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murder

House of Gucci – Desire Destroys a Family

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“And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and killed him.” (Gen. 4:8 NRSV)

It is worth remembering that humankind’s first murder was a family affair. Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci is the newest way of telling the story of a family that destroys itself because of the greed, ambition, and hubris of its members. Certainly, that concept has fueled storytelling for eons. We think of the TV shows like Dallas and Dynasty, and currently HBO’s Succession. But House of Gucci is “inspired by the true events”. This is a real life version of that age old story.

Adam Driver stars as Maurizio Gucci and Lady Gaga as Patrizia Reggiani in Ridley Scott’s HOUSE OF GUCCI A Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures film Photo credit: Fabio Lovino © 2021 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc. All Rights Reserved.

The film’s center is Patrizia Reggiani (Lady Gaga), a young working-class woman. Her father owns a small trucking company. At a party one night, she meets Maurizio Gucci (Adam Driver), the introverted scion of the fashion dynasty. When she hears his last name, her eyes light up, and we can tell she wants in. She works her way into Maurizio’s life and heart. His father Rudolfo (Jeremy Irons) thinks she’s nothing but a gold digger. He’s not far off, but there is more to it than that. When Rudolfo cuts off Maurizio’s money, Maurizio goes to work for Patrizia’s father until they marry, living a simple working-class life.

But Maurizio’s uncle Aldo (Al Pacino) connects to them, and the lira-sign lights in Patrizia’s eyes go off again. Aldo is the business brains of Gucci. He wants to expand. Rudolfo lives in the past and doesn’t want to change anything. Aldo’s son Paulo (Jered Leto, who steals every scene he’s in) wants to be a designer but is talentless. Aldo calls him an idiot, “but he’s my idiot”. He sees Maurizio as the future of the family business. Between Aldo and Patrizia, plans are made to bring Maurizio into the business. Now the conniving and manipulations can begin. Patrizia seems to always be at the center of it all. It is her ambition that drives the story—and in the process destroys the family.

(l-r.) Jared Leto stars as Paolo Gucci, Florence Andrews as Jenny Gucci, Adam Driver as Maurizio Gucci, Lady Gaga as Patrizia Reggiani and Al Pacino as Aldo Gucci in Ridley Scott’s HOUSE OF GUCCI A Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures film Photo credit: Courtesy of Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures Inc. © 2021 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc. All Rights Reserved.

The story covers the period of the late 70s to the 90s. Along the way we watch as fashion changes. This is a world of extravagance, and Patrizia especially shows it to the world. In time Maurizio will also be drawn into this world of ostentation, just as he’s drawn into Patrizia’s ambition and cunning.

There is an interesting use of music in the film. Some of the time, the music is the popular music of the day. That feeds our nostalgia. But often we hear operatic music driving the scenes. The music reminds us that this is that thrives in the world of tabloids and people’s fascination with the rich and famous, but it is also a story of epic proportions that tells of the elemental mythos of the destructive power of ambition and hubris. That mythos that goes back to the story of Cain and Abel.

Adam Driver stars as Maurizio Gucci and Lady Gaga as Patrizia Reggiani in Ridley Scott’s HOUSE OF GUCCI A Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures film Photo credit: Courtesy of Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures Inc. © 2021 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Watching a movie is always something of a voyeuristic experience. That is especially the case here as we watch the rise and downfall of Patrizia and others. But we should also note that many of the desires that drive and ultimately destroy these characters often live within each of us. As it says in the story of Cain and Abel, “. . . Sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.” House of Gucci shows us the dangers in nor mastering our desires.

Al Pacino stars as Aldo Gucci and Mãdãline Ghenea as Sophia Loren in Ridley Scott’s HOUSE OF GUCCI A Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures film Photo credit: Courtesy of Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures Inc. © 2021 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc. All Rights Reserved.

House of Gucci is in wide theatrical release.

Photos courtesy of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures.

Only the Animals: Looking for Love Amongst the Lost

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Everyone is looking for love… but not everyone knows what it is.

Set in the France’s frigid Causse Mejean, Only the Animals begins with the unsettling image of an abandoned car on a snowy road. A woman has disappeared and no one seems to have seen her or knows her. (Well, admits to knowing her anyways.) Telling individual stories that interact with one another, the film examines the lives and loves of its characters, including a French farmer’s wife (Laure Calamy), her naïve spouse (Denis Menochet), an unscrupulous African con-man (Guy Roger “Bibisse” N’drin), an excitable ingénue (Juliet Doucet) and more. As the local police gendarme attempts to piece together the truth, each of their lives threatens to unravel as a result of their own deceit and duplicities.

Directed and co-written by Gilles Marchand, Only the Animals is an unsettling but intriguing mystery that plays out through multiple perspectives and timelines. Taking a page from Run Lola Run, Animals is a murderous puzzle that requires patience as it is assembled. With each segment, Marchand unravels his intricate web of relationships, creating questions while he fills in gaps to the truth along the way. Set in the dead of winter, this is a world of dryness and death. Using (mostly) pale colour schemes and lighting, Marchand wants the viewer to feel the bone-chilling effects of his environments. In a place where the sun fails to shine, so too does its characters emotionally wilt from their isolation and personal struggles. (Somewhat ironically, as the film shifts scenes to Africa, he manages to create the opposite effect, exemplifying heat and desperation amongst his characters.) 

In Animals, relationships are as frozen as the surrounding area. In this town, everyone has secrets and each character lives by their own moral code. From adultery to corruption to straight up murder, everyone in Animalsis willing to bend the rules if it benefits them. (In fact, true to the title, it really seems that the animals themselves are the only ones who ‘speak’ with any sense of conscience in this world.)

What’s most interesting about Animals though is that each character seems to be lacking in the area of love. From adultery to abandonment, these particular people are not merely lonely. Instead, they struggle to even understand what love means. Perhaps the best example of this come when Drin’s boss tells him that ‘love is offering what you don’t have’. Although that certainly sounds like an interesting truth in some ways, it is used it the context of manipulation as opposed to genuine affection. In this way, love becomes the appearance of intimacy, instead of something real and life-giving.

However, Animals then embeds this idea within the motivations of its characters. Whereas Amandine believes obsession equates with love, Evelyne keeps everyone at bay. Meanwhile, Michel’s heart aches for an internet illusion despite having a woman he can care for living in the same home. Unrequited love, emotional manipulation, or simply just inexperience all play out within the lives of each character, leading to self-centred chaos when it comes to relationships. Though their drive may be to find love, everyone here is really simply trying to fill the voids that exist within their own soul. 

Whereas love is said to be about ‘offering what you don’t have’, what’s really missing is making sure that your heart has something to offer.

Dark and brooding, Only the Animals is more than content to sit in the shadows with its twisted tales of sexuality and obsession. As his characters scratch and claw for their own emotional survival, Marchand weaves a narrative of murder and mystery that understands the darkness that can bubble within the hearts of humanity. But be cautious when you hear characters express their love for one another. Due to their self-serving natures, their inability to truly offer love sometimes causes them to act more like animals.

Only the Animals debuts in theatres in Toronto and Vancouver on Friday, November 5th, 2021.

Chauvin Verdict Reaction; Race & Policing

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Derek Chauvin is found guilty of murdering George Floyd. In this episode of the Your Sunday Drive podcast, we talk about the trial, the verdict and the related issues: race, racism and justice in America; the influence of politics and media; policing and how race is related; what this event could mean for the future.

Most importantly, we try to approach the topic from a Christian perspective, asking how we might respond to and participate in this moment of change.

Come along for Your Sunday Drive – quick conversation about current events, politics, pop culture and more, from the perspective of a couple of guys trying to follow Jesus.

Hosts: Matt Hill and Nate Polzin. Presented by the Church in Drive of Saginaw, MI, as often as possible. Please visit churchindrive.com and facebook.com/thechurchindrive

Guns Akimbo: Gamified Murder

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In a world where even cooking shows have been gamified, why not psychopathic murder? In Guns Akimbo, from director Jason Lei Howden, such is the world of SKIZM, a streaming underground game in which contestants advance to the next level by killing their opponent. People around the world watch this in real time.

For nerdy Miles (Daniel Radcliffe), this offers an opportunity to troll the comment section of the site, commenting on the pathetic life reflected in watching such “sport”. But when the game’s controller Riktor (Ned Dennehy) takes offense, he and his cohort come to Miles’s apartment, drug him and bolt pistols onto both his hands. Miles is now the newest player in SKIZM and the reigning champion Nix (Samara Weaving) will be his opponent.

Miles is definitely over his head. First of all, consider what it’s like to try to get dressed with your hand bolted to guns. Consider the difficulty in trying to urinate. (Yes, that is kind of the slapstick this film utilizes.) Once he begins to run, he is ridiculed by the online community watching this. They can see his incompetence and know he’ll be killed off soon. But as Nix and Miles have a running battle, he manages to survive. (It should be pointed out that although she is an efficient killing machine, while chasing Miles, Nix shoots with the precision of a Star Wars stormtrooper.) To further incentivize Miles (as if surviving isn’t enough), Riktor kidnaps Miles’s ex-girlfriend (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) with whom he is trying to reconcile.

All this becomes a cross between The Truman Show, The Purge, and your favorite blood-and-gore first-person shooter video game. It is designed as a comic action movie, but it never quite achieves a level of parody of the nihilism that is represented in The Purge and video games.

The film is not without social commentary. It does critique the current obsession with turning everything into a contest. And at times it takes issue with how we live our lives through screens. But all of that is buried beneath the constant and graphic violence. That violence never really leads anywhere—except to more violence. That means that there is no real redemption that takes place within the characters. In fact, in the end, Miles, although changed through this trial in his life, is not changed for the better. His mission at the end of the film need not be applauded. Rather he seems to have succumbed to the very nihilism that propelled SKIZM.

Photos courtesy of Saban Films.

The Transfiguration – A Different Kind of Vampire Story

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The Transfiguration is a different kind of vampire movie. But then it’s not really a vampire movie because we don’t have any of the undead who cannot stand the sun and are killed with a stake. Rather we have a disturbed teen who is obsessed with vampires and sees the world as a place where vampires should exist.

Milo (Eric Ruffin) is a loner who is fascinated by all things to do with vampires. He lives in a crime-ridden projects area. His parents are dead and he lives with his older brother. For Milo vampires represent power in his powerless world. He is obsessed with wildlife videos of animals killing and eating their pray. And, we learn soon, Milo acts out his vampire fixation by killing people and feeding on their blood.

Then he meets Sophie (Chloe Levine), a white teen who also lives in the projects with her grandfather. These two young people tentatively establish a relationship. For Sophie, vampires are what she knows from the Twilight series. She views it all with a bit of romanticism. But Milo has a much darker view of vampires and of life. A key discussion between them has to do with whether a vampire could commit suicide. The issues of power and eternal life create conflicts in how Milo sees vampires—and himself.

This is not the kind of film where two different people show each other new ways of dealing with the world and everything becomes sunny. That of course would be one of Sophie’s stories. Rather this film has a nihilist bent. Milo has faced difficult times in his life. Perhaps his focus on vampires grows out of his need to feel power. Certainly vampires are often used to represent being an outsider. Even though he seeks to act like a vampire, he is also troubled by what he does. This inevitably leads to an ending that is as dark as Milo’s own view of life.

Because the film’s central character is African American, it adds an additional level of powerlessness onto Milo’s life. We see others in the film who seek power through gang activity. To them Milo is a “freak”. Yet in many ways they have more in common than we might suspect. Both are seeking a way to live in a world that they see having no hope of anything better. Both survive through preying on others. And in the end they are doomed through the choices they make.

Photos courtesy of Strand Releasing

The Duel – Spiritual Captivity in the Old West

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“The river doesn’t speak. It only divides: the light from the dark, life and death.”

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The Duel, set in the wild Texas of the late nineteenth century, boils down to a battle between darkness and light, between good and evil. David Kingston (Liam Hemsworth), a young Texas Ranger, is sent by the governor to go undercover in a town near the Rio Grande to investigate a series of disappearances and murders of Mexicans that threatens to create an international incident. He takes his wife Marisol (Alice Braga) along. The town is presided over by Abraham, aka The Preacher (Woody Harrelson), a charismatic (and Charismatic) leader who dresses in white and holds the town in thrall. He is also the man who killed David’s father twenty-two years earlier in a hand-to-hand duel.

While The Preacher has a reputation for healing, he is played by Harrelson as creepy, even when he is being friendly to David and Marisol when they arrive in town. He immediately makes David the town sheriff, perhaps as a way of keeping him in town. Soon he has set his sights on Marisol, seeking to bring her into his fold. The two men know from the start that they will eventually have to face off. But the steps they go through before their final showdown make this more of a psychological thriller than a typical Western.

Although David has the law and right on his side, the border between good and evil in this battle wanders and winds much as the river does. David may seem to have come to terms with his father’s death, but how can this possibly not become personal—especially when Abraham had designs on his wife? Yet, through it all, David manages to keep his mission in mind. When the time comes for him to put an end to the great evil being perpetrated by Abraham and the town, David seeks to set free those who are held captive in various ways.

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The idea of captivity is important to the film, although it often seems to be operating in the background. There are physical captives, but there are also emotional spiritual captives. These later forms are perhaps even more dangerous that the physical imprisonment of some. It is in this that the film portrays evil. Evil is not acts of violence (although it may involve that). The true evil is the spiritual captivity The Preacher exercises over people. That evil is often manifested in racism, hatred, fear, and violence, but all of that is undergirded by the spiritual captivity. When we see many of the same troubles in the world around us, it is easy to limit the term “evil” to those ills. It may help us to remember that those manifestations are all built on foundations that threaten to hold us all captive to the evil around us.

Photos courtesy of Lionsgate Premiere