Category Archives: Psychological Drama

Thanks for Sharing (2012)

From Netflix:

While making his way through a support group for sex addicts, Adam dips his toe in the dating pool to embrace a meaningful relationship. But the woman he’s attracted to has sworn off addicts altogether.

Sex addiction is the sole topic of this serious, thought-provoking, well acted, and hopeful film. Originally AA helped just alcoholics, but the idea of mentor-mentee organized group therapy involving public acknowledgement of one’s problems has expanded to all sorts of addictions. Plot line centers around four addicts and their associates. Expect very little comic relief from the problems of the various characters:

  • Mark Ruffalo (Adam) compulsively engages in all manner of sex acts. After a successful period of recovery he meets…
  • Gywneth Paltrow (Phoebe) who is both seductive and has her own set of eating and exercise compulsions.
  • Tim Robbins (Mike) is Adam’s mentor. In addition to his own personal demons, Mike was not a good father to …
  • his now drug-addicted son Patrick Fugit (Danny).
  • Josh Gad (Neil) is a young mother-smothered MD who loses his hospital job due to his compulsion to touch women in public. He helps and is helped by fellow sex addict …
  • Alecia “Pink” Moore (Dede) who needs sex following any emotional stress.

Each character during the course of the film suffers some setback (“falling off the wagon”) followed by a recovery. Hope and mutual support rather than a feeling of despair makes this film somewhat inspiring. Nobody is perfect. Good flick!

Don Jon (2013)

From Netflix:

Jon Martello’s romantic exploits are legendary among his friends, but his obsession with online porn saps his enthusiasm for real sex. As he searches for intimacy — or avoids it — Jon meets two women with vital lessons to teach him.

Despite the constant shots of computer pornography, despite the endless stream of vulgar sexual discussions, despite all the swearing, there is a real point to this film. In fact this is the kind of film you could show teenagers in a sex class. Such a film will indeed titillate, but Joseph Gordon-Levitt does an amazing job in portraying a young “dude” that actually turns his life around as he moves away from one-sided sexual satisfaction and toward a real relationship. Repeat: his acting is superb.

He changes with the help of two women: Scarlett Johansson plays a low-class, gum chewing, sexy but domineering woman who starts Don Jon on the road to something better. Julianne Moore picks up where Johansson leaves off and finally makes the difference for Don Jon. This is not a spoiler because the whole point of the film is the process Gordon-Levitt makes with his addiction.

Notice Don Jon’s sister who seems attached at the hip to her smartphone. At one point she is dead on the mark.

As a Catholic I would like to remark that the scenes in the Catholic confession are not far off the mark as far as the impersonal atmosphere is concerned. However, in Catholic theology the confession is bogus and there is no forgiveness if the person confessing is not resolved to avoid the sin in the future. Future avoidance would be the last thing on Don Jon’s mind.

If you can ignore the vulgarity, this is actually a good film.

The Silence (2010)

From Netflix:

When 13-year-old Sinikka goes missing from the same spot where another girl was murdered 23 years earlier, a retired investigator teams up with a younger colleague to unravel the parallel mysteries.

According to Wikipedia, this film is based on the German crime fiction novel The Silence (German: Das Schweigen) by Jan Costin Wagner. In fact the film is in German with subtitles.

Everything about this film is incredibly well done. Not only the story, but the photography, the pace, and above all else the acting.

Lifelong sadness over the loss of a loved-one is the pervasive theme of the film. From the very beginning we witness the initial rape and murder. (Later on we witness the second murder.) Rather than being a mystery story, the film centers on how the crimes effect each of the many characters: a retired detective whose marriage failed under the stress of his desperate efforts to solve the initial crime; a young brilliant detective trying to get over the recent death of his wife; the mother of the first victim; the parents of the second victim; the smug, officious, inept present-day chief detective; and each of the two guilty parties.

Only a bit of a mystery exists: can you recognize how one of the original killers has morphed into a present-day respectable citizen?

WARNING: be prepared for sadness and irony. However, DO NOT MISS THIS SUPERB FILM!

Shallow Grave (1994)

From Netflix:

Ewan McGregor stars in this grimly comic tale of three roommates who find their enigmatic new flatmate dead in his room with a stash of drugs and a suitcase full of cash. What will they do with all that money — and the corpse?

Basically the plot is that the suitcase full of cash little by little corrupts each of the three friends. Suspense builds as their increasingly paranoid behavior leads to conflicts and more. Be prepared for violence along with the good acting. Ewan McGregor almost never appears in an unworthy film. But this film is also a bit strange.

And who will win the cash competition ?

The Master (2012)

From NetFlix:

Freddie, a volatile, heavy-drinking veteran who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, finds some semblance of a family when he stumbles onto the ship of Lancaster Dodd, the charismatic leader of a new “religion” he forms after World War II.

Put Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman together in the same story (even better, in the same cult) and you get a really well acted film with an intriguing and always surprising plot. Hoffman plays the cult leader called “The Master” who goes by the name Lancaster Dodd. Scene after scene shows what a fraud Dodd really is. But what is cult-worthy is how the members of cult practically worship their fearless leader.

While Hoffman is doing a “masterful” job as charlatan, Phoenix plays to scary perfection Freddie the violent (WWII) PTSD drunk who has attached himself firmly to The Master who is indeed a master at using quasi-hypnosis to soften his victims’ self-hate. Freddie feels better under tutelage despite his many lapses into drunkenness, stealing, and physical violence. Even more insidious The Master tells Freddie that he, The Master, is the only person on the planet that loves Freddie. No wonder Freddie so blindly worships The Master even to the point of violence.

Looking at Joaquin Phoenix is uncomfortable. He is skinny, misshappen, hunched, almost limping rather than walking, sexually maladjusted, and often acts in a manner that is just plain weird. He has this way of putting his hands on his waist so that his body is twisted. When Phoenix puts his heart into a role he goes all the way, even if it is embarrassing to watch. His rages are so uncontrolled and overpowering (despite his diminutive size) that it takes three men to subdue him. In real life he is 38 years old but I think he looks older.

What eventually happens to Freddie? You will have to watch this strange film through to the end to find out.

Teddy Bear

From NetFlix:

Physically massive but shy and socially inept, a 38-year-old Danish bodybuilder longs to fall in love — but finds it impossible under the disapproving eye of his mother. Traveling to Thailand, he learns some unexpected lessons about life and love.

Imagine a 38-year-old giant bodybuilder who has yet to break away from his domineering and physically tiny white-haired shriveled old mother. She uses every trick in the book to keep him from becoming independent. Throughout this film I was rooting for this guy to escape and find a wife.

Here is a quote from IMDB about the actor Kim Kold:

Kim Kold is a former football (soccer) goalkeeper, who in 1993 at 27 years of age suffered a serious injury in his Achilles tendon. He was sent to the gym doing rehabilitation training. He took up an interest in bodybuilding and started competing in 1997. He won the Danish National Bodybuilding Championship in 2006.

In the film actors speak Danish and English. In fact their English is fluent and often without accent. They speak English when it is necessary to have a common language, for example in Thailand among [sex] tourists. But when Dennis (Kim Kold) speaks Danish it seems as if he is mumbling. In fact I could not even hear consonants. But there is a point here. Dennis is so shy and understated that he almost whispers throughout the film. Even when his clinging mother is her nastiest Dennis never raises his voice to her. More than that, he seems either afraid of her or is making a conscious effort to not offend her. Dennis is a kind, moral, gentle giant who has no idea how to break away and find a woman to love.

Enter a friend who has already found a wife in Thailand. He tells Dennis how to get to Thailand and whom to contact. Unfortunately, the contact is involved in sex tourism and introduces Dennis to several prostitutes. But Dennis is so decent and sincere that he walks away from that scene in disgust. Finally he finds a gym and fellow bodybuilders who recognize him and invite him to join them for a social evening. There he is introduced to the widow owner of the gym. And the rest is history once we get past certain difficulties, which means “mommy dearest”.

Kim Kold is certainly not an actor. But whoever directed him never missed a beat. Dennis behaves consistently and as you would expect him to behave throughout. He gives the impression that at 38 he is still a virgin. There is no sex in the film but there are scenes where we feel sorry and embarrassed for Dennis who flees from sexual advances on the part of several women.

Yes, Dennis is a good guy. And yet he tells lies to his mother from beginning to end. He speaks and looks at her sincerely and seems to be shamefully admonished by his mother and yet “lies like a rug”.

This quiet and slow film is not for everyone. Mostly it is about rooting for a well-meaning underdog.

Cruising (1980)

From NetFlix:

After a serial killer brutally murders several gay men in New York’s S&M and leather districts, cop Steve Burns (Al Pacino) goes undercover on the streets, where he must learn the complex rules of the underground gay subculture if he’s to catch the psycho. Karen Allen co-stars as Burns’s girlfriend in this gritty 1980 thriller, which sparked protests from gay rights groups at the time of its release but has since developed a minor cult status.

“Lurid” is the first adjective that comes to mind. The Stonewall riots occurred in 1959. By 1980 the gay movement was strong enough to protest this film which depicts an aberrant side of gay culture. Indeed the strong gay protests are described in the Wikipedia article about the film.

Expect “grungy” scenes in this cult classic with a wonderfully ambiguous ending.

The Dying Gaul (2005)

From NetFlix:

When Jeffrey (Campbell Scott), a slick Hollywood studio exec, offers gay screenwriter Robert (Peter Sarsgaard) $1 million to transform a screenplay’s homosexual protagonists into heterosexuals, Robert takes the bait — and ends up sleeping in Jeffrey’s bed. But complications ensue when Jeffrey’s wife, Elaine (Patricia Clarkson), begins unraveling her husband’s secrets, with nail-biting consequences. Craig Lucas directs in his feature-film debut.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Loss of a loved one, infidelity, jealousy, betrayal, and revenge make this tragic gay-themed film an intense experience.

Of the three protagonists, only the wife Elaine, despite her faults, shows a compassionate soul searching for the right thing to do. However, this tragedy would have made Shakespeare proud as each of the three characters move slowly but surely to their deserved sad ends.

Such a well-made and involving gay-themed film deserves a DO NOT MISS!

 

 

The Guardian (2006)

From NetFlix:

When legendary rescue swimmer Ben Randall is appointed to teach at an elite Coast Guard school, he’s compelled to skillfully train and inspire cocky upstart Jake Fischer to excellence, courtesy of some unorthodox coaching methods.

If nothing else, just the sea rescue school sessions fascinated me. Also there are some exciting sea rescue scenes. Costner’s troubled marriage (he is married to sea rescue, the old story) is secondary to the plot.

Costner’s involvement with his student Jake Fischer is fitting, owing to similar past tragedies. One of their discussions could be a real tear-jerker.

Be prepared for one really wild final rescue.

Aston Kutcher (plays Jake Fischer) will play the lead role in the 2013 film “Jobs”. He was 28 during the filming. His film sidekick Brian Geraghty (plays Billy Hodge) played Brian Eller in the TV series “True Blood”. He was 31 during the filming. On the other hand Kevin Costner was 51 during the filming.

Just tell me a good story and I am a happy listener.

Bullhead (2011)

From NetFlix:

Tortured by his past and despairing of his stultifying present life, Belgian cattle farmer Jacky becomes entangled in a violent web of deceit involving local mobsters and determined policemen after he uses illegal growth hormones on his herd.

Belgian actor Matthias Schoenaerts is the perfect choice to play the sadly damaged character Jacky Vanmarsenille in this film spoken in Limburgish and French. His facial expressions capture Jacky’s shame, longing, loneliness, shyness, and rage. To say why he feels these emotions would be a major spoiler. Through a series of flashbacks you learn his past history. Expect some very violent scenes.

Although you may find all the crime details confusing, they really are not very original or important. Jacky is important along with those characters associated with his tragic life.

Much of the violence stems from traditional racial hatreds between the many distinct communities, each with its own language.

Bullhead was on the 2012 list of Best Foreign Language Film of the Year.

In retrospect, the ending chosen for the story is quite probably the only possible conclusion.

If you can accept the sadness, violence, and somewhat brutish characters,

DO NOT MISS THIS FILM!