In this edition of Diractors (my column for the digital magazine Boston Hassle), we are looking at three films I didn’t get a chance to cover upon their initial release. Making movies as an actor or person with acting experience is all about cashing in at the right time to show you can do more than just be a competent actor’s director. While Maggie Gyllenhaal (director of The Bride!), Bradley Cooper (director of Is This Thing On?), and Scarlett Johansson (director of Eleanor The Great) achieve disparate degrees of success, but each hold essential information about the “diractor” role in how we see movies.
The Bride! (Maggie Gyllenhaal)
It feels like memory faded faster for Gyllenhaal’s sophomore feature than any of us wanted. The excellent The Lost Daughter showed lots of promise. Gyllenhaal appeared to be someone with legitimate craft and the ability to bring the novel to screen with real precision; it was especially refreshing to see a filmmaker allow for women characters be unfiltered and mean on screen. But The Bride has zero juice; it’s a movie with a broken engine. Gyllenhaal proved herself to be ill-equipped at a horror comedy, as The Bride ends up having no jokes that land nor scares that frighten. The concept — a riff on Bonnie and Clyde with horror icons as our criminal protagonists — has enough going for it, but the movie just kinda feels overwhelmed with itself. The commitment from Buckley and Bale is admirable. But when the film nudges at ideas of identity or sexual liberation, it feels like it’s looping back around to a conversation both you and the movie forgot to even start. Visually, the film opts for lazy plotting and uninspired set pieces. Gyllenhaal is currently set to adapt Creation Lake. It’s a relief to see that The Bride could flop without immediately placing her in diractors jail with Warner Bros. throwing away the keys.
Is This Thing On? (Bradley Cooper)
Like Gyllenhaal withThe Bride, Bradley Cooper’s third feature as a director comes off of a run of relative success only to flatline. After the sensation of A Star is Born in 2018 transitioned into the less-than-stellar Maestro, Cooper was sent back to the drawing board after cashing in his blank check a bit too soon, that time around to even more middling results. Is This Thing On? feels like a continuation of this trend. The story has a great hook: a guy on the verge of divorce signs up for an open mic standup to avoid paying cover charges at a local bar. This hook is maybe a little too neat for someone like Cooper, as he isn’t been able to scale down as much as this relationship drama asks for. Commonly seen as influenced by the films of previous collaborator Cameron Crowe, Is This Thing On? can’t summit any moments of true romcom transcendence like the best of Crowe can. It also doesn’t get quite mean enough for a movie about the end of a marriage. Cooper is on the right track, and it would be nice to see another movie like this after his Ocean’s prequel (who knows if that’ll even happen). At the very least, it’s always lovely to see scene partner Laura Dern receive this much interiority and agency. Fly Eagles Fly!
Eleanor The Great (Scarlett Johansson):
This is a tender, lovely, and warm motion picture! Scar Jo has the least directorial experience under her belt of this trio, which makes an early watch both exciting and concerning. One hopes to see her take influence from the number of impressive filmmakers she’s previously worked with, but wonders if she’ll be able to turn that inspiration into anything good. The fact that Cannes hosted her debut last tear was promising, as was Sony Classics handling the distribution rights and the best actress buzz for icon June Squibb. What resulted was something much quieter and curious than I anticipated; a movie interested in the heartwarming. Eleanor the Great centers on the warm relationship between Eleanor (Squibb), an older woman newly returned to New York City to be closer to her daughter, and Nina (Erin Kellyman), a journalism student who takes an interest in Eleanor when they’re brought together in a Holocaust survivors group. In a panicked attempt to connect, Eleanor lies and tells Nina that she is a Holocaust survivor, when in fact she converted to Judaism late in life. Eleanor finds more of a daughter figure in Nina than her actual daughter. Nina is grieving the loss of her own mom, which makes Eleanor’s warmth even more compelling. The strength of their bond makes Eleanor’s lie even harder to hide, but the reveal and makeup is done in such a gooey and sincere arc that there’s zero tension. Johansson clearly does have a lot of admiration for this script, but doesn’t push the material far enough or to interesting enough spaces, and I found myself thinking about the far superior Away From Her. I can’t predict where ScarJo is going next as a filmmaker; maybe she’ll opt to act in her next film. All that I know for certain is she’s gonna freak it in the new Ari Aster.
