Film and Television Reviews

The Life of Chuck (in theaters)

I generally go to movies by myself, so I was glad that my sister was in town when I went to see this film. We generally share the same taste in movies, so when we walked out of the theater and I was thinking about how much I hated this movie, I was very surprise when she said “I liked it!” We had some discussion about it, and I wouldn’t say she changed my mind, but she at least gave me a couple of things to think about.

There have been a lot of great films based on Stephen King stories, including Stand by Me (my personal favorite), The Shining, Shawshank Redemption, Misery, and Dolores Claiborne, the most underrated, also starring Kathy Bates. Whatever you think about King’s writing, and I don’t have an opinion because I’ve never read any of his books, but the man is the Paul McCartney of storytelling, seemingly never running out of ideas. And the premise for this one is great. It’s based on a single phrase from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, that being “I am large; I contain multitudes.”

One of the more fascinating parts of this film is that we don’t really see the main character, Chuck, played by Tom Hiddleston, until the second act, except in a very strange and mysterious ad campaign that even the other characters in the movie don’t understand. So by the time we finally meet Chuck, we are already a little baffled by his story. But we soon learn that he is an accountant, and that he once had a passion for dancing that becomes reawakened one day when he encounters a young woman playing drums on the street.

I don’t want to give any more than that away, but to me this was a film that had the potential to be something really interesting, but it was ruined by three things. The first is the narration. I’m not opposed to having narrators in films, and Stand by Me is probably one of the best at utilizing that tool. But in this case, the narrator is so invasive that I just wanted him to shut up after about the first half hour of the film. And I love Nick Offerman, who serves as the narrator. But this story would stand very well on its own without having someone explain every character and their circumstances. It was too much.

The second thing was that there are several instances in this film where a character delivers a long speech about the meaning of life, usually to a kid. Nobody talks like this in real life, and no kid sits and listens with the intensity that the kids in this film showed, so that was annoying.

And the third thing, and it’s interesting how often this has come up in recent film reviews, is the casting of the kid who plays the young Chuck. I always say that if you’re going to make a film that revolves around a kid, the casting is absolutely key to the success of the film, and this is a classic example of that. Benjamin Pajek, who was probably chosen in large part because he bears a slight resemblance to Hiddleston is an okay actor. And he’s also an okay dancer. But the dance scenes are crucial to this story, so they needed to pick someone who really nailed those scenes, and he’s just not that kid. So as you can probably tell, I came away disappointed about what might have been. But my sister liked it, so there you go.

Two and a half fortune cookies

Patience (Masterpiece, Amazon Prime)

There have been some interesting series that center around a character that is on the spectrum (Monk comes to mind), and this is another, where a young woman named Patience, who works in the records department at her local police station, subtly comes forward with information that becomes helpful to one of the detectives. This series has the predictable responses from the supervisors, questioning why people are listening to this young woman who has no training, and the predictable scenes where the detective she is helping has to advocate for her. But Ella Maisy Pervis, who plays Patience, does a very nice job of capturing her social awkwardness, as well as what it means to her to be able to contribute to society by using her gifts to help with these crimes.

There are also some interesting storylines, including one where a man who seems to be fairly stable inexplicably lights himself on fire in the middle of the street one day, after withdrawing a large sum of money from his bank account. All in all, an engaging series.

Four and a half fortune cookies

Safe House (AMC, Sundance)

I will give almost everything Christopher Eccleston appears in a try, so I was glad I started watching this one, where he plays a former cop who had to quit the force because of a tragic event that caused the death of someone close to him.

But Robert is bored not having anything to do, so when of his former cop friends approaches him and his wife Katy about turning their house into a safe house, they agree to do so, taking in a family that has just gone through the attempted abduction of their young son. The story becomes complicated as various theories come forward about why the man suspected of the abduction would want to harm this family, and of course Eccleston’s past becomes part of the storyline. There’s nothing particularly original about the story or the script in this one, but it’s well done, and the supporting cast is solid.

Four fortune cookies

House of Promises (Masterpiece)

This series, which takes place in Berlin in the 1920s, reminded me a lot of a German series that I really loved called Babylon Berlin. The story explores one of the more turbulent and carefree periods of that city’s storied history. And the story centers around Vicky Maler, a young woman who ventures into the city to find one of her best friends only to lose the young woman to suicide just after her arrival. She is also robbed of all her possessions as soon as she steps off the train.

Vicky manages to procure a job at a soon-to-be-opening department store, but as the excitement builds for this new adventure, the audience knows that the funding for this new business is coming from a questionable source, so what seems to be a life-saving opportunity has the potential of crashing any moment.

There are some delicious supporting characters in this series, including Alexander Scheer, who plays the owner of the department store. He strips off his shirt the first time we see him, in a scene where he is trying to convince the bank to finance the project. He is convinced that showing them his war scars will seal the deal. I’ll let you find out for yourself whether it works or not.

Four fortune cookies

Secret Smile (Amazon Prime, Roku)’

Another British actor that always draws me to whatever he stars in is David Tenant, and in this short series, a very young Tenant plays Brendan Block, a very creepy young man who has a brief affair with Miranda Cotton (played by Kate Ashfield). Miranda dumps Brendan after he reads her diary and then taunts her about it. But she’s horrified to learn soon afterward that Brendan has hooked up with her sister Marcia, who falls deeply in love with him. There are just way too many moments in this series where it would make all the sense in the world for Miranda to put a stop to the events including the moment when Brendan and Marcia convince Miranda to allow them to move in with her until they can find a place for themselves. Plus as charming as Tenant can be as an actor, this character just says stuff that is really creepy, all the time, so it becomes pretty difficult to believe that nobody else in the family sees what’s really going on here.

One fortune cookie