CENTRAL PARK

Stars: Justiin A. Davis, Grace Van Patten, Deema Aitken, Ruby Modine, Guillermo Arribas, Michael Lombardi, Sarah Mezzanotte, Jordyn DiNatale, Marina Squerciati, Malika Samuel, Nicole Balsam, David Valcin and Justin Reinsilber.
Writer/Director: Justin Reinsilber

Now streaming in Australia and New Zealand on Fetch, iTunes, Google Play and YouTube.

Rating: ★ ★ ★

From the opening frames of Justin Reinsilber’s slasher redux Central Park, one senses that the writer-director knows his genre tropes to the letter. A gentle camera pan across the New York skyline, followed by a slow zoom into the lush, green lungs of the metropolis, the serenity of the images made boisterous by a grab-bag of ambient city sound effects...the year could be 1980, and Joe Spinell’s ‘maniac’ could be sharpening his scalpel just out frame.

Which suggests that Central Park is just another fanboy homage to those slice-and-dice VHS rentals, a film that would play just as well (probably, better) in the pan-&-scan format, peppered with snowy scratches growing deeper with every roll over an uncleaned VCR head. But feature debutant Reinsilber has several years worth of variations on the kids-in-the-woods narrative on his mind and drags his teen blood-bags into at least the first decade of the 2000s. His narrative references (many times over) the Bernie Madoff scandal and, in a heartfelt moment only a true New Yorker could fathom, an orphaned teenager’s grief over 9/11.

Beats more familiar with 90s-style ‘masked killer’ slashers (Scream, 1996; I Know What You Did Last Summer, 1997) provide the framework. The social standing of preppy rich-kid Harold (Justiin A. Davis) is taking a beating after it’s revealed his father has Ponzi-ed the hell out NYC’s wealthiest, most of whom have kids in H’s class. With his hot socialite gf Leyla (Grace Van Patten), her bestie Sessa (Ruby Modine), doper Mikey (Deema Aitken), third wheel Donna (Malika Samuel) and bro’ dude Felix (Guillermo Arribas), he heads deep into Central Park to smoke and drink his blues away.

The film’s raison d'être is to kill off the rich kids, of course, and there is some tension created in trying to deduce which of these brats will emerge mostly intact. To his credit, Reinsilber’s script has ambition’s beyond blood’n’gore (though visual and sound effects departments deliver in that regard); he weaves initially ambiguous subplots (a school teacher and his wife; two cranky veteran cops) into a third act resolve that has a genuine element of surprise. This extends to not one but two mysterious figures in the park, with their identities and motives intertwined, ultimately providing further moments of unexpected plotting. The ending plays like a franchise kicker, but not in the manner usually associated with slasher pics.   

Ironically, contemporary elements undo some of Reinsilber’s good work. Mobile phones play too big a part in plot developments, either found coincidentally or not used when they should be. Credibility is also stretched when one recalls that all this carnage is happening in Central Park, not the Appalachian Trail; running 50 feet in any direction means you’ll find a path, possibly some people, maybe a street. And when Nicole Balsam’s park patrol cop says it’s been a quiet night about 70 minutes into the film, one wonders where the f*** she’s been.

A final mention must be made of Eun-ah Lee’s cinematography, which recaptures the rich, dark shadows and warm colours of the New York City we know and love from when films were shot on film.

CENTRAL PARK - Trailer from Jinga Films on Vimeo.

FATHERS AND DAUGHTERS

Stars: Russell Crowe, Amanda Seyfried, Kylie Rogers, Aaron Paul, Diane Kruger, Bruce Greenwood, Jane Fonda, Quvenzhane Wallis, Octavia Spencer and Janet McTeer.
Writer: Brad Desch.
Director: Gabriele Muccino

Screening at the 2016 Young at Heart Film Festival.

Rating: 3/5

Despite a title that implies a broad ‘everyman’ perspective, Fathers and Daughters offers little resembling the ‘real world’. From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author prone to public seizures to the social worker sex addict reconnecting to the world through the mute orphan, Gabrielle Muccino’s overripe melodrama positively overflows with a giddy commitment to its own ‘only in the movies’ excess. Audiences who well-up at the first sound of a single violin note will find enough to moisten a hankie or two in this lushly packaged, star-heavy soap opera; cynics, stop reading now.

Thematically tackling in sweeping brushstrokes the connect between childhood trauma and adult dysfunction, Muccino ultimately relies very heavily on editor Alex Rodriguez (Y Tu Mamá También, 2001; Children of Men, 2006), whose skill is tested to the limit in his handling of first time scribe Brad Desch’s back-and-forth narrative timeline. In 1989, a car crash leaves upwardly mobile writer Jake Davis (Russell Crowe) a widow and his cutie-pie daughter Katie (Kylie Rogers) without a mom; when mental health issues dictate Jake needs time in a sanitarium, Katie is put in the care of Aunt Elizabeth (Diane Kruger, gnawing on the set mercilessly) and Uncle William (Bruce Greenwood). When Jake’s latest book bombs despite the best efforts of lit-agent friend Teddy (Jane Fonda), Bill and Liz make their move on the tyke, seeking full time custody.

As all this high drama unfolds in the distant past, we become entangled in the present-day life of adult Katie (Amanda Seyfried), now a caseworker at an inner-city clinic. One minute, a hollow commitment-phobe who partakes in binge-boozing and public bathroom sex to feel any kind of connection, the next an empathetic human connection for recently orphaned Lucy (Quvenzhane Wallis), Seyfried’s doe-eyed performance runs the gamut from passion-free blankness to public histrionics. By her side in her exploration of daddy issues is writer Cameron (Aaron Paul), who brings his own obsession with Jake’s writing.

Gabrielle Muccino’s embrace of shamelessly saccharine sentimentality has found favour with international audiences previously. After scoring big beyond his homeland with the arthouse hit Remember Me, My Love (2003), Hollywood beckoned; he obliged, delivering the Will Smith double The Pursuit of Happyness (2006) and Seven Pounds (2008). Returning to grand family drama after the dire rom-com Playing For Keeps (2012), the Italian stages Jake and Katie’s journey with an unyielding commitment to gorgeousness; in line with the florid dramatics on show are DOP Shane Hurlbut’s rich visuals, production designer Daniel Clancy’s lavish sets and composer Paolo Buonvino orchestral score. When the time-hopping plot starts to strain, there is always something cinematically compelling in Fathers and Daughters.

However, Muccino’s greatest assets prove to be more personal, in the form of leading man Russell Crowe and co-star, Kylie Rogers (a seasoned pro despite her tender years after roles in Space Station 76 and the current release, Miracles From Heaven). The pair’s genuine warmth and chemistry is energising, even when the film is running off the rails in every other regard. In addition to conveying the horrible physical stresses of a grand-mal seizure on several occasions, Crowe gives a performance that invests Jake with a grounded dignity; the effortless nature of his scenes with a quivery-lipped Rogers recall the father/child dynamic between Dustin Hoffman and Justin Henry in Kramer vs Kramer (yet, in all fairness, comparisons with that or any Best Picture winner must end there).