The Master

 Year:  2012

Director:  Paul Thomas Anderson

Screenplay:  Paul Thomas Anderson

Starring:  Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams

Running Time:  137 minutes

Genre:  Drama

Freddie Quell (Phoenix), a troubled, heavy drinking World War Two veteran, finds it difficult to adjust to postwar American society.  His drinking, coupled with his violent, erratic behaviour, causes him to be fired from several jobs, as he drifts across the States.  In San Francisco, Freddie meets Lancaster Dodd (Hoffman) the founder and leader of a movement known as "The Cause", which claims to help people using a confrontational technique called "Processing".  Freddie becomes fascinated by The Cause and the charismatic Dodd, and soon becomes a devoted follower.

This complex and often bleak drama, inspired by the early years of Scientology, is a powerful and sometimes disturbing piece of work.  Joaquin Phoenix gives one of his best performances as the violent alcoholic Freddie Quell.  The lecherous, mercurial Quell is often a deeply unlikeable character, but Phoenix gives us a glimpse of the humanity at his core.  Philip Seymour Hoffman is perfectly cast the charming, garrulous Dodd.  With Hoffman you can see how someone might fall for Dodd's line.  Dodd and Quell form a kind of father-son relationship, with Dodd frequently talking to him as if he's a small child, despite the fact that Hoffman was only seven years older than Phoenix.  There are moments, however, when Dodd's genial facade slips in brief explosions of rage.  Amy Adams plays Dodd's wife, Peggy, a quiet woman, who is a true believer in Dodd and The Cause, who is a mixture of charm, calm rage and steely determination.  There are also appearances from Laura Dean, Jesse Plemons and Rami Malek.  The film is far more than just a drama about a cult, it deals with America in the late 1940s early 1950s, the need to belong and the deep human will to believe in something.   Most of all it's about the strange connection between two men who are polar opposites and yet have a strange attachment.  Even when Freddie's bad behaviour alienates almost everyone around him, Dodd still insists in bringing him back into the fold.  The film's principal weakness is that it is quite meandering, it's one of those films where the story seems to have reached a conclusion, but there is still more to come.  However, this is a small criticism, since this is a truly great film.

Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Rami Malek in The Master
  

Quills

Year of Release:  2000
Director:  Philip Kaufman
Screenplay:  Doug Wright, based on the play Quills by Doug Wright
Starring:  Geoffrey Rush, Kate Winslet, Joaquin Phoenix, Michael Caine
Running Time:  119 minutes
Genre:  Period drama

Several years after the French Revolution, the notorious Marquis de Sade (Rush) is locked up in the Charenton asylum, run by the kindly Abbé de Coulmier (Phoenix), who encourages the Marquis' writing, because he believes it to be therapeutic.  However, unbeknownst to the Abbé, the Marquis is smuggling his manuscripts to a publisher, with the help of laundry maid Madeline (Winslet).  The Marquis' violently pornographic books cause a sensation throughout France, much to the displeasure of the Emperor Napoleon (Ron Cook), who orders all copies of the Marquis' works to be burned, and assigns the uncompromising Dr. Royer-Collard (Caine) to take over at Charenton and silence the Marquis by any means necessary.

This film may be very historically inaccurate, but it is a hugely entertaining, extremely dark tale, with deliciously sharp dialogue, laced with bitter humour.  It deals with creation, mental illness, censorship, hypocrisy, and control.  Despite his monstrous acts, which are discussed if not depicted, the Marquis de Sade, archly played by Geoffrey Rush, is portrayed as an anti-hero, a crusader for free speech.  Many people find his incendiary works liberating, particularly Royer-Collard's abused young wife, Simone (Amelia Warner), while for others they trigger horribly violent acts.  The cast all give good performances, and the film has a wonderfully gothic, gloomy atmosphere.

 Geoffrey Rush as the Marquis de Sade in Quills

Signs

Year: 2002
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Screenplay: M. Night Shyamalan
Starring: Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix, Rory Culkin, Abigail Breslin, Cherry Jones, M. Night Shyamalan
Genre: Science-fiction, thriller, drama
Running Time: 107 minutes

Summary: Former preacher Graham Hess (Gibson) lost his faith when his wife died in a car accident, and now works as a farmer a few miles outside Pittsburgh with his younger brother, former minor league baseball player Merrill (Phoenix), and Graham's two young children Morgan (Culkin) and Bo (Breslin).
Waking after a night disturbed by strange noises, the Hess family are shocked to find a large crop circle design in their corn field. Initially putting it down to local pranksters, the family soon discover that there have been reports flooding in from around the world of an unusually high number of crop circles appearing in a brief space of time.
Speculation is rife as to what caused the crop circles, some believing it to be an elaborate publicity stunt, some claiming it is a widespread hoax and others claiming that it marks the end of the world.
Morgan becomes fascinated with a book he buys about UFOs and extra terrestrials. The news reports on the television and radio become increasingly disturbing as strange lights are seen in the sky near the circles and video footage of briefly glimpsed strange creatures surface on the news. It soon becomes apparent that a full-scale alien invasion is under way, and the Hess family are among their targets.

Opinions: M. Night Shyamalan has had an interesting, if very uneaven career. From the highly successful and critically adored The Sixth Sense (1999) to the critically panned The Last Airbender (2010). Shyamalan is at his best when he is dealing with regular people pitted against otherworldly events. This film really has him doing what he does best, and provides an imaginative ground zero view of an alien invasion.
Unlike most films of this type there are no flashy spaceship effects or spectacular battles, or even ray-guns zapping everything in sight. The spaceships are seen briefly in TV news footage and then are basically lights in the sky. The aliens are barely glimpsed throughout the whole movie, and are usually depicted as just noises in the house.
The film features an impressively subdued turn from Mel Gibson as a tormented former preacher who is still stricken with grief and bitterness over the untimely death of his wife. Joaquin Phoenix is also good as the younger brother, who seems to be treated more like an employee than a family member. As the two kids, Rory Culkin and Abigail Breslin both provide powerful and affecting performances.
The movie does have it's problems, most notably a ludicrous final revelation about the aliens, although that really comes too late in the day to spoil anything. Also the elements of family drama and alien invasion movie, as well as the film's surprising religious overtones, don't always gel. At times it comes across as a fusion of Ingmar Bergman and Steven Spielberg.
However, this is an intriguing and fascinating film and a cut above most alien invasion movies.

"See what you have to ask yourself is what kind of person are you? Are you the kind that sees signs, that sees miracles? Or do you believe that people just get lucky? Or, look at the question this way: Do you believe that there are no conicidences?"
- Graham Hess (Mel Gibson) philosophises in Signs.



Rory Culkin, Joaquin Phoenix, Mel Gibson and Abigail Breslin watch for Signs