Tag: Jennifer Lawrence

Jennifer Lawrence Is the “Maneater” in “No Hard Feelings”

On July 10, 2023

In Local, Movies, Of Local (Quad Cities') Interest, Pop Culture, Reviews

Maneater

(Hall & Oates)

[Verse 1]
She’ll only come out at night
The lean and hungry type
Nothing is new
I’ve seen her here before
Watching and waiting
Ooh, she’s sitting with you, but her eyes are on the door
So many have paid to see what you think you’re getting for free
The woman is wild, a she-cat tamed by the purr of a Jaguar
Money’s the matter
If you’re in it for love, you ain’t gonna get too far

[Chorus]
(Oh-oh, here she comes)
Watch out, boy, she’ll chew you up
(Oh-oh, here she comes)
She’s a maneater
(Oh-oh, here she comes)
Watch out, boy, she’ll chew you up
(Oh-oh, here she comes)
She’s a maneater

[Verse 2]
I wouldn’t if I were you
I know what she can do
She’s deadly, man
She could really rip your world apart
Mind over matter
Ooh, the beauty is there but a beast is in the heart

It’s important for me to start this review of “No Hard Feelings,” the newest Jennifer Lawrence film, with the lyrics of the 1982 Hall & Oates hit “Maneater.” The lyrics sum up the character of the film’s female lead, Jennifer Lawrence, as Maddie Barker.

Maddie Barker is a native of Montauk, a watering hole for the rich and famous. Maddie, raised by a single Mom, is resentful of many things in her life. She is angry at the influx of the myriad well-to-do tourists in the summer season and just as angry that her own biological father—who was himself a married summer visitor—impregnated her mother and then left town, taking no responsibility for the daughter left behind. He paid her Mom off with the house they live in. A letter sent to her father years later was returned without comment. It is safe to say that Maddie’s relationship with men, in general, is summed up by the “Maneater” lyrics.

Jennifer Lawrence last appeared in “Causeway,” a grim portrait of a woman haunted by PTSD. This lightweight comedy was such an improvement. I hope she continues to, as one reviewer put it, “fly her freak flag,” because she does it so well and it is such a joy to see ANY recent release that isn’t a Marvel spin-off or a horror movie.

“No Hard Feelings” is the sweet story of a young woman Uber driver and part-time bartender trying to save her Montauk home, inherited from her recently deceased mother, which is in danger of being taken over for back taxes. She is hired by the wealthy parents of Percy Becker to try to socialize a very nerdy young man who is about to leave for his freshman year at Princeton at the end of the summer. Her payment will be a car to replace the car that is being towed by an ex-boyfriend in some early hilarious scenes.

Naming the 2 main characters “Becker” and “Barker” might not have been the strongest plot point. The side character that Kyle Mooney plays (“SNL”) seems completely extraneous and, to a certain extent, so is the character of the tow truck driver, Gary, played by Ebon Moss-Bachrach. That role reminded me of one that would fit Chris O’Dowd. But most of this movie is sheer pleasure, from start to finish, thanks to clever writing and excellent acting.

The nerdy young man is well-played by Andrew Barth Feldman (“Dear Evan Hansen” on Broadway during his high school years.) Feldman does a great job of holding his own opposite Lawrence as Maddie. His helicopter parents have hired Maddie Barker to bring their son Percy Becker out of his shell. His father, Laird Becker, is portrayed by Matthew Broderick, looking grayer and paunchier. Mom Allison is played by Laura Benanti. The couple promises Maddie a secondhand Buick if she will escort son Percy around town and introduce him to the ways of the world, socially and, potentially, sexually.

Gene Stupnitsky is the director and co-writer with John Phillips. Stupnitsky is known, previously, for “The Office” (2005) and “Bad Teacher” (2011). With its $31 million opening, “No Hard Feelings” becomes the highest-grossing R-rated comedy since Stupnitsky directed “Good Boys” in 2019. The film has surpassed $50 million worldwide, on a slim budget of $45 million.

The movie has raunchy dialogue, as when Maddie goes to the veterinary clinic to “meet cute” with Percy, who volunteers there. She sees him cuddling a puppy and, dressed to the nines, approaches and says “Mind if I touch your weiner.” It turns out that Maddie means weiner DOG and, when asked why she wants to adopt a dog, says, “Because I can’t have dogs of my own.”

The uber confident Maddie, taking on some teenagers who are attempting to steal their clothes as they skinny dip in the ocean, while nude is a tour de force. Her confident and aggressive take charge attitude is perfectly contrasted with Percy’s indecisiveness. However, when Maddie convinces Percy to sing a song for her at a restaurant ( he selects “Maneater”), the significance of the song’s lyrics resonate and we begin to see the emotional growth that will occur for both main characters, leading to a better-than-anticipated happy ending.

Jennifer Lawrence is a talented actress and, boy, can she do comedy! I would much rather see her in something like this than in “Mother” or “Causeway,” despite acknowledging that she can expertly do both.

Now to my own unique connection to the song “Maneater,” which made this film a home run even for me.

I once did a road trip from the Quad Cities of Illinois to Fargo, North Dakota, to visit my friend Pan. This is a distance of roughly 500 miles. It takes 9 hours. This was in the 1980s, the day of cassettes. My radio was not working, so I was dependent on the cassettes I had brought for tunes for the trip.

I popped in Hall & Oates’ “Maneater” tape and enjoyed it for a while. Then, I attempted to eject it and put in a different tape; the cassette would not eject. I tried the radio, which was not working. I had two choices: silence for 9 hours or “Maneater.”

Three times, along the route, I stopped at gas stations and asked various mechanic types to try to get this cassette out of my player, so I could change songs. I still remember the gas station attendant stretched out on the floor of my car, attractive butt-crack revealed, poking at the cassette player with a long pointed screwdriver-like instrument. He was unsuccessful in removing the tape, so it was “Maneater” or nothing for 9 long hours.

When my friend and I—who were going to be flying to Europe together on a girls only trip—went out the night after my arrival to a Neil Diamond concert (THAT will date me!) the tape was still stuck in my cassette player. We attended the concert and, after we emerged from the concert and started the engine, the tape magically popped out on its own.

I will never forget that song. I truly related to its message, then and now.

“No Hard Feelings” is a good one! Check it out.

Jennifer Lawrence Produces and Stars in “Causeway” at the 58th Chicago International Film Festival

By Connie Wilson

On October 23, 2022

In Movies, Reviews

“Causeway,” Jennifer Lawrence.

Jennifer Lawrence has been largely quiet, of late, perhaps primarily because she got married (2019) and had a child, Cy (2022).She founded a production company, Excellent Cadaver, and that company, with Lawrence as producer and star, just completed “Causeway,” co-starring Brian Tyree Henry and directed by Lila Neugebauer. The film screened at the 58^th annual Chicago International Film Festival and will open November 4^th, 2022.

The weakest thing about the film is the screenplay , written by Luke Goebel, Ottessa Moshfegh and Elizabeth Sanders (who, it should be noted, are fiction writers converting to the screenwriting game). The plot meanders around with little depth or direction. It has no real “ending.” Various facets of the lead character, Lynsey, are explored and dropped into the plot, much like someone making soup out of whatever ingredients might be on hand in their refrigerator. Lynsey is a veteran. Lynsey wants to return to active duty, despite having been brain-damaged by the explosion of an IED in Afghanistan. Lynsey is a lesbian. Lynsey knows sign language and has a deaf brother, who dealt drugs and is in prison (where Mom has never visited him.) There was never any prior lead-up to the deaf brother facet of the film, but it appears to have been a desire to work with the actor Russell Harvard, who is deaf in real life and whose work Lawrence and company admired.

At the beginning of the film, we learn that Jennifer’s character (Lynsey) has been in an accident, since she is checking into a residential facility to be assisted with things as basic as brushing her teeth. It did not immediately scream IED explosion in Afghanistan, but we gradually find this out. She improves rapidly returning to her childhood home in New Orleans and revisiting a troubled relationship with an unreliable mother (played by Linda Emond).

There are little more than fleeting references to Lynsey’s long-term issues with her mother. That is just one of the unexplored bits of business, like her brother’s earlier drug addiction, imprisonment, or deafness.

The most important relationship that is developed after Lynsey’s return from Afghanistan (and release from the residential treatment house) comes about when her mother’s truck breaks down. Lynsey takes the vehicle to a garage where James Aucoin (Brian Tyree Henry, Lemon in “Bullet Train”) befriends her and becomes her sole friend. Birds of a feather flock together, and both are dealing with memories of horrible traumas that nearly killed them, and changed the course of their lives forever.

This willingness to drop a juicy potential plot conflict into the soup and then walk away isn’t just a flaw for Lawrence’s character. It extends to co-star Brian Tyree Henry’s traumas, including the loss of one leg in a bad car accident that killed a small child and injured his live-in lady love. The exact nature of this accident is very briefly limned. All the details remain slightly confusing and unexplored.

This film takes us back to Jennifer Lawrence’s break-through role in “Winter’s Bone.” “Causeway” has that grainy feeling of genuine reality. You realize, while watching it, that this is no expensive blockbuster film the likes of Lawrence’s most famous roles, but is an indie film, well-acted by the principals. She is very good in it; I was disappointed that the writing was not more expertly crafted for the actors’ skillful interpretations. It’s not the only fine effort limited by the weakness of the script.

The problem is that the script goes nowhere, has no “ended” feeling, and simply leaves us scratching our heads and wondering why the writers opened up multiple myriad plot lines and then abandoned most of them. It’s nice to see that Jennifer Lawrence is still willing to appear in such slice- of -life films, but—aside from her as-always competent job— “Causeway” is eminently forgettable. It lacks a coherent conflict-based structure that can sustain the audience’s interest. It just rambles to a close with the feeling that none of the plot avenues laid out has reached any sort of conclusion, which is a disappointing cinematic experience for the audience.

This Apple original film premieres on November 4, 2022.

“Mother:” Darren Aronofsky & Jennifer Lawrence (It’s Not Nice to Fool Mother Nature!)

By Connie Wilson

On September 15, 2017

In Local, Movies, Of Local (Quad Cities') Interest, Reviews

Darron Aronofsky’s new film “Mother!” looks to be a re-imagining, perhaps, of “Rosemary’s Baby” from its trailers. After Aronofsky films like “Black Swan,” “The Wrestler” and “Noah,” you come out of this one feeling slightly bilious—partially from Matthew Libatique’s hand-held close-up camera work—and partially because the film, (allegorical though it may be), just leaves you saying, “What the hell just happened here?”

For the first one-half to two-thirds of the film we have a normal story of a couple living in a remote house in the woods (Javier Bardem and Jennifer Lawrence). He is a poet who has writers’ block and she is his loving, much younger and very supportive wife. [They don’t have names in the film, so I’ll simply refer to them by the actor’s names.]

As a would-be writer myself (30 books, to date),the depiction of how the publishing industry works was ludicrous, but it gives us a chance to see how Lawrence feels that she is not the Most Important Person in Bardem’s life, as he shows her his (finally, belatedly) completed manuscript, she cries and calls it beautiful. Immediately the phone rings and we learn that Bardem’s agent in New York (weirdly enough, played by SNL’s Kristen Wiiig) has already seen the manuscript. [Uh—-okay, folks. Not the way REAL publishing works, but let’s move on. And good luck on living on a poet’s income; better he should write horror novels or screenplays, like this film appeared to be from the trailers.]

I want to warn anyone reading this that there will be potential spoilers in my remarks, so look elsewhere if you don’t want to know some specific details about the film. However, to quote the critic in “Time” magazine, “It tries so desperately to be crazy and disturbing that all we can see is the effort made and the money spent.” That observation is not mine and seems a bit harsh, but my remark to a fellow critic as I left the theater was, “This one will not do well at the box office once word gets out.” So, a few details are here, but, no, I won’t give you the entire plot, blow-by-blow, (one of my biggest beefs about those who review my short story collections.)

So, what “word” am I suggesting will get out?

The word that the film makes minimal sense while trying to comment on a host of current topics as varied as the chaos in the world where refugees from any of a myriad list of countries are fleeing for their lives (Syria, almost anywhere in Africa, Afghanistan, et. al.), how we are destroying the Earth (Mother Earth—get it?), how artists both need fans, but also resent the rabid ones who won’t leave them alone, and egoism as demonstrated by those artists, etc.

True film buffs will see “Mother!” and be glad to have seen Aronofsky’s latest film. Word out of TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) was that people came out of the viewing either loving it or hating it, but definitely talking about it. I heard that, at one film festival screening (Cannes, I think) it was both booed and received a 5-minute standing ovation, so opinions come down on both sides of the issue.

IMHO, I don’t think the average couple who want a night out on the town without the kids will like it. They’d prefer a story that made sense. This one does not. It reminded me of Terrance Malick’s “Tree of Life” in that there was a story present that could have been told on a “normal” plane, but things quickly spiraled out of control on that front. “Tree of Life” went wild with great cinematic images, but the story suffered a quick death.

Don’t look for too much of that Malick touch here. The hand-held, close-up camerawork is all zoom-y and jerky. I found it really annoying on the big screen. I feel I have seen every pore on Jennifer Lawrence’s face. I think that is probably the movie’s strength: Jennifer Lawrence in her prime.

The sound is also quite good, and some of the early spooky shots in the old basement made me think of the film “They Come At Night” earlier this year in 2 respects: the shadowy spooky lighting and the fact that nobody ever really came at night and patrons were quite upset at being suckered in by the title and the trailer that seemed to portray a standard horror story. [I hope this isn’t the second instance of misleading advertising in film trailers this season, in the fans’ opinion(s).]

As for the secret room in the basement that is never properly explained or the bloody hole in the floor that I was sure was going to give way when someone walked over it, or the constant influx of strangers whom husband Bardem will not get rid of: not as enchanting or as well-explained.

Bardem ultimately becomes a religious figure (Satan? The Devil?) and Worst Husband & Father Ever.

The story makes sense for a while, but ultimately: “things fall apart, the center cannot hold.”

At first, we have the couple in the woods ( I was reminded of the house used one season on “American Horror Story”) with the wife trying to (literally) re-build the house to please her husband, because, (we learn in an aside), it was his childhood home. We are also told that a fire destroyed it and killed his mother. All Javier has left from the wreckage is a precious piece of glass that he keeps on display on a pedestal. It gets broken, of course, but nevermind about that right now.

After we woozily (those close-up shots and hand-held photography) watch Jennifer run to the bathroom to periodically bolt glasses of a yellow liquid that she mixes on multiple occasions, I wanted to know what it was she was drinking. The film never said. I read (elsewhere) that it was some kind of migraine medication. It would have been nice to have known that, somehow, from the dialogue. I don’t have migraines, have never heard of a yellow powder that people take for it, and was trying to figure out if Lawrence was a closet drug addict or trying to abort an unwanted pregnancy, since there is a conversation in the film where random guest Michelle Pfeiffer tells Jennifer that she (Michelle) can tell that Jennifer doesn’t want kids.

First guest to disrupt the couple’s solitude is Ed Harris, who tells Javier that he is an orthopedic surgeon at the hospital in town and suggests that he was told this was a bed and breakfast where he could stay. Once he finds out that Bardem is the famous poet Harris admires, Harris is invited to stay at their house by Javier as long as he likes. This disturbs Jennifer as she was not consulted.

Then, Ed’s wife (Michelle Pfeiffer) shows up. Later, his two warring sons (real-life brothers Brian Gleeson and Donheel Gleeson) arrive and a violent fight breaks out about their father’s imminent demise and the money he will leave. [We have learned that old Ed is coughing up a lung because he is terminally ill.]

MOTHER NATURE

Let’s examine some of the themes/allegories that Aronofsky has laid out for us, or why I feel they are there. What is my support for my interpretation, in other words? When it comes to the Mother Nature reading, in addition to the film’s title, we need only pay attention when Jennifer says she wants to make the house “a Paradise” for her husband. And there is this line: “I gave you everything. You gave it all away.” Then, of course, there are the lines of the song that plays over the credits: “It’s The End of the World As We Know It, it ended when your love left me.”

RELIGIOUS SYMBOLISM

Believe me, you won’t miss this. Gifts brought to the child born under chaotic circumstances. Preacher-like figures and small votive candles. Adoring worshippers. Small photos of the object of their adoration everywhere. And we all know what happened to the first son of God in The Good Book, so don’t look for a happy ending here.

EGOISM

“Vanity Fair”cited “the fevered insecurity of an artist who fears the attention of his public as much as he does their abandonment.” It is undeniably true that a writer or artist of any sort is dependent on an adoring public for both ego gratification and sales. Still, it’s taken to the limit here. Jennifer’s constant desire to have her husband make the unwanted guests go away made me think of a story she told tonight on Seth Meyer’s Late Show. She described being asked to pose for a selfie in a bar after a hard day on a shoot (and a few too many beers) and turning the young man down, whereupon he used the “f” word and went away mad. Not as mad as Jennifer, however, who describes dousing him and his luggage with beer because he wouldn’t leave her alone.

You get the feeling that the character Jennifer Lawrence portrays in “Mother!” would dearly love to give every character in the film except Bardem the old heave-ho, but nobody listens to her polite requests that they not sit on the still unmoored kitchen sink counter or simply get the hell out of her house. She is telling them what to do both politely and, ultimately, ragefully, just as Mother Nature has been warning us about weather crises to come for decades, but we just don’t listen. And, just like the 2 recent hurricanes in Texas and Florida within 4 days of one another while vast parts of the west are going up in flames, things are getting wildly out of hand now, because milder warnings given early on were completely ignored.

The film is crazy and disturbing and, in Lawrence’s words on television tonight, “horrifying” but it’s not your normal horror film with an ending that wraps things up for you, with or without a twist ending, so if you hated “They Come At Night” because you thought there was actually going to be something coming at night, you will probably think this film has done a bit of false advertising with its trailers, too.

Doesn’t mean you can’t watch it to try to decode the layers of meaning and enjoy Aronofsky’s skill as a writer/director, but I liked “The Wrestler.” It made sense from beginning to end.