Denby on "Elah"
Here's another In The Valley of Elah rave, written by the New Yorker's David Denby, that all the Haggis haters and Elah dissers need to gang up on and dismiss before it has any influence upon anyone who might be half-persuaded this could be a film of true merit.
Charlize Theron, Tommy Lee Jones (illustration by Lara Tomlin)
C'mon, guys, you know the drill....piss away. But one thing you can't piss on, and that's the fact that Denby knows how to write. Read this piece and tell me it doesn't arouse your taste buds, even if you've seen Elah. (I've seen it three times and it made me want to go back again.)
Warner Independent would be well-advised to turn the entire review into a big cardboard standee and put it in theatre lobbies everywhere.
Denby's riff on Elah star Tommy Lee Jones is the best part: "In his long movie career, Jones has never wasted a word or an emotion. When he's silent, his glinting eyes and suppressed smile suggest a secret held in reserve. When he speaks, at Gatling-gun speed, the words come out as definitive. There's no arguing with this man; he doesn't give you an opening. He says only what he wants to say, and he delivers his lines with commanding off-kilter intonations (rising when you would expect falling, or just deadpan).
"Jones is the driest and most thoroughly stylized of American movie stars -- a natural-born hipster wit -- but he's not a lightweight. Even in a spoof like Men in Black, his ease and quickness carried authority (and he didn't let the grinning Will Smith ace him out).
"In Paul Haggis's In the Valley of Elah, Jones plays a Vietnam vet and former M.P., Hank Deerfield, whose son, Mike, after serving in Iraq, has gone AWOL in America. Jones has portrayed military men before, but Hank Deerfield is the role of a lifetime, and he has stripped himself of any vestige of vanity to play it.
"The vertical lines in his face run deeper than ever; a ten-dollar haircut exposes his big ears. Suddenly, he's a primal American image -- awkwardly iconic, with a creased-leather face from a Depression photograph -- and he gives a great, selfless, and heartbreaking performance that completely dominates this elusive but powerful movie.
"Haggis, the writer-director of Crash, has done something shrewd: he has mounted a devastating critique of the Iraq war by indirection. Rather than dramatizing, say, the disillusion of a young soldier as he experiences the chaos of the occupation, he has moved disillusion into the soul of a military father. And the anguish that the father feels is all the more affecting because it's held in check by Jones's natural reticence."
Posted by Jeffrey Wells on September 19, 2007 at 11:39 AM
comment #1
le corbeau
says ...
This is not the review of In The Valley of Elah you're looking for. He can go about his business. Move along.
Posted by le corbeau
at September 19, 2007 12:17 PM
comment #2
p.Vice
says ...
So it's the stodgy, out of touch dinosaurs who are going for this movie... basically the same crowd who think Million Dollar Baby and Flags of Our Fathers are on the cutting edge.
When critics who aren't longing for it to be 1948 again start praising Haggis, let me know. Until then, enjoy the mothballs.
Posted by p.Vice
at September 19, 2007 12:19 PM
comment #3
MASON
says ...
I'm not a Haggis hater by any means. I liked much of In the Valley of Elah, especially TLJ's great performance, but Haggis killed the movie for me in the last five minutes. I didn't disagree with his point of view -- I just thought he hammered it home way too hard when he didn't have to. It was painful to watch him mess up his own great work.
Posted by MASON
at September 19, 2007 12:28 PM
comment #4
Alan Cerny
says ...
I'll give ELAH a chance this weekend. I hate CRASH with a passion, but you've convinced me to give this one a shot, Wells.
Posted by Alan Cerny
at September 19, 2007 12:36 PM
comment #5
MattM
says ...
I agree with Mason. Elah's a very very good procedural film, but the last image is heavy-handed, even (indeed, especially) if it just means what TLJ says it does early on.
Posted by MattM
at September 19, 2007 1:03 PM
comment #6
actionman
says ...
ELAH was a very, very good film (though it didn't blow me away overall). Liked it infinitely more than CRASH. Tommy Lee Jones is riveting all-throughout and the cinematography has an elegant, understated quality. Roger Deakins is beyond compare this year with this film and JESSE JAMES and NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN.
Posted by actionman
at September 19, 2007 1:06 PM
comment #7
gruver1
says ...
Wells to MASON: I was fine with the final shot, but I've said before that I really didn't care for the Annie Lennox song that plays at the very end. I saw a version without this last June and thought it worked much better.
Posted by gruver1
at September 19, 2007 1:13 PM
comment #8
kammy
says ...
Denby's positive review of ELAH is not that surprising, given that he "loved the heated, overflowing talk in CRASH" and "wasn't bothered by the movie's pileup of coincidences."
Pauline Kael must be spinning in her grave right now.
Posted by kammy
at September 19, 2007 1:25 PM
comment #9
EDouglas
says ...
"I agree with Mason. Elah's a very very good procedural film, but the last image is heavy-handed, even (indeed, especially) if it just means what TLJ says it does early on."
Totally agree.. I had problems with the movie, its pacing and what it was saying but that last image and that Annie Lennox play for an original song Oscar really killed it for me even more. If someone wants to see a memorable film about the Iraq War and its effects, rent The Ground Truth or The War Tapes.
Posted by EDouglas
at September 19, 2007 3:11 PM
comment #10
starfunker
says ...
Saw Elah based on your review, Wells. Hated CRASH.
LOVED this movie. It was brilliant.
TLJ deserves an Oscar for that performance.
Hands down.
Posted by starfunker
at September 19, 2007 3:23 PM
comment #11
Walter Sobchak
says ...
Wait just a minute, Jeffrey.... "Haggis haters"?.... Wouldn't that be you?... Weren't you the one that was more or less calling out anyone that would be so prosaic as to prefer "Crash" over "Brokeback Mountain" for Best Picture a simple-minded lummox?
Posted by Walter Sobchak
at September 19, 2007 3:37 PM
comment #12
Hopscotch
says ...
As much as I hated Crash (a lot), I'm beginning to think this one is worth a look.
Posted by Hopscotch
at September 19, 2007 3:39 PM
comment #13
transmogrifier
says ...
The funniest thing about this is Jeff getting indignant because people are single-mindedly attacking a certain film-maker whenever they get the chance. He should be proud; we've learnt from the master.
Haggis is a terrible writer-director, and Elah will be a worthless film.
Posted by transmogrifier
at September 19, 2007 4:35 PM
comment #14
roquentin
says ...
As a Crash hater (a movie that was not only obvious but at times ludicrous), a Million Dollar Baby fan, and a Casino Royale admirer, I was skeptical of Elah. But I saw it anyway and have to agree that it's powerful. The movie sinks in, and you feel it the next day...you'll find yourself lingering in that grimy rural motel-light headspace and replaying those grainy images. Even the politics, for the most part, are expertly handled...it brings the war home. But I think these critics - Ebert most egregiously - are being a bit overzealous.
There's plenty of the Haggis overkill. Those one-note redneck cops with their constant animal jokes...c'mon. And Charlize Theron's T.V. cop righteousness...oversold and unecessary. He didn't need the added dramatic heft. The piece by piece cell-phone videos were a bit structurally convenient. And I won't even get into the final shot...but why can't Haggis resist the exclamation point?
There is a good twenty minutes in Elah of absolutely riveting filmmaking...culminating in the interrogation scene, a masterful inversion of the standard thriller's dramatic confession. I was shocked at how much I took to it. He's definitely grown since Crash...I just wish he didn't indulge his own worst tendencies. I don't know another filmmaker this year - well, maybe Mike Binder, who had half of a great movie in Reign O'er Me - who has worked so maddeningly against himself to produce a very solid - at times great - movie that too often missteps.
Posted by roquentin
at September 19, 2007 5:32 PM
comment #15
Larry
says ...
What's all this Crash hating? It was a good movie. It's Million Dollar Baby I can't stand.
Elah is somewhere in the middle, some well done stuff, but not particularly deep (or honest, but that's another matter).
It does feel as if it won't score big, just like most of the Iraq films, because Americans pretty much understand what's going on over there and don't need pampered Hollywood millionaires to explain it to them.
Posted by Larry
at September 19, 2007 7:34 PM
comment #16
K. Bowen
says ...
I agree it's probably his best work. At the same time, the film feels like it starts with a very knowing human drama, and eventually it unwinds into a political cartoon. I actually think the ending of Casino Royale is superior, because it allows some wiggle room for argument. It doesn't feel as overdetermined.
Posted by K. Bowen
at September 19, 2007 10:31 PM