Any movie directed by two of Hollywood’s most able directors, Lasse Hallstrom (The Hundred-Foot Journey, Casanova, An Unfinished Life, Chocolat, A Dog’s Purpose) and Joe Johnston (Captain America, Jumanji, The Wolfman), is bound to be good, right? Disney’s The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, based on the famous Christmas ballet, isn’t a bad movie at all. Parts of it are wonderfully isolated and restrained. Parts of it are breathtaking and beautiful. Johnston’s arresting visuals and Hallstrom’s gilded storytelling and sense of musical-pictorial grace seamlessly blend at times into a magical movie.
And a movie which begins with a reference to Isaac Newton’s third law of physics promises to be distinctive. With Keira Knightley (Collateral Beauty, a magical Christmas movie in itself) looking like Faye Dunaway and evoking Marilyn Monroe as the Sugar Plum Fairy, The Nutcracker adds an eccentric streak. Indeed, this 90-minute movie tucks in everything from a theme to “trust yourself”, a leading girl (Mackenzie Foy, Interstellar) who’s a budding mechanical engineer, men wearing makeup and Morgan Freeman (Feast of Love) as an eye-patched wise man.
All that and more is stuffed into yet another Disney picture in which the mother has died. Stuffing these parts into the movie somehow puts this otherwise enchanting film into the category of overproduced fantasy (though not nearly as dull as John Carter, The Golden Compass or those godawful Narnia films). The Nutcracker is predictable and strangely chaste. For example, the girl, when she enters this other world at a Christmas party, meets a handsome captain (Jayden Fowora-Knight). Their relationship, which serves as a major plot point, curiously goes flat.
As a story partly depicted in ballet, which comes about in The Nutcracker‘s most striking visual scenes, the storybook style can be both inviting and marvelous. Early scenes of the girl in the new fantasy land depict long, magnificent icicles in a Christmas tree forest where the mystery of a gift from the girl’s late mother deepens and is stolen away. If you know The Nutcracker ballet, and it’s hard to imagine that there’s anyone left who’s never been exposed to this classic score, characters and tale in some way, you know the characters and essential story.
But screenwriter Ashleigh Powell adds an engine, mice attacks, battle scenes, and the grieving father (Matthew Macfadyen). There’s frankly too much of everything and not enough character development for the girl, who climbs rocks in a skirt and never gets the depth to seem anything but distant, detached and really intelligent. The kitchen sink quality creeps in, making the climax and resolution less effective.
“Discipline, order, control” prominently turn out to be the cues for The Nutcracker‘s child-friendly warning against authoritarianism. But the public service announcement-like sensibility in which the STEM-ready girl’s intelligence is sewn into The Nutcracker and the Four Realms undercuts the sense that she’s really present and invested in solving the puzzle. It’s not that Foy makes the girl’s voyage look too easy. The problem is that she looks too often like she doesn’t learn or gain life-changing insights, as Alice purposefully does in Alice in Wonderland or breathless Dorothy does when going home in The Wizard of Oz. There’s music and a mirror but this girl seems to be biding her time.
Still, you get to see Helen Mirren (The Hundred-Foot Journey,White Nights, Collateral Beauty, The Queen, Hitchcock) brandishing a whip amid parts of a beloved ballet remade with the stylized panache of two masterful filmmakers.
Nestled in the hills of Los Angeles is a uniquely compact and inviting home where I first met Dion Neutra. I had spoken with and interviewed the noted architect, who studied and worked with his father, the late Richard Neutra, a few times for articles about modern architecture. The prospect of an extensive interview had previously been discussed though it hadn’t been conducted. This time, when Dion Neutra suggested that we meet for an interview, it was promptly scheduled. I drove to LA’s Silver Lake neighborhood, parked and climbed the steep stairs. I soon met the man who made with his father some of America’s most distinctive and iconic homes and buildings. We sat in a dining room and talked for over an hour. Days later, we would toast to his 90th birthday and, later, talk again about a campaign to restore one of his father’s signature buildings, the Eagle Rock Clubhouse. During our exchange, we managed to cover a lifetime of memories, thoughts and details of his father, meeting Ayn Rand, Frank Lloyd Wright, the Kun house, World Trade Center, Neutra’s Gettysburg Cyclorama and his childhood trauma in Silver Lake. I knew from previous talks that Neutra’s son and heir could be both eccentric and exhausting. This conversation is no exception. Read my exclusive interview with Dion Neutra.
Jim Brown, Ayn Rand Institute CEO
Another inheritance-themed opportunity for an exclusive talk recently presented itself when the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI) named a new CEO. His name is Jim Brown and his background is in business, financial analysis and military leadership. Qualifications alone merited my interest and I immediately welcomed him to the ARI and asked for an interview, which he kindly granted at his Irvine office. Though days into the job, he discussed plans, management philosophy and his favorite Leonard Peikoff works. As an Objectivist who first visited the ARI as a teen when I took the bus to its office on Washington Boulevard in Los Angeles, who has worked and studied with the ARI, I want my readers to read the interview and consider supporting the ARI under Jim’s new management. An edited transcript of my conversation with the center for Objectivism’s chief executive officer—Jim Brown’s first interview as ARI’s chief executive officer—appears on Capitalism Magazine (postscript: read a shorter version in the Los Angeles Times here).
And I am delighted that my favorite filmmaker—director Lasse Hallström—granted to me his only interview about his successful motion picture, A Dog’s Purpose, before returning to making Disney’s adaptation of the beloved Christmas ballet The Nutcracker. I am often enchanted by Mr. Hallström’s work. I always anticipate whatever he chooses to make. And I am privileged to have interviewed Lasse Hallström before. This time was particularly rewarding.
Lasse Hallström
Lightness in his pictures is perhaps the most indelible quality. Think of the French village in Chocolat or Venetian escapades in Casanova. The way he guides an ensemble cast to perfect union for an exalted or higher cinematic goal—around foodmaking in The Hundred-Foot Journey, liberation in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, serenity in An Unfinished Life, healing in The Shipping News, and the power of a dog to align man to what’s here and now in A Dog’s Purpose—should also be known. All of his movies, which began with his film about ABBA, are wonderfully musical including A Dog’s Purpose. But what, besides unity, love and lightness, is more pressing and relevant now than the seriousness with which he films his stories? This unique blend by a Swede who lives in America is often mistaken strictly as sweetness, which one should expect in a circus culture of cynics, celebrities and smears. The interview with Lasse Hallström, the artist who to me best expresses in today’s movies the American sense of life, is one I know I’ve earned and deserve.
I did not plan the pieces as a thematic trifecta, though it occurs to me that these three interviews explore man’s mastery of living in accordance with nature, man’s mastery of advancing the ideal and man’s mastery of recreating both in movies. Read, think and enjoy.
Lasse Hallström recently took a break from work to talk with me about his newest movie, A Dog’s Purpose, in theaters now. Mr. Hallström, whose films range from Dear John and Hachi: A Dog’s Tale to The Cider House Rules, The Hoax and Chocolat, has been directing motion pictures since 1985 with his feature My Life as a Dog. This is his first interview about the picture since A Dog’s Purpose debuted. This is an edited transcript with one minor plot “spoiler”.
Scott Holleran: Congratulations on a commercially successful debut at the box office, where your movie, A Dog’s Purpose, made its money back in one week. Thank you for making an intelligent, wonderful and meaningful motion picture.
Lasse Hallström: Thank you for the lovely review. I really appreciate it. I put a lot of heart into this film and I totally enjoyed the process.
Scott Holleran: Applying the movie’s theme, what are you working on now?
Lasse Hallström: I finished shooting a live action version of The Nutcracker [Disney’s The Nutcracker and the Four Realms] based on the original story by E.T.A. Hoffman in the 1800s—the ballet came out in the late 1800s—which will come out around Thanksgiving 2018. So, now I start editing. It’s a lot special effects. I’ve never had a budget like this before. It was fantastic, not that the budget didn’t weigh on us—it’s a tremendous responsibility. We had a wonderful lead girl named Mackenzie Foy. She played the daughter in Interstellar. I think she’s amazing in it. We have cinematography by Linus Sandgren (La La Land, The Hundred-Foot Journey), music by James Newton Howard (The Hunger Games, Batman Begins, Concussion) and Tchaikovsky and we use the original ballet music. We have Morgan Freeman (An Unfinished Life, Feast of Love), Helen Mirren (Collateral Beauty, The Hundred-Foot Journey) and Keira Knightley (Collateral Beauty). It was a lovely experience.
Lasse Hallström: No. If there’s a [subconscious] choice, I can only say I enjoy making movies that focus on character and what characters have in common—in India, France, or America—I love character observations. So I work with actors to help to create something authentic and recognizable. That’s what drives me really.
Scott Holleran: What technology do you find best helps you achieve the look you want?
Lasse Hallström: That’s a good question. I have a split answer. If I’m egotistical, I would go with the digital system when it comes to capturing performances because I love to improvise especially with dogs in order to keep rolling. But for the artistic look I certainly prefer film. If I want the best and most authentic look, I have to go with film. Subtleties of the skin get flattened out with digital. The greenery of the forest looks very different, too. My cinematographer, Linus Sandgren, who just did La La Land, has taught me the wonderful difference between film and digital and I have to stick to film. Film is superior when it comes to subtlety of color.
Scott Holleran: What one quality did you seek in the actors who played Ethan?
Lasse Hallström: I look at the ability to improvise and be alive in front of the camera. I tend to want to improvise around the script. There’s a lot of improvising. It’s a great asset for me, it’s more vibrant. For example, when [two characters in A Dog’s Purpose] break up, that was all improvised. The scripted version felt a little written. So I used the improvisation.
Scott Holleran: Which scene best essentializes the movie’s theme?
Lasse Hallström: [Pauses] I don’t think I have one. Personally, I like the end shot of Maya [a character played by Kirby Howell-Baptiste] when she pats her dog and says ‘what are you thinking?’ and he says “…one of my best lives, really”. I thought that was the best interaction. I can’t say I have a defining moment.
Scott Holleran: Why did you decide to make another movie about dogs?
Lasse Hallström: It’s coincidence, really. I have to say if I’m offered something with potential charm that’s driven by character and allows for that, I’m undaunted. I like the idea of hearing a dog’s thoughts and trying to get in the head of the dog. I pay more attention to dogs now. I try to figure out what they’re thinking which makes me want to connect with dogs even more. I find that I’m more passionate in wanting to know what’s on a dog’s mind. I think you know about my [having had] five chow chows. I’m a fanatic dog lover. [Pauses] I lost my chow chow right before we started shooting [A Dog’s Purpose]. So, now I just have memories of them.
Scott Holleran: Did you have Dennis Quaid in mind as Ethan?
Lasse Hallström: He was cast very early on. It’s a lead character but I had worked with him before on Something to Talk About. I really love him. We both love dogs and play golf and we’ve worked together before so it was easygoing [on the set]. He’s got a great sense of humor.
Scott Holleran: Did he collaborate with the other actors playing Ethan at earlier ages?
Lasse Hallström: I kind of told him [about the character] and he met and discussed the character with K.J. Apa. I think they decided to have some mannerisms in common, like a little nervous thing with his hand. I trusted him to the point of letting him do whatever he wanted to do including when to tell the cameraman to stop. So we did a lot of takes. I said: here’s the crew, here’s the camera and there’s the crane.
Scott Holleran: Why did you choose Josh Gad (Frozen) as the voice of the dogs?
Lasse Hallström: That was an idea from the studio that I loved. We really hit it off long distance and, with him in Los Angeles and me in London, we kissed and hugged long distance. I still haven’t met him.
Scott Holleran: You chose Rachel Portman, who scored your movies Chocolat and The Cider House Rules, to compose the musical score. Why?
Lasse Hallström: She always delivers. I love what she’s doing and she’s a dog lover, too. She loved the film and was inspired by it, so we had another good experience. She made so many scenes [with her musical score]. It’s a perfect complement to that breakup scene.
Scott Holleran: What’s the most common criticism of the movie which you think might be valid?
Lasse Hallström: I knew it was [going to be] that I’ve been making too many “heartwarming” movies. So, it’s a bit too sweet even for me. It’s the nature of the project. I keep getting attracted to stories that have a certain life-affirming quality. I’m just that kind of guy. I can’t resist charm and life-affirming moments that entertain or, as we say in Swedish, roa röra, a phrase which means entertain and touch or move.
Scott Holleran: What’s the most common praise for the movie that you think might be valid?
Lasse Hallström
Lasse Hallström: The one I pick up on and appreciate is that it’s heartwarming after all. But being drawn to it is crossing the line into sentimentality. I’m actually allergic to sentimentality. But I’m very, very drawn to it, or to the conflicts, because I keep saying that if I’m honest or realistic with wanting to convey strong emotion or sentimentality I can stay on the right side [of the line]. If I’m false or pushy, I can fall into sentimentality. The fact that people are moved by it, not by blatant attempts to push buttons and evoke emotion, may be why the movie earned an A from Cinemascore audiences.
Scott Holleran: Had you seen Frank Marshall’s Eight Below?
Lasse Hallström: No. But Frank Marshall is probably a kindred spirit. He has a positive outlook on life.
Scott Holleran: What did Walden Media add to the movie?
Lasse Hallström: I got to meet them for notes on the edit. But nothing was imposed on us.
Lasse Hallström: I really enjoyed working with the heads of Amblin, Michael Wright and Holly Bario. I respect them very much. Steven [Spielberg] wasn’t involved very much this time but he liked the final result which is the ultimate reward to me because he is my master.
Scott Holleran: What did Universal add to the movie?
Lasse Hallström: They gave it a fantastic release. They’re the best at releasing and doing publicity from what I’ve been told.
Scott Holleran: Is this the movie you wanted to make?
Lasse Hallström: Yes. There’s nothing I can’t stand for.
Scott Holleran: Had you read W. Bruce Cameron’s book, have you spoken with him and has he seen the movie?
Lasse Hallström: I read it, I met him on set and he likes the film. Expect similarities to the book but also a lot of differences. However, it is heartwarming.
14 years after his triumphant Chocolat, Lasse Hallström returns to France for another delightful movie, this one themed with what the world needs now, harmony, and seasoned with lessons in aspiring to and achieving it. (Click on the image to buy the Blu-Ray).
Savoring every moment is the central theme of this brilliant and terribly underrated motion picture, co-produced by Juliet Blake with Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey, in their first creative collaboration since The Color Purple (1985), made by DreamWorks and distributed by Disney. The credit goes chiefly to director Lasse Hallström, a masterful storyteller in every sense whose films—An Unfinished Life, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, My Life as a Dog, Casanova, The Cider House Rules, The Shipping News—are evocative and exceptional in both lightness and importance.
The Hundred-Foot Journey, based upon the book by Richard Morais with an adaptation by Steven Wright, is his grandest achievement. What superficially might be misconstrued as a tale of food, racism and multiculturalism is at root a story of starting over, trading values and the wonder that man, to paraphrase Ayn Rand, is a being of self-made soul. Indeed, most of the Objectivist virtues are contained herewith: pride, productiveness, honesty, integrity, rationality…and the whole story, arcing from a village in India to a village in France, begins in earnest with a wise old moneymaker in a trading place singling out an individual child and conferring upon him the status of “the boy who knows”. His name is Hassan (Manish Dayal as an adult) and how he integrates what he knows with what he remembers is unfurled in slow, sensuous loops.
What he knows is that food gives life. He learned this from his mother, a strong and mysterious woman who is killed in an act of arson (ignited by indeterminate political furor). Hassan the chef watches and learns, taking culinary skills from his mother’s recipes, as his family, led by Papa (Om Puri) hops from across Europe until the family’s minibus brakes fail on a hillside in France. Papa is headstrong, bent on tradition, and his struggle with Hassan is subtle, which allows The Hundred-Foot Journey to make multiple passages and back in a revolving, circular story. Though never explicit, and Mr. Hallström may not have had this intention, Papa takes knowledge on faith—faith in traditionalism—while his son Hassan thirsts for knowledge, has ambition and he goes by reason. What they share, spiritual belief in the memory of Hassan’s mother, bridges the distance.
This is not a father-son tale and soon the beguiling chef Marguerite (Charlotte Le Bon), who rescues the stranded Indian family and takes them in, and her boss, starch Madame Mallory (Helen Mirren), are at the forefront of an intercultural conflict between patriarch and matriarch. When incorrigible Papa insists upon buying the property across from Madame’s Michelin-rated restaurant, the cooking contest is on. As Marguerite and Hassan fall in love, the French cuisine-snob Madame exploits regulations to shut down the new, Indian-flavored competition and the gruff father retaliates, playing exotic music and garish decorations to the hilt. The local farmer’s market is their battleground and, as the war ensues, things take a sinister turn when another traditionalist turns the fierce but amicable contest into something ugly.
Out of this difficulty lies opportunity, to paraphrase Albert Einstein, and Mirren’s Madame Mallory checks her premises, coming down on the side of chef Hassan, who is bloodied but unbowed and still pining for Marguerite. The mother-son mythology does another revolution, as so many life events, mistakes and twists do in The Hundred-Foot Journey, and again the prodigy earns a vaunted status by a wise old market master: “Arrogance,” the Frenchwoman exhorts in a combination of shock, thrill and admiration. Hassan accepts a new assignment to earn a just desert as he strives to earn a hand in partnership from Marguerite, who demands to be treated as an equal. All of this unfolds gently, with humor and with secondary characters, including the mayor and other villagers, stopping to appreciate rich, exotic and exquisite food.
Food is memory, the story’s mythology goes, shorthand for living in the moment as time passes and relationships change. Hassan goes to Paris in a third act that alters but expands the journey, as focus shifts to innovation in what amounts to an exciting and technological food laboratory, where scientists and chefs try, experiment and prepare the best of everything in a top notch studio. What to eat is elevated to an art and production is decidedly commercial, so, as he ascends, Hassan may yet master the art of commercialism. But what will become of those left behind? What happens to his family, his mentor and his memory? Will the legacy be lost when food is prepared to make money?
All is answered and brilliantly so without compromise in art or commerce. With an accent on exchanging values and the true meaning of partnership, including reciprocity in the deepest sense, The Hundred-Foot Journey, which accounts for the length between two worlds on a little road dividing two cultures, cuisines and locations—measuring the distance to reach one’s goal to love, to cook, to trade, to garnish, eat and dance—commences once again. It is done with deftness in depicting how people resist change even when it’s for the good, which underscores that acting in one’s self-interest, the virtue of selfishness, is the highest and hardest part of life. With androgynous, young lovers and obstinate elders, in mouth-watering scenes of Indian and French food, the fusion of an old-fashioned melting pot takes place. Lasse Hallström’s sauces and spices along dirt roads by a chateau near a village outside of Parisian lights are as magical as anything he’s made. Harmony hits the spot.
Blu-Ray
Four short features are entertaining, though the disc’s treat is the colorful, bursting movie itself. A general feature with most of the principals, including Mr. Hallström, Om Puri, Manish Dayal, Helen Mirren and others in the cast is 15 minutes and it’s very good at deconstructing the film’s storybook aspects. This feature is best viewed after the movie. An eight-minute segment with Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey is the most interesting because Ms. Winfrey is so clearly uncomfortable sitting next to Mr. Spielberg as they discuss the film. It’s soon clear why as Steven Spielberg obviously gets that the movie is about human harmony—he makes a point to credit and discuss Lasse Hallström—whereas Oprah thinks it’s all about food. The Hundred-Foot Journey is their first artistic collaboration since The Color Purple in 1985. A feature on cooking cocoanut chicken is well done. “On Set with Oprah Winfrey” is as pretentious as its sounds. The Blu-Ray edition, which does not include a commentary track, is (chiefly for the movie) an excellent value. (Click on the image to buy the Blu-Ray).
Author’s Note
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But screenwriter Ashleigh Powell adds an engine, mice attacks, battle scenes, and the grieving father (Matthew Macfadyen). There’s frankly too much of everything and not enough character development for the girl, who climbs rocks in a skirt and never gets the depth to seem anything but distant, detached and really intelligent. The kitchen sink quality creeps in, making the climax and resolution less effective.
