BIG SCREEN: Only Lovers Left Alive Revieux (Rated R)

Finding out that uber cool Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston were starring in Only Lovers Left Alive was all the incentive I needed to go see this movie. That these two such otherworldly actors were playing vampires was just icing on the cake.

Okay so, this is the story of Adam and Eve. No, not that Adam and Eve, this pair is of the undead variety, living on separate continents and facing some serious issues. Adam is a brilliant underground musician who’s totally reclusive, vaguely suicidal, and living in an extra dilapidated section of Detroit. When his wife Eve, who has a surprisingly sunny disposition for a nosferatu, realizes he’s in a dangerously deep depression, she abandons her own decaying metropolis of Tangier to go help him out. Their sweet, passionate reunion is soon overshadowed, however, by the ominous news that Eve’s troublesome, unpredictable younger sister (Mia Wasikowska) is on her way, and likely to wreak havoc.

The good news is Swinton and Hiddleston (and the supporting cast, for that matter) carry the film with all the sophistication and refinement that one might expect of them. Despite seemingly infinite wealth, their characters each choose to live amidst urban decay. They dress like rock stars, they’ve rubbed elbows with all the long-dead (and one undead) literary greats, their musical taste is groovily eclectic, and their intellectual prowess is immense. All of this creates introductory scenes that are smooth and cool and mysterious and full of the promise that something really epic is going to happen here.  

I kept trying to guess where it was heading. They made a lot of references to humans’ increasingly contaminated blood and the planet’s dwindling natural resources, and their names are Adam and Eve -- are they planning to repopulate the world with vampires after some sort of apocalypse? They speak of Einstein and the theory of entanglement -- are they going to enlighten us with a new spin on some old properties of physics? Are they going to reveal some secret to life and existence that we raggedy, ignorant humans have missed?

No idea. Sadly, the story never truly goes anywhere, so they sort of just leave us hanging. Instead of developing a carefully constructed screenplay that creates some sort of a disturbing crescendo or reveals some great insight into the human condition, it’s like someone has just hurled handfuls of literary, cultural, scientific and historical references at the screen to see what would stick. And what we’re left with is a messy spaghetti pile of intention, but no real sense of purpose, other than to tell us mankind is doomed. Well, duh.

It’s a shame because it truly is beautifully shot, the soundtrack is great, the premise is interesting, the characters and cast are intriguing…  but it just winds up being a disappointing case of style over substance. What a waste.

Only Lovers Left Alive opens in New Orleans at The Theatres at Canal Place and AMC Elmwood 20 on May 9.

BIG SCREEN: The Past Revieux (PG-13)

As a middle-aged, married mom with a fairly normal (some might say boring) life, I sometimes reminisce about my younger years, when relationships meant drama and suspense and uncertainty. Exciting, right? Certainly never boring. But it’s stories like the one in The Past that make me thank my lucky stars that I grew out of all that and became good friends with the concept of normalcy.

In The Past, a man named Ahmad comes home to finalize his divorce from his wife, Marie, after a four-year absence. Seems like a simple task, but there are truckloads of complications awaiting him. First off, a new man has moved into Marie's house with his sweet young son, who's struggling with recent events. Secondly, Ahmad's teenage stepdaughter is desperately upset with her mother and the new man, and Marie has asked Ahmad to intervene. Plus, there seem to be unresolved feelings between Marie and Ahmad. Oh, and Marie is pregnant, and her boyfriend’s wife is in a coma after a suicide attempt that may or may not be a direct result of the affair.

Whew. The kids are confused and distressed, the parents aren’t handling the kids or the situation very well, people are making very questionable choices, and Ahmad somehow finds himself acting as the central diplomat in this web of messy relationships. It certainly has all the elements of an over-the-top melodrama, but the beauty of The Past is its delicate, subtle, honest approach, which results in a seamlessly told fable.

I try to make it a point to NOT do research on a movie before I see it, and I’m especially glad I didn’t do it in this case. I love going in without preconceived notions and being pleasantly surprised. Turns out, The Past was nominated for a slew of prestigious international film awards, and even won a couple of them, and I can certainly see why. It’s a French film, complete with subtitles, about and by Iranian people, but neither language nor cultural differences got in the way of the story. A delightful cast and flawless directing allow the universal themes involving love and family -- and the complexities that go along with both -- to easily shine through.

The Past opens in New Orleans on February 21 at The Theatres at Canal Place.

BIG SCREEN: The Invisible Woman Revieux (Rated R)

I’m one of those rare breeds who actually loves period films about uptight literary figures. High, starchy collars, airless rooms, Victorian tension that masks the passion burning beneath the surface… oh, the drama!  Especially when they’re about seemingly stodgy writers whose works vexed me in high school – yet, they turn out to be shameless adulterers or otherwise wicked people! Why didn’t they include these kinds of juicy details in those monotonous classroom lectures?!

Such is the plot of The Invisible Woman. It seems old Charles Dickens (Ralph Fiennes, who’s also the director) had a secret mistress named Nelly Ternan (Felicity Jones) who was both his lover and literary muse for 13 years. This film spotlights their relationship.

We first meet Nelly in the late 1800s, several years after Dickens’ death, when she's a troubled, distracted boys’ school drama teacher given to frantic walks on the beach and countryside, as though she’s trying to outrun something. Her husband is frustrated by her melancholia, and some old man, who’s convinced she’s got a secret, nags her about spilling the beans. This seems to unlock a torrent of memories that we, the audience, get to experience via flashback for much of the rest of the movie.

As a young girl, Nelly is the talentless member of an acting troop, comprised of her mother (Kristin Scott Thomas) and sisters. Charles Dickens has already achieved rock star status for his writing, so the ladies are delighted when he befriends them, paying extra attention to teenaged Nelly. Mom is reluctant to let her daughter get involved with a married man, but, as I mentioned, she’s a lousy actress and her future is uncertain. Nelly is insulted and disgusted by the concept at first, especially when mean old Chuck makes his sad, frumpy wife/mother of his ten children (she fits the description of “invisible woman,” too, fyi) hand deliver a gift to her. But of course, she eventually gives in, and the affair begins.

Sounds like a great setup for a deliciously passionate film, right? Well, it should be. While many of the elements I look for are well represented – really cool cast, beautiful costumes, gorgeous sets, and achingly tense Victorian restraint – there’s no real release or satisfying insight into the characters. It starts off weighty and rigid, and remains so through the long, drawn out, snail’s pace of a process that finally leads to the affair.

To be sure, there are some breathtakingly gorgeous, well-choreographed scenes that look like museum paintings come to life, but I wanted the relationship between these two people to come to life a little more. We’re allowed very tiny glimpses at their chemistry – a brief conversation, a quick picnic, a rather benign argument – but these interactions deserved a lot more attention and detail. Even their first physical encounter is meh. Not that I was looking for something pornographic, but considering they found it necessary to randomly show Dickens urinating into a chamber pot (yuck, why?!), I can’t figure out why they would be reluctant to loosen up a little on the more beautiful intimate moments!

It sort of boils down to being told of a great love affair, instead of being shown one. But what we’re shown is certainly beautiful to look at, and performed by an exquisite cast.

The Invisible Woman opens on January 24. Go here for local showtimes.