In a Better World/Hævnen (2010) - Bier's Big Moral Drama lives on its actors' performances

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1 Film Excess nomination:

Best Child Actor: William Jønkh Nielsen, Markus Rygaard (lost to Kiernan Shipka for Mad Men S4)

One of the very dramatic posters for Susanne Bier's In a Better World

The story starts in Southern Funen, Denmark, where a boy gets bullied as 'the rat', until he gets a new friend, who knows how to fight back. In a refugee camp in Africa, the victimized boy's father works as a doctor.

In a Better World is full of moral dilemmas and is an ideal conversations starter, which certainly inspired disagreements among the people I saw it with. All the actors are outstanding, and they are the film's main quality: Trine Dyrholm (Daisy Diamond (2007)), Mikael Persbrandt (One Way (2006)) and Ulrich Thomsen (Banshee (2013-16)), but also the film's two main boy actors, William Jønkh Nielsen (Danny's Doomsday/Dannys Dommedag (2014)) and Markus Rygaard (The Great Bear/Den Kæmpestore Bjørn (2011)).
Unfortunately the script, by Anders Thomas Jensen (The Salvation (2014)) and Danish master co-writer-director Susanne Bier (Brothers/Brødre (2004)), carries the subtext out in its dialog a bit too candidly. The shakiness of the camera, (cinematographer Morten Søborg (Valhalla Rising (2009)), is unnecessary, SPOILER and I also find the ending too neat.
Still, In a Better World is a pretty good film.

Related posts:

Susanne Bier: 2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2012 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2012 in films - according to Film Excess
Love Is All You Need/Den Skaldede Frisør (2012) - Bier strikes gold with Italy-set romcom
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
Brothers/Brødre (2004) or, A Woman Came Between Them

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: Approximately 5.5 mil. $ (30 mil. DKK)
Box office: 9.6 mil. $
= Big flop
[In a Better World was released August 26 and runs 118 minutes. Filming took place in and around August 2009 in Funen, Langeland and Kenya. Bier has stated about the film: "Our experiment in this film is about looking at how little it really takes before a child – or an adult – thinks something is deeply unjust. It really doesn't take much, and I find that profoundly interesting. And scary." The film opened #53 to a 33k $ first weekend in 4 theaters, peaking in 51 in North America, where it grossed 1 mil. $ (10.4 % of the total gross). The films 3 biggest markets were its native Denmark, where an impressive 448k paid admission to it, with 4.9 mil. $ (51 %), Sweden with 2.2 mil. $ (22.9 %) and Spain with 1.3 mil. $ (13.5 %). The film won the Best Foreign Film Oscar, beating Incendies, Biutiful, Dogtooth and Outside the Law, and the foreign film Golden Globe as well as the Danish Bodil Best Actress award to Dyrholm. In a Better World is certified fresh at 77 % with a 7.1 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of In a Better World?

Irrational Man (2015) - Allen's pleasant morality tale divertisement

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Joaquin Phoenix looks swanky (and hides his giant beer gut) on this stylish, albeit slightly dull poster for Woody Allen's Irrational Man

Irrational Man is the new film from master writer-director Woody Allen (Anything Else (2003)), who is already shooting his next film and also set to direct his first TV-series, both to come out next year. Pushing 80, the impressive man is anything but slowing down.

Abe Lucas is a philosophy professor, who is moving to a friendly New England college, where a couple of women take to his depressed outpourings. Real trouble sets in, as Lucas seizes a radical means to pull himself out of his slump.

Thematically, Allen is in (familiar) Crime and Punishment waters here, (referring to Fyodor Dostoyevsky's classic 1866 novel), and the novel also gets mentioned in the film, along with a long line of other novels, writers and thinkers. As is usually the case with Allen's films, prior knowledge to the intellectual and in this case also the academical world heightens the understanding and pleasure of the film. I found it to be a stimulating story. It's not among Allen's deepest and certainly not his funniest, but as a weary adult's diversion, it's excellent.
SPOILER The weakest moment of the film, and I can't, regrettably, really explain why, is a dinner scene, in which Emma Stone's (Magic in the Moonlight (2014)) character presents her professor Joaquin Phoenix (The Master (2012)) to her parents at home, and they debate the facts surrounding a mysterious local murder. For whatever reason, this scene just doesn't work. But I find that the plot is generally plausible and sound enough, and that this is just a little rough patch in an otherwise good film.

Woody Allen directing Jamie Blackley and Emma Stone for his Irrational Man

The details:

Irrational Man sees Allen work with Phoenix for the first time. Phoenix, in the title role, has grown a solid potbelly for the film (I guess...?), which is impossible not to notice, although I couldn't say I enjoyed his abdominal addition per se. He plays the lead as he finds best and not in the vein of how Allen might have done it himself, which works in his favor, and he does well. Stone  is back for her second Allen film, (following Magic in the Moonlight), and she is perfectly cast as the keenly intelligent young woman, SPOILER who still falls right smack for her professor's 'charms'. Parker Posey (The Sweetest Thing (2002)), who is actually 6 years older than Phoenix, is beginning to look her age. - Not to say that she isn't still sexy as hell, though, and she also gives another fine performance in Irrational Man.
Great cinematographer Darius Khondji (Magic in the Moonlight) doesn't get too much to play with visually here. The film has a typically Allenesque, snazzy jazz sound side, although without any majorly recognizable tracks this time.
One of Allen's producers for several decades, Jack Rollins (Alice (1990), executive producer), passed away in June, and Irrational Man is his final screen credit, as co-executive producer.

Related reviews:
 
2014 in films - according to Film Excess
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2011 in films - according to Film Excess
Woody Allen:  Magic in the Moonlight (2014) - Allen's irresistible French Riviera romance
Fading Gigolo (2013) - Turturro's pleasant turn as a high-end NY prostitute  (as actor)
Blue Jasmine (2013) - Allen presenets Blanchett, a woman under the influence
To Rome with Love (2012) - Woody Allen's slightest film to date  
Midnight in Paris (2011) - Allen's zany (and a little depressing) crowd-pleaser  
Cassandra's Dream (2007) - Allen's well-laid but inconsequentiel English cul-de-sac  
Anything Else (2003) - Perfect contemporary relationship comedy    
The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001) - Allen's hypnotic, noirish shenanigans 
Celebrity (1998) or, Stars in New York 
Celebrity (1998) or, Beautiful Celebrities Talk About Sex (guest review) 
Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) - Sin and guilt up for laughs and rumination in unspectacular Allen work 
Broadyway Danny Rose (1984) or, Keep Your Heart   
Annie Hall (1977) or, My Relationship with Alvie Singer   
Bananas (1971) - Woody Allen's South American misadventure is still a barrel of laughs   
Casino Royale (1967) - The packed spy spoof frontrunner, a film very much of its time (as actor)  

Watch the trailer for the film here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: 5.8 mil. $ and counting
= Uncertainty
[Irrational Man was shot in Newport, Rhode Island, in July - August of 2014. It premiered in Cannes, and its domestic gross seems to have landed on a rather flat 3.8 mil. $. Abroad, it has so far done best in Russia, where it has made 0.5 mil. $. It does not, unfortunately, look like it is going to end up as a theatrical hit.]

What do you think of Irrational Man?

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920) - John Barrymore shines in Robertson's adapted horror morality tale

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Drinking with a man under four eyes seems a ludicrous sin for a proper woman on this poster for John S. Robertson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

QUICK REVIEW:

The pure, undefiled Dr. Jekyll gets introduced to lust and cravings and invent Mr. Hyde to take care of these parts of his mind. - This, however, soon devolves into murder and cruelties.

The film is an adaptation (of which there are many) of Robert Louis Stevenson's (Treasure Island (1883)) 1886 classic novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Clara Beranger (Men and Women (1925)). It can be seen as a morality story that seems to conclude the still valid lesson that the human mind contains both a dark and a light side, and that the healthy human being learns how to balance the two, (and not simply compartmentalize them as our protagonist here does.)
John S. Robertson (Madonna of the Streets (1930)) directed this silent, early horror drama, which is rather dated to see today. But the theatricality of the actors, which was typical for the time, and especially the pathos, convulsiveness and weltschmerz of the impressive John Barrymore (Grand Hotel (1932)) in the dual title role keeps the film entertaining nevertheless. Here are some stills that show some of Barrymore's range in the film, as well as another old poster and a couple of new, excitingly graphical posters for the classic, which is now in the public domain and can be downloaded and seen free and legally right here:

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Uncertainty
[But this lengthy, in-depth review claims it to have been a major hit.]

What do you think of Robertson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?
Seen other versions?
If so, please tell about it/them

Cassandra's Dream (2007) - Allen's well-constructed but inconsequential English cul-de-sac

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The slick poster for Woody Allen's Cassandra's Dream

QUICK REVIEW:

Two brothers in London get a request for help from their rich uncle: Kill a man, and I will give you the money that you need. They murder the man, and for the one brother, things go well from there ...
Writer-director master Woody Allen (Broadway Danny Rose (1984)) knows his craft, and there is no formal bumps in the road: Cassandra's Dream's great men; Tom Wilkinson (Valkyrie (2008)), Colin Farrell (Minority Report (2002)) and Ewan McGregor (The Impossible (2012)) are class actors, although the latter two seem a bit old for their characters.
The problem is that Allen just doesn't work as a storyteller of this kind of Anglo-Saxon ode of Men and Guilt. The way he teases us about the murder is top stuff, but as a the morality tale that the film aims to be, it is a misfire. And after the recent, painfully bad To Rome With Love (2012), Cassandra's Dream is probably Allen's least successful movie quality-wise, (which says a lot about how high the quality of his many films generally is.) Bottom-line; save this film for almost last, if you are delving into Allen's wonderful body of work.

Related review:

Woody Allen: To Rome With Love (2012) - Woody Allen's slightest film to date
Anything Else (2003) - Perfect contemporary relationship comedy 
Celebrity (1988) or, Beautiful Celebrities Talk About Sex (guest review)
Broadway Danny Rose (1984) or, Keep Your Heart 
Annie Hall (1977) or, My Relationship With Alvie Singer 
Bananas (1971) - Woody Allen's South American misadventure is still a barrel of laughs
Casino Royale (1967) - The packed spy spoof frontrunner, a film very much of its time (as actor)

Colin Farrell and Ewan McGregor are just brothers (unfortunately) in Woody Allen's Cassandra's Dream

Watch the trailer here

Cost: 15 mil. $
Box office: 22.5 mil. $
= Flop
[An original Philip Glass score, - which is rare for Allen, who hadn't commissioned an original score since Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (*But Were Afraid to Ask) (1972), didn't help attract enough audiences to this almost dull movie.]

What do you think of Cassandra's Dream?
Who, on the other hand, tells a good, Anglo-Saxon morality tale?