Dispatches from the 2023 Virginia Film Festival: Day 2
For my general thoughts on this year’s 2023 Virginia Film Festival, see part 1.
Here are my reviews for the final day’s movies, Monster and May December:
#36: Monster (Gaga/Tono) directed by Hirokazu Kore-Eda - ★★★★½
The final day of my first in-person festival experience went much smoother than yesterday for two reasons: 1) This time, Raven joined me and 2) the start of my first screening of the day was in the afternoon instead of the morning. We arrived just as the film was being introduced at the Violet Crown theater.
Monster, from Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-Eda (Shoplifters), takes place in three acts from different perspectives of major characters in the film. First, we follow Saori Mugino (Sakura Andō, Shoplifters) as she grows concerned about the mental state of her son Minato (Sōya Kurokaw) who is being abused by his grade school teacher (Eita Nagayama). Then, we see the day-to-day life of the teacher, Michitoshi Hori, as he protects another one of his students, Yori Hoshikawa (Hinata Hiiragi), from Minato’s bullying. And the third and final act is complex, mixing the perspectives of the seemingly inept principal of the school (Yūko Tanaka, Princess Mononoke) Minato, and Yori to arrive at “the truth.”
Each of the film’s 3 acts are in concert with the next, revealing key details missing from the last in a new, enlightening way. Kore-da also continues to show an adeptness in the portrayal of children for the big screen. The film’s best scenes are the ones focused solely on the imaginative worlds of Minato and Yori, away from the grief of losing a father or abuse of a present one. I couldn’t help but want them to stay in their naive states, protected from the harshness of society.
Monster also does a good job of showing one of my favorites quotes: “No one is a villain in their own story.” In the first two acts, the audience is forced to view the movie’s world through a single lens, taking on the characters’ biases and perspectives as gospel. But what is revealed through the course of the movie is that our memories and our viewpoints are flawed. The truth is often much more complex.
It reminded me a lot of the best parts of the first season of Showtime’s The Affair, where each person’s vantage point unveils a kernel of truth while simultaneously obscuring it. As I pointed out in the last post, Japan keeps churning out some of the best filmmaking in recent times. Drive My Car’s director Ryusuke Hamaguchi also had a film, Evil Does Not Exist, play at the festival. Ironically, it is a fitting title for this film too.
Monster will be out in theaters on November 22.
#37: May December (Netflix) directed by Todd Haynes - ★★★★
My last film of this year’s festival, May December, brought us back to the regal Paramount Theater.
Todd Haynes, 4 years removed from his last narrative feature film, directed his newest movie for Netflix starring a dynamic one-two punch of Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore.
Loosely inspired by the real life story of Mary Kay Letourneau, May December follows actress Elizabeth Berry (Portman, Black Swan) as she spends time with Gracie Atherton-Yoo (Moore, Crazy, Stupid, Love) to prepare for a movie based on Gracie’s life—primarily the part where she went to prison for the rape of a child who she eventually marries. Just like Fallen Leaves the day before, Haynes takes on the black comedy-drama genre.
As dark as the subject matter is, the combination of an uproarious script by Samy Burch and Alex Mechanik, lead acting from Moore and Portman, and the supporting cast highlighted by Charles Melton’s (Riverdale) inner performance as Gracie’s illicit beau Joe.
The triumph of the film is in its ability to get the audience to get past the criminality of Joe and Gracie’s relationship and instead to focus on our societal obsession with human ugliness. Elizabeth and the rest of the Maine beach community are consumed by the ins and outs of the marriage. Hollywood and the current media ecosystem gobbles up every ounce of drama possible and spits it out for our consumption via the 24-7 news cycle, buoyed by social media.
Very few films I have seen can tackle a topic with so much depth while being able to also keep an audience engaged. The biggest laughs of my festival slate came in this one.
May December will be out in select theaters next weekend and on Netflix on December 1.
Thank you again to the team at the Virginia Film Festival for inviting me, especially Katie Kenny who dealt with all of my ticket requests! I hope to be back next year, either as a member of the press or just as a general audience member.