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Belle, The Immigrant and Palo Alto

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Currently in theaters, “Belle” is finding an appreciative audience. It is well-shot, well-edited, well-acted and engaging as a historical melodrama. The film would have a little more of my respect had it not sacrificed plausibility for crowd-pleasing moments.

Gugu Mbatha-Raw lights up the screen with a beautiful lead performance as Dido Elizabeth Bell. This woman was an exceptional case in British aristocratic history as she was the offspring of a Naval Captain and a slave woman. Left in the care of her uncle, Lord Mansfield (Tom Wilkinson), she grew up alongside her cousin, Elizabeth Murray (Sarah Gadon). A famous painting of the two preserves Dido’s history. The film is very clever in putting emphasis on this paining as its inspiration.

The supporting cast also includes other seasoned performers such as Penelope Wilton, Emily Watson, Matthew Goode, Miranda Richardson, Sam Reid and Draco Malfoy (Sorry, Tom).

Left to inherit her father’s estate, Dido was given a high rank, but the story is about her struggle to find a place when her ethnicity creates social limitations. A very Austenesque plot is fabricated involving suitors for Dido and her cousin, as well as a legal drama surrounding a slave-trade scandal for which Mansfield presided as judge.

In its history lessons and embellishments, the filmmakers mold everything into a rather beautiful experience. Unfortunately, some artistic liberties seem too obvious. Without going into spoilers, I’ll just say that they save the most ridiculous for last.

James Gray’s “The Immigrant” stars Marion Cotillard as a Polish woman who arrives on Ellis Island in 1921 only to have her accompanying sister quarantined for tuberculosis, while other factors give cause for the possibility of immediate deportation. A seemingly kind man, played by Joaquin Phoenix, comes to her help and bribes one of the officers to allow her to leave the island with him. His ulterior motive becomes clear when he slowly lures her in to a life of prostitution. He convinces her that she can earn enough money through him to get her sister back. Later, she meets a charming magician, played by Jeremy Renner, who wants to rescue her from this terrible life.

I can’t stress enough how beautifully this film is made while framing a despairing story of someone’s bitter entrance to the “land of opportunity.” In spite of some nudity and language, the film has a very classic tone in its drama and story of hope overcoming harsh circumstances. I highly recommend this one.

In Gia Coppola’s directorial debut, “Palo Alto,” a family legacy continues. Francis Ford Coppola has handed down filmmaking advice to his family in the same way one patriarch may share secret ingredients or life lessons. It may sound cheap for me to attribute artistic ability to a family name, but I can’t help but observe a lineage of ambition in some areas. Francis knew how a scene needed to be lit, what it was about and what needed to happen, but if unpredictable crap got in the way, he wasn’t quick to fight it off. This is the reason for a cat in Marlon Brando’s lap during the opening scene of “The Godfather.”

So what does this have to do with his granddaughter, who has just made a film about wealthy suburban teens in California? Well, it feels like a film by her aunt Sophia and a little bit like one by her uncle Roman. All of these people seem to know how to frame a shot, get the actors comfortable and just go with whatever comes their way. They all succeed in creating aimless but hypnotically atmospheric films.

In each filmmaker’s case, they work from what they know. Gia has made a film about modern teens who are kind of smart, but don’t understand their feelings. She directs with the kind of ease that one may feel when their high school years are behind yet still in the rearview mirror. She shows empathy for their problems and displays their recklessness without apology. The adults in their lives are absent and sometimes obliviously contribute to their delinquency.

The film is written by Coppola and based on short stories by James Franco, who also appears in the film. Emma Roberts, Natt Wolff and Jack Kilmer get the most focus among the characters. They are all good young actors who meet the task of inhabiting the world that teens create when they lack aspiration.

There is an audience for this movie, but not a big one. It falls into the “mumblecore” realm and is committed to its troubled characters so realistically that it may turn off a lot of people. “Palo Alto” starts at Village 8 on Friday, June 6.

Bennett Duckworth is a film fanatic who lives in Louisville and goes to see a movie in the theater at least once a week. He has kept a movie review blog since September of 2011 with the mission of writing about every new release he sees, as well as new trends in filmmaking and classic films he loves. You can read more of his reviews at www.bennettduckworth.blogspot.com.


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