by timbaros
Director M. Night Shyamalan had a huge hit with one of his first films ‘The Sixth Sense’, about a young boy who sees dead people. He’s now back a film with another supernatural theme called ‘Glass.’
Shyamalan has yet to repeat the success of ‘The Sixth Sense.’ He is very consistent in coming out with a film every two years or so, but the quality of his films seems to be getting worse and worse. ‘Glass’ is the third (and hopefully last) film in the fictitious Eastrail #177 train derailment series. The series, which includes the 2000 film ‘Unbreakable’ and the 2016 film ‘Split, is where multiple characters have some sort of connection to the train disaster. But these characters are not normal people – they are superheroes with powers that they use for reasons that have never really been clear to me. In ‘Glass’, which mostly takes place in a mental institution conveniently overlooking downtown Philadelphia, reunites Bruce Willis, James McAvoy and Samuel Jackson as the same characters from the previous films. Irrelevant of the plots of the first two films, ‘Glass’ is as silly and unbelievable as anything you would’ve seen at the cinema in years. All the characters wind up in the same mental institution, coincidentally, where there is not much staff on duty and the three of them seem to have free reign of the place. A psychiatrist (a dismal Sarah Paulson) wants to convince all the men that they suffer from delusion (which is far far from the truth – can’t she see this?). Each of the men have, conveniently, one person who comes to visit them – all with some knowledge of their ‘illness.’ It all boils down to one messy showdown in the front parking lot of the institution and the view of the opening of a new downtown skyscraper which is talked about during the film quite a lot but doesn’t seem to have any connection at all to the characters. It’s all one big silly mess, and the people I saw it with (fellow film critics) shook their head as they walked out of the cinema. Avoid this one please.
A film that you will like better is also released this week. ‘Beautiful Boy’ – based on books by father and son David and Nic Sheff – details Nic’s valiant struggle with drug addiction during his teenage years. Steve Carell plays David while Timothée Chamalet plays Nic in a film that is very emotional and a bit hard to sit through at times as it deals with the strain on the father and the damage it does to Nic in his battle to beat his addiction. Nic is in and out of rehab several times, and goes missing quite a bit, while David is struggling, emotionally, physically and financially, to deal with his oldest son’s problem while trying to raise a new family with two young children with his second wife, played Maura Tierney. Amy Ryan beautifully plays his first wife and mother to Nic. ‘Beautiful Boy’ – two hours long – is sharply directed (Felix Van Groeningen) and written (Van Groeningen and Luke Davies – ‘Lion’) with performances that are award worthy. Carell continues to excel in dramatic roles (he was superb in ‘Foxcatcher’ and memorable in ‘Battle of the Sexes’) and again is very good in this highly dramatic role. But it’s going to be Chamalet who will receive all the plaundits and awards he gets for this film. Chamalet was well-received in last year’s creepy ‘Call Me By Your Name,’ but here in ‘Beautiful Boy’ he proves that he is a force to be reckoned with. He can act, and he can act very well, and he is suited to follow in the footsteps of DiCaprio and perhaps DeNiro in a career with longevity and awards on his mantel.
