BEFORE: Timing is sort of everything these days - there's a right time to do things and a wrong time to do things. For me, yesterday was day #3 of working five days in a row, so there's been a lot less time to do other stuff. I agreed to work on Sunday night while this tent was built outside the theater on the sidewalk, and that's a shift where I don't have to do too much, but it can take a long time, so I was working the night of the Super Bowl, and so I had to record the game and watch it the next day. Then last night there was the premiere red-carpet event (the reason for building the tent in the first place) and I was scheduled to be there until the tent came down, which is another shift that tends to go long - it was supposed to end at midnight, but instead it took until 1 am. (I think the crew taking down the tent was being paid by the hour, they didn't have much pep in their step, and with the weather being as cold as it is, you'd think they would want to hurry so as to spend less time outside...). So I got home at 2 am and stupidly tried to watch a movie, I had some soda and an apple danish for a sugar boost, but that didn't help, I was asleep before I was an hour into the film. Now it's Tuesday morning and I'm going to try to finish it.
Michelle Williams carries over from "The Fablemans", but the bigger news is that I'm starting a three-film chain with Laura Dern, and I get to send a big birthday SHOUT-out to Ms. Dern today, born February 10, 1967. That's a sign that I'm on the right track with this chain, or at least I'm going to take that as a sign. This year's chain is kind of also about the films I'm NOT watching and saving for next year, like "Showing Up", which has Michelle Williams in it, and could have easily been dropped in - however, I need it to make a different connection next time around and link to some other films, so I'm NOT watching it - and as a result, I've landed a Laura Dern film right on her birthday, see? Now, with a little luck here I'm hoping to build up to some better romance films and kind of peak on Valentine's Day...
THE PLOT: The lives of four women intersect in small-town America, where each is imperfectly blazing a trail.
AFTER: Well, this film has kind of the same problem as "The Fabelmans", only this is really three short stories grafted together, though they kind of intersect with each other, with some characters appearing in two of the segments. But again there is no clear beginning, middle or end, so overall we're just dropped into these people's lives for a short time, we go out the same way and we're left wondering just what that was all about. Why are we being shown THESE particular moments in their lives, what is the message, or is the message simply that there is no message at all, and all events are random and only have meaning because we impart meaning on them? Is all life just a bunch of unconnected events, people bumping into each other and reacting to each other and then one day, maybe after a very long time, we all die?
This film premiered at the Sundance Festival in 2016, so, OK, that's seasonally appropriate, and it's set in a Pacific Northwest state (we assume Montana, but other answers are possible) during winter time, so OK, it's doubly seasonally appropriate - but based on what happens in the film, what can we learn about life and/or love, because this is February and we're looking for advice on that front.
The first story is about an attorney who has a client, Mr. Fuller, who is unemployed due to a workplace injury, however she has to keep telling him that he simply can not sue his employer to get more money, because he already accepted a small settlement and signed something to that effect. But he keeps pestering her so she takes him to another lawyer who specializes in this sort of thing, and he is once again told that he can take no further legal action. On the ride home, Fuller casually says something about wanting to shoot his former employers.
That night, Laura is called by the police, as her client has taken a security guard hostage at his former place of employment. The hostage crisis team preps Laura to go in and talk to Fuller, and while inside she does find his file, which proves that his employer cheated him out of his rightful settlement money, however it's still too late to fix this. Fuller tries to slip out the back of the office but is arrested by the police.
The second story is about Gina and Ryan, a married couple with a teen daughter, and they are living out of a tent while they build their house. The tension between the parents comes from Ryan constantly undermining Gina around their daughter. Tension might also be coming from the fact that Ryan is having an affair with Laura, from the first story. The couple meets with Albert, an elderly friend who has a pile of sandstone blocks in his yard, and they want to buy the stones to use as the foundation for their house - however this proves to be a challenge as Albert is very unfocused, he may have dementia, and even if he agrees to sell them the stones, he may not remember their agreement the next day. Gina complains again that her own husband did not really support her during the negotiations.
The third story is about a ranch hand named Jamie, who lives in isolation during the winter, tending to the horses on the ranch. One night, she randomly joins a group of people at a school and attends a class on law that pertains to education, taught by Beth, a young female lawyer who lives in Livingston, which is a four-hour drive away. Twice a week she has to make this eight-hour round trip drive from her job, which makes you wonder if she couldn't just get her company to spring for a hotel room and maybe make the drive once a week instead of twice, and just stay over the extra day or two between classes. That would be safer and more convenient, no?
Beth goes out to eat at a diner with Jamie after class, then starts the drive back - Jamie comes back week after week just to spend time with Beth, I'd say she was smitten but she seems kind of incapable of displaying any emotion at all. But one week she brings a horse to class so they can ride to the diner together on the horse, it seems like they both enjoyed that, and perhaps there's a relationship budding here, but the next week Jamie learns Beth has quit and a local lawyer has taken over teaching the class. Jamie then drives her truck all the way to Livingston to find Beth (along the way, she encounters Laura from the first story, only very briefly...) and when she finds her, Beth is very confused, she doesn't understand why Jamie drove four hours just to see her.
For God's sake, woman, put it together - she rides horses, she drives a TRUCK, she came to your class even though she had no interest in educational law. She's into Beth, but I guess Beth doesn't swing that way or if she does, she's not interested in Jamie. Oh, well, back to the ranch because those horses aren't going to feed themselves. Gay or straight, love is tricky and a bit like baseball - sometimes you win, sometimes you lose and sometimes it rains. Or maybe it was all just bad timing, maybe the whole film is about bad timing, if you get right down to it.
In other news, Gina and Ryan host a barbecue and Laura visits Fuller in prison and agrees to keep writing him letters. Again I wish I could say that there was a point to all of this, unless maybe the point is that there is no point in anything. Intersecting short stories kind of suggests "Pulp Fiction", only this is kind of like "Pulp Fiction" moved to Montana and left all of its action and comedy back in L.A. I mean, it's OK to be weird, it's OK to be quirky, it's OK to be outrageous, just please don't be boring.
And what the hell does the title even mean? Does the film mean that certain women are lawyers, certain women are lesbians? Is there something that they're all certain about? Because some of them don't seem very certain about anything? Or are we just supposed to focus on these certain women and ignore everyone else in the movie? A little help here, please.
Directed by Kelly Reichardt
Also starring Laura Dern (last seen in "Music by John Williams"), James Le Gros (last seen in "Destiny Turns on the Radio"), Jared Harris (last seen in "A House of Dynamite"), Ashlie Atkinson (last seen in "13"), Guy Boyd (last seen in "I'm Thinking of Ending Things"), Edelen McWilliams, John Getz (last seen in "Trumbo"), James Jordan (last seen in "Wind River"), Matt McTighe, Joshua T. Fonokalafi, Sara Twist, Rene Auberjonois (last seen in "Eulogy"), Lily Gladstone (last seen in "Killers of the Flower Moon"), Kristen Stewart (last seen in "Welcome to the Rileys"), Stephanie Campbell (last seen in "Straight Outta Compton"), Kilty Reidy, Marceline Hugot (last seen in "The Last Five Years"), Zena Dell Lowe, Gabriel Clark
RATING: 4 out of 10 hay bales
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