The Premieres section of the Sundance Film Festival is one
of its most coveted programs. It’s often filled out by former Sundance stars,
such as Kenneth Lonergan returning with “Manchester by the Sea” or Ira Sachs
delivering “Little Men” or Kelly Reichardt dividing audiences with “Certain
Women.” These films have higher pedigrees than a section like Next, and usually
come with enough of a known quality that they don’t really belong in Dramatic
Competition, which is designed to reward new talent. So, Premieres is often
where you find the stars, such as Michael Shannon and Rachel Weisz appearing in
the noir-ish “Complete Unknown,” Viggo Mortensen headlining the dramedy “Captain
Fantastic” and John Carney returning after his breakthrough success with “Once”
to give the world the glorious “Sing Street.”
Let’s start there. “Sing
Street” is the Big Smile Movie of Sundance 2016. It’s a joyful, glorious
film that brings to mind great movies about the power of music from “Almost
Famous” to “School of Rock.” John Carney’s latest is about those years when we
use music to drown out reality, and the select talented few who turn their need
for music into the paths to their future. Set in the ‘80s in Dublin, “Sing
Street” vibrates with the music of the era, including Duran Duran, The Cure,
and even Hall and Oates. Most importantly, it includes its own music inspired
by ‘80s pop hits, and nearly all of it is marvelously catchy. People at the
premiere were dancing during the credits.
At the core of “Sing Street” is a love story nearly as
gentle and beautiful as the one in “Once.” Conor (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) is going
through an awkward phase. The 14-year-old is watching his parents (Aidan Gillen
& Maria Doyle Kennedy) inch closer to divorce, as financial struggles have
torn the family apart. In fact, Conor will no longer go to the posh school he’s
been attending, forced to transfer to a Christian Brothers school on Synge
Street. Conor’s best friend is his brother Brendan (Jack Reynor), who gives him
guidance in the ways of love and, most of all, music. The brothers sit in his
room, surrounded by records, and Brendan trains him in everything from Joe Jackson
to Depeche Mode. The education comes in handy when Conor spots Raphina on the
step across the street from his miserable school. He falls hard for this older
girl who claims to be a model, and decides the way to get her heart is to cast
her in a music video. He’ll have to actually form a band first. Gathering
similarly awkward kids from the school, the band Sing Street is formed, and
Conor writes the lyrics to a half-dozen catchy-as-hell songs with titles like “The
Riddle of the Model” and “Drive It Like You Stole It.”
With “Sing Street,” Carney finds the perfect balance of
music, comedy, romance and drama. The movie is simply joyous throughout,
reminding cynical viewers of the power of a good pop song and maybe even that
dream of a different artistic profession that they once put on a shelf. The
performers are uniformly strong, especially the three leads. Walsh-Peelo
strikes a perfect balance between the insecurity of his feelings about Raphina
and a stunning confidence gleaned by the self-awareness that he’s more talented
than his classmates. Boynton is mesmerizing, finding rare depth to a role that
could have been a caricature. Raphina has her own story too, and Carney and
Boynton are wise to not turn her into an object to be obtained. And Reynor’s
strong performance sneaks up on you. These are three of the most memorable
characters from Sundance 2016; three people who you will love when The
Weinstein Company releases “Sing Street” later this year. I know everyone has
certain movies they couldn’t possibly like, but “Sing Street” really seems like
something that could appeal to any demographic across the board. It is so powerfully
fun, it’s easy to fall under its spell.
What’s the opposite of “fun”? It’s whatever is going on in
Joshua Marston’s misguided, awful “Complete
Unknown,” a film that somehow
pulls off something that could have been considered impossible: a boring film
starring the charismatic pairing of Rachel Weisz and Michael Shannon. “Complete
Unknown” is a film that literally gets less interesting with each subsequent
minute. It starts with an intriguing concept, sags with tone and pacing
problems in the middle, and then ends with such a pretentious final act that my
eyes rolled so hard that I saw the back of my head.
“Complete Unknown” opens with a fascinating montage. We see
Weisz go through a series of characters—a magician’s helper, a surgical
assistant, and more. Who are these characters? Is this film a surreal piece in
which one actress plays multiple people? I was intrigued. Sadly, the explanation
is rather straightforward. It turns out that Alice is essentially a nomad. She
gets bored with her life, and she disappears to start a new one. When she shows
up at a birthday party for Tom (Shannon), he recognizes her as Jenny, the girl
who disappeared from his life 15 years ago. As Tom is carefully considering
major changes to his life, he speaks to a person who has spent most of her life
doing nothing but change.
It’s not a bad concept for a film, but Marston can’t figure
out what story he’s telling. In the first act, he films “Complete Unknown”
almost like a noir with Weisz in the femme fatale role; the mysterious woman
coming back into Tom’s life. And yet “Complete Unknown” is definitely not that
movie. When Alice/Jenny’s secret is revealed, “Complete Unknown” actually
becomes a walking-and-talking movie as Tom and Alice walk the streets and talk
about her discarded lives and his blurry future. To be blunt, I never cared. There are no stakes. And
even as a performance piece, Marston leaves his mega-talented stars in limbo.
In a sense, “Captain
Fantastic” is also about lives in limbo but more literal and with the
pretentious philosophy of Marston’s film replaced by hippie worldviews, but not
much better filmmaking. Living off the grid has always had something of a
magical allure for filmmakers, almost always people deeply on the grid. In fact, one has to wonder if writer/director/actor
Matt Ross wasn’t more drawn to the story of his Sundance premiere “Captain
Fantastic” in part because of the fact that he plays Gavin Belson on the HBO
grid-heavy hit “Silicon Valley.” His dramedy is about a family as far away from
Silicon Valley as possible.
Ben (Viggo Mortensen) has built a home for his six children
deep in the forest of the Pacific Northwest. In the film’s opening scene, Ben’s
17-year-old son kills a deer with a knife.
This Buddhist family only eats what it kills or grows, reads constantly, plays music together, celebrates Noam Chomsky’s birthday and is home-schooled by Ben.
However, there are hints that not all is well. The oldest secretly applied (and
got into) colleges and mom is off in a hospital recovering from an undefined
illness. Ben takes the family bus into the city one day to talk to her,
learning that she killed herself the night before. Ben and the family know that
mom didn’t want to be buried in a religious ceremony; she wanted to be cremated
and have her funeral turned into a party, and so they set out to fulfill her
wishes even if it gets dad arrested.
“Captain Fantastic” is well-intentioned but remarkably
formulaic given its story. It’s not dirty enough. There are no edges on it. It’s
one of those films that thinks a kid saying “Stick it to the man” is an
indication of a unique family. Ross never allows us to get to know the rest of
the family, and has actually miscast a few of them. In the end, the movie
belongs entirely to Viggo, who does everything he can to give the piece depth,
but his efforts only go so far.
