Friday, October 8
Director Simon Staho’s film, set almost entirely in an SUV, follows the vehicle’s morose owner (Mikael Persbrandt) over the course of a day as he picks up various friends, family members, and strangers in an attempt to settle personal accounts before following through with his suicide plan. If this sounds familiar it’s because Staho (who also cowrote the script) lifted the conceit straight from Abbas Kiarostami’s Taste of Cherry. But where Kiarostami’s film was a profound meditation on life, Staho’s is a dark psychodrama, and an unredemptive one at one at that. It’s compelling thanks to the exceptionally good performances, but it’s hard to get past the unremitting bleakness. With Erland Josephson and Pernilla August. In Swedish with subtitles. 95 min. (RP) aRiver East, 6 PM
Tomorrow We Move
R Annette Bening puts her early theatrical training to good use in this glossy period piece (based on W. Somerset Maugham’s novella “Theatre”) about a capricious, spoiled stage diva who thrives on intrigue and adulation. When she needs more than she’s getting from her husband (an excellent Jeremy Irons), handsome admirer (Bruce Greenwood), slavish producer (Miriam Margolyes), and long-suffering dresser (Juliet Stevenson, with a nod and a wink to Thelma Ritter in All About Eve), she takes a young American lover (Shaun Evans, the one weak link in a cast directed by Istvan Szabo). Once Julia, a consummate user, realizes she herself is being used, she sets into motion a sting that culminates where she’s most at home: the stage. Witty, satisfying, and a terrific showcase for the radiant Bening. 105 min. (MB) aThorne, 7 PM
Summer in the Golden Valley
RJonathan Caouette started photographing and filming himself when he was 11 during a chaotic childhood under the transient care of an electroshocked, intermittently institutionalized mom, numerous foster parents (some abusive), and his clueless grandparents. Drawing from home movies, answering-machine messages, and movie clips, Caouette famously put together this film for about $200 using iMovie, Apple’s rudimentary DV editing program. But it’s something of a masterpiece: a confessional experimental documentary with echoes, both conscious and unconscious, of filmmakers from Andy Warhol to John Cassavetes, Stan Brakhage to David Lynch. Gus Van Sant and John Cameron Mitchell signed on as executive producers after seeing a rough cut of the film. 105 min. (MB) aLandmark, 9:15 PM
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Talk about Method acting: Christian Bale (American Psycho) dropped over 60 pounds to play the title role in this psychological mystery directed by Brad Anderson (Next Stop Wonderland). By day Bale’s emaciated loner operates heavy machinery, by night he finds solace with a call girl (Jennifer Jason Leigh), and in between he courts a single mom (Aitana Sanchez-Gijon)–he’s got the time because he literally doesn’t sleep. The color scheme of cool blues and grays accentuates the bleakness of the industrial landscape and the protagonist’s increasing isolation and pallor, and the theremin on the sound track provides an otherworldly touch. Until now Bale’s screen persona has been defined by a graceful athleticism; here his physicality is repellent, yet he carries the occasionally creaky plot of Scott Kosar’s unsettling screenplay to a resonant finish. 102 min. (AG) aLandmark, 11:30 PM
