Keeping Mum

Keeping Mum follows a country vicar and his family, an archetype the British apparently find ripe for comedy. In the grand tradition of British Comedies about Vicars, the film is chock full of eccentric characters, and there are passing jokes about flower committees and country church politics, as well as making puns and other small lingual jokes that make you either love watching BBC sitcoms or not. (The town is called Little Wallop, for example, and the family portrayed is the Goodfellows.) What distinguishes this movie from the rest is its light handling of dark subject matter. Insanity, murder, adultery, and voyeurism -- along with normal family tensions -- are all included, but they are treated with wit and humor (and never make the film very graphic, either sexually or violently). The R rating comes from the number of greusome subjects and the frank way in which the characters engage in such behavior. This is not the Censor Board era, where you might miss the references if you don't know what's going on, but visually at least things are left to the imagination, which I appreciate.

While dark in subject, the film is actually quite deft in its handling of the subjects, and the characters who would be abonimable in real life somehow manage to be loveable. This is where a star cast really comes in handy, and the talent recruited here prove they are up for the task. Rowan Atkinson's recent work has completely redeemed himself from his Mr. Bean days, and here he remains in my good graces. As the vicar Walter Goodfellow he is clueless in a manner only vaugely reminiscent of his more famous character, and he introduces a sensitive and humanity that keep this film from becoming entirely about its crazy plot points and instead grounded firmly in the characters and their relationships to one another. In the film, Walter is struggling with mediocre sermons and neglects his wife Gloria, played with equal loveability by Kristin Scott Thomas. Gloria is just starting an affair with her golf pro (played to smarmy perfection by Patrick Swayze - yes Patrick Swayze - who seems wonderfully out of place in a small British comedy), their teenage daughter is acting out by having promiscious relationships with "bad boys," and their son is being bullied at school.

Enter Grace (Maggie Smith), a housekeeper who is an unassuming, gracious, maternal, quiet -- in a word, perfect -- older woman. She quietly starts up-ending the Goodfellows' lives, and gently reminds them what it means to be a family. Perfect little happy story, with only one monkeywrench thrown in: Grace has recently been released from a mental institution for calmly murdering her husband and his lover, an event we see at the very beginning of the story. Ms. Smith plays this insanity with understated aplomb, which matches the whole movie's tone perfectly.

The wonderful thing about the "insanity plot twist" is that it isn't a twist: the audience knows about this little problem from the very beginning of the movie, even before meeting the Goodfellow family, so the humor genuinely comes from the earnest acting combined with morbid situations that Grace brings with her in addition to perfect housekeeping, rather than from any shock value. The best part of the comedy simply comes from the strangeness of an insane killer bringing sanity and peace to a household, and though the joke lasts for the whole movie, that one note sustains quite well because of the cast. Even though the situations are over-the-top, the actors never are, making the film's world incredibly easy to believe, which makes the whole thing even funnier.

3 lbs

3lbs, the television show named after the three-pound organ that is the human brain, aspired to be complex, intriguing, and provoking. Achieving such a goal should have come naturally; the show revolves around two world-class brain surgeons and one neurologist and the cases they encounter. Instead, it got cancelled in the US after 3 weeks, leaving five more episodes unaired. But, being in Bangladesh, I get to see all of them on the Hallmark channel, and I've seen four so far.

In a House-like format, each episode involves a case or two that include bizarre, medical-mystery-meets-medical-journalism symptoms and results. Of the episodes I've seen, each case highlights the enigma of the brain -- is it "wires in a box," as one character claims, or is the human brain (or the human pysche) more elusive than that?

The most natural tension of neuroscience is, of course, what makes us human, which is mirrored nicely in the science/religion dichotomy that crops up quite frequently in the first few episodes of the first season. This could make for a fascinating, unspoken dialogue in the series, a tension that keeps the subject of the show relevant and thought-provoking, rather than simply the fodder to give the characters something to do in addition to their more trite interpersonal interactions.

Instead, 3 lbs makes that dialogue spoken between the characters, which is somewhat necessary to explain the science and philosophy, but makes every character a little too much like "Exposition Boy!". The show tries too hard to be both scientific and poetic, and ends up failing at both. The science goes by fast, but not fast enough to think that these people know what they're talking about, and also not fast enough for me miss the fact that some of the science sounds surprisingly suspect. And in an attempt to be mystical and poetic about the brain, the show's creators establish bizarre visual tropes in each episode to represent the mental effects of the brain damage at issue in the show. The special effects are generally surreal or dada-ist (my favorite so far has been the hanging lights in the hospital corridors acutally being upside-down dandelions that have gone to seed), but they disappear too quickly for the audience to be able to process them or figure out how they fit into the reality of the show. Most annoyingly, it's often unclear who "sees" these visual effects -- sometimes they are clearly the experience of the patient, but often they seem to be created by the mind's eye of the cynical doctor (played by Stanley Tucci).

With these problem, 3lbs fails to be a stellar show. However, the three main actors prop up the show enough to keep it decent. Stanley Tucci plays the star surgeon, a brilliant but cynical, Dr. House-like character who doesn't like people that much except as brains to tinker with. Indira Varma plays the neurologist, who's much more new age-y and loves patients and people (think Dr. Cameron in House), and Mark Feuerstein plays the new guy who is Tucci's sidekick and is supposed to represent the wise and happy medium. All three actors are likeable, and try their best to overcome the cheesy, formulaic plots and interactions with "unsolved scientific questions." I for one am certainly willing to put up with a certain amount of plot stupidity for Stanley Tucci and Mark Feuerstein, though for completely different reasons. One's an amazing actor, and the other, well, is just fun to watch, if you know what I mean.... In the end, though, with better medical dramas on television (especially House, M.D., which has practically the same formula and characters) it's not surprising this show got cancelled so fast.

1.5 stars

Babette's Feast

Ask almost anyone what his favorite food is, and it's unlikely you'll get the same response as if you had asked what the best meal is he's ever had. Once in a very long while, however, intellect and emotion converge, and "good" food corresponds with "favorite" food. With me, though, this convergence happens almost exclusively in food that is exquisite because it is simple but perfectly executed with just the right ingerdients: a fresh loaf of ciabatta (five ingredients, but it’s all about time and kneading), chocolate mousse (four, but the egg whites must be folded the exact right amount), green beans with just a bit of salt and olive oil (OK, there’s no real technique there. The beans and olive oil just have to be high quality.).

Movies work the same way. There are some incredibly good movies I've seen that will never be my favorite movies because they are just too heavy (or too long, or too bloody – the analogy still works in each case). Meanwhile, some of my favorite movies are definitely the film equivalent of empty calories, predictable comfort food, or dishes that you love simply because they bring back good memories. And then there’s that rare movie that can both be counted as a favorite and an artistic accomplishment.

Babette’s Feast is one of those rare movies. Like those special foods, it succeeds precisely because it is simple in its aspirations, but meticulous in its details. The story was written by Danish author Isek Dinesen and first published in the 1950s in the Ladies Home Journal. The title character is Babette Hertsard, a French refugee in the 1800s who finds herself in a remote fishing village on the coast of Denmark. The village is simple, humble, and devoutly religious, and Babette becomes the servant and cook for two elderly sisters whose father founded the devout religious sect the village people follow. Babette’s only tie to her French (read: more worldly) past is a yearly lottery ticket. One day she wins that lottery, and decides to thank the sisters for the past fourteen years by cooking them and their congregation an elaborate meal.

The 1987 Danish film benefits from its humble and succinct beginnings. Because the movie primarily revolves around the preparation of a single meal, there is no rush to just move through the plot, and instead the film can linger over the visual details and delve into the characters’ nuances and intriguing pasts. The plot quietly progresses, and before you realize it, there is a final satisfying twist that I didn’t predict only because I was enjoying the movie too much. The cinematography savors both the food and the countryside, and the result is beautiful. The juxtaposition of the sumptuous meal and the ascetic village enriches the portrayal of each, and gives the film most of its depth and texture. Better still, in the end this juxtaposition seems to melt away, leaving the viewer to realize that Babette’s loving and extensive preparation bears more similarity to religious devotion than one might realize; eucharistic undertones develop, and the woman anointing Jesus with expensive perfume comes to mind.

While the meal portrayed in Babette’s Feast may be elaborate and extensive, the movie itself is exactly like my favorite foods: complex in its simplicity and made of really good ingredients. Also like most of my favorite foods, the enjoyment of Babette’s Feast is not without labor. With food, you have to invest time and technique; with Babette’s Feast you have to sit through a slow beginning and read subtitles. But it’s well worth it.