Author: Tricia Couture

  • ‘Puzzle’ puts all the right pieces together

    Maria Onetto and Arturo Goetz put the pieces together in 'Puzzle'
    Maria Onetto and Arturo Goetz put the pieces together in ‘Puzzle’

    In the opening scene of Puzzle, Maria, the perfectly-cast Maria Onetto, a middle-aged housewife, kneads bread, prepares lunch, and decorates a birthday cake. Her own birthday cake.

    During her own birthday party she waits on her family and friends, without a break, while her husband and sons relax, setting the tone for the entire movie.

    The one bright spot in Maria’s dreary desperate housewife existence is her love of jigsaw puzzles, demonstrated aptly by a gleam in Onetto’s eyes as she pieces them together.

    The new world of puzzle competitions (a world that I never knew existed!) is opened up to her by the wealthy Roberto, her puzzle partner she finds via an ad at a local puzzle store. Maria’s relationship with Roberto is complicated. He is alternately another man (like her husband and sons) telling her what to do (the best way to complete puzzles) and loaning her books to read.

    Maria Onetto in 'Puzzle'
    Maria Onetto in ‘Puzzle’

    At first Maria hides her sessions with Roberto from her family as they practice for the national competition, eventually hoping to compete in the worldwide championship. To me it was almost sad to see how pleased Maria is when Roberto praises her puzzle-making skills, when she is so unappreciated by her own family.

    Though Maria does find the courage to reveal her new pastime, and shows her family how important it is to her, they are only vaguely and gradually supportive of her. The family acts patronizing, like oh, isn’t it cute that mom has a new hobby, and begrudge her the time the puzzles take away from them, like when she misses seeing an apartment wither her son in order to practice her puzzle skills. Her husband Juan is only grudgingly supportive of her (though their two sons make an effort to show interest) and at one point asks what the point of putting together puzzles is.

    Maria’s family, though they take her for granted, are loving, with moments of gentle teasing that provide some humorous moments in the film. Laughs can also be found in the vegetarian girlfriend of Maria’s son, who comments that you wouldn’t want to eat a corpse, in reference to eating beef from a cow.

    One of the best parts of the movie, in my opinion, is Onetto’s performance. She portrays Maria in a subtle way that reminded me of Meryl Streep, and conveys both boredom and frustration with her life, the simple pleasure in putting puzzles together, and the strength it takes for Maria to share her puzzle-making with her family, just by the expressions on her face. Onetto’s performance, together with the costuming and setting, work together seamlessly to create a vivid picture of hope in a dreary suburban existence, and of a woman finding the courage to declare independence from the roles society and family expect her to play.

  • ‘Something Borrowed’ should have borrowed better characters

    Kate Hudson and Ginnifer Goodwin in 'Something Borrowed'
    Kate Hudson and Ginnifer Goodwin in ‘Something Borrowed’

    Something Borrowed, adapted from the Emily Giffen novel, is hardly something new.

    The romantic comedy features Kate Hudson and Ginnifer Goodwin as best friends Darcy and Rachel. The “something borrowed” in the title refers to the affair that ignites between Rachel and Darcy’s fiancé Dex, who Rachel met in law school (a fact repeatedly mentioned throughout the movie).

    The movie has its cute moments, including a subplot involving a character pretending to be gay to avoid the advances of Darcy and Rachel’s man-hungry friend Claire, but neither Darcy as played by Hudson or Rachel as portrayed by Goodwin have any redeeming value.

    Darcy is a vapid, shallow party girl who is not the brightest bulb in the box. Rachel, the somewhat more likeable of the pair, wallows in inaction during most of the movie, much like a female Hamlet with longing stares. It’s hard to imagine how they became friends in the first place. Both have a rather dysfunctional relationship with each other: Darcy overshadows and overpowers Rachel and calls all the shots, while Rachel just lets her.

    While Hudson and Goodwin are little more than caricatures, Colin Egglesfield turns in a rather wooden performance as Dex. He and Goodwin just didn’t have as much chemistry as I would have expected from an illicit affair, making one wonder how he would inspire such passion in the two best friends.

    The affair itself somehow seems too easily accomplished: no lipstick on the collar or telltale receipts. And while Darcy hovers cluelessly around the possibility that Dex is cheating on her, she never quite sees the writing on the wall until the end. Rachel, for her part, in my opinion, doesn’t have many qualms about how her affair with Dex might affect her friendship with Darcy.

    Something Borrowed is a light romantic romp, with corny dialogue (in one moment Kate Hudson proclaims, “Call me, Mr. Magoo”), spiced with snarky one-liners (“The Hamptons are a zombie movie created by Ralph Lauren.”) throughout the movie, providing giggles for the girls in the audience. There are also some sweet encounters including the original meeting of Dex and Rachel in a law school classroom, which goes some way to redeeming the film.

    As in most rom-coms, there is a happy ending, though perhaps dubious in this case, as my friend who saw the movie with me noted that it “wasn’t true to real life.” Though most rom-coms aren’t, in this case you almost wish Rachel had set her sights on one of the other many men in her life besides Dex who declare their love for her throughout the movie.

  • ‘Every Little Step’ documentary has two left feet

    ‘Every Little Step’ documentary has two left feet

    Chorus Line dreams come true in 'Every Little Step'
    Chorus Line dreams come true in ‘Every Little Step’

    I really wanted Every Little Step, a documentary about the creation of the musical, A Chorus Line, and its recent Broadway revival, to be a “singular sensation.”

    Unfortunately, while it was a frothy concoction of a movie that spoke to my inner high school drama geek, it just never quite earned a standing ovation.

    The movie follows the genesis of the original musical, and follows the actors/actresses auditioning for the recent Broadway revival. Interesting factoids are kicked about (the show was based on the real-life recorded conversations of Broadway dancers, and actress Marsha Mason changed the musical’s plotline by suggesting that Cassie, an aging dancer, get a part in the show that the characters are auditioning for), but I think the documentary could have easily been split into two different films or at least two different parts. I would have enjoyed seeing more about the musical’s conception and the real people whose stories inspired the show. I also would have liked to learn more about the man behind the musical, Michael Bennett, whose bio is only hinted at in the movie. There was a special feature on his life on the DVD, but I think it would have been better-suited as part of the documentary itself.

    Dancers chase their dreams in 'Every Little Step'
    Dancers chase their dreams in ‘Every Little Step’

    I also never really felt an emotional connection with any of the actors and actresses auditioning for the 2006 Broadway revival. They flitted on and off the screen as little more than talking heads. The quirky people who try out for American Idol are more entertaining.

    One does get a sense of their hopefulness (one woman’s unemployment had run out), and you can see how A Chorus Line is still relevant to young actors and actresses today. A whole movie about the actors auditioning for the show and their personal dramas would have been enjoyable. I was amazed at how far and wide they traveled just to audition for the musical.

    However, the parts that featured the actors and actresses felt a little like teasers, because I didn’t get to see enough of the auditions to have an opinion on who should be cast in what role. Once again the special features were used to include longer audition segments, pieces that would have been better served in the documentary itself. I also wanted to know what happened after the Chorus Line revival debuted, and what the actors and actresses were doing in the present-day. The whole chronology of the auditions was a little jarring, skipping four months here and eight months there. The show went from being cast to the opening night in a second.

    I did like how the nights of storytelling that provided the backbone of the play were contrasted with modern-day casting of the show and how cleverly A Chorus Line’s songs were used in the documentary’s soundtrack.

    A sequel to Every Little Step? No, but there are two sides to the story, and I would have liked to have seen the creation of the musical and the revival each take center stage in their own films.