Wonderstruck (2017)

Don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful movie. The black-and-white 1920s cinematography is gorgeous. The production design and costumes for the 20s and 70s are both fantastic. The look of the movie and the music are mesmerizing. The final fifteen minutes especially of the stop motion dioramas are magical. The kids are great actors too. Where I didn't love the movie: I don't think the plot quite paid off enough given how slowly it built up. I think it'd have difficulty holding the attention of the kids it was meant for. But it might seem a little too kiddie for the adults that might appreciate the artistry of it. Rose's story and Ben's story are obviously headed for a collision. And they do. The parallels are clear. But we could've gotten just Ben's story without Rose's and we wouldn't really have lost anything because Rose's story is not relevant to understanding Ben's. In that sense, they don't quite collide enough. What I do love is the New York story. New York is a beautiful city with a beautiful history and beautiful institutions. It's a piece imagining the city in the context of real history: the World's Fair, the Blackout of 77. It does a lot of things right--it's just not as enjoyable as I had hoped.

Carol (2015)

Carol is a gorgeous love story by Todd Haynes,  a pure romantic drama at its core. Haynes is a master of his craft, creating a beautiful depiction of 1950s New York (the costumes!). Haynes loves the time jump and there is one major time jump in the beginning that is not immediately obvious but very important and well executed. We start in the future and witness the dynamic between Carol and Therese from a third party perspective. Then we go back to see how their relationship evolved interestingly alternating perspectives between Carol and Therese.

The screenplay is very well written. The story moves along very slowly, but that is all the better to bask in its beauty. What moves the film forward is the music. I love the score. The piano plays heavy chords in the recurring theme that are mostly steady save for a single measure that is played in double time. It is subtle, but it builds anticipation just enough. The music adds to the mysterious atmosphere, along with the clever cinematography. Many of the images are indirect, like how Therese sees the world through her camera and how we watch reflections in murky windows. It adds to the aura, as does the divine (yet undoubtedly mysterious) Cate Blanchett.

Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara are both brilliant. They both show extraordinary vulnerability and immense passion for each other. Their love is forbidden in their time and it tortures them so. They show restraint. They are simply a joy to watch.

I'm Not There (2007)

I'm Not There is a very innovative biopic that very loosely based on "the many lives" of Bob Dylan.  Dylan is played by six different actors, including a black child actor, and a woman.  Each character goes by a different name (none of them Bob or Dylan) and they represent different stages of Dylan's life, or rather different parts of his persona.  Cate Blanchett was especially convincing playing a 60s-era Dylan.  I wish I knew a little more about Bob Dylan because I feel like I missed out on a lot of the details that were included in the film that allude to his life.

The film is very stylish with two of the six actors being portrayed in black and white, and one of the six being portrayed in a documentary format.  Time is not linear in the slightest, jumping constantly between personas.  The whole thing is very surreal and sometimes you're not quite sure what to make of what you're seeing on screen.  But it is fitting for such an enigmatic man as Bob Dylan.

The film opens with a motorcycle accident (a reference to Dylan's own motorcycle accident) and Jude Quinn's subsequent autopsy.  I could not help but draw a parallel to the opening of Lawrence of Arabia, another biopic about a complex man who wore different personas in different phases of his life.