Review: Top Five

Year: 2014 (U.K release 2015)
Director: Chris Rock
Screenplay: Chris Rock
Starring: Chris Rock, Rosario Dawson, Gabrielle Union

Synopsis is here:

A smart online colleague of mine (and actual real critic) recently informed me on how much he disliked Top Five. I’ll be interested to pick his brains on his distaste for the film, as I value his cultured perspective. Despite this I can’t say I’ll agree with him on this. Chris Rock’s filmography may be an uneven one, but here, with Top Five, Rock delivers a spirited and fun feature with a performance to match.

Top Five opens, with plain white fonts on black background while Kayne West and Jay-Z’s Niggas in Paris (both musicians are also executive producers) glosses over the speakers. An odd combination, yet one that quickly displays Rock’s intentions. The titles may not display the iconic Windsor font which appears on nearly every Woody Allen film since Annie Hall (1977), but Top Five credits give the suggestion that Rock is looking to try and follow one of his influences. Once the film opens fully, the allusions to Allen become more apparent.

The city wandering and cultural pondering that inhabits Top Five as its characters travel around New York, typically suggest Woody Allen. Yet it’s hard not to consider the likes of Linklater’s Before Sunrise (1995) either. It’s Rock’s focus on hip hop music, black comedians and racial politics however, as well as alcoholism, which pushes the typical, white middle class 1st world problem dynamic to a new paradigm. We don’t often see this type of populist cinema deal with people of colour and when they do, they don’t have the backing.

What’s bothersome is that Chris Rock’s film happily shows how hard this has been missed. Rock is no Allen. He’s certainly no Linklater. But Top Five’s warm charm and great conversational chemistry between the unconventionally appealing Rock and the sorely underrated Rosario Dawson is immensely refreshing. Meanwhile the film as a whole, is set around Afro-American/Hispanic culture and never feels like it “loses” the so-called universal appeal that producers fear goes missing in “urban” features. Despite the character's professions and statues, both Rock and Dawson manage to retain the reliability of both Andre and Chelsea respectively.

The film’s weaknesses are apparent. Some of the crasser jokes hold some decent comedic timing, but feels like they’ve been shoehorned into the wrong film. Meanwhile the plot’s various threads start some efficient conflict, yet are too often left unexplored. Gabrielle Union’s celebrity wannabe is flat, but it's clear she could do more with it. More could easily be said about the film commentary about criticism and how it affects artists. Particularly at a time where the internet has pulled the discussion into sharp focus.

Despite these blemishes, Top Five continued to be delightfully entertaining throughout. Rock, whose attention is clearly more on the screenplay and performances, hires Chilean cinematographer Manuel Alberto Claro (Melancholia) to capture New York at its most vibrant. Claro bathes the scenery in glossy soft lighting which compliments the energetic qualities of the cast. The film’s knock around screenplay (possibly with large quantities of improvisation) is consistently enjoyable. So much so it cheerfully distracts the fact the clear fact that Rock is once again directing himself flirting with two of the most attractive black actresses’ currently working. Such elements should be smugger than they appear. However, Top Five is far more interested in keeping you smiling. By the way: Pharaoh Monche, Vast Air, Biggie, Jay-Z… and Q-Tip. Subject to change.

Review: Boyhood

Year: 2014
Director: Richard Linklater
Screenplay: Richard Linklater
Starring: Ellar Coltrane, Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke, Lorelei Linklater

Synopsis is here

Describing Boyhood feels like it should be a gimmick. A fictional chronicle of a boy’s life from age 5 to 18, filmed with the same cast over a period of 12 years. Collaborated in a way in which we are literally watching the boy (Ellar Coltrane) grow up in front of our eyes, as his parents grow older. The parents are actors we know and have seen in films from before, so to see them slowly alter and change, plays havoc with our knowledge of them as performers. If we place the film's plot down in words, its uniqueness seems to fade. The narrative strands are not particularly out of the ordinary. Though to watch the film play out is to watch a cultural marvel due to its conceit. The ambition is not in the words, but on the screen itself. Linklater’s Before trilogy only hinted at the ambition. Boyhood helps cement his place as one of the most valuable documentarians of modern relationships.

Boyhood does what Linklater's films love to do: have people talking. The film lets things play out in the simple, natural way we often expect from the filmmaker. We watch the kids natter about childish things, and their (unmarried) parents argue. We note the hint of determination in the Mother (A never better Patricia Arquette), and the brashness of the Father (Ethan Hawke). The conversations they have may not be exactly like the one your family have had, but they certainly feel like ones a family would have. There’s a beauty in how Linklater gets such engagement in the seemingly mundane. It also makes the small rises in conflict (involving divorce, alcoholism and sibling rivalry) feel so profound.

It’s after we get comfortable with the quirks of these people does the subtle power of Linklater’s direction occur. The use of form found in Boyhood is beyond grand in scale and thought. Music choices and product placement are suddenly valuable time signatures. They not only tell us the year we’re situated in, but help signify the cultural changes and growth of this boy’s life. Is Coldplay’s Yellow an obvious choice of song? Easy to sneer at now. Yet that single feels synonymous with the year it was released, as does Mason’s sister murdering Oops I did it again. By the time we reach Lady Gaga on an iPhone, Linklater has subtly shown us the gradual shift of what media has changed (or stayed the same) and how it’s consumed.

Elsewhere; we watch young friends fleeting away in wide shots, only to be sharply cut from the view. When the family move away, the Mother swears they’ll be back to visit, yet we never see them again. Does Mason? Ask yourself about some of the people you knew at similar ages and how your relationships ended. But its accuracy of how Mason’s viewpoint is portrayed that’s so impressive.

The characters seem unaffected by the slow evaporation of time and yet they slowly succumb to realisation. We watch Hawke’s immature, forthright young man morph into a figure of some maturity (sweetly symbolised by what he drives). Mason’s Mother takes a hint of determination and utilises it to help shatter a typical outlook of the single mother. All the while, the human landscape changes. We see the beginnings of Bush’s war before we witness Obama placards on lawns.

How Linklater keeps hold of these strands and textures is remarkable, but his ability to keep the drama as honest as he does is astonishing. As facial features and certain elements of personality grow and form, we’re still aware of their flaws. It’s amusing to see Mason issues finishing homework follow him throughout his life, but it’s notably perceptive to view his Mother’s trails in relationships. Repeat patterns of ill behavior follow and flow through the family in the same way that it flows through our own. The conflicts never feel bogged down or over dramatized, while every performance is instinctive no matter which part of the time they occur. As stated in other reviews, could Linklater have any clue at just how well Ellar Coltrane would carry a film that would span his adolescence?

That said, this is the kind of film Linklater has been working up to. From the Errol Morris vibe given off in Bernie (2011) to the feeling of nostalgia that comes with Dazed and Confused (1993). By the time we see Mason in his teenage years, he’s well on his way to being the type of gentle philosophizing Linklater protagonist we’ve seen in Waking Life (2001) or the Before series. Yet in all of the films I’ve seen of the director, I’ve never experienced something that plays with such conviction of its scope and understanding of its textures. Cinephiles will be well aware of the similar features (Up series, The Apu Trilogy, Truffaut’s films of Antoine Doinel), yet the intertwining of the cultural observations that Linklater uses, make this a landmark that deserves a place to stand with them. At a time in which Hollywood is wrestling with its love/hate relationship with arrested development, Boyhood stands out as one of the most mature and moving films about adolescence and family I’ve seen in a long time. Can the U.S keep Richard Linklater safe, please? He’s a cultural asset.