Sad news for the fans of Katy Perry and Russell Brand ‘s marriage: The pop star who provided the voice of Smurfette and her Get Him to the Greek husband have filed for divorce after just 14 months of wedlock. Now repeat after me: I will not let this Hollywood divorce ruin my New Year’s Eve . I will not let this Hollywood divorce ruin my New Year’s Eve. Earlier this afternoon, Brand — who just finished filming Adam Shankman’s ’80s musical movie Rock of Ages — issued a statement to the USA Today : “”Sadly, Katy and I are ending our marriage. I’ll always adore her and I know we’ll remain friends.” News of the divorces arrives weeks after tabloid speculation that a split was impending. In honor of this sad news, let’s revisit an eerie Get Him to the Greek clip which shows Brand’s larger-than-life character Aldous Snow breaking up with his pop-star girlfriend (Rose Byrne) on a talk show.
When it all boils down to it, Gwyneth Paltrow , Oscar-winning actress-megamillionaire celebrity-Gleek-blogger extraordinaire, is just like us: She is so getting wasted on New Year’s Eve. Sure, her morning-after hangover advice includes words like “quinoa” and “Turkish Hammam,” but still! Gwyneth’s advice is mostly medically sensible-sounding, though I can’t promise your pocketbooks will appreciate these fancy tricks. Get her five best tips (*as parsed by your helpful Movieline editors) after the jump so you can battle the blinding, alcohol-induced post-binge blahs in grand Paltrow fashion come Sunday morning. Below, the five most useful selections from a GOOP newsletter post entitled ” The Hangover! “, which is accompanied by this message: “We all know what happens on NYE so here is our best to help you prepare for the day after… – Love, gp.” Oh, but first: Gwyneth gives us the official definition of a hangover, courtesy of Dr. Frank Lipman : “The reason why one gets a hangover is that your body – your liver in particular – is not able to process and metabolize the break down products from the alcohol quickly enough. In addition to needing enough enzymes, the liver also needs water to process and get rid of the toxins. When supplies run low, it takes water from other organs, including the brain. This is why alcohol is so dehydrating, and why you can wake up with a throbbing headache (and a dry mouth) from drinking too much.” Now you know. On to Gwyneth’s advice! 1. Visit a Turkish Hammam. Or a Japanese spa. Or, fine — just take a bath. “If you have the time and the inclination, I’ve found that the best hangover remedy can be a hot and cold spa treatment. The original would be the traditional Turkish Hamman,[sic] but you can find this kind of treatment in spas all over the world, including my favorites, the low-key Japanese spas in New York, like Osaka.” 2. Hydrate with expensive European water. “Hydration. Keep hydrating yourself with alkaline forming Italian sparkling mineral water ie Pellegrino.” 3. Ingest ” bioavailable ” vitamin protein drink thingies. “Eat properly before and after your evening by including protein and low glycemic index foods (solid fruits, watermelon, etc ) to counteract the sugar depletion caused by alcohol…The perfect protein drink to ingest before bed would be Nutritious and Delicious – 15 grams of protein, 2 grams of fat, 19 grams of carbohydrate no gluten, no soy.” 4. Eat protein- and carb-packed foodstuffs before your drinking binge. Good foods to eat, cited by Paltrow and her host of medical experts, include: Quinoa, chicken, fish, vegetables, watermelon, coconut water, Gatorade, ginger ale, Probiotic mints, Manuka honey sweets. 5. Take “Mercy,” a fantastic product that — my stars! — Paltrow also co-owns. “Full disclosure, this stuff is so good that I went ahead and invested in the company. Mercy is a drink that is almost like a health elixir – packed with amino acids, vitamins, minerals and herbs that protect your system against the inevitable hangover and that flush you can get from drinking. You can drink it alone or mix it with alcohol to create a hangover preventing cocktail. I also drink one if I’m just feeling tired to give my system a boost.” Or, finally — and we could’ve told you this one — nurse that pounding headache with a little hair o’ the dog. Study up on even more Paltrow-endorsed bioflavono-whatsit-packed tips over at GOOP , and have a safe New Year’s Eve! You don’t want to end up looking like this on New Year’s Day, do you? [via GOOP ]
Another year, another couple hundred entries in the ever-deepening conversational archive known as The Movieline Interview . They’re the collective backbone of our site, and in 2011, it was at its strongest. Look back with us now at the highlights, including the luminary likes of Michelle Williams, Seth Rogen, Kristen Wiig, Jason Segel, Jodie Foster, Paul Giamatti, and a certain honey badger of a director. Kristen Wiig (March 11) Do you feel that [Wiig’s infamous SNL character] Gilly is polarizing? I feel it’s a character that people either love or they don’t particularly like. Uh… yeah, probably. I mean, the first time that I did it, my mom, the next day was like, “Oh, I did not like that. That new character you did, I did not like her!” [Laughs] When you thought of that character, did you figure some people wouldn’t embrace her? No. I mean, I think that before I do anything. But someone who doesn’t like Gilly can love Penelope. It’s not you — it’s just your recurring characters are different. I don’t think about it at all. If you’re creating anything at all, it’s really dangerous to care about what people think. Paul Giamatti and Alex Shaffer (March 15) So we are tossing around the idea of doing a “Movies You Had No Idea Paul Giamatti Is In” post. Giamatti : Oh? Big Momma’s House was surprising to me. Giamatti : Not to me! I remember being in that! I guess so. I mean, there are a lot of people out there in the world who know I was in that movie. A lot of people recognize me for that. Shaffer : I remember your story from when you were in Ohio and you were in a bad neighborhood and they told you that you couldn’t walk around… Giamatti : It was in Cleveland, they said, “Don’t leave the set, don’t walk around this neighborhood.” I was like, “Enh.” So I walked around. You know, it was a predominantly black neighborhood, and everybody had seen Big Momma’s House. So I was fine. Everybody was like, “Oh my God, don’t…” And [in the neighborhood] it was just like “[you’re the guy from] Big Momma’s House!” Amy Ryan (March 18) [On the previous season of The Office ] Are you prepared for America’s scorn? What’s that? Taking away Michael Scott… Ohhh! [Laughs] I thought that was the name of a new show! I thought it was a new reality show! I was going to ask what you had coming up… other than America’s Scorn . America’s Scorn actually comes out at Christmas. It’s a Christmas release, yes. It’s me and Vin Diesel. If you starred in a movie with Vin Diesel called America’s Scorn , I would see this movie. I trained for three years for my action sequences. And your character’s name is Melanie Scorn. Melanie Scorn, right! And she just got out of prison, and she and Vin Diesel are on the run. Exactly! Right, they were married and they went their separate ways. But! They still work together. OK, seriously, what do you have coming up? [Laughing] I think America’s Scorn might be my best bet, I don’t have anything coming up, sorry. So… I think I’m actually going to have to look into America’s Scorn . OK, we’re going with that for reporting on your next project. America’s Scorn it is… [Still laughing] It’s the end of the day, we’re both losing our minds. Michelle Williams (March 30) [On getting used to the locations in Meek’s Cutoff ] When I first got there, I thought, ‘I… I… I can’t stay here. I have to turn around and go home. I can’t live here.’ But I’ve come to love it. If you look hard enough, you can see variation in the landscape where you think it’s actually completely barren and nothing lives out there. You spend a little time, you look a little closer, and you see what’s actually inherent to the land. But at first it felt like we’d been sent to Mars. You know! The desert does crazy things to people’s minds! Mirages! Carlos Castañeda! Peyote! It’s the desert! Wes Bentley (May 3) Are there big films or opportunities that you feel your addiction led you to miss out on? Oh, yeah. Definitely. I definitely did. I had a lot of opportunities. When you’re in that state you miss meetings, you don’t pay attention to what people are asking you to do, which could be great things. I also feared it; I think I feared my success and what I thought were the expectations of me — which was actually just people believing in you, you know? So your addiction can make you believe certain things are happening that aren’t. It also can make you miss things that actually are happening. Your mind is all twisted. I missed a lot of opportunities. I regret how I acted and behaved in those choices, or if I hurt people especially, but I don’t regret where I’m at now. I’ve never been happier, and I could only be here by having made some terrible choices, unfortunately. Jodie Foster (May 4) Knowing him as well as you do, do you think that Mel Gibson really would be OK with never acting again, as he recently said? I think it probably sounded more glib than it was; it’s a conversation he and I have had many times, and I say it all the time. You know, I’ve worked for 45 years as an actor and it’s a long time to do one job and there are a lot of other ways to tell stories.Would I be OK if I never acted again? Who would I be? Would I be somebody new? We ask ourselves these questions all the time. He was a kid, too, when he started. There are times when I really put it aside, and as I say to him, ‘Look, there’s only one reason for you to act, there’s only one motivation, and that’s because it moves you.’ And honestly, you shouldn’t do it for any other reason. Because you don’t need to — he doesn’t need to, he doesn’t need that identity. And he doesn’t need the extra inhuman stress of being a celebrity. Paul Feig (July 5) [On Bridesmaids ‘ success] It got me out of movie jail, which I at least had one foot in. You’re proud of all your babies that you make, but I’m a realist and I know the business. If you make babies and they don’t make money, people don’t want to make more babies with you. So, at least I get a few more shots. J.K. Simmons (Aug. 3) It seems like you’re in a pretty sweet spot in your career right now with four movies in various stages of production, your work on The Closer , a steady stream of voice roles. Do you remember the moment when you felt like you had really established yourself as an actor ? I’m still not sure that I have. [Laughs] Unless your name is Clooney or Pitt or Hanks, I think it’s hard to feel completely like you’re established or where you want to be. This script, which I am eternally grateful for, came to me but only after it bounced off a couple other guys first who didn’t want to do it or couldn’t schedule it. I’d love to be more established. I’d love to never have to audition for the rest of my life and have every good script in Hollywood come my way. At the same time, when I look back twenty years and remember that I was struggling to pay my rent for a crappy apartment in Hell’s Kitchen and doing regional theater for a subsistence wage, and now I’m able to live in a big, fancy house and send my kids to private school — there’s always somebody who is better off and worse off than you are. That’s an important perspective to keep in mind I guess. Jessica Chastain (Aug. 29) [On the fine line of awards campaigning] “I’m never going to take out an ad. I know, famous last words — never say never — but I really can’t imagine ever in my life doing something like that. To me, it’s not a short sprint. I want to be a career actor. The most important thing to me is that people like the films. If they like the films and they like the performances, it means that I get work with other great actors and make other great films. So it’s not about an award. Of course it’s nice that there’s awards buzz around the films because it means they get more attention. But I’m not the person who’s going to… I mean, I’m not outgoing. I’m very shy. I was never the girl in high school who was wanting to be in office or something — who would campaign for myself to become student-body president. [Laughs] I’m just not that person.”
I honestly have no idea where 2011 went. I vaguely remember what follows here. There might have been more. You tell me. The Animated Oscar Index Currently in the middle of its second annual cycle, the Oscar Index is, to me, the story of the film industry’s awards race. But despite the tens of thousands of words expended every year, nothing quite sums it up like animated videos of celebrity heads floating inexorably toward golden glory. Drinking adds much to the experience, I’ve found. I Hate Brangelina: An Appreciation They’re mega-glamorous, mega-rich and mega-talented. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie would make me sick if they didn’t make me so goddamned happy. The $11 Question The Worst Movie EVER! dazzled everyone by enticing one solitary ticketbuyer to its debut in Los Angeles. The rest is history. Well, kind of. Anyway, this is the story of whatever the hell happened. Consider Uggie The last time someone wore a fur coat in a do-it-yourself Oscar campaign, Melissa Leo won Best Supporting Actress. Imagine what we can do for someone who deserves a statuette! Lumet Life Lessons The late Sidney Lumet was often called a humanist filmmaker, but what does that actually mean? Hint: It’s not because he directed The Wiz . Parsing out some touchstones of his philosophy amounted to one of the more satisfying exercises of the year. Collect Them All! If nothing else, Jacki Weaver’s Awards-Season Trading Card made four weeks of ridiculous design labor worth it. The “Should I See The Smurfs ?” Flow-Chart Review Behold the future of film criticism! Also: I am so sorry. Fair is Fair For the second time in three films, Marshall Curry is once again among the documentarians on the Oscar-consideration bubble. Get used to it — and here’s why. Big “Will He?” Style Despite all the trade gossip and fanboy chatter, Will Smith remains no closer to making any of the projects listed on this year’s list of Smith films you’ll likely never see. Brush up here, and place your updated 2012 bets accordingly. The Celibate Screen I stand by my airtight case for less sex at the movies. That is all. Follow S.T. VanAirsdale on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
The Library of Congress today announced an eclectic batch of new inductees into the National Film Registry for 2011, ranging from no-brainers (Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid ) to fantastic finds (the 1930s-era Nicholas Brothers Family Home Movies ). And also: Silence of the Lambs ! Forrest Gump ! … El Mariachi ? Which of these 25 newly anointed selections, to be preserved on account of their cultural, historical or aesthetic significance, is the most surprising addition? The 2011 National Film Registry Additions : Allures (1961) Bambi (1942) The Big Heat (1953) A Computer Animated Hand (1972) Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment (1963) The Cry of the Children (1912) A Cure for Pokeritis (1912) El Mariachi (1992) Faces (1968) Fake Fruit Factory (1986) Forrest Gump (1994) Growing Up Female (1971) Hester Stree t (1975) I, an Actress (1977) The Iron Horse (1924) The Kid (1921) The Lost Weekend (1945) The Negro Soldier (1944) Nicholas Brothers Family Home Movies (1930s-1940s) Norma Rae (1979) Porgy and Bess (1959) The Silence of the Lambs (1991) Stand and Deliver (1988) Twentieth Century (1934) War of the Worlds (1953) I could be convinced of El Mariachi ‘s worthiness given Robert Rodriguez’s famed hardscrabble production legend and the fact that he’s created a manageable cottage industry for himself working on the periphery of Hollywood. And yeah, El Mariachi ‘s pretty good, but for my money it’s the weakest new addition of the bunch. Which is not to say it’s the most surprising; Forrest Gump was well-loved and somewhat groundbreaking in its time even if it feels cringe-inducingly dated now, but many of these selections are of a distinct era or creatively, socially, or technically significant. (Ed Catmull’s 3-D grad project A Computer Animated Hand is another inspired choice.) Besides, Groundhog Day made the list back in 2006. Groundhog Day . So here’s what I want to know: How the heck has it taken this long for Bambi to make the list? Read more on each selection from the Library of Congress’s press release over at the Library of Congress website . [ Library of Congress ]
Some of you may be tempted to BitTorrent the latest new releases this week (Were you one of those Fast Five pirates ? Admit it, rascal!), but let indie filmmaker Ti West bend your ear with a personal plea as his latest film, the spooky ghost tale The Innkeepers , hits VOD on Friday (December 30). “It’s not the money,” he writes , admitting that he still hasn’t made a dime from his excellent 2009 film House of the Devil . Pay to see indie films like West’s, he argues, “because if the movie makes money… that’s tangible evidence of a paying audience out there for movies like mine. For independent films. For something different. Not just bland remakes/sequels or live action versions of comic books/cartoons/boardgames.” Hear, hear. West pours a good deal of real talk into his open letter, and not just for potential illegal movie downloaders; he also sheds light on the realities of life as a filmmaker in the arrangement he’s struck – retaining creative vision while ceding profits to someone else. I do not own the films, and by the time any profits would trickle down to little old me (writer/director/editor/producer) they would all have been mysteriously soaked up into vague expenses, random fees and outrageous overages. This is the nature of the business and I have come to accept it. As long as I don’t own my films – something I give up in exchange for someone with much deeper pockets affording me the budgets to make them – this is how it goes. It’s a trade off and I’m fine with it. That concession alone is maddening, and yet makes sad, practical sense. House of the Devil was West’s biggest film to date and made just $101,215 theatrically via Magnolia upon release. As someone who loved it I’d argue that number was woefully, undeservedly low; it was a film that made me instantly hope to see more from its director, to see where he’d go with a little more money and a bigger profile. That chance came for me earlier this year when I caught the droll, spooky Innkeepers , and my fellow West watchers will get their chance to see it when it hits VOD this week a month ahead of its February 3 theatrical limited release. But if you need more convincing in favor of supporting films like this, whether you’re a potential pirate or an indie film lover on the fence about ticket prices, let’s go back to West: Every time you purchase something you are making a statement. You are creating physical evidence that something has value. If something has a high value, then it becomes in high demand. So if you make a concerted effort to support lesser-known, interesting and esoteric things (Art?) then you are helping make those lesser-known things more popular. I’m sure we can all agree that there are incredible movies made every year that never get the attention they deserve – That’s not the movies’ fault. That is our collective fault for not being proactive enough to GO OUT OF OUR WAY to support them. So yes, I want you to go out of your way and pay for my movie. Not because I’m greedy, but because if the movie makes money (whomever for) that’s tangible evidence of a paying audience out there for movies like mine. For independent films. For something different. Not just bland remakes/sequels or live action versions of comic books/cartoons/boardgames. This is a powerful time for the consumer. With a small platform release like ours (VOD/Theatrical) , it’s been made incredibly easy for you to support the film…You don’t even have to get out of bed. Think about what your dollars mean; they tell financiers to to keep funding outside-the-box movies so that you have more options than the latest fivequels/rom-coms/superhero movies/the dreck that folks like Katherine Heigl or Adam Sandler fart out year after year. And lastly: Where we choose to spend our money should reflect what matters to us and what we want to support. If independent film matters to you, then do me a solid and pay for the film instead of downloading it. It’s not a huge financial commitment, but it has a huge financial impact. I am not a corporation, I am not independently wealthy, I don’t come from a family of the industry…I’m just a regular dude who made a movie and wants to keep on making them. I can’t do that without your help, and it would be very much appreciated. Put it another way: More House of the Devil s/ Innkeepers and fewer Jack and Jill s or Green Lantern s is a future we would all appreciate and should aspire to. Make it so, people.
2011 was a year of awful celebrity meltdowns and unimpressive Oscar bait , but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a fabulous time for Movieline. After the jump, I’ll revisit my 10 favorite stories of the year — including the one that tainted hydrangeas for eternity. · Madonna Hates Your Flowers The most important filmic milestone of the year was W.E. , Madonna’s 100% adored feature that made a splash at Venice. Though I’d love to philosophize about that three-hour De Beers commercial some more, I’d prefer to revisit the W.E. scandal that rocked my year: Madonna’s disparaging comments about hydrangeas. Priceless. · Immaculate Conniptions I verged into vulgarity this year, testing my YouTube mettle with my new web series Verbal Vogueing . It’s immature, and therefore I’m proud of it. · Baddest (And Best) Movie Ever: Clue I’ve been chronicling Bad Movies We Love for over a year, and none were as good, ridiculous, legendary, poignant, or senseless as my favorite movie of all time, Clue . I ranked its 25 best moments for you. · Big Trouble for Sean Penn and Madonna in Little China: Shanghai Surprise I’m a human being, so I understand that Shanghai Surprise is an awful movie. But I still celebrate it because I truly love its campy, half-baked, shittily acted, abysmally conceived story. Revisit with me. · Helena Bonham Carter Throws Her Hat of Birds at Melissa Leo Julie Miller and I thought long and hard about this year’s Oscar for Best Supporting Actress and dreamed up an ideal scenario where Hailee Steinfeld wins the trophy and Melissa Leo, Helena Bonham Carter, Jacki Weaver, and Amy Adams fight near the footlights. My favorite line? Julie’s: “Christoph Waltz announces that the Best Supporting Actress Oscar is sponsored by Chili’s.” · Who’s Afraid of Shrieking Supporting Actresses? Oscar History! My favorite. I ranked the nuttiest, Oscar-winning supporting actress roles of all time, and a towering, drunken tour de force clocked in at #1. “Violence! Violence!” · Final Destination 5: Only 9 More Destinations Before It Starts to Get Really Final I love horrid movie posters, and Final Destination 5 ‘s was certainly the most disturbing of the year. Look, it’s a skull! A novelty golf bag! A beagle! Joan Rivers! · Extremely Loud and Incredibly Trivial Thomas Horn, the child star of the new and bad movie Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close , was once a Kids Week victor on Jeopardy! . Because I’m a trivia nut, I decided to judge his performance in the Tom Hanks/Sandra Bernhard joint based solely on his performance behind the Jeopardy! lectern. I am so nice. · Tales of Endearment Shirley MacLaine blessed the L.A. Film Festival with personal stories about Marilyn Monroe, the Rat Pack, Billy Wilder, and Alfred Hitchcock. I sat and gawked, loving every minute of it. Jack Black was there too, but who wants to hear about that? · I Say “See Ya” to Pia Finally, from the catacombs of our American Idol coverage is the one week America really got the vote right — when it sent home that overblown, scathingly dull soulster Pia Toscano. Hope you’ve enjoyed the year in cinematic news!
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has released the poster for the 84th Academy Awards, and it’s… nice? I mean, Oscar looks sexy as ever, and all those foggy images of awards-night glories past recall both the champagne-fueled afterparties and the preponderance of white folks who take this hardware home every year. But isn’t something missing? Like, the host? After all that hullabaloo about Brett Ratner and Eddie Murphy that the Academy worked to deflect, and after all the lengths that the Board of Governors went to just to replace Murphy with an ultrasafe, ultrastable emcee, and after years of advertising hosts from Chris Rock to Jon Stewart to Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin to Anne Hathaway and Anne Franco, where is Billy Crystal? If I’m a casual viewer, I’m far likelier to take positive notice of the host than of the centrally positioned reminder that Driving Miss Daisy actually won Best Picture once upon a sad, sad time. Also: Can’t we get some more color in here? Sidney Poitier? Denzel Washington? Mo’Nique? If it has to be Best Picture alums, maybe Poitier and Rod Steiger from In the Heat of the Night ? Even Anthony Mackie and Jeremy Renner from The Hurt Locker . I’m not sure what this says about the young demographic that the aging Academy claims to covet; I doubt they’re watching Giant and/or The Sound of Music . Or maybe they are! Are you “young” and obsessive-compulsively watching Gone With the Wind on a DVD loop in honor of white, uptight, vaunted Academy legacies? Tell us in the comments! [via Awards Daily ]
On the bus home from a night out at a lesbian club, Fort Greene teenager Alike (Adepero Oduye) swaps her tomboyish outfit for earrings and a pink t-shirt, something clearly not of her own choosing, something selected to appease her mother. Alike is 17 and closeted, at least at home. Her mom Audrey (Kim Wayans) is uptight, religious and almost quivers with the effort of seeing her daughter as she wants her to be and not as she actually is. While Alike’s closer to her father Arthur (Charles Parnell), a cop, he’s chosen to step back from the tensions at home and in his marriage. Liking boys and makeup comes naturally to her younger sister Sharonda (Shamika Cotton) — our heroine is alone in her own personal form of camouflage, trying to blend into the background wherever she goes. What sets writer/director Dee Rees’s sensitive feature debut Pariah (expanded from her 2007 short of the same name) apart from the standard coming out story is that Alike is just as much an outsider at the club as at home, adrift and uncomfortable while her more outgoing best friend Laura (Pernell Walker) picks up girls on the dance floor. She hasn’t found the place in which she feels she can be herself. Alike knows that she’s gay, but her understanding and acceptance of that fact doesn’t mean she knows where she fits, in the scene or out of it — she doesn’t easily fall into the divisions of butch and femme, and she doesn’t seems to do any better at school, where she’s a good student in whose writing a teacher has taken a special interest, but other dangles outside the established social groups. Pariah is a coming of age story that’s uncommonly aware of just how heartbreakingly important the trappings of fashion, of music choices, of hobbies are when you’re young — they’re symbols of everything you think you are or aspire to be, even as they’re woefully inadequate shortcuts to establishing your identity. Alike’s journey take place in a larger landscape of shifting identities — just as the lesbian community isn’t a monolithic entity, neither is the black neighborhood in which the majority of the action is set. Her family has worked its way into the middle class, and Audrey’s consciousness of this achievement informs her stiffness around the coworkers she clearly feels she’s a cut above and her overall fussy propriety. It’s this sense of the type of people with whom her family belongs that leads her to insist Alike hang out with the daughter of an acquaintance from church, Bina (Aasha Davis), as if enough time in each other’s proximity would make a friendship inevitable. Alike begrudgingly walks to school with Bina and hangs out with her on the weekends, and finds a connection with the girl she never expected, one that blossoms into a possible romance when Bina gives our heroine her first kiss. Bina’s the opposite of Alike in many ways, bold where the latter is shy, but also uncertain where she’s fully decided, and the halting tenderness with which their relationship builds is tinged with the knowledge that Bina is probably going to break her heart. Pariah wouldn’t work without Oduye’s luminous performance, capturing the emotional nuances of a character not prone to letting her emotions show. She makes Alike’s vulnerabilities clear through her defenses — Alike’s convinced she has the world fooled, but isn’t anywhere near as in control as she’d like to believe. It’s a lovely, subtle portrayal that’s deservedly been getting a lot of attention for Oduye, who originated the role in Rees’s short and who may also be familiar as the grocery store clerk Louis C.K. awkwardly follows home to try to ask out in the first season of Louie . It’s a performance that good enough to smooth over the fact that the film’s gears grind as it arrives at an ending that feels neat, with Alike finally confronting her parents and encountering the results we’ve been primed to expect from the outset. Pariah is a small story of a painful, formative era in its protagonist’s life, and it sometimes feels roughly hewn to fit into an arc it doesn’t necessarily need. It’s the intimate, unforced details — an exchange between Arthur and his friends at a store, the way Laura chooses to shut Alike out after feeling betrayed by her new relationship — that speak volumes more than the film’s obvious butterfly metaphor, and that attest to a filmmaker and actress worth keeping an eye on. Follow Alison Willmore on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
On the bus home from a night out at a lesbian club, Fort Greene teenager Alike (Adepero Oduye) swaps her tomboyish outfit for earrings and a pink t-shirt, something clearly not of her own choosing, something selected to appease her mother. Alike is 17 and closeted, at least at home. Her mom Audrey (Kim Wayans) is uptight, religious and almost quivers with the effort of seeing her daughter as she wants her to be and not as she actually is. While Alike’s closer to her father Arthur (Charles Parnell), a cop, he’s chosen to step back from the tensions at home and in his marriage. Liking boys and makeup comes naturally to her younger sister Sharonda (Shamika Cotton) — our heroine is alone in her own personal form of camouflage, trying to blend into the background wherever she goes. What sets writer/director Dee Rees’s sensitive feature debut Pariah (expanded from her 2007 short of the same name) apart from the standard coming out story is that Alike is just as much an outsider at the club as at home, adrift and uncomfortable while her more outgoing best friend Laura (Pernell Walker) picks up girls on the dance floor. She hasn’t found the place in which she feels she can be herself. Alike knows that she’s gay, but her understanding and acceptance of that fact doesn’t mean she knows where she fits, in the scene or out of it — she doesn’t easily fall into the divisions of butch and femme, and she doesn’t seems to do any better at school, where she’s a good student in whose writing a teacher has taken a special interest, but other dangles outside the established social groups. Pariah is a coming of age story that’s uncommonly aware of just how heartbreakingly important the trappings of fashion, of music choices, of hobbies are when you’re young — they’re symbols of everything you think you are or aspire to be, even as they’re woefully inadequate shortcuts to establishing your identity. Alike’s journey take place in a larger landscape of shifting identities — just as the lesbian community isn’t a monolithic entity, neither is the black neighborhood in which the majority of the action is set. Her family has worked its way into the middle class, and Audrey’s consciousness of this achievement informs her stiffness around the coworkers she clearly feels she’s a cut above and her overall fussy propriety. It’s this sense of the type of people with whom her family belongs that leads her to insist Alike hang out with the daughter of an acquaintance from church, Bina (Aasha Davis), as if enough time in each other’s proximity would make a friendship inevitable. Alike begrudgingly walks to school with Bina and hangs out with her on the weekends, and finds a connection with the girl she never expected, one that blossoms into a possible romance when Bina gives our heroine her first kiss. Bina’s the opposite of Alike in many ways, bold where the latter is shy, but also uncertain where she’s fully decided, and the halting tenderness with which their relationship builds is tinged with the knowledge that Bina is probably going to break her heart. Pariah wouldn’t work without Oduye’s luminous performance, capturing the emotional nuances of a character not prone to letting her emotions show. She makes Alike’s vulnerabilities clear through her defenses — Alike’s convinced she has the world fooled, but isn’t anywhere near as in control as she’d like to believe. It’s a lovely, subtle portrayal that’s deservedly been getting a lot of attention for Oduye, who originated the role in Rees’s short and who may also be familiar as the grocery store clerk Louis C.K. awkwardly follows home to try to ask out in the first season of Louie . It’s a performance that good enough to smooth over the fact that the film’s gears grind as it arrives at an ending that feels neat, with Alike finally confronting her parents and encountering the results we’ve been primed to expect from the outset. Pariah is a small story of a painful, formative era in its protagonist’s life, and it sometimes feels roughly hewn to fit into an arc it doesn’t necessarily need. It’s the intimate, unforced details — an exchange between Arthur and his friends at a store, the way Laura chooses to shut Alike out after feeling betrayed by her new relationship — that speak volumes more than the film’s obvious butterfly metaphor, and that attest to a filmmaker and actress worth keeping an eye on. Follow Alison Willmore on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
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