Rudderless
William H. Macy’s feature-length directorial debut, Rudderless, follows Sam, an ad exec (Billy Crudup) struggling to turn his life around after his teenage son dies in a school shooting. Refusing to engage with loved ones, he descends into alcoholism and moves onto a boat, working small menial jobs. Sam’s grief begins to lift after he discovers a cache of tapes and lyrics for songs his son had written, and performs one of the songs at a local bar. Quentin (Anton Yelchin), a young, awkward musician, encourages Sam to start playing the songs with a band which invigorates both of them—until he finds out the songs weren’t written by Sam.
Rudderless doesn’t tread any new ground, but the material is deftly handled by Macy (who also co-wrote the script) and is emotionally effective. Yelchin and Crudup play off one another well, and the supporting cast (Laurence Fishburne and Felicity Huffman) is equally strong. The movie also manages to clear a major hurdle: the quality of the music. If the songs that everyone is supposed to feel so strongly about aren’t all that great, it can quickly sink a premise like this. But to my ears, the music was effective, and I could see it resonating with a lot of people, much like the film itself.
R100
Hitoshi Matsumoto’s R100 is pretty much the definition of a “specialty title,” so if it does appear at a theater near you, consider yourself lucky. In the film, a mild-mannered father and salaryman whose wife is in a coma sees his world further disrupted after he joins an S&M club that specializes in surprising their clients in public. Each dominatrix has a distinctive bizarre technique of humiliation: one repeatedly dumps him into a fountain; another smashes his sushi before he can eat it; another is adept at spitting. The visits yield him moments of bliss, until the encounters cross the line and threaten his livelihood and his family. The film comes with its own running commentary via sequences with a censorship committee who are supposedly viewing the film and critiquing what is happening (“Why does an S&M club have a CEO?”).
As the intensity and strangeness of the dominatrix visits escalate, R100 achieves a giddy, absurd comedy that is truly unique. In addition, the breaks in the action provided by the censorship committee bring to mind Godard’s joyful tactic of pointing out the cinematic apparatus. (The film’s title parodies the Japanese ratings system, suggesting that no one under the age of 100 will understand what they are watching.) R100 is definitely not be for everyone, but for that segment of the audience who are on board with Matsumoto, the film will be a lot of fun.
Camp X-Ray
Peter Sattler’s Camp X-Ray seeks to put a face on Guantanamo Bay by exploring the relationship between Amy (Kristen Stewart), a young female soldier on duty, and Ali (Payman Maadi), one of the prisoners she is tasked with guarding. Amy must go through the learning process of handling prisoners from a different culture, as well as negotiating the gender politics of the armed forces, which are not in a woman’s favor. While the film makes an admirable effort to address topics (and a place) that many in the U.S. would prefer to ignore, it will disappoint anyone looking for a grittier, uncompromising approach. And, acting aside, Stewart might be the least convincing soldier since Michael J. Fox in Casualties of War. However, for the significant portion of the moviegoing public who favor a superficial narrative that tugs at the heart strings, Maadi’s performance fits the bill.
The Babadook
The Babadook is an artful classic treatment of the haunted house/possession genre. In Australian actress Jennifer Kent’s directorial debut, a single mother (Essie Davis) struggles to handle her unruly 7-year-old son. The day the boy was born, his father was killed in a car accident, leaving both mother and son with deep psychological scars. His tantrums worsen after the mysterious appearance of a children’s book about a boogeyman named Mister Babadook. The boy claims he needs to prevent the monster from killing his mother, and she grows more and more spooked by apparent threats against them.
In many ways the film is like an Australian companion piece to The Conjuring, as it shares several themes and hits many of the same notes in pursuit of frightening its audience. While that alone would warrant a hearty recommendation, Kent adds a deft visual style, and fleshes out a familiar yet distinctive children’s boogeyman character, tying his existence to the emotional discord that exists between the mother and son. The result is a refreshing, and not gory, approach to horror that scores high on the scare-meter.