by Megan Hess 

​When Alice’s (Emily VanCamp) boss at the publishing company where she works asks her to handle the re-release of Waking Eyes, she should be thrilled. Since its publication fifteen years ago, the book has become a contemporary classic, and a cultural touchstone for Alice’s generation – for everyone, it seems, but her. The pain caused by working so closely with Waking Eyes is not because of her disconnect from the book, but for the exact opposite reason: she’s too connected to it. Waking Eyes was written by a family friend, someone who had a significantly negative impact on her life. This is the story of The Girl in The Book (Cohn, 2015) a dense psychological drama that gives its old themes a new spin. 

Alice (Emily VanCamp) contemplates her circumstances (The Girl in the Book, Cohn, 2015)

Countless films have been made about exploitative relationships, and many of them used the same flashback-versus-present-day strategy as The Girl in the Book. Overuse aside, it is the most effective and entertaining way to convey the past. Unfortunately, in The Girl in the Book, the past becomes more compelling than the present. This is partly because adult Alice is not a particularly likable character. I still found myself sympathetic for her, and wanting her circumstances to improve, but out of pity, instead of any interest in the character. She’s bland and frustrating – crippled by the men in her life: her father, a cheerfully domineering man who still orders for her at restaurants and meddles in her work life; Milan (Michael Nyqvist), the author of Waking Eyes who took advantage of her as a teen (and not just sexually), and her boss, who takes her for granted and doesn’t let her do the work she’s capable of doing. She bungles the one healthy male relationship she gets into, with (in homage to Legally Blonde?) Emmett, a clean-cut and idealistic political activist. The flashback sequences function not only as character and plot development, but as justification for Alice’s behavior, which makes her easier to deal with – ironic, because the flashback sequences are the hardest, most beautiful, part of the movie. 

Milan (Michael Nyquvist) and young Alice (Ana Mulvoy Ten) relax together while her parents aren't home (The Girl in the Book, Cohn, 2015) 

​In the flashbacks, the young actress playing Alice from the past is supposed to be 14, but when we first see her, she looks more like 10 – which makes Milan’s intentions even more problematic. However, as she becomes more comfortable with Milan, she starts looking and acting more like a typical teenager. Even the most innocent-seeming of Alice and Milan’s interactions have an uncomfortable, uncertain undertone (because the viewer always knows his motivations, even when Alice does not) and are intended to make the viewer deeply squeamish. Sequences of sexual assault are always difficult to watch, but seeing the waifish blonde Alice molested by Nyqvist’s strapping expat – and watching him groom her for those sexual experiences, earning her trust and encouraging her in her writing – is particularly painful and enraging. The Girl in the Book is not a film to watch lightly, and it could be triggering for those who have had similar experiences. Yet, for a film about recovering from sexual assault, there is very little non-consenting sexual behavior, and no nudity – a decision that easily could have been made with victims in mind. 

Milan makes his move  (The Girl in the Book, Cohn, 2015)

For all its niche circumstances, The Girl in the Book contains and portrays many relatable elements: family and job dissatisfaction, the thrill of meeting someone new and falling for him\her, the female friendship experience, etc. Its realism is the source of its power, and sets it apart from other films which depict similar circumstances.

​





​By Nathan Simms

By Emmanuel Gundran

Illumination Entertainment is the newest animation studio to step up to compete with the big two studios, Disney and Dreamworks, in the animated film industry. Despite Illumination being so new compared to Disney and Dreamworks, they have risen to popularity in the animated film industry in such a short amount of time.​

The company started in 2007 after Chris Meledandri left his former position as president of 20th Century Fox’s animation branch so he could start his own animation studio. While he was with Fox, he was executive producer over animated features such as Ice Age (Wedge and Saldanha, 2002), Ice Age: The Meltdown (Saldanha, 2006), and Horton Hears a Who (Hayward and Martino, 2008). His new studio, Illumination Entertainment, would produce one to two animated films a year starting on 2010 for Universal Studios. Illumination’s first film Despicable Me (Coffin and Renaud, 2010) was an instant hit and placed the fledgling studio on the map. It tells the story of an arrogant, genius super villain who tries to use three orphaned girls in his latest evil plot but slowly becomes more attached to them and wants to take care of them. Throughout the film, Gru (Steve Carell) struggles with the importance of the three girls as his adopted daughters and of his career as a supervillain, all the while competing against a newer, younger super villain. It grossed $543 million worldwide, critics praised it as “fresh, sincere, often lovely and a great deal of fun” (O’Hehir, 2010) and “thoroughly adorable” (Mondello, 2010), and it became the start of the studio’s first franchise. This includes a sequel, Despicable Me 2 (Coffin and Renaud, 2013), a spin-off featuring the Illuminations’s mascot characters, Minions (Coffin and Balda, 2015), and another sequel, Despicable Me 3 (Coffin and Renaud), to be released this year. Despicable Me was a good sign for Illumination that they could create solid animated films, and establish themselves in the industry.

Works Cited:

Faughnder, Ryan. “Universal’s ‘Minions’ hits $1 billion worldwide box office.” Los Angeles Times.  28 Aug, 2013.
Gleiberman, Owen. “Hop.” Entertainment Weekly. 28 July, 2012.
Mondello, Bob. “‘Despicable Me’: Oddly Adorable.’ NPR. 2010 9 Jul, 2010.
O’Hehir, Andrew. “‘Despicable Me’: Steve Carell’s adorable supervillain." Salon.com.  9 Jul, 2010.​
Scott, A.O. “Bunny Doesn’t Want to Work, Just Wants to Bang the Drum All Day.” The New York Times. 31 Mar, 2011.

By Emmanuel Gundran

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Yates, 2016) is a spin-off prequel to the famous Harry Potter franchise that, while it is not completely self-sufficient from its predecessor, is a enjoyable adventure with an overall likable cast of characters and engaging new world.​

The film follows Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), a wizard from Hogwarts who studies and protects exotic creatures, travels to New York, where the creatures inside his magic suitcase escape and run free. He joins an aspiring but bumbling baker named Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler) to wrangle the creatures back into the suitcase before Newt and many other wizards in America are outed as magic users. For, in America, wizards are widely persecuted, especially by the New Salem Philanthropic Society run by Mary Lou Barebone (Samantha Morton), who warns people of the dangers of wizards and magic. Thus, Newt must navigate his way through New York, looking for his lost creatures while keeping his wizard profile a secret, fighting prejudice against magic, and a new, mysterious threat.

The one major fault that I believe the film has is its villain, Gellert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp). His ultimate importance in the narrative is only hinted at at the beginning and end of the film. Though he is technically working his way throughout the film from beginning to end, he uses an alias to go unnoticed. When Grindelwald is revealed at the end, it feels like a forced revelation as there was very little build up to it. His presence in the film is also where it falls short from being completely self-sufficient from the other Harry Potter films, as those who have followed the franchise would have a much better understanding of who the character is and why he is important. Furthermore, it also seems his presence at the end is used as a tease for the sequel planned to be released in 2018.​

Regardless of how the villain may have pulled the film down from being excellent, Fantastic Beasts was an overall enjoyable ride once again through J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World.

By Nathan Simms

​
by Megan Hess

​Everyone knows the adage “don’t judge a book by its cover.” Similarly, I believe that “don’t judge a film by its opening sequence” should also be added to popular lexicon. Nocturnal Animals (Ford 2016), Tom Ford’s sophomore feature film, opens with a baffling display of what seems like performance art: obese women dancing, either entirely nude, or only wearing a red, glittery sash that matches the red curtains in the background. This sequence differs so vastly from the rest of the film’s content that it is hard to see how it even relates. However, watching these first few minutes – an exquisitely uncomfortable experience – is crucial for a full understanding of Nocturnal Animals, because it introduces the movie’s major themes, like the idea of art as a conduit for vulnerability.
At first, Susan (Amy Adams), the protagonist of Nocturnal Animals does not seem like someone who would be described as “vulnerable.” Successful, wealthy, and stylish, she wears her ennui like just another carefully chosen accessory. But when she comes home and finds her ex-husband, Edward (Jake Gyllenhaal) - a man she has not spoken to for 20 years -  has sent her a finished draft of his new novel, “Nocturnal Animals,” she settles down in bed to read it, unaware it will strip her emotionally bare, making her as emotionally naked as the models at her gallery opening were physically.  At this point, the film becomes a story inside a story. Edward’s novel is about a man named Tony (Jake Gyllenhaal) whose family vacation is ruined by a tragedy which drives him to do unimaginable things…but, in Susan’s mind, it is also a thinly veiled metaphor for their relationship, one attacking her for past indiscretions. (Whether this is actually what Edward is doing with his novel is up to the viewer; reading the film this way just happens to make sense to me.) 

Tony Hastings (Jake Gyllenhaal), the protagonist of the novel Nocturnal Animals, has an altercation with Ray Marcus (Aaron-Taylor Johnson) (Nocturnal Animals, Ford, 2016). 

​The strength of the dual-narrative approach is bolstered by its impeccable visuals. Tom Ford is one of fashion’s biggest names – the former creative director of European luxury brands Gucci and Yves St. Laurent, now with his own eponymous label. His products are not featured in the film, since Ford did not want it to be an “extended commercial”, but his aesthetic still reigns. There is a very strong contrast between Susan’s world and Tony’s, so you never forget which place you’re in, but he connects them using theme colors and parallel shots. Many other reviewers I have read critiqued the film for focusing more on the visuals than the story, but I do not feel like this is fair, since, for Ford, the visuals are the story.
I also believe critiquing the film this way does a disservice to the talented cast. Although Ford is relatively new to the industry, his fashion fame gives him connections, which allows him to scoop up top-tier talent for his films. Out of the main cast, only Michael Sheen received an Oscar nomination for his performance – one I believe should have gone to Aaron-Taylor Johnson instead. Having only seen him in Kick-Ass (Vaughn 2010) Captain America: The Winter Soldier (Russo & Russo 2014) Avengers: Age of Ultron (Whedon 2015) and The Thief Lord (Claus 2006) (although I did not know it was Aaron-Taylor Johnson at the time), I do not feel like I got to see the full extent of what he was capable of as an actor. In Nocturnal Animals, Taylor-Johnson plays Ray Marcus, the antagonistic foil to Jake Gyllenhaal’s character, and a version of what I call the “downhome psychopath” archetype. (Other excellent on-screen examples of this character type: Robert Knepper as Theodore “T-Bag” Bagwell in Prison Break (Scheuring 2005 -2009), or Sam Rockwell as ‘Wild Bill’ Wharton in The Green Mile (Darabont, 1999.) His performance is intimate –  almost too intimate at times, thinking of one scene in particular -  and wholly unforgettable. This is both a strength and a weakness for Nocturnal Animals; Taylor-Johnson’s amorality and animal magnetism are compelling, but dim the rest of the performances. Adams and Gyllenhaal perform well with what they are given, but neither of their characters are standout, giving some weight to critics who claim the film is all visual spectacle.  However, I feel like that is a characteristic inherent to the source material (Austin Wright’s novel Tony and Susan) and, as such, unavoidable in a decent adaptation. Susan is a distancing character by nature; we do not have any reason to feel anything but neutral towards her. Tony is more relatable, but, at the same time, we know he is a fictional character, and cannot fully relate to him and his circumstances. Ford makes the distance work for him more effectively than it does in Wright’s book, using it to reinforce the film’s bleak vision. 

Susan (Amy Adams) on her way to an important dinner meeting (Nocturnal Animals, Ford, 2016)

​Nocturnal Animals ends with a bang – or a whimper, depending on your interpretation of the last shots; it has one of those open-to-interpretation closing sequences that are so popular these days. While not as head-scratching as the conclusion of The Lobster (Lanthimos, 2016), for example, Nocturnal Animals’ final minutes are still worth speculating about. The beginning and ending scenes fit together well, because they encompass the movie’s major themes: human suffering and cruelty. In all, Nocturnal Animals depicts humanity; it is dark, beautiful, and imperfect. 

A photo collage of Ledger's most noteworthy roles
​(from Comicbook.com - http://comicbook.com/2015/01/22/heath-ledger-passed-away-7-years-ago-today/)

By Megan Hess

​In 2018, it will be ten years since the passing of one of American cinema’s most promising foreign imports, a man whose career was characterized by variety. Over the near-decade Heath Ledger worked in the US, he dabbled in a variety of different genres - Shakespearian adaptations, historical dramas, biopics, and superhero films, to pick a few of the most notable genres in his filmography. In his biographical piece for New York Magazine written after Ledger’s death, Chris Norris calls him, “a probing and adventurous character actor—someone who said he had purposely “taken the blonde out of his career” - meaning, he wanted to distance himself from the “pretty-boy” image that his American debut, 10 Things I Hate About You (Junger, 1999), brought him (1).  Despite the supposed randomness in his selection, Ledger seemed continually drawn to roles that dealt with the effects of hypermasculinity on men – parts that portrayed characters boxed in by the way society tells men they should be. He hardly ever played the regular guy, but always fell into overtly masculine archetypes: the juvenile delinquent, the cowboy, the soldier, the knight, the musician. These social roles influence what people think about men and how they perform gender. If gender and gender roles are a spectrum, as many believe, with “masculine” at one end, and “feminine” at the other, men who occupy these roles are expected to be all the way over on the “masculine” side, exemplifying manhood. That is why I use the term “hypermasculine” during my analysis.
Ledger’s ultra-manly roles started before the two films he is most famous for, the ones which will be the primary focus here: Brokeback Mountain (Lee, 2005) and The Dark Knight (Nolan, 2008). In fact, his American breakout – the one which got him labeled as just another hunky young star -  began the pattern. In 10 Things I Hate About You, a modernized teen adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, Ledger plays Patrick Verona, a tough young man shrouded by cigarette smoke and crazy rumors (“I heard he ate a live duck once,” one character says to another. “Everything but the beak and feet,” the other responds) -  the basic teenage delinquent archetype complete with long hair and a black leather jacket. As such, the main male characters are afraid to approach him at first, but, as both the viewers and Kat Stratford (Julia Stiles), 10 Things’ female lead, discover, he is more capable of great sensitivity than sadism – a person to trust, rather than fear.  

Patrick's relationship with Kat (Julia Stiles) brings out his goofy, sweet, side (10 Things I Hate About You, Junger, 1999)

​The conversation about male identity that starts in 10 Things... carries over into Ledger’s later films. Brokeback Mountain exemplifies the archetype of hypermasculine man with a hidden\inaccessible emotional core, and is the most self-aware of the damage that comes from societal pressure, especially of this variety. Annie Proulx, who wrote the short story the film is based on, chafes against the “urban critics’’” description of the film as “a tale of two gay cowboys” (Proulx 131) because of how that label sidesteps the “destructive rural homophobia” Proulx believes is the pulse of the narrative– a “destructive rural homophobia” that goes so deep the characters inflict it on themselves (Proulx 130). After their first sexual liaison, Ennis (Heath Ledger) tells Jack (Jake Gyllenhaal) “It’s a one-shot thing we got going here” and “I ain’t no queer;” Jack responds to the latter with “Me, either” (McMurty and Ossana, 20). Neither character intends to take that sexual relationship off the mountain, but, as Proulx says “they both fell into once-in-a-lifetime love” – albeit a “once-in-a-lifetime love” they cannot express to the broader society (Proulx 130). Ennis and Jack are very much constrained by their culture and what it expects of them as men: both sexually and emotionally. Proulx praised Ledger’s performance, saying he “knew better than I how Ennis felt and thought” and his “intimate depiction of that achingly needy ranch kid builds with frightening power” (Proulx 137). While Jack is not unusually emotional for a man of that time, he is a little freer with his feelings than Ennis – partly because he’s more talkative. But for what Ledger’s character lacks in emotional expressiveness, he makes up in emotional intensity. Much like Lee Chandler, Casey Affleck’s Oscar-winning protagonist from Manchester by The Sea (Lonergan, 2016), Ennis is harboring a lot of deep and strong feelings, but has no idea how to bring them to the surface – at least, not in a healthy way. He channels them all through the conduit of anger, and goes from punching walls to other people. He never hits his wife, Alma (Michelle Williams) but drives her away with that same anger, expressed alternatively in words and silence. He uses it to keep Jack at a distance – always shutting him down when he tries to broach the idea of them getting a ranch together – and it almost brings their relationship to an end. Annie Proulx’s character – and Heath Ledger’s interpretation of him - may be a fiction, but the way he handles his emotions is all too true to life. 

Even when in the company of his greatest love, Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger, right) looks pensive - like he's feeling a thousand different things, but just doesn't want to emote them - and doesn't know how (Brokeback Mountain, Lee, 2005)

​Several years after Brokeback Mountain, Ledger picked up a role entirely different from those preceding it, and the one that would become his most iconic. Ennis Del Mar is driven by his fears, feelings, and relationships, but the Joker has no such motivations. As Alfred (Michael Caine) says in the film “some men just want to watch the world burn” (Nolan et al. 229). As a result, he has no ties. Most young male audience members can’t relate to the Joker, but they do admire him. He cares about nothing but himself, and, as a result, is unaffected by the culture and its requirements for those in male bodies. While the Joker possess many negative attributes that would be worrisome for viewers to aspire to adopt (mainly his total disregard for the value of other human lives), it also says a lot about the way our society is constructed that young men yearn to be like the Joker just to have his freedom. 

As the Joker, Ledger personifies chaotic apathy - and, therefore, the ideal of culturally constructed masculinity (The Dark Knight, Nolan, 2008)

Hypermasculinity does not just affect the films that Ledger had made, but also the films he would have made. Little known to most, Ledger had directorial ambitions; the first film he wanted to make would have been an adaptation of Walter Tevis’s 1983 novel The Queen’s Gambit. As well as directing, Ledger also intended to star in the film…but he would not have been the lead. The Queen’s Gambit is the story of a young woman trying to make her way in the male-dominated world of chess. In that way, it both reflects the dominant themes in Ledger’s filmography, but yet subverts them. As one of the only women succeeding in chess at the time, Harmon is a pawn of toxic masculinity – a woman very aware of her femaleness in a predominantly male space - but she never lets it pull her under. How aptly this mirrors Ledger’s life! The exact circumstances of his death are murky even to this day; in her article for Wired on Ledger’s post-mortem medical examiner’s report, Kirsten Philipkoski calls the combination of drugs that killed him “unnecessarily dangerous,” and doubts a doctor would prescribe that many of those kinds of medications all at once (1). It is impossible to know how much the roles he had to play took a toll on him. Perhaps Ledger struggled with the very cultural push-and-pull he portrayed so well onscreen….  
Regardless of his career’s impact on his personal life, the imprint Ledger left on the industry is clear. No actor living and working today displays the complications of manhood in quite the same way, nor quite so well.
 
​Works Cited
-- “Brokeback Mountain: A Screenplay.” Proulx, pp. 29-128
Nolan, Jonathan and Nolan, Christopher. “The Dark Knight.” The Dark Knight Trilogy, edited by Christopher Nolan, Jonathan Nolan, and David S. Goyer, OPUS, 2013, pp. 167-323.
Norris, Chris. “(Untitled Heath Ledger Project): Analyzing the Double Life of Heath Ledger” New York Magazine. 18 February 2008 http://nymag.com/news/features/44217/ Accessed 7 March 2017.
Philipkoski, Kristen. “Unnecessarily Dangerous Drug Combo Caused Heath Ledger’s Death.” Wired. 6 February 2008. https://www.wired.com/2008/02/accidental-over/ Accessed 3 March 2017.
Proulx, Annie, McMurtry, Larry, and Ossana, Diana, editors. Brokeback Mountain: Story to Screenplay. Scribner, 2005.
-- “Getting Movied,” McMurtry and Ossana, pp. 129-138