The DVD Beat - April 28

PICK OF THE WEEK:

The Uninvited
This one I wasn’t expecting. “The Uninvited” is not the gruesome supernatural horror film that was advertised in the trailers; it’s an absorbing psychological drama/Evil Stepmother thriller in which everyone’s sanity, including that of the protagonist, is thrown into question. Emily Browning plays Anna, who checks out of a mental institution after a botched suicide attempt. Reeling from the accidental death of her sick mother, she’s further unsettled because her novelist father (David Strathairn) is now romantically involved with his dead wife’s former live-in nurse, Rachael (Elizabeth Banks). Anna and her older sister Alex (Arielle Kebbel) quickly become convinced that their father’s new flame is out to kill them, and although Dad brushes off their suspicions as mere delusion, everyone who seems to know anything about Rachael’s dark past ends up dead. Could Rachael have killed their mother? And could she be that evil nurse who knocks off her patients to get closer to their husbands? And are those the restless spirits of her victims haunting Anna in the night? The movie lives and dies by its construction, so if you happen to telegraph any of the twists and turns before the script throws them out, there goes the whole ball game. But “The Uninvited” is surprisingly effective, and it’s infinitely better than the countless other remakes of Asian horror pictures that have clogged the market recently (this one is loosely based on an acclaimed Korean film called “A Tale of Two Sisters”). It is merely an exercise in style and manipulation, but it is successful as such. [PG-13; 87m.]

ALSO ON DVD:

Bride Wars
Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway are naturally talented, beautiful, charming actresses, yet their characters in “Bride Wars” are shrill, annoying, stupid, shallow and unlikable. They play inseparable friends who have had their dream weddings planned out since they were little girls, but they’re at one another’s throats when their wedding days are mistakenly scheduled on the same date. Of course, they decide to thwart the other’s wedding: Hudson switches Hathaway’s bronzer at the tanning salon so she comes out with orange skin, and Hathaway tricks a stylist into coloring Hudson’s hair blue. Har-de-har. If these characters had been written with any shred of intelligence or realism, they would have solved their problems reasonably, the movie would have been over after the half hour mark and we all would have been better off. [PG; 88m.]

Nothing But the Truth
This one has been bouncing around in my head for almost a week now. Either “Nothing But the Truth” is a bleeding heart crusader for journalistic integrity, or it’s a conflicted exploration of a reporter’s unwavering attempts to forward her career. The movie works best, I think, as the latter, although I have a sneaking suspicion it may not have been intended as such. When our protagonist, Rachel Armstrong (Kate Beckinsale), discovers that a woman named Erica Van Doren (Vera Farmiga), a classroom mother at her son’s elementary school, is a former CIA agent, she makes it her duty to write about it in her column. Compromising the identities of covert government agents is a federal crime, but Rachel is adamant that she will not reveal her source, even if it means being thrown in prison. So, are we supposed to think that she’s dignified for upholding her honor, or that she’s deliberately stalling an investigation in order to drum up media coverage? Is she selfish or selfless? The movie left me unsure, and the ending only complicates things further. It seems to be resolute about its position, but I couldn’t quite come down on either side of the issue. [R; 108m.]

Always a bridesmaid, never a bride

Rachel Getting Married
Review by Nathan Weinbender

Jonathan Demme’s “Rachel Getting Married” has so much life in it. It feels so real, so honest. As a portrait of a troubled family playing emotional pick-up sticks, it is sometimes bitterly funny and always brutally frank, and it is candid to the point that I think a lot of people will be made uncomfortable by it.

The film, written by Jenny Lumet, is more of a document than it is a story, attaining the same fly-on-the-wall authenticity that Robert Altman perfected in his work. Like real life, the movie is often messy, directionless, open-ended. It relishes minutiae, asides, overlapping dialogue; it imbeds us firmly within its universe of strange family customs and household chaos. It is brimming with characters, some of whom demand our attention and others who remain only on the periphery.

You may not appreciate Demme’s approach here—a few people at the screening I attended walked out early—and the prospect of simply watching people prepare for a wedding may not appeal to you. But I love movies like this, movies that give weight to basic human experiences, that create palpable environments and characters, that peer in on a world already in progress. It’s like eavesdropping, and it’s fascinating.

Anne Hathaway stars as Kym, a troubled young woman who, as the film opens, has been given a day pass from rehab to attend her sister Rachel’s wedding, which is being held at her childhood home in Connecticut.

Her father (Bill Irwin) is congenial to a fault—he pushes hospitality and courtesy on everybody, likely to distract himself from his past. Her mother (Debra Winger), who has divorced and re-married, is an almost ethereal presence: She tends to vaporize in and out of scenes, wearing an expression that suggests she’d rather be elsewhere.

Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt) loves Kym desperately, but she quietly resents the fact that her sister can’t overcome her own checkered past. During the wedding party, for instance, when everyone has nothing but nice things to say to the bride and groom (Tunde Adebimpe, frontman for the rock group TV on the Radio), Kym takes the opportunity to toast and utilizes it as a way to excise her inner demons.

One of the twelve steps, she tells her nervously-shifting audience, is apology, but even as she begs forgiveness, we sense twinges of narcissism creeping through Kym’s attempts at selflessness.

The movie lingers on the minor details of the day—arguing over bridesmaid dresses, washing the dishes, determining whether or not there is enough food for the guests, the band practicing in the back yard as the tent and the folding chairs are being set up.

There are also sequences, perhaps the most effective in the film, in which Kym attends her mandatory AA meetings. Demme finds the perfect notes in these scenes—they feel uncompromisingly real.

I have read some snide comments about the film resembling a wedding video, a criticism that likely stems from Demme’s decision to use guerilla-style handheld camerawork—to be fair, it is sometimes distracting. But I have never seen a home video in which the characters are presented so nakedly before us, and I have never attended a wedding so busy, so joyful, so cathartic.

Grade: A

Directed by Jonathan Demme. Written by Jenny Lumet. Starring Anne Hathaway, Rosemarie DeWitt, Bill Irwin, Tunde Adebimpe, Mather Zickel, Anna Deavere Smith, Anisa George and Debra Winger. R; 113m.

Shoe-phoning it in

Get Smart
Review by Nathan Weinbender

I wanted very much to laugh at “Get Smart,” and I did, but not very often. This is the type of movie that assembles all the ingredients for a solid comedy but never employs them properly. Much like Maxwell Smart, the film has some impressive weapons in its arsenal, but it just ends up shooting itself in the foot.

Smart, the bumbling private eye who is always a few steps behind, was first immortalized by the invaluable Don Adams on the Mel Brooks-Buck Henry TV series. In this new big-screen adaptation, Adams is replaced by Steve Carell, who, thankfully, doesn’t duplicate Adams’ quirks but rather channels them through his own understated delivery. Carell has the uncanny ability to walk the fine line between self-assuredness and self-parody; his reincarnation of Smart is so desperate to appear composed that we wonder if he realizes how hopelessly incompetent he is.

He is an analyst for a spy agency called CONTROL, the operations of which are as mysterious as the identities of its agents. When CONTROL is the subject of a massive security breach, there’s no other suspect but an evil crime operation known as KAOS. Smart is promoted as a field agent to bring down the bad guys, and he’s teamed with the lovely Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway), whose duties include looking good in snug outfits and getting Smart out of deadly situations.

The plot goes off the rails fairly early—there’s some business involving the President, a symphony concert and a bomb under the piano that’s thrown in at the last minute—but I suppose plot doesn’t really matter in a movie like “Get Smart.” What matters are the performances, the action sequences and the jokes; I can report that the cast is terrific and the action is well-choreographed, but most of the jokes fall flat.

There are some very funny moments in “Get Smart”—I loved the gag involving the defective “Cone of Silence,” and another in which Smart has to pretend to be a deaf-mute at the drop of a hat—but more often than not the film goes for predictable, sitcom-level gags. The movie also doesn’t know how to handle slapstick comedy: Max’s struggles with his technologically advanced gadgets are more painful than funny, and we cringe rather than laugh.

The supporting cast has been impeccably assembled: Dwayne Johnson (having dropped “The Rock” from his name) as Smart’s rival agent; the ever-stoic Terence Stamp as the head of KAOS; Alan Arkin as the Chief. And the action scenes are surprisingly good, especially a climax involving a helicopter, a speeding SUV and an oncoming train. But let us not forget that “Get Smart” is, above all else, a comedy, and it simply never aims high enough with its jokes.

Grade: C

Directed by Peter Segal. Written by Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember. Starring Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway, Dwayne Johnson, Alan Arkin and Terence Stamp. PG-13; 110m.