At this meeting, we had a small cosy group at Sylvia and Andy’s place, and joining us for the first time, Ray. Sylvia cooked us a pasta meal and Jodi made caramel slices – all very delicious – and up for discussion, two films, ‘Fearless’ and ‘Locke’.
Fearless
Much of the fascination of watching plane crash movies like ‘Alive’, ‘United 93’, ‘Flight’ and ‘Fearless’ is wondering about what you would do if you were in a similar situation. Max Klein, an ordinary guy, walks off a plane crash with barely a scratch (apparently his cut on his rib is a reference to Jesus who was also cut in the same place by a soldier). At the face of death, Max sees the ‘light’ and he is strangely calm and not afraid. Maybe he realises there is no point in being fearful. He leads the other passengers off the plane, like a Christ like figure. Certainly the other passengers believe he is a hero or an angel.
After the accident, Max doesn’t respond like the other survivors. He becomes fearless and lives a life true to himself – though this means he is self-absorbed and not a nice person to live with. As if living on a ‘high’, he finds different ways to play with death, since he has cheated death. Club Moofie thought perhaps he was just numb and suppressing his fear all along, until it emerges at the end.
There were many memorable scenes. The ending scene of what a plane crash might look like, blending a soaring string soundtrack, and the first scene where survivors emerge from a cornfield are some examples that show that the director Peter Weir is a master of this craft. Rosie Perez also plays a memorable character, a mother grieving for her baby who died in the crash.
There were also some scenes that didn’t make a lot of sense, certainly not on second viewing (Max’s allergic reaction to strawberries) and some dated scenes (you would not be able to see into the cockpit today, and what’s with confiscating all the sharps before the crash landing??). Anyhow, an interesting film dealing with serious themes of death, survival, guilt, and grief. The scores and quotes give the final verdict.
Scores
Andy: 2 (1.5 + 0.5 for Ingrid Bergman’s daughter)
Jodi: 3.5
Paul: 3.5
Ray: 2.5
Sylvia: 4.5
Wendy: 3.5
CJ: 3 (sent via email)
Quotes
Paul: I’ve got a thing for plane crash movies
[on Paul’s fear of flying]
Paul: I’m 4km high. How is this working??
Ray: I hope they put in the good fuel.
Paul: I’ve probably watched too many episodes of Air Crash Investigation.
[on Jeff Bridges]
Andy: If you gonna watch this, you better like Jeff Bridge’s face
Sylvia: He’s very attractive, he’s gorgeous.
Ray: I didn’t find Jeff Bridges a convincing character. Whereas if it was Harrison Ford….
[on the connection between Jeff Bridges and Rosie Perez’s characters]
CJ: I didn’t like the potential “romantic” element between Jeff bridges and Rosie Perez. Didn’t seem like much chemistry there anyway.
Paul: I probably expected they have sex
Sylvia: I thought it was believable
[Wendy’s indignation at the depiction of psychologists in film – as played by John Turturro/Dr Perlman]
Sylvia: To me, he was OK for an 80s psychologist
Wendy: What’s an 80s psychologist??
[on the feeling of purity that Max Klein felt, having cheated death]
Andy: You get this feeling when you get better after being sick, after being ‘dead’
CJ: It touches on religious ideas of soul/heaven etc (where Isabella Rossellini is looking at Max’s drawings of circles and holes). I don’t have much patience for religious overtones.
It’s dropped in my mind compared to my memory of it from last time I saw it.
[On the eating strawberries]
CJ: (near the end – when Max eats a strawberry and reacts this time) Really that’s not how anaphylactic reactions work! You don’t just stop breathing and then take a breath and it’s all ok again!!
Jodi: I liked the ending. The thing with the strawberries threw me though.
Jodi: Was he imagining he was eating strawberries? Was he already “dead” when he first ordered the plate of straw berries?
CJ: Even if he is feeling “heavenly” surely anaphylactic shock is anaphylactic shock. It’s not all just a mind thing…
CJ: Can he now sue his lawyer for bringing the strawberries to Max’s place?
[on Tom Hulce’s portrayal of the lawyer]
Ray: Wasn’t he a little turd?
Locke
The selling point of this film is that the whole movie is filmed in a car where a man (played by Tom Hardy, the only actor shown on camera) drives along a motorway whilst talking on the phone to significant people in his life. Ivan Locke is an engineer (or a ‘Construction Director’ as CJ corrected me on) on his way to hospital to see the birth of his baby who was conceived by mistake on a one night stand. On his way to hospital he is trying to placate his lover, his wife, manage a major construction deadline involving massive amounts of concrete, all on the phone, while suffering a major cold. Essentially a one man show, Tom Hardy delivers a great performance. Locke feels responsibility to do the right thing (because his father didn’t) and he wants to please everyone. You feel a lot of empathy for him and the predicament he is in, because it’s clear, a lot is at stake. It’s 95 mins of draining, emotional dialogue (including dialogue with Locke’s dead father who abandoned him), supplemented by shots of the motorway, rain, and filtered traffic lights.
As a film concept, it’s a novel idea. Personally, I guess I was a bit disappointed as I felt it was too much of a gimmick and the film didn’t deliver for me. Moofie Club on the whole found it enthralling and definitely one for Tom Hardy fans.
Scores
Andy: 3.5
Jodi: 3.5
Paul: 4
Ray: abstain
Sylvia: 4.5
Wendy: 2
CJ: 4 (sent via email)
Quotes
Jodi: I nominated it for Tom Hardy
CJ: I used to be able to eat kebabs one handed while driving and not spill anything – but this guy is taking multitasking to another level.
CJ: (on hearing about the pregnancy) Hmm.. Really not a good movie to be watching when you’ve just had your own baby!…
Jodi: He brought a lot of pain on himself that he could have avoided. He could have called his wife earlier…
Andy: It’s like a play. The first time he sees his father in the rear vision mirror, it’s like a play
Ray: Is he driving hands free?
Andy: Yes, it’s a BMW product placement
Sylvia: He’s trying to please everybody. He’s trying to be different from his father, which is admirable.
[on talking to his dead father in the back seat]
Wendy: They do car therapy.
Sylvia: Yes, that was a bit weird. He was under pressure. … It might also have been the cough mixture.
[on the ending]
CJ: Pity about the ending. Unresolved. I wished for a more resolved ending (apart from the baby being born). We don’t know about the concrete, the wife, nothing else! I feel like I’ve been taken on this journey but we just stopped at a cull de sac. And what happens from here? We don’t even get to see the hospital or baby. Unsatisfying.
CJ: Given this ending, it feels like an incomplete movie idea – a premise. They only thought as far as the concept of filming it all in the car with phone calls.
Ray: [who did not see the film] That’s how it ends? He’s going to see his kid…. with a cold?
[on the construction jargon throughout the film]
CJ: Ok. Use C6 concrete, not C5. I’ll never forget it.
Club Moofie 