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Hubris, Hedonism, and Hair: Warren Beatty’s Shampoo (1975)

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Directed by Hal Ashby (Being There, Harold & Maude), 1975’s Shampoo is a multifaceted comical look at sex, politics, gender, and well, hair.

Set on the day that Richard Nixon won the 1968 presidential election, Shampoo stars Warren Beatty as George Roundy, a handsome lothario and hairdresser from Los Angeles who aspires to one day open his own shop and be in charge. With his rock-star swagger, rippin’ motorcycle, and bouffant hair, it’s hard to take Roundy seriously, despite his actual talent and charisma. Having been rejected for a loan and feeling lost in his life, Roundy is more vulnerable than the women he routinely services in his salon… and in their beds.

We learn that Roundy is simultaneously sleeping with his ex-girlfriend, Jackie (Julie Christie), and her best friend Jill, his current girlfriend (Goldie Hawn). He juggles his sordid bedroom escapades while also trying to get a loan from a prominent businessman, Lester (Jack Warden), despite the fact that he is also sleeping with Lester’s wife, Felicia (Lee Grant). Lester is an older conservative, and just assumes Roundy is gay. After all, he is a hairdresser.

Lester asks Roundy to accompany Jackie to a Republican soiree that night. The night does not go as planned, and things soon turn out worse for Roundy, who finds he is still in love with his ex-girlfriend and may have ruined his only shot of appeasing, well, anyone. It is a screwball comedy seemingly where everyone is getting screwed one way or another.

Beatty offers a complex and compelling character study in Roundy, who seemingly can never give a definitive answer, nor turn down an attractive client’s advances. It is hard to sympathize for him even as a quasi-tragic character, as he’s seemingly talented, beautiful, and wooing women left and right with little to no effort. He is essentially an artist with no capability to go anywhere. Roundy’s profound indulgences offer him no real insight or understanding of his relationships. Ultimately, they bring about his own personal and professional undoing. The film showcases Roundy’s lack of focus, vanity, and callousness continuously, conveying these things without much preaching against Roundy’s objectionable behavior.

Some aspects of Beatty’s character may stem from Beatty’s own reputation around Hollywood at the time as a libertine. Casting his ex-girlfriends in Shampoo is pretty meta, and adds to the hubris of his character for those in the know. The sexual minutiae of the film remain provocative and engrossing today. Carrie Fisher’s debut role in the film is also noteworthy; she plays Felicia’s young daughter, who quizzes Roundy on his practice and his heterosexuality before eventually seducing him. The sexual politics of these scenes are not about exactly about titillation, or a lack of moral fiber, but rather about self-absorption, and how clueless the characters are in their actions and search for satisfaction.

Shampoo articulates a specific lack of understanding of oneself and one’s own desires so well that it feels worth the truly-earned bummer ending. As the film ends, our hero seemingly has lost everything he holds dear. Roundy realizes his opportunity for real romantic connection may be gone, and he is now adrift in the wake of his own carelessness. His ending mirrors the way Nixon’s presidency, still to come on the day the film takes place, will eventually go down in flames and bring about uncertainty in turbulent times. Roundy’s comeuppance is well deserved, as is ours, as the political separations and extreme economic inequality of Nixon’s era have never been resolved and still linger today.

The film’s long gestation in pre-production, which Beatty began in the late 60s, was worth it; Shampoo was a massive hit, making 60 million on a modest 4 million dollar budget, and landed Lee Grant a Best Supporting Actress Oscar, among other nominations for the cast. Its reputation has dimmed in the following decades, however; in Hollywood, aging can be a tricky thing. Shampoo is not as provocative as it once was, and its political undertones are somewhat less novel than they were at the time. They seem almost quaint in light of the way the political landscape has mutated. That said, the film does offer some great acting and compelling insight into a transitional period in American history.

Shampoo comes to the Criterion Collection in a wonderful 4K digital restoration with an uncompressed monaural soundtrack exclusive to the Blu-ray. The amount of supplements is a little low, but what’s there is good. The best is a new 30-minute conversation between critics Mark Harris and Frank Rich, who discuss the film’s various topical points and background. Rich also contributes an essay on the film. Also included is an excerpt from a 1998 appearance by Beatty on The South Bank Show, which gives some insight on the star, producer, and co-writer of the film.

That’s really all we get, though, and it’s a shame, since a lot of principal players are still around and would have made for some interesting interviews.  While the extras are nothing to write home about, the transfer does look great and really upgrades the film’s look. The film feels shiny and sunny during the day, cool and sexy at night, which informs the L.A. setting perfectly. The bright colors are rich and robust here, complementing the film’s sense of fading idealism from a bygone era.

Shampoo (1975)
Hal Ashby
United States
Spine #947
Available on DVD, Blu-Ray, and Itunes

Kyle’s Criterion Corner: The Virgin Suicides (1999)

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The Lisbon girls, oh the Lisbon girls.

Sophia Coppola’s brilliant and vibrant 1999 debut “The Virgin Suicides” follows a group of teenage boys (now men 25 years later) obsessed with the five teenage Lisbon sisters, fixating on their lives just prior to their mystifying, premature deaths. Adapted from Jeffrey Eugenides’ novel, the film faithfully captures not only particular melancholy and ennui of youth, but also the romanticism of young obsession, pining, and desire. The boys cultivate their fascination of the girls by collecting various artifacts and sharing their fragmentary knowledge with one another. In doing so, they hope to piece together the evidence to unravel the mystery of the sister’s eventual downward spiral, and their seemingly just as perplexing self-demise. For years following, the boys would gather and deliberate every minute detail amongst themselves; hoping to find some new theory to add to their reverie of events.

The renowned Lisbon sisters, totaling in five, are outwardly ordinary outside of their opulence of beauty and seamless mystique in all things girl. Coppola stylishly conjures scenes of the sisters laughing, playing, posing in amber fields with even a unicorn fill the boy’s imagination of what their world must be like and how they must live. With each sister more distinct and enigmatic than the next, the girls in these young men’s imaginations habitat in this hazy, dreamlike fantasy that they hope to one day somehow comprehend or be a part of. The boys surmise that these sisters are all really “women in disguise”, sophistication they can only sense but never quite articulate or hope to fully fathom. It isn’t until the youngest girl Cecilia (Hanna Hall) slits her wrists, much to the surprise to everyone in their quiet Michigan suburb, that something seems amiss in this world of dreamy sisterhood.

To help the girls feel better, their panicked and overly protective parents (Kathleen Turner & James Woods), throw a party for the recovering Cecilia, her worried sisters, and the eager to mingle neighboring boys. Mr. Lisbon is a boring math teacher and mostly impotent when it comes to raising his daughters while Mrs. Lisbon is rigid and scared to death of her daughters possibly sinning or maybe just growing up. While the party seems to be going well, out of place Cecilia eventually retreats from the festivities and horrifyingly impales herself onto the garden spikes outside her window for the entire party and neighborhood to see. The devastating death sends the already fragile Lisbon household into a tailspin of heavy control.

Lux (Kirsten Dunst) is perhaps the centerpiece of the sisters and even the wandering “Lolita” of the girls. While only 14, she’s as development and womanly as the oldest Lisbon sister and starting to be noticed by not only boys in her school but by the men as well. She seems mostly aloof but put on by her new control over the opposite sex. Enter Trip Fontaine (Josh Hartnett), a recently emerged from baby fat teenage stud enters the picture. He’s currently consumed with sex and beauty, as the girls are swooning over him in masse. Trip falls hard for initially uninterested Lux, who he successfully woos by whispering into her ear that she’s a “stone cold fox”, a daring maneuver. After a very awkward family date with the Lisbons, Trip secures Lux and her sisters for one night for his friends to take to prom, baring the boys get them home in perfect condition.

The heavily chaperoned dance goes splendidly and shortly before the night ends, Trip and Lux sneak away to the football field to relieve their hormones. We see the two teens clawing and grinding each other as the headlights of the cars pass by, knowing that the night has given away its innocence. But once the idealism was gone, Trip finds he is now disenchanted and afraid of what he has done and flees into the night. Lux wakes up alone on the football field, prom queen tiara in hand, having been abandoned by Trip after presumably deflowering her and ending their dream. Trip recounts this event in rehab, qualifying the event as the only taste of true love he ever felt.

The Lisbon sisters are punished, subsequently taken out of school and are rarely seen outside of their home, only communicating with the boys with postcards and playing popular songs over the phone to them. Communication becomes sparse until the boys get invitations to sneak out with them. After heading over in the dead of night and being let into the house by Lux herself, the boys discover one of the girls hanging in the basement and scurry to flee, finding another one with her head in the oven. That was the last they ever heard from them, as all four have killed had themselves, and thus cementing their legacy into their minds forever and never knowing “why?”

As the memory of the girls starts to fade, the final summer of boyhood concludes with attending a lavish party, ironically celebrating the horrible smell around town left by the tree fungus that had spread leaving the stench of algae in the air. The town smelled like death beyond just the recent string of suicides. Prior to all of this, the remaining Lisbon sisters once protested the tearing down of Cecelia’s favorite tree out in their yard, as it was supposedly her favorite but it was already dead and festering the disease. The idea of a Copycat Suicide (or suicide contagion) is thought to be prevalent among teenagers, especially currently with the rise of social media.

The film is actually humorously dark at times. The news report about the girl who accidentally poising her grandmother before she can eat her own death dessert shouldn’t be exactly comedy, but it somehow is. The juxtaposition of the cheesy evening news report and her guilt-ridden description of her failed attempt at suicide remain just as unnerving as comical. Just like the strange foreign boy who jumps from the roof of his house for a girl who simply went away for the summer, as if to see if God would reward him in his sacrifice. The film is nuanced and complex enough to find you to keep coming back and examining the undercurrents at play over and over, much like the men who can’t let go or forget the Lisbon sisters or what they represented.

“You don’t understand me. I’m a teenager. I’ve got problems!” yells one party-goer as he drunkenly mock-dives into the pool, as if to end his own suffering. With that belittlement, “The Virgin Suicides” seems to reject the condescending of teen suicide or at least takes the act seriously, even if it is seemingly shortsighted. “The Virgin Suicides” is still today a rather controversial novel, as it deals with not only budding sex but death among teenagers and how they intersect with the family dynamic. The more we see of this dynamic, the more red flags there are. We see Mrs. Lisbon adding layer and layers of fabric to the girl’s prom dresses to they resemble “four identical sacks”. This fear of her girls becoming women leads to a perpetual need to overprotect, eventually rising the girl’s lust for life through travel magazines and the dangers that could await them.

Coppola’s take on the film is fairly faithful and simply exquisite in tone and execution. It never feels simplistic or overtly sentimental. While a rather dour subject, the film never feels bogged down with any saccharine or torrid love affair that often places similar work of teens that depart before their time. It is subjectively told through the boys’ memories, but objectively told through Coppola’s own beautifully eccentric vision of that.

“The Virgin Suicides” comes to the Criterion in a new 4K digital restoration, supervised by cinematographer Ed Lachman and approved Sofia Coppola herself, complete with a 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack. This is the first time the film has gotten a Blu-Ray upgrade, so this is a huge upgrade. Like last year’s Criterion release of 1999 “Election”, the film looks noticeably sleeker than before and maybe not specifically the same color you might remember. Brand new interviews with Coppola, Lachman, actors Kirsten Dunst and Josh Hartnett, author Jeffrey Eugenides, and writer/blogger Tavi Gevinson are included and are enlightening. Gevinson’s inclusion is rather unique as she is merely a fan of the film and often wrote about her emotional connection to the film from her vantage point of being a teenage girl discovering the film. Brought over from the Paramount DVD release is the making of a documentary directed by Coppola’s mother, including behind the scenes footage and cast and crew interviews. Coppola’s short film, “Lick The Star”, is also included and shows off her early promise of being able to enthuse young actors. The music video for Air’s “Playground Love”, featuring the cast, is also included. Making it a very family-oriented packaged, it was directed by Sophia’s brother, Roman Coppola. The film’s trailer and an essay by novelist Megan Abbott is included, making this release well worth the wait.

The Virgin Suicides (1999)

Sophia Coppola

United States

Spine #920

Available on Blu-Ray and DVD

Kyle’s Criterion Corner: Jabberwocky (1977)

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Good nonsense is indeed hard to find. Terry Gilliam’s 1977’s “Jabberwocky” is less the spiritual successor of his previous landmark comedy “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”, but more of a continuation on that film’s satirical bent of the Dark Ages with silliness run amok during very cruel, nasty times. Based (very) loosely off of the mythical Jabberwocky poem of Lewis Carroll’s “Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There”, Gilliam (Twelve Monkeys, Brazil) was trying for a more robust story and dark complexity than straight ahead comedy. So going at it Python-less with the writing, he was also trying to expand a film into a more robust narrative and not rely on framing sketches around the comedy and story.

Starting with a rather clear homage to, at the time, recent sensation, “Jaws”, we see a joyful poacher (Terry Jones) catching and loading a sack around his back with various animals one by one who proceed to fight within said sack. The tables are slowly turned as the quick and powerful Jabberwocky descends upon the oblivious poacher in a way a shark would if it could run around on land. We see the poacher’s face stuck in frame, screaming as the background moves frantically as if being carried violently by an enormous, unseen beast. It is just the right amount of silly and brutal to form maybe the film’s height and thesis statement upfront. Gilliam is always good for grand opening, as his 1998 “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” might be the greatest example of one committed to film. There is still plenty of comedy to be had, but it’s filled in between Gilliam’s trademark brute harshness, stylistic fancies, in this subversive parody of the typical hero’s tale. It really is quite the epic as our hero, Dennis (Michael Palin), an extremely naïve peasant with basic cooper skills sets forth to stop the menacing Jabberwocky that is roaming the countryside eating every man in its path.

After the sudden death of his father, Dennis decides to head into the kingdom and says goodbye to his boorish, glutinous, and quite mean, uh lady-friend. Dennis is completely ignored and literally defecated on when saying his final goodbye to his dear, Griselda (Annette Badland), and her equally ill-bred family. Dennis picks up a discarded potato that is thrown at him, mistaking it as a farewell memento. He proceeds to carry his cherished potato throughout the film, it eventually growing rotten, and think longingly about his one true love that probably does not care if he lives or dies, let alone makes it back. As the world around him is going through a starving period after being scared to leave the kingdom protected by the outside world, Dennis eventually makes his way into society and is thrown into situation after situation of peril and misunderstanding. The Gilliam world in “Jabberwocky” is filled with buffoonery, insolence, fear mongering, crude bureaucracy, and corruption.

Through a series of mishaps, Dennis eventually makes his way into the King’s daughter’s room and she mistakes him as her prince to be. Dennis is steadfast in his love for Griselda and rejects the Princess with the possibility of living a life of luxury. Dennis through making every mistake possible eventually comes face to face with his mythical beast, the Jabberwocky. In an attempt to help a real knight, he mistakenly gives him the wrong weapon and the knight is brutally destroyed. While trying to avoid the beast, Dennis somehow penetrates the beast with his sword and defeats it. Dennis returns a hero, is torn from his old love Griselda (who now suddenly cares deeply about her man), and is forcibly married to the beautiful Princess before riding off into the sunset with the look of absolute worry upon his face. In “Jabberwocky”, everything is essentially, boldly wrong and rewarded for it.

Gilliam stated he wasn’t intending to make a straight comedy out of “Jabberwocky” per say, but to infuse the winning humor he had been known to do with a larger-than-life narrative. While the film was billed as “More Monty Python than Monty Python”, this film attempts to exceed that film’s own eventual larger than legend legacy, even with the ironic help of Python players playing various parts in it. Gilliam may have been trying to carve out his own story here, but the Python humor and aesthetic still cast a deep, looming shadow on the film. Combine that with the strong incongruity of the medieval life and Arthurian landscape that informs most of the comedy, it is hard not to think back on Gilliam’s previous work and compare and contrast. Gilliam’s scope, ambition, and cynical bent would not flounder here, but “Jabberwocky” is definitely lesser work for the director who had the difficult task of a small budget to create such a big, strange world. Perhaps only essential to the true Gilliam fans, it still stands above its overlooked reputation.

“Jabberwocky” gets a crisp new 4K restoration by the BFI National Archive and The Film Foundation, along with a 5.1 surround soundtrack mix supervised by Gilliam himself. It’s quite the improvement to the old DVD release and makes it for the definitive version thus far. Supplements include a new documentary featuring Gilliam, Palin, producer Sandy Lieberson, and actor Annette Badland, a new interview with Valerie Charlton, designer of the film’s creature, the Jabberwock, featuring her collection of rare behind-the-scenes photographs, audio interviews with cinematographer Terry Bedford from 1998, selections of Gilliam’s storyboards and sketches, and commentary by Gilliam along with Michael Palin. Also included is an essay by critic Scott Tobias along with the film’s trailer. Gilliam’s commentary is from 2001 (George W. Bush references and all) and is quite entertaining and informative concerning the film’s origins along with great anecdotes from the film’s production. It is quite the package and great presentation of a film that largely doesn’t get little due outside of the Python circles.

Jabberwocky

Terry Gilliam

United Kingdom

Spine #903

Available on DVD and Blu-Ray

Kyle’s Criterion Corner: Desert Hearts (1985)

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A cornerstone for gay cinema, “Desert Hearts” is director Donna Deitch’s first scripted feature, but also a rare coming out in independent cinema and the romance genre. It’s 1959 and Vivian Bell (Helen Shaver) needs a divorce. She rides in on a train to Reno, Nevada to fulfill and establish a six-week residency, all while trying to maintain her collected and prim composure. Frances (Audra Lindley) shows Vivian around and offers her habitation for her stay in her ranch with women in similar situations. It’s soon that the free-spirited, artistic, and younger Cay (Patricia Charbonneau) comes into Vivian’s life, striking an inclination between the unlikely two. The two women soon become very acquainted as Frances sees Cay as the daughter she never had. Cay offers to show Vivian the ropes and even to take her horseback riding if she agrees to take off her reading glasses.

Desert Hearts is an adaptation of Jane Rule’s 1964 romance novel called “In the Desert of the Heart” and plays like a modern western with its internalized and external character’s conflict set in the Nevada desert affixed to its heteronormative scheme. It’s the Wild West so to speak, and while it may not be exactly the bastion of freedom the West could conceivably provide, it still is very much in enveloped in traditional romance of 1959 America. Kay’s openness about herself and whom she chooses to love is quite revolutionary considering her occupation and station in life. Her job as a change girl, exchanging bills for quarters and fending off men, doesn’t exactly give her the power to be who she is in a typical sense. But as Vivian reminds her, Kay has much less to lose being on the low-totem pole of occupation out West, she isn’t a professor at Columbia expected to maintain an expected lifestyle back East. Love just seems to get in the way.

Cay soon follows Vivian and makes a stakeout of their mutual feelings. The first sexual encounter between Kay and Vivian, taking place in Vivian’s hotel room after being uprooted by Frances who objects to their blossoming affair, is not only humorous but also genuinely erotic and bold. Kay responds to Vivian’s declaration of not taking off her coat with, “Well, everybody draws the line somewhere”, is a bit self-aware enough to find that romantic tension sweet spot. It feels rewarding to see two people falling in love and exploring the boundaries of not only themselves but society at large. It’s when the outside world can witness their coupling that soon becomes problematic, as Vivian can’t shake her own paranoia and neurosis even when a group of flirtatious men sends drinks their way.

This pressure is assumed through Vivian mostly and “Desert Hearts” doesn’t go overboard with loud homophobia to establish the rubrics here. Through the characterization of Kay and Vivian, we learn about their world more so than we’re told by outside forces overarching to drive these struggles home. The scene where Frances chastises Vivian for her supposed seduction of Cay is about all you get beyond one-off comments here and there. It’s essential to establish that the love that dares not speak its name has actual consequences and complications in this society beyond gawking. It’s a classic, old-fashioned love tale that truly spends time developing its world naturally, showcasing the complicated social dynamics authentically and adequately.

“Desert Hearts” arrives for the Criterion Collection in a restored 4K digital transfer, supervised by cinematographer Robert Elswit with an uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray. The film is noticeably upgraded and doesn’t look its age with this enhancement. Also provided is an eloquent reading of notes for the audio commentary by Deitch herself as she contextualizes not only the technical aspects but the emotional points of her adapting such a personally revered work. Also included is a conversation between Deitch and actor Jane Lynch, who is an obsessive fan of the film, and it really does highlight how significant this film is to a lot of people. Actors Shaver and Charbonneau are also interviewed and provide a lot of insight into their experience making such a seminal work and the low-key efforts involved in shooting such controversial subject matter. Charbonneau was actually pregnant during production and there are some good anecdotes to be had. “Remembering Reno”, featuring Deitch, Elswit, and production designer Jeannine Oppewall, talks about the production of the film and how it got made specifically. Also included is an excerpt from “Fiction and Other Truths: A Film About Jane Rule”, a 1994 documentary about the author that covers the book’s mixed response from the public and media. Critic B. Ruby Rich also provides an essay. Overall the supplemental material is quite extensive and informative and gives new life for this pioneering love tale.

Desert Hearts (1985)

Donna Deitch

United States

Spine #902

Available on Blu-Ray, DVD, and FlimStruck

Virginia Film Festival’s ‘Permanent’

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The following is RVA Magazine’s continued coverage of Charlottesville’s Virginia Film Festival this past weekend. Staff writer Kyle Shearin was on the scene to highlight some of the films from the three-day event. If you missed the first in the series, you can check that review out here. 

“Permanent”, a new film, comes from Virginian writer-director Colette Burson (HBO’s “Hung”) who introduced her new film before the Saturday night screening at UVA’s Culbreth Theatre.

Starring Patricia Arquette, Rain Wilson, and Kira McLean, “Permanent” follows the antics of an absurdly awkward family “somewhere in Virginia” during the 1980s trying to find their way after moving to a new town. The film centers on young Aurelie (McLean) who decides to get a bold haircut, a perm, from a student hairdresser and disaster ensues. Living on a very tight budget, the Dixons have to navigate a new town with limited options and struggle to adapt to their new surroundings.  

The film, received well, left the audience with plenty of laughs and also a heartwarming message about being odd and embracing oneself. After previewing the film, there was a brief Q&A between the audience with Burson and actress Kira McLean.

Burson revealed that she too once was a little girl in a small town with a bad perm and drew inspiration from her own traumatic incident. “It was a total disaster,” she lamented, “but as they say, tragedy plus time equals comedy.”

Filmed completely in Virginia, “Permanent” Burson used several Richmond locations to her advantage, noting that “Richmond is a great location, because if you walk around the corner it looks like the 20s, it can look like the 1860s, it’s incredible, so there it was something all in the street that hit my memory of Abington in 1982.”  

Photo Credit: Kyle Shearin

Burson also talked about the big challenge involved with independent filmmaking. “What usually happens is that you get the funding, but you lose the actor, or you get the actor but lose the funding,” she explained.  

Burson was very forthcoming about the industry at large and what obstacles women still face today. When asked about the recent string of allegations of reported abuse and harassment industry-wide, Burson chimed in with that,

“I will tell you it’s not exaggerated. If you go to Variety and you look up nine days ago, nine to twelve, you will see that Dustin Hoffman is accused by a woman, Wendy Riss Gatsionis. Wendy Riss Gatsionis was my best friend in graduate school; she still is today and when we were 25 years old. He went to one of her readings, he saw her work, he invited her to meet with him and said ‘I want to be in you play’ and she went away and thought about it. It was so exciting, we were these young writers and she’s going to see Dustin Hoffman and I got this call from her, sobbing, a few hours later because he wasn’t interested in her work at all. So I know all of that is 100% true.”

“I’m good friends with Anne Heche and she told me exact Harvey Weinstein story. And she hasn’t even talked in the press, the exact one that everybody’s said; I mean boom, boom, boom. That was like five years ago, and you felt like you couldn’t do anything, so in terms of sexual harassment, that’s really going to change.”

Burson was also quick to point out that only 7% of female directors working in the industry are female and that it’s still “an uphill battle” for Hollywood.

“Permanent” gets a limited release in theatres nationwide next month.

 

Kyle’s Criterion Corner: Certain Women (2016)

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Certain Women, director Kelly Reichardt’s modern pioneer-woman film not only explores the temporary trials and tribulations of its three contemporary women, conjured from the short stories of Maile Meloy, it also showcases how the gorgeous, wide-open, the Montana landscape ties into each central character’s own sense of loneliness and longing. Divided into three, interlocking parts, the film explores not only the crisis of femininity through couples and small-scale life.

The film begins with a gorgeous shot of a cargo train rolling along a sleepy countryside; the film restrains itself with little to no music to fill the atmosphere. The horns of the train, the clomping of a horse, or even small town commotion provide the film’s soundtrack. We begin with Laura (Laura Dern) who is ending a moment with a lover who says little to nothing before departing. Laura then goes to work to meet with a rowdy older client (Jared Harris) who has been, in his mind, wrongfully treated by his former employers and wants justice. Laura doesn’t think he has a case, and has set up a meeting with another lawyer, a male one, to show that his case has little merit. The other lawyer agrees with Laura and that because he took a settlement upfront, his chances of a successful suit are little to none. Before leaving, Laura’s client has a fight with his wife and Laura begrudgingly gives him a ride home before kicking him out after saying he’s going to shoot his former employers. Later that night, Laura is called into a hostage situation with her now former client who needs somebody to read his records from work. This is perhaps the most comedic part of the film while also being the most disturbing, as Reichardt’s down to earth approach to storytelling escalates such dark but amusing parts. Laura seems to take her constant torment with stride and contempt for her now former client who is in his own battle. Laura, despite the ridiculousness of what she’s been put through, still stands by her man.

The center story of the film features transplant Gina (Michelle Williams) who is at odds with her teenage daughter (Sara Rodier) while getting little support from her husband, Ryan, (James Le Gros) who you may remember as the bearded man Laura was sleeping with from the first story. It’s never commented on, but only subtly hinted at when Gina is on the outs from her husband and daughter’s inside joke. Gina’s own personal struggle is mirrored when she is negotiating a deal on some unused sandstone from a dotting neighbor, Albert (Rene Auberjonois), who seems unsure of what he wants from minute to minute. While Ryan is cautious to facilitate the fragile man, Gina is a bit more persistent and not taken seriously by Albert. Later, after a deal is finally struck between the two parties, Gina is less at peace with her newly minted deal. Doubt arrives when she notices Albert’s lack of response to her excited waves when she and Ryan come back to pick up the stones, as Albert just stares blankly at her and rescinds back into his home. Perhaps Gina is still being slighted or he simply just doesn’t even remember her, it’s a query that adds to Gina’s uncertain dominance as a woman and how maybe remnants of the past are still present, even in a form of paranoia.

The final story follows Jamie (Lily Gladstone), a young rancher who begins taking a night course at a local community college to fight winter boredom. She doesn’t actually sign up for the class, as curiosity takes over as she’s driving around one night and sees cars parked outside of the school. It’s there that she meets Beth (Kristen Stewart), a young lawyer who erroneously signed up to teach a class four hours away in hopes of supplementing her income. Jamie is more than willing to help Beth find something to eat after class and the two begin hitting it off, and after class meals become a routine. To compound the romantic tension, one week Jamie brings one of her horses to class, and she and Beth ride the horse to the diner. Beth doesn’t show up the following week and a new teacher has taken over teaching, much to Jamie’s shock. In a moment of spontaneity, she drives the four-hour drive to her town of Livingston to hopefully run into her, and actually does with Laura from earlier who works in another law firm. Having slept in her truck, she camps outside of what she presumes is Beth’s place of work and does finally find her.

Beth would have never seen her again if she didn’t come. Beth’s minor reaction, or lack of reaction, causes Jamie to immediately get into her truck and get out of town. Exhausted from the all-night driving and searching, she falls asleep and drives off the road and into an empty field, thus ending her journey.

Reichardt decided to include the rancher’s storyline but to alter the gender of the character from male to female. In a film that’s primarily about women, it’s a curious switch and answers why this peculiar character might be so naïve, as the teacher is clearly not super interested in her. We get a sense that this is all foreign territory for her. We are left to speculate why this woman is so taken by Stewart’s character who offers not much more than stilted teaching, subdued pleasantries, and well perhaps most importantly; a listening ear. Perhaps the prolonged lack of human contact on a ranch could lead anyone to drive 8 hours for a flicker of connection, however misguided.

As a minimalist director and thus a storyteller, Reichardt is more about the drive than the destination, as payoffs are more or less found within characteristics realized. Certain Women is filled with emotionally deep portrayals of them, tremendously acted, and complimented by the lush scenery of Montana vistas. A romanticized escape from human connection haunts the terrain, but the buried longing throughout Certain Women encapsulates the true beauty within.

Certain Women comes to the Criterion collection for the first time on DVD and Blu-Ray in a brand new director-approved 2K digital transfer and with a 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack. The supplements include an interview with Reichardt, friend, and producer Todd Haynes, and writer Maile Meloy whose short stories were developed to the film. It’s Reichardt’s first film to make it to the Criterion (I’d wager it won’t be her last) and Certain Women shows off the director’s prowess for creating a beautiful landscape for her nuanced characters to inhabit. While the film while certainly not a classic yet, has momentary cache with its cast of Dern, Williams, and Stewart who provide commendable jobs. Also, relative newcomer, Lily Gladstone is the wonderful unearthing for the film and certainly carries her own. Also included is the trailer for the film and an essay by critic Ella Taylor who explores the film’s interlocking narrative and subdued social context within. When contemporary or modern films make it to the collection, it’s always interesting to think how the film will fare after aging, and Certain Women seems to be the kind that will ruminate strongly with those with a bit of soul and life experience that compliment these small and intimate stories.

Certain Women

United States (2016)

Kelly Reichardt

Spine #893

Available on Blu-Ray, DVD, and Filmstruck

 

Photo Credit: Daze Digital