Three Colors: Blue (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1993). The first film in Kieslowski’s famed Three Colors trilogy stars Juliette Binoche as a woman dealing with the recent death of her famous husband and young daughter in a car crash. She retreats from the world, getting drawn back only reluctantly, in part due to interest and controversy over her spouse’s last, incomplete work. There’s tremendous thematic heft in the work, with the specter of mortality drawn over the entire work, enhanced by the sense of all the ways in which life itself drifts away from us. Binoche is moving and insightful in her role, all the more impressive given that the character’s primary mode is one of self-imposed isolation, giving Binoche little to play off of except the sense of her own tragic history, so vividly realized that you can almost see it reflected in her eyes. Kieslowski is a sensual visual artist with this effort, continually coming up with boldly unorthodox ways to frame his shots and wash the screen with color.

Three Colors: White (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1994). The second film in Kieslowski’s famed Three Colors trilogy stars Zbigniew Zamachowski, even if the American movie poster really tries to make people think that it’s a showcase for Julie Delpy. Zamachowski plays a Polish immigrant in Paris who suffers through an embarrassing divorce from his lovely young wife, played by Delpy. After hitting bottom, he launches an elaborate plan to exact some level of revenge on her, a plan that begins with the ever-so-simple step “Become wealthy.” Every strength of Blue is absent in White. The visual inventiveness is gone, as is the richness of character and emotion. What remains is implausible in story and pedestrian in execution.

Frozen River (Courtney Hunt, 2008). Hunt’s debut feature is a lean, deceptively fierce little film about a desperate woman in upstate New York who starts smuggling illegal immigrants across the border in an effort to get some quick cash. There are strains in the plot here and there, and occasional moments when motivations aren’t as fleshed out as they could or should be, but overall the film is disarmingly evocative in its depiction of lives lived on the very edge of economic devastation. Veteran character actress Melissa Leo was justifiably lauded for her focused performance in the leading role. The understated intensity of her work is nicely counterbalanced by Misty Upham, who brings that right mix of calculated disinterest and impatient opportunism to her performance as the Native American who becomes the leery partner of Leo’s character.

The International (Tom Tykwer, 2009). My oh my, is this ever dull. The film involves a vast global bank conspiracy that is investigated by an Interpol agent played by Clive Owen and a New York Assistant District Attorney played by Naomi Watts. It’s stern and serious and focused to a fault, almost entirely absent of any energy as it tightens its jaw and purses it lips and sets about being a highly refined political thriller. Tykwer displays none of the wild, inventive verve that launched him on the scene with Run Lola Run a decade earlier. In its place is a personality-free, professional sheen that looks accomplished enough, but has no inner life whatsoever. Watts looks alternately bored and distracted, while Owen makes the unfortunate miscalculation of pitching his performance at a level of unrelenting intensity that borders on silliness.

Julie and Julia (Nora Ephron, 2009). The very premise is this film is actually quite clever, interlacing a biography about Julia Child’s rise to culinary fame with a click-by-click depiction of Julie Powell’s attention-getting effort to cook every dish in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, which she documented online to life-changing results. By the end, though, one half of the film has so overtaken the other that I was left wondering if Nora Ephron ever considered jettisoning the modern day blogger altogether. Or was she stuck because the title Julia was already taken. A couple times over. Ephron certainly doesn’t have any idea what to do with Powell’s story, at one point so stuck that she just has Powell and her husband sit on their couch and watch Dan Aykroyd‘s famous Saturday Night Live skit involving Child and a few gallons of fake blood. It leaves Amy Adams with nothing do as Powell but flutter and overplay her stress until it starts to come across as intolerable brattiness. The portion of the film that follows Child is often delightful, however, especially because of Meryl Streep’s inspired work as the legendary chef. She gets the mannerisms and the cadences down just fine, but that’s easy part. Streep also nails the far trickier challenge of convincingly tapping into the ebullient thrill that Child gets out of life and food and her beloved husband. Stanley Tucci plays that part with supreme gentleness of spirit. When he and Streep are on screen together, they’re performing a marvelous duet that also stands as one of the finer portrayals of the sort of mature partnership that constitutes a healthy marriage that you’re likely to ever find in a Hollywood movie.

(Posted simultaneously to “Jelly-Town!”)