Whatever This World Can Give to Me: Annie Baker's Janet Planet with Julianne Nicholson

JANET PLANET 

(Annie Baker, 2024, USA, 113 minutes) 

Lacy: Every moment of my life is hell.

Janet: I hate it when you say things like that.

It isn't unusual for playwrights, like Tony Kushner and Suzan-Lori Parks, to turn to screenwriting, but it's more unusual for a playwright to turn to both screenwriting and directing as Annie Baker has done with Janet Planet (and before her, Celine Song with Past Lives). Notably, all three writers have won the Pulitzer Prize; Baker won in 2014 for The Flick, a play centered on movie ushers--a sign she may have already had her sights set on movie directing.

I wouldn't want to suggest that playwriting only works a certain way, because there are many different kinds of plays, but it's natural to expect dialogue to be paramount. And while there's nothing wrong with the dialogue in Baker's debut--on the contrary--she doesn't lean on it the way you might expect from a playwright. Instead, she gets considerable mileage out of sights beyond the actors and sounds beyond their words; something harder to pull off on stage. She sets a mood, and sticks with it, just as a composer might. There are variations on a theme, but she never deviates from the hazy, summer vibe she establishes from the start. (Swedish cinematographer Maria von Hausswolff, who provided the dreamy, 16mm look of Hlynur Pálmason's A White, White Day, does much the same here.)

The film, which takes place in Western Massachusetts in 1991, begins with a call from 11-year-old Lacy (Zoe Ziegler, a dark-eyed, pensive-looking child) to her single mother, Janet (the invaluable Julianne Nicholson, last seen in the nightmarish Dream Scenario). It's late at night, she's at a sleepaway camp, and she just can't take it anymore. She's also awkward and overly-dramatic, as creative people tend to be. "I'm gonna kill myself--I'm gonna kill myself if you don't come get me," she states, and so Janet dutifully arrives the next day to collect her. All the while, crickets sing their song. Paul Hsu's subtle, subterranean sound design, which includes the whistling and cooing of birds, plays throughout the film in place of a traditional score.

Lacy would rather hang out with Janet, an unpredictable if known quality, than age-appropriate kids she's never met before, something I found incredibly relatable. It's hard to be a shy kid. Having a permissive mother can be both a refuge and a restraint, because you can only really get to know other people if you try. Lacy doesn't, and nor does Janet encourage her--they even sleep in the same bed most nights--but a greater tension lies between her mother's desire for male companionship and her devotion to her daughter, not least because she has, as a friend notes, terrible taste in men. 

Baker divides the film into three chapters, starting with Will Patton's gruff, grizzled, migraine-prone, divorced dad Wayne. If I hadn't known Patton was in the film, I wouldn't have recognized him, because she rarely shows his face in full. It's possibly because we see everything from Lacy's point of view, and Wayne doesn't pay her much attention. In fact, it's largely why Janet breaks up with him--he isn't all that great with kids, including Sequoia (Edie Moon Kearns), the preteen daughter with whom Lacy briefly bonds. 

Left to her own devices, Lacy practices on a portable piano, rides her bike to town, and works on a diorama, which recalls a theater stage, an indication that this story might have autobiographical elements. In 1991, after all, Massachusetts-born Baker was 10 years old, though she didn't grow up with a single mother, and nor is she one herself. She and her husband, Nico Baumbach, have one child--which means that actor/director Owen Kline, the son of Phoebe Cates and Kevin Kline, played a version of Nico in The Squid and the Whale, Noah's take on their parents' contentious marriage (Nicholson, a married mother of two, also grew up in Massachusetts). 

Though set in the 1990s, Janet Planet reminded me of my own childhood in the 1970s, a time when a lot of divorced women were trying to find themselves, sometimes with children in tow. My mom worked as a counselor at a free clinic in Alaska, and met a lot of colorful people. Janet works as an acupuncturist, and the colorful people in her orbit include Regina (British actress Sophie Okonedo) and Avi (one-time Atom Egoyan regular Elias Koteas), members of an experimental theatrical troupe and/or cult dedicated to "radical and personal love." And zucchini. Lots and lots of zucchini.

Unemployed and broke after giving away all of her worldly possessions, Regina moves in with Janet after her breakup with Avi. Koteas and Okonedo, an Oscar nominee for Hotel Rwanda, are both cast against type as hippies out of time, parts I haven't seen either actor play before--if anything, Koteas's deadpan affect reminded me of Tom Noonan. Like Wayne, Avi gets a chapter to himself, and it doesn't end any more happily. As Janet tells Lacy, "I've always had this knowledge, deep inside of me, that I could make any man fall in love with me if I really tried, and I think maybe it's ruined my life." Painful pause. "I've never really said that out loud before."

The chapter headings operate like the acts of a play, even if Janet Planet never looks like one. It has a firm sense of place. If Janet talks to Lacy like an adult, it isn't because Baker doesn't have a feel for parent-child communications, but because that's how these two relate. Janet even asks Lacy if she should break up with Wayne--naturally, she says yes. It's how my mom talked to me; it can help a kid to mature, but it can be isolating, too, because relating to other kids is also part of growing up, except Lacy doesn't have any friends. "It's a complete mystery to me," she tells Regina in a scene that comes across as more amusing than sad, because it isn't hard to see why. It also seems likely that that will change in time. 

Though Janet and Lacy don't look much alike, other than a reddish tint to their hair, that seems to be the point. 

Men are attracted to Janet in ways the scrawny, bespectacled Lacy, who favors baggy t-shirts, fears they won't be attracted to her when she's older. Nor is she certain she's even interested in men, possibly because she hasn't met many she likes. As she tells Regina, "Men are always falling in love with my mother." Explains Regina, who possibly harbors a crush of her own: "She's fantastic." 

It's possible Lacy favors her father's looks, but Baker never references him in any way. What might seem like an oversight in a different film works perfectly in this one. Janet Planet isn't about the past, but the present, and possibly even the future. Nicholson has always been a fine actress, and it was satisfying to see her pick up an Emmy Award for her excellent work on HBO's suburban murder mystery Mare of Easttown, but she really rises to the occasion here, though if she didn't have a believable chemistry with the untrained Ziegler, it wouldn't matter as much, but she definitely does. 

Janet Planet proves that Baker has as much of a feel for film as she does for theater, and that Julianne Nicholson, longtime supporting player on shows like Law & Order: Criminal Intent and in independent films like I, Tonya, could use more leading roles. As the searching, yet nurturing Janet, she felt intimately familiar. Viewers with more traditional notions of motherhood may find her flaky or irresponsible, but I didn't see it that way at all. It's just that, for her daughter, trying to figure out yourself and your place in the world at the same time as your mother can be confusing and frustrating, no matter how much you know she loves you. But it's never, ever boring.

Whatever this world can give to me 

It's you, you're all I see 

--Queen (John Deacon), "You're My Best Friend"

Near as I can tell, the film's title has nothing to do with Van Morrison's wife, Janet Rigsbee, who he nicknamed Janet Planet. Janet Planet, the film, opens at Regal Thornton Place and other area theaters on Fri, June 28; sneak previews on Thurs, June 27. Images from Film at Lincoln Center (Julianne Nicholson and Zoe Ziegler), Chlotrudis Society for Independent Film and Film at Lincoln Center (Nicholson and Ziegler), and Movie Insider (Nicholson).

A Hyper-Masculine Subculture Roars to Life in Jeff Nichols' Biker Club Exposé The Bikeriders

THE BIKERIDERS 

(Jeff Nichols, 2024, USA, 116 minutes) 

Since his 2008 directorial debut, Shotgun Stories, the tale of a blood feud between family factions, Arkansas-born filmmaker Jeff Nichols has been working with archetypes (as opposed to stereotypes). It isn't true of all six of his feature films, but it's true of most. Or, to put it another way, it is true of every film, but it's a more significant part of some than others. 

Just as he drew from Nancy Buirski's 2011 documentary, The Loving Story, for 2016's Loving, his warm-hearted, if cool-headed profile of Richard and Mildred Loving, the couple behind the landmark Loving v. Virginia Supreme Court decision decriminalizing interracial marriage, he has done something similar with The Bikeriders by drawing from pre-existing material. Granted, the stakes are lower, but the canvas is wider, and he has brought actual individuals to silver screen life, unlike his first four narrative features. 

Instead of a biography or a documentary, however, he has adapted a book of photographs. In so doing, he has also inserted the photojournalist behind the 1968 project, Danny Lyon (played by West Side Story and Challengers star Mike Faist), into the scenario. Danny's interviews with Kathy, a motorcycle club moll (Killing Eve's Jodie Comer with teased hair, cat-eye liner, and a zesty regional accent), form the film's narrative. Nichols presents everything from her point of view. And everything involves men. Chicago citizens are likely to have thoughts about Comer's accent, especially since she hits it harder than everyone else, but I found it funny--in a good way. 

Kathy, Chicago, 1966 / Danny Lyon

Kathy, a Chicago native, doesn't initially have any interest in motorcycle culture until a friend invites her to a biker bar. 

The leather-clad men ogle her and make crude comments, and she can't wait to leave until she spots Benny (Austin Butler, fresh from his turn as an eerie bald baddie in Dune 2), presiding over a pool table, and it's love and/or lust at first sight. As attractive as Comer may be, Nichols reserves his most glamorous shots for Butler, who plays the misunderstood brooder to perfection. If anything, Butler looks more like a matinee idol in The Bikeriders than the much-touted Glen Powell in Hit Man, though it's a bit of a mixed blessing, since there isn't much to Benny, at least in comparison with Kathy or Johnny (Tom Hardy, back on a bike after his turn in George Miller's Fury Road), the head of the Vandals Motorcycle Club, a group inspired by Chicago's Outlaw MC.  

Granted, it's possible that this was intentional, since these are real meat and potatoes guys. They drink, they smoke, they fight, and they ride their bikes--without helmets. That's about it. Women hover along the periphery, but other than Kathy, Nichols never introduces any of them. Considering that he has Gail (Phuong Kubacki), silent squeeze of the avuncular Brucie (Australian actor Damon Herriman, Justified's loveable loser Dewey Crowe), beside him at all times, it would have been nice to learn something about her, not least because she's a woman of Asian descent, and the club, as was surely the case in the 1960s--even in multiracial Chicago--was very white. 

Handing the narration to a woman cuts through the macho bluster, but that doesn't make it feminist. Kathy has a backbone, and she doesn't hesitate to speak her mind, but she's cut from the same cloth as Cathy Moriarty's underage Vickie, the future Mrs. Jake LaMotta, in Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull, i.e. her life revolves around her man. Fortunately, she's a fully-grown adult, and Benny isn't an abuser or even a cheater. He just can't stop getting into fights with other men, though, and she's helpless to stop him. 

In the prologue, Benny gets into a brutal scrape with two bulky barflies--in a joint managed by Old Joy actor/musician Will Oldham--who take offense to his "colors" or bike club gear. They rough him up so badly, in fact, that for the first time in his life he's forced to consider whether it might be time to do something other than ride and fight, ride and fight until he ends up in a gutter somewhere. Since Nichols never shows him working, it isn't clear if he sponges off Kathy, or if he works in a garage like Boyd Holbrook's Cal, though I was never certain where her income came from either. 

Nor is it clear what fuels Benny's anger, and it doesn't really matter. Johnny, on the other hand, takes inspiration from Brando's Johnny Strabler, head of the Black Rebels Motorcycle Club, in the iconic 1953 picture The Wild One. 

When someone asks what he's rebelling against, Brando famously replies, "Whaddaya got?" The entire club adheres to the same philosophy. They're raging against straight society, which has its faults, but what they have to offer isn't much better, and as time goes on, it will become worse. 

It's fun at first as all of these miscreants come together as one. Michael Shannon, who has appeared in five Nichols films to date, plays the unhinged Zipco, who dismisses anyone with intellectual aspirations as a "pinko." He doesn't seem to have any idea what the word means, since he even applies it to his brother in the military, the difference being that his brother passed his medical, whereas Zipco was rejected due to mental instability. To Zipco, that makes his brother a commie, even though he's probably the exact opposite. 

Only the bug-eating Cockroach (Emory Cohen, Saoirse Ronan's American beau in Brooklyn), a married man with child, has aspirations--to become a motorcycle cop. Considering that the cops and the bikers are sworn enemies, his ambition splits the difference between inevitable and insane. 

As the 1960s bleed into the 1970s, other Vandals chapters spring up throughout the Midwest. Their hair gets longer, the music gets louder, the mood-enhancing substances get stronger--and more lethal--and the violence becomes downright psychopathic. It's the beginning of the end, not least when the "live fast, die young" club members start to drop off one by one. 

Nichols has assembled a terrific ensemble of supporting players, from Karl Glusman to Norman Reedus, and it was fun to try to figure out where I had seen all of them before. Everyone gets into the spirit of the thing, and if the director doesn't exactly glamorize their exploits, especially as things turn rotten, I wish he had offered a stronger critique. 

The club's whiteness, for instance, is a given, but it isn't something he ever addresses, which comes as a disappointment after Loving, which offered his first leading character of color, Mildred Loving, a performance for which Ethiopian-Irish actress Ruth Negga scored her first Oscar nomination. 

On the one hand, there's a meeting of the tribes in which Black bikers join the throng, but they and the Vandals never mingle. Simply put, most biker clubs were segregated in the 1960s and beyond. More egregiously, though, Nichols ignores the fact that the club, according to Danny Lyon, included white supremacist members, though I couldn't say how many. Lyon, a civil rights activist who became a legit biker while working on The Bikeriders, distanced himself from the group when the Nazi element came in to play. 

Danny Lyon in motorcycle mode

Then there's the handling of misogyny and sexuality in the film. When the bikers ogle Kathy at the bar, and she complains about it to Johnny, he explains that they just want to date her. But that doesn't justify the grimy-handed groping. Johnny's unspoken boys-will-be-boys implication is that the club members don't want to rape her, though she feels otherwise until she meets Benny, with whom she instantly feels protected. Later, after the club has grown wilder and woolier, a group of men--none of whom were part of the original group--will attempt to have their way with her at a house party. It's a harrowing sequence, but it's also an isolated one. In real life, it seems likely that there more than a few victims of sexual assault at the hands of the Outlaws.

And though Comer and Butler have chemistry, it's pretty restrained. If anything, they recall the unworldly, rural couple in Loving, but what made sense in a story about devotion in the face of discrimination makes less here. When Kathy sees Benny for the first time, she's struck more by lust than love, except the actors don't generate much heat. Nichols doesn't give them a chance--it isn't part of his filmmaking toolkit--and it's too bad, not least since the only sexual activity he does depict is of the most terrible kind (ironically or otherwise, the attempted assault recalls Ridley Scott's The Last Duel in which the rape of Comer's character sets off the entire plot). 

For all its faults, though, I enjoyed The Bikeriders. A rousing soundtrack, including selections from Chicago blues legend Magic Sam and the fabulous hair-hoppers of the Shangri-Las, doesn't hurt, but more importantly, Nichols finds a touching way to bring things to a close, a real achievement, because as entertaining as these bikers may be--a few are even quite funny--they're about as far from sensitive as human beings can get. The ending also gives Kathy the chance to make the move from bystander and narrator to something more: a woman who gets exactly what she wants. 

The Bikeriders opens at SIFF Cinema Uptown on Thurs, July 20. Images from the IMDb (Austin Butler and Jodie Comer), art2art Circulating Exhibitions (the original Kathy), Uproxx (Tom Hardy channeling Marlon Brando by way of Belmondo), American Cinematheque (Brando in The Wild One), Just Jared (Michael Shannon), and Chicago Maroon (Danny Lyon).  

Stranger Flashback: Paul Williams at the Egyptian with Director Stephen Kessler

This is a revived version of a 2012 Line Out post (these posts were purged from the internet some time after The Stranger pulled the plug on their music blog).

FILM/TV May 29, 2012 at 10:32 am 

Paul Williams at the Egyptian 

KATHY FENNESSY

I'm sure Oscar-winning singer, songwriter, and actor Paul Williams has a few young fans scattered here and there, but if you're a person of a certain age, like me, he's an icon. Not "kind of an icon" or "sort of an icon," but an icon. Full stop. And the reason is simple: he ruled the 1970s. His songs, like the Carpenters' "Rainy Days and Mondays" and "We've Only Just Begun" were all over the radio, and every time you turned on the television, there he was: guesting on Baretta, Police Woman, and The Tonight Show. Johnny Carson was such an ardent admirer he had Williams on 50 times.

But then, as the '70s gave way to the '80s, the ubiquitous entertainer's drug use got the best of him, and he disappeared. Director Stephen Kessler, who appears to be around my age, decided to find out what happened to his childhood hero--as the title indicates, he thought Williams had died. That inquiry led to the documentary Paul Williams Still Alive, which premiered at the Egyptian on Friday as part of SIFF's Face the Music series.

I was interested in the film from the start, but once I found that Williams would be at the screenings, it became a can't-miss event, and it was definitely worth my while, for both the documentary and the revealing Q&A.

During the brisk, 87-minute movie, Kessler concentrates on the '70s and the present, skipping over the '80s and the '90s. 

It's a wise move, since most addiction stories play out in a similar manner. As it is, we get enough footage of Williams rubbing his nose during a variety of talk-show appearances—The Mike Douglas Show, The Merv Griffin Show, etc.—to get the point: he had a problem with cocaine.

In the Q&A, Williams describes the cynical, self-pitying person he became as a "prick." Sober now for 20 years, he's back on the road with his band. 

During the documentary, Kessler travels with the artist to engagements in Las Vegas, San Francisco, Winnipeg, and the Philippines. If he's no longer at the top of his game—his singing voice has taken a few hits—nor is he at the bottom. Most recently, he's been working on a Happy Days musical and a top-secret project with Daft Punk (this turned out to be the song "Touch" off their final album, 2013's Random Access Memories -KF).

And Kessler doesn't skimp on his adventures in movieland, like the compositions he wrote for A Star Is Born, Ishtar, and The Muppet Movie. If he won the Oscar for the former, he admits that "The Rainbow Connection" ranks among his favorite self-penned creations—and I'm right there with him. While he describes Kermit as an "everyfrog," much like Jimmy Stewart's everyman in all those Frank Capra classics, he proclaimed a special fondness for Gonzo. He also gave a shout-out to the late William Finley, his co-star in Brian De Palma's Phantom of the Paradise (and a regular presence in De Palma's output from the '60s through the '00s).

I should note that Kessler inserts himself into most of the modern-day material, which can be problematic when a filmmaker steals the spotlight from his star, but in this case it works, because Kessler, a commercial director, makes a few rookie mistakes—like interrupting his subject a time or two—and he allows Williams to upbraid him on camera. 

In every case, Williams is right, so they start out as antagonists, and end up as friends. Or at least friendly collaborators. It's actually kind of sweet, though I suspect some viewers may find Kessler's outspoken Queens persona a little boorish--I didn't, but then, I've got New York roots, too.

After the screening, Paul Williams joined singer/writer Sean Nelson at the Sorrento Hotel for a set of cover songs, a fit that makes perfect sense when you consider how much '70s-era Williams, at times, sounded like Harry Nilsson, another favored Nelson singer and composer. Not too surprisingly, Williams also appears in John Scheinfeld's fine documentary portrait, Who Is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talkin' About Him?)

Paul Williams Still Alive played the Uptown the next day with Kessler and Williams in attendance. If you missed out, it opens at SIFF Film Center on July 13. Fantastically blurry photos of the director and subject by me.

Mute, Brain-Damaged, and Sexy: On Juanma Bajo Ulloa’s 1993 Thriller The Dead Mother

THE DEAD MOTHER / La Madre Muerta 

(Juanma Bajo Ulloa, 1993, Spain, 101 minutes) 

When a movie character is unable to communicate by way of the spoken word, they can usually rely on writing, typing, sign language, or some form of assistive device. What Spanish filmmaker Juanma Bajo Ulloa's sophomore feature–like many horror and horror-adjacent films before it–posits is this: What if they can't? 

In Robert Ellis Miller's touching and troubling 1968 adaptation of Carson McCullers's 1940 debut novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, Alan Arkin's hearing-impaired character, John Singer, doesn't utter a single word, but expresses himself through gestures and written notes. 

 

Nonetheless, the small town Southerners around him make assumptions about what he's thinking and what makes him tick. The primary one is that he's sympathetic to their respective plights, because he's unlikely to disagree or to protest. He is, to them, an empty vessel to fill as they please.

Arkin, an actor with an instantly-recognizable voice, received an Oscar nomination for his efforts (he would finally win, in 2007, for Little Miss Sunshine). Spanish actress Ana Álvarez, who plays a mute, but hearing-enabled young woman in The Dead Mother, would also receive awards recognition for her work from film festivals throughout Europe. 

 

When a mute character is female, however, other factors come into play, like victimization. 

It's a possibility for men, too–and I'm sorry to say that things don't end well for John Singer–but with women, speechlessness can also take on a sexual dimension. That's certainly the case with The Dead Mother, which contributes to the film's queasy–and problematic–allure. 

That's also the case with Lee Chang-dong's wrenching drama Oasis, which will be returning to Seattle in a new 4K restoration on June 14. 

 

Like Ana Álvarez's Leire, Moon So-ri's twentysomething character Han Gong-ju, who has cerebral palsy, has a voice, but forming words is another story. It's such a strain that she expresses herself more through sounds and expressions, but she's still nearly impossible to understand, so Lee brings her daydreams to life to show how she sees–or would like to see–the world. 

Gong-ju's desire for escape is understandable, not just because of her physical limitations, but because her family is using and abusing her disability for their financial benefit. Even Hong Jong-du (Sol Kyung-gu), who comes on as a friend, will betray her trust by sexually assaulting her. 

 

She and Jong-du, who is mentally challenged, will eventually come to an understanding, but her inability to form complete sentences will have unforeseen consequences when she has the chance to defend him from a criminal charge, but can't find the words in time (at the 2002 Seattle International Film Festival, Sol and Moon, respectively, won best actor and actress awards for their go-for-broke performances). 

Nonetheless, Lee Chang-dong suggests the possibility of a happy ending. Gong-ju is unlikely to become more articulate with time, but ideally, she'll see Jong-du again, and their emotional bond seems secure. 

Leire, on the other hand, is all alone in the world, and that isn't likely to change. In Bajo Ulloa's unusual thriller, she inadvertently becomes part of a twisted love triangle. Though she doesn't ride off into the sunset at the end, she emerges triumphant simply by surviving the ordeal. 

 

In a prologue set 20 years before, Ismael (Karra Elejalde from Nacho Vigalondo's Timecrimes), an intruder, enters the flat she shares with her unnamed mother (Marisol Saes, a nonprofessional hired for her arresting presence), a restorer of religious artifacts. When her mother catches him in the act, she doesn't scream or shout, but simply states, "There is no money." He could've left quietly at that point, but instead, the impulsive, hotheaded thief shoots her dead. As she lay dying, her eyelids growing heavy, a trickle of blood clouding her vision, cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe's camera looks up from her hazy vantage point to see the small feet of a child--her three-year-old daughter--approaching. 

The filmmaker then catches up with Leire in the present, now living in a psychiatric institute. It's pretty clear she's been there for most of her life--not once does Bajo Ulloa reference a father--since she's unable to communicate in any way. It isn't initially clear if this is an extreme trauma response, or something else, but Bajo Ulloa will eventually explain why she isn't capable of speech or anything, really, other than walking, sleeping, and eating. Even normal bathroom habits seem beyond her capabilities. 

Leire's world changes yet again when the intruder, now working in a local saloon, catches sight of her while she's out for a walk with an elderly family friend (another non-actor; according to Bajo Ulloa, she had the hots for Elejalde). Ismael becomes convinced she recognizes him from the long-ago shooting, and fears she'll report him to the authorities, so he abducts her, and spirits her away to the abandoned mansion he's been squatting in with his insecure, possessive lady love, Maite (Portuguese-Belgian singer Lio). It quickly becomes apparent to the two grifters that Leire isn't likely to report anything to anyone, so they decide to hold her for ransom instead. 

 

At first, they treat her like a child. Ismael keeps her calm by feeding her chocolate, something he's seen nibbling on in the prologue, while Maite bathes and washes her hair, in the process noticing that she's quite a shapely young woman despite her childlike affect. From that point forward, they dress her in their own clothes. With her long, dark hair and full lips, she has the look of a femme fatale, even as Maite is the one with the flattering, deep red lipstick and richly-colored, form-fitting outfits.

 

Now that she sees her as a fully grown adult, however, Maite becomes jealous and encourages Ismael to kill her, not least because the more his lady whines and complains, the more drawn he feels to their quiet, complacent hostage. As Bajo Ulloa notes in the commentary track, Lio "plays someone who is totally and unhealthily in love with a psychopath." 

Fortunately, however, Ismael never sexually assaults Leire. As awful as Ismael may be, and he's pretty awful, he has a certain respect for this young woman whose life he essentially destroyed. Granted, he keeps her chained, and handles her rather roughly, but she makes out better than most every other woman in the film, including Silvia Marsó's Blanca, an institute worker who puts her life on the line to try to rescue Leire.

 

Though Maite's jealousy is not misplaced, the idea that a silent, uncomplaining woman might be preferable to a slightly older, slightly less shapely one who doesn't hesitate to speak her mind is problematic at best. 

That said, Ismael is unsettled by the fact that Leire never laughs or smiles, no matter how hard he tries to amuse her. This may be partly why Bajo Ulloa hired an actor who, up until this film, was best known for his comedic roles (afterward, as the filmmaker notes in his commentary track, Elejalde became typecast as a heavy). The way Ismael tries to turn most everything into a joke, however, makes him seem more sadistic and cruel than light and funny–not least because he'll end up contributing to the deaths of a few more inconvenient individuals before the film reaches its conclusion. 

Though he'll attempt to kill Leire twice, both times something will cause him to change his mind. Bajo Ulloa suggests that it could be the unseen ghost of the dead mother. By the end, it's hard not to wonder if Leire's whole thing is an act; that she really knows what's going on, but chooses to act as if she's out to lunch as a form of self-preservation. After all, the more she keeps her head, the more Ismael and Maite lose theirs. I'll spare the details, other than to say that things don't end well for either kidnapper, whereas Leire's freedom will come at their expense. It's possible she was just lucky, or that the criminals were especially lousy at their jobs, but the bottom line is that she doesn't say a thing from start to finish. Not one single word.

The Dead Mother is out now on Blu-ray from Radiance. Oasis, part of the series The Early Films of Lee Chang-dong, plays the Uptown June 14, 16, and 18. Click here for more information. Images from the IMDb (Ana Álvarez, Lio, and Raquel Santamaría, as the three-year-old Leire, in The Dead Mother and Alan Arkin in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter), Google Play (Moon So-ri in Oasis), and Blueprint: Review (Álvarez and Elejalde).