Wild Open Waters

Saturday was a long day that began with a discussion about The Guilt Trip on the radio that turned into a delirious vaudeville act of Barbra Streisand jokes, and then developed into a day out at the tennis. I cheered on players I didn't know against other players I didn't know (they turned out to be good matches though, and the games involving more famous players like the Williams sisters and Tsonga were straight set duds), and briefly spotting Novak Djokavic. Naturally I was surrounded by onlookers who were, like me, only out for a perve (er, can you blame us?). By the time I got home late in the evening I needed some movie viewing that wasn't, shall we say, dramatically challenging. After digging through the stacks of films I have, I chose The River Wild. Because, you know, why not?

Directed by Curtis Hanson - "from the director of The Hand That Rocks the Cradle" as the poster of elegantly states - this 1994 actioner is one one of those rare beasts that sees an actress of Meryl Streep's age and stature (she was a 45-year-old, duel Oscar winner at the time) taking charge of a genre film. In that regard, The River Wild had a lot of interest behind it for me, not to mention that this era in Meryl Streep's career is a particularly curious one to navigate with titles like She-Devil, Death Becomes Her, and Postcards from the Edge, which were, at the time, seemingly anomalous for her as they branched into thoroughly unprestigious territory.

However, as the end credits rolled, I couldn't help but wish she'd do this more often. Streep obviously verges more on the mainstream side of the fence than some may think, but she so often takes roles in films that are only fleetingly as good and interesting as her performances in them. Making Mamma Mia! may have defied expectations once, but not anymore, and it'd be great if she could take on an original property that felt truly unique and necessary. I'd love to see her put that enviable skill to another film like The River Wild, or, as I've long wished - and said so on multiple occasions - a scary film in the tradition of The Innocents and The Others. Hell, if they have to remake Gaslight like they keep threatening, I'd dive at the chance to see Streep's take on the material. It would certainly pique my interest, because as much as I look forward to the big screen adaptation of August: Osage County, her casting feels particularly musky.

David Straithairn, Josh C Reilley, Meryl Streep, Kevin Bacon, and the kid from Jurassic Park!

Hell, if they just went and rereleased The River Wild, I am sure its reception would be a hell of a lot more positive than it was in 1994. It's score on Rotten Tomatoes - always an iffy prospect for movies made before, say, 2000 - indicates a 50/50 split between those who didn't like it and those who enjoyed it as little more than disposable genre fluff. It's very easy to hypothesise that if this white water rafting thrill-seaker action flick (yes, I'm guessing that was once used as a way to sell The River Wild!) being made today with, for instance, Jessica Chastain (they'd naturally cast younger, but in a pinch maybe they'd choose Sandra Bullock?) and Jeremy Renner in the Kevin Bacon villain role and being greeted with rapturous response. Given the dire state of action filmmaking, The River Wild's more old school sensibility - lack of plastic CGI, actual identifiably flawed human characters, established adult actors over "next big thing" type gambles - would surely prove a calming respite from a world full of John Carter, The Hobbit, and The Avengers. I mean, the amount of times I've read "good enough" (or a variation of it) in relation to an action film outside the realm of superheroes and sci-fi is alarming.

It's perhaps possible to make the argument that I am projecting modern day action film disappointment on to The River Wild and claiming it to be greater than it actually it. I certainly wouldn't shoot you down if you said that, but I do think the film is a remarkably effective one for many of the reasons I've already stated. Streep's aura of authority looms over the film, propelling its dramatic moments to as high a peak as its adventurous, oft-thrilling action setpieces. I admired the way Jerry Goldsmith's score and Robert Elswit's cinematography go together so handsomely. And I though Hanson's handling of the action scenes - as potentially messy and discombobulating as ones involving white water rafting could get - were all superb. "Meryl Streep kicks ass" isn't a saying that can be uttered all that often, but in doing so here she helped make The River Wild a cut above the rest. B+

Review: Julia

Julia
Dir. Erick Zonca
Year: 2008/9
Aus Rating: N/A
Running Time: 144mins

A quick search on IMDb for the title "Julia" brings up roughly ten or so other projects with the exact same name, not to mention some called Julia Julia and Being Julia. That one of the Julias stars the likes of Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave and Jason Robards is like giving any movie there after with that title a push backwards. However, for as many films have been called Julia throughout the history of cinema, it's hard to imagine any of them are quite like the one that Erick Zonca presents. And while many pundits are calling for Meryl Streep to win her third Academy Award for playing a very different "Julia" - Julia Child in Nora Ephron's Julie & Julia - having now seen Swinton storm her way through Zonca's film, I can't help but wonder why everyone isn't screaming to high heaven for Swinton to win her second. Julia Vs Julia would be an interesting notion, sure, but one in which there is an easy and predictable winner: Tilda Swinton.

It's hard to properly explain just how fantastic Tilda Swinton truly is in Zonca's two and a half hour sprawling thriller. It, however, ranks as a performance of such ballsy bravura that it can easily rank alongside Naomi Watts in Mulholland Drive, Laura Dern in INLAND EMPIRE and Charlize Theron in Monster as such a towering, all-encompassing beast of a performance. Playing the permanently-sozzled lush title character as if her life depended on it, Swinton charges out of the gates at full speed. Dancing up a storm to the Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" and Sam Cooke's "Shopping Around" in the opening scene, gyrating on multiple partners and pouring alcohol into her gullet like petrol into a car.


I'm not going to even discuss where the film goes because, quite frankly, half the fun is getting there and not having a single clue as to what it going in (much like Julia herself has no idea what she's doing most of the time, too). Julia is not an "easy" watch, that's for sure, but it's hardly the gritty, miserable experience some may present it as. Sure, Julia is a despicable character for the majority of the films running time, doing everything including drugging children, stealing from gangsters, extorting money from drying tycoons and leaving a kid out in the desert by himself, but even when the viewer's eyes are bulging at the sheer audacity of what Julia has the guts to show, one has to admire it. Where does one, and I'm asking Erick Zonca personally here, get the nerve to write and direct a scene in which a grown woman wearing a mask waves a loaded gun in front of a child's face before tying him up to a pipe and putting masking tape over his face?

Julia isn't just a good film, however, due to Swinton's performance and the sheer audacity of Zonca's convictions. It's a technically efficient film with superb cinematography by Yorick Le Saux, interesting sound design and some sly second fiddle performances from the likes of Saul Rubinek, Kate del Castillo and Bruno Bichir. However, in the end, it really does all come down to Swinton and Zonca who have teamed up to present us with one of the most brazen films of the last few years. It is hardly surprising that the film only a got a four-night engagement at one cinema here in Melbourne. A barely attended four-night engagement, to be exact.


By the time Julia's almost comically perverse trip through Los Angeles suburbia and Mexican border towns comes to an end I felt exhausted and exhilarated and all but jumping with glee. To watch Tilda Swinton act hurricanes in Julia is to watch a master at work giving the performance of a lifetime. And if people do not go and see it because they would rather see New Moon so as to notch up some blog visitor numbers and some sarcastic tweets then so be it, but anybody willing to experience the pedal-to-the-medal bombastic tour de force of Julia will surely be enthralled from start to finish and even if one thinks the dismount that Zonca performs on the character of Julia is a discredit to the her - although I think it sits perfectly in with how the character is presented in early scenes with del Castillo - you surely cannot deny that it's a wild ride getting there and one that is completely and utterly unpredictable in every way. A-