The public deals with several incredibly weighty subjects. Mental illness, homelessness, lack of homeless shelters, the closing of libraries and the disconnect between public officials and the public. Regrettably, its delivery of these messages feels artificial, often strained. Writer/director Emilio Estevez (The Breakfast Club, Young Guns), who I expected to and was hoping would have a home run with this film, seems as unsure of himself behind the camera as he does in front of the camera. What he wants to say is necessary to hear and acknowledge and it’s important for us to consider but the script often feels stiff and farfetched as if it were Estevez himself who was legitimately concerned about how it would be perceived.

Stuart Goodson (Estevez) manages a branch of the Public Library in Cincinnati. He loves his job, loves the people who meander in the doors and loves books. Books are distinct and something tangible. When he needed something real, they helped him get sober. He tends to them the best he can when they’re defaced, which lately, are damaged with symbols of hate.

At the beginning of the narrative, we meet some of the homeless who like to come in not just to read, but to have somewhere to go, to feel a sense of community and to stay warm. As the shelters fill, they’re faced with fewer choices of where to stay in extreme weather. Estevez knows it’s important to show the library patrons in the best light possible, so we’re shown how kind-hearted and amusing they are, even mocking the situation in which they find themselves. After meeting the pompous public officials who want to oust them from their temporary home for the night, Christian Slater and Alec Baldwin, you’re on the side of Goodson’s customers even more.

On this particular day, nightfall hits and the homeless decide they’re not leaving. Some are veterans and feel the city owes them a place to sleep for the night. As people did on Wall Street, they choose to ‘Occupy’ the library. Under pressure from a pending lawsuit as it is, Goodson does his best to get them to leave, but the seventy or so people who simply want a roof over their heads and some heat for the night, aren’t going anywhere. When the story makes it to the city’s politicians and then to the news, the story gets blown up and suddenly… it’s a hostage situation?? As wannabe mayor Josh Davis (Slater) pushes the plot that Goodson is the bad guy, the very plot of the movie becomes somewhat ludicrous, to say the least.

After an hour into this two-hour movie, you’re not so much concerned for Goodson, even though Estevez is pushing you to, as you are the overall subject of the piece. The discord within the storyline of the homeless taking over a public library to stay warm is lost in filling our heads with humdrum backstories and the set-up for a trite love story that doesn’t fit. Don’t even get me started with how the homeless is characterized in this fictional account of who they are. We’re supposed to see them as the trampled and crushed… but why do they have to be depicted as psychotic, as well? That’s where this powerful theme is lost. Estevez wants to show you that humans can do better. Perhaps he should have led with that himself. 

*Check local listing for a theatre near you where you can view this film.

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Veteran actress of such remarkable films as, ‘The Big Chill,’ and ‘Being John Malkovich,’ Mary Kay Place, plays the principle role of, Diane, a woman fighting off her demons before it’s too late, in this hyper-focused study of regret.

‘Diane’ is the sad tale of an older woman in a small Massachusetts town who’s trying everything in her power to make up for the person she was in the past. She spent most of her life, casting away those who loved her for own selfish needs and is now trying desperately to please them… if they let her and if they’ll agree to her terms. She now feels the pain of losing people she once thought disposable as those around her disappear by choice or because they’ve been snatched by the cold, hard grip of death. She is doing everything she can to make up for her mistakes but not everyone is open to her desire for absolution and not everyone forgets.

She commits a lot of her free time performing charitable work such as feeding the homeless at the shelter and offering help whenever and wherever it’s needed. She spends a considerable amount of her time visiting her cousin, Donna (O’Connell), who’s in the hospital. She has cervical cancer and, feeling guilty for having wronged her when they were young women, Diane gives her most of her a lot of attention. However, the person Diane wants to help even more is the one most impervious to her overtures of altruism and goodwill. Her son, Brian, chillingly played Jake Lacy (Miss Sloane, How to Be Single). Brian is a drug attic who gets rather nasty with his mother constantly inserting herself into his life. As you watch this relationship unfold, you realize it’s Diane who has always needed help, never received any and needs some now more than ever. She showers him with the attention she always craved yet spoiled what they could have had when she ran off with Donna’s boyfriend, leaving young Brian behind.   

Produced by Martin Scorsese, written and directed by film critic and documentarian, Kent Jones (this is his first narrative feature film) ‘Diane’ was a shoo-in and ended up being a darling at the Tribeca Film Festival last year, where it won several awards. The film is a fascinating character study but not one to watch if you feel you are or are possibly on the verge of, depression. Jones purposely misleads with a timeline that’s all over the place, giving you the feeling of frustration and confusion on purpose. As those closest to her pass away, she reaches out to Brian more but then you see the real Diane on display. She draws a line in the sand when he and his new wife try to shove religion down her throat. Seems everyone has their limits. She feigns that all is well but losing him to religion is a war she knows she can’t win. Is it too late to win him back?

*In the Phoenix area, see this at Harkins Shea 14

“Storm Boy” is a new movie based on a 1963 book concerning a boy growing up in a wild section of Western Australia. There was a prior movie also created, so this is a reboot of that prior version. It is a coming-of-age story of a young boy who helps raise some orphaned pelicans back in the 1950’s.  The shots of the ocean and the beach and the surrounding wildlife make up a large part of the allure of this movie. Also, the boy meets and befriends an older aboriginal native who is wise in the ways of nature and in the ways of the human heart. The story line moves from the present time back to flashbacks in the 50’s, where the majority of the plot unfolds.

In present day Adelaide (Australia), there is an older man named Michael Kingley (Geoffrey Rush) who is there to vote on a business deal. The deal is for his son (Erik Thomson), who has taken over Michael’s business now that he is retired. But the local folks do not what this deal to go thru, including Michaels’ grand-daughter Maddy (Morgana Davies). The sale of land to a mining company would ruin the land, they all say. The vote gets delayed, and Michael begins to tell Maddy of his childhood – which was near Coorong National Park. That is a home to a large pelican nesting ground.

The young Michael (Finn Little) lived a simple life with his fisherman father, called ‘Hideaway’ Tom (Jai Courtney). They lived in a small shack on the beach, across from the nature preserve. Tow would take his small boat to off shore a ways to fish. He would sell his fish in the ‘big’ city of Adelaide, and he would very often need to extend his credit with the local stores. But they all knew that Tom was good man, even if he did keep to himself. Tom was just not same after his wife and young daughter were killed in a freak auto accident

Michael meets an aboriginal man named Fingerbone Bill (Trevor Jamieson). Bill is very wise in the ways of the land and the ocean and the storms. When Bill meets Michael, a pelican has just been shot by hunters. That means a storm will be coming soon. And it does come, to drench the beach and the town. After that, Bill called Michael “Storm Boy”.  The pelican mother that died left three orphan chicks, and Michael tries to raise all three of them. He calls them Mr Proud, Mr Ponder and Mr Percival. These little hatchlings grow until they eat most of the fish that Tom can bring home. So, when they are all grown up – they need to go.

Except that Mr Percival comes back, and he wants the easy life – not to fish for his own food. But there is a day when Tom is out on his little boat in a storm, and he becomes stranded. Michael and Fingerbone Bill find a way to get Mr Percival to fly out to Bill and drop a fishing line. The other end is connected to a stronger rope. Bill pulls the rope to himself, and then Michael and Bill haul him back onto land. The pelican has saved the day! Michael becomes a local hero, and Mr Percival is well known.

Michael grows up to build a huge empire, and now his son controls it. Michael and two of his old friends have enough control over the vote to postpone getting the deal put through. So the mining company will have to wait to tear up the land, or look elsewhere. But there is not much else to say about the plot, and the actual purpose is still unclear. Except that the photography and the visual vistas of the Western Australia are amazing to see. Even at a basic level, this movie is wonderful ad campaign for the tourist bureau in the Land Down-Under.

All the actors do a very reasonable job with the roles they have been given. The story is slow and there is not much in the way of plot movement. Young Michael never has a true antagonist – a person or thing that is against his. At times you think it could be the local hunters. Then you think is might be his father is against him. Then it almost turns into a movie where Nature is against him. But none of these actually follow through with being driving force for Michael.

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