Here’s what we saw yesterday at the Dallas International Film Festival. For all our coverage a more reviews of movies, click here.
Petunia (repeats 4 p.m. April 9, Magnolia 4)
Rating: Don’t Bother
Charlie Petunia (Tobia Segal) hooks up with George (Michael Urie). Then it turns out George is in an open marriage to Robin (Brittany Snow) — though it’s never clear why Robin and George ever got together. Meanwhile Charlie’s brother Michael (Eddie Kaye Thomas) has just gotten married to the horrible Vivian (Thora Birch), and their marriage is loveless from the get-go (again, why they married is unclear). Charlie’s parents, his basket-case mother (Christine Lahti) and emotionally-repressed father (David Rasche), are both therapists. His other brother Adrian (Jimmy Heck) is a sex addict, a subplot the movie itself abruptly loses interest in about halfway through.
A film can’t treat its characters as outlandish cartoons and then ask us to make any sort of genuine emotional investment in them. I don’t enjoy watching two hours of generally awful people — characters either selfishly screwing over others or allowing themselves to be screwed by others — when the screenplay plainly expects us to embrace them as endearingly quirky. — Jason Heid
Decoding Annie Parker (repeates 7:30 p.m. April 9, Angelika 6; 4:15 p.m. April 11, Angelika 4)
Rating: Worth a Shot
When Annie Parker was a little girl, her mother died of cancer. Her sister blamed it on the figure of death, a shadowy boogie man living in an upstairs room in her house. It was a metaphor that stuck, in part, because death did loom over Parker’s family. Her sister died of cancer, and Annie contracted the disease three times her self – surviving all three illnesses. That alone provides an inspiring story of survival but what Steven Bernstein’s focuses on is Parker’s sustained inkling that cancer is somehow connected to her family in some other way.
Enter Mary-Claire King (Helen Hunt) a researcher who is convinced there is a link between breast cancer and genetics. Decoding Annie Parker unfolds both women’s stories concurrently, as two women fight against and odds and obstacles driven by their convictions. It is an approach, unfortunately, that doesn’t prove universally successful. King’s story feels like a sidetrack and it is hampered by some clichéd lab chatter and forced theatrics. Annie Parker (Samantha Morton) is the dynamic, appealing, human character here. Add some goofy antics via the script and direction, and the film manages to turn a film about science, death, disease, and suffering into a light, black comedy — endearing, if slight.
Documentary Shorts (repeats 9:45 p.m. April 9, Angelika 7)
Rating: Go See It
A young crop of filmmakers (two with films that were MFA projects at the University of North Texas) populate the documentary shorts slate. Highlights include Hanny Lee’s “Vermilion Cliffs,” a quiet, Frederick Wiseman-inspired look at a day in the life of an Alzheimer’s ward in a Phoenix nursing home. Byron Karabatsos’ “One Half of One Millimeter” offers a glimpse at the pangs and joys of parenthood by following the filmmaker’s infant baby to the doctor for a vaccination. Mark Columbus’ “The Battle of the Jazz Guitarist,” another college project, offers the most creative variation on the form, a film made by a son about a father using subtitles to enliven simple images with a deep personal backstory about generation, lost dreams, and familial angst. It’s a clever and often funny film that spoils its own approach with too much explication. But it’s okay. Like all these filmmakers, Columbus is young and worth keeping an eye on.
Renoir (repeats 3:30 p.m. April 14, Angelika 7)
Rating: Worth a Shot
The Renoir that Gilles Bourdos lush and sultry historical drama revolves around is the painter, Auguste (Michel Bouquet), whom we meet at the end of a career, as he struggles with physical ailments. The Renoir who holds our attention is Jean (Vincent Rottiers), the future filmmaker who is a young man released from military service. Back at his father’s villa he meets the fetching nude model Andree (Christa Theret), a satyr of sorts, whose precocious sexual sense is an agent of maturity. Bourdos’ film is best as a visual feast, so rich with color and exquisite light, but its romance and familial subplots meander a bit before they diffuse into a sloppy ambiguity.
Here are the films screening today that have filmmakers in attendance:
Petunia 4 p.m. Magnolia 5
Rushlights 4 p.m. Angelika 6
We Always Lie to Strangers 4:15 p.m. Angelika 4
I Am Not a Rockstar 4:30 p.m. Magnolia 4
Small Small Thing 4:30 p.m. Angelika 7
Between Us 7 p.m. Angelika 4
He’s Way More Famous Than You 7 p.m. Magnolia 5
Iceberg Slim: Portrait of a Pimp 7:15 p.m. Angelika 7
The Dirties 7:30 p.m. Magnolia 4
Decoding Annie Parker 7:30 p.m. Angelika 6
Documentary Shorts 9:45 p.m. Angelika 7
The Other Shore 10:15 p.m. Magnolia 4
Diving Normal 10 p.m. Angelika 6
