Film Reviews: Arctic Tale, One to Another, Punk's Not Dead

MOLIÈRE Like many geniuses of comedy, France’s pre-eminent 17th-century playwright always felt like a tragedian manqué — a vanity that, had he pursued it, would have left the world bereft of some of theater’s greatest pomposity-busting satire. Historians have never solved the mystery of Molière’s temporary disappearance early on in his career, but director Laurent Tirard fills the gap with an imagined sojourn of the cash-strapped fledgling artist (an awkward Romain Duris) on the estate of a dilettante dope of a blue blood (the incomparable Fabrice Luchini) whose attempts to rope “Monsieur Tartuffe” into impressing a tart-tongued courtesan (Ludivine Sagnier) lay the groundwork for Molière’s most famous farce. Tirard unwinds the action slow and steady, which makes for a slackly paced first hour that all but destroys the movie. Hang in and you’ll see the method in this seemingly perverse strategy, as the young blade grows a passion for the highly strung, cultivated lady of the house, beautifully played by Europe’s reigning queen of barely suppressed hysteria, Laura Morante. In the end, Molière is as much about the making of a patroness as it is about the gestation of artistic form, for it’s she who eggs on the callow playwright to reinvent comedy as serious business with a powerful moral core. (Royal; Playhouse 7; Town Center 5) (Ella Taylor)

 NO RESERVATIONS In this by-the-recipe remake of 2001’s German chocolate cake Mostly Martha, Catherine Zeta-Jones plays Kate, a top chef in New York City who rules her kitchen with a cast-iron fist. She wants to be alone, so, of course, her perfectly unencumbered existence is thrown into chaos with the death of her sister, who has willed to Kate her perfectly precocious 9-year-old niece, Zoe (Little Miss Sunshine’s Abigail Breslin). At first, naturally, theirs is an uneasy relationship — relative stranger living with relative stranger, neither of whom wants the other around. Then Kate decides to start taking Zoe to the restaurant — where she discovers in her sacred space a new chef named Nick (Aaron Eckhart), whose tousled bangs hang so low you’re amazed he can see what he’s cooking. The guy’s so sweet it’s astounding he isn’t shot in soft focus; Nick won’t take Kate’s gig, despite their boss’s desires, only everything else she’s got — her heart and the kid too. The cynic would like to write this off as empty grown-up hooey — Baby Boom without an ounce of bang. But you can’t do it, because the thing’s so charming and frothy and delightful and sentimental and beautifully shot and well-acted and sincere that it takes a good long while before you start craving real nourishment, and during this disheartening season of overheated air-conditioned diversions, that passes for an unparalleled feat of artistic achievement.  (Citywide) (Robert Wilonsky) For the full review, see film feature.

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ONE TO ANOTHER Part sun-glazed remembrance of youth, part discursive murder mystery, the third (and most impressive) feature co-directed by Franco-American actor Jean-Marc Barr and screenwriter Pascal Arnold offers up an uncommonly sensual and disquieting take on a familiar youth-movie theme: how the cocoon of adolescent sexual awakening can be torn apart by violent desire. The film’s bifurcated narrative follows the investigation into the disappearance of the magnetic Pierre (Arthur Dupont), while flashing back to Pierre’s last days in the company of his three best mates and his sister, Lucie (Lizzie Brocheré). The flashbacks unfold over a long, hot summer in which the five friends beat the heat by skinny dipping, basking nude in the sun, and hopping in and out of each other’s beds in dizzying permutations of incest and pansexuality — until the two halves of the film collide in a chilling, if not entirely surprising, revelation. Although One to Another takes its inspiration from a real-life French homicide case, it’s clear that Barr and Arnold aspire to the realm of modern mythology: Their Pierre is one of those bright, golden youths who seem doomed to unduly brief lives, and in his end we may see our own inevitable fall from the garden. (Sunset 5) (Scott Foundas)

PUNK’S NOT DEAD At a time when what passes for a punk icon is a Good Charlotte schmuck who could very well be Nicole Richie’s baby daddy, what kind of asshole puts out a film called Punk’s Not Dead? Turns out this asshole is none other than erstwhile D.C. punk photographer Susan Dynner — someone who knows the difference between the Stranglers and Green Day. Dynner doesn’t have delusions about the current state of punk — as Pennywise guitarist Fletcher Dragge points out, when you dye your hair green in 2007, “You’re not scaring your mom, your mom takes you to get it.” And she doesn’t ignore punk’s never-ending contradictions. How can you sing about the injuries of class and be sponsored by Vans? When Avril Lavigne’s Sum 41 husband admits that he has to call his band “pop-punk,” not punk, so his heroes won’t make fun of him, you have to wonder how a subculture formed as a refuge for the excluded became so exclusive. Where Punk’s Not Dead comes up short is on the bigger questions. A community founded on rebellion, anger and studded leather has lasted for more than 30 years, but what has it actually changed? The only answer present here: Now there’s Hot Topic. (Sunset 5) (Camille Dodero)