Adapted from the novel of the same name by writer/director Sarah Polley, Women Talking takes us inside the conversations of a group of women (Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, Judith Ivey, Sheila McCarthy, Michelle McLeod, and Kate Hallett) of a Mennonite colony who discover that several of the men have been drugging and raping the women at night and now must deal with the hard truth which has been revealed.
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Throwback Thursday takes a look back a Women Talking stars Rooney Mara, and her October 2017 cover shoot, and Claire Foy, and her November 2018 cover shoot, for Vogue.
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Rooney Mara & Claire Foy Strike a Pose Read More »
Much like Brooklyn, Carol is a beautifully rendered period piece about a young woman’s awakening highlighted by the performance of its lead actress. Sadly, much like Brooklyn, Carol also has the same deficiencies and the performances overshadow, but don’t obscure, the script’s weaknesses.
Although she plays the title character in the film, Cate Blanchett is not Carol‘s leading lady. That honor goes to Rooney Mara as shopgirl and aspiring photographer Therese Belivet whose head is turned by the glamorous older woman who she immediately connects with in a ways she has never been able to with her longtime boyfriend (Jake Lacy).
I’m not sure if Therese is a lesbian, bisexual, or just sexually curious, but then again I’m not the only one as the script itself seems unsure about who its leading character is and what she wants. Because Therese doesn’t know who she is (something characters in Phyllis Nagy‘s script directly point out at least three separate times) the movie struggles to understand her true motivations. And if the movie doesn’t know who she is, how can we?
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Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) is an asshole, or he’s at least trying his damnedest to be one. That seems to be the central point of The Social Network which gives us a traditional tale (genius without people skills, rise to power by stepping on your friends) with a fresh take, several good performances, and some darn fine dialogue by screenwriter Aaron Sorkin.
In the film director David Fincher and Sorkin team-up to adapt Ben Mezrich‘s 2009 nonfiction novel The Accidental Billionaires about Zuckerberg’s life and the creation of a little thing called Facebook (maybe you’ve heard of it?). The film tackles everything from friendship to cut-throat business tactics and class warfare.
We begin with a lengthy pre-credit scene involving Zuckerberg’s break-up with his girlfriend Rooney Mara which will lead to the drunken creation of his first social networking site later that night, and lay the foundation for the later creation of Facebook. It’s a great scene to start, though both actors seem to struggle initially with the pace and tempo of a very wordy Sorkin scene.
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The Social Network Read More »
