in the Chicago library where Henry works. Due to the marvels of time travel, Clare knows exactly who he is (she's known him since she was 6) but Henry has not met her before. But a romance ensues and despite Henry's constant disappearances (a metaphor for male commitment phobia, perhaps?), sometimes for weeks on end, the pair marry. This sequence is the film's lightest; the writer and director relinquishing the earnest tone of the rest of the film to have some fun with the time travel concept, not to mention the characters as well as the expectations of the audience (mostly female) who love a good wedding.

But the earnestness soon returns and somewhat ironically for a film about time travel, a great deal of inertia comes with it. The trials and tribulations of domestic life – Henry's continued disappearances, Clare's career as an artist, the pair's tentative attempts at starting a family – are rendered no more fascinating despite Henry's condition, nor the appearances of another visitor from the future.

Niffenegger's novel is essentially a romance with the time travel element giving the story an “epic” feel, something which the film lacks and admirers of the novel may feel less than satisfied with as a result. That said, for fans of romance, or indeed Bana and McAdams, The Time Traveller's Wife may prove a pleasant time filler. For me, I'll content myself by playing scenes from my own version, with Jim, Kate et al, in the cinema in my mind.

FILM REVIEW: THE BOX

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Icon Film Distribution

My initial reaction upon viewing The Box, the third film by director Richard Kelly, was wtf? Given that this is the same man who gave us Donnie Darko - a film I confess I am yet to see but am aware of its trippy aspects and subsequent cult following - fans of that film may well say 'but of course' or 'bring it on'. But I'm guessing that not too long into this overlong film their tune might change.

For what starts out as an interesting moral dilemma – a family is presented with an odd but seemingly harmless box with a red button: if they push the button they will receive $1million dollars but someone they don't know will die as a result – quickly descends into silly hokum involving all kinds of forces, man and – spoiler alert! – alien.

Cameron Diaz and James Marsden play the married couple, presented with the box by a mysterious and freaky-looking Frank Langella, and one suspects that all three may have signed-on for the film without having read the screenplay: perhaps they, too, were fans of Donnie Darko? Whatever the reason, all should be commended for keeping a straight face as events go from bad to worse, or rather from silly to sillier.

I'm also not entirely sure why the film has been set in the 1970s, other than that Marsden and Diaz, with her Farrah Fawcett-do, seem at home in the fashions. Perhaps the story needed to be set in a more innocent time, after all, who'd kill someone for $1million these days if they weren't also on a reality TV show or guaranteed some kind of celebrity in return?

Now I'm not someone who needs to have every event explained or tied-up neatly in a bow before the credits roll, but I am a stickler for a film having a point, no matter how ridiculous. If The Box does have a point then I missed it completely and so ultimately for me it was just ridiculous.

We've all sat through bad films, and some so bad that they are almost good – The Box does not fall into that category – but worse than being bad is a film that is boring. And at two hours, The Box is a significant bore. Given the chance, I'd push the button on this one; I'd be happy to sacrifice a stranger to get those two hours of my life back.

FILM REVIEW: CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY

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Paramount Vantage

When the media was enthralled by the Global Financial Crisis (or GFC as it has affectionately been dubbed) and crying doom and gloom, I honestly could care less. Economics and finance have always been a mystery to me. I studied Economics for my HSC but couldn’t tell a Keynesian from a Kenyan; I pay no attention to the Stock Market; I don’t have a mortgage so have no interest in interest rates; I have a HECS debt from my university studies but couldn’t tell you how much it was originally or how much I still owe – and I really don’t care! I do not have a credit card – never have, hopefully never will – and live by the principle of trying to spend less than what I earn. So far, so good.

But I know there are people who are deeply concerned by the GFC and the workings of the economy generally; some of my friends even work in related fields. I’m not sure how they would feel about Michael Moore’s latest documentary which basically points the finger at the big end of town as being responsible for fucking up the United States (in the first instance) and the rest of the world as a by-product.

Moore’s basic treatise here is that capitalism is an intrinsically evil system, guaranteed only to benefit those who have money to begin with: the top 1% of the population who have the combined wealth of the lower 95%, and continue to grow wealthier. ‘The rich get rich and the poor get children’ to cite a song quoted in The Great Gatsby. Or, ‘let them eat cake’ as one French monarch once giggled before the commoners replied by chopping off her head. Touche!

And a revolution is what Moore is inciting in Capitalism: A Love Story. Much like in Bowling For Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11 or Sicko, Moore has taken issue with a facet of American culture (lax gun control in Columbine, the Bush administration in Fahrenheit, and the state of US health care in Sicko) that he sees as unseemly and, well, un-American. And while those who oppose Moore and his “left wing, bleeding heart views”, would have you believe that Moore himself is un-American, possibly even a communist, it is that he loves his country so much that Moore puts its foibles under the microscope and ‘the big boys’ to the blow torch. “I refuse to live in a country like this – and I’m not leaving” he says towards the end of Capitalism. He’s as mad as hell and he’s not going to take it any more – and neither should we.

I’ll admit, I’m a Michael Moore fan. I’m pretty much inclined to agree with his take on the world; his support of the common man and his disgust if not hatred for the powerful and elite, be they government or corporate, if indeed you can tell the two apart. And sure he’s not above a cheap stunt to get his point across, although it must be noted that Moore appears on camera less in Capitalism than in any of his previous films, preferring his wry narration to confirm what we already believed and to use real peoples’ experiences to shock us even more.

One such case is what is repulsively known in the corporate world as the ‘dead peasant’ policy. Basically, banks and blue chip corporations take out life insurance policies on their employees and cash in when they die. Of course, the employees and their families aren’t made aware of this. Moore introduces us to a woman whose husband was insured – twice – by citigroup which collected some $5million when he died of cancer. His widow and children did not receive a cent.

A more positive story is that of a group of employees who held a sit-in when their factory was shut down and the Bank of America refused to pay them their entitlements. Coming so soon after the US Senate’s Wall Street bail-out, of which Bank of America was a beneficiary, the public mood was very much against the banks. After almost a week of small protests outside Bank of America offices across the country and, even more persuasive, unfavourable media coverage, the Bank agreed to all of the factory workers’ demands. Yes, people power does work, although it was politely ignored when the Senate voted (the second time) to pass the Wall Street bail-out despite millions of calls by the public not to.

Yes, there’s a lot to think about and be angered by in Capitalism: A Love Story, just as there is in any Michael Moore film. The unfortunate thing is that he is mostly preaching to the converted; those who oppose Moore’s views are unlikely to go and see the film. Perhaps one day they will make this film a part of the Economics curriculum for the HSC, providing a generation with a better understanding of capitalism as a system and not a religion, teaching that while there’s nothing wrong with making money, screwing over your fellow man to do so isn’t really worth it. We’re better than that.

FILM REVIEW: THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS

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Hoyts Distribution

For those of a ghoulsih persuasion who were anticipating Heath Ledger's final performance, you won't be disappointed with his entrance: suspended from a London bridge via a rope, his lifeless body hanging in the night breeze.

That comes about 20 minutes in to Terry Gilliam's latest flight of fancy, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, a puzzle of a film title to go with his story, such as it is. Dr Parnassus (played by Christopher Plummer and resembling some kind of Dumbledore fallen on hard times) has been blessed/cursed with eternal life following a Faustian deal. A subsequent deal with the Devil (musician Tom Waits) has also given him a daughter, Valentina (Lily Cole), whom the Devil has come to claim on her fast approaching 16th birthday, as per their agreement.

But joining this travelling troupe, which includes Anton (Andrew Garfield), a young man in love with Valentina, and Percy (Austin Powers' Verne Troyer), the Jiminy Cricket of these performing rogues, is Ledger's Tony. Saved from his suspected suicide and seeming to suffer amnesia, he joins this motley crew as they perform for small audiences; the centrepiece of their show is Dr Parnassus' Imaginarium, a mirror which sees people enter a parallel universe of their imagination's making. The trick: to choose good or evil. At stake: their souls.

As we all know, Ledger died during the filming of Doctor Parnassus. Luckily (for lack of a better word) for Gilliam and co., Ledger had completed all his scenes that occur in the "real world". When his character passes through the mirror, he is played by three different actors - Johnny Depp, Jude Law, Colin Farrell - revealing Tony's different character traits. And to be honest, it is in these scenes that the film picks up; not just because of the trio of actors but the visuals as well, giving flight to Gilliam's own imagination.

Given Ledger's untimely passing and the subsequent interest in this film, I had feared this would be an over-praised final tribute to the actor, mourning blinding many to any deficits of the film. But The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is not a bad film. It's no masterpiece by any means but it follows its own internal logic - even if I struggled to - and is never dull.

And Ledger's performance is fine for what it is. But if you want a lasting legacy of the man as an artist I'd stick with his role as The Joker in The Dark Knight.