Leonard Maltin's 151 Best Movies You've Never Seen - Maltin, Leonard [53]
Thornton gets a job sweeping up for an enigmatic storefront preacher (Morgan Freeman) who offers him a place to sleep in return for his efforts. Freeman runs a neighborhood shelter and way station for lost souls, one of whom is a footloose rich girl (Kirsten Dunst) who’s caught up in a hedonistic existence.
Thornton adopts a deadpan, or minimalistic, approach to his character, but his motivations are clear: he sees an opportunity to redeem himself by reaching out to these young people and stopping them from throwing their lives away.
Levity deals with such issues as forgiveness, redemption, guilt, and the painful truth that some deeds cannot be undone. It isn’t upbeat material but it’s completely engrossing. Some moviegoers seem to believe that if a movie is serious, that means it’s going to be a downer. There’s a world of difference between a meaty drama and a depressing experience.
Thornton gives a subtle and superb performance, and he’s surrounded by exceptional costars. If you’re in the mood for a movie that makes you think, and feel, I strongly recommend it.
73. LOOK BOTH WAYS
(2005)
Directed by Sarah Watt
Screenplay by Sarah Watt
Actors:
JUSTINE CLARKE
WILLIAM MCINNES
ANTHONY HAYES
LISA FLANAGAN
ANDREW S. GILBERT
DANIELA FARINACCI
SACHA HORLER
MAGGIE DENCE
EDWIN HODGEMAN
People often ask me what I look for in a movie, and I explain that I don’t have a set of rules or requirements…but one thing that always appeals to me is originality, a feeling that I’m watching something fresh and not a rehash of ideas I’ve seen over and over again. The Australian import Look Both Ways has that quality in spades, partly because it’s the first live-action feature film by animator Sarah Watt, whose imagination was obviously firing on all engines here. Animation figures in this movie, as it helps the filmmaker picture what’s going on in the overactive imagination of her heroine. That’s just one of its unexpected—and appealing—ingredients.
Justine Clarke plays Meryl, who pictures disaster lurking around every corner. (Her mood isn’t any brighter for having just returned from her father’s funeral.) This phobia has made her isolated and very tentative in her relationships. Then, by chance, she bears witness to a real accident involving a train, and finds an odd connection with a newspaper photographer (William McInnes) who’s covering the incident and its aftermath. He has just been given a grim medical prognosis. As these two fragile individuals embark upon a relationship, they’re forced to work through their hang-ups and connect with each other.
Other characters are woven into the fabric of the story, including a reporter for the same newspaper (Anthony Hayes) who’s facing a crisis of another kind in his personal life—the news that his girlfriend is pregnant. He, too, has good reason to ponder the question of life and death, and does so in print, while his editor runs a chilling photo of the train victim’s wife just as she hears the news that her husband was killed.
Look Both Ways approaches weighty subjects with a light touch, and that’s what makes it special. These characters are dealing with our greatest fear—mortality—yet they have to go on living and making choices as they do. I think we all can relate to that process, one way or another.
The film has a quirky and unpretentious quality that’s genuinely refreshing. That’s why it won the Discovery Award at the Toronto Film Festival, a poll of seventy-five international film critics, and went on to win the Best Film prize at the Australian equivalent of the Academy Awards.
74. THE LOOKOUT
(2007)
Directed by Scott Frank
Screenplay by Scott Frank
Actors:
JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT
JEFF DANIELS
ISLA FISHER
MATTHEW GOODE
CARLA GUGINO
BRUCE MCGILL
ALBERTA WATSON
ALEX BORSTEIN
SERGIO DI ZIO
DAVID HUBAND
When a film takes more than a decade to come to fruition, is made with love and care, then disappears from theaters within