A Trip to the Library for DVDs

Is there anyone left who doesn't know that you can check out DVDs at your library? I hope not, because DVDs from libraries are a wonderful resource.

I went to the library recently to pick up some DVDs, and I asked both a librarian and a front desk staff member for recommendations, and I had a lovely, lovely time.

Sometime recently I had realized that a personal recommendation makes all the difference. Sure enough, when I asked the librarian for suggestions, and she said not only did she enjoy Portrait of a Woman on Fire, but her husband had also enjoyed it, I found that I was suddenly much more interested in the film. I had, in fact, already checked out Portrait of a Lady on Fire and, could not quite summon up the interest to watch it. When the librarian recommended it, my interest was piqued and I checked it out again. I also checked a bunch of other videos--some because they were recommended by library staff and some for other reasons.

This Beautiful Fantastic is a film about gardening and it has a wonderful cast: Jessica Brown Findlay, as an orphan finding her way in London, Andrew Scott, Tom Wilkinson and Jeremy Irvine. Anna Chancellor is delightfully disapproving as Findlay's boss. Findlay is quiet and luminous; Scott plays a character more subdued than the Hot Priest. It's another little jewel box of a film: beautifully filmed, beautifully acted, with a perfect Big Speech from Tom Wilkinson. 

Hope Springs stars Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones play a distressed married couple who go to see Steve Carell for marriage counseling. If it sounds sober, I found it so: I'd describe it more as a realistic drama than a rom-com. But it is ultimately a very hopeful movie, with a happy ending that also seems realistic rather than romantic. The acting is great.

Harriet, starring Cynthia Erivo, is a biography of Harriet Tubman, the slave who led many other slaves to freedom along the Underground Railroad. Now that I've seen the movie twice, it has grown on me. The screenwriters were quite free to make up characters; I suspect Janelle Monae's character was completely fictional. Perhaps that's a big part of my discomfort with the movie; that part of the story does seem false. Cynthia Erivo received an Academy Award nomination for her performance, and I thought the nomination was well-deserved. Erivo is in almost every scene; she has to portray someone who is bright, brave, and really complex and lives in a very complex social situation, and she also has to make Big Speeches. I loved the costumes, the music and the photography, but I felt that the very different parts of the movie didn't hang together very well.

North & South: A long-standing favorite, the BBC's four-part, four-hour adaption of Elizabeth Gaskell's Pride & Prejudice-like love story set amid labor unrest in Manchester's cotton mills. Richard Armitage plays John Thornton, a sensitive man frustrated by an unattainable love. Also starring Daniel Denby-Ashe, Leslie Manville, Brendan Coyle (Mr. Bates in Downtown Abbey), and Sinead Cusack as the formidable Mrs. Thornton, the film has good acting, but I think what is best is the script. It's lively, dramatic and fast-paced. There are a few ways in which the screenplay might even be an improvement on the novel (which is certainly unusual), both in setting the scene at the beginning and in creating a more decisive and dramatic ending. As Mrs. Thornton, John Thornton's mother, Sinead Cusack is wonderful. There's a wonderful scene where she reaches out and tousles Richard Armitage's hair, and he grins, sheepishly. It's so true to the characters. A four-week strike occurs during the course of the novel, and it's the spark for a series of tragedies. (As in the novel, the body count here is high.) Brendan Coyle plays the leader of the strike, and he and his daughter befriend Daniela Denby-Ashe's Margaret Hale, creating tremendous dramatic tension as her father is friends with John Thornton, one of the mill owners.

The Happy Poet. An "independent" film, this film is about an idealistic liberal arts major who is struggling to find his place in the world and decides to try opening a healthy food stand with a hot dog cart. There follows a series of humiliations from the bank's loan manager, the man who sells him the hot dog cart, and the many potential customers at the park who are disappointed to learn that he's selling "eggless egg salad sandwiches" and other healthy food, not hot dogs. After bumps, mistakes, embarrassment, and even betrayal, he succeeds when a venture capitalist volunteers to loan him the money to expand his business and he succeeds in winning the girl in the end. I found the pacing glacial, but that didn't interfere with my enjoying the film. (According to the DVD cover, Chuck Wilson of LA Weekly opined that the film was "cut so brilliantly that one can imagine Woody Allen and Albert Brooks feeling envious." Guess I should have taken more film classes in college.)

The LunchBox is a film by Ritesh Batra, starring Sajan Irfan. Irfan has the most wonderful face. It’s capable of transmitting 32 different kinds of melancholy. This charming film begins with a view of how lunch boxes are prepared by housewives, picked up by couriers, and dropped off at husbands’ workplaces. The story begins when one lunchbox, with delicious food, and an interesting note, goes astray. A neglected wife and a lonely widower on the verge of retirement begin a correspondence in which they confess their true feelings.

Mississippi Masala is an “oldie but goodie,” directed by Mira Nair (who also directed “Monsoon Wedding”), and starring two real “charmball” actors, Sarita Choudhury and Denzel Washington. Mina is a young Indian woman in her 20’s who was raised in Uganda, and after political upheaval for the Indian community there, was forced to flee with her family and settled in a small town in Mississippi. Demetrius is a young man who owns a rug cleaning business and has just been dumped by his girlfriend. He meets Mina when they’re both involved in a car accident, and he’s intrigued by her. It’s been years since I saw this movie in the theaters, and I’d forgotten about the subplot. Mina’s family’s property in Uganda was seized when they were expelled. Mina’s father has been writing to the Ugandan government for years, trying to get his property back. Finally, after the government has changed, he’s invited back to Uganda to try his case in the courts. It’s a very bittersweet homecoming for him as he realizes that his dear friend has been killed in the intervening years.

Hunt for the Wilderpeople is a New Zealand comedy I picked up because it had Sam Neill. It was directed by Taika Waititi. Julian Dennison is a foster child with some behavioral problems, and the only family willing to give him a home is a childless couple living on the edge of the bush. Things settle quickly and continue until, suddenly, the wife dies. A series of misunderstandings see the young man and his “foster father,” take it on the lam in the bush. Hijinks ensue. All the performances in this film were very good, and the scenery is breathtaking. It’s kind of like the "Blues Brothers" in New Zealand, and it’s charming and engaging.

Portrait of a Woman on Fire is a recent French period drama, set on an island off the coast of Brittany in the 18^th century. It’s a woman’s film (only two men, briefly, appear) and it is about women’s concerns. At the core of the story are two very different young women. One young woman has just been pulled out of the convent where she was living to make an arranged marriage with a Milanese man she has never met. Her older sister was originally to make the match, but appears to have killed herself rather than proceed. The other young woman is a professional painter and art teacher, who has been hired to pose as a companion to the other woman while surreptitiously painting a portrait of her that will be sent to the Milanese man.  The film is very quiet, and moves very slowly. The island where much of the film is set has a beautiful beach with unusual rock formations in spectacularly varied colors. The interiors were filmed in a sparsely furnished 17^th century manor house. The costumes are mostly very subdued. The actress who plays the betrothed woman’s mother is Valeria Golino, who played Tom Cruise’s girlfriend in Rainman.