Cover of Elf (Infinifilm Edition)

Plenty of belly laughs are to be had from Jon Favreau‘s Elf (2003), but this holiday picture is not very smoothly and sensibly scripted.  Favreau proves he can direct comedy, and Will Ferrell is nothing less than marvelous as an oversized elf . . . er, I mean a human raised by elves and who believes himself to be an elf.  The chap’s unceasing childlikeness, though, began to wear on me, and that’s only the beginning of problems.  Today’s Hollywood is poor at concocting comic stories, not even as adept as the inadequate Neil Simon.  Elf is still worth seeing, but inspires hope no more than it does Christmas cheer.

And another thing:  it’s a sad day when a scriptwriter (in this case, David Berenbaum) does not know that the ungrammatical phrase, “less and less people believe in Santa Claus” ought to be rendered “fewer and fewer people believe in Santa Claus.”

Cover of Alice Adams

Alice Adams (1935), directed by George Stevens, is about unambitious husbands, vexed, money-emphasizing wives and optimistic girls with an instinct for social climbing.  The tone isn’t properly fixed, but Katharine Hepburn is fetchingly youthful as the optimistic girl, Alice Adams.  Stevens’s directing is fine, although since AA was released as a silent film in 1923, one is justified in asking should it have been remade had Hepburn’s celebrated performance not been an element here.

A French Catholic writer named Julian Green wrote a novel, set in America, about an evangelical young man who sees Catholics as idolaters.  He is also too puritanical for his own intellectual and perhaps spiritual good (he believes his friend David, a sturdy Christian, is engaged to be married so he can fulfill the lusts of the flesh).  But the young man, Joseph Day by name, has a problem with his own flesh.

The novel is Moira (1951), and the title character is the beguiling daughter of Joseph’s landlady.  Though she has but a small part in the book, Moira represents for Joseph the temptation to sex just as a fellow student called Praileau—Joseph goes to a university—represents the temptation to violence, to physical conflict.  Joseph is a Christian who is building his house not on a rock but on sand.

A peculiar, straightforwardly written novel, Moira is more interesting than artistically successful.  The climax doesn’t come off, and it looks like the character of Joseph is going to be sufficiently worked out but it really isn’t.  Religious feeling exists in the book, and it is occasionally funny, but Green wanted too much to write a disturbing tragedy, however Christian.

Written and directed by Mia Hansen-Love, Goodbye First Love (2012), from France, should have been titled by the U.S. “Young Love” (the correct translation of the French title).  But at least it was distributed to the U.S., for it’s a good film.

Fifteen-year-old Camille, played by Lola Creton, is (I’m sorry to say) well acquainted with sex, although she genuinely loves her boyfriend-bedmate, Sullivan (Sebastian Urzendowsky).  He loves her too, or thinks he does, but he goes on an eight-month trip to South America and admits in a letter to Camille that he’s been kissing some girls.  Camille slowly gives up on him.  —Is there love on Sullivan’s part?—  Now older, the girl becomes involved with her architecture instructor, eventually two-timing him, though, after she runs into Sullivan.  The two get together (and get naked) since Camille still loves the young man.  And Sullivan declares his love for Camille, and yet . . .

About these relationships questions are raised.  Whether or not there is love on Sullivan’s part, there is more to his liaison with Camille than sex.  But how much more?  And what is the more?  It seems Camille, for her part, moves from being a lover-in-love (with Sullivan) to being . . . what?  Just a plain lover?

Goodbye First Love does not have the power of such contemporary French films as The Dreamlife of Angels or Skirt Day, but it is personal and lyrical and fresh in its details.  Unlike Clair and Truffaut and Rohmer, Hansen-Love lacks an original style, but this will not prevent her from becoming an important director-scenarist if she persists in fulfilling her promise.  She is pleasingly gifted with both form and content.

(In French with English subtitles)

Catchy or not, are the songs in the 2016 movie musical, La La Land, interesting?  I would say yes, almost all of them are—and they’re catchy besides.  Which means they are pretty good, contrary to what some of the critics think.

Well directed by Damien Chazelle, the movie’s story nevertheless should have been better, not so dull and flimsy.  (Why does Mia believe her one-woman show will be a success?)  Until the climax, Chazelle stops taking chances with his song-and-dance numbers in order to let this bland story flow.  What’s more, I don’t always like the film’s dim lighting.  I do like the acting of Ryan Gosling and, especially, Emma Stone, though.  Gosling is solid, Stone is marvelously solid.

Go see La La Land for the music and the acting.