At the Movies

Review: The patina of 'Doubt'

A tall and stern-looking nun, dressed all in black, stealthily moves up and down the aisles, searching out and disciplining talkative teenagers who stiffen up like starched shirts, resuming the postures of obedience that Sister Aloysius demands.

By Anne Kirby

In the film "Doubt," actors Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffmann, who play the parts of a nun and priest, square off against one another in a battle for the truth that pits certainty against ambiguity and sends one of the two fleeing for cover.

Adapted from John Patrick Shanley's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, the film owes its success to Shanley's talent as a sensitive writer and perceptive director.

Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffmann in "Doubt"

His understanding of the subtleties of deceit has resulted in a dramatic, suspenseful, on-the-edge film that provides insight into a cunning power struggle the likes of which has not been seen since director Steven Zaillian's 1998 film, "A Civil Action".

"Doubt" takes us back to the year 1964 to a small and protected Roman Catholic parish in the Bronx in New York City. Here the St. Nicholas parishoners entrust their souls to the care of Father Flynn (Hoffmann) and their children to the disciplined care of the good nuns who teach in the parish school, which is headed up by a feisty principal, named Sister Aloyisius (Streep).

In the film's opening scene, the towering figure of Father Flynn looms high over his congregation. As he stands high in the pulpit, wearing the colorful vestments of a priest, his arms are outstretched, embracing his parishioners in thoughts about "doubt"  which is his topic of choice for a weekly sermon.

             See the movie trailer for "Doubt"

At the same time, a tall and stern-looking nun, dressed in black, stealthily moves up and down the church aisles, seeking to  discipline talkative teenagers who, at the very sight of the nun, stiffen up like starched shirts to resume the posture of obedience that Sister Aloysius demands.

Later that evening, Sister Aloysius sits down to dinner with a small group of fellow sisters.  Belonging to the same sacred order as Sister ALouisius, these hardworking nuns' lives are center upon the parish school where they teach.   The group is unusualy solemn and no one dares speak without a signal from her. It's easy to discern who's in charge here at the table and elsewhere.

Addressing the topic of Father Flynn's sermon, in which he compared doubt to faith - inferring that both have an equal and unifying effect upon Catholics - Sister Aloysius concludes her discussion telling the nuns that something is amiss with the priest's character.

In her learned, religious mind faith precludes doubt, whereas doubt is indicative of one's failure to grasp and hold firmly to faith in God.

"Doubt" is a cathartic and important film that reconfirms the values of faith, goodness, truth and the power of redemption that results when honesty and truth are unwaveringly faced instead of being hidden behind tightly wound veils of doubt.

Blessed with a moral stamina that supercedes doubt, Sister Aloysius adamantly warns the nuns to be on the lookout for behaviors that would prove her suspicions of Father Flynn correct.

Shortly afterward, the parish's youngest nun, Sister James (Amy Adams), presents Sister Aloysius with the information she is seeking.

Having received a message from Father Flynn requesting that Sister James send her student, Donald Miller (Joseph Foster) to him at the church rectory, she obeys.

Donald is an altar boy who was appointed by Father Flynn.  The boy also represents the 1960s decade of school desegregation in the United States: he is the parish school's first black student.

Upon the boy's return to class, Sister James senses he is disturbed. She further discovers that Donald has the distinct smell of wine on his breath.

Once informed, Sister Aloysius runs with the evidence that Sister James has provided her.  She wastes no time and accepts no excuses in a preliminary discussion with Father Flynn where he defends himself casting blame on the young student, telling her that Donald Miller had stolen the wine from the church.

Through a false mask of sympathy for the boy, Father Flynn goes on to say that he is concealing his errant behavior in order to protect him from losing his revered position as a parish altar boy.

Playing the hero, Father Flynn tells Sister Aloysius that things would be best for all if he and the boy were left to resolve the problem, together.

But Sister Aloysius is not easily swayed. She is a stern nun and even sterner disciplinarian whose experience sets her up as an enlightened judge and shepherding protector of her students. As the school principal, it is she who  must discern the truth and  protect Donald Miller from Father Flynn.

Soon afterward, while teaching dance to a group of young students in the church basement, Sister James inadvertently views Father Flynn placing an undershirt into the boy's church locker.

Once alerted, Sister Aloysius engages Father Flynn in another discussion where she questions him about the suspicious undershirt which turns out to have belonged to Donald. Placing the priest on her symbolic stand, in her office, she becomes judge and jury to one of the most outstanding, mock courtroom dramas I have ever witnessed on the screen.

Redeemed by an unflinching belief in a higher moral order, Sister Aloysius picks up the gavel and bears down hard on the recalcitrant priest. Not knowing for certain how high the deck is stacked against him, Father Flynn odiously vies with the sister in a poker game where he attempts to one-up her, playing the trump card as a  higher ranking parish official.

In the midst of a heated argument -- and a scene that goes on for at least 10 minutes -- Father Flynn awkwardly and somewhat obsesssively stops all communication,  walks over to Sister Aloysius's desk and begins to write down notes. When asked to explain his arrogance, he blurts out the word "intolerance" to which he then adds in, as if pontificating,  that this is the subject he's chosen for his next sermon.

Startled and fed up by his antics, Sister Aloysius moves into  battle mode positioning herself against the priest's hierarchic stance as she presents a de facto argument that's so intensely delivered it would beat out the slickest criminal lawyer in Washington, DC.

Ironically, throughout the film, Sister Aloysius propheticaly repeats the refrain  "when man is doing God's work on earth, God steps out of the way."   In the end these words ring true for Sister Aloysius, who goes out on a limb with her well contrived and condemning accusation which sends the priest packing in fear of  the retribution of the guilt and the shame he knows awaits him.

Although Sister Aloysius rids the church of an suspected pederast, in her heart she realizes the pain that power carries.

"Doubt" is a cathartic and important film that reconfirms the values of faith, goodness, truth and the power of redemption that results when honesty and truth are unwaveringly faced instead of being hidden behind tightly wound veils of doubt.

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'Gran Torino,' 'The Visitor' share themes of male loneliness, redemption

Two Walts comes to grips with their lives by Anne M. Kirby

Walt Kowalski, played by Clint Eastwood, becomes a reluctant protector of Hmong immigrants in "Gran Torino."

Eastwood, Jenkins shine in their roles

By Anne Kirby

I remember my amazement when I discovered that the Incan and Egyptian pyramids were simultaneously constructed within one century.  Without cross-cultural communication, without blueprints and, without knowing whether or not other cultures even existed, these architectural wonders owe their existence to a common knowlededge -- a mathematical genius -- that enables them to flourish as strong edifices thousands of years later.

Released within six short months of each other, both films mirror each other through a common theme of male loneliness, helplessness and the ensuing isolation that results when both films' male leads become widowed.

Arising out of a collective conscience that   spreads information, perhaps telepathically like wind,  the seeds of its fruit carry the genius of  knowledge -- which  graces humanity with an unconscious and intuitive, collective awareness  --  enabling cultural evolution through discoveries and events that protect and guide mankind when we need it the most.

Such is the case with the two look-alike films, "Gran Torino," directed by Clint Eastwood and "The Visitor" directed by Thomas McCarthy.

Released within six short months of each other, both films mirror each other through a common theme of male loneliness, helplessness and the ensuing isolation that results when each of  the male leads becomes widowed.

Is the universe trying to tell us something through this coincidence?  I think perhaps yes - especially after  discovering an even odder commonality which is that each of the two lead roles share the same, first name -- Walt.  Coincidental collective conscience?  Let's see.

In "Gran Torino," Walt Kowalski (Eastwood) plays a cranky old, retired Detroit auto worker and Korean War veteran who spends his days sitting on his front porch, like an on-duty security guard, aggressively protecting his property from his unwelcome Third World neighbors.

Walt believes they are the reason why his good old middle-class neighborhood is becoming more like the hoods in Los Angeles, replete with gangs of immigrants who prowl covertly around in small vehicles with large boom boxes blasting.

Guzzling beers, rifle at the ready

Guzzling beers, with his yellow Labrador retriever by his side and a rifle just inside his front door, Walt communicates with his neighbors through sneering looks and hissing racial epithets that he mutters underneath his breath. The neighbors he offends the most are Laotian refuges - members of the Hmong tribe - who ironically served as American allies in the Vietnam War.

Between visits to his one friend, a local barber, with whom Walt comically spars in a game of verbal jousting that reinforces their macho egos, Walt polishes his perfect, hand-assembled Ford Gran Torino that sits in his garage like a prized museum piece.

Filled with overcrowding war memories, Walt Kowalski has no need for his two sons and a selfish granddaughter, all of whom he views as self-centered. Basically, Walt is happier being alone with his tough-guy, ex-soldier façade that canonizes his loneliness, yet keeps him ticking.

For Walt, the car symbolizes better times and his gratifying, post-Korean War life that was marked by a happy marriage to a woman whom Walt describes as the "best woman that ever lived."

Filled with overcrowding war memories, Walt finds no need for his two sons and a selfish granddaughter, whom he views as self-centered, wastes of time.  Basically, Walt is happier alone with his tough-guy, ex-soldier façade that canonizes his loneliness, yet keeps him unabashedly ticking.

A few hundred miles to the east in Connecticut, we meet Detroit Walt's  emotional counterpart.  Sharing the same first name, he plays the lead role in the "The Visitor" as a professor named Walt Vale (Richard Jenkins.) Widowed, miserable and stalled at the same emotional crossroad as Detroit Walt, Professor Vale is introverted, cerebral, gentlemanly and quietly passive-aggressive - the complete opposite of the crankier "Gran Torino" Walt.

A professor going through the motions

Professor Vale is in his early 60's. Bored by the routine of teaching in a local college, he goes through the daily motions of teaching and writing a make-believe book that he uses as the excuse to escape his classroom duties. When confronted by a student seeking reprieve for a late term paper, on the grounds of "personal problems," Walt mechanically denies the student's request without explanation.

At home, Professor Walt lives a reclusive life. With the exception of his son, who lives in London, he has no close relationships.

Behind closed doors, we see Professor Walt attempting to jumpstart his life through piano lessons using his deceased concert pianist wife's piano, which symbolizes their happier times together.

Both Walts have no idea of the effect their loneliness has on them and others who get in the way. More significantly, they have no close friends with whom they can confide intimate and emotional thoughts.

The lessons do little more than exacerbate his pain and frustrate his musically inclined goal of revival. When he finally realizes he has no talent, he unleashes his smoldering aggression upon his innocent piano teacher, with pertly drawn, sealed lips that dismissively reject and devastate her with the force of a grenade.

Both Walts have no idea of the effect their loneliness has on them and others who get in the way. More significantly, they have no close friends with whom they can confide intimate and emotional thoughts.

Given their despair and embittered loneliness, one questions whether or not they have any emotional development or the strategic knowledge of how to overcome what they endure.

And this is the point of the films' theme - just how does one transcend feelings without the knowledge and wisdom of helping friends? It is safe to say that both of their emotional lives died with their wives.

Encounters with immigrants change their lives

Fire fights fire. What transpires for the Walts in "Gran Torino" and "The Visitor" is a bit of luck and a dash of divine justice that positions the two men in close proximity with immigrant families facing their own kind of emotional problems of deportation, physical harassment and a displacement in a foreign culture that makes their very survival a life-threatening process.

For Detroit Walt, this occurs when he comes to the rescue of his Hmong neighbors who need his protection when they are victimized by a menacing gang of indolent, tough guys who carry guns.

As for Professor Walt, his immigrant relationship begins when he returns, after many years, to his New York City apartment, where he discovers a young immigrant couple living there after having been exploited by a greedy and scamming landlord who takes advantage of the empty apartment.

In both cases, the two Walts eventually develop close relationships that develop out of their respect and empathy for the innocent and victimized immigrants who openly share musical talents, food, and their time with them.

In both cases, the two Walts eventually develop close relationships that develop out of their respect and empathy for the innocent and victimized immigrants who openly share musical talents, food, and their time with them. In return, each Walt becomes, once again, energized and alive while providing the foreigners with protection and the help they need to navigate through American life, its legal rights, socioeconomic mores and institutions.

The immigrants provide both Walts with the insight they themselves are unable attain to move their lives beyond the negative emotions their wives' deaths have caused.   Similarly displaced,  the immigrants -- through their shared humanity -- provide the misguided Walts with a powerful message that defines their new roles in life as people embracing their common humanity.

Although there are no fairy tale endings to these two, sobering films, each of the men becomes unshackled from the emotional bondage that prevented them from claiming the destinies that lie ahead of them.

And as for the mental telepathy and collective conscience phenomena, I believe each of the films reinforces a timely message that signifies a more humanistic era about to form before our very eyes --  if we choose to see it. 

Walt Vale, left, played by Richard Jenkins, gets an impromptu drum lesson from his immigrant friend Tarek, played by Haaz Sleiman, in "The Visitor."

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'Revolutionary Road': Awash in dry martinis and 1950s despair

Sam Mendes film captures a marriage falling apart

The love and passion of the marriage of Frank and April Wheeler, played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, isn't enough to overcome the trap of their Fifties suburban existence in "Revolutionary Road."

Suburban limbo little defense against 'hopeless emptiness' of Fifties life

By Anne Kirby

Wedged between two intense decades - the 1940s where Americans united to fight World War II, and the 1960s where a liberal elasticity expressed itself through men and women who reshaped American ideals of religion and marriage through progressive concepts of birth control, gay rights, and personal fulfillment - the 1950's decade was the un-intensive middle ground.

In his film "Revolutionary Road," Sam Mendes brings us back to the Fifties through a psychological and introspective looking glass. His film probes the lives of a young American couple as they navigate through the emotional waters of conformity and moral suppression which they know is shackling many Americans to the bedrock of uniformity.

Stagnation resulted from America's fear of communism and its post-war craving for security, which flourished under the veil of conformity.

Nothing expressed this conservative ethos more than the temporary limbos of the American suburbs, where people's emotions and imaginations were trapped as they subjugated themselves to gods of denial, rationalization and moral judgment.

These three oppressions condensed the American spirit into a one-size-fits-all mentality and a convenient demographic that fed American corporate growth.

In his film "Revolutionary Road," Sam Mendes brings us back to the Fifties through a psychological and introspective looking glass. His film probes the lives of a young American couple as they navigate through the emotional waters of conformity and moral suppression which they know is shackling many Americans to the bedrock of uniformity.

Mendes's film is based upon the novel Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates.

Viewing the Fifties as a time when America's revolutionary spirit of open-minded, individualized thinking was non-existent, if not altogether dead, Yates anxiously felt the paradoxical inconsistencies that made this decade stand out in stark contrast to former, livelier, decades.

Marriage begins with high hopes

April Wheeler, played by Kate Winslet, married Frank Wheeler (Leonardo DiCaprio) for two reasons - he made her laugh and more importantly, he possessed an emotional honesty that endeared him to her. Frank was different and he stood out, like herself, as a special individual who had an unusual spark of originality.

On the day that Frank confessed to April that what he really wanted in life more than anything else was "... to feel things, really feel things" their destiny and marriage were signed and sealed.
But what the marriage delivers is the stuff that makes Mendes' film significant, if not enjoyable.

Through simple, whitewashed settings, we view the more complex 1950s through the Wheelers' eroding marriage. Their hopes and dreams grew out of the false visions and fanatic premises that were shared by an entire generation of couples who bought into a postwar convention of abandoning the city to raise their kids in picture-perfect suburbs of New York and Connecticut.

For a time, life is good for the Wheelers. They settle into a comfortable Westchester County suburban home, decorated in a cool and palliative 1950s modern, and produce two perfectly healthy, blond-haired, blue-eyed children along the way.

April establishes herself in a local community acting troupe while Frank joins the ranks of the gray-suited men who ride the commuter rails into corporate city jobs where they sip dry martinis at lunch and indulge their libidos upon a pool of demure and sultry secretaries who fuss over them and their offices.

At night, this same army of gray soldiers travels back to the suburbs where they enjoy their wives and children who anxiously await them.

For women as intuitive and strong-minded as April Wheeler, the Fifties provided few channels for self-fulfillment and fewer outlets for intrinsic happiness.

Through good looks and visible displays of bohemian finesse, the Wheelers acquire the neighborhood status as "perfect couple."

It is this is type of stereotypical labeling that defines what Yates saw as the collective, conformist mentality of the 1950s generation, where people willingly submitted themselves to iconic and symbolic concepts such as perfect home, perfect couple and perfect life.

Paradoxically, it brings about an imperfect and oppressive existence of conformity, denial and suppressed emotions that were regularly tuned up by cocktail parties, martinis and office flings.

For women as intuitive and strong-minded as April, the Fifties provided few channels for self-fulfillment and fewer outlets for intrinsic happiness.

Tension fills the Wheelers' relationship

Roles were great if you could get them. And when April's acting group suddenly disbands - on the basis of failing reviews and the jealously of her unsupportive, community peers - she is transformed into a deep abyss of self-absorption that is magnified by her aloof and smoldering anger towards Frank.

Through earnest attempts to revive her spirits, Frank is unable to reach her and an overwhelming tension soon dominates the space between them.

Shortly afterward, April takes her first step into conformity when she meticulously resurfaces to face her domestic duties, which appear to be just a bit too meticulous and robotic in her effect.

Acting as if nothing has transpired, it is subtely, yet patently clear that April is losing some of  her spring-like spontaneity.  Slowly withering,  through feelings of despair and loneliness, April is alone and without emotional support.  Though she feels betrayed by life, she becomes possessed with  fantasises as she perceives reality as her prison and the enemy she must defeat. 

 And while Frank is going through fears of his own - working a routine and monotonous job at the same company where, coincidentally, his Dad spent his life behind a desk awaiting a possible promotion - his inability to embrace  April drives him into a lunchtime affair that develops after he cajoles a sweet, young secretary into bed with the help of dry martinis.

In a genuine attempt to improve her family's life,  April and her two children plan a a typical surprise birthday party for Frank.  Meeting him at the front door, the party is more like a gult trip for Frank who arrives home late after spending  a long afternoon romancing a sweet, young secretary.

Unable to put words to feelings, the couple's emotions smolder behind frustrated facades and  the truths of their life which they sense yet cannot quite reach nor understand.  Unable to cope, April and Frank are ceremoniously locked out of each other's lives.

Frank's  feelings are sublimated when he is enticed into believing that his boss is about to reward him for one of his innovative "inventory delivery' ideas through hints of a promising promotion.

A plan to escape to Paris

Knowing this April's fears rise as she senses that Frank is selling out on his promise to go through with her well-intentioned, yet flawed, plan to leave his job and move to Paris.  Here,  April plans to support the family so that Frank can find himself anew in the bohemian streets of Paris.

Over dry martinis with a neighborhood couple, the Wheelers share their excitement about their proprosed, plan of escape.  Through their shocked disbelief  it is clear that the Wheelers have assaulted the very core of the couple's life.  It is as if the Wheelers deliberately foisted a jigsaw puzzle piece upon them which they, the couple, could not possibly fit into their closed-minded, nicely packaged puzzle of suburban perfection.

In an Oscar-nominated performance, Michael Shannon plays John Givings, the outspoken, manic-depressive son of the Wheelers' real estate agent. Givings obsessively, and inconveniently, describes the dangerous realities that everyone around him is trying to ignore.

In a series of sobering scenes, April and Frank meet the mentally ill, "certified" son of their overbearing real estate agent. In an Oscar-nominated performance, Michael Shannon plays John Givings, the outspoken, manic-depressive son of the agent (precisely played by Katherine Bates) who obsessively, and inconveniently, describes the dangerous realities that everyone around him is trying to ignore.

The victimized son of a dominating mother, he is the Greek chorus who confirms April and Frank's greatest fears through his oracle of "hopeless emptiness."

Desperate and unable to bury her emotions any longer, April becomes completely devastated when she discovers that she is pregnant.

Her plan to end the pregnancy and revive her plan of  living abroad is countered when Frank discovers her intentions.  April retreats deep inside herself once more.  Like a transfixed zombie, her emotional denial is symbolized through a ritualized act of meticulous domesticity - a drug that makes her flat-line and devoid of all feeling. 

April's inability to separate her fantasies of life from the 1950s reality she faces leaves her hopeless.  All she sees ahead is the "emptiness" of John Givings recent message.

In the end April selfishly, yet unknowingly, defers to the only choice she sees  is left her.  As she follows though on this, her final plan,  April pardoxically proves what she knew along -- she must, at all costs,  live the life she wants rather than the lie she sees in Fifties reality.

A conversation with an intelligent yet mentally ill man in the woods outside their suburban home brings home hard truths to the Wheelers.

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Defiance: A fascinating World War II story, a not-so-fascinating film

Movie directed by Edward Zwick falls well short of its potential

by Anne Kirby

Daniel Craig, center, plays Tuvia Bielski, who becomes the leader of an unlikely Jewish resistance movement against the Nazis as portrayed in the movie "Defiance."

By Anne Kirby

Defiance" is a World War II film directed by Edward Zwick, whose previous work includes "Glory," "Legends of the Fall" and "Blood Diamond." The movie is set in the eastern region of Poland (now known as Belarus), an area invaded by German soldiers in 1941 who occupied the land for years.

A story with this kind of power, drama and leadership has the makings of an spectacular epic film. "Defiance," however, disappointingly falls short of its potential.

The film is adapted from Nechama Tec's 1993 book, Defiance: The Bielski Partisans. Tec's true story describes the Jewish Resistance movement that was started by four Polish brothers, the Bielskis.

Retreating into the woods, these men became guerillas who opposed the German occupation of their land and saved more than a thousand Jewish people from certain death at the hands of Nazi soldiers.

The Bielski Resistance is a strong and dramatic survival story. The Jews sacrificed and suffered as they faced sickness, starvation, constant hiding, and extremes of weather while moving from camp to camp to avoid German attacks.

A story with this kind of power, drama and leadership has the makings of a spectacular epic film. "Defiance," however, disappointingly falls short of its potential.

Zwick takes the wrong approach

Instead of lighting a bonfire of a film with a torch, Zwick rubbed sticks together. His resulting film is good, but could have been so much better.

Zwick mistakenly confronts the Bielski Resistance story head-on and like a documentary. Without the sort of imagination and character development the film needed to reach emotional high notes, Zwick controlled the film with the painstaking discipline of an elementary school nun.

The focal point of the film is the relationship between the two older Bielski brothers, Tuvia (Daniel Craig) and Zus (Liev Schreiber.) The younger brothers Azael (Jamie Bell) and Aron (George MacKay) have minor supporting roles.

After the brutal slayings of their parents, Zus and Tuvia leave their wives and homes behind as they seek revenge on the local police chief who, under orders from Nazi soldiers, killed their parents.

Descendants number in thousands

In the final film credits, we discover that these same refugees built managed to organize another resistance settlement that not only contained living quarters but a hospital as well.
During their total three years of survival, records state that only 50 of their people were lost.All told some 1,200 Jews survived and today their offspring is 10,000 people strong.
This is an amazing tribute to the people who together survived the Nazi invasion through their mind, spirit and faith through one of the largest recorded Jewish Resistance groups in World War II.

With raw and animal-like instincts, the brothers also set out with a vengeance to slay Nazi soldiers.

Retreating into a makeshift hide-out in the forest, the men begin rebuilding their lives. They survive through raiding farms while procuring guns, ammunition, liquor and cigarettes from the bodies of dead Nazi soldiers whom they track and kill.

At first the Bieslki resistance is loosely organized through the efforts of hard-working local Jewish intelligentsia and refugees whose offensive tactics consist of surprise raids on Nazi soldiers.

As the Bielski resistance grows, the brothers seek defensive tactics through their decision to make alliances with nearby Russian partisans.

As word about the Bielski Resistance spreads, hundreds of bewildered Jews wander into the crowded camp seeking shelter, sustenance and protection.

With the ongoing growth, tension begins to rise between Zus and Tuvia. They become rivals who bicker over whether or not to continue the immense responsibilities of feeding and sheltering a growing refuge population while managing a resistance movement.

In an emotionally jarring scene, reminiscent of the angry, biblical fight between Cain and Abel,  Zus and Tuvia viciously clash, attacking one another, in a power struggle that the refugees witness.

Tuvia falls seconds short of killing Zus with a rock, and the two disperse. Tuvia becomes the people's choice and reluctant leader, while Zus decamps to join the Soviet Army unit also operating behind German lines.

Tuvia begins to organize the camp into a larger settlement, but soon becomes frustrated and confused over his leadership, when he discovers that the refugees in camp view him either as a modern-day Moses or a overpowering tyrant.

Zus departs, plot weakens

Without the edifying strength and comraderie of Zus, whose performance provides substance, structure and balance,  the film is soon upstaged by Tuvia.

As a leader, Tuvia comes off as strong and decisive. But, he also comes off stereotypically with a James Bond kind of heroic resilience where he becomes unbridled, intensely romantic and charming, oozing a palpable sensuality that is enhanced by his rugged leather jacket overlain with a shouldered rifle. The performance steals the show.

This positioning of Tuvia transforms the film's story. The plot begins to weaken, loosing some of  its momentum. Known to use Hollywood theatrics, Zwick counters the loss of Zus throwing in a series of vignettes, like random ingredients in a gourmet recipe. They serve little purpose other than to compromise the film's integrity.

Zwick counters the loss of Zus by throwing in a series of vignettes, like random ingredients in a recipe. They serve little purpose other than to compromise the film's integrity.

Rather than portray poignant, day-to-day scenes with contextual information from real-life characters with emotions, interests, values, and the backgrounds of Jews from all walks of life, Zwick intersperses groups of refuges who appear to be more fascinated with incoming lines of refuges, soup, morsels of bread or the antics of a stupid bully taunting other Jews, rather than their own idiosyncratic struggles to survive uncertain futures.

And with typical Hollywod flair and sentimentality, Tuvia all too coincidentally wins the heart of the camp's most beautiful female offering.

Amidst the flair there is, however, a touching scene where Tuvia and his lover, played by Alexa Davalos, romantically embrace, wrapped warmly in a cocoon of blankets and animal skins. 

Ironically this is one of the few scenes where Zwick takes us inside a camp hut to witness any kind of individual or family interaction such as Tuvia and his "forest-wife" who share love as protection and escape.

Momentum and emotion pick up when soon afterward a German air attack swoops down upon the settlement pummeling fleeing refugees with fierce, exploding bombs.  Going deeper into the woods, they re-establish their the settlement once more.  

In a final climactic battle scene,  Zus and a Soviet unit rescue Tuvia and his Jewish resistance soldiers battling a small, yet powerful, troop of Nazi soldiers.  It is their toughest battle to date.

However, in this scene Zus and Tuvia — once separated through anger — become resolved as brothers.  Their departure carries the film to its natural ending.  Graphicallyand powerfully shot using forest greens and warm browns,  we view the refugees heading back into the thick, Belorussian woods forest where they boldly survive another two years until liberation.

 Daniel Craig, left, and Liev Schreiber play two brothers who start a Jewish resistance movement in "Defiance."

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Rourke is resurrected in 'The Wrestler'

Provides stunning portrayal of aging professional wrestler on the ropes

Randy "The Ram" Robinson, as played by Mickey Rourke, struggles through another match late in his wrestling career.

By Anne Kirby

In his latest film, "The Wrestler," director Darren Aronofsky teams up with actor Mickey Rourke, providing a well-scripted and powerful portrayal of a 1980s pro wrestling superstar who is aging into the present day.

After years without a film that would do him justice, Mickey Rourke is resurrected through his brilliant comeback role as the wrestler Randy "The Ram" Robinson.

After years without a film that would do him justice, Rourke is resurrected through his brilliant comeback role as the wrestler Randy "The Ram" Robinson.

Rourke - whose once matinee idol looks in "Diner" and "9 1/2 Weeks" have been transformed into a bludgeoned, bulky visage - performs the role with such intensity, sensitivity and intuition that it is hard to separate the actor from the role.

And as if this were not enough, there is also Rourke's own formidable experience as a wrestler, characterized in the actor's tightly pumped physique that comes off being an entity in its own right.

For Randy, this is his alter ego and unsung trophy that anchors him in the past, yet locks him into an uncertain present with smaller matches that no longer take place in supersized wrestling arenas, but in smaller veterans halls and school gyms where Randy reestablishes himself on weekends as "The Ram" in dim rooms that double as sweaty dressing rooms.

Unable to adjust to a less fulfilling present, Randy figuratively costumes his aging persona through a ritualistic, bodily adornment that reveals the major role that performance plays in wrestling arenas.

'The Ram' keeps on going

Reinventing the champion performer his fans know as "The Ram," Randy prepares for each performance creating contrived moves that each contender agree to before entering the ring.

Like a professional actor, Randy dresses in colorful psychedelic green and white spandex pants that embody the only identity he knows. He ceremoniously tapes up his arms, hiding bits of chopped razor blades that enhance his performance through self-imposed bloodletting that sets him up as a deified champ as he drives audiences into screaming and laudatory applause.

The film is set in a seedy New Jersey town that looks as if it were once defined through solid middle class values and neighborhoods, where a younger Randy "The Ram" pumped his audiences full of exhilaration, making their lives emotionally real for them.

After years of pounding abuse and regimens of drugs and steroids that slowly take their toll on wrestlers' bodies, Randy has become an aging wrestler with little hope of ever returning to his former image as "The Ram."

As he confronts his present life, he is demeaned by new realities, such as having to take a part-time job in a supermarket.

But wrestling is all he knows and it has become part of his genetic make up.

Randy escapes the lonely existence of his mobile home playing Nintendo and indulging in mock wrestling matches with younger neighborhood boys who look up to him, yet are starting to move out of his life as they too grow older.

Driving into town in an older model van, which sports a haunting play-action figure of "The Ram" on the dashboard and serves as a home when he comes up short on his monthly rent, he routinely checks in with his old wrestling buddies and promoters who continue to book his matches and treat him with the respect of a tribal brother and a champion wrestler.

The one thing that keeps the man and person inside of Randy going is a relationship that he has developed with a beautiful yet aging stripper, Cassidy, who is astonishingly played by Marisa Tomei.

Although the relationship is deferential and built upon a surface-like attraction, the two have one thing in common - their ability to make a living through pleasing others with their bodies - which is the mask they conceals their real identities with which neither of them is in touch.

Randy and Cassidy's relationship is central to the film. Randy, who is one of Cassidy's paying customers and a regular at the striptease joint where she does her acts, wants to be as her amorous friend.

In an early scene, Randy reveals his feelings for Marisa through a semi-protective, aggressive reaction where he reaches out to protect her from the belittling comments of a younger group of guys who taunt her about her age as she cajoles them into a lap dance.

Cassidy responds with a terse tension that lets us know she views Randy as a paying client rather than a potential boyfriend.

Eventually we get subtle glimpses into Cassidy's more vulnerable feelings when she drops her professional guard and agrees to meet Randy outside of her workplace for just one beer only.

In the bar, the two unwind into a sensuous embrace and a lingering kiss that heightens Cassidy's tension. She reacts by gulping down her beer as quickly as possible and running haplessly out of the bar. Signaling her resolve to Randy, he views her feminine wiles and tough exterior with even more attraction.

The relationship evolves through a series of ups and downs where Cassidy retains a stiff upper lip as she resists Randy's blithe romantic approaches.

With unconvincing arguments that support her role as a working woman and a mother with important responsibilities at home, Randy cunningly works his way into her heart, giving up his dashboard toy figure of "The Ram" to her son.

Through his daughter, played by Evan Rachel Wood, we glimpse Randy's past as a series of bridges that he burned years ago.

It is not until after Randy suffers a serious heart attack and turns to Cassidy for help that she removes herself as a potential intimate, insisting that he reach out to his own family and only kin, his estranged daughter.

Again, he does not hear her deeper message. His false hopes are reinforced when Marisa, in an act of kindness, offers to meet him and help select a gift for his daughter's birthday.

The daughter, Stephanie Robinson, who attends college and lives with her girlfriend, is a striking young woman played by Evan Rachel Wood.

Through her, we glimpse Randy's past as a series of bridges that he burned years ago. She is unwilling at first to accept him back into her life, faulting him with the fact that he was not there for her when she needed him.

With warm brown eyes and elegant charm, he woos her back into his life like a knight in shining armor and a voice as sweet and gentle as a prince who comes bearing gifts.

But with little patience left on her side, Randy is just one poorly timed mistake away from losing his daughter when he gets caught up in a highly sensual escapade with a young blonde and forgets to keep his dinner date with his daughter.

Randy decides to step back into the ring

Frustrated and heartbroken by the rejections of his daughter and Cassidy, the latter of whom he thwarts during a heated argument, Randy lets on no self-pity or no feelings of remorse that might indicate a possible crack in the thick armor of his wrestling mentality. He reverses his decision to retire and decides to enter the ring once more.

Pulling out the stops, Randy defies his doctor's orders never to wrestle again when he agrees to fight his 1980s arch-nemesis, "The Ayatollah" in the larger venue of a wrestling arena that could serve as his ticket back into stardom.

Primed, pumped and prideful, Randy enters the arena like a god in full wrestling regalia. Drama runs strong as Randy is transformed through the sounds of a cheering audience and thunderous applause.

As he nears the ring, he is completely transfixed as if in a daze of past moments that he revisits with each step.

Nothing can stop his headlong rush into destiny, not even the unexpected arrival of Cassidy, who rushes to his side in a show of love and friendship, begging him not to wrestle and reminding him of his ill health.

Even she is too late, though, and nothing can stop Randy now from his final redemption, where he boldly confronts either his resurrection or certain death as Randy "The Ram" Robinson, the only person he will ever be.

 "The Ram" reconnects with his daughter, played by Evan Rachel Wood, on the boardwalk at the Jersey Shore.

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