Asperger's Syndrome and the Nazis

OK, those two things don't seem to connect, but they did yesterday, because in the afternoon when the clouds were merely threatening, my daughter and I went to see Adam. This isn't a film for everyone. It's an indy film with such fine acting by Hugh Dancy that the flaws in the script might be worth it. Dancy plays Adam, a young man suddenly alone when his father dies and his Asperger's Syndrome keeps him thoroughly isolated. Hugh Dancy was the Earl of Essex in the HBO Elizabeth I, and we saw him on Broadway in Journey's End, which didn't quite capture his charisma that the big screen manages.

The trailers to Adam pretty much tell the story: a young man with Asperger's Syndrome befriends Beth, a beautiful young teacher who moves in next door in Manhattan. Beth has a much-too-close relationship with her father and is licking her wounds from a failed romance with an investment banker that her father wants her to marry. OK, why would she fall for Adam? That is a big flaw in the film unless the phrase "co-dependent" comes up. And this is another film with the "all knowing" Black man who is the only human being who understands Adam. However, for a Saturday afternoon with my twenty-year old daughter, it was perfect. And we didn't get any popcorn.

Later last evening we went to see Inglourious Basterds, Quentin Tarantino's new film. Now I admit to being obsessed with the Holocaust. It began when I sneaked reading Meyer Levin's Eva and then Leon Uris' Exodus and Mila 18 when I was still a kid. My grandmother used to go through her family album, pointing out with tears in her eyes, who didn't make it through the war in Roumania. I couldn't have enough of Anne Frank, the abridged and unabridged versions as well as the play (and one of my favorite David Sedaris essays is about his coveting Anne Frank's hideout as the perfect apartment for him and Hugh). There are those who believe I should be hosting a site of Holocaust-based films, because I've seen them all, except I couldn't bring myself to see Woman in Berlin.

Inglourious Basterds is perhaps Tarantino's best film since Pulp Fiction, which had been my personal favorite despite its self-indulgence and sheer insanity. (Part one with Uma Thurman and John Travolta, well I have no idea how many times I've seen it!) There is less violence, minutes go by without any murder, which seems incongruous for a film about Nazi-occupied France, especially as portrayed by Tarantino. And there are great moments of subtle directing, something I've never seen before in his oeuvre. Watch for the "milk" and "strudel" scenes, where great acting, timing, and cinematography all combine into perfect moments.

Christoph Waltz is the star of the film, not Brad Pitt. He plays the most adept Nazi Gestapo officer ever. And remember, I know the films of this genre. He is likable almost, because he is so good at what he does, and so seamless in his manipulations. Extraordinary. Then there is Melanie Laurent who plays the runaway Jewess, Shosanna. Her beauty, courage, her determined intentionality make her into the unexpected hero of this film.

And then there is Brad Pitt. Our friend Ginger thought he was utterly miscast, but I didn't. I believe the film needs a character who is thoroughly American with that exuberance and optimism, and that is what Pitt delivered. He is funny; his portrayal is up there with his character in Snatch. He is over the top in his Americanism, and that is what the film needs, because much of it is in French, German, and Italian. And afterall, it is Tarantino.

Burn After Reading

Our entourage liked the Coen Brothers' new film "Burn After Reading," mostly because the actors worked so hard to make us laugh. And we did. Even my husband laughed out loud. We were all exhausted from a week of too much work and far too much anxiety. It isn't the best Coen Brothers' film. Personally, I am a devoted fan to "The Big Lebowski," which I just watched again for the upteenth time in celebration of its tenth anniversary. But "Burn After Reading" succeeded in characterizing an attitude of government that pretty much says it all.

The plot of "Burn After Reading" is silly, complex, and full of compulsive sex and working out. Briefly, Linda, played by an impeccable Frances McDormand, wants four plastic surgery operations to keep herself viable for finding a husband. She works in a gym called Hardbodies. She hoodwinks her co-worker Chad, emphatically played by Brad Pitt, into helping her raise the funds by blackmailing a deposed CIA analyst Osborne Cox. A cd with Cox's financial information is found in the gym and misinterpreted as national security secrets. That CIA analyst is the character created by John Malkovich, and every time I see him in anything, new or old, I long for him to return to acting. His character is filled with rage, Malkovich has absolutely no vanity, so his portrayal of rage is the heart of the humor of the film. At one point, dressed in a bathrobe and boxer shorts, he grabs a hatchet and shouts into a cell phone that he is coming over to his former marital home with the "new keys."

His estranged wife is Tilda Swinton who brings new dimensions to the chilly wife genre. She is having an affair with George Clooney, a career Federal Marshall, whose bad caps make his smile almost swampy swarmy. He compulsively sleeps with women he finds on the Net and compulsively ends each tryst by going for a run. A day without working out actually brings him to tears. We never see him working, only screwing around during the day, another comment about government. What do they do?

Only Brad Pitt seems truly happy, perhaps because he goes through life with his iPod connected directly to his brain. And he is delightfully dumb.

But the cleverness of the film isn't the plot, which anyone can follow, although at a crucial moment, there is a terrible editing cut. The cleverness is the dialogue within the CIA as the slapstick turn of events get reported back to Agency higher ups. This is why the film works. The attitude of the CIA captures our belief that nothing in government, especially this government, is working. At one point, the Agency manager tells his division chief, Palmer, to come back "when everything makes sense."

That captured it for me: come back to me when everything makes sense.