5 Movies that you probably haven't watched but SHOULD.

Here are 5 movies that 1 out of 5 people are likely to have watched.Why? some because they weren't successful at the box office,some because they weren't critically acclaimed and mostly because nobody has heard ever about them.Get ready to be pleasantly surprized,and in case of a few of them,pleasantly traumatized.

5.Consent  

Susan is an alcoholic.Mark is a philanderer.Josh is hallucinating his dead sister.Amanda is abused by her boyfriend.They are a family.

Consent tells the story of a well off suburban family that heads into a downward spiral after the death of the eldest daughter,Sam.Not only does the film portray the taboo subject of incest with extreme sensitivity ,it also manages to make the movie about more than that.A beautiful movie about complicated familial relationships, it manages to be touching at moments that would otherwise make you cringe.

4.Keith

Natalie is a popular high school student with dreams of going to college on a Tennis scholarship.Things change when she meets Keith,a boy with a yellow truck and a knack for getting into trouble.Before you dismiss this as just another love story you should know that this is so much more than that.Natalie soon discovers that Keith is hiding a life changing secret.As much as i'm dying to tell ya'll this secret that wouldn't be fair now,would it?

Have you heard that quote "Your life is a culmination of all the people you meet" .Well if i had to sum up this movie in one sentence, this is the cinematic portrayal of that one quote.

3. Mystic pizza 

 About a small town called Mystic and a considerably smaller pizzeria called Mystic Pizza ,this film follows the lives of 3 sisters who in the movie discover love among other things in life.This movie has a kind of old world charm that is barely ever seen today .A wonderful watch ,simple without the flamboyance of today's complicated relationships leaves you feeling a few pounds lighter (which now that i think about it is kind of ironic given that the movie's title).If you need more reasons to watch this movie, it was the debut film of both Julia Roberts and Matt Damon (who btw has just this one dialogue "Mom,do you want my green stuff").Watch it for Julia's youthful exuberance ,watch it for the town of Mystic and watch it because after you watch it you'll be delighted when you know that there's an actual Mystic Pizza in Connecticut that you just have to visit.

2. Speak

Based on the Bestselling novel of the same name by Laurie Halse Anderson,Speak is an independent film released in 2004 directed by Jessica Sharzer.It follows Melinda Sordino as she embarks on her freshman year and soon we realize that something's awfully wrong.She barely talks,most of her dialogues are voice overs and her class mates all hate her because she called the cops at her best friend's party last summer. Yet,nobody knows the real reason why she did what she did.What happened that night?

Having read both the book and watched the movie,i can wholeheartedly vouch for it.One of the best book to movie adaptations i have watched EVER.Also anyone who watched the Twilight series and thinks Kirsten Stewart cannot act,you should know 13 year old Stewart is a revelation in this.Watch it for the story,for her.

1.Marie Antoinette 

Follows the life of Marie Antoinette from when she was shipped off to France as the Bride to be of  Louie the 14th .If  you have grown up reading about this ruthless queen of France who could care less about the people of her country,you will be pleasantly surprised by this movie.It manages to portray Marie as heartbreakingly vulnerable,charming,funny and even kind to a fault.If for nothing else,you should watch this movie for Sofia Coppola's unique take on 18th century France.She takes all the conventions associated with a period film and throws them out the window one by one.Gone are the mile long dialogues and the subdued ambience,this movie is a candy coated confection welcoming you into a world of fantasy enter twined with historic relevance.

Marie Antoinette - A girl,a women,a beautiful tragedy.

No discussion about the French revolution is complete without Marie Antoinette's mention. She was the lynchpin many say,  responsible for the revolution breaking out as strong as it did .She was unconcerned about the misery of the common man, a spendthrift ,a woman more interested in matters of her corsets than her country's, immersed in merry making and luxury.That’s what I've heard, that’s probably what you've heard. And then there's what this movie will tell you

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                                      The story has been done and heard a million times ,a million different ways but none receive the treatment that this one does in the hands of the very capable Sofia Coppola .Sofia takes all the conventions associated with a period film and throws them out the window one by one. Maybe its just me and my biased opinion about my favourite director but I think everyone agrees that there are a lot of words that can be used to describe Sofia Coppola's style but conventional will never be one of them .The story is not a chronological biography - instead of  a birth to death routine it focuses on her stay at the court of Versailles - Her first introductions to the life of a Dauphine, her struggles to get along both emotionally and physically with her husband and finally her transformation into the queen that we have heard so much about, often nicknamed 'Madame Deficit'

      A lady in waiting draws open the curtains letting in the morning sunshine, introducing us to a sleepy Antoinne (a bare faced Kristen Dunst) as she wakes up, taking in the daylight . As she lies there lazing in bed , cuddling with her pet in a white virginal nightdress ,everything about her and her surroundings scream Youth ,even as the voice over tells us that the friendship between Austria and France needs to be cemented and Antoinne the youngest daughter of the queen of Austria, Marie Teresse,is going to be queen of France.14 years old,rest assured the giddy teenager looks like anything but the queen. Soon she is packed off to france to fulfill her duties as the future queen -to - be of a rival country, a duty that will consume her till her very end. 

    

  Everything about this movie is unique - right from the bold pink beginning credits to the subtle satire poking fun at the ways of the monarchy .There are few movies that manage to combine comedy and drama as well as this one does.This subtle brand of humour adds a different flavour to the movie - from Madam Du barry's eccentricities to Marie's brother Joseph explaining to Louie the techniques of lovemaking in terms of locksmithing " Well you know sometimes when a key does not fit a lock. . ." Gone are the boring mile long dialogues, the over dramatic acting, the classical music. Sofia's version is much hipper and not because it deliberately tries to be but because it just is. Allow me to quote a  gem -

Marie Antoinette: (about Du Barry) Where does she come from?

Aunt Sophie: (chuckling) From every bed in Paris.

              There is nothing here that Sofia gets wrong ,from the casting - a talented Kirsten Dunst perfectly portrays both the naivety of a teenager and the confidence of a young women who revels in her sexuality ; Jason Schwartzman ,who takes Louie the XVIth ,quite frankly a pumpkin of a king ,as weak and as naïve as his young bride and manages to evoke a few laughs and a great deal of sympathy for his character at the very same time ; Jamie Dornan, as Count Fersen, a soldier in the king's army, Marie's lover ,notoriously complex in his own right. Even the choices for  the supporting cast are inspired - Asia Argentine as Madam du Barry ; Rose Bryne as Duchess de Polignac ,Marie's main confidante ; Rip Torn as Louie the XVth are all a perfect fit.

                           Right from the beginning the characterization of Marie Antoinette is beautifully handled. While every single development in her character is obviously highlighted she never quite turns into the evil queen you might expect her to.She isn't selfish or obnoxious and definitely not the woman whose most famous words are perhaps "let them eat cake" (Ironic fact though : She never actually said those words).Instead we see her as a girl treated as a mere object exchanged in a peace treaty only to be  later referred to as an ' Austrain spy'.Someone charming, funny, heartbreakingly vulnerable, breathtakingly genuine, someone trying to get by, trying to make the best of the raw deal that she was dealt .She never choose this life for herself ,she was thrown into the middle of the chaos and asked to adapt. She chose decadence over depression.

                        Sofia has clearly spent a huge amount of time working out every single aspect of this movie and the result is for all to see in its exquisite attention to detail .The cakes look like edible pieces of art,the costumes are over the top ; the sets are larger than life,extravagant . It's almost like every tiny bit of these extra details manage  to make their royal life seem shinier,somehow brighter .Look a little harder and this honestly makes a bigger point than just serve as aesthetic pleasure. Marie immersed herself in this opulent lifestyle to compensate for her lack luster personal life, her inability to convince her husband to consummate their marriage ,in her own words - her "greatest unhappiness".

        

                      

                       There is a gradual shift that we see in her, from despising the royal protocol to finally accepting it, choosing to revel in the little pleasures that her royal life can bring her - the shoes, the clothes ,the luxury.(In a later scene while Marie tries on shoes Sofia manages to sneak in a pair of sneakers into the shot,in an rather unconvential nod to Marie's lost childhood) .The same can be seen in her relationship with her husband ,she comes to accept what he can or rather cannot provide her with.Over the course of the movie they develop an unlikely understanding ,a friendship.

She also goes on to find love.She finds passion missing from her marriage in Count Fersen ,a soldier that she first meets at a masquerade ball .Their chemistry crackling even as they barely touch ,the promise of something more looming in the air and the few words they exchange set to the background score of 'aphrodisiac' by bow wow wow  makes for a heady combination.

                  

 Which brings me to  another important component of this movie - its music .Sofia uses 80's rock music to bring the movie alive. music is used  not only to complement but take the emotions the characters experience  a notch higher , whether it’s the romance, the pain, the anguish or the thrill of first love described aptly  by "Fools Rush In".

            The most astonishing part about this movie is that there most scenes so delightful ,so bare, for instance take the one in which Marie along with her whole band of friends and Louie watch the sunset, bringing an end to an otherwise lavish birthday that could be stripped of all the adornments -the costumes ,the props ,the  make up ,everything that would be reminiscent of 18th century France and its emotions would still ring true today .

            

              This movie is a candy coated confection ,a sinful treat, a combination of all the feelings you could hope to feel in 2 hours and it leaves you with a lingering sense of nostalgia for when things were better for Marie.

So was she a callous queen? Or a mere victim of circumstance? Who knows? And by the end of the movie ,well,who cares. . .

A Family of Two : A review of the movie 'Consent' , starring Troian Bellisario and Peter Vack

"Happy families are all alike, every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

                                                                                                           - Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina.

He was a cheater. She was an alcoholic. He was hallucinating his dead sister. She was abused. They were a family.The movie "consent" pulls us into the lives of Susan and Mark and their children -Amand
and Joshua still reeling from the death of their eldest daughter Samantha. Her suicide throws the family into a downward spiral of drugs, abuse and inappropriate sexual conduct ,testing their relationships along the way.

While Mark keeps his mind off her death by philandering ,Susan finds solace in alcohol , Josh and Amanda are left to deal with the wreckage by themselves .By not paying the necessary amount of attention to them ,Susan and Mark grant their children the unspoken consent to behave in any way they like, which leads them into making some very damaging, destructive choices , especially true when it comes to Amanda who engages in a sadomasochistic relationship despite being advised against it by Josh repeatedly. Their mother chooses to relinquish any responsibility that she might feel towards them and their father is so involved in his extramarital affair that they have absolutely nobody to look upto. Josh tries to become this father figure  to Amanda that they clearly lost out on ,becoming a shoulder for her to cry on on various occasions,her only support system .He wants nothing more than to protect his little sister,the only family that he has left now.

                         Home does not bring a sense of comfort to them , instead this is where the chaos in their life stems from,the unsupervised teens substitute the void left by their sister's death and their parent's absence by indulging in all kinds of self destructive behavior .The word normal does not hold any meaning to them they try to adapt to their rapidly changing family situation as well as they can,leaning on each other for support .Josh and Amanda become a unit in themselves,a family within a family. The loss of this security blanket leads Amanda to look for some other "safe place" ,which ironically she thinks she finds in the arms of an abusive boyfriend .

                    Amanda seems to have accepted her sister's death much more readily than Josh who still sees Sam everywhere,she is for him what he tries to become  for Amanda ,an anchor to hold onto.We are given two contrasting views of what Sam was like, one from Josh who still remembers Sam kindly and one from Amanda who blames her for choosing to take the easy way out,a mere coward .Where Amanda doesn't seem to let anyone other than Josh in her life , Josh seems to welcome his best friend Seth into his closely guarded world who let's Josh in on his little secret too - he is a closeted gay boy who is too afraid to tell his military man father this because he fears he wouldn't be "calm about it", a subtle hint about what his family must be like.

                 
                   Josh wants to be a filmmaker and he finds his muse in Amanda ,he films her all the time,sometimes to the extent of being voyeuristic.His movie on her even gets him into film school ,she becomes more and more important to him as the movie progresses ,one of the only things he cherishes as much as his camera that he carries around everywhere with him .She dotes on him ,he becomes her only rescuer ,the only one who can truly understand what she is going through, close enough to not only watch but see who she really is. You start to understand why they become so close ,they only have each other,at this point in their lives.This is not a choice but a necessity ,pulling each other through is the only way they will ever make out of the mess that their lives have become.

                 The distant behavior of their parents is in contrast with the overly affectionate relation between Josh and Amanda and also between Josh and Samantha who he is clearly not  able to let her go of .As the movie progresses the question clearly is - how much affection is too much affection? The movie while always dark takes on a disturbing turn from here on ,choosing to portray incest  in a way that it seems almost justifiable ,understandable if not acceptable .After her boyfriend sexually abuses her at a friend's house Amanda comes home crying and turns to the only constant in her life ,her brother .Under the influence of drugs and alcohol the lines between the siblings  blur until Josh comes to his senses and pulls away. She slaps him, sobbing ,shouting that she hates him,both of them in tears now ,finally grieve - grieve the loss of  Sam, of their mother ,of their father,of themselves.

            Through flashbacks we know that the cracks in their relationships were already there right from the start ,Sam's death merely accelerated the unraveling of this family.Would it not have happened if she were alive? Or was it just a matter of time? Their family was never perfect.But then is any family ever ? Josh leaves for college , leaving behind Amanda and Sam.It is in this tender moment when they hug that we realise that even with everything that they have been through they managed to come off virtually unscathed , together and they always will as long as they have each other.