Capsule Reviews: I Used to Be Darker, It Felt Like Love, Man of Steel

I Used to Be Darker (Matt Porterfield, 2013)

Matt Porterfield’s film draws its title from Bill Callahan’s song “Jim Cain,” one of several about his breakup with Joanna Newsom, but the Bill (Ned Oldham) who appears on-screen in the movie is not the focus of the film. Instead, I Used to Be Darker focuses on the reaction of the daughter (Hannah Gross) being affected by her parents’ separation, though it is truly moved by her Northern Irish cousin (Taryn) who has run away across the pond and found more troubles than she’d left behind. By expanding the perspective outward from the myopia of a breakup album, Porterfield trades narcissism for a deeper, more empathetic consideration, one that gives equal weight to everyone’s reactions and also makes the acrimony between wounded parties all the more bitter as witnessed by bystanders. Everyone in the film speaks bluntly of what eats away at them, but that does not preclude moments of evocative impressions, as when Bill tells his soon-to-be-ex (Kim Taylor) how much he hates shaking the hands of those who come to his house to take her instruments away. The initial bustle of edits gives way to long takes that survey each scene as if assessing damage for insurance purposes, and a final embrace shows characters finding comfort with each other only because there is none to be had anywhere else. Grade: B+

Premium Rush (David Koepp, 2012)

David Koepp's Premium Rush feels like the first posthumous tribute to the work of the late Tony Scott. Unintentional, of course, but beneficial for those of us already missing the British director and wondering if anyone could match, much less exceed, his approach to action filmmaking. Koepp certainly cannot top Scott, but for a time, but it appears he picked up a thing or two while doing uncredited rewrites for The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3. Stylistically, Premium Rush feels like a throwback to Enemy of the State-era Scott, with its constant zooms in and out of satellite views of New York City as a GPS plots courses for the bike messengers on whom the film focuses. Narratively, though, it calls to mind Scott's fondness for regularly making epic the banal occupations of working-class stiffs. In bike couriers, Koepp nearly manages to surpass Scott in choice of subject. Not only are these men and women paid wretchedly for grueling work, they may be the most hated group in New York City, foe to pedestrian and driver alike.

Premium Rush gets off to a great start, following reckless, brake-less rider Wilee (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) barreling nonstop through traffic-gnarled streets as he casually gets into phoned arguments with his girlfriend Vanessa (Dania Ramirez, also playing a bike messenger), pissing matches with ripped colleague Manny (Wolé Parks) and trying to get more work (and cash) from his flippant boss (Aasif Mandvi). Like Scott, Koepp casually employs a multiracial cast not for the sake of commentary but merely as a reflection of an increasingly diverse America. And like Scott, Koepp wastes no time introducing the central, driving conflict, embodied in this case by Bobby Monday (Michael Shannon), a crooked cop who attempts to intercept a letter entrusted to Wilee by a friend (Jamie Chung) in order to pay off some gambling debts he owes to Chinese mobsters.

Take Shelter (Jeff Nichols, 2011)

Take Shelter is not merely a gripping psychological thriller about whether a man is losing his grip on reality or his hallucinatory visions are omens. It is also a tragic portrait of that man's response to his affliction and his desire to protect his family, even if from himself. Jeff Nichols, whose debut, Shotgun Stories, displayed the clear influence of early David Gordon Green and William Faulkner, pushes deeper into that territory. He mixes naturalism with dark poetry, creating fractured views of people trying to overcome the conditioning of grim pasts and never truly succeeding.

Shotgun Stories also offered a breakthrough performance for its star, Michael Shannon, who consolidated 15 years' worth of character performances—typically as a man always on the tipping point of civility, even sanity—as the embittered son locked in a feud with his abdicated father's second family. The work Shannon does here makes that role look like a mere primer. Shannon, a character actor who has found himself in demand for a range of high-profile projects (see him now as a main cast member on Boardwalk Empire), found his first plateau with Nichols. Now he has reached the second. Even if the film around him were mediocre, Take Shelter would be worth the price of admission.

Shotgun Stories (Jeff Nichols, 2008)

Son Hayes (Michael Shannon) bears more scars than the shotgun marks on his back. His monosyllabic name, a description more than an identity, speaks to a childhood of neglect as much as his terse self-sufficiency. We meet him as he discovers his wife has left him, silently reacting to this awareness as if having long expected it. She wouldn't be the first person to walk out on him, whether or not he deserved it. With her gone, Son invites his similarly monikered brothers, Boy and Kid, to come live with him. The reluctance on Shannon's face communicates a primal sense of filial obligation more than any real kindness for his homeless siblings.

When word comes that the father who abandoned them as children died, they show up at the funeral in dirty work clothes to find the man's second family, the one he made after getting sober and finding Jesus, sitting apprehensively. Son says some harsh things about the father his half-brothers remember as a kind and loving man, standing before them as the skeleton from Pa's closet. At last, he spits on the coffin, catalyzing an inevitable feud that will have horrific consequences.