Papa Was a Rollin' Stone in Daddy Longlegs

DADDY LONGLEGS / Go Get Some Rosemary
(Benny and Josh Safdie, USA, 2010, 35mm, 

98 mins)



Wherever he laid his hat was his home.
--Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong (1972)

Some people grow up with dads who are, well, dads. It isn't that their fathers don't have other interests or play other roles--husband, son, employee, etc.--it's that "dad" always comes first (at least in the minds of their children). Other people grow up with dads who are characters, with personalities so strong they subsume every other role they play, which doesn't mean they don't try to be good fathers. Just that it's a lot harder.

The character at the center of Daddy Longlegs, the first feature from Benny and Josh Safdie, is that kind of guy (on his own, Josh directed 2008's kleptomaniac adventure The Pleasure of Being Robbed.) In fact, that's what bystanders probably say when they see him coming, "Hey! It's that guy." Meet him once, and you'll never forget him. The thing is, you might not want to meet him again. He's like Vincent Gallo's whiny ex-con in 1998's Buffalo 66: funny from a distance, but far less so within close proximity.

Played by Frownland director Ronald Bronstein, he's a jittery, loud-mouthed perpetual motion-machine, filled with a combination of crippling insecurity and unbridled bravado. In other words: a New Yorker. A projectionist by trade, comic collector by proclivity, he's also a divorced dad with two rambunctious boys, nine-year-old Sage and seven-year-old Frey (played by Sonic Youth guitarist Lee Ranaldo's sons...Sage and Frey).

The film covers two weeks during which his ex-wife (Ranaldo's wife Leah Singer) grudgingly hands them over to him. Lenny loves his sons, his sons love him. What could go wrong? As it turns out: everything. But Daddy Longlegs isn't a Judd Apatow comedy where viewers are expected to laugh at his desperate attempts to feed his kids and hang on to his job.

Which isn't to suggest that the film lacks humor--hence the comparison to Buffalo 66, which otherwise follows a very different path--but that sense of unease permeates the entire proceedings, building to a feeling of intense dread before ending in a bizarre flourish of surrealism.

He may sound like a loner, but Lenny has a girlfriend, Leni (Eleonore Hendricks) which isn't such a bad thing (his ex is also remarried to a man played by Ranaldo). She even likes his kids, but that doesn't mean she's ready to settle down. Nor is Lenny. The minute he gets a break from her and them, he picks up a woman and spends the night with her.

Instead of taking off the next day, he invites himself to join Roberta (Dakota Goldhur) on a trip to Upstate New York. Just as he neglects to explain his domestic situation, she's equally neglectful, resulting in a funny, surprising, and rather lovely adventure. But as in all sequences: disaster lurks around every corner (keep an eye out for filmmaker Abel Ferrara as "Robber").

And so it goes until the situation becomes almost unbearable. This is the point at which the tone shifts from the anxious arena of Cassavetes' Husbands to the nightmarish environs of Lynch's Eraserhead, to the extent that I had a dream days later in which the Lynch and Safdie films bled into one and came to life--and I was the freaked-out parental figure (though I should mention that it wasn't my first Eraserhead-inspired dream).

At the press screening, a local critic--who has two kids--arrived late and left early. He didn't miss much more than the credits, but the film clearly rubbed him the wrong way (and he might not have wanted to be there in the first place). He's just one example, but I can imagine other viewers who won't want to spend 98 minutes with a self-defeating character who never stops talking, never stops moving, and trails disaster in his wake like Pigpen trailing clouds of dust (the Safdies say they looked to their own father for inspiration). And yet, the more I think about it, the more I like it.

That Lenny's dilemma invaded my dreams, even though I don't have any kids, indicates the extent to which it got under my skin, making Daddy Longlegs the opposite of escapist entertainment. But if your father, like mine, was a character first and a dad second, you'll probably relate. And maybe you'll even feel a little less alone.

Daddy Longlegs plays the Northwest Film Forum 6/25-7/1. Directors in attendance Fri.-Sun. The NWFF is located at 1515 12th Ave. between Pike and Pine. For more information, please call 206-829-7863 or click here. Images from OutNow!, A Good Movie to Watch, MUBI, and FilmLeaf.

Movies for Music Lovers: 2010 Edition

Click here for the 2009 edition

Some of these films premier- ed in the US in 2009, but didn't make their way to Seattle until 2010, in which case I deferred to local release dates. Some missed the city altogether, in which case I caught up via DVD. Altogether, I saw around 250 films, and wrote about most of them for Amazon, Siffblog, and Video Librarian.

The Tops 1. Fish Tank (Andrea Arnold)

2. The White Ribbon / Das Weisse Band (Michael Haneke)

3. The Social Network (David Fincher) 

4. A Prophet / Un Prophète (Jacques Audiard)  

5. Animal Kingdom (David Michôd)   

6. Carlos (Olivier Assayas)

7. The King's Speech (Tom Hooper)  

8. Greenberg (Noah Baumbach)

9. Daddy Longlegs (Josh and Ben Safdie)

10. The Red Riding Trilogy (Julian Jarrold, James Marsh, Anand Tucker)

Note: If I had gotten the chance to see Fish Tank and The White Ribbon in '09, The Social Network would top this list. Last year's #1: The Hurt Locker.

Runners-up:  

11. The Kids Are All Right (Lisa Cholodenko)  

12. Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky)  

13. The Fighter (David O. Russell)  

14. Sweetgrass (Ilisa Barbash and Lucien Castaing-Taylor)  

15. Please Give (Nicole Holofcener)  

16. Mother and Child (Rodrigo García)  

17. Police, Adjective / Politist, Adjectiv (Corneliu Porumboiu)  

18. Never Let Me Go (Mark Romanek)  

19. Mid-August Lunch / Pranzo di Ferragosto (Gianni Di Gregorio)  

20. The Ghost Writer (Roman Polanski)

Note: I've been saying all year that Annette Bening gives an even better per- formance in Mother and Child than in The Kids Are All Right...but no one noticed.

Second Runners-up:  

21. Everyone Else / Alle Anderen (Maren Ade)  

22. The New Year Parade (Tom Quinn)  

23. 127 Hours (Danny Boyle)

24. Somewhere (Sofia Coppola)  

25. True Grit (Joel and Ethan Coen) 

26. Nowhere Boy (Sam Taylor-Wood)  

27. The Hedgehog / Le Hérisson (Mona Achache) 

28. Mother / Madeo (Bong Joon Ho)  

29. A Town Called Panic / Panique au Village (Stéphane Aubier and Vincent Patar)  

30. The Runaways (Floria Sigismondi)

Also worthy of note: 44 Inch Chest, The American, Blue Valentine, Cen- turion, Crazy Heart, The Company Men, Disgrace, The Eclipse, Farewell / L'Affaire Farewell, Get Low, The Girl on the Train / La Fille du RER, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo / Män Som Hatar Kvinnor, Hereafter, Hipsters / Stil- yagi, Howl, I Am Love / Io Sono l'Amore, The Killer Inside Me, The Maid / La Nana, My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?, The Night Catches Us, No One Knows about Persian Cats / Kasi Az Gorbehaye Irani Khabar Nadar- eh, Passenger Side, Rabbit Hole, Soul Kitchen, The Town, White Mater- ial, Wild Grass / Les Herbes Folles, A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop / San Qiang Pai an Jing Qi, and HBO's You Don't Know Jack.  Documentaries: 1. The Tillman Story (Amir Bar-Lev) 2. The Oath (Laura Poitras) 3. Jean-Michel Basquiat - The Radiant Child (Tamra Davis) 4. Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo (Brad Beesley) 5. Inside Job (Charles Ferguson) 6. The Beaches of Agnès / Les Plages d'Agnès (Agnès Varda) 7. Joan Rivers - A Piece of Work (Anne Sundberg and Ricki Stern) 8. Exit Through the Gift Shop (Banksy) 9. Marwencol (Jeff Malmberg) 10. I Am Secretly an Important Man (Peter Sillen)

Also worthy of note: Beautiful Darling, Casino Jack & the United States of Money, Client 9 - The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer, Countdown to Zero, Four Seasons Lodge, Garbage Dreams, Glenn Gould - The Genius Within, Mine, Rio Breaks, Kings of Pastry, La Danse - Le Ballet de l'Opéra de Paris, LennoNYC, Pray the Devil Back to Hell, Prodigal Sons, Rush - Beyond the Lighted Stage, She's a Boy I Knew, Strange Powers - Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields, Two in the Wave, Waiting for Superman, The Way We Get By, When You're Strange, If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don't Rise.  Reissues and Rediscoveries: 1. House / Hausu (Nobuhiko Ôbayashi) 2. Léon Morin, Priest / Léon Morin, Prêtre (Jean-Pierre Melville) 3. Le Amiche / The Girlfriends (Michelangelo Antonioni) 4. Mamma Roma (Pier Paolo Pasolini) 5. Wild River (Elia Kazan) 6. Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (Nagisa Ôshima) 7. Tie: The Only Son / There Was a Father (Yasujirô Ozu) 8. Roger Corman's Cult Classics: Rock & Roll High School (Allan Arkush) and Suburbia (Penelope Spheeris) 9. Senso (Luchino Visconti) 10. The River (Jean Renoir)

Note: Mamma Roma marked my introduction to Pasolini. It's as good a place to start as any; I suspect I won't enjoy his other films as much. Missed (or haven't seen yet): Air Doll, Biutiful, Certified Copy, Dogtooth, Enter the Void, The Illusionist, I'm Still Here, Kick- Ass, The Complete Metropolis, Of Gods and Men, Poetry, Se- cret Sunshine, Shutter Island, The Strange Case of Angeli- ca, Toy Story 3, Uncle Boon- mee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, Waste Land. Yes, I did see: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.

Endnote: Cross-posted here. Images from Cinema Enthusiast.

The Unstoppable Force of Adam Sandler in Josh and Benny Safdie's Uncut Gems

Sandler looking downright Mephistophelian / A24

UNCUT GEMS 
(Josh and Bennie Safdie, USA, 2019, 135 minutes)

Adam Sandler never stops moving in Josh and Bennie Safdie's vertiginous Diamond District thriller, Uncut Gems. From start to finish, Sandler's gem merchant, Howard Ratner, is barely keeping his shit together. If he lets down his guard for even a second, he could lose a fortune, and a lot of people depend on him: his family, his employees, his girlfriend (who is an employee), and his customers, especially Boston Celtic forward Kevin Garnett (who plays an especially demanding, obsessive version of himself).

Before introducing Howard, the Safdies begin with a 2010, Exorcist-inspired prologue in which two Ethiopian miners excavate a chunk of rock studded with black opals. Since one of their colleagues suffered a grievous injury in the process, it's clear that this is a literal blood opal. As one worker raises it up to the light, cinematographer Darius Khondji (Funny Games) zooms in on what looks like a starry sky in miniature. From there, he dives into the stone, leading to 2001-like special effects that light up the screen to Daniel Lopatin's magical-whoosh of a score. The interior of the opal gives way to a certain glossy body cavity, which reveals itself as Howard's colon. After his colonoscopy concludes, the film begins in earnest. The year is 2012.

Garnett, Stanfield, and Sandler admire the rock / A24

From there, the Safdies introduce the major players in short order, starting with the girlfriend (the amazing Julia Fox, matching Sandler measure for measure) who would rather party than work, the regular customers, like Demany (Lakeith Stanfield), who serves as Howard's unofficial PR flack, and the thugs pressuring him to pay his debt to their loan shark boss, Arno (a chilling, dead-eyed Eric Bogosian). Howard, it turns out, is a gambling addict, who doesn't know when to quit.

When Kevin visits his store, Howard sees a chance to make a dent in his debt, but what the towering athlete wants more than a diamond-encrusted Furby pendant is the opal-studded rock from the prologue. It took Howard 17 months to track it down after he saw it on a History Channel special about Ethiopia's Jewish tribe. "They say you can see the whole universe in opals. That's how fucking old they are," he exclaims. When Kevin refuses to leave without the rock, which Howard had intended to sell at auction, he lets him hang on to it in exchange for his clover-bedecked championship ring, which he promptly pawns, so he can increase his bet on that night's Celtics vs 76ers game. Kevin is convinced the rock will bring him luck, but it will prove to be unlucky in ways that none of its guardians can anticipate.

Once the Safdies, who wrote the script with co-editor Ronald Bronstein (Heaven Knows What, Good Time), have set the wheels of the plot in motion, it's up to Howard to figure out how to make it out of this mess alive. If he creates every problem that arises--"You did this to yourself," his exasperated brother-in-law, Arno, sighs--Sandler makes Howard just likable enough that you want to take this ride with him. Though Uncut Gems isn't exactly a comedy, the dialogue is consistently colorful, if not cuttingly funny, which makes the relentless pace easier to take. The same goes for Lopatin's score, which differs from his more drone-oriented work in Good Time. In this case, he adds a wistful, flute-infused motif that alternates with a gentle, whistled reverie, recalling the smeary character pieces of the 1970s--The Panic in Needle Park, Scarecrow--that clearly served as an influence.

Julia as Julia bets it all on Howard / A24

When Kevin fails to return Howard's rock on time for the auction, he cajoles Demany into driving him to Philadelphia to collect it, even though his whole family, including estranged wife Dinah (Idina Menzel, miles away from Frozen and Wicked) is expecting him to join them for his sullen teen daughter's play. In Howard's world, the domestic obligations don't stop as he ping-pongs between his house in Long Island and his apartment in Manhattan. When Howard admits he fucked up their marriage, Dinah counters with a less ambiguous assessment: "You are a fuck-up." If Menzel's character comes off as a bitch, you know she's right, just as you know the Safdies love this guy anyway. He has a lot of their father in him, a man they fictionalized with a similar degree of affection and frustration in 2009's Daddy Longlegs (it's too bad Bronstein appears to have left acting behind, because his performance in that film couldn't be better). In his Times of Israel interview with the brothers, Jordan Hoffman notes that they "modeled him after associates of their father."

As the film hurtles towards its conclusion, Howard suffers one indignity after another from the loss of his clothes to the bloody nose featured on the film's arresting B&W poster. Just when it seems as if things can't get worse, a light appears at the end of the tunnel. Maybe, just maybe, he can pull out of this nosedive into death and destruction. One way or the other, the final 10 minutes will completely wreck your nerves. The first time I watched the film, I felt pummeled by the pace and the cacophony of yelling and pounding. The second time around, I was able to more fully appreciate the editing as the Safdies cut between Howard in his shop trying to keep the beasts at bay, Julia tasked with a very tricky maneuver, and the opal-powered Celtics game which will determine the fortunes of most everyone in Howard's orbit. The way they bring these stories home is nothing short of masterful.

"Well, we all fall in love, but we disregard the danger" / A24

Equally masterful is Adam Sandler, building on his work in PT Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love (2002) and Noah Baumbach's under-seen--or at least underappreciated--Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) (2017). Because I know him best from these finely-wrought films, rather than his mainstream comedies, I'm not surprised he can act; I'm just surprised to see him give a white-knuckle, Roy Scheider-in-Scorcerer-level performance. Except funnier.

Though it opens in Seattle on Christmas Eve (and halfway through Hanukkah), Uncut Gems is a Jewish movie. That's not just my take on it; the Safdies have only encouraged the impression by the gemological-meets-pornographic title and by setting the action during Pesach. It seems perfect, really, that Sandler, performer of one of the best known Hanukkah songs--will now be associated with a Passover classic. Or that's my hope for this film, which takes a critical, yet sympathetic look at a seriously flawed, but not completely un-redeemable human being. An uncut gem indeed.


Uncut Gems opens at SIFF Cinema Egyptian on Dec 24. The annual Fiddler on the Roof Sing-Aong plays the next day at SIFF Cinema Uptown with Chinese food and live klezmer music. For more information, click here.

Rose Byrne Unravels in Mary Bronstein’s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, a Horror-Comedy with Motherhood as a Neverending Nightmare

IF I HAD LEGS I’D KICK YOU

(Mary Bronstein, USA, 2025, 113 minutes)

There are mothers who make it look easy, and then there are mothers, like Rose Byrne's beleaguered Linda, who make it look hard as hell.  

 

As Mary Bronstein's followup to Yeast hurtles from one incident to another, it doesn't seem as if things can get much worse, and yet they always do. (Byrne, a fine actress, has frequently appeared in films that don't quite deserve her, though I wouldn't say that's true of If I Had Legs I'd Kick You.) 

Some of these incidents are Linda's fault, and some aren't. What can't be helped is that her daughter (voiced by Delaney Quinn) has a chronic condition that has led to a critical loss of appetite, so she's on a feeding tube. If she doesn't gain 50 pounds by the deadline, the doctor (played by Bronstein, who appeared in Yeast with Greta Gerwig) will have to resort to extreme measures. Both illness and protocol remain undefined, which makes things seem ominous in ways matter-of-fact clinical terms might not.

It's also ominous that the child remains unseen until the end, like Rosemary's Baby, except not. Instead of a physical presence--other than glimpses of fingers, ears, stomach--she's a voice; a whiny, wheedling voice of insatiable need. The unnamed child's physical absence means that Byrne doesn't just appear in every scene, she's often the only one visible, both doubling her workload and suggesting that the whining is all in her head. 

 

Fortunately, the actress is up to the task, even when the camera seems to be inches away from her face. Cinematographer Christopher Messina (not to be confused with the actor), who shot Josh and Benny Safdie's Good Time, has a knack for closeups that don't feel invasive, exploitative, or even unflattering, necessarily, but make the character's paranoia palpable. 

It's not that Linda's daughter hates her, but she never gives the kid what she wants when she wants it. Though the film's conception of motherhood plays like an endurance test, especially when a child is chronically ill, Bronstein leaves open the possibility that she's also a real pain in the ass. 

Or maybe she isn't, but because we see everything from Linda's bleary perspective, she certainly seems that way. What inflames an already-fraught situation occurs within the first few minutes when a ceiling in their Long Island apartment collapses, so she and her daughter set up shop in a motel while her husband (Christian Slater), a ship's captain, is away on business. 

 

Linda is a therapist in therapy, a scenario that recalls The Sopranos, in which Tony Soprano's therapist, Lorraine Bracco's Dr. Melfi, would turn to Peter Bogdanovich's Dr. Kupferberg for counsel. Conan O'Brien plays her exasperated therapist, who works at the same clinic, while Danielle Macdonald (an Australian-born actress, like Byrne) plays Caroline, a young client also overwhelmed by motherhood. 

Linda is a surprisingly competent therapist, but her clients--even her client's partners--don't make her life easier, not least when Caroline disappears. 

These would be challenging situations for anyone, except this isn't a melodrama where everything culminates in a cataclysmic and possibly transformative event, and as bad as things get, Linda isn't without resources. She isn't single or unemployed, and yet she's on her own for reasons that aren't completely clear. There's no mention, for instance, of parents or other family members who can help while Charles is away. She doesn't even have any friends. Then again, she might not know how to make them, in which case her problems began long before motherhood. 

 

If everyone is rude to her on some level–though she gives as good as she gets–she doesn't know how to react to the rare moments of kindness.

 

Every person, every encounter, represents a potential threat, even James (A$AP Rocky), a motel super who sees her more clearly than anyone else. His patience isn't unlimited, but he offers to help this harried mother several times, and more often than not, she rebuffs his decidedly non-sexual advances. Though he does return a few of her insults, he keeps trying until she finally relents. 

A$AP Rocky, aka Rakim Mayers, held his own against Denzel Washington earlier this year in Spike Lee’s Highest 2 Lowest, but he's even better here. 

He's been acting since 2015, so Rocky isn't a newcomer, but 2025 marks his breakout year, capped by a cover story for Elle in which he admits he doesn't mind being known as a pretty boy--"I wear it like a badge of honor"--and good for him, because it's only an insult when a performer prioritizes appearance above all, but he's a warm presence in an otherwise prickly film.

 

Right: as a not-so-good guy in Highest 2 Lowest

Conan O'Brien, who usually plays himself when he appears in narrative features–Todd Solondz's underappreciated Storytelling is a favorite–and Danielle Macdonald are both strong, though it's harder to judge Christian Slater and Ella Beatty, the impressively tall daughter of Annette Bening and Warren Beatty, because their parts are so small, to the extent that I'm not even sure why Ella is in the film, since Bronstein reveals little about her character. Daniel Zolghadri, on the other hand, impresses as a pouty, impatient narcissist. Though his therapist is clearly suffering, his awareness extends no further than his problems and his time. He also appears to be sexually attracted to her.

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You begins as a dark comedy before edging into horror, punctuated by bursts of sparking, surrealistic imagery. It's been compared to the Safdies' Uncut Gems, and this scans, not least since Bronstein's husband, Ronald, edited that diamond district thriller to nerve-jangling perfection in concert with Daniel Lopatin's propulsive score. 

Beyond her directorial debut, Bronstein also appeared, as an actress, in her husband's Frownland, possibly the darkest of the mumblecore films to emerge in the aughts (Ronald, as an actor, appears in the Safdie's semi-autobiographical debut as a duo, Daddy Longlegs, and he's fantastic). 

 

Despite all that initial filmmaking activity, though, things grew quiet for Mary Bronstein afterward, and the 17-year gap between features might make it seem as if she's been spinning her wheels. On the contrary, her film offers a heightened version of things she's actually experienced, from the mystery illness to the extended motel stay.

 

There's a line at the end that sums things up as best as anything can. I found it relatable, though I don't have kids, and I would imagine some mothers would, too--even if it they'd never admit it (no spoilers here). 

 

The film, as a whole, is one of the best I've seen about motherhood at its most stressful. Consequently, it isn't an especially enjoyable experience, but Byrne brings a certain lightness to a scenario that might be borderline-unwatchable without her spectacular versatility, and that's no mean feat.

 

 

If I Had Legs I'd Kick You opens at SIFF Uptown on Fri, Oct 24. Yeast isn't currently available in any form; here's hoping that renewed attention in Bronstein's work reverses that course. If I Had Legs images courtesy A24 (Rose Byrne with Conan O'Brien and A$AP Rocky; Byrne photos, with and without Rocky, by Logan White) and the IMDb (Rocky in Highest 2 Lowest).