Two Movies That Offer Hearty Fare For Winter Viewing

We’re smack dab in the middle of Tinseltown’s awards season, the time when all manner of organizations, from various film critics

associations to the Hollywood Foreign Press, bestow their kudos upon anxious artists to acknowledge the best offerings of the previous year.

Over the next several weeks, we will focus on some of the noteworthy pictures and performances of 2003, culminating with my annual Oscar column at the end of February.

However, since the Academy Award nominations were just announced this week (and as of this writing I have not yet fully processed some of the nominations, a few of which were quite surprising... but more on that another time), this particular column will focus on three Golden Globe-winning performances: Sean Penn (Best Actor, Drama) and Tim Robbins (Best Supporting Actor) for Mystic River, which was just recently re-released into theaters, and Bill Murray (Best Actor, Comedy) for Lost in Translation, which will be available on DVD beginning February 3.

Mystic River, directed by Clint Eastwood and based on the novel by Dennis Lehane, is a dark, disturbing but ultimately riveting tale about three boyhood friends in Boston, each emotionally scarred by an event in their past, who are reunited after a tragedy strikes one in their midst.

Boasting a stellar cast that includes Oscar nominees Penn and Robbins, as well as Kevin Bacon, Laura Linney, Marcia Gay Harden and Laurence Fishburne, Mystic River is a lean, no-nonsense drama about both the darkness within individuals and the darkness that can be perpetuated upon us due to another’s actions.

Penn is exceptional as a loving father with a criminal past, and he exudes a quiet charisma that belies a potentially menacing temperament. Robbins, on the other hand, has a much more idiosyncratic role as a man haunted by an evil done to him as a boy. His relationship with Harden (who plays his wife) is especially heartbreaking as we witness the ramifications of past sins upon current interactions and how walls can be erected that erode the bonds of trust in even the most sacred of unions.

If  you’re looking for light fare to distract you from the cold, bitter winter weather, perhaps Mystic River is not the right selection, but if you want an engrossing drama with some fine performances, solid dialogue and tight direction, then this film is certain to satisfy.

Lost in Translation, written and directed by Oscar nominee Sophia Coppola, is also a tale about relationships, albeit one which is more about the lack of communication, or at least the miscommunication, that often exists in our relationships, even in our most intimate relations, such as within marriage.

The movie follows the journey of two Americans in Tokyo: a middle-aged actor (Oscar-nominee Murray) and a neglected young wife (Scarlett Johansson), who find themselves drawn to each other as they struggle with feelings of isolation while in the midst of strange environs.

Murray is absolutely outstanding in this role, using his skills for dry wit and humor (on display so well in such recent films as Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums) to also tap into wells of his character’s loneliness and longing for true companionship and understanding. In fact, Murray is so adept at channeling his character’s malaise that many audiences, eager to see the “comedy” that is winning Murray so many current accolades, are thrown off by his performance and are further set aback by the movie’s deliberate pacing and lack of obvious guffaws, all of which actually compliment his performance perfectly and serve the film’s goal of conveying the emotional distance that can so easily overtake us if we fail to continue working at not only maintaining and growing our relationships, but increasing the honesty, truthfulness and ultimately faithfulness within those relationships.

Again, if you’re looking for a laugh fest, you’re probably better off renting such Murray classics as Groundhog Day, Ghostbusters or Caddyshack, but if you’re looking for a more challenging selection that will indeed make you laugh but may also have you examining the sincerity and depth of your own relationships, then Lost in Translation is an excellent choice.