Blue Is the Warmest Color (2013)

Adele Exarchopoulos stars in "Blue Is the Warmest Color."

Thanks in no small part to a few extended scenes of explicit sexual intercourse between its young, attractive female protagonists, “Blue Is the Warmest Color”—the unanimous winner of the prestigious Golden Palm at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival—is easily, for better or worse, one of the more challenging and divisive movies to come along in quite awhile.

Luckily, it’s mostly for the better. This epic, lush and wondrous three-hour long French film—directed by Abdellatif Kechiche and based on a graphic novel of the same name by Julie Maroh—exploring themes of self-discovery, self-identity and first loves, should endure as one of the most honest, intelligent and rapturous coming of age stories in the cinema for years to come.

The movie chronicles a few years in the life of Adele (Adele Exarchopoulos, in an eloquent and brilliant performance), who opens the film as a wide-eyed, articulate 15-year-old beginning to encounter the nuances of her growing sexuality while negotiating the choppy social waters of high school. Adele’s first sexual experience with a boy leaves her feeling empty and confused; but when she catches a glimpse of Emma (Lea Seydoux, also very good), a sensitive and talented artist with short streaks of baby blue hair, stronger feelings begin to stir.

They meet again at a gay bar and have the first of many long talks, smart and inquisitive. Something refreshing about “Blue Is the Warmest Color” is that other than a scene involving Adele’s classmates, who cruelly chide her about walking home with Emma, the movie shines a light on social tolerance without being heavy-handed. Kechiche simply regards Adele and Emma as two people who plunge into a deep, genuine and true love—just like any other couple. Another moment, featuring the young lovers marching and dancing joyously in a Pride Parade, unfolds with similar, and lovely, understated grace.

A few years pass. Emma’s career flourishes, leading to elegant parties featuring successful, sometimes seductive members of the art world. Adele, who only later becomes a teacher, feels left out, spurring her to commit acts of infidelity. Emma, who remains the moral center of the film, catches her and the couple breakup. Because Kechiche (who co-wrote the screenplay with Ghalia Lecroix) makes us care so much about these characters and the performances are so authentic, this powerfully moving scene between Adele and Emma—as well another near the end when they meet in a café—are so emotionally devastating as to be sublime. Losing this love is as painful as discovering it was blissful.

Some will probably argue if the movie would work just as well without the intense sex scenes. It’s hard to say. While certainly far from subtle, these breathy, aggressive, highly carnal moments define the relationship—indeed the humanity—of the characters. The sex is also consistent with their personalities. There is a quiet scene at the park, for instance, when Adele and Emma stare intently and lovingly into each other’s eyes; you might say they make love with just as much fervor.

“Blue Is the Warmest Color” is destined to become necessary viewing in film schools. Kechiche’s movie works like an essay on the fundamental element of intimacy in our lives. Adele and Emma are both healthy, sexually mature young adults—capable of emotion and passionate love, given to tempestuous desires, smart and also fallible.

The Babadook (2014)

Noah Wiseman (left) and Essie Davis in "The Babadook."

“If it’s in a word or it’s in a look, you can’t get rid of the Babadook,” is the cryptic opening passage in the children’s pop-up book featured in “The Babadook,” the artfully unsettling, unrelentingly frightening and masterfully executed Australian horror film written and directed by Jennifer Kent.

The book mysteriously appears on the shelf of little Samuel (Noah Wiseman), a precocious six-year old with a natural streak of mischief in his wide eyes, a fondness for performing magic tricks, and an increasingly unnatural fear of dread things that may be hiding under his bed. Sam is an only-child who lives with Amelia (Essie Davis), his loving but long-suffering mother, still grieving over the loss of her husband, who died in a car accident taking her to the hospital the night Sam was born.

Although mom and son are essentially happy and normal, the father’s death has led to a subtle disconnect between them that stirs every once in a while. For instance, Amelia, trying to bury painful memories, keeps personal items stored in the basement. But Sam, eager to learn more about his dad, sneaks down and rummages through clothing and pictures. The tragedy has resulted in lingering disquiet in their lives. But it’s about to get worse.

Amelia reads to Sam before bedtime to help him sleep. One night, he selects a red pop-up book called Mister Babadook. The book is about a strange looking figure that meets and then stalks a little boy in his room. At first, the words and illustrations seem disarmingly funny—as if attempting to alleviate a child’s fear of monsters by parodying them—but then it gets scary enough to not only whip Sam into a fit of tears but also palpably unnerve mom.

At this point, “The Babadook” is more darkly comic in tone—closely resembling the mood of Kent’s 2005 short film, “The Monster,” which the new film is based on—but it grows more deeply ominous. After reading the book, Amelia and Sam’s world turns progressively nightmarish.  First it’s Sam, haunted by visions that send him into violent panic attacks; then Amelia, who begins hearing bizarre noises and seeing shadowy shapes skulking in the night.

Pages from the eerie children's pop-up book in "The Babadook."

The home where most of the action takes place becomes a veritable house of horrors, with its icy, washed-out colors, creaking doors and harsh shadows. Kent shows a masterful command of menacing visual flourishes, sometimes using only shards of light and vast swaths of darkness to evoke fear and dread—cloaking the film’s creeping, malevolent terror in pools of inky blackness.

The Babadook himself is the stuff of expressionistic nightmares, cruel-looking and shape-shifting with sharp teeth and long, pointy fingers—he looks a little like the hideous vampire of “Nosferatu,” a movie that, perhaps not surprisingly, is said to be one of Kent’s inspirations. But the shadowy specter isn’t the only source of scares here.

In a sly, psychological twist, the Babadook is also capable of swooping in and taking up residence inside the main characters, where it torments by exploiting fears of loss and pain in their lives, turning them against each other. “You start to change when I get in,” the book warns chillingly, “the Babadook growing right under your skin.” The effect is particularly severe when it comes to Amelia, who turns into a savage, shrieking enemy near the end, causing young Sam to resort to the kind of inventive means of self-preservation that would make the kid in “Home Alone” proud.

The gateway to this Grand Guignol begins with the book. Because “The Babadook” is a resounding masterpiece of horror, it’s a device destined to become one of the iconic references of the genre—as memorable as the flesh-bound Book of the Dead in “The Evil Dead,” the enigmatic puzzle box from “Hellraiser,” or the cursed videotape of “The Ring.”

50 First Dates (2004)

Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler in "50 First Dates,"
a tedious, unfunny romantic comedy.

The best scene in “50 First Dates” is really more surprising than funny. It takes place when Drew Barrymore’s character, an otherwise naïve and innocuous single girl, delivers an extended and merciless beating to Rob Schneider’s pot-smoking, half-blind drifter using a baseball bat. The irony is that the movie also features Adam Sandler, better known for being the angry, hostile, often violent man-child center of such dismal titles like “Billy Madison,” “Happy Gilmore” and “Anger Management.”

That Sandler remains on the sideline during such a moment of pugilism is telling. In the film, he plays Henry, a zoo veterinarian attempting to win over Lucy (Barrymore), an artist and painter left with some kind of short term memory condition after a car accident. They meet cute at a diner in Hawaii and Henry is sure that sparks have flown between them; but when he returns to woo Lucy again the next day, she can’t remember him.

And that sets the stage for this peculiar and tedious romantic comedy directed by Peter Segal. Undeterred by her diagnosis, Henry remains determined to stay in pursuit of this love interest, exercising various gimmicks—like a tape full of scenes of them together for her to watch each day—to help her remember him. In stark contrast to most of his other screen personas, this is the kinder, gentler Adam Sandler.

The problem is that the kinder, gentler Sandler still isn’t very interesting. For all of his success, he remains an actor with a very limited range of expression, annoyingly grimacing and mumbling his way through scenes when he’s not screaming or beating someone up. And Barrymore, though likable, is equally inconsequential as an actress. Reunited after “The Wedding Singer,” they seem to have that nice, easy chemistry of two people content with being little more than box office stars.

Along with the interminably unfunny Schneider, “50 First Dates” includes other actors—like Sean Astin as a buffoonish, steroid-infused narcissist—in the kind of dreary, dumb bit parts that signal desperation at the screenplay level rather than genuine inspiration. For Segal, who directed “Tommy Boy” and other similarly mindless comedies with former SNL stars, this is hardly a departure. You know a movie is in trouble when the character with the most engaging personality is a walrus.

Greenberg (2010)

Ben Stiller in Noah Baumbach's "Greenberg."

The funniest scene in “Greenberg” takes place when the title character, cynical and moody 40-year-old misanthrope Roger Greenberg (Ben Stiller), becomes angry at a motorist for not yielding the right of way as he crosses a street one day on foot in Los Angeles. Annoyed at such an egregious vehicular faux pas, Roger slaps the slow moving car as it passes. Sure, he starts running when it stops, but not before his semi-heroic gesture strikes a blow for the rights of pedestrians everywhere.

It’s the one moment in the film that Roger seems like a regular guy worth rooting for. The rest of the time in “Greenberg”—writer-director Noah Baumbach’s funny but prickly ode to irascibility and middle age disillusionment—he’s just kind of a jerk.

Having once moved from L.A. to New York and failing to make it as a musician, Roger finds himself back on the west coast, working marginally as a carpenter and house-sitting for his younger brother who is going away for a couple weeks as the film opens. Roger promises to build a dog house for the brother’s German shepherd.

While at the house, Roger meets his brother’s assistant, the sweet and amiable Florence (Greta Gerwig), who ambles by to look after the dog and sometimes fetches groceries. As they get to know each other, Florence is remarkably able to see the sadness and vulnerability that lies beyond Roger’s bitter exterior and the two become unlikely friends and even unlikelier sexual partners.

But can this good-hearted young soul possibly sweeten the sour, morose old curmudgeon? Luckily, “Greenberg” is far from the clichéd land of the typical romantic comedy, so don’t expect any of the usual redemptive mush. Baumbach’s film is a kind of subversive character study; it works even though sometimes Roger’s angry disillusionment gives way to mean-spiritedness.

Ben Stiller, in the kind of role that Bill Murray might play, is effective but doesn’t quite have Murray’s sarcastic wit or deadpan understatement. The real prize of “Greenberg” is probably Greta Gerwig, whose natural sweetness and likability keep the movie from spilling over into excessive, depressing levels of rancor.