So Did They All

Autumn 2016 will be remembered for many things in the years to come but the fact that we got two Tom Hanks movies during that time will probably be considered of only minor importance. Everybody had something else on their minds, I guess. The first of the two was Clint Eastwood’s SULLY which we were all ok with partly because it turned out to be surprisingly emotional and, even better, it was only around 90 minutes. The second came deeper into the season at the very end of October, right at that moment when all of our attention was focused elsewhere. So it wasn’t much of a surprise that Ron Howard’s INFERNO, the third film adapted from Dan Brown’s Robert Langdon series, didn’t do much business. As for the first two, THE DA VINCI CODE came out in 2006, a long time ago with the memory of the surrounding frenzy now feeling like some sort of Bush-Cheney era relic that no one needs to revisit. The follow-up ANGELS & DEMONS came in 2009 and it’s a film I can’t think of a single thing to say about. So if you’re going to make a third film in a series that no one thinks about anymore and wait seven years to do it there’s always the chance the audience will have long since scattered. Even the SNL hosted by Tom Hanks the week before which featured the instantly legendary David S. Pumpkins sketch couldn’t get anyone to go. Naturally, I was there opening weekend. You think I’ve got better things to do? Something about how the film seemed off in the present climate was appealing in a why-does-this-movie-exist way, a franchise aimed at an adult market that didn’t really seem to exist anymore. So that Saturday afternoon I walked over to the Vista where I correctly guessed there wouldn’t be much of a crowd, got some popcorn and sat down, ready to enjoy a bad movie. Sometimes you know what you want and that’s exactly what you’re going to get. But thinking back on that time now it feels like the film was somehow a portent of what was to come and even Tom Hanks, who we all like to think of as our dad, couldn’t prevent that.

With no memory of how he got there, Professor Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) awakens in a hospital room in Florence, Italy and finds himself instantly in jeopardy. In between hallucinatory visions of a form of hell engulfing the earth, he finds himself almost immediately under siege but is rescued by attending doctor Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones) who informs Langdon of his condition and gets him out of the hospital with them being chased by an assassin dressed as a police officer (Ana Ularu) in pursuit. Hiding out in Sienna’s apartment the two begin to piece together what brought Langdon to the city in the first place, connecting it to the suicide of billionaire geneticist Bertrand Zobrist (Ben Foster) who had instigated a plan to use a virus to literally bring about Dante’s Inferno as a way to solve the planet’s growing population problem. On the run from both the assassin and members of the World Health Organization led by Elizabeth Sinskey (Sidse Babett Knudsen) with their own interest in Langdon, the path leads them to the recent theft of a Dante Death Mask on display in the Palazzo Vecchio and who is really behind the plot to unleash the virus.

It wasn’t necessary for me to look up the plot summary on Wikipedia to clarify a few plot points that I zoned out on but it didn’t hurt. I still have a few questions, to be honest, but it doesn’t really matter. I’m not going to make any great case for INFERNO but I’ve seen far worse and in some ways it’s more entertaining on its own mediocre level than the other two films in the series, or at least my memory of them. At the very least, it feels like there’s some sort of weight off its shoulders to live up to whatever the DA VINCI CODE phenomenon was so there’s not as much self-importance this time with maybe a little more pulpish fun. It’s a film that at least seems to know it’s designed to be watched on airplanes or via On Demand in hotel rooms and accomplish little more than just letting us know how it’s going to turn out. I’ve never read any of the Dan Brown books and I have no plans to revisit the earlier two films in the series but flipping by a few minutes of ANGELS & DEMONS on cable recently made it clear that INFERNO, screenplay by David Koepp based on the book by Dan Brown, is a little stripped down in comparison and the reported budget of 75 million vs 150 million back in ’09 makes that clear, with less of an emphasis on special effects and sets that were clearly digitally created as well as a cast of supporting actors this time out who while just as capable were clearly somewhat cheaper. Instead of figuring out a way to digitally swoop down on the characters as they enter some massive cathedral, the film instead has to concentrate on telling the story. Much of the first half hour is largely set in a single modestly sized apartment before the chase really begins and it’s even shot (digitally, unlike the others which were on film) in 1.85 unlike the Scope framings of the first two as if to further scale things down visually, but I’m not sure Ron Howard is a director who depends on 2.35 anyway. Even better it’s only a sliver over two hours so it even feels like it moves faster which alone makes it an improvement over the other Langdon films. The plot gimmick of partial amnesia is always good in a noir-ish way particularly here since it not only takes away part of the hero’s intellect, it means we don’t always know what the intentions are of people who claim they already know him. Plus I’m never going to be too unhappy about a film partly set in Florence anyway, even if it barely gets a chance to pay attention to the surroundings.

Much of Howard’s direction seems to consist of portentous close-ups of characters as they debate plot points with the occasional wide shot as they enter a new locale along with the expected action scenes where we can only partly tell what’s actually going on but he does keep it moving. You’d expect it to simply go through the paces but, if anything, the film is over-directed in an attempt to add more flash than the story requires, trying way too hard with CGI Dante-inspired visions of a world turned into hell that Langdon has which seem to be there mainly to make the whole thing acceptable for an IMAX release. They seem to disappear after the first hour and never amount to very much anyway. As it is, one of the most effective visions is also the simplest, when Langdon finds himself alone in a suddenly empty hall at Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio, the naturalism of the brief moment proving much more effective. The film does at least do a good job in portraying a world in strife amidst all this history, with Howard always keeping us aware of the teeming hordes streaming through these tourist spots as a reminder of the population problem the film dwells on plus it turns out that the date the virus is set to be released is my birthday so the villain’s apparently more of an asshole for trying to ruin that for me. There’s even a fairly decent twist in the second half that I didn’t see coming along with a plot device seemingly borrowed from John Carpenter’s ESCAPE FROM L.A., of all things, although I’ll give this film the benefit of the doubt that it’s not a direct lift. Hans Zimmer’s score serves as wallpaper much of the time as if it wants to maintain a semblance of seriousness by not being too bombastic but a little more energy wouldn’t have hurt.

Like the other two films, all the main action is crammed into basically one day and the way Howard films things it’s more about how the people in the frame relate to what’s around them, not so much on the epic sweep; really, the entire series tries to make actors shouting exposition while on the run into a new art form. But even though the film takes itself seriously every single second it still manages to feel somehow looser than the other two films and maybe all the location shooting gave it an extra shot of adrenaline. There’s nothing particularly notable about how the climax set in the Basilica Cistern in Istanbul is shot but at least the actual location has a unique look and the film even seems to know that it doesn’t need to bother spending too much time wrapping things up. For something so plot driven and centered around Tom Hanks running with a pained expression on his face, a few of the most interesting touches have very little to do with that plot, whether it’s a memory of a lost Mickey Mouse watch or visions of a woman that Langdon can’t quite recall. The subtext of INFERNO isn’t exactly deep, but it does contain tinges of regret in portraying someone so consumed by work that it’s become his life and in doing that asks himself what he’s waiting for and, really, what are any of us waiting for, whether we’re thinking about the world or the things we’ve missed out in our own lives, as if we just assume we’ll wake up one day and it’ll all be taken care of. One character references Dante’s Inferno and how it was written by him as a journey out of hell to reach the woman he loves, a parallel to what this particular INFERNO turns out to be for Langdon who seems to be preoccupied with how he’s single, maybe wondering about what he’s leaving behind at his age. It’s too bad the movie needs to explicitly state the parallel in dialogue as if we couldn’t pick it up on our own but at least it’s something.

There are a lot of serious matters to bring up about the state of the world today and what the problems of population are doing to it but ultimately INFERNO is a chase movie, one that wants to be hopeful and remind us how we need to strive for a better world. It’s trying really hard to believe that but I’m still not sure it does. But it knows that sometimes we need to retreat into those Mickey Mouse watches that represent where we once were while desperately hoping that the future hasn’t been too screwed up because of the past. One thing about this film, and I suppose the others in the series, is that at least it involves people from the world of academia with knowledge of art, religion, history, people who believe in intelligence and what that represents. As it turns out, not everyone in the film agrees with that and certainly not everyone in the world these days. It even feels somewhat conservative in its overall message of believing that institutions will save the day from the maverick youngsters (“Young people are disappointing. I find they become tolerable around 35,” someone says but Langdon’s silent reaction indicates even he won’t go that far) and even the diabolical private security firm that figures in turns out to only have the best interests of the world at heart. “Things fall apart if you don’t look after them,” goes one line which feels like a moral and a reminder to us for what may happen in the future. We like to think that Tom Hanks is supposed to save all of us since he’s our dad, after all. The bad guys of INFERNO are tyrants who attempt to destroy the world to turn it into what they want. A year after seeing the film in that nearly empty theater I’m starting to wonder if they actually pulled it off. But I guess we can’t blame Tom Hanks and Ron Howard for that.

Tom Hanks, his goofy hair from the first film long gone, definitely knows what is required here and, sure, this is basically the equivalent of Jack Lemmon starring in AIRPORT ’77 but he always seems fully committed to the moment and Langdon essentially trying to restart his brain adds to the tension; there’s a moment where, trying to hold back his impatience at someone telling him something, where you can see how well he engages with even the bit players. Felicity Jones, who I guess now will always be Jyn Erso, adds a refreshing sense of aggression in how she bounces off Hanks which goes against just being ‘the girl’ and, without getting into spoilers, plays things with just enough hesitation so we can’t always be sure what she’s thinking. All of the supporting actors are pros and do a good job in not revealing right off where their allegiances lie, particularly Irrfan Khan as the head of ‘The Consortium’ who more than anyone else in the film seems to be exploring all the possibilities in his dialogue. With the male lead spending a good amount of the running time in a daze it makes some of its strongest characters the women, particularly Sidse Babett Knudsen, also seen in WESTWORLD around this time, who offers authority as the World Health Organization head as well as Ana Ularu who as the assassin who unfortunately falls out of the story way too soon.

Plus Ida Darvish as helpful Palazzo Vecchio representative Marta Alvarez turns out to be the most likable character in the film, maybe all three of the films for that matter. For once there’s actually some refreshing intentional humor when she rolls her eyes at Langdon’s introduction of the much younger Sienna Brooks as his ‘niece’ and the brief exchange, along with an earlier bit where Langdon tries to ask for a cup of coffee, makes me wish the film could be that much more of a romp through European locales but soon enough it’s just back to the furrowed brows. Darvish is such a refreshing presence after all the Sturm and Drang of the plot that you wish they could knock off the chase for a while, go to a nice restaurant down the street for some pasta and good conversation. I mean, we’re in Florence after all, why do we have to run everywhere? Her character’s pregnancy not only provides an extra layer of confusion for Langdon when she first appears but in the end provides hope for the future which makes sense considering she gives the film more life than anyone else does.

And in case I need to mention it, this particular INFERNO has nothing to do with the Dario Argento film of the same name, which you should see if you haven’t, nor is it connected to the 1953 noir with the title directed by Roy Ward Baker and starring Robert Ryan which I’ve never even seen but I’d like to. I also never saw the past few Ron Howard movies before this one but it was nothing personal. He still seems like a nice guy and I’m sure we’re all going to be seeing that Han Solo film when it comes out. Anyway, we all have pasts. Right now, a year later after all this, it feels like the past stopped at INFERNO and David S. Pumpkins. The YouTube page for the sketch even includes a comment reading, “I think David S. Pumpkins resonates because it was the last really pure thing we had before the whole world went to shit.” Which in some ways is true and, yes, it was a funny sketch but let’s all calm down for a few minutes. To go back to INFERNO, on opening weekend it came in second to BOO! A MADEA HALLOWEEN which already in its second week and while international numbers were fine, as much as people love Tom Hanks they obviously don’t care much about this anymore. To compare it to another sequel from a year ago, JACK REACHER: NEVER GO BACK opened just a week earlier and was also DOA at the box office but at least INFERNO has more oomph, even if it never attained the cache of Film Twitter approval, maybe because Ron Howard’s approach actually gives the vibe that it’s a film he’d like to see. For now, INFERNO is a reminder of that brief moment in time even if I may not need to return to it very much after this. And if there’s actually going to be a future, the film is a reminder that I need to see Florence again one day although I may pass on the INFERNO experience. We should always remind ourselves that history never dies. History will be remembered. These days, I have to hope.

Gliding Over The Water

Maybe with age comes acceptance, whatever that means, even if it’s just being more open to what you should have liked in the first place. I’ve written before about my long ago aversion to Tony Scott films and how it feels like I was too snobbish about them when I was younger. Don’t worry, I’m not going to change my mind TOP GUN or DAYS OF THUNDER anytime soon and you’ll never convince me that his TAKING OF PELHAM 1 2 3 remake is worth spending much thought on. THE HUNGER, however, is a different story. Years after I first saw the film, probably during the laser disc days, all I could flash on were specific moments and images, maybe the same ones that have stuck with anyone else who half-remembers it. Looking at the Warner Archive Blu-ray is a reminder of those things, of how seductive the film really is in the pureness of those images and how I still can’t quite shake them, not even if I wanted to. Even now I’m not sure if THE HUNGER works as anything more than a particularly stylish vampire story with its own take on the mythology but then again I’m not even sure if I think of it as a vampire story at all or just a sustained mood piece about a certain way of life (and death). Maybe it’s just a movie about the things you remember and what they mean. Even though it’s never particularly scary, which in fairness is probably something you’re allowed to expect in an alleged horror film, the themes that emerge from the visuals refuse to diminish. Then again, maybe with age you also come to accept who you really are.

Miriam Blaylock (Catherine Deneuve) and her companion John (David Bowie) are a pair of vampires who have been together for several hundred years, currently living in a New York townhouse and once a week search for people they can feed off of. It was Miriam who turned John in the first place, promising they would be together “forever”, but when he suddenly finds himself aging rapidly he seeks out Sarah Roberts (Susan Sarandon), a doctor who specializes in forms of rapid aging. His attempt to see her is unsuccessful, left in a waiting room only to have her realize the truth of what he’s saying too late and returning home, the rapidly aging John soon learns that he will not in fact die but simply wither away into bones, left in a coffin alongside the remains of all of Miriam’s other former disciples nearby. When Sarah comes to the house in search of John she only finds Miriam who doesn’t waste time in her search for a new companion and after they are together Sarah has no idea what has infected her blood or what she is in fact becoming.

His debut feature released in April ’83 after a start directing commercials, THE HUNGER is like the embryo version of the Tony Scott style that emerged even before we realized it, seen here in the very early days of MTV before the likes of Simpson-Bruckheimer and Hans Zimmer got a hold of him. When his approach was finessed over the years it was sometime better than you expected and sometimes simply hollow but here everything about that rawness clicks into place as part of his sheen of pure cinematic crack. It grabs you right from the start with an opening sequence that overwhelms as much as a pure strobe effect combined with that perfume commercial aesthetic where you’re always aware of what’s happening but never quite sure what it means until too late. Even the long ago promise of ‘forever’ that John repeats back to Miriam sounds like a slogan for a new fragrance, the product of immortality being sold with an unspoken catch. Every single frame seems deliberate and yet it feels like Scott is always searching through those images that he catches for things that can accentuate them, looking for just the right movement from the actors, just the right gesture to hold on and use it to tell the story instead of dialogue. He’s more interested in the appearance than in exploring just what these vampires are so while the opening with “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” performed by Bauhaus might be a little on the nose these days it still feels like the closest the film comes to actually saying the V word. Based on simply watching the film I wonder how long the script (screenplay by Ivan Davis and Michael Thomas, based on the novel by Whitley Strieber) even was or needed to be, the essential story beats stripped down to basic essentials with some shots running only a few seconds that let us either piece things together or not, moving to the next scene whether it makes sense or not. It lasts through each moment whether it’s the sight of Catherine Deneuve crossing the frame or the quiet observance of David Bowie in the hospital waiting room, aging before you even realize it.

You could call it a case of style over substance with the focus on the visuals, the smoke and all the pure atmosphere in the air or just think of it as pure cinema, the way Scott and DP Stephen Goldblatt frame the close-ups of their godlike stars, not quite seeming like they’re in the same hemisphere of anyone else they come into contact with. Even the concept of spatial relations throughout the film occasionally throws us off, whether intentional or not, the way in one scene Sarandon keeps glancing off towards people who seem to be in another location entirely turns out to be in a restaurant overlooking a swimming pool (huh?) or when a scene cuts from her at a phone booth to someone inches away they could just as easily be way across town. It never feels like everything can be explained, not even what would usually be called normal human behavior.

These vampires don’t even seem to be any kind of representation of pure evil, at least not according to the film or even how many people they’ve killed. They’re just two creatures floating through New York (or maybe this film’s particular version of New York with streets that always seem rain soaked) and the film doesn’t pass judgement any more than it does Sarandon’s doctor for leaving Bowie in that waiting room for hours. It’s hard for me to ever hate porcelain doll Catherine Deneuve in any guise regardless and I suspect we’re not meant to, not even when she’s slashing some sleazoid’s throat or when she abandons her former lovers in wooden coffins locked up in the attic, essentially ghosting them as they remain there for eternity calling out her name (hey, I’ve been there). That’s all you remember more than any strict plotting and Scott clearly knows that the purely alien imagery provided by Deneuve and Bowie, supernaturally beautiful as they are, will be more visually compelling in their purely sexual way than any long speeches explaining plot points. If you’re going to be brutally killed then it might not be so bad if it’s Catherine Deneuve or David Bowie doing it, after all. Compared to that, it’s a close-up of a smiling old woman that is truly monstrous in this context. In addition to the beats of the original score by Michel Rubini and Denny Jaeger dripping along towards the encounter between the two female leads that we’re waiting for, the music gives it all a sheen of class whether the recurring use of Schubert or the Lakmé excerpt by Delibes described by Deneuve to Sarandon as part of her seduction later used again by Scott during the most notorious scene in TRUE ROMANCE during a display of a completely different kind of love. As a reminder, this is the film about which Leonard Maltin, bless him, in his star-and-a-half review says to avoid it “unless Deneuve and Sarandon in bed together is your idea of a good time” which doesn’t exactly qualify as woke criticism these days although if I asked what else was cinema invented for anyway since it’s almost the very reason why we’re watching the movie in the first place I’m not entirely sure that’s much of an improvement. But it’s still true.

Thematically it does feel a little scattershot as it explores that desire, that hunger the characters feel which is partly about addiction (essentially a real world issue) and partly about immortality (not so much) so I’m not quite sure if they work as equals although in a way the film is basically saying that the very concept of addiction makes pain eternal, an unending cycle that will destroy others whether they’re a part of it or not. On the disc’s audio commentary Susan Sarandon talks about how some of that was lost when the ending was changed but it’s not like I have to pay much attention to what Susan Sarandon says these days and either way it all works as the big budget, big studio, ultra-slick 80s version of something like DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS with Deneuve in for Delphine Seyrig. But Scott doesn’t turn his back on the reason why people are watching this film and goes for the pulp because he knows that’s where the true desire is, one that I imagine in this presentation is more pansexual than bi but maybe I’m the wrong person to ask about such things. What really sticks out thematically is the film’s portrayal of aging and the awareness that it’s too late to ever be anything more than what your promise was so in that sense it’s a film made by someone for whom vampirism isn’t something to be feared because it’s about living to the absolute extreme no matter how many bodies are left in the wake of these eternal lives. That’s what all of Tony Scott’s films were about anyway and it’s something that never really changed no matter how extreme his style became. He doesn’t want to analyze the themes. He just wants to jump. THE HUNGER came out less than a year after his brother Ridley’s BLADE RUNNER opened and one can piece together something of a distorted mirror image in how each film involves people living a blazing existence that abruptly cuts out as they search for more life, fucker. That one word David Bowie repeats asking for a reassurance even recalls how deleted BLADE RUNNER footage shot for the ‘happy’ ending of that film includes the exchange “What’s a long time?” “Forever” as Harrison Ford and Sean Young drive off in anticipation of a sequel 35 years later where. Just like in THE HUNGER, only one of them makes it. Each film favors a kind of poetry over strict mythology, each can in some ways be whatever you want to take from it.

There are certain elements that I still don’t get, why the characters go to a house out on Long Island during the opening sequence or if the cross-cutting with the monkeys is meant to be a mere visual parallel or if there’s something else going on in terms of a psychic connection. I wonder if Sarandon’s research into age itself being a disease, with her colleagues so cavalier about their mortality that they’re eating Big Macs, even amounts to anything having to do with the actual plot in the end. The old age make-up is at times remarkable with the middle-aged Bowie the most effective stage but when he gets near the end it essentially becomes a Dick Smith head right out of HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS, with too much of personality lost and there’s little enough Bowie in the film as it is even though his presence still comes through during the “a little saccharine” moment. At least one plot point, and probably more, is so oblique that you can hardly blame anyone for being confused or thinking they zoned out for a minute as if the movie is brushing off the impact of who was just killed. Does it matter? Not really. Even all the blood slashing is just another component of the style, not an attempt at a scare. The Ankh medallion that the vampires wear around their necks used to double for a blade is a little blunt as symbolism but still effective imagery, just as the doves that apparently hang out in the attic are, looking forward to how they’re used in Scott’s BEVERLY HILLS COP II, looking forward to turning up in John Woo movies. It is a kind of mish-mash of all sorts of things, a brief BARRY LYNDON flashback of Miriam making her promise to John looking forward to a SHINING present that in the end turns into a BLADE RUNNER happy ending (also part of THE SHINING, come to think of it) and if I’m really going to nitpick here, I don’t think much of the font used for the opening credits so THE HUNGER doesn’t have everything I want in a movie. But mostly I’m just happy to luxuriate inside this thing with all its intensity and erotica for a little while so worrying about strict reality is irrelevant, there’s too much mist swirling around to ever care. The images don’t always make sense. Even the time of day that the sunlight streams through windows doesn’t always make sense. I take it all about as seriously as I need to, just enough to take the shots and moments that stand out. The rest of it, maybe not so much but, honestly, I still dig the film in every ounce of its awesomeness. There are maybe only 4 or 5 sequences in THE HUNGER that really matter and the rest of it fades away a little, even as you’re watching it just get to feature length before you realize it. You already know what those scenes are. That’s enough.

It’s impossible to think of Deneuve and Bowie as mere mortals anyway, even now, so the casting is perfect. The way Catherine Deneuve plays her I’m still not sure what Miriam is ever thinking about anything, but it’s all about she projects just from her face in close-up, sometimes bemused by what she’s concealing from people but more often simply focused because she knows that she’s the one in the room people are going to pay attention to. Admittedly, I sometimes need to go to the subtitles when she’s explaining things but I still don’t care. David Bowie doesn’t have as much to work with but his very presence almost does all the work in showing how much David depends on Miriam for his very existence and he makes the moments where his quiet desperation is becoming apparent count. Up against the two gods, Susan Sarandon takes what may be the most difficult role and grounds it in her innocent confusion, particularly in her “You can’t leave” utterance to Bowie as the elevator doors slam shut, as much as the film ever needs to, faced with things that her intelligence can’t account for and with total confusion over what she’s drawn to. As music student Alice, Beth Ehlers gives hints that she’s worldlier than her years indicate which makes her perfect casting as a pure innocent--you can’t tell if she’s young or old or even what type of sexuality she’s heading towards and I wish we could get more of her interactions with Deneuve. As Sarandon's colleague/boyfriend Cliff De Young is just about the one relatively normal presence in this film while bringing an edge that grounds his end of the plot, annoyed at what he should be amazed by. Dan Hedaya is Lt. Allegrezza, a character who’s more of a plot device than anything but it’s still a treat to see someone like him sharing the frame with Deneuve since they barely seem the same species. I guess in this film they aren’t anyway. Shane Rimmer, whose presence is like a neon sign stating that the interiors were shot in England, plays Arthur Jelinek (cool name), the great Ann Magnuson is one of the victims during the opening sequence—I love that dance move as she slides right past Deneuve—and looking forward to starring with Sarandon in LIGHT SLEEPER a decade later Willem Dafoe appears briefly at a phone booth standing next to John Pankow of MAD ABOUT YOU.

On the audio commentary, Tony Scott offers about the film’s release, “It didn’t make a bean,” less than $6 million at the time as it turns out. Looking up theater listings in New York from the time it appears to have barely lasted a few weeks past opening day. Whatever following that THE HUNGER has attained over the years, the Blu-ray from Warner Archive is a stunner, capturing every stylish moment perfectly with all that light and smoke that the director loves so much. You just want to climb into this world, no matter what the risks you’re taking might be. Tony Scott was born on June 21, my birthday as it turns out, and he’s buried right in Hollywood just a short drive where I am so I’m feeling some sort of connection right now. I’m sure the next time I visit I’ll be thinking about this film more than any of his others, a film that dwells on how the people in front of you can reveal everything and nothing all at once, just as the film dwells on the Polaroid photos taken by teenage Alice. Which is just what the film does, telling us as much as a single photograph which is all we need to know. And for the 96 minutes of the movie it feels unblinking in what it says that life is. Maybe with age comes acceptance and wisdom, but maybe it also comes with ability to wipe certain things in your head away and move forward, further towards who you really are. Then again, maybe I’ll just watch another film. That might be part of destiny too.