Noah Review

Living with his family in self-imposed isolation from the rest of humanity, a man has a vision from God that the world will be drowned to make way for a new beginning. Believing that he must save all animal life from the flood, the man sets out to build a massive vessel capable of surviving the wrath of the Creator.  Noah by Darren Aronofsky, much like the famous ark in the story, is rough around the edges and held together with raw materials, yet contains with in it admirable components. Ultimately this film comes across as underdeveloped and overly ambitious.

                The world in which Noah and his family live is a dark, dirty, and brutal place where life is cheap and often ends violently and senselessly. Man has disobeyed the Creator of the world and has been banished from a garden of paradise. There are themes of environmentalism throughout. Noah and his family take only what they need to survive, which doesn’t include the meat of animals. They live away from other people, trying to make their way through their lives as humbly as possible. In this way there’s a kind of rural vs. city thing going on. The men that Noah hides from are killers and eaters of animals with a society that seems to revolve around mining. Man’s corruption of the Earth and the purity of nature are emphasized at every turn.

                The best parts of Noah almost all come from the second half, once we get on the boat. A truly chilling moment occurs when Noah and his family try to have dinner while the screams of drowning people hang over them. Aronofsky has succeded in crafting a film that gives us a deeper insight into what a man in Noah’s predicament could have gone through. The film weighs the issues of mercy and judgment and pushes its main character to the breaking point and beyond.

                Unfortunately many of the film’s subplots, including the villainous intents of Ray Winstone, a love story for Noah’s son Ham, and fallen angels known as the Watchers don’t pay off and feel undercooked. Winstone plays a king descended from Cain who isn’t given enough time to really develop beyond a cardboard villain who might as well be twirling a thick mustache.  The Watchers, apart from looking cheap, have shades of character but again, their place in the film’s story is ultimately too tangential to inspire much interest in them.

                Noah has grand themes, but it’s most successful when it turns into a tense family drama about a man in an extremely difficult position. In some ways it’s a small story stretched too far. The core of what’s here is fine, and worth experiencing, but the audience has to sift through several underdeveloped aspects to get to it.   

The Grand Budapest Hotel Review

Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel features a cavalcade of quirky characters in a mostly light hearted adventure revolving around a large luxury hotel in a fictional European Country during the 1930’s. Much of what makes Anderson’s style compelling is found here: A large and eccentric cast, matriculate set and costume design, and aggressively playful and fastidious dialog. The story is anchored by the hotel’s concierge, the genteel M. Gustav, and his protégé, Zero as they try to navigate a web of conspiracy and deception surrounding one of the hotel’s guests. Thematically, The Grand Budapest Hotel is interested in reoccurring social cycles, classism, and the nature of storytelling. Each of these ideas is explored in an interesting and compelling fashion while keeping the audience on a constantly moving and amusing narrative.

                The entire film, from the acting to the set design and the little flourishes of camera work is a fully realized vision. The hotel itself is a thing of wonder. The centerpiece is a lavish lobby where high society and elegance abound. The care put into the design of everything, down to the font on signs in the background, is evident. Like the castle Hogwarts in Harry Potter or the bathhouse of spirits in Spirited Away this location is filled with enchanting bewilderments. The hotel is truly a character itself, complete with its own narrative arc. All the time you’re there you can’t help but marvel at every inch of it and wonder what’s behind every door. Everything feels as though it’s made out of colorful card stock and lends the film a whimsical tone overall.

                The film crackles with energy and never lingers on one thing for very long. The vast amount of characters outside Gustav and Zero don’t get a lot of screen time, but none of them waste a second of what they have. The character list reads like something out of a lost Victorian novel: Tilda Swinton as an aging mistress of a vast estate, Edward Norton as an affectionate chief of the secret police, Saoirse Ronan as a straight talking aspiring baker, Adrien Brody as a greedy heir (sporting a kind of bizarre kinetic energy reminiscent as his performance as Salvador Dali in Midnight in Paris). The list goes on with more wonderful performances.

The great variety of characters gives the story a somewhat varied tone. At many moments it is playful and cherry, but prospect of melancholy is never too far away. There is a sense of faded glory in this film that has manifested itself in Anderson’s work before. At times in the story it seems that Anderson is addressing this idea more so than in his previous movies. This awareness is not played for cheap meta-humor, but instead is used to explore and draw closer to the concept and why so many of Anderson’s characters chose to live their lives in the shadows of former greatness. 

 The Grand Budapest Hotel is a delight to experience, delivered in an ornate package with a bow on top. What lies inside are a cornucopia of enjoyable performances, stunning set designs, and a charming story about coming of age, societal rhythms, and a damn fine lobby boy.