Vice (2018) Annapurna/MGM written and directed by Adam McKay cast: Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Alison Pill, Sam Rockwell, Tyler Perry, Steve Carrell, et al. Available via streaming.
I honestly thought enough time had passed between the events that drive the climax of this movie and tonight to judge it on its own merits. Turns out, there were some moments when the shame and sadness connected with the first half of the first decade of this century were overwhelming. At one point in this movie, I connected the dots, hit the pause button and walked out to catch my breath.
Roger Ebert, whose shadow is insurmountably large when it comes to writing about movies, once wrote that there is no such thing as a completely objective critical assessment of movie. All reviews are personal. The added caveat was one must try to offer a disciplined critique.
So here goes.
Okay, I need to get personal again. I remember the night my parents came home from a screening of Patton. My parents were often ebullient about what they'd seen. Not that night in 1970. They both looked worn out by the experience. The next day I asked Dad what th3e movie was about. He said it was going inside someone's head he didn't want to go into. Mom found it hard going because one of her brothers served under Patton and it was painful to see who was responsible for his well-being while he served in Europe. The temporal distance was slightly bigger between the end of World War II and the release of Patton and the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001 and Vice's premiere.
What about Vice? Is it good or not? Is it worth searching for on the tangle of streaming services where movies surface for a bit and then disappear with barely a ripple to indicate they were once there.
It's worth seeing, but it is also very, very uneven. McKay's decision to use cinematic gimcrackery like ironic placement of stock footage and his excessive use of legend frames alternately hobbles and crowds out good storytelling and brilliant performances.
Much has been written about Christian Bale's physical transformation into double-oughts vintage Dick Cheney onscreen. It is an impressive feat of prosthetics and cosmetic artistry. When Vice is at its best is when it goes beyond modern history cosplay. As Dick and Lynne Cheney, Christian Bale and Amy Adams create characters that had to fight harder than most of their more privileged contemporaries.
Adams' Lynne Cheney is the spine of the couple from their hardscrabble beginning. She sees how hard it is to be a woman with intelligence, education and ambition in the buttoned-down old boys club of power and intelligensia. Her disappointment and flashes of jealousy surface as she finds she herself limited to a supporting role at best, a proxy at worst when her husband begins to have health issues. She is what we in the South would call a steel magnolia. As a viewer, it is gratifying to see her story and develop respect for her fight to escape the life her mother led at the beginning.
Bale's portrayal of Dick Cheney offers a look at someone who was a weak and deeply flawed young man. He is saved by Lynne's love and her resolve to not repeat her mother's mistakes. It is in him that his daughters find tenderness and unconditional parental love. Throughout the first half of the film, it Dick Cheney the husband and father that gets my respect and sympathy.
As someone whose politics are the opposite of the Cheneys, I was grateful to see them as parents, partners, and fighters for their survival. It was not lost on me that at some point, they could have zigged when they zagged and this movie, not to mention real life, would have had a decidedly different ending.
I honestly thought enough time had passed between the events that drive the climax of this movie and tonight to judge it on its own merits. Turns out, there were some moments when the shame and sadness connected with the first half of the first decade of this century were overwhelming. At one point in this movie, I connected the dots, hit the pause button and walked out to catch my breath.
Roger Ebert, whose shadow is insurmountably large when it comes to writing about movies, once wrote that there is no such thing as a completely objective critical assessment of movie. All reviews are personal. The added caveat was one must try to offer a disciplined critique.
So here goes.
Okay, I need to get personal again. I remember the night my parents came home from a screening of Patton. My parents were often ebullient about what they'd seen. Not that night in 1970. They both looked worn out by the experience. The next day I asked Dad what th3e movie was about. He said it was going inside someone's head he didn't want to go into. Mom found it hard going because one of her brothers served under Patton and it was painful to see who was responsible for his well-being while he served in Europe. The temporal distance was slightly bigger between the end of World War II and the release of Patton and the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001 and Vice's premiere.
What about Vice? Is it good or not? Is it worth searching for on the tangle of streaming services where movies surface for a bit and then disappear with barely a ripple to indicate they were once there.
It's worth seeing, but it is also very, very uneven. McKay's decision to use cinematic gimcrackery like ironic placement of stock footage and his excessive use of legend frames alternately hobbles and crowds out good storytelling and brilliant performances.
Much has been written about Christian Bale's physical transformation into double-oughts vintage Dick Cheney onscreen. It is an impressive feat of prosthetics and cosmetic artistry. When Vice is at its best is when it goes beyond modern history cosplay. As Dick and Lynne Cheney, Christian Bale and Amy Adams create characters that had to fight harder than most of their more privileged contemporaries.
Adams' Lynne Cheney is the spine of the couple from their hardscrabble beginning. She sees how hard it is to be a woman with intelligence, education and ambition in the buttoned-down old boys club of power and intelligensia. Her disappointment and flashes of jealousy surface as she finds she herself limited to a supporting role at best, a proxy at worst when her husband begins to have health issues. She is what we in the South would call a steel magnolia. As a viewer, it is gratifying to see her story and develop respect for her fight to escape the life her mother led at the beginning.
Bale's portrayal of Dick Cheney offers a look at someone who was a weak and deeply flawed young man. He is saved by Lynne's love and her resolve to not repeat her mother's mistakes. It is in him that his daughters find tenderness and unconditional parental love. Throughout the first half of the film, it Dick Cheney the husband and father that gets my respect and sympathy.
As someone whose politics are the opposite of the Cheneys, I was grateful to see them as parents, partners, and fighters for their survival. It was not lost on me that at some point, they could have zigged when they zagged and this movie, not to mention real life, would have had a decidedly different ending.