I praised on this site Russell Banks’s novel Affliction, and I wish to praise Paul Schrader‘s film adaptation of it as well. Nick Nolte fits well the role of Wade Whitehouse, the tormented working-class man, and even though he rants a lot, such passion is generally appropriate. The film is photographed (by Paul Sarossy) and designed the way a picture about small town life in New Hampshire should be, notwithstanding the essence of this life simply cannot be captured as well, as deeply, as it can be by Banks’s words. The sequence wherein Wade follows in a vehicle Jack Hewitt (Jim True) is nicely done, as are the shots of Wade going ballistic over a lengthy toothache.

Sissy Spacek (as Wade’s girlfriend) is fine with tragic material, and Holmes Osborne is lively and resourceful as Gordon LaRiviere, Wade’s harassed and sometimes charming employer. This 1997 picture is very dark, too dark, but it is pretty faithful to the book. And it’s a film for adults—a profound one, if less profound than its source. The novel ought to be read, the movie seen.

At last I have seen a TV news-magazine story even worse than the documentary, Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price. It is the 60 Minutes piece, “A Fair Shot” (4/4/21), a race-related survey of COVID-19 vaccinations in Florida which is immediately suspect. Initially it furrows the brow, it rings false, and then—well—it apparently gets stupid. Read the article, “60 Minutes’ Dishonest Desantis Hit Job” on nationalreview.com, and there are other Internet articles on the subject one can read as well. (Yes, Republican governor Ron DeSantis is the target.)

Tom Perrotta‘s “The Smile on Happy Chang’s Face” is surely one of the best short stories about baseball, specifically Little League, ever written.

Twelve-year-old Lori Chang is an ace pitcher for the Town Pizza Ravens. Happy Chang, Lori’s quiet, sullen Chinese-American father, always attends her games, including one the Ravens play against rival team the Wildcats. The coach for the Wildcats, disagreeable Carl, orders his pitcher son to hurl a dangerous pitch to Lori when she is batting, and after Lori is hurt by the pitch, Happy runs out to the field and pummels Carl until the police arrest him. Unexpectedly, Happy’s behavior leaves a smile on his face.

The story deals not only with baseball but also foul aggression. We learn that Jack, an umpire for the game as well as the tale’s narrator, envies Lori’s father after the attack on Carl. This is because of the smile—Happy’s smile over his just-deserts violence. From Jack, however, just-deserts violence does not come. The disappointed father of a probably homosexual son, Jack once hit the boy and broke his nose in an accelerating conflict, thereby driving Jack’s wife to file for divorce.

At the baseball diamond, Jack does something (which I shan’t reveal) meant to show his ex-wife and children that he possesses “the courage to admit that he’d failed.” Unforgiven, Jack is a man ever “trying to explain.” Perrotta points out he is unhappy. Not like Happy Chang when he was wearing that smile.

Bizarre, Bizarre (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Drole de Drame (Funny Drama, 1937) is, like Children of Paradise, a Marcel Carne-Jacques Prevert film.

Derived from a novel, it is a comic fantasy set in London (with French actors) where false accusations of murder drive a hulking botanist and his wife into hiding.  Everywhere there is a blithe disregard for authority and mores, but, to be sure, authority figures in the film behave inanely, hypocritically.  They can’t really be taken seriously, almost as though anarchy is justified.  At the same time, Drame satirizes mob justice, the mob mentality—as crazily unreliable as the pillars of society.

All this is handled with a light touch, with some high spirits, with odd details (multiple milk bottles left by Billy the milkman, Henri Guisol‘s Buffington constantly reclining on a sofa).  It’s too bad the actresses here are not very attractive—not even Nadine Vogel (as Eva)—but the histrions’ performances shine.  They make for true and engaging “funny drama.”

Also called Bizarre, Bizarre.  It can be.

(In French with English subtitles)

Showing on Netflix, A Week Away (2021) is an obtuse, unimaginative and unfunny Christian musical comedy. There are good inspirational and spiritual pop songs performed in it, but a well-written ditty about Christian life like Steven Curtis Chapman’s “The Great Adventure” deserves to be in a better flick. So does the felt Michael W. Smith ballad, “Place in this World” and, to a lesser extent, Rich Mullins’s “Awesome God.” These are all old songs, fortunately—they’re melodic—and pleasantly sung. But this movie, which is even quite unfocused, is a very rickety vehicle.

Reviews are by Dean