More gorging on films and satisfying meals. We saw three more movies, the best being Hidden Figures, and returned to a recent restaurant find on W. 13th Street called Gradisca.
Things to Come. While the Chief Penguin saw Neruda, I settled myself in for Isabelle Huppert in L’Avenir, The Future. I much prefer the French title for this film about a professor whose husband of 25 years leaves her for another woman. It’s both an intellectual film, and to me, very French. Both Nathalie and her husband, Heinz, are philosophy professors. She exposes her students to Rousseau and has had a successful track record of publication, including several widely used textbooks. Nathalie has two almost-adult children and a mother who is both ill and demanding.
When her husband departs and her responsibilities for children and mother cease, she must figure out how to live her life now that she has no ties and is free. Her closest relationship apart from her children is with Fabien, a former student and a radical who has moved to the mountains. The film employs none of the plot devices (an affair, e.g.) one might expect from an American version of this situation. Rather it’s Nathalie’s slowly unfolding journey from resignation coupled with grief and loneliness to a subdued acceptance of life as it is now. It’s subtitled with bits of English and German and an occasionally haunting soundtrack that ranges from classical to American popular music.
Patriots’ Day. Some might wonder why we would go see a film about a catastrophic event, but we did and it was mostly an uplifting experience. This film about the Boston Marathon explosions of 2013 is a sensitive depiction of the events of that tumultuous week. The scenes of the actual event are graphic and horrifying, but most of the focus of the film is on the city and law enforcement’s race to find the bombers. Local and state politicians, FBI, and police officers are all portrayed along with the lead, Tommy Saunders, a police sergeant played by Mark Wahlberg. Saunders is a composite of several real individuals.
I had forgotten some of the particulars of the ferocious gun battle in Watertown and that it took almost a week before the two brothers were located and dealt with. While one critic thought the coda was unnecessary and too long, I found seeing and hearing from some of the individuals injured or involved further testament to the spirit of a city that became Boston Strong. Director Peter Berg also directed Deepwater Horizon, released earlier this year.
Hidden Figures. Off all the films we’ve seen in New York this trip, this was the best! It deals with the long overlooked achievements of three extremely smart and feisty black women. They worked for NASA in Virginia in the early 1960’s when overt racism was the norm. There were separate restrooms and separate coffee pots for black people and, heaven forbid, if women thought they could become engineers or anything other than seemingly low level calculators. The NASA team at Langley is working hard to prepare for John Glenn’s launch. There’s a key scene when he visits and is being introduced to some of the staff. The black women are standing off separately and he’s being hurried along past them. But Glenn slows down and insists on greeting them and shaking hands with several, a wonderful moment of human inclusiveness.
The audience was about two-thirds black and at the end of the film there was a spontaneous round of applause. After photos of the real pioneers appeared on the screen receiving awards including one given by President Obama, a black man in the back of the theater quietly intoned, “our president.” This is a seriously good film with notes of humor as you get pieces of the private lives of Catherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson. See it!
Gradisca. A small Italian restaurant where grandmother makes the tortellini by hand at a small table at the side of the dining room. Pastas are excellent and the main dishes, especially the veal with fungi, very tasty. Wait staff are gracious and helpful.
Header photo: www.cinemablend.com
Love your movie critiques!