****

5 to 7-sp

If you are tuned in to the lingo of certain aspects of French culture, you might know that the title film refers to 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. This is the time in which it is permissible in some marriages for each partner to have an affair. Brian Bloom (Anton Yelchin) is a 24-year-old single struggling writer in New York City who strikes up a conversation on a Manhattan Street with a beautiful French woman Arielle Tierpont (Bérénice Marlohe) who happens to be nine years his senior. She is married with two kids but is perfectly comfortable having an affair with him during these two magic hours of the day. Her husband Valéry Tierpont (Lambert Wilson) is a very handsome likeable guy and is glad to meet Brian who is quite bewildered by this chain of events. This all is not taking place in Paris but in New York City. The screen writer and director Victor Levin seems to know a lot about these things, as well as apparently being in love with New York. From the creative plaques on the benches of Central Park to the lovely Hotel Carlisle where much of the love making takes place, to the magnificent Guggenheim Museum, the mood of the film is clearly established. We come appreciate how this young man is absolutely smitten by the stunning,  and very appealing French woman. He even introduces her to his Jewish parents. His mother (Glen Close) is charmed by this woman no matter what the circumstances, if she loves her son. His father (Frank Langella) is the comic relief to this film as he tries to digest the situation that his son is in. The dialogue of the film mostly New Yorkese with some occasional words of French thrown in with English subtitles  The soundtrack also sets the mood about falling in love perhaps in a lifetime situation. The only flaw we couls find,  is that as charming as young Mr. Bloom may seem to be and as much as we could appreciate his falling head over heels in love, we did not feel the film conveyed to us how this older beautiful woman was developing similar feelings to him. Perhaps Mr. Levin didn’t quite get into the French woman’s shoes. Nevertheless, the film is a moving, exciting, very creative, and a unique love story that is worth seeing (2015)

***

1917- rm

One of us was especially looking forward to what we hoped to be a classic war movie about World War I. Two British soldiers (Dean-Charles Chapman and George McKay) are chosen to make a dangerous journey through the trenches and battlefields to reach some other troops who are planning to advance on German troops but unknowingly will be led into an ambush which will destroy 1,500 troops, including the brother of one of the two chosen messengers. There was no radio communication available because it had been disrupted and we are not sure why additional teams of messengers were not chosen for this important mission. As you would expect, there is running, crawling through smoldering battlefields, occasional enemy encountering enemy soldiers, and even an air attack. One of the main features of this film is that director Sam Mendes gives the impression that the entire movie was done in one continuous take. Unfortunately, it is repetitious and predictable with few surprises, but we certainly do not believe it will go down as a classic war film despite the Oscar hype. However, battlefield and war aficionados might want to see it, but others may choose to skip it. (2020)

****

55 STEPS

This film which is based on a true story, features two outstanding performances by well-known actresses who are on the screen together, probably more than 90% of the movie. Helena Bonham Carter plays Eleanor Riese, a young woman with a mental illness who is depicted as receiving potentially dangerous psychiatric medications against her will in a mental hospital. Hilary Swank plays Colette Hughes, the diligent attorney, two-year out of law school, who along with Mort Cohen, a law professor, played by Jeffrey Tambor, takes on Reise’s case and changes California State Law so that involuntary injection of medication is not allowed under certain circumstances. In the course of this moving story, the attorney and the patient become friends.

Unfortunately, one of us (MB) could not allow himself to simply enjoy this moving story and ultimate important legal battle. The reason being that I am a psychiatrist who has seen the evolution of the treatment of involuntary hospitalized patients and the role that anti-psychotic drugs have played in their care. I had to consider the context of the history of the treatment of the mentally ill in this country. Prior to the 1960s and 1970s, there were mental hospitals all over the country with more than half a million patients who were hospitalized against their will because of severe psychosis (being out of touch with reality often with hallucinations and delusions). In the 1950s, a drug named Thorazine was developed, which could put psychosis into remission. Although this drug could have significant side effects, this medication made a tremendous difference in hundreds of thousands of peoples’ lives. Between 1955 and 1994, 487,000 patients were discharged, leaving about 70,000 patients in state mental hospitals. In fact, most state mental hospitals were eventually closed. When I first stepped onto a psychiatric unit as a psychiatry resident in 1966, the newest antipsychotic drugs had not yet been developed and the drugs of choice was still Thorazine and similar medications. It would not be for another 20 years that much safer antipsychotic drugs were developed and put into use. However, the treatment with these medications was effective enough that in the 1970s, with the help of President Jimmy Carter outpatient clinics replaced most of the hospitalized psychiatric treatment in this country. With the development of new antipsychotic medications in the 1990s, there also were much safer medication treatment with many fewer side effects.

However, to this day, patients who are considered to be a danger to themselves or others (which will often include being out of touch with reality by responding to imaginary voices or to delusional ideas) can still be hospitalized against their will. We saw in this movie that the Eleanor Riese case brought about a change in the California law as the State Supreme Court ruled unanimously that patients who are involuntarily committed to health facilities for short-term crisis may refuse to take antipsychotic medication. There is an exception that allows for involuntary medication if the patient is deemed “incompetent to make such a decision by the courts.” There was also the exception for emergency medications, meaning medication that is used for patients who are “considered an eminent danger to themselves or others either physically or psychologically and refuse to take the medication freely.” Of course, you can also be hospitalized against your will on the same grounds for people who are suicidal. All this only pertains to the State of California. Other states may have slightly different laws. I apologize for the technical psychiatric details, but I know that many of the readers of this blog are related to the mental health field and would want these things clarified. There should be one more detail concerning the real character portrayed in the movie. The young woman may not have had schizophrenia. It was mentioned that when she was younger, she had a brain infection related to a shunt put in her brain and she subsequently had some intellectual deficiencies. This may have been the cause of her depicted mental abnormalities.

Returning to the film, which was done very well and was quite moving. The viewers developed a feeling of understanding and empathy as well as admiration for both of the main characters. There also is a very interesting back story about the making of the film, which we learned about in a post-film discussion with the author and producer, Mark Bruce Rosin. He originally came up with the script 25 years ago when he heard a radio program about Ms. Riese and her lawyer who was fighting for her rights to refuse medication. The movie was almost made by two different studios, but it was ultimately dropped until it eventually came to be made with the director Billie August and now will be released nationwide in the next few weeks. Despite some of unaddressed complexity of issues raised in the film, it was one that will grab you and cause to think and is well worth seeing. (2018)

Screened at 2018 San Francisco Film Festival

Unknown opening date in USA

***

Salyut-7

We know this movie is based on some real events that happened in the Russian Space Program in the 1980s, but we believe it is mostly from the Russian creative team led by director, Kilim Spenko. It is in Russian with subtitles 

His story shows two Russian cosmonauts( (Lyubov Aksyonova, Ilya Andryukov) who get into dangerous trouble when they go up in space to rescue an unmanned Salyut-7 satellite that is having mechanical problems. There is an explosion, ice, oxygen problems and it is not clear whether even one of them might survive. This is a dramatic space thriller that reminds us of the dangers involved in working at the frontiers of space (2018).

***

50/50- nf  A 27 year old single guy (Joseph Gordon-Levitt)  gets a diagnosis of cancer with a 50/50 chance of survival. His girl friend (Bryce Dallas Howard) gets him a boney dog but can’t handle the situation and they break up. His mother (Angelica Huston) as usual tries to smother him. His best buddy (Seth Rogen) sticks by him and decides that this will be a great pick up line to get girls. Rogen’s comedic style carries the movie and allows a painful subject to be appreciated in a more palatable manner. Admittedly as a psychiatrist and a social worker who have trained medical students and physicians how to talk to patients, it was disappointing to see the cancer specialist as being quite insensitive. It also was a little disheartening to see the student therapist (Anna Kendrick) who was supposed to help him deal with the situation, act out a romantic crush that she developed for him. But it was done in good taste and, after all, it is only a movie. On the other hand the back-story for the film is quite authentic. As shown in the bonus feature of the DVD, the script writer (Will Reiser) actually lived this story and his best friend who stood by him through this ordeal was Seth Rogen. (2011)

***

127 Hours- rm– You go to this movie knowing that it is the story of the guy who was hiking and mountain climbing by himself and his arm got pinned by a boulder and he couldn’t get out so he cut his arm off. This subject matter will eliminate a number of potential movie viewers and is probably why our Friday night movie theatre was only 1/3 filled. On the other hand (if you will pardon the pun) it is co-written by Simon Beaufoy and Danny Boyle who directed the movie and who also who won an Academy Award for Slumdog Millionaire as well as making  Transformers. Boyle’s pacing keeps the movie moving although it is mostly focused on James Franco who does a terrific job portraying the real life  Aron Ralston. There are flashbacks which appear to be to his  childhood and parents which if you have read about him know that some of these are premonitions of his ultimate marriage and having a son. His fantasies and his wishful thinking while he is caught in this dilemma are very realistic and it is very easy to feel you are inside his head. The clips of the real life Ralston at the end of the movie with his wife and child, swimming and mountain climbing with one arm will push that emotional button for most people. If you are one of those people who knows that this is a movie that will have special appeal and  meaning to you, you will not be disappointed. (2010)

People often ask us for recommendations of films to see. Soon Oscar season will be upon us and we will want to see the newest films which will be contenders for the Academy Awards.

In the meantime, we have put together a list of 14 excellent movies which we have reviewed  between January and June and which we suggest that you consider viewing this summer. Most of them will be out by July and probably all can be found on Netflix.

The top four were 5 star movies in our opinion and others were excellent 4 star movies. You can click and see our reviews for each one. As always your comments at the end of each review are welcome.

Michael and Susan Blumenfield

Desert Dancer

Wild Tales

McFarland USA

Red Army

The Little Death

Me, Earl and the Dying Girl

Girl on the Edge

The Road Within

Danny Colllins

Potiche

The Forger

5 to 7

Merchants of Doubt

Tangerines

Official Secrets (2019) –Netflix
***

In 2003, the United States was secretly engaged in obtaining information in conjunction with Great Britain in order to blackmail members of the UN Assembly to get them to vote for a war against Saddam Hussein, who was being accused of having weapons of mass destruction, which he was ready to use against the United States and Great Britain. A British intelligence specialist, Katharine Gun, read a secret intelligence communication confirming that this was the case and leaked this top-secret information to the British press.

This 2017 movie directed by Gavin Hood and starring Keira Knightley will draw you in and allow you to identify with this very brave woman. While it ultimately turned out that Saddam Hussein did not have such weapons of mass destruction, the heroine of this film knew at that time that she would be facing serious charges of treason, but bravely did what she thought was the right thing to do for her country and the world, in order to possibly stop a war.

The film also stars Matt Smith, Matthew Goode, Adam Bakari, Indira Varma, and Ralph Fiennes. It is directed by Gavin Hood with a screenplay by Goode and Gregory, and Sarah Bernstein. It is originally based on a book The Spy Who Tried to Stop a War by Marcia & Thomas Mitchell.

This movie captures the audience as we identify with the heroine and see how she almost loses her beloved husband and faces serious charges of espionage. This movie will keep you on the edge of your seat as well as giving you a great history lesson.

Ben Is Back
***(Hulu)

Julia Roberts is fantastic as the mother of her son (Lucas Hedges who is the son of the Director of the film Peter Hedges) who returns home straight out of his drug rehabilitation program. There are serious concerns whether he is ready to come back home on the part of his stepfather, siblings, as well as his mother. The theme of the movie is how horribly destructive drugs such as OxyContin can be on the lives of so many people. Having recently watched “Dopesick,” a TV series on Hulu about the Sackler family and the devastation brought about by addiction to this drug promoted by the pharmaceutical companies, we were especially sensitive and tuned in to the theme of this film. Upon reflection, the movie is quite repetitive and never gets beyond the horrors and ruination of people’s lives by such drugs. However, Ms. Roberts’ performance is riveting and on the mark and makes this film, especially worth the discomfort that goes along with it.

Summerland- nf
****

The setting of this story takes place in England during World War II . We meet a woman (Alice Artion) who is living in the countryside as the war and the bombings of London and other cities rages on. She is always writing her story and typing away on her period typewriter. Her village takes care of. young children who are sent to the countryside by their parents to help them survive. We meet young Frank (Lucus Bond) whose father is an air force pilot and his mother has a wartime job in London. Young Frank is assigned to live with the writer who reluctantly takes him on as little does she know how she is linked to him and his mother. While the underlying story line gets to be complicated, the beauty and the success of this film is the development of the relationship between boy and his caretaker mother figure. Screenplay writer and director Jessica Swale has produced a touching story that has depth and emotion and has brought the interesting storyline and excellent character portrayals all together for an
a most enjoyable cinematic experience