Over a decade since her remarkably observed and authentically acted The Savages, writer-director Tamara Jenkins makes her long-awaited return to Sundance and feature filmmaking with Private Life, a generous, graceful, full-hearted drama about the complexities of desiring a child when your physiology denies you at every turn. Lest one thinks this is a somber look at such an intimate journey, Jenkins imbues an immense amount of humor and relatability without ever hitting a false note.
Split into chapter of The Retrieval, The Transfer, The Home Study, and The Test–titles which eventually fall away as the process becomes messier–we meet Rachel (Kathryn Hahn) and Richard (Paul Giamatti) years after they’ve already been trying to have children. In their forties and living on a noisy street in Manhattan’s Alphabet City, they still hold passion for their more fruitful past lives in the arts, but to make ends meet...
Split into chapter of The Retrieval, The Transfer, The Home Study, and The Test–titles which eventually fall away as the process becomes messier–we meet Rachel (Kathryn Hahn) and Richard (Paul Giamatti) years after they’ve already been trying to have children. In their forties and living on a noisy street in Manhattan’s Alphabet City, they still hold passion for their more fruitful past lives in the arts, but to make ends meet...
- 1/20/2018
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Who would have thought that a ’90s ‘slacker’ independent filmmaker would make such a strong romantic statement? Well, it’s not all romance in the old sense. In what must be a project of love, Richard Linklater examines the ongoing love life of Jesse & Céline, in three movies spread across eighteen years. The conversations are as free- flowing as are the cameras roaming through European back streets. Thanks to the commitment of Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke, the in-depth relationship seems real.
The ‘Before’ Trilogy
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 856
1995, 2004, 2013 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 101, 80, 109 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date February 28, 2017 / 79.96
Starring: Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy
Cinematography: Lee Daniel; Lee Daniel; Christos Voudouris
Film Editor: Sandra Adair (3)
Original Music: Fred Frith; none; Graham Reynolds
Written by Richard Linklater, Kim Krizan; Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke, Kim Krizan; Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke, Kim Krizan.
Produced by Anne Walker-McBay...
The ‘Before’ Trilogy
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 856
1995, 2004, 2013 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 101, 80, 109 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date February 28, 2017 / 79.96
Starring: Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy
Cinematography: Lee Daniel; Lee Daniel; Christos Voudouris
Film Editor: Sandra Adair (3)
Original Music: Fred Frith; none; Graham Reynolds
Written by Richard Linklater, Kim Krizan; Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke, Kim Krizan; Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke, Kim Krizan.
Produced by Anne Walker-McBay...
- 2/28/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Now here’s a premise for a movie – a beautiful woman shows up to a party; a man recognizes her, but she denies his claim as to who she is. The woman, Alice, is played by Rachel Weisz. The man, Tom, by Michael Shannon. Really, honestly now…how could you lose?
She’s a research scientist; he’s a business advisor. He’s married, but his wife wants to move across the country to attend an exclusive academic program; he’s less convinced this is the right move for both of them. She just happened to meet his business partner at lunch, who invited her to Tom’s birthday party. Is it really all such a coincidence that she should secure such an invitation when he is so sure he recognizes her? And if her recognizes her and feels the need to call her out, just how close must they have been?...
She’s a research scientist; he’s a business advisor. He’s married, but his wife wants to move across the country to attend an exclusive academic program; he’s less convinced this is the right move for both of them. She just happened to meet his business partner at lunch, who invited her to Tom’s birthday party. Is it really all such a coincidence that she should secure such an invitation when he is so sure he recognizes her? And if her recognizes her and feels the need to call her out, just how close must they have been?...
- 2/5/2016
- by Scott Nye
- CriterionCast
Armed with two top-notch leads and a compelling premise, Joshua Marston‘s third feature, Complete Unknown, spends a lot of time hinting at which direction it will go, without going anywhere at all.
Tom (Michael Shannon) is living with his wife Rehema (Azita Ghanizada) in New York City, spending the majority of his days drafting agricultural policy emails in a cramped government office. It is the night of his birthday party, and tensions are high. Rehema’s got an employment opportunity across the country, and the pressure for Tom to move is strenuous, no thanks to his obnoxious co-worker Clyde (Michael Chernus), who has come to the party with a friend named Alice (Rachel Weisz).
Before long, Tom’s looking at Alice as though he knows her. At the opening of the film, we’re shown Weisz’s mysterious character in several different roles. She’s a performer in Japan...
Tom (Michael Shannon) is living with his wife Rehema (Azita Ghanizada) in New York City, spending the majority of his days drafting agricultural policy emails in a cramped government office. It is the night of his birthday party, and tensions are high. Rehema’s got an employment opportunity across the country, and the pressure for Tom to move is strenuous, no thanks to his obnoxious co-worker Clyde (Michael Chernus), who has come to the party with a friend named Alice (Rachel Weisz).
Before long, Tom’s looking at Alice as though he knows her. At the opening of the film, we’re shown Weisz’s mysterious character in several different roles. She’s a performer in Japan...
- 1/27/2016
- by Dan Mecca
- The Film Stage
Remarkably in a career spanning more than a decade, this formerly untitled project counts as Joshua Marston‘s first feature in the English language and only third feature film. He debut film was workshopped at the 2002 January Screenwriters Lab and was presented at the 2004 edition of the fest and not only would the tense drama play extremely well theatrically, it nabbed it’s star Catalina Sandino Moreno an Oscar nomination. Marston, who takes on a lot of projects namely television gigs between his feature films (Maria Full of Grace was followed by 2011’s The Forgiveness of Blood) he nonetheless been part of the fabric of Sundance working as an advisor at the Institute’s Labs since 2011. Starring Rachel Weisz, Michael Shannon, Kathy Bates and Danny Glover, lensing on his third feature commenced late last year and frankly this could shore up just about anywhere on the film festival circuit. Now titled Complete Unknown,...
- 11/26/2015
- by Eric Lavallee
- IONCINEMA.com
‘Love Is Strange’ movie review: Gay romantic drama is ‘beautiful in every way’ (photo: John Lithgow and Alfred Molina in ‘Love Is Strange’) Love Is Strange is beautiful in every way that a film can be beautiful, and unabashedly so. Yet, despite its willingness to gild the lily for love of ethereal, aesthetic beauty in all its forms, it is a film that reaches for the truth — the deepest truths of what we often call “the human condition.” For all these reasons I love Ira Sachs’ movie as much as it wishes we would love each other. I love the artistry of it. I love what it has to say and that it’s something seldom said. I love that it is forgiving. Without hyperbole, I tell you that Love Is Strange is the stuff of Jean-Luc Godard (Notre Musique and In Praise of Love), Vittorio De Sica (Umberto D....
- 8/24/2014
- by Tim Cogshell
- Alt Film Guide
The superb third film in Richard Linklater's series captures the melancholy of long-term romance
For those of us of a certain age, the screen love story that has slowly played out between Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke over the course of two decades – and now three movies – is part of the fabric of our cinematic lives.
In Before Sunrise, the actors (whose improvisations and revisions added much to an original script by Richard Linklater and Kim Krizan) played two sparky young travellers whose lives cross during a talk-filled night in Vienna. Nine years later, Delpy and Hawke were sharing screenwriting credits (and an Oscar nomination) for Before Sunset, wherein the couple meet for only the second time, their respective lives having moved on, but the brief encounter spark between them still clearly very much alive. That film ended on an ambiguous note – a teasing spine-tingler that left the audience...
For those of us of a certain age, the screen love story that has slowly played out between Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke over the course of two decades – and now three movies – is part of the fabric of our cinematic lives.
In Before Sunrise, the actors (whose improvisations and revisions added much to an original script by Richard Linklater and Kim Krizan) played two sparky young travellers whose lives cross during a talk-filled night in Vienna. Nine years later, Delpy and Hawke were sharing screenwriting credits (and an Oscar nomination) for Before Sunset, wherein the couple meet for only the second time, their respective lives having moved on, but the brief encounter spark between them still clearly very much alive. That film ended on an ambiguous note – a teasing spine-tingler that left the audience...
- 6/24/2013
- by Mark Kermode
- The Guardian - Film News
Bewitching Hour: Linklater Scores Greatest Hour Yet with Trilogy Cap
Nearly another decade has passed, and Richard Linklater has finally treated us to what seems to be the final chapter of Jesse and Celine, those two beautifully realized and romantic characters we met in 1995’s Before Sunrise and once again in 2004’s Before Sunset. As laudable (and necessary) as those first two chapters are, they can’t quite compare to this latest entry, the best and most emotionally potent outing we’ve seen yet. One can’t quite (and shouldn’t) consider this to be the absolute last we’ll see of these beloved characters, as another decade down the road may very well produce another chapter, but as far as worthwhile and natural progression goes, Linklater and crew would be hard pressed to best Before Midnight.
It seems Jesse (Ethan Hawke) really missed that plane back in 2004, and left...
Nearly another decade has passed, and Richard Linklater has finally treated us to what seems to be the final chapter of Jesse and Celine, those two beautifully realized and romantic characters we met in 1995’s Before Sunrise and once again in 2004’s Before Sunset. As laudable (and necessary) as those first two chapters are, they can’t quite compare to this latest entry, the best and most emotionally potent outing we’ve seen yet. One can’t quite (and shouldn’t) consider this to be the absolute last we’ll see of these beloved characters, as another decade down the road may very well produce another chapter, but as far as worthwhile and natural progression goes, Linklater and crew would be hard pressed to best Before Midnight.
It seems Jesse (Ethan Hawke) really missed that plane back in 2004, and left...
- 5/25/2013
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Alps
Directed by Giorgos Lanthimos
Written by Efthymis Filippou and Giorgos Lanthimos
2011, Greece
The wild card in last year’s best foreign-language category at the Oscars was Giorgos Lanthimos’ sophomore effort Dogtooth, a provocative dark comedy about a husband and wife who raise their children completely isolated and void of any knowledge of the outside world. The Greek parable earned Lanthimos international acclaim for his satire of parental control gone mad, and suggested immense promise for a rising filmmaker. Alps bears many similarities to Dogtooth with its eerie-comic tone, stilted dialogue, canted camera angles and Buñuelian domestic absurdity, but his follow-up is at once a subtler and more suggestive presentation.
A collective calling themselves the Alps goes into business to impersonate the recently deceased in order to help their beholden clients through their grieving process. Named after peaks of the Swiss Alps, their leader Mont Blanc explains, “no other mountain...
Directed by Giorgos Lanthimos
Written by Efthymis Filippou and Giorgos Lanthimos
2011, Greece
The wild card in last year’s best foreign-language category at the Oscars was Giorgos Lanthimos’ sophomore effort Dogtooth, a provocative dark comedy about a husband and wife who raise their children completely isolated and void of any knowledge of the outside world. The Greek parable earned Lanthimos international acclaim for his satire of parental control gone mad, and suggested immense promise for a rising filmmaker. Alps bears many similarities to Dogtooth with its eerie-comic tone, stilted dialogue, canted camera angles and Buñuelian domestic absurdity, but his follow-up is at once a subtler and more suggestive presentation.
A collective calling themselves the Alps goes into business to impersonate the recently deceased in order to help their beholden clients through their grieving process. Named after peaks of the Swiss Alps, their leader Mont Blanc explains, “no other mountain...
- 9/16/2011
- by Simon Brand
- SoundOnSight
Aggeliki Papoulia in Alps Greek helmer Yorgos Lanthimos made his first feature film in 2001, but it wasn't until last year that he gained greater attention with his Oscar nominated film Dogtooth, a stunning feature that takes a particularly unique look at the evolution of child rearing. The film immediately put the director on the industry's radar, which in turn added extra attention on his follow-up Alps, which is just now hitting the film festival circuit, two years after Dogtooth won the Un Certain Regard at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. Unfortunately, while carrying a somewhat intriguing idea, the film falls flat, thinking it's far more interesting than it actually is.
Four nameless characters -- a nurse (Aggeliki Papoulia), paramedic (Arus Servetalis) and a gymnast (Ariane Labed) and her coach (Johnny Vekris) -- make up a group they refer to as "Alps." This group offers something of an unusual approach to grief counseling,...
Four nameless characters -- a nurse (Aggeliki Papoulia), paramedic (Arus Servetalis) and a gymnast (Ariane Labed) and her coach (Johnny Vekris) -- make up a group they refer to as "Alps." This group offers something of an unusual approach to grief counseling,...
- 9/13/2011
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
There are many films that tie things up in a satisfying bow, resolving all arcs and delivering a story that is meant to engage. Then there are more abstract films that may care more about a certain style then narrative or its characters. Then there are films from Giorgos Lanthimos. After viewing his foreign Oscar-nominated Dogtooth in theaters last summer, its emotionally scarring images still run through my mind. The Greek director conveyed a satire of parental control to the absolute extreme. He is back fairly quickly on the fall festival circuit with Alps, but this one never reaches the striking bite of its predecessor.
As with Dogtooth, this is a film that is better experienced without knowing a single thing, so proceed with caution. Following a small group of people calling themselves Alps, we eventually learn they are substitutes and not in the academic sense. When a person dies,...
As with Dogtooth, this is a film that is better experienced without knowing a single thing, so proceed with caution. Following a small group of people calling themselves Alps, we eventually learn they are substitutes and not in the academic sense. When a person dies,...
- 9/13/2011
- by jpraup@gmail.com (thefilmstage.com)
- The Film Stage
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.