John Lithgow

  • Footloose (1984)

    Footloose (1984)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, April 2017) While I can recognize that Footloose isn’t a great movie, it’s easy to be swept along by its charm, clearly-defined stakes and infectious energy. I happen to like the song itself a lot, and the clever opening sequence is a lot of fun to watch. Then it’s off to rural America, when a stranger, our protagonist, comes to town to bring some wholesome urban values in the Midwestern wasteland. As a treatise on blue-versus-red America, Footloose has a lot to say and did so decades before the US electoral map ossified to the point that brought you president 45. But there I go tainting Footloose’s innocent fun with not-so-fun stuff. It’s far better to focus on Kevin Bacon’s career-making performance, the ludicrous chicken-tractor sequence, or John Lithgow’s turn as a persuadable preacher. Footloose, alas, does run out of steam a bit too quickly: the ending seems to peter out after resolving itself ten minutes earlier, not quite managing to deliver a decent finale. Still, it’s a fun movie with a bit of depth to offer regarding the rural-vs-urban divide. The music is also quite a bit better than that other early-eighties musical Flashdance.

  • This is 40 (2012)

    This is 40 (2012)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Video on-demand, March 2013) Aimless character-driven comedy about the humanity of relationship makes for a nice change of pace from a diet of highly-plotted action-driven special-effects extravaganza, and you couldn’t ask for more amiable actors than Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann as lead protagonists.  This is 40 aims to provide a warts-and-all look at the dynamics of an established marriage, and it doesn’t take a lot to see echoes of universal experience in the sometimes-horrid thoughts expressed here.  Still, it’s about sticking together no matter how difficult circumstances can be, and it helps that the dialogue is both cutting and revealing.  There is a lot of depth to the ensemble cast, with particularly challenging roles for Albert Brooks and John Lithgow as polar-opposite grand-dads.  Everyone is playing their part in a very relaxed fashion, which may explain how and why such a seemingly plot-less film can sustain attention for so long.  Where the film falters is in its coda, which wraps up too quickly without giving decent send-offs to the myriad subplots introduced throughout the picture.  Still, this is a film about moments, not dramatic arcs: Writer/Director Judd Apatow’s been mining the less-romantic aspects of romance throughout this career, and This is 40 fits squarely in this niche.