I don't want to say that this Telluride Film Festival has been more "political" this year than in the past, if only because political is such a broad term. But there are more pictures aware of the effect we have on each other and the world at this 51st edition of the festival than in recent memory. There are myriad reasons for that, which I'll address in my wrap-up piece soon to come. But for this dispatch, composed of personal stories and an intense documentary, I'll just say that I'm reminded that we all should be more considerate of the people beside us, the ground beneath us, and the sky above.
I will put this plainly, right here, right now: "Memoir of a Snail" eviscerated me. See, the animated picture from Australian stop-motion auteur Adam Elliot doesn't try to hide its desire to push and pull the audience from one scene to the next, working on our heartstrings with uncommon sincerity. This film is very open about touching the core of your emotions, even as it pierces you with its sharp mordant humor.
It opens grimly with a scene of Grace Pudel (Sarah Snook) sitting at the bedside of her dying elderly friend Pinky (Jackie Weaver). As Pinky takes her last breath, she screams, "POTATOES," leaving Grace alone. Sitting in Pinky's garden, Grace releases her pet snails and explains to her favorite one, Sylvia, about her own lonely life.
It turns out life has always been a challenge for Grace. She was born prematurely ahead of her twin brother Gilbert (Kodi Smit-McPhee). In the process, their mother died leaving them in the care of their paralyzed alcoholic father. The dour, shy Grace lives in a world of grey and black, which often seems intent on crushing her spirit. Even after her cleft palate is surgically repaired, it's up to Gilbert to defend her from bullies. Her life becomes even worse when her father suddenly dies, splitting her away from Gilbert to a foster home. Now left on her own, she must discover herself while working to reunite with her brother. And while both siblings have tall obstacles: Gilbert goes to live with a family of religious zealots, Grace becomes a kleptomaniac and marries the wrong guy—there is always hope in this picture, even in the bleakest corners of its shell.
"Memoir of a Snail" further touched me because just before the screening I found out one of my guinea pigs needed to go to the hospital (he's okay now). And this film has many guinea pigs (though they do die funny but grisly deaths). So as I sat there thinking about my pet, watching Grace learning to let go of the snails that have become her security blanket against the cruelties of the world, I couldn't help but be overcome with tears—as many others were in the cinema. "Memoir of a Snail" isn't trying to trick you. It just wants to crawl steadily, slowly, and warmly into your heart. I'm glad I let it.
Sometimes pushing the form isn't about shattering what's in place; it's about putting an unlikely twist on a common piece. Enter Michael Gracey's oddball musical biopic of British pop star Robbie Williams, "Better Man," a flawed, but enlivening survey of how an outcast like Williams rose from a difficult home life, to teenage supergroup, to the vast stage of Knebworth—told from the perspective of a CGI monkey that stands as an avatar for the troubled singer.
Why a monkey? In his Telluride introduction to the film, "The Greatest Showman" filmmaker shared that Williams sheepishly told him that when he performs he often feels like a monkey. So Gracey made the daring (and somewhat batty) choice of leaning into that sentiment while having Williams voice the monkey too. You're often on proverbial pins and needles at the prospect of this concept going left. But when this film soars, it's as entertaining as any biopic in recent memory.
Some of the film's most endearing qualities stem from the visage of a skinny monkey with human parents going through the same bullying experienced by many kids: he's the last one picked for the soccer team and often the first one put in his place. We see him gain confidence performing in school plays before growing into a hulking teenager now looking for the approval of a dad (Steve Pemberton) who abandoned the family for a bid at stardom. In that sense, "Better Man" has much in common with "Rocket Man," similarly featuring a kind of prodigy who, through virtue of stardom (in this case, it's Williams joining the megapop group Take That during the early 1990s), falls into bouts of alcoholism, drug addiction, and depression.
There are other common hallmarks of biopic lore: tons of sex (Williams often cheats on his girlfriend Nicole Appleton), crushing anthems written in a flash, and the sense that greatness lurks just around the corner. "Better Man" is often at its worst when it conforms to these genre conceits, especially its reliance on the fractured father-son relationship.
But when the film gets as weird as its monkey concept teases, it soars, like Oasis showing up to insult Williams or when he's seemingly pulled in and out of dreamlike musical sequences. These sequences, featuring his solo hit "Angels" and smash track "Rock DJ," are fierce setpieces, leaning on whip pans and theatrical whimsy to make "Better Man" better and much more intoxicating than you'd expect.
While "Memoir of a Snail" and "Better Man" are movies about how an unfazed world acts upon and shapes its characters, the sobering environmental documentary "The White House Effect" shows the inhumane ways we have acted upon the world. The film's trio of directors, Bonni Cohen, Pedro Kos, and Jon Shenk, rewind to the George H.W. Bush administration's failed promise to care about the environment as the catalyst for the climate change we see today. The directors comb through damning interviews, telling internal memos from energy companies like Exxon, and the era's available science to show how the ball was dropped so far down back then that it now feels like we're facing oblivion.
Many startling truths are revisited and revealed here. For one, President Jimmy Carter knew climate change posed a massive threat, inspiring him to institute regulations to limit fossil fuels and install solar panels on the White House roof. The hullabaloo about the gas shortage cut Carter's goals and presidency short, leading to Reagan and Bush eliminating the laws protecting the environment. It was only a debilitating heatwave in 1988, during an election year that caused Bush to make climate change his platform. The catastrophic Exxon Valdez oil spill during his presidency further foretold the necessity for sweeping change.
But as "The White House Effect" (whose title comes from a Bush campaign speech), makes clear, it was a bunch of hot air from the president. The film sees the weak constitutions of so-called leaders and addiction to Capitalism as culprits for America's failure to lead on climate. Bush refused to stand behind the EPA—talking out of both sides of his mouth—and refused to agree to multinational deals at several conferences to curb fossil fuel use. Meanwhile, energy companies not only knew about the dangers, but sought to undermine the research and the science.
During its four chapters, the film makes apparent where the turning point occurred. Fascinatingly, the way Cohen, Kos, and Shenk fast forward and rewind through administrations propels the film's yearning to reach back into time, shake the politicians and industrialists, and maybe change the course of our present. The closeness of these events, whose repercussions we are living (and will continue to live) through, makes "The White House Effect" an infuriating portrait of how inaction has potentially doomed humanity.
