Speaking as someone who isn’t really a coulrophobe, I could never really grasp what it is about clowns that freaks people out so much. Sure, it can be kind of awkward interacting with them, but I tended to view them more as eccentric weirdos than aberrant monstrosities. But having recently seen the 2017 theatrical rendition of Stephen King’s bestselling novel, IT, I believe I have finally discovered why clowns are so feared. And that someone apparently remembers New Kids on the Block.

IT (2017) is directed by Argentinian filmmaker Andy Muschietti, who some might recognize as the director of both the short and feature length versions of Mamá (2008 and 2013, respectively). The film centers around a group of middle school students, known as “The Losers Club”, who are being tormented incessantly by both bullies and their own parents. As if things couldn’t get any worse, they also find themselves being stalked by a morphing, demonic entity known as Pennywise the Dancing Clown, otherwise referred to as “IT”.

First and foremost, go see this movie. Now. As of the time of writing, IT is still in theaters and has managed to overtake The Exorcist as the highest grossing horror movie ever. IT’s a very good movie. One of this year’s best, in fact. I am aware that there are a lot of people who don’t particularly care for scary movies. And make no mistake, this movie is certainly scary. As previously mentioned, this movie singlehandedly managed to make me afraid of clowns for the first time in my life. Just the way Pennywise looks, with his glowing eyes and his unnaturally proportioned face, was enough to have me looking over my shoulder for about a day after seeing IT. Possibly owing to the stellar makeup and special effects, I felt intimidated by this clown in ways that I really hadn’t with other depictions of “scary” clowns.

Despite this, I would absolutely recommend that the timid among us go see the movie anyway. Why? Because the actors are just too darn fantastic to ignore. Indeed, what truly makes this movie great are not IT’s sequences of nail-biting terror, but the hilarious and endearing characters. Anybody can relate to at least one of the members of the Losers Club, and I found myself rooting for the team every step of the way. The persistent volley of expletives rushing out of the kids’ mouths never failed to make me chuckle, and their steadfast devotion to each other warmed the heart of this dour horror fan. All of the child actors (and most of the adult actors) do a fantastic job with their roles, and I can’t wait to see what projects they’ll end up in next. In a sense, IT is a horror movie for people who don’t like horror movies.

A big question that’s been asked is whether IT is faithful to the source material. I confess that I have only read a handful of Stephen King’s short stories, so I wouldn’t really consider myself to be the arbiter of all things King. I do think, however, I have a good enough understanding of his writing to determine why films based of off his sordid tales tend to have a spotty reputation. His books can be incredibly dense and full of minute details that don’t always translate well to film. IT is based on a book that is 1,100+ pages, so it obviously wouldn’t be practical to attempt a word for word adaptation. I have it on good authority that IT successfully captures the spirit of the book while picking out the unnecessary bits, distilling the experience down to a comfortable two hours. The only real contention I have with IT is the somewhat sloppy pacing of the third act. The film seems to peak early at the end of the second act, and it takes a significant amount of time to bring the tension back up to this level for the third act. But to be honest, I loved the characters so much that I didn’t even care that much. I was merely happy that I could spend more time with them.

But the most important aspect of IT is probably the monumental effect the movie has had on the horror community. For the first time in years, a horror film has come out that is loved by audiences, hailed by critics, and financially successful. All of a sudden, horror has become (or is at least becoming) mainstream again, and there are already more scary flicks on the horizon. Not to mention, IT raised the box office out of the slump it was in. And if that wasn’t enough, Muschietti is also directing a sequel to the first movie, and I can’t wait to see IT (chapter 2).

​Even though the film only made over $786 thousand on opening weekend and didn’t make enough to support its estimated $105 million budget, the film was received very well by critics and made history as starring the first African-American Disney princess. Tom Huddleston of TimeOut admired it for daring to recreate the animation style of Disney’s earlier films from the 90’s and succeeding (“The Princess and the Frog”). Candice Frederick of Reel Talk Online praised it for inspiring audiences no matter their age or color to pursue their dreams (“The Princess and the Frog”). Although the film does not directly touch on the issue of race, it is seemingly implied with Tiana, an African-American woman who works to get what she wants, and her best friend Charlotte, a White noblewoman who is privileged to have anything that she wants. As Manohla Dargis of The New York Times points out, putting these two characters together will inevitably create parallels to the conflict of race and class in the real world. (“That Old Bayou Magic…”) However, for the sake of not risking losing money, the film does not engage the issue directly. Nevertheless, this subtle social commentary would show up in later Disney animated films.

​Walt Disney Animation is here to stay, and hopefully bring more films that offer great stories, characters, and even some insightful commentary.

​Sources Cited:

Dargis, Manohla. “That Old Bayou Magic: Kiss and Ribbit (and Sing).” The New York Times, 24 Nov. 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/25/movies/25frog.html?mcubz=0.

Everett, Lucinda. “Why is Frozen so popular? You asked Google - here’s the answer.” The Guardian, 20 Dec. 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/20/google-autocomplete-why-frozen-film-so-popular.

Frederick, Candice. “The Princess and the Frog.” Reel Talk Online, 19 Dec. 2009. http://www.reeltalkonline.org/2009/12/princess-and-frog.html.​

Huddleston, Tom. “The Princess and the Frog. TimeOut, 26 Jan. 2010. https://www.timeout.com/london/film/the-princess-and-the-frog.

By Emmanuel Gundran

Amy Adams as Dr. Louise Banks in Arrival (Villeneuve, 2016)
​

by Megan Hess

When Arrival (Villeneuve, 2016) came to theaters, it stood apart from other science-fiction films released that year because of its intellectual focus and nonviolence, but also because of Amy Adams’ world-class performance as linguistics professor Dr. Louise Banks, Arrival’s protagonist. Adams’ character is unlike many popular sci-fi heroines – bold women brandishing weapons and breaking down doors. Manohla Dargis describes her as “thoughtful, serious, at ease with her own silence and fears” (1). Banks’ reticence distinguishes her from her predecessors. Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connors have fears, but they lack her grace and quiet strength, just as she does not possess their flinty confidence and brashness.
Louise Banks is an ideal part  – nuanced, powerful, not a sexual object. Yet, it can be challenging for a young, conventionally attractive actress to get such roles. Inexperience is usually the main reason for a younger actress losing a role to someone older; rarely is an industry newcomer more talented than someone who has been honing their craft for a decade or more. Presentation is another factor. Actresses known for being “sexy” often have a hard time casting that reputation aside. (In Amy Adams’ case, that was never part of her personal brand, making the transition out of meat-market roles easier for her.) On top of that, often, the “better” parts are treated as consolation prizes for women who have passed from the ingenue stage to the status of a “mature” woman. Young actresses get roles which put their youth and physical beauty on display, while “older” women, whose aging bodies are not considered as sexually desirable by the culture at large, get the Oscar-buzz characters. Now in her 40s’, Adams qualifies by Hollywood standards.
Adams is not the first actress to experience this phenomenon. Julia Roberts’ career is a prime example. Her roles in Mystic Pizza (Petrie, 1988), Pretty Woman (Marshall, 1990), Notting Hill (Michell, 1999) and Runaway Bride (Marshall, 1999) are all very typical for a beginning actress. Erin Brockovich (Soderbergh, 2000) started to reveal Roberts’ potential beyond the cutesy romantic lead with a big smile. Now she has a varied resume. 

Julia Roberts in Mystic Pizza  (Petrie, 1988), above and Eat, Pray, Love (Murphy, 2010), below

​Drew Barrymore’s early filmography also follows this pattern – looking specifically at Ever After: A Cinderella Story (Tennant, 1998) Never Been Kissed (Gosnell, 1999), both Charlie’s Angels (McG, 2000) and Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle (McG, 2003), 50 First Dates (Segal, 2004), Music and Lyrics (Lawrence, 2007), and even Donnie Darko (Kelly, 2001). Barrymore is also an exception to the rule because she has pulled back from screen acting in recent years and focused more on voice acting and producing. Meg Ryan is another exception. She never got to complete the cycle, and is remembered for her rom-com child-women, even if she has surpassed the bubbly romantic lead in her acting (but some would argue she did that to herself by removing herself from the game.) Julie Miller’s Vanity Fair interview with the actress explores this, citing a previous interview Ryan gave to InStyle magazine where she said the following: “I understood it was a compliment about being lovable…. But it also felt like ideas were being projected onto me that had nothing to do with me. The girl next door to what?” (1). 

Drew Barrymore as Danielle, the protagonist of Ever After (Tennant, 1998)

Meg Ryan, When Harry Met Sally (Reiner, 1989)

​This problem still affects the current generation of starlets. Margot Robbie stands out as a prime example. A string of sex object roles make up her career –  Naomi Lapaglia, Jordan Belfont’s (Leonardo DiCaprio) mistress\wife in The Wolf of Wall Street (Scorsese, 2013), Jess Barrett, Nicky Spurgeon’s (Will Smith) lover\business partner in Focus (Fircarra and Requa, 2015), and Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad (Ayer, 2016) to list a few of the most notable. Jennifer Lawrence embodies a reverse trajectory of the trend, going from more empowered, androgynous characters to more passive, traditionally feminine ones.  Her roles in Winter’s Bone (Granik, 2010) and Silver Linings Playbook (Russell, 2012) – the source of her first Oscar -  starkly contrast her part in another David O. Russell movie: Joy (2015). In Passengers (Tyldum, 2016), she got more press for her character’s intimate moments with Chris Pratt’s character than her actual acting. These examples prove that this is not an individual problem, but an industry trend. 

Margot Robbie in The Wolf of Wall Street (Scorsese, 2013) and Suicide Squad (Ayer, 2016) [below] playing different iterations of the same character archetype

​Let’s return to Amy Adam’s filmography, starting with the beauty pageant mockumentary Drop Dead Gorgeous (Jann, 1999) where Adams plays Lesley Miller, a “dopey cheerleader who shows more skin than sense” (Pulchko 1). Adams carried the legacy of Leslie Miller with her into the 2000s’ when making Enchanted (Lima, 2007), one of Disney’s most popular live-action movies. Adams’ performance drives its success; she embodies the frothy innocence that characterizes most classic Disney princesses. Delysia Lafosse, her character in Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (Nalluri, 2008) has similar characteristics, but serves as a turning point because she reveals a bit of depth – the flaws under the fluff. Intentional or not, the bulk of Adams’ roles since (excepting Leap Year (Tucker, 2010)) draw on that seriousness. Now, she picks up characters who are subdued and vulnerable, but not fragile: women who are feminine, but not girly. Sister James, her character in Doubt (Shanley, 2008) is an ideal example. For those who have not seen the film, Adams plays a young nun working in a Catholic school under the unyielding and cynical Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep). She gets drawn into a conflict between Sister Aloysius and Father Flynn, the parish priest (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and is forced to take sides when neither party has clear evidence against the other. Her character is warm, but guarded, obedient but not subservient, quiet and respectful, but not passive. 

Meryl Streep (left) and Adams (right) in Doubt (Shanley, 2008)

Louise Banks from Arrival is much the same. As Dargis praises Adams’ performance, she spotlights those qualities, saying: “By turns inviting and opaque, Ms. Adams turns softness and quiet into heroic qualities, keeping her voice low and modulated, and using stillness to draw you near” (1). While Hollywood depictions of motherhood are often limiting and bizarre, Adams’ Louise Banks feels genuinely maternal. How apt that she’s a linguist – that it takes a “soft science” to save the world. When Denis Villeneuve called Adams “the soul of Arrival” (Rich 1) he spoke accurately. As Louise Banks, she carries the picture with a casual elegance never seen in her early roles, but that frequently features in her later ones.
Amy Adams’ gradual shift in roles is interesting to study just from the standpoint of tracking her career, but it is also important on a systemic level. So many of the well-loved films for women – Adams’ and others – feature and reward a “typical” portrayal of femininity: bubbly, middle\upper-class, pretty, and white. This latter half of Adams’ career praises the subtleties of femininity without holding women – especially older women – to an unrealistic standard. It’s good for women to be loud and sexy and messy onscreen, in the vein of a Jennifer Lawrence or a Melissa McCarthy, but not all women are capable of all of that all the time. With her recent contributions to film, Adams affirms a more contemplative femininity, one rich with the complexities of being female in multiple times and places.
Works Cited
Dargis, Manohla. “Review: Aliens Drop Anchor in ‘Arrival,’ but What are Their Intentions?” The New York Times  https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/11/movies/arrival-review-amy-adams-jeremy-renner.html?referrer=google_kp Accessed 4 April 2017
Miller, Julie “Meg Ryan is Moving Past Her Movie Star Days, And You Should, Too” Vanity Fair  http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/09/meg-ryan-ithaca-interview  Accessed 4 April 2017
Pulchko, Kristy. “Amy Adams Reveals The Link Between American Hustle and Drop Dead Gorgeous” http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Amy-Adams-Reveals-Link-Between-American-Hustle-Drop-Dead-Gorgeous-40764.html  Accessed 4 April 2017
Rich, Katey. “Why Amy Adams’ Oscar Snub Was So Surprising” Vanity Fair https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/01/amy-adams-arrival-oscars Accessed 14 September 2017

​Ellen (Lily Collins, right) and her step-sister Kelly (Liana Liberato, left) talk after an unsuccessful family therapy session (To the Bone, Noxon, 2017).

by Megan Hess

​Although eating disorders affect millions of people’s lives every year, it is not an experience that is well-represented in film – both in that said films often have inaccuracies or oversimplified portrayals of a complex problem, or just that not very many popular ones exist. In all fairness, making a film about a protagonist with an eating disorder is tricky business. While many people first think of the external, physical component of eating disorders first, they are also largely mental and internal. The warped sense of reality, constant loop of negative self-talk and other thought\behavior patterns characteristic of eating disorders can be more challenging to present on screen in a fresh and authentic way. Another challenge – for films about anorexia more than any other - is the need to balance realism and the actor’s health. Eating disorder films often do the opposite of what they intend by creating “thinspiration” images sufferers use as weight-loss goals. For example, in Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia, Mayra Hornbacher talks about how the TV movie version of Steven Levenkron’s The Best Little Girl in the World “is often shown on eating-disorder units and never fails to bring a great many patients into a tizzy over how skinny the actress (who starved herself to play the part) is and how they need to be as thin as her” (Hornbacher 43). 

Jennifer Jason Leigh in The Best Little Girl in the World (O'Steen, 1981)

​Although I have enjoyed reading both real and fictionalized accounts of eating disorders for many years, To the Bone (Noxon, 2017) was the first eating disorder movie I have ever watched. Like any other form of movie, when done well, they can be powerful. To the Bone follows Ellen (Lily Collins), a 20-year-old with anorexia who goes on a transformative journey by way of a group home with “unconventional” methods. Lily Collins has a sad Basset hound face that goes well with her character’s sense of guilt for her indirect role in a haunting tragedy, which drives her self-hatred. The movie provides broad sweeps of backstory that can be pieced together as factors for her disease, but does not go into her past – or any of the other characters’ - very much. Possibly, that strategy was the creators’ way to avoid creating a “cause-and-effect” narrative – one of the ways To the Bone shows the complexity of the eating disordered experience. Instead of just a house full of young white women – aka, what many people picture when they think of people with eating disorders – the fictional group home in To The Bone has a pregnant bulimic, a black lesbian binge eater, and a male anorexic among the residents. 

Luke (Alex Sharp) and Ellen (Lily Collins) chat (To the Bone, Noxon, 2017)

I thought Luke, the male anorexic character, was an important inclusion, since men now make up 25% of the eating disordered population, according to the National Eating Disorders Association. However, To the Bone made him too much of a focus when they could have been investing screen time into building the relationships between the women in the house. Furthermore, while Alex Sharp - a rising-star Brit known for being the youngest person ever to win the Tony Award for Best Actor in A Play – does an excellent job with his role (I consider his rain dance one of the highlights of To the Bone), the movie smothers the viewer with his character, and there’s an unforgivable twist with his and Ellen’s character arcs. In all, it could use less of Luke and more of Dr. Beckham (Keanu Reeves, who outperforms everyone else in the film). The ending does not provide much closure, but does offer a lot of hope. While I would not recommend it as a first resource to people without much prior knowledge of eating disorders, To the Bone is still an interesting film with strong moments and characters, for all its flaws.
Works Cited
Hornbacher, Marya. Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia. New York: HarperCollins, 1998. Print.