Monday, April 30, 2018

Avengers: Infinity War - a cultural inquiry

Avengers: Infinity War is on the whole pretty rousing entertainment.  But it's also troubling. 

Black Panther established a precedent of audiences finding sympathetic villains in the Avengers movies.  It drew on Black Lives Matter, and really by drawing on that alone it convinces audiences that the villain wasn't just a villain, but maybe just someone who had the right idea but made bad choices out of it.  Well, no.  That was a convoluted villain with a convoluted connection to Black Lives Matter.

And that's what Thanos in Infinity War represents, too.  Troublingly so.  Thanos is motivated to mass murder in the belief that in reducing the population he can give survivors better opportunities.  This is clearly insane, but audiences are not reacting to this as if it's insane.  Because it's not so far from what a lot of people are arguing in the real world.

When it was Hitler advocating a "master race," it wasn't just pure Germans for a pure Germany he was talking about.  He scapegoated Jews and gypsies and actively set about exterminating them, and if he'd stuck only to that he probably would've had a Germany in a better economic position, which was ostensibly all he wanted.  Thanos may not propound eugenics, but...even Americans were, before WWII.  And there are many movements today that sound equally rational as pre-WWII eugenics.  Politics today has stymied any ability to talk rationally about such issues.  That's what Infinity War is talking about when Iron Man is made aware that the threat of Thanos is more important than whatever might have happened between him and Captain America (as depicted in Captain America: Civil War). 

It's a message that many people watching Infinity War will probably not even think about, because there's still a deep riff in society that neither side seems at all interested in repairing, and no one seems aware is far more trivial than real threats in a real world.  It's worth noting, again, that Hitler was a real threat in a real world, and yet his ideas about eugenics really did exist in pre-WWII America.  The fact that we don't talk about that is almost more troubling than Hitler himself, but not more troubling than the fact that it took so long for Americans to declare war on him, which only happened after the Japanese (note: not Germans) bombed Pearl Harbor.  We had good economic reason to be hesitant, but we were also hesitant to enter WWI, before the Great Depression.  And as it turned out, WWII was very, very good for the economy.  FDR gets a lot of credit for his New Deal ideas, but really, it was WWII that gave Americans new standing, both in the world at large but also at home.  It was turned into politics.  It always turn into partisan politics, despite the fact that such things only ever get everyone into trouble, and often far too long in that trouble to be able to address real problems.

So above everything else, Infinity War is really an attempt at a rallying cry against such nonsense, and that's the best thing about it, and probably the thing that will be least talked about it in the years and decades to come.  And that's what's wrong, and not just with Thanos.

Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

rating: ****

the story: Thanos collects the Infinity Gems and plows through superheroes left and right.

what it's all about: This is it!  This is what these movies have been working toward since Iron Man (2008) when Nick Fury strolls into the movie and talks about an "Avengers initiative."  And "these movies" includes...three Iron Man movies, three Captain America, three Thor, two previous Avengers, two Guardians of the Galaxy, a Doctor Strange, technically one of the Hulk movies, a third cinematic Spider-Man, Black Panther, and an Ant-Man...!  So, lots of material.  And aside from Captain America: Civil War, this is the first time since Avengers that there's been a real sense of momentum, and this is the most momentum these movies could possibly have built up.

And the movie delivers.  It's a perfect summation and justification of the whole thing.  I mean, not perfect.  Where Empire Strikes Back has its big moment at the end people will always point to as reason enough to declare it a classic even though it ends with a cliffhanger...ultimately Infinity War is all cliffhanger.  It's all big moments and clever quips and selling the concept of Thanos as the ultimate threat.  But it features no moment comparable to learning the truth about Vader.  The closest it comes is suggesting Thanos suffers at having to sacrifice his daughter, Gamora, a relationship we already knew about from Guardians of the Galaxy.  And that's ultimately a weakness.  If it were true masterful storytelling, Gamora would stand obviously at the center of Infinity War, but I can tell you the early response is that it's Thanos who does, and that is a weakness.  Thanos is not sympathetic.  He is a villain.  Black Panther introduced the concept of the supposed sympathetic villain.  That's one of the reasons I'm not eager to watch Black Panther, regardless of its rabid popularity, because it trades on responses that manipulate more than tell a credible story.  Infinity War itself sells Black Panther short.  Wakanda is just another in a series of weak superhero defenses.  In order to make Thanos look strong, everyone else has to look weak.  Actually, including Thanos himself.

So I am impressed with the results, and disappointed, too.  The best thing about the movie, because Gamora is held back, is watching all the various aspects of the Avengers movie landscape come together.  All the classic heroes are here, and nearly everyone else, too.  Since I still haven't seen Doctor Strange, this is my first opportunity to see Benedict Cumberbatch as Strange (a brief look from Thor: Ragnarok didn't impress me, and neither did the movie around it).  He comes off well.  I don't tend to like Cumberbatch's American accent, as he seems to be inclined to rob himself of his greatest asset, that deep boom in his voice, when he uses it.  Thankfully he pulls out the boom every now and then.  Zoe Saldana, robbed or not in the story, is the best actor in the movie, as Gamora.  She didn't really have such opportunities in the two Guardians movies to date.  Josh Brolin has been a favorite of mine since he started breaking out in 2007, and while some of his dialogue is clumsy he of course sells Thanos well.  Chris Pratt leads the rest of the Guardians as Star-Lord in typically Star-Lord material.  Chris Hemsworth has the biggest opportunity of the original set to stand out, and maybe because his work in Ragnarok was so recent the movie is inclined to give Thor useful material.  Robert Downey Jr, who has throughout the franchise been at its center, is strangely downplayed, for the first time ever, as Iron Man, despite having some fairly important things to do.  Chris Evans as Captain America has less than both of them but he still comes off as more immediately impactful.  Mark Ruffalo as Hulk (sort of) has strong character material.  Tom Holland's Spider-Man is about as good here as he was in Civil War, and better than he was in his own movie, Spider-Man: Homecoming.  I know Black Panther has been insanely popular, but I remain unmoved by Chadwick Boseman.  Of the many other actors in smaller roles, Peter Dinklage stands out (heh) as a dwarf (heh).  It's about time someone truly looks beyond his size.  And this movie, which like Justice League draws on the 21st century blockbuster legacies of Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, was probably his best bet for such an opportunity.

For the first time, I find the results of an Avengers movie appropriately cinematic.  It's not ultimately just goofing around, but it's also not barreling toward seriousness like Civil War and its predecessor, Captain America: Winter Soldier.  Not that barreling toward seriousness is bad, but that it's always an awkward contrast.  So at least there's material that wants to be taken seriously that doesn't revolve entirely around Captain America. 

The other biggest problem?  The next Avengers movie really has to stick the landing.  If it doesn't, it makes everything else look weak.  Which, as Infinity War points out, is a bad thing.

Sweetwater (2013)

rating: *

the story: A corrupt preacher in New Mexico territory faces judgment day at the hands of a widow and the new lawman.

what it's all about: Lest you think I generally only write about (or watch) movies I like or at least like things about, or have something interesting (in a positive way) about them...I give you Sweetwater.  I thought there would be things to like about it.  I like Ed Harris and Jason Isaacs a great deal.  Until Sweetwater I'd never seen either in something I didn't like.  Well, can't really say that anymore.  This movie is terrible.

These days we tend to talk about "terrible" movies in terms of creative decisions we don't agree with or in questioning their CGI.  But truly bad movies do exist, and I don't mean horribly, horribly incompetent filmmaking that shows up in Mystery Science Theater 3000, but stuff like, well, Sweetwater.  Stuff that's entirely convinced it's just a step or two away from, say, Tarantino or the Coen brothers, as the DVD packaging of Sweetwater suggests.  More like a few steps away from 3000, DVD packaging.  Said packaging also says this was a Sundance film festival selection.  I have no idea how that's even possible.  Maybe I don't know Sundance near well enough.  Maybe it has crap all the time?

But here's the thing.  Here's Sweetwater's Rotten Tomatoes page.  And technically, it features a pretty dismal rating, both from critics and audiences.  But...Take even a brief look at those critics and fans are saying, and I say, they don't seem to understand at all the scope of how terrible Sweetwater is.  They think it's somehow redeemable.  It really, really isn't. 

Let's start with Isaacs' preacher.  The idea is itself cartoonish, more a cult figure from some modern innercity than someone who should be the focus of a movie that's supposed to be taken seriously, some fever dream vision of Christians as they're viewed now than what their role was in the late 1800s, the actual setting of this movie.  And because this is a cartoon Christian, this preacher looks pretty much exactly like Jesus.  It's not that Jason Isaacs gives a bad performance.  He does what he can with the material.  I remember people saying his character in The Patriot was a parody; his Harry Potter work was admittedly designed to leave no doubt about Lucius Malfoy's status.  But they were both still excellent performances, as is his work in Sweetwater.  If there's truly a glimmer of a redemptive possibility, it's Isaacs.

Ed Harris fares worse.  He's the lawman who comes to town.  But he's asked to do bizarre things like dance weirdly for no discernable reason other than the movie thinks it's quirky enough to characterize itself.  But it's as stupid and prurient as the shopkeeper we see spying on women with his pants down.  Otherwise Harris is typically Harris, but I have no idea what possessed him to go along with the idiotic dancing.

The nominal lead is January Jones, best known for Mad Men and X-Men: First Class.  I've been of the suspicious that a lot of what's passed as popular TV entertainment in the past twenty years is actually of the same general quality as Sweetwater, and it's actors like Jones who keep suffering for it.  In Mad Men she was cast as one of the "ironic" babes the guys salivate over "in the era where this was acceptable," "because the show is teaching us a lesson."  But as with X-Men: First Class, as with Sweetwater, she's no doubt there merely to be a pretty face, not because anyone thought for a second whether or not the role suited her talents.  Because Sweetwater has no idea what her talents are, except to eventually have a nude scene for the sake of having a nude scene, and to be silent during her violent revenge.  When critics complain about silent heroines, they're really complaining about stuff like this.  If they complain when the actor fits the rest of the role, they're merely being misogynists, because male actors are silent in actions roles all the time and those same critics don't complain then...

And that about sums up what's wrong with Sweetwater...And what's wrong with people even sort of liking stuff like this?  It's clear admittance that they have no discernable critical ability.  And this is reflected in the popular culture far more often than anyone is prepared to admit.  In sum, this is the sort of thing to be embarrassed about.

Monday, April 16, 2018

Killing Them Softly (2012)

rating: *****

the story: A hitman explains the mechanics of business.

what it's all about: Over the course of only three films, Andrew Dominik has built a strong legacy.  Chopper is an Australian crime drama about a real-life, larger-than-life figure; it gave Eric Bana his first standout performance.  The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is an elegiac character study about the eponymous event; regardless of the merits of Jesse James himself, Dominik still views it as a tragedy.  Killing Them Softly is his first wholly fictional creation (based on a book called Coogan's Trade, by George V. Higgins), and it's a meditation on a whole system.  By the end of the film, Brad Pitt is stating "America is...just a business."  You will either understand what he's talking about by then, or you won't understand the movie at all.

Killing Them Softly is essentially a mob movie.  It's hardly the first mob movie, but it might just be the first one without any glamor attached to it.  From Jimmy Cagney to Marlon Brando to Ray Liotta, Hollywood movies have tended to glorify mobsters, or at least held them to be inherently fascinating.  Liotta's Goodfellas took it to another level entirely; he's so gleeful and unrepentant about his mobster life he sees anything else as a punishment.  Maybe as viewers we're supposed to see the irony of it, but Martin Scorsese has spent so much time guiding us along from Liotta's perspective, it's hard to see it that way.  Later, mobsters migrated to television, where James Gandolfini ruled The Sopranos with a iron fist; the final scene of the series famously ends without the viewer knowing whether he ever faces justice; this isn't just ambiguity, it's an open invitation to once and for all root for him. 

So to see Gandolfini in Killing Them Softly, indisputably as a ruthless, bad guy mobster, is to finally close a chapter in a very long book.  None of Dominik's movies have been massive successes, and that's an understatement.  For the vast majority of viewers they don't even exist!  Assassination has garnered a cult following over the years, but Killing remains invisible.  It's a shame.  Part of the reason is no doubt because the movie greets Barack Obama's 2008 election as US president with cynicism; this is considered a sin among the minds most likely to care what a movie has to say about something.  The whole movie is about the election; it's as much a framing narrative as Brad Pitt's conversations with Richard Jenkins.  When Pitt concludes, in the final dialogue of the movie, that American is a business, Obama's election is on a TV screen in the background. 

The whole point of the plot is how relationships affect your fate.  Two small-time robbers, including one played by Ben Mendelsohn, are actually the characters we meet first in the movie, and so our sympathies are with them for most of the movie.  We see how they think, and how they attempt to outthink the system, and how they fail even when it seems they don't.  Pitt and Jenkins discuss their predicament; Pitt is hired to take care of it, but he tries to get out of it, because for him, "killing them softly" means killing at a distance.  He doesn't like to get involved unless he has to.  Pitt's acquaintance in Gandolfini, meanwhile, reveals how ugly matters really are, and everything he tries not to be, even though he ultimately can't avoid it.  It's Jenkins who can pretend otherwise, but only because he's basically at the level of the mob Hollywood usually depicts, the one where nothing really seems to be real, just leaving the gun, taking the cannoli. 

Pitt reaches his conclusion because he's tried reconciling things, and it hasn't worked; he still ends up having to become personally involved, and Jenkins tries to pay him less than he's owed, because for Jenkins it's just business, and business usually will try to pay less.  But Pitt understands that what business means is having to take control, because no one else is going to look after you.  It's not how the business functions that matters, and it's not the outcome that matters, either.  It's taking control of your fate.  Liotta, in this movie, loses control of his fate.  He doesn't realize how badly he screwed himself, just as Gandolfini, for all his bluster, doesn't, or Mendelsohn.  It's Pitt who does, because he's ruthless in that business sense, whatever it takes to get ahead. 

Anyway, it's fascinating commentary.

Hell or High Water (2016)

rating: *****

the story: Brothers turn bank robber to pay off their mother's mortgage.

what it's all about: The year it was released I wrote up some thoughts about Hell or High Water here in which I probed its general morality.  Admittedly (and in the thoughts themselves I say so), I hadn't seen it yet.  Now I have seen it a few times, and so I can revisit and talk about the movie itself.

It's a modern classic.  It's a modern classic in much the way No Country for Old Men seemed to be.  I'm still mulling over No Country itself; a lot of what I like about that one is the iconic Javier Bardem performance, as close to a single great acting creation as anything outside of Heath Ledger's Joker we've had since Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter.  Hell or High Water doesn't have anything like that.  The closest it gets is Ben Foster's breakthrough as Chris Pine's hell-raising brother.  Foster has quietly been growing into a brilliant actor, and nobody seems to have noticed.  He's a lot like Pine, actually.  Where Pine has occasionally created full-on characters (Smokin' Aces, Stretch), Foster has merely inhabited fascinating roles.  Pine is most often in that mode, too, and he found his best to date in this film, so on that score alone Hell or High Water is watching.

It's also well worth watching for Jeff Bridges.  Bridges has been around Hollywood for decades, but I think he's gotten far more interesting as he's aged.  He's certainly been a standout in recent years even among critics.  Crazy Heart earned him a Best Actor Oscar, which he followed with the Coens remake of True Grit.  He's fallen off the radar since then, as his present act has become more familiar, but for me he remains fascinating, and in Hell or High Water he is fascinating.  He's got the same sort of role Tommy Lee Jones had in No Country, but he plays it very differently.  He wouldn't at all be out of place in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Bridges plays an ornery FBI agent days away from retirement.  The role itself is a cliché, but screenwriter Taylor Sheridan writes it with a purpose; the constant offensive ribbing he aims at his partner is metaphorical.  They're in pursuit of Pine and Foster, whose goal is basically to stick it to the man.  They're reacting against a system that seems to have no place for them.  Bridges is trying to put things into perspective.  He tells his partner at one point that it's his teasing that's going to be missed.  His partner reflects about how the banks that are threatening to take away Pine and Foster's childhood home are just the latest in a long series of land seizures.  He would know, because he's part Indian.

The most telling scene, maybe, in the whole movie is inside a casino, where the brothers are laundering their stolen money.  Foster confronts a different Indian, whom Foster has been insulting (you can see the deliberate parallels here).  The Indian has just explained that being a Comanche means everyone's an enemy.  Foster's retort, why the Indian should leave him alone, is, "Because I'm a Comanche."  He sees everyone as his enemy.  That's the key to the whole character.  Years ago he defended his mother against an abusive father.  He ended up in jail because he later killed him (the trial bought it as a hunting accident, inside a barn).  He agrees to go along with his brother's bank robbing scheme mostly because, well, everyone's his enemy already anyway.  He's the crazy one; without him Pine couldn't have done any of it.

In framing it as being about the robberies themselves, that's the wrong interpretation.  The whole story is a metaphor, about how the system has slowly turned against individuals like Pine, like his mother, anyone who can be exploited by a system, really.  We've seen exploitation before, and in hindsight we always condemn it, but it's far harder to do in the present.  We see something like the Great Recession, and we mostly think in terms of economic recovery.  We don't particularly see or care about the lives being crushed because of it, or why.  To its credit, Hollywood hasn't ignored the idea.  Jim Carrey's Fun with Dick and Jane was pretty much the same story, and that was ten years earlier, when the CEO corruption scandals that eventually led to the Great Recession were first coming to light.  The problem is, these movies don't change anything, and they don't even lead to conversations.  This is an era about tough conversations, and yet we keep dodging the toughest ones. 

Pine fears that his actions will forever sully his name.  This fear is derived from the fact that he has growing boys who become the chief beneficiaries of his thefts.  The money for the mortgage is actually so he can reclaim the property and thus lay claim to the oil that's been found beneath it.  The same banks he robbed end up welcoming not only the stolen money, but the oil money, because in the end, money is money.  Bridges figures all of this out.  What he warns Pine is that it's not his reputation that he had to worry about, but his conscience.  Foster ends up killing a few people during the course of events, and Bridges says that's Pine's responsibility; the robberies were his idea, and anything that happened during them or because of them are his fault, too.  Pine will have to live with that

Hell or High Water, then, is a cautionary tale.  You can burn down paradise in order to do the right thing, but in the end, it's not satisfaction you've earned but a scorched earth, and that's what you're going to have to live with.  The ends don't always justify the means.  It's a fantasy Western, wish fulfillment in a time when injustice is insidious, systemic, and it doesn't care whether you're white or Indian or any other race.  Sheridan has become one of the hottest commodities in Hollywood, whether as screenwriter or director; David Mackenzie is another director who's gotten to benefit from collaborating with him.  Everything Sheridan creates adds to our understanding of how our world works, and where it needs improving.  But he also issues warnings, and we'd be wise to heed them.

Howl's Moving Castle (2004)

rating: ***

the story: A young woman inadvertently stumbles into a great conflict.

what it's all about: The films of Hayao Miyazaki are routinely rated as some of the best of the modern era.  Miyazaki is a Japanese animation director.  Whether or not you consider his work part of the overall Japanese anime scene may affect whether or not you've seen his work.  I've long known about his reputation, but until recently catching Howl's Moving Castle my practical experience with Miyazaki was limited to Princess Mononoke, which to my mind is easily associated with the overall Japanese anime scene, which I've determined after a number of movies is not really my thing.  As it turns out, Howl's Moving Castle isn't much like the overall Japanese anime scene.  But I'm still not convinced about Miyazaki.

Like Pixar, Miyazaki seems to get a free pass from critics.  If he's got something new, chances are more than good that critics will love it.  I can appreciate general admiration.  I've got actors and directors I'll always be interested in.  The problem becomes if you like a specific movie regardless of its own merits.  I don't think Pixar is a perfect movie engine, and I now have two experiences with Miyazaki that have failed to overly impress me. 

Don't get me wrong; Howl's Moving Castle earns a lot of points from me for being a clear break from the anime scene.  Its instincts are almost completely different, and generally they are quite charming, too.  In fact, charm is Howl's greatest advantage.  It's clearly an inventive work, even if it's based on a book.  (Can we please retire the nonsense of adaptation somehow not equating with creativity?)  It's got some truly fun characters in it, too. 

A lot of its appeal for me is that Howl's is basically an Oz story.  No, not Oz as in Judy Garland, or even as in the horribly unappreciated Return to Oz.  Oz as in the L. Frank Baum books.  I finally read through all of them a few years back, and I was thoroughly enchanted.  If you've seen Howl's then you already have an idea about what Baum's Oz was like.  That's what I mean.  But where Baum was always light on his feet, Howl's is leaden. 

As example I'll spend the remainder of my review talking about Howl himself.  Maybe this is really a criticism of the Hollywood dubbing of the movie, but even the appearance of Howl himself is a criticism of Miyazaki's vision.  Howl is one of the few characters in the movie who looks like he was ripped directly from a manga, a Japanese comic.  Manga and anime are virtually indistinguishable in their instincts.  In the Hollywood dubbing, Howl is voiced by Christian Bale.  In 2004, Bale had yet to reach the height of his fame.  He was one year away from playing Batman.  He was best known for American Psycho, four years earlier.  I have yet to see that one.  I wonder if he uses a voice similar to the one he employs for Howl.  If so...

The problem most people have with Bale's Batman is his voice.  If Bale had used that voice as Bruce Wayne, too, there would have been a real problem.  He doesn't.  As Howl, it's basically as if Bale had used his Batman voice the whole film.  It's not appealing.  As an entire performance, it's distracting.  By way of contrast, Billy Crystal as the fire demon is terrific.  I couldn't even place the voice until I saw Crystal's name in the credits.  I was convinced it was Kevin Spacey.  In 2004, Crystal was already ebbing in popularity.  Actually, the fire demon is Crystal's last notable role, not counting the Monsters, Inc. sequel.  In contrast, Bale's career grew considerably following Howl's

Bale's Howl is not only a bad performance, it's bad casting.  He doesn't sound anything like you'd expect Howl to sound like, based on his design.  With this one element, it becomes harder to see why Howl's is seen as anything other than an imaginative experience.  There's certainly nothing wrong with imaginative films experiences.  As an animated film, though, vocal performances are crucial.  Even if it's not a celebrity, it can't be distracting in a bad way.  Crystal is an example of a vocal performance being distracting in a good way; Emily Mortimer and Lauren Bacall are examples of vocal performances that don't draw attention to themselves so much as exist as elements of the movie.  They work, they're functional, and that's all you need to know. 

In sum?  Interesting.  Could have been better.

Monday, April 2, 2018

Gifted (2017)

rating: ****

the story: A gifted seven-year-old will either live with her uncle or her grandmother, who have conflicting visions of her future.

what it's all about: In the interests of full disclosure, I'm several steps away from the subject matter.  For most of my niece's two and a half years of life, I've been asked to step in and help raise her, and recently been confronted with the gut-wrenching thought of being asked to step back and just be an uncle.  I won't really go into further details on that, but suffice to say, I have an idea of what the heart of this story's about, and so on that level it certainly speaks to me personally.  This may affect my objectivity.

I've been a fan of director Marc Webb, a fairly big fan, since his breakthrough debut film (500) Days of Summer, a heartbreaking drama about a relationship that turns out poorly and an attempt to deal with that.  Webb then directed The Amazing Spider-Man and its sequel, both of which continued his trademark ability to speak to uncomfortable emotional truths.  Webb is a filmmaker who understands that life is complicated, whether or not you're a superhero.  Gifted is a fine extension of his filmography.  It asks you to put aside any particular prejudices you may have about what's in the best interests of gifted children.  Naturally, because that's what society tends to tell you, a gifted child should be given every opportunity to reach their potential.  But for every Mozart, there's a Diane Adler.

Diane is Mary Adler's mother, or rather, she was.  Diane committed suicide when Mary was half a year old.  Before she died, Diane visited her brother Frank in Florida.  Frank took that to mean his sister was entrusting Mary with him.  We catch up with Mary and Frank when he's decided to put her in school, as he says so she'll learn social skills.  She does have a friend, Frank's neighbor Roberta, but Roberta's older than Frank!  Frank just wants Mary to have a normal life.  He saw what happened to his sister, and desperately wants better for Mary.

His mother sees it different.  At this point she comes back into their life and demands custody.  Mary's principal has contacted her after several incidents leave a negative impression on her ability to adjust, regardless of Frank's wishes.  Like her daughter and mother, Diane was a math wiz.  In fact, she was close to solving a "Millennium Prize Problem," which would have been a surefire lifetime achievement, the culmination of all her work and potential.  Frank thinks their mother push Diane too hard.  The court ruling on the dispute sides with her.  Mary is placed in a foster home as a compromise.

The whole situation is really about who relates to Mary on a human level.  Clearly it's Frank.  Too often we forget that beyond everything else it's really our ability to empathize that's our best attribute, to see worth in the person and not just what they can do for you.  Or as Mary says, Frank loved her before she was smart.  He loved her for her.

Critics who were only looking for the dramatic arc and how cathartic the climax felt overlooked the message, and what it meant for Mary and Frank, and its greater applications, especially in a society that has all but eliminated basic acceptance.  We're always saying, you need to have a reason to be accepted.  We've all become cogs in one machine or another, we've all been assigned labels.  This is a movie that says there's something else worth embracing.  Mary's best friend is a one-eyed cat named Fred.  Mary doesn't care that Fred is missing an eye.  She loves him because she loves him.  It's not because he's damaged, anymore than you should care about Mary because her mother died or Frank because of the sacrifices he's made. 

Mary's teacher begins to understand all of this pretty rapidly.  By the time Mary shows up in her classroom, Bonnie notices her brash attitude right away, but she also notices that challenging Mary constructively produces constructive results.  And she becomes attracted to Frank not because he's played by hunky Chris Evans, but because he's endlessly intriguing.  This isn't a movie that ends with a happy, bow-tied ending.  Bonnie and Frank don't end up in a relationship as an official new set of parents for Mary.  We aren't even assured that Mary ends up having the best of both worlds, even though we do get to see where Frank compromises in ways that make sense for Mary, giving her university-level classrooms and girl scout social time.  It qualifies as heartwarming.

Evans has long intrigued me.  Along with a lot of other people, he was the most interesting element of the first two Fantastic Four movies.  He was also a standout in material like The Losers and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.  And of course as Captain America.  Here he's in an approachable mold of Captain America, rather than the jokier role he used to specialize in.  He proves he's ready for mature, nonsuperhero roles, possibly the best of the Avengers crop in that regard. 

Octavia Spencer is a revelation in this movie.  Other directors have a way of making her look like a caricature, but Webb keeps her human.  You can always tell the true talent of a director in how they turn perception completely around like that.  Jenny Slate is credible as the teacher.  The real find, as seemed to happen in several movies in 2017, is child actress Mckenna Grace.  Child actors are notoriously a mixed bag.  In years past most were expected to be merely precocious; Grace joins a recent tradition of finding real talent.  Without her the movie would probably fall apart, no matter how appealing Evans and his adult costars are.  As it is, this is one you'll be able to enjoy without reservation for years to come.