Brooklyn is a cute enough film, but not really ground breaking by my measure. Ellis leaves her home Ireland as a young woman because there doesn’t seem to be a future for her there. She comes to America to start a new life. She meets a young man and falls in love, and just when she seems to be setting in to her new start, her older sister back home dies and she returns home. She discovers she may have a life there after all, and must decide which life she wants to live. A nice enough movie, but personally I got tired of seeing Ellis’s constantly confused, “stare off into space” face everytime she was faced with a decision. In the end, she really had no decision at all, and went the only way she really could.
Sisters is a pleasant enough, short comedic excursion. Again, nothing spectacularly new in this one, but if you are a fan of Tina Fey’s and Amy Poehler’s goofy-style comedy, you’ll enjoy this one. They play sisters (of course they look nothing alike, but this isn’t meant to a believable film) who return to the family home to learn their parents are selling it. Together they decide to throw one last big party like they used to. The normally responsible one (Poehler) is set to let loose while the regular party girl (Fey) is tasked with not letting things get too out of hand. Safe to assume things do not go as planned. This one settled in a 59% on Rotten Tomatoes, and that’s fair; nothing to write home about, but a funny diversion for a couple hours.
The Danish Girl lives up to the hype. Eddie Redmayne is brilliant as Einer/Lili, a transgender person struggling to understand what she is going through. Born as a boy but never feeling right in her own body, Lili lives in a time when there is no definition for transgender, and doctors are more likely to declare her insane than try to help her. Equally mesmerizing (or maybe even more so) is Alicia Vikander, playing Einer’s wife Gerder. Gerder must watch her husband Einer become Lili, putting on a brave front and being support where she can, but mourning the loss of her husband and partner. I found myself feeling so bad for Lili and what she is going through. As a side note, you should read up on the real Lili Elbe, a very brave woman.
The Lady in the Van is a different kind of movie. It is about a seemingly crazy homeless old lady living out of a van parked in a quiet residential neighborhood in London, played by the always delightful Maggie Smith. It took a long time to get going, fully the first 50 minutes I had it on the background while doing other things, but once all the little strings started coming together in the second half, it is riveting. Mary has some secrets in her past, and the viewer doesn’t get a clear picture of what makes her the way she is until the very end. There’s very much a Titanic-like “a woman is full of secrets” kind of moment. Smith’s over-the-top portrayal is the real highlight, outshining the fairly slow plot.
The 5th Wave is a real snooze fest, for all but maybe the most die-hard fans of the teen fiction novel it is based on. Like many movies-based-on-teen-novels these days, it is about kids being tasked with saving the world. This time, the planet has been invaded by aliens known unoriginally as “the others.” The others have killed off many people in the first four waves, and is gearing up for a fifth wave to finish the job. Lots of hokey acting and dialogue, with more holes in the plot than can be overlooked, the film really goes nowhere and sets up for a sequel that hopefully never gets made.
Jons Movie Takes 