thoughts on Dumplin (spoilers)

Danielle MacDonald stars as Willowdean Dixon, the daughter of former pageant queen and current pageant runner Rosie Dixon (Jennifer Aniston).  Willowdean used to have her aunt Lucy (Hilliary Begley) to help her through pageant season, but Lucy has recently passed away.  Upon discovering an incomplete pageant application among her aunt's things and determining that Lucy must have not thought she would be welcome among the pageant's thin, pretty contestants, Willowdean decides to enter this year's Miss Teen Bluebonnet pageant in protest.  She is joined by her best friend, Ellen (Odeya Rush), who fits right in among the other contestants; Millie (Maddie Baillio), who, like Willowdean, is overweight, but unlike Willowdean, has dreamed of entering the pageant since she was eight; and Hannah (Bex Taylor-Klaus), whose entry in the talent contest initially consists of simply chanting "Down with patriarchy!"  Willowdean somewhat reluctantly befriends Millie and Hannah after she and Ellen have a falling-out ("You're not built for the revolution," Willowdean tells Ellen); she and her mother learn to understand each other better; and she learns that there is more to pageants than meet the eye.  Along the way, she finds a flyer for a Dolly Parton night at a bar called the Hideaway, after which the drag queens she meets there become unofficial pageant coaches for her and her new friends.

One thing I appreciated is that this movie is set in a world where most people are fundamentally decent.  Yes, there are some teen boys who yell nasty things at Willowdean and Millie (Millie mostly grins and bears it; Willowdean gets suspended from school for kneeing a boy in the groin).  Yes, Willowdean and Millie get some "What are you doing here?" looks from some of the pageant organizers and fellow contestants.  However, this is not the world of Glee, where those kids were constantly getting slushees thrown in their faces and having the cheerleading coach plot against them, or of Never Been Kissed, where more than one character has dog food thrown at them by the popular kids.  Here, the frontrunner in the pageant (Dove Cameron) looks exactly how you would expect her to look, and she even has a crush on the same boy that Willowdean does...but she seems nice enough.  In a different/worse teen movie, she would be actively plotting against Willowdean and her friends.  Here, more realistically, she and Willowdean are neither best friends nor enemies.

The parents aren't depicted as being evil, either.  It's fairly clear that winning the Bluebonnet pageant was the high point of Rosie's life, but given that the Bluebonnet pageant is such a big deal in their town, and that Rosie never left either the town or pageant culture, it makes sense that she would view it that way.  Also, though Millie's mother (Kathy Najimy) refuses to sign Millie's permission slip for the pageant and is initially angry when she finds out that Millie forged her signature, it is clear once we meet her that she only did so because she wants to protect her daughter, and she comes around pretty quickly to being supportive.  The looks on both her and Rosie's faces when Millie and Willowdean take the stage are very true to how mothers would react in those moments-- initially nervous on their behalf, then proud.

There are some real moments of joy in this movie.  Some of them involve Millie, who is so earnest and hopeful; whose smile so rarely leaves her face; who is working so hard and wants to do well so badly-- and is genuinely good at virtually every aspect of the pageant.  Others involve Willowdean and Ellen's friendship; they bonded as little girls over their love of Dolly Parton, and one genuinely joyful moment in the film comes when the two of them sing along to "9 to 5" as Willowdean starts to drive out of a parking lot and Ellen jogs alongside the car, holding her hand.  Nearly ALL of the joyful moments, in fact, are set to Dolly Parton music, including a closing scene with the girls and their moms back at Dolly Parton night at the Hideaway, onstage with the drag queens singing "Two Doors Down": "Here I am, feeling everything but sorry. Having a party, two doors down."

In short, it is a good-hearted movie about good people having a life-changing experience, with lots of Dolly Parton on the soundtrack; a feel good movie that goes deeper into the characters' relationships than you might expect.

Let's Talk About The Princess Switch (SPOILERS)

Vanessa Hudgens stars as Stacy De Novo, a Chicago baker who learns within the first few minutes of this movie that she has been selected to compete in a royal baking competition in the fictional Belgravia.  She travels there with her employee and longtime friend, Kevin (Nick Sagar), and his young daughter, Olivia (Alexa Adeosun).  Not long after arriving in Belgravia, she runs into Lady Margaret (also Vanessa Hudgens), who is engaged to Prince Edward (Sam Palladio) and looks exactly like Stacy.  Margaret proposes that they switch lives for a couple of days so that she can have one shot at being a regular person before she marries Prince Edward.  They will switch back in time for the contest.  Stacy agrees, and a lot of cuteness and some mild wackiness ensues.

First of all: "let's switch lives!" movies are my jam.  ("Let's switch lives!" movies are not to be confused with "Let's switch BODIES!" movies, or "Let's GROW UP REAL FAST!" movies, which often involve grown adults being made to act like children while encountering adult situations, and which make me DEEPLY UNCOMFORTABLE.  I will not see Thirteen Going On Thirty even though Jennifer Garner is one of my favorites.)  The Parent Trap is the most obvious example of the "Let's switch lives!" genre; another of my favorites is Big Business, starring Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin as two sets of switched-at-birth twins, one which grew up poor in the country and the other which grew up rich in the city. Closely related are "I have been mistaken for someone else and will just step into their life, which is better than my own" movies; obvious examples are While You Were Sleeping starring Sandra Bullock and Opportunity Knocks starring Dana Carvey.  Those are fun, too, but there is always an uncomfortable part where the person's real identity is revealed and everyone is mad that they've been lied to. 

Anyway, this is a pretty fun example of the "Let's switch lives!" genre, and I actually dig that there's not a lot of backstory and that it just jumps right into things.  It's like, "BOOM! You're in a baking contest!," and then, "BOOM! Here's a duchess that looks just like you!" This movie really could have gone one of two ways, either of which would have been fine.  The first way that it could have gone is that both women could have realized that they missed their own lives and that everything they wanted was right under their noses the whole time. The second way, and the way that it actually DID go, was that both women realized that they were better suited to their new lives than their old ones, and the men in both women's lives like the "new" them better than the "old" them.  Stacy's longtime friend Kevin likes that "Stacy" is suddenly spontaneous and go-with-the-flow.  Prince Edward likes that "Margaret" suddenly cares about the day-to-day affairs of running the kingdom.  (Side note: Prince Edward is REALLY SWEET.  My favorite scene in the whole movie comes when "Margaret" has to attend a royal ball with Edward.  Edward suggests that she play the piano for everyone, and the whole crowd gathers around.  I'm sitting there cringing, thinking that Stacy is going to embarrass herself.  What she does is freeze up.  Edward assumes that it is just stage fright, and he suggests they play "Carol of the Bells" together; her part involves just repeating a few notes and can easily be learned on the spot.  It is maybe the sweetest thing that I have ever seen in my whole life.)

There are a bunch of minor characters that are pretty standard in this type of movie, including Kevin's daughter, Olivia, who of course immediately figures out that "Stacy" is a fake but is into the whole thing; a guardian angel type guy who pops up at all the right moments to help things along; and some employee of Prince Edward's/the royal family's who knows something is up, keeps trying to expose "Margaret," and just keeps being given unpleasant chores to do every time he butts in.  There is Stacy's main competitor at the baking competition, who attempts sabotage that amounts to so little that I don't know why they even included it.  There is also a really fun scene where Stacy, Margaret, Kevin, Edward, and Olivia are all in the same place at the same time, and you're afraid they're all going to run into each other and the whole secret is going to be exposed.  That's actually usually the scene in movies like this where the whole secret IS exposed, but they keep it going for awhile longer here.

I think the reasons movies like this are fun are both because of the "fish out of water" aspect and the low-key stress/suspense of wondering when the secret is going to be exposed.  This one doesn't disappoint. Fine holiday fun.

Thoughts on A Star is Born (spoilers)

Bradley Cooper stars as Jackson Maine, an alcoholic country/rock singer who has been in the spotlight since his teens; he started as a guitarist for his brother (Sam Elliott) and went on to superstardom.  He meets Ally (Lady Gaga) by chance one night when he happens into a drag bar where she performs after her Friday night waitress shift.  It is one of those things where they meet and basically are never apart again.  The first perhaps half hour of the movie consists of their first twenty-four hours together, in which they meet, drink, and talk songwriting all night. This leads to her blowing off a waitress shift to join him at a concert, where he unexpectedly pulls her onstage to join him in a duet.  From there, it is a whirlwind: she joins him on tour and is offered a solo record contract; her career and their relationship progress as his addiction spirals out of control.

There is a lot to like about this movie; their duet "Shallow" is a showstopper, and the rest of the soundtrack is solid, particularly "Always Remember Us This Way," which Ally performs solo on the piano.  Gaga turns in a consistently strong performance.  Cooper speaks in a mumbly, "grizzled" voice that is hard to decipher at times, and it's problematic that so much of the movie, particularly following the couple's first couple of days together, is told from Jack's perspective.  Jack has a problem with the makeover she receives after getting her record deal, and with her new, poppier sound; while some of the songs we see are, perhaps, a little silly, she isn't really doing anything wrong-- his problems seem to come at least partly between a preference for a country/rock style and look vs. a pop style and look, and since we see most of these parts of the movie from his perspective, this preference is presented as somehow "better."  He also has a talent for expressing his opinions at times that make it hard to believe that he isn't at least partly driven by jealousy and resentment, such as when she is first offered a record deal and when she receives news of her first Grammy nomination.  The pacing is also a bit off, with so much of the movie taking place in their first couple of days together and then speeding quickly through their tour together and the progression of her career.  Regardless, the movie doesn't feel overly long despite its two hour and seventeen minute run time; Gaga and Cooper have great chemistry; and both characters are compelling to watch even when it is clear that Jack is going nowhere good fast.

Let's Talk About A Quiet Place (SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS!)

A Quiet Place takes place in a post-apocalyptic future where the few humans left spend their days trying to not make any noise for fear of being attacked by creatures that can't see, but that will appear as if out of nowhere if you make the smallest sound.  The film focuses on one particular family that appears to have been better-equipped to survive than most, given that their daughter is deaf and they are able to communicate by sign language.  They also live in the country and have a garden and appear to can their own vegetables, plus they live within walking distance of a river where they can fish.  We meet the family less than ninety days after the apocalypse, when their youngest child is killed tragically.  Flash forward more than a year later; the mother is very pregnant, and the family struggles to survive while dealing with the loss of their youngest member and preparing for the birth of their newborn.  The movie follows them through the next few fateful days.

There is plenty to like about the movie, particularly how tight the storytelling was; more than one friend remarked to me afterward that it seemed like it only lasted thirty minutes even though it was ninety-five minutes long.  I also liked the tight focus on just ONE family, rather than the filmmakers trying to let us in on what's going on in the world or the United States as a whole (we see some newspaper clippings, but that's about it).  The thing that compelled me to write about it when I haven't updated this blog in almost a year, though, are the issues that stuck with me afterwards, particularly...

...the fact that I went back and forth between being impressed by the parents' (played by John Krasinski and Emily Blunt) survival skills and generally thinking they should be keeping a better eye on their kids.  Their younger son dies when they are walking back home from a pharmacy, where they have gone to get medicine for their older son.  The sound that makes the creature attack is a toy rocketship that his father told him he couldn't have, but that his older sister gave him anyway.  It was stupid of his sister to give it to him, but she's just a kid, and trying to make him happy under pretty horrific circumstances.  What bothered me is that the family was walking in a straight line, with the father at the front of the group carrying the sick child; the mother walking slightly behind; the sister behind her; and the youngest child bringing up the rear.  Now, this kid appears to be maybe three or four.  Who really lets a kid that age dawdle at the back of the group even when there ISN'T a predator willing to pounce at a moment's notice?  If the dad was going to lead the way, shouldn't the mom have been following everyone to keep an eye on the kids?  Later in the movie, the daughter goes off after her dad and brother leave on a fishing trip without her.  HER MOM DOESN'T NOTICE SHE'S MISSING FOR HOURS.  Granted, the mom eventually goes into labor, so that explains part of it, but it really seems like under these circumstances you would know where your kids are at ALL times. 

While all of this bothered me, I think it's fairly realistic to expect that anyone would make some mistakes and that life would sort of just go on under these circumstances.  Occasionally, someone would give a kid something they're not supposed to have.  Occasionally, a family member would lag behind the group or go off by themselves and the rest of the family wouldn't immediately notice.  The difference is that the stakes are so heightened here that small mistakes can have huge consequences, and it's easy to sit on the sidelines and point out what everyone's doing wrong, when I'm not sure how you could even live in constant fear like that.

...the mother's pregnancy. (IMDB tells me her name is Evelyn; I don't recall her ever being called by name).  We catch up with the family fairly late in the pregnancy, when they are preparing by soundproofing a cellar/basement room for the baby.  Can you even imagine the conversations that must have taken place when they realized Evelyn was pregnant?  Obviously, you can't make a baby be quiet. What options must they have considered before they got around to soundproofing?  How do you try to keep yourselves and the kids you already have safe while preparing for an addition to the family that is going to make doing so much more difficult?  It's an incredibly uncomfortable thing to think about.

I really liked the movie as a whole.  It says something that I'm still thinking about it a day later, and says more that a ninety-minute thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat the whole time can also sit with you so heavily.