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Dreary, dismal and dysfunctional
20 November 2005
[indent]Winter Solstice is one of those slice-of-life films, the sort in which we expect to see a family flailing in its attempts to keep from gyrating apart go through some epiphany and re-coalesce into functionality again. Winter Solstice doesn't bother with such niceties. It rides the rails of angst throughout the film, never taking the spur line to redemption.
It's a film about the dysfunctional remnants of a family - the Winters (hence the film title) - fractured by the mother's death five years earlier. It might have been a film about rediscovery of lost values, or about the coming of age/leaving the nest rites young men and women inevitably undergo. It might have been about the discovery of self and meaning, or the return of romance into a barren life. It was none of these. It was, instead, a dreary slit-your-wrist expedition into the dullness of the American psyche.
The two sons are diluted James Dean characters; angry without any cause, rebellious without any redeeming characteristics. We see in them no art, no style, no hidden talents, no inner soul waiting to burst free like a butterfly in its chrysalis. They're just lost souls with no Virgil to guide them, thoroughly dislikable.
The elder son, Gabe (Aaron Stanford), might have been the angry young artist looking for expression, except he doesn't have any art in him. He also seems to have lost the art of using a razor and sports the scruffy look throughout the film. He has a girlfriend, Stacey (Michelle Monahan) who has little to do but look cute without offering any other substance to the role. Gabe is also a smoker, which reduces his possible value even as a counter-hero in the film (more on this below).
Gabe is planning to leave home and join a friend in Florida, his private exodus from the restrictions of family and his small-town dead-end life. Stacey isn't tagging along, however and plans to remain at home, looking cute sans Gabe. We don't see any emotional play between them; no fights over Gabe's incipient departure, no outbursts, professions of love, no expressions of passion. They're barely friendly with one another, leaving any hint of actual intimacy to the most active imaginations.
The younger son, Robbie (Brendan Sexton III), is a surly, alienated lump, failing at school and possibly (from the one scene of inexplicable violence) a vicious psycopath. He has no future in mind, no goals, no focus. His only redeeming characteristic is that he doesn't smoke.
Forced to attend summer school to make up for his failing grades, Robbie attends a history class taught by Mr. Bricker (Ron Livingston), another shabby dresser who has forgotten the manly art of shaving regularly. You might expect some sort of connection here, Robbie emerging from his solitude to prove himself brilliant, but misunderstood, and Bricker to become the modern Mr. Chips who draws the essence of the students from their shells.
But you get nada; just ennui-inducing classroom scenes in which neither character contributes anything of significance to the plot or dialogue. We never even get to learn if Robbie passes or fails.
The father, Jim (Anthony Lepaglia), is a dour man of few words. Whether this is the result of the trauma of losing his wife, or he in naturally phlegmatic is never clarified. His gamut of emotions seems to run from surly to angry and then to cautiously defensive. Joy, affection, love, even humour escape him.
Jim doesn't understand his sons, but so what? What father does? His response to emotional pressure is to shout at them, and then he can't understand why they don't want to share some quality time with him. His reaction is a look that might be described as hurt, but it's hard to tell, since he shows so little range in his facial expressions.
Jim meets Molly Ripkin (Allison Janney) who is house-sitting down the road for an absent friend. They have dinner, share a few words, and spark a romance that's not quite as passionate as Emperor Penguins in the dark, bitter Antarctic winter. I've seen more passionate interaction between strangers barging ahead in airport queues. Forget the redeeming romance. The relationship (it barely deserves such a categorization) is little more than ships passing in the night, and at great distance, too.
Dad and sons are invited to dinner with Molly. We might think the sons scampered out of the engagement to give their dad a chance to do some adult-to-adult communication with Molly and rekindle the spark his wife's death gutted. But as far as we can tell, the kids just didn't want to go and spent the evening hanging out with friends, with no ulterior motive to help their father's constricted emotional life. And as for kindling any spark, the dinner is as emotionally damp as New Orleans after Katrina.
Jim is a smoker, and drives and SUV, a combination that puts him somewhere between bottom-feeder and mouth-breather in my estimation. He could only have fallen lower had he been a lawyer. When will Hollywood stop pandering to big tobacco and realize that more than 80 per cent of its audience doesn't smoke and doesn't want to see smokers cast as protagonists? Antagonists, okay - since bad guys are supposed to be stupid, smelly and coarse. But not the supposedly good guys.
Smoking is a self-inflicted disease, one that doesn't even come with the fun associated with contracting an STD. But both are equally glamourous in the results they inflict. Smoking is unflattering, it makes people stink like week-old ashtrays, it's dirty and it offends the majority of viewers. When protagonists are shown as smokers, it alienates the audience and dissolves much hope of any empathy with the characters. It's hard to feel sympathy for a character going through a life crisis when they're obviously not bright enough to quit smoking. If they won't take responsibility for their own health, how are we expected to believe they feel any sense of responsibility to their jobs, family, friends or other characters?
Dreary, dismal and dysfunctional seems to sum it all up. Where most films of this ilk would have built towards some redemptive climax in which there's some moral or emotional salvation at the end, something that promises of better days and new beginnings, Winter Solstice ends as abruptly as a train meeting a pickup on the tracks, leaving the viewer feeling abandoned, empty, and wondering how it all ties together.
Winter Solstice is a series of disconnects, scenes that lead nowhere, explain nothing, advancing no character or plot, and frequently leaving me wondering what that bit was all about.
In fact, there's precious little plot at all, even less character development, and the dialogue is sparse and unrevealing. It has the feel of something cobbled together from the cutting room floor, rather than crafted into a film. By the end, you're just glad it's over and the punishment can stop.
It rates zero out of five on my scale. I normally drop a star from any film where the protagonists are smokers, but in this case it would reduce it to negative numbers, so I'll leave it as it is.[/indent]
It's a film about the dysfunctional remnants of a family - the Winters (hence the film title) - fractured by the mother's death five years earlier. It might have been a film about rediscovery of lost values, or about the coming of age/leaving the nest rites young men and women inevitably undergo. It might have been about the discovery of self and meaning, or the return of romance into a barren life. It was none of these. It was, instead, a dreary slit-your-wrist expedition into the dullness of the American psyche.
The two sons are diluted James Dean characters; angry without any cause, rebellious without any redeeming characteristics. We see in them no art, no style, no hidden talents, no inner soul waiting to burst free like a butterfly in its chrysalis. They're just lost souls with no Virgil to guide them, thoroughly dislikable.
The elder son, Gabe (Aaron Stanford), might have been the angry young artist looking for expression, except he doesn't have any art in him. He also seems to have lost the art of using a razor and sports the scruffy look throughout the film. He has a girlfriend, Stacey (Michelle Monahan) who has little to do but look cute without offering any other substance to the role. Gabe is also a smoker, which reduces his possible value even as a counter-hero in the film (more on this below).
Gabe is planning to leave home and join a friend in Florida, his private exodus from the restrictions of family and his small-town dead-end life. Stacey isn't tagging along, however and plans to remain at home, looking cute sans Gabe. We don't see any emotional play between them; no fights over Gabe's incipient departure, no outbursts, professions of love, no expressions of passion. They're barely friendly with one another, leaving any hint of actual intimacy to the most active imaginations.
The younger son, Robbie (Brendan Sexton III), is a surly, alienated lump, failing at school and possibly (from the one scene of inexplicable violence) a vicious psycopath. He has no future in mind, no goals, no focus. His only redeeming characteristic is that he doesn't smoke.
Forced to attend summer school to make up for his failing grades, Robbie attends a history class taught by Mr. Bricker (Ron Livingston), another shabby dresser who has forgotten the manly art of shaving regularly. You might expect some sort of connection here, Robbie emerging from his solitude to prove himself brilliant, but misunderstood, and Bricker to become the modern Mr. Chips who draws the essence of the students from their shells.
But you get nada; just ennui-inducing classroom scenes in which neither character contributes anything of significance to the plot or dialogue. We never even get to learn if Robbie passes or fails.
The father, Jim (Anthony Lepaglia), is a dour man of few words. Whether this is the result of the trauma of losing his wife, or he in naturally phlegmatic is never clarified. His gamut of emotions seems to run from surly to angry and then to cautiously defensive. Joy, affection, love, even humour escape him.
Jim doesn't understand his sons, but so what? What father does? His response to emotional pressure is to shout at them, and then he can't understand why they don't want to share some quality time with him. His reaction is a look that might be described as hurt, but it's hard to tell, since he shows so little range in his facial expressions.
Jim meets Molly Ripkin (Allison Janney) who is house-sitting down the road for an absent friend. They have dinner, share a few words, and spark a romance that's not quite as passionate as Emperor Penguins in the dark, bitter Antarctic winter. I've seen more passionate interaction between strangers barging ahead in airport queues. Forget the redeeming romance. The relationship (it barely deserves such a categorization) is little more than ships passing in the night, and at great distance, too.
Dad and sons are invited to dinner with Molly. We might think the sons scampered out of the engagement to give their dad a chance to do some adult-to-adult communication with Molly and rekindle the spark his wife's death gutted. But as far as we can tell, the kids just didn't want to go and spent the evening hanging out with friends, with no ulterior motive to help their father's constricted emotional life. And as for kindling any spark, the dinner is as emotionally damp as New Orleans after Katrina.
Jim is a smoker, and drives and SUV, a combination that puts him somewhere between bottom-feeder and mouth-breather in my estimation. He could only have fallen lower had he been a lawyer. When will Hollywood stop pandering to big tobacco and realize that more than 80 per cent of its audience doesn't smoke and doesn't want to see smokers cast as protagonists? Antagonists, okay - since bad guys are supposed to be stupid, smelly and coarse. But not the supposedly good guys.
Smoking is a self-inflicted disease, one that doesn't even come with the fun associated with contracting an STD. But both are equally glamourous in the results they inflict. Smoking is unflattering, it makes people stink like week-old ashtrays, it's dirty and it offends the majority of viewers. When protagonists are shown as smokers, it alienates the audience and dissolves much hope of any empathy with the characters. It's hard to feel sympathy for a character going through a life crisis when they're obviously not bright enough to quit smoking. If they won't take responsibility for their own health, how are we expected to believe they feel any sense of responsibility to their jobs, family, friends or other characters?
Dreary, dismal and dysfunctional seems to sum it all up. Where most films of this ilk would have built towards some redemptive climax in which there's some moral or emotional salvation at the end, something that promises of better days and new beginnings, Winter Solstice ends as abruptly as a train meeting a pickup on the tracks, leaving the viewer feeling abandoned, empty, and wondering how it all ties together.
Winter Solstice is a series of disconnects, scenes that lead nowhere, explain nothing, advancing no character or plot, and frequently leaving me wondering what that bit was all about.
In fact, there's precious little plot at all, even less character development, and the dialogue is sparse and unrevealing. It has the feel of something cobbled together from the cutting room floor, rather than crafted into a film. By the end, you're just glad it's over and the punishment can stop.
It rates zero out of five on my scale. I normally drop a star from any film where the protagonists are smokers, but in this case it would reduce it to negative numbers, so I'll leave it as it is.[/indent]
