By Mark Fields
(Ed. Note: Mark Fields, Out and About’s movie reviewer since 2008, has relocated from Wilmington to Denver although he continues to cover film for the magazine. He shares his notes from the 49th Denver Film Festival, which concluded November 1. Most of these films will be coming soon to a multiplex or art house cinema near you.)
More than 120 films screened during the festival just concluded. I, of course, despite valiant efforts, could not see most of them. Here are some thoughts about the films I did manage to see, many of them quite excellent.
The Only Living Pickpocket in New York
A long-time petty thief struggles to balance his waning criminal career in a changing New York landscape against the demands of caregiving for his invalid wife in this poignant drama. John Turturro, who has excelled in supporting character roles over his long Hollywood career, gets the opportunity to take the focus, and he imbues the role of Harry with an evocative blend of melancholy, gritty determination, and pathos.
A Talent for Murder
Helen Mirren plays the embittered, reclusive author Patricia Highsmith with a wicked relish as she fends off an ambitious editor (Alden Ehrenreich) hoping to contract her for one more Tom Ripley novel. In this literary fantasy, reality blurs with the emerging details of a new story, possibly inspired by real events. A witty, twisty pastiche.
Mouse
This touching coming-of-age story centers on Minnie (Katherine Mallen Kupferer), a painfully shy teenager whose life is thrown into turmoil when her vivacious long-time best friend, Callie (Chloe Coleman) is killed in a car accident. Minnie must find an identity separate from Callie’s shadow and finds kinship with Callie’s grieving mother Helen. Sophie Okonedo dazzles in her portrayal of the wounded Helen.
Being Heumann
Based on the life of disabled activist Judy Heumann (Ruth Madeley), this biographical story is set in the early days of the disabled rights movement as they fight to get accessibility laws enforced. Mark Ruffalo plays HEW secretary Joseph Califano and Dylan O’Brien is a local TV reporter who becomes a supporter of the cause as the activists occupy a federal building in San Francisco for 28 days. Many of the activists are played by actors with disabilities.
Tender Loving Care
Writer-director Mike Leigh has made a career and won numerous accolades for his thoroughly-drawn and compelling portraits of British life – mostly working class, mostly contemporary. In his latest film, he follows the story of two emotionally beleaguered and overworked social workers who must draw further on their empathy when trauma comes closer to home. Thoughtful and deeply resonant.
Yo (Love is a Rebellious Bird)
A curious and intimate documentary about an artist and her long, unlikely friendship with an iconoclastic senior citizen, Yolanda (Yo). Told in part through footage shot during their time together and in part with a miniature house and puppets that the artist creates to remember her friend after her passing.
Nuisance Bear
As climate change brings wild animals in closer contact with human settlements, this film documents the efforts of a far northern community to protect their homes and families while also protecting the threatened polar bears. But one town’s careful processes unknowingly create similar problems for other populations nearby. Are the bears really the biggest nuisance?
Take Me Home
Director-writer Liz Sargent creates a loosely fictionalized narrative from the struggles of her family to care for her autistic but willful sister Anna (who plays a version of herself). The movie is both a poignant family drama and a pointed indictment of our fractured care system.
The River
Documentarian Mara Tasker reveals the personal stories of various people – spread across seven Western states – affected by the crisis of the Colorado River’s dwindling water supply. The portraits are heartfelt, but one because Tasker opts not to offer any possible solutions to the situation, one leaves the film feeling frustrated and powerless.
Fatherland
Sandra Huller stars in this compact biographical film about German novelist Thomas Mann (Hanns Zischler) and his daughter Erika, shot in luminous black and white. After World War II and his self-imposed exile to the U.S, Mann returns to Germany in 1949 to accept a literary award named for Goethe. The visit conjures many ghosts of choices made and consequences wrought, both by individuals and the state. Contemplative bordering on ponderous.
The Devils
Ken Russell’s frenetic telling of 17th century French religious wars features the renowned director’s signature theatricality to warn of the twin dangers of misused piousness and blind fascism. A timely re-release of this 1971 controversial cult classic – starring Vanessa Redgrave and Oliver Reed – restores footage missing since the studio’s original recutting of the film.
Club Kid
The biggest surprise of the festival for me is this edgy yet sensitive drama about Peter, a New York party boy, who finds unexpected meaning and direction when he discovers he has a son from a drug-addled tryst ten years prior. Writer-director-star Jordan Firstman shows confidence and skill in front of and behind the camera in this, his feature debut, full of humor and humanity. Reggie Absolom delights as the precocious son Arlo that Peter never knew he had…or needed
