Joan MacNeil
Cooking with Stella
2009 (Dilip Mehta) PG, 104 min
Starring: Don McKellar, Lisa Ray, Maury Chayken, Seema Biswas, Shriya Saran
Stella (Biswas) has been cheerfully cooking for the Canadian High Commission in New Delhi for 30 years, all the while taking her cut from merchants and running her own business on the side, with her employers’ duty-free goods as inventory. Enter diplomat Maya Chopra (Ray) and her husband Michael (McKellar), with baby in tow. Michael, a high-end chef back in Canada and now househusband, persuades Stella to teach him authentic Indian cuisine. Then Tannu (Saran), an honest nanny, is hired, but that’s no deterrent for clever Stella, who ups the ante in her larcenous activities. Director Dilip Metha, who produced sister Deepa’s Water and Earth, sketches with humour the power politics between foreign employers and locally-hired employees in this sly, spicy and immensely enjoyable film.
-Joan MacNeilWatch the Trailer
The Last Station
2009 (Michael Hoffman) 14A, 111 min
Starring: Christopher Plummer, Helen Mirren, James McAvoy, Kerry Condon, Paul Giamatti
Hoffman recreates the last year of the life of Leo Tolstoy, during which the Russian writer’s life-long struggle between his desire for his works to be well-known (and his family to enjoy economic security), and his commitment to a life oriented to the things of the human spirit and egalitarianism came to a head. Stunning performances by Plummer as the lusty soulful writer and Mirren, as his aggrieved, passionate and scheming wife – the earthiest, sexiest couple over 30 that you’re likely to see on screen this year. McAvoy is entirely believable as a sensitive Tolstoy acolyte discovering love and being manipulated by Tolstoy’s publisher (Giametti, perfect as the driven, manipulative zealot). Condon combines radiance, sensuality and razor-sharp perceptiveness in her role as Masha, the not-at-all passive object of the acolyte’s affections. Humour, tenderness, intrigue, intellectual and political fervour – this film has it all. A must see for anyone curious about the intersection between the political and the personal.
-Joan MacNeilWatch the Trailer
It's Complicated
2009 (Nancy Meyers) 14A, 118 min
Starring: Alec Baldwin, Meryl Streep, Steve Martin
Jane (Streep), a 50-something divorcee whose children are flying the coop, is being wooed by Jake, her engaging, two-timing ex, and the lower-key and, yes, much more mature Adam (Martin), an architect who is designing her house reno. After years of juggling a small business and raising three children, Jane is finally free to figure out what she wants in a man. Or if she even needs one. And to whoop it up a bit while she considers her options. Jake (Baldwin, in one of his best performances) is feeling the pressure of life with a young, beautiful and demanding second wife (with tattoos and spoiled kid). Is Jane crazy to even consider getting involved with him again, or is he just what she now needs? Meyers (Something's Gotta Give, Baby Boom) has a great sense of comedic staging. It's not often, either, that we hear a suitor say that one of a woman's great attractions is her 50-plus age.
-Joan MacNeilWatch the Trailer
An Education
2009 (Lone Scherfig) PG, 100 min
Starring: Alfred Molina, Carey Mulligan, Emma Thompson, Peter Sarsgaard
Jenny (Mulligan) is a gifted and pretty pupil at an all-girls’ school in a London suburb in the early 1960s. She is constantly pressured by her father (Molina, in what may be his best performance since Prick Up Your Ears) to do whatever it takes to gain admission to Oxford University—his dream for her, and to some extent, her dream for herself. But she also yearns for a less mundane, more culturally sophisticated life than that of her parents. Then she meets David (Sarsgaard), twice her age, who opens up a different world for her, and she’s obliged to make a series of choices. Mulligan’s rivetingly expressive performance may well net her an Oscar come April, and Sarsgaard’s will keep you wondering. Scherfig has evidently been honing her directorial skills since Italian for Beginners, and An Education may be her breakthrough into a larger international audience. What do girls really want? Find out at An Education.
-Joan MacNeilWatch the Trailer
