[Plus: On the “Local” Front: Noteworthy films by Chicagoans—and former Chicagoans—featured in CIFF’s Illinois[e]makers series.]
The festival opens Thursday, October 7, with a screening of the prison drama Stone and personal appearances by director John Curran and star Edward Norton; see the listings for details. It closes Thursday, October 22, with a screening of The Debt, a Mossad adventure starring Helen Mirren.
Blame A high school music teacher is taken hostage in his remote home by five teenagers clad in their Sunday finest; they’ve just come from the funeral of their friend, who committed suicide after being seduced and then rejected by the teacher, and they’ve resolved to kill him with an overdose and make the death look like a suicide. This Australian nail-biter by Michael Henry suffers from the fact that the kids’ supposedly perfect crime is so dumb: they leave fingerprints all over the place, their pills are easily traceable, and they bind the victim’s hands and feet, the bruises from which would tip off any investigator. Those distractions recede, however, as their plot falls apart anyway, leaving the teacher to plead for his life and his captors to bicker and turn on each other. Part of the recent wave of low-budget Aussie thrillers, this hardly ranks with such predecessors as Coffin Rock, The Square, and Animal Kingdom, but it’s a solid effort with a few nice twists. 89 min. –J.R. Jones Fri 10/8, 8:45 PM; Sat 10/9, 5 PM; and Sun 10/17, 9:45 PM. Henry is scheduled to attend the 10/8 and 10/9 screenings.
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Heartbeats All lipstick and no kiss, this romantic drama by French Canadian filmmaker Xavier Dolan is filled with candy-colored, cello-scored studies of the beautiful young characters and their 1950s fashions. Marie (played with impressive hauteur by Monia Chokri) is one of those women with an Audrey Hepburn problem, whereas gay Francis (Dolan) worships at the altar of James Dean; these two pals eventually turn against each other when the tousle-haired Nicolas (Niels Schneider) becomes the apex of their bisexual love triangle. Intercut with this narrative are pointless interview segments featuring another assortment of young lovers apparently unrelated to the main characters. The movie got a standing ovation at the Cannes film festival, and one can see why: Dolan’s vibrant use of color can be irresistible. But many of his other effects are insufferably precious (like the jerk zooms dominating the interviews), and the gender-bent Jules and Jim story lacks depth. In French with subtitles. 95 min. —J.R. Jones Thu 10/14, 6:20 PM, and Fri 10/15, 8:45 PM.
127 Hours Based on a true story, this drama by British director Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire) features a terrific performance from James Franco as a cocksure rock climber who gets pinned by a boulder during a solo excursion in a Utah canyon. Boyle loads up on visual gimmickry to indicate the passage of time, the depletion of the hero’s resources, and what’s running through his head. But aside from an exhilarating opening and a gruesome climax, the movie isn’t all that rich emotionally; all the visual razzle-dazzle winds up serving a pat lesson about people needing other people. R, 90 min. —Noel Murray Wed 10/13, 7 PM. Screening as this year’s “Festival Centerpiece,” with Boyle scheduled to attend and a 9 PM afterparty at Sunda, 110 W. Illinois; tickets are $25 (program) or $50 (program and party). The screening is sold out; rush tickets only.
Sex Magic: Manifesting Maya Polyamorous sex shaman Desert “Baba Dez” Nichols of Sedona, Arizona, appears to make a pretty good buck using his lingam to heal good-looking, thirtyish women of their sexual dysfunctions (fat women only get cuddled). But when his “sacred spa work” and other New Age erotic hijinks alienate monogamously inclined Maya, the woman he truly loves, he goes into a spiritual tailspin. Enlisting his many lovers, Nichols tries to shag Maya back into his life through a sexualized version of the philosophy in Rhonda Byrne’s self-help book The Secret (visualize good things and they will be yours). Documentarians Jonathan Schell and Eric Liebman clearly aren’t buying any of this, but instead of challenging their creepy subjects, they simply allow them to expose the rancid selfishness behind their relentless smiles, hokey rituals, and hideous, obfuscating jargon. It’s all pretty funny if you’re naturally amused by grotesque delusion. 80 min. —Cliff Doerksen Fri 10/8, 10:30 PM, and Sat 10/9, 10:15 PM. Liebman is scheduled to attend the screenings.
