DVD: Kudos to George Clooney, Michelle Williams, Charlize Theron and Kirsten Dunst
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This week there are four exceptional performances to check out. Two were Oscar nominated (George Clooney in "The Descendants" and Michelle Williams in "My Week with Marilyn") and two could! well ha ve been (Kirsten Dunst in "Melancholia" and Charlize Theron in "Young Adult").
Alexander Payne's "The Descendants" takes place in Hawaii, where Matt King (Clooney) heads a family that is preparing to sell their land for development, a deal that should make them rich. But there's no joy for him, because Matt's wife lies in a coma from a boating accident and isn't likely to wake up. Now he must take care of his daughters, 10-year-old Scottie (Amara Miller) and her disaffected teenage sister, Alexandra (Shailene Woodley).
Worst,
Michelle Williams in "My Week With Marilyn"
Like in Payne's other films, "Election," "About Schmidt" and "Sideways," "The Descendants" is about American males adrift. A marvelous Clooney is able to make us forget his movie-star looks and charms to convey the trials of a man trying to find his place in the world.
I didn't think any actress could create a credible Marilyn Monroe, but Michelle Williams proved me wrong, a thousand-fold. In "My Week with Marilyn" she not only possesses the sexiness and sweetness of the Hollywood legend but creates a real person - no easy trick.
The film, directed by Simon Curtis, has its own charms, telling the story of the unlikely meeting/clash of two showbiz titans - Monroe and Sir Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh) - for the tumultuous filming of "The Prince and the Showgirl" in 1956. It's based on two memoirs by Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne), who was an assistant to Olivier. Clark claims to have had a brief affair with the star, who had just married playwright Arthur Miller.
What's true ! or not d oesn't really matter. The film captures the glamour and fun of the era which, like Marilyn, was a mixture of innocence and naughtiness. And also like Marilyn, it is impossible to take your eyes off of Williams.
Theron should have gotten an Oscar nod for her role as a prom queen who never grew up in Jason Reitman's "Young Adult." That also is the category for the fiction that Theron's Mavis Gary writes.
At 37, she is divorced and drinking too much, and the series of books she writes is coming to an end. So in an act of desperation she comes up with an idea to reclaim her high-school beau (Patrick Wilson) and live happily ever after. Never mind that he's married and the father of a new baby girl. Returning to her hometown of Mercury from Minneapolis, she discovers that some old cuts never heal.
No longer the bitchy prom queen, she finds she has more in common with Matt (Patton Oswalt), who was an outcast in Mavis' high-school class.
"Young Adult," written by Diablo Cody ("Juno"), is ultimately a pretty dark comedy, but Oswalt is first rate, and Theron, who took a risk playing such an unlikable character, delivers a terrific performance.
"Melancholia," as you might guess from the title, is beyond dark.
From controversial Danish director Lars von Trier, it's another riff on the end of the world. As a previously unknown planet spectacularly heads toward Earth accompanied by classical music on the soundtrack, Dunst's Justine, a chronically unstable sort, is nevertheless getting married in a big wedding at a country estate. The whole wedding party is, of course, screwed up.
Von Trier is often a tough slough, and while his talent is obvious, it doesn't always add up to as much as he or others think. "Melancholia" is no different in that sense, but I nevertheless found Dunst's performance persuasive.
Spielberg animation
In a much lighter and enjoyable vein is Steven Spielberg's animated "T! he Adven tures of Tintin," a fun bit of entertainment. Based on the European comic book series of the 1930s about a crime-solving young reporter and his dog Snowy, the movie uses performance-capture to create an eye-catching stylized animated feature.
In "Tintin" the director again reaches back to a bygone era. Spielberg first discovered the
Charlize Theron in "Young Adult"
Spielberg sticks close to the animated style of the cartoonist but offers some great visuals for the 21st century. "Tintin" inevitably keeps on moving - perhaps a bit too much, because it never seems to stop to let the audience catch their breath.
Murder mystery solved?
Did they catch the murderer in the final episode of the first season of AMC's "The Killing"? That's the question. The series was occasionally as frustrating as it was always engrossing, but I'll be the first to tune in when season two returns April 1.
Consisting of 13 hour-long episodes, "The Killing" chronicles a day-by-day investigation into the murder of a teenage girl named Rosie Larsen, who is found inside a car trunk at the bottom of a lake. Set in rainy Seattle, the series is at times haunting.
The murder set off a chain of recriminations among family members and friends and acquaintances of Rosie, and the investigation soon begins to cast suspicions on powerful local politicians. Detective Sara! h Linden (Mireille Enos) immerses herself in the case even as her own personal life is falling apart. Enos is compelling in the role.
AMC says it won't reveal the killer until the end of the second season, but that doesn't mean who they arrested at the end of Season One isn't the guilty party.
robert.lowman@dailynews.com
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