[CIFF Capsule Review] How I Live Now
[Ruby Hornet will be attending the 49th Chicago International Film Festival from 10/10 - 10/24. Be sure to follow along as we bring you coverage from the longest-running competitive international film festival in the country. You can find all of our coverage from this year's CIFF here.]
How I Live Now
Director: Kevin MacDonald
Country: United Kingdom
Release Date: October 15, 2013 (CIFF)
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Daisy (Saoirse Ronan) is a selfish nihilist sent to the English countryside to stay with family friends due to growing military strife in the United States. While her "cousins' (not blood-related) try their best to make her feel welcome and at home, she's cold and unjustifiably mean-spirited towards them. When she begins to open up and fall for the eldest child, Edmund, she lets down her guard in the name of live. However, like clockwork, the terrorist threat reaches England, causing the country to fall under military control. When Edmund and his brother Isaac are separated from Daisy and little sister Piper, Edmund and Daisy make a pact to find each other at the countryside home.
How I Live Now is a sappy romance story posing as a survival film... or maybe it's the other way around? The emotional cues that should bring empathy to audiences are so wooden and unbelievable. Daisy's "transformation" from total bitch to selfish bitch is maddening. Even while the country quickly becomes a military state and she has her younger cousin under her responsibility, it's obvious that she only cares to return to Eddie. The ending itself is so sappy and uncharacteristic. What about mourning over Isaac? Total blame can't be laid on director Kevin MacDonald and the film's writers, since How I Live Now is based off of a novel. Still... still... I'm shaking my head just thinking about this film.
Score: 
4.5 out of 10
[CIFF Capsule Review] Breathe In
[Ruby Hornet will be attending the 49th Chicago International Film Festival from 10/10 - 10/24. Be sure to follow along as we bring you coverage from the longest-running competitive international film festival in the country. You can find all of our coverage from this year's CIFF here.]
Breathe In
Director: Drake Doremus
Country: United States
Release Date: October 19, 2013 (CIFF)
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Keith (Guy Pearce) is a piano teacher and aspiring cellist for the New York Symphony Orchestra with a loving wife (Amy Ryan) and daughter (Mackenzie Davis). When Sophie (Felicity Jones) arrives as part of a foreign exchange program, she opens up deep questions within Keith's mind that he already had, including relocating to Manhattan from the suburbs and leaving his teaching job. However, as Sophie and Keith grow closer, their relationship tiptoes into romantic territory, threatening to ruin the family's lives.
Breathe In is similar to director Drake Doremus' previous film, Like Crazy, with its intimate look at relationships. However, he expands on his style by focusing more on the auxiliary characters outside of the main relationship. The film's perspective is still coming from Keith and Sophie, but you can still see the strife and devastation the two are causing. Like Crazy was insular, which fit the film's premise, but it's good to see that Breathe In retains the relationship depth of Like Crazy while still being able to not be so closed off. If she wasn't already one of my favorite young actresses, Felicity Jones' performance in Breathe In solidifies her stance as one of the actresses you have to keep your eyes on.
Score: 7 out of 10
[CIFF Capsule Review] La Paz
[Ruby Hornet will be attending the 49th Chicago International Film Festival from 10/10 - 10/24. Be sure to follow along as we bring you coverage from the longest-running competitive international film festival in the country. You can find all of our coverage from this year's CIFF here.]
La Paz
Director: Santiago Loza
Country: Argentina
Release Date: October 18, 2013 (CIFF)
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Returning home after a stay in a psychiatric clinic, Liso finds himself coddled by his parents and unable to reconnect with his ex-girlfriend. The only people he can connect with, however, are his elderly grandmother and his parents' maid. La Paz examines Liso's attempts to simply find himself and connect with his loved ones while not relapsing into a schizophrenic episode.
La Paz is a quiet film (as have the majority of the Latin American films from CIFF this year), but not all too compelling. The film doesn't exactly tug on your emotional heartstrings the way films like this normally would. Instead, it's a boring tread through Liso's recovery without giving any deep insight into his mind.
Score: 5 out of 10
[CIFF Capsule Review] Miele
[Ruby Hornet will be attending the 49th Chicago International Film Festival from 10/10 - 10/24. Be sure to follow along as we bring you coverage from the longest-running competitive international film festival in the country. You can find all of our coverage from this year's CIFF here.]
Miele
Director: Valeria Golino
Country: Italy
Release Date: October 15, 2013 (CIFF)
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Miele is a young woman who delivers assisted suicides for families whose loved ones want to dictate how they die rather than succumb to the prolonged process of death. When she's assigned to assist a wealthy, physically healthy man, she has a change of morality and does what she can to prevent the man from killing himself. Will she be able to deal with the moral conflict the assignment presents while she deals with her own personal problems?
I was expecting Miele to be this cerebral character study analyzing the conscience of a young woman who essentially kills people for a living. The problem with going into films with expectations is that, nine times out of 10, those expectations are never met. Miele did touch upon the psychology conflicting the protagonist's mind, but also muddies it all up with a sexual affair she has as a means of balancing her "professional" life with her "personal" life. What results is a film that feels like it's attempting to do and say too much in a limited space.
Score: 5 out of 10
[CIFF Capsule Review] A Pact
[Ruby Hornet will be attending the 49th Chicago International Film Festival from 10/10 - 10/24. Be sure to follow along as we bring you coverage from the longest-running competitive international film festival in the country. You can find all of our coverage from this year's CIFF here.]
A Pact
Director: Denis Dercourt
Country: Germany and France
CIFF Screenings: October 20, 2013 (8:30pm), October 21, 2013 (1:00pm)
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During the mid-'80s in Germany, Paul tricks Georg into "handing over" his girlfriend, Anna, by forging a handwritten love letter. In exchange, Georg makes Paul agree to a pact stating he can have Anna or someone exactly the same whenever he wants. Paul then chooses a girl for Georg to take. Decades later, Paul and Anna are happily married with two teenage kids when Georg returns as Paul's boss. Following his arrival, multiple situations arise, causing Paul's paranoia to grow over his old friend. However, who is really threatening whom?
A Pact is a dark psychological thriller about one secret that inexplicably took over the lives everybody involved, both directly and indirectly. The film plays out much like a play or an opera with its extremely high dramatic tone, classical, orchestral musical scores, and even leitmotifs that set the tone for upcoming scenes. A Pact sets a tense tone that most other so-called thrillers wished they could create and maintain. Once you begin to get a grasp on the narrative and what's at play, multiple twists and surprises occur, leaving audiences on the edges of their seats and constantly guessing what comes next.
Score: 7 out of 10
[CIFF Capsule Review] Salvo
[Ruby Hornet will be attending the 49th Chicago International Film Festival from 10/10 - 10/24. Be sure to follow along as we bring you coverage from the longest-running competitive international film festival in the country. You can find all of our coverage from this year's CIFF here.]
Salvo
Directors: Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza
Country: Italy
CIFF Screenings: October 20, 2013 (6:15pm), October 22, 2013 (8:00pm)
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Salvo is about the eponymous Salvo, a hitman for the Sicilian mafia, who inexplicably shows grace on the blind sister, Rita, of a mob boss that betrayed and took a hit on him. After taking her to an abandoned warehouse for protection, the mafia questions whether he completed the job or not. Once they find out that he kept the visually-impaired witness alive, Salvo must find a way to protect both of their lives.
The first half of Salvo is amazing, shot in extremely low lighting/high shadows, with the pinnacle of the first half being a long, quiet cat-and-mouse between Salvo and Rita in the latter's house. The scene begins with her listening to the radio counting money to frighteningly wandering around her house, both in search of the silent assassin and not displaying awareness of his presence. The cinematography in the scene is shot spectacularly with long shots that build the already high tension of the scene.
However, once the scene is over and the film moves into the second half where Salvo keeps Rita "safe" in the aforementioned warehouse, the film's tone drops out from a cerebral psychological thriller into a meditative, quiet character study. Normally, I'm a fan of such films, but the shift in nature just made Salvo feel like two incomplete halves rather than one full package. There are some plot holes and lingering questions, the most problematic of these is the true nature of Rita's disability, which itself leads to the majority of plot holes. A simple explanation or exposition on her case would have cleared many of the narrative problems up, but much like the first half of Salvo, audiences are left in the dark wanting more.
Score: 6 out of 10
[CIFF Capsule Review] Life Feels Good
[Ruby Hornet will be attending the 49th Chicago International Film Festival from 10/10 - 10/24. Be sure to follow along as we bring you coverage from the longest-running competitive international film festival in the country. You can find all of our coverage from this year's CIFF here.]
Life Feels Good
Director: Maciej Pieprzyca
Country: Poland
CIFF Screening: October 20, 2013 (11:45am)
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Life Feels Good is based on a true story of a Polish man, Mateusz, born with cerebral palsy, that was was diagnosed as mentally disable at a young age. However, the diagnosis is far from the truth. The film uses Mateusz's internal dialogue to set certain scenes, oftentimes resulting in the complete opposite of what he was striving for. When he is sent to a disabled center due to the growing age of his caring Mother, Mateusz finds a chance to prove that he is, in fact, an intellectual man unfortunately held back by his body.
First and foremost, David Ogrodnik, an able-bodied actor, portrays Mateusz magnificently for the majority of the film. Physical acting is so hard to do, even more so when depicting somebody with a physical disability. However, Ogrodnik captures the real Mateusz's nuances and physical characteristics to a T. The film's primary theme of communication is heartbreaking; I can't even fathom to imagine being unable to communicate due to circumstances out of my control. You can't help but feel for Mateusz as he struggles to simply express that he's more than just a vegetable. Writer/director Maciej Pieprzyca's poignant film is a stirring, sentimental, and sensational look at the struggle those afflicted with physical disabilities face.
Score: 8.5 out of 10
[CIFF Capsule Review] The Harvest
[Ruby Hornet will be attending the 49th Chicago International Film Festival from 10/10 - 10/24. Be sure to follow along as we bring you coverage from the longest-running competitive international film festival in the country. You can find all of our coverage from this year's CIFF here.]
The Harvest
Director: John McNaughton
Country: United States
CIFF Screening: October 19, 2013 (8:30pm)
The Harvest is a psychological horror/thriller about a married couple, Richard (Michael Shannon) and Katherine (Samantha Morton) taking care of their son, Andy, who was born with a debilitating disease. Worried for his well-being, they keep him sheltered from the outside as they drug him with illegal prescription drugs in an attempt to keep him healthy. When a young adventurous girl, Maryann, moves into the neighborhood, she befriends Andy... to Katherine's disapproval. As she does her best to keep Maryann away from Andy, it becomes clear to the young girl that the family is hiding a dark secret.
The problem I had with The Harvest is how painful the plot is. When Maryann uncovers the family's mystery, her attempts at getting help from her grandparents are brushed aside despite her having solid proof and evidence backing up her claims. Multiple times, her Grandfather tells her to "Follow her heart," yet her attempts at doing so are ignored. Another thing is how wooden the acting is from Shannon (Man of Steel) and Morton (Minority Report). Shannon carries a menacing nature, yet is supposed to be the peaceful, loving character to Morton's menacing shrew of a Mother. In the moments when Morton is allowed to let loose, her attempts at being frightful just feels so forced and displaced.
The Harvest is being billed as a psychological horror/thriller, yet there's nothing scary about the film at all. If it fits neither of these genres, despite attempting so hard to fall within those categories, what is it? You'll laugh more than you'll feel even a hint of tension during the film. This is one harvest you don't want to wait on.
Score: 4 out of 10