Movie Reviews: Broken Embraces, Paa, A Single Man, Armored

THE LOVELY BONES Cults collide as Peter “Lord of the Rings” Jackson tackles Alice Sebold’s best-selling New Age Gothic, the story of a rape-murder-dismemberment and its aftermath, narrated by its 14-year-old victim from Heaven. The movie, starring Saoirse Ronan as the teenage Susie, is horrific yet cloying, sometimes poignant and often ridiculous. Published in the aftermath of 9/11, The Lovely Bones was widely appreciated as a lyrical tale of grief and reconciliation, but it is also a malign fable of adolescent coming-of-age. Walking on air in anticipation of her first date, Susie is enticed down the rabbit hole that her serial-killing neighbor (Stanley Tucci, supremely creepy) has prepared as her death chamber. She leaves this world horrendously despoiled yet essentially innocent. Punishing sexual curiosity is not a foreign notion for Jackson, who broke into movies making gross-out horror flicks. Still, he has the tact to omit the gruesome details of Susie’s murder. Unfortunately, he shows no such discretion in literalizing the novel’s vague metaphysics. Here, all is subservient to the digital splendors of Susie’s heavenly abode — a constantly mutating realm of spacious skies, purple mountains and undulating amber waves of grain, not to mention crystal beaches, foggy forests and the peripatetic cosmic gazebo from which she observes her family and murderer’s doings. Jackson’s adaptation is a misguided tribute to the magic of the movies. But there is something to be said for representing the actual world. For an expanded version of this review, go to laweekly.com/movies. (Citywide) (J. Hoberman)

GO  THE MISFORTUNATES A word of advice: Do not invite the Strobbe family over for Christmas dinner, as they’re likely to leave the house strewn with beer bottles and broken furniture. Malice-free and dumb as dirt, the four brothers (Koen De Graeve, Johan Heldenbergh, Wouter Hendrickx, Bert Haelvoet) who make up this working-class Belgian family love beer, bawdy songs and their long-suffering mother (Gilda De Bal) — in that order, or so it often seems. In adapting Dimitri Verhulst’s autobiographical novel, writer-director Felix van Groeningen and co-writer Christophe Dirickx observe Strobbe shenanigans through the eyes of 13-year-old Gunther (Kenneth Vanbaeden), a budding writer who can’t decide if he should pattern his own behavior after that of his drunken father and uncles. Deftly mixing the visual exuberance of Trainspotting with the familial pathos of Angela’s Ashes, the gifted van Groeningen offers gleeful depictions of drinking contests and naked bicycle races that gradually give way to a sense of moral peril for young Gunther. Watching him be fed beer for breakfast after nights spent in the same room with an uncle who has sex on the floor next to his bed, one becomes increasingly worried for the boy’s future. A series of flash-forwards to his life at age 27 suggests that there’s good reason to worry — and to hope. (Nuart) (Chuck Wilson)

The Lovely Bones

Uncertainty

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GO  PAA The 64-year-old global superstar Amitabh Bachchan glues on an enormous, blue-veined, bulbous bald cap to play Auro, a 13-year-old schoolboy afflicted with the genetic accelerated-aging disorder progeria. And in a piece of only-in-Bollywood stunt-casting, Bachchan’s actual 34-year-old son, Abishek, has been cast as Auro’s father, a workaholic politician whose priorities undergo a predictable third-act readjustment. The OMG factor is mitigated somewhat by the modest scale of the production and by the carefully observed performance of the senior Bachchan, who submerges himself in a respectful portrayal of a bright, mischievous, potty-mouthed adolescent. The literal-mindedness of the makeup actually seems to help him: the effect is fairly uncanny when the actor lightens his famous baritone and lisps his dialog around a set of wayward yellow choppers. Paa (Dad) is more noteworthy, perhaps, for the stereotyping and bathos it avoids than for any startling insights it achieves into Auro’s terminal condition, but it certainly isn’t a crass tearjerker. The film owes much of its interest to the alertness and sincerity of the younger Bachchan and the luminous Vidya Balan as the anguished parents, and to the soft wash of the tasteful playback songs supplied by Ilaiyaraaja, a 68-year-old South Indian music master who has worked on more than 900 movies. (Culver Plaza; Fallbrook 7; Naz 8) (David Chute)

A SINGLE MAN A triumph of art direction over actual direction, fashion designer Tom Ford’s debut feature is nothing if not a master class in sartorial excellence, freshly exfoliated skin, and modern Southern California architecture. Based on Christopher Isherwood’s 1964 novel, A Single Man encompasses one day in the life of George Falconer (Colin Firth), a British ex-pat professor mourning the death of his longtime lover and companion, Jim. Over the course of George’s day, he endures the casual homophobia of his suburban neighbors and the disinterest of his students, drops in for dinner with his gin-swilling divorcée confidante (Julianne Moore), and ends up drowning his sorrows in the company of a fair-haired, flirtatious student (Nicholas Hoult) who seems interested in a little extracurricular activity. Ford has said he was “moved by the honesty and simplicity” of Isherwood’s tale. Simplicity, however, is not his strong suit on the big screen any more than it was on the fashion runway. Gussied up with enough stylistic fireworks for several Fourth of July parades, A Single Man, with one significant exception, gives us only a series of immaculate poses substituted for actual meaning and emotion. The exception is Firth, who manages to convey a real human soul stirring beneath George’s petrified façade, despite Ford’s best efforts to turn him, too, into another piece of movable scenery. (The Landmark; Playhouse 7) (Scott Foundas)