The Kleenex Corporation owes a debt to the art-house. Is there one important movie that has opened in South Florida after the New Year that hasn’t arrived with a handkerchief requirement, fully testing our tear-duct liquidity? Misery loves company in the indie-film market, and right now you can experience a full menu of films about desperate people in emotionally shattering situations.
For an appetizer, try Mike Leigh’s “Another Year,” a film whose central character gazes pitifully into the void of old
age, armed only with denial and wine. For a main course, have a bawl over “Biutiful,” Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s downward spiral about noble man whose life has crumbled into a series of tragedies, not to limited his inoperable cancer; his bipolar ex-wife’s abuse of his son; and the deaths of countless immigrants for whom he has arranged to work in Mexico. For a dessert, finish the evening with “Blue Valentine,”the slow burn of a relationship’s acrimonious dissolution, a film that twists your insides into nervous mush.
And that’s not all. Paul Giamatti recently took home a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy for “Barney’s Version,” a film that is neither: Giamatti’s character is a self-absorbed television producer whose life shrivels into an Alzheimer’s-induced failure after he alienates all of his loved ones. “All Good Things,” starring “Blue Valentine” actor Ryan Gosling, is a grim, doggedly mirthless true-story film about a mentally disturbed man and an unsolved murder.
The tendency to depress has even seeped into the Hollywood dream factory, with Friday’s big-budget studio flick “Sanctum” cut from a similar cloth as its art-house brethren, killing off one principal character after another in an attempt (not always a successful one) to jerk some tears out of an audience expecting an “Abyss”-like action thriller.
I don’t mean to short-change any of these films; I’ve really liked them all, though with “Sanctum” there are many reservations. I just wonder when critics, myself included, will reach their breaking point, and we’ll just want to see another ironically winking Judd Apatow bromance or an emotionally disconnected Martin Scorsese bloodbath. Or you can be like my mom, and turn away from serious fare in favor of “The Green Hornet,”which is not a bad choice either. Just bring a tissue box when seeing these awards-season favorites, and don’t say I didn’t warn you.
