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Movies- Sort of Double Feature
Sep. 3rd, 2011 08:04 amI watched The Debt Thursday night. I liked it a lot, though some of the other people in the theatre felt "meh". As The Stranger said in their review, "We're used to seeing secret agents onscreen as quasi superheroes who rarely fail, and the contrast is unique if not exactly inspiring." I actually totally disagree with that statement.
It opens in 1997, with three retired secret agents who once were sent to East Berlin in the 60s to kidnap a Nazi doctor in hiding. It focuses on Rachel, the woman of the group, played by Helen Mirren as her older self, and Jessica Chastain as the younger. Both of them did a wonderful job portraying the character, and I had a lovely image of the two actresses hanging out together in real life, working together to create Rachel and the physical tics that reveal her vulnerability and tie her character together over the years.
Much of the movie flashes back to the mission in the 60s, and I really thought they did the non-linear narrative well. Maybe I liked this movie so much because it hit a lot of my buttons like non-linear narratives, and people realistically haunted by their past. The movie even had a love triangle that didn't want me to claw my eyes out!
I'm not going to go too much into plot details, because I really loved getting each moment of this movie fresh and unspoiled. But I will say that I was horrified by some of the things Rachel had to put herself through as part of this undercover mission. She's played with delicacy and both physical and emotional vulnerability, but at the same time, she never retreats from duty or danger, and there is absolutely no question as to her badassery.
I watched Red last night because I thought it would make an interesting contrast, and indeed it did. The Debt shows secret agents at their most human, and Red shows them at their most cartoonish*, which is of course the point, and it's a fun movie, but having watched The Debt, I'm like, "damn these people are sociopaths."
*Maybe not most cartoonish, since my favorite part of the movie is when Helen Mirren's character swaps out her heels for combat boots.
It opens in 1997, with three retired secret agents who once were sent to East Berlin in the 60s to kidnap a Nazi doctor in hiding. It focuses on Rachel, the woman of the group, played by Helen Mirren as her older self, and Jessica Chastain as the younger. Both of them did a wonderful job portraying the character, and I had a lovely image of the two actresses hanging out together in real life, working together to create Rachel and the physical tics that reveal her vulnerability and tie her character together over the years.
Much of the movie flashes back to the mission in the 60s, and I really thought they did the non-linear narrative well. Maybe I liked this movie so much because it hit a lot of my buttons like non-linear narratives, and people realistically haunted by their past. The movie even had a love triangle that didn't want me to claw my eyes out!
I'm not going to go too much into plot details, because I really loved getting each moment of this movie fresh and unspoiled. But I will say that I was horrified by some of the things Rachel had to put herself through as part of this undercover mission. She's played with delicacy and both physical and emotional vulnerability, but at the same time, she never retreats from duty or danger, and there is absolutely no question as to her badassery.
I watched Red last night because I thought it would make an interesting contrast, and indeed it did. The Debt shows secret agents at their most human, and Red shows them at their most cartoonish*, which is of course the point, and it's a fun movie, but having watched The Debt, I'm like, "damn these people are sociopaths."
*Maybe not most cartoonish, since my favorite part of the movie is when Helen Mirren's character swaps out her heels for combat boots.
