Woman Around Town’s Editor Charlene Giannetti and writers for the website talk with the women and men making news in New York, Washington, D.C., and other cities around the world. Thanks to Ian Herman for his wonderful piano introduction.
What should have been a day of celebration turned into a day of tragedy when two brothers, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, planted bombs that exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013. Now, nearly four years after that attack, Peter Berg and Mark Wahlberg produce a film that recreates, often in grisly detail, the aftermath of the explosion and how law enforcement, with the help of local citizens, come together to identify the killers.
Patriots Day follows a pattern that Berg/Wahlberg created for their previous film, Deepwater Horizon, also based on real events, in that case the explosion of a drilling rig off the coast of Louisiana that remains the largest ecological disaster in U.S. history. (Read the review.) With each film, we are pulled in as we learn about the people involved – good guys and bad guys – who will play a role as the catastrophe unfolds. Each time, we brace ourselves, knowing all too well what’s to follow.
With Deepwater Horizon, Wahlberg played a real life character, Mike Williams, an electronics technician who worked on the rig. In Patriots Day, he plays the fictional Tommy Saunders, a Boston police sergeant who because of transgressions that are not explained (although the way he barrels into any situation portrays him as a management nightmare), he is assigned marathon duty as punishment. He complains to his wife, Carol (Michelle Monaghan), about wearing the day-glo vest that makes him look like a clown. Saunders prefers to be at the center of the action and this inconvenient assignment will do just that – placing him near the finish line when the bombs go off.
While Saunders is perhaps a composite of the many police officers who served Boston at that time, the film’s other characters are based on real life figures. Christopher O’Shea and Rachel Brosnahan play a married couple, Patrick Downes and Jessica Kensky, who come to watch the marathon. During a bedroom scene in their apartment, the camera zeroes in on their legs, a foreshadowing of the devastating injuries they will suffer because of the blast.
Michelle Monaghan
Jake Picking plays the enthusiastic and fresh-faced MIT campus police officer, Sean Collier, thrilled when an MIT grad student agrees to go to a concert with him. Collier, refusing to give up his weapon, will be shot in his patrol car by Tamerlan.
During rescue operations, Steve Woolfenden (Dustin Tucker) is separated from his three year-old son, Leo (an adorable Lucas Thor Kelley). Father and son are later reunited at the hospital.
Our first glimpse into the Tsarnaev home shows Tamerlan and Dzhokhar relaxing in the living room watching TV, while Tamerlan’s wife, Katherine Russell (Melissa Benoist, in a chilling departure from her Supergirl persona), takes care of their little girl. Any semblance of normalcy, however, is dashed when the camera zooms in on Tamerlan packing a pressure cooker with metal parts.
Tamerlan is portrayed as the brains behind the operation, frequently bullying his brother into following his lead. The pair, Tamerlan wearing a black hat, Dzhokhar a white one, wind their way through the marathon crowds, finally depositing their lethal packages at two points and then leaving. Later, they watch coverage of the explosions from home, pleased with the carnage they have caused.
Video of the actual explosions played again and again on TV. In the film, however, Berg/Wahlberg go further, showing the aftermath, the injured runners and spectators, the blood-soaked clothing and pavement, even a sneaker-shod foot off to the side. The body of the youngest victim, eight year-old Martin Richard, is covered in a tarp, left for hours after the area has been cleared until crime scene specialists can gather forensic evidence from his body. Guarding the body is a lone cop, tears streaming down his face when the ambulance finally departs.
What the public didn’t see after the bombings was the incredible response by law enforcement. Shortly after the event, the marathon area was flooded with FBI agents, police officers, and local and state government officials, including Police Commissioner Ed Davis (John Goodman), and FBI Special Agent Richard DesLauriers (Kevin Bacon) who declares the bombing a terrorist event after examining bomb fragments. Taking over the investigation, he asks for a control center which is set up in the Black Falcon terminal on the South Boston waterfront. In that space, the marathon finish line area is meticulously recreated, with evidence collected after the bombing placed where it was found. Meanwhile, tech experts scroll through video of the marathon crowds and soon are able to isolate the Tsarnaev brothers as suspects. Wahlberg’s Saunders, who knows Boston’s streets, is called in to figure out which cameras should be checked for images of the bombers. Although DesLauriers is reluctant to release the brothers’ photos before they are confirmed as the bombers, he’s forced to do so when someone leaks the information to FOX-TV. Tamerlan and Dzhokhar are watching in their living room when they see themselves on TV. They know they have to flee if they are going to get to their next target, New York.
Kevin Bacon, Mark Wahlberg, and John Goodman
They carjack a Mercedes SUV belonging to Dun Meng (Jimmy O. Yang from HBO’s Silicon Valley), who manages to escape and alert the authorities. Cornered in Waterford, the duo exchange gunfire with a growing throng of police officers, including Waterford’s Sergeant Jeffrey Pugliese (J.K. Simmons). This shoot out is dramatic, showing how the brothers, armed with pipe bombs, continued to keep the cops on the defensive.
Tamerlan is shot and then run over by his brother who escapes in the Mercedes SUV. With Dzhokhar on the run, the Governor Deval Patrick (Michael Beach), closes down the city, asking people to shelter in their homes. The younger brother is discovered hiding in a boat in someone’s backyard and finally apprehended.
Berg splices in real footage from the marathon and several times we see the actual photos of Tamerlan and Dzhokhar flash across the screen. Alex Wolff (Dzhokhar) and Themo Melikidze (Tamerlan) are appropriately evil and creepy as the brothers bent on killing Americans. Particularly chilling, however, is Benoist as Tamerlan’s wife who converted to Islam and supported her husband’s efforts. She was never charged with a crime. Four people who were charged and sent to prison included Dzhokhar’s college friends who knew what he had done and never reported him.
Similar to what Berg/Wahlberg did with Deepwater Horizon, the real people involved with the event are interviewed at the end. The film ends with David Ortiz, along with police officers who were at the marathon, marching onto the field at Fenway Park, celebrating “Boston Strong.” The Boston Red Sox would go on to win the World Series, a well-deserved gift to a city that had seen too much tragedy.
Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone are not Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. They’re not John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John. But their marvelous performances in La La Land will remind you of those famous teams as they bring to the screen something magical. The singing and dancing are terrific, but it’s La La Land’s love story that carries the film.
Stone’s Mia is an aspiring actress who spends her days as a barista on the Warner Brothers lot, handing out lattés to the stars. Gosling’s Sebastian is a jazz musician who dreams of opening his own place, but pays the rent as a restaurant pianist. Their situations are sure to resonate with millennials, many of whom are underemployed in hum-drum jobs while continuing to pursue their dreams. In that respect, the film delivers a positive message – hold onto those aspirations.
The film gets off to an exuberant start with an opening that channels Grease. Stuck in a traffic jam on the freeway, motorists exit their cars onto the highway and dance (really dance, with flips, twirls, jumps and other acrobatic feats) while belting out a tribute to L.A., “Another Day of Sun.” Damien Chazelle, the film’s director, writer, and choreographer, shoots this dance number, and others throughout the film, in one long take, something we haven’t seen since the days of Astaire and Gene Kelly. Without taking breaks, the pressure is on the actors; Gosling and Stone rise to the occasion. Besides the dancing, Gosling’s skills on the piano (these segments are also shot without a break), are impressive. (Gosling learned to play jazz piano in a short space of time, much to the amazement of co-star John Legend.)
When those cars finally get moving, Sebastian honks at Mia and gets an obscene gesture in return. The second meeting is just as bad, but we know that sooner or later these two are destined to become a couple. Getting there is half the fun, with several dance numbers that are totally enjoyable while also advancing the story line.
Mia ditches dinner with her boyfriend, an arrogant corporate type, to join Sebastian at the theater. Together they watch Rebel with a Cause, one of several nods to classic Hollywood. The attraction between Mia and Sebastian builds slowly, lending a sweetness to their courtship, especially in their duet, “City of Stars.”
On the career side, we witness the frustrations for both Mia and Sebastian as the cards seem to be stacked against them. During one audition, Mia delivers a heartfelt performance, her eyes welling up, while the casting director takes calls and then quickly dismisses her. Sebastian is fired from his restaurant gig for playing jazz rather than traditional Christmas music. (The boss is played by J.K. Simmons, who won an Academy Award for his performance in Whiplash, also directed by Chazelle.)
Opportunities soon arrive, although not the ones Mia and Sebastian were expecting. Keith (Legend) taps Sebastian for his band. Despite Keith’s success, his choice of music, along with the band’s hectic touring schedule, creates a dilemma for Sebastian. Mia accuses him of selling out, abandoning his dream to settle for a well-paying job. She’s determined to pursue hers, renting out a theater to put on her one-woman play. Failing to fill the seats, she’s on the hook for the rental with nothing to show for her efforts – or so she thinks.
Stone’s expressive face is a joy to watch, particularly in one of the last scenes when she sings her way through an audition with “The Fools Who Dream.” She doesn’t have Barbra Streisand’s voice, but the emotion she shows in that performance reminded me of “My Man,” the final song in Funny Girl. It was a goose-bump movie moment. Gosling, too, is an irresistible presence on screen. He can, of course, act, as we’ve seen in so many of his past films. But watching him morph into a musical star is thrilling.
Will La La Land be an anomaly for Hollywood? Or will we see more original musicals? We can only hope.
Photo credit: Dale Robinette courtesy of Lionsgate
The Meddler is less a tale of meddling and more a tale of motherhood. It spotlights Susan Sarandon in a role that speaks to audiences. Outside of motherhood, there are themes of loneliness, moving on, and essentially trying to find purpose in a life that has lost its compass. “Anyway,” Sarandon’s Marnie says at the beginning of the film, proceeding to regale us with what she’s been up to, ending in a reassurance that she’s doing just fine. Writer and director Lorene Scafaria (Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist) keeps the theatrics to a minimum and by keeping it down-to-earth, The Meddler is endearing, heartfelt, and might just make you want to call your mother afterward.
Picking up what’s left of her life after the death of her husband, Marnie (Sarandon) moves from New Jersey to Los Angeles to be closer to her screenwriter daughter, Lori (Rose Byrne), who’s stressed over a new pilot she’s writing and can’t seem to move on from her last boyfriend (Jason Ritter). The introduction makes it look like the plot will revolve heavily on Marnie (who listens to a lot of Beyoncé’s “I Was Here”) and Lori’s relationship and equally give time to the both of them. However, while there’s a lot of tension in their relationship, once Marnie heads off to New York for a few weeks, the narrative shifts entirely to Marnie.
Left with money to spend and lots of time on her hands, Marnie spends it hovering over her daughter, calling her several times a day. She attends baby showers, volunteers thousands of dollars in order for Lori’s friend Jillian (Cecily Strong) to have a proper wedding, and drives the local iPhone sales guy, Freddy (Jerrod Carmichael), to night school. This is all to avoid facing the fact that she’s a widow and doesn’t quite know what to do with herself anymore. Believing that helping others will prove useful, she comes to the realization that she also has to move on and think about her own happiness after meeting a security employee named Zipper (J.K. Simmons) on a movie set.
The Meddler has the distinct ability to bring out the best in its lead character by allowing Sarandon to take front and center, letting her steer the plot instead of the other way around. It does help that the plot isn’t very heavy, either. Disregarding the fact that Sarandon doesn’t have to worry about her financial stability, she’s a relatable character in every other aspect. At any age, people can feel adrift and wander throughout life without being able to move on. And this is essentially the definition of the film’s beauty. It’s in its simplicity and human relatability which endears it to us. Marnie tries to find purpose by doing several things, all of which are helpful and good deeds, but none that truly mean anything to her on a deeper level. The bridges she must cross to get back to her daughter and to open up her heart again are her true journeys.
Not everything works. There’s Marnie’s almost-suitor, played by Michael McKean, but he shows up twice and is forgettable in the bigger scheme of things. There is also a drug episode, where Marnie swallows an entire bag of pot, but other than wandering through Los Angeles in a haze and a lot of pretty shots of fountains, there isn’t much that this adds to the film. There could have also been more of Byrne’s character. Her interactions with Sarandon are fantastic and it would have been enjoyable to have more of her journey documented as well. Regardless, The Meddler is one of those films that has a lot of heart, some humor, and a character’s journey that drives the story. And if you feel the need to call your mother afterward, then the film has accomplished its goal.
Photos by Jaimie Trueblood, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics
