Ben Younger on His Crash-and-Comeback Movie, 'Bleed For This'
Ben Younger knows how to take a punch. After directing his last movie more than twelve years ago (2005's "Prime"), the New York-born filmmaker suffered defeat trying to get a movie about the world's fastest motor racing competition off the ground, which ultimately stalled out. But Younger didn't stay down for long, pursuing other casual hobbies such as becoming a pilot, competing in motor-cross races, and working in a Costa Rican kitchen. But Ben Younger steps back into the ring – his true ring – in "Bleed For This," his latest writing-directing movie about boxer Vinny Pazienza, who suffered a devastating spinal injury and who trained his way to get back into the ring.
It'd be easy to see why Ben Younger might find a connection with the crash and comeback story ("I didn’t make a movie for twelve years, which is kind of like having a broken neck in Hollywood."), admitting that he had a lot riding on the movie's outcome as well ("the movie had to be good."). In a roundtable interview at the Beverly Hills Four Seasons, Younger talked working with Miles Teller and Aaron Eckhart, putting his paycheck back into the movie to gain two extra shooting days, and finally getting his passion project motocross movie ("Isle of Man") off the ground.
Why did you want to tell this story?
I wanted to tell this story because... simply because of the comeback. Vinny won fifty fights, I don’t know if you guys knew that. And I’m sure to real boxing aficionados that would be an exciting thing. I’m not one of them...
For me, it was all about the crash and the comeback. I just felt like… the real reason I stayed in, I mean... I started this as a writing assignment. I wasn’t supposed to direct this. I didn’t think I wanted to direct it. But once I realized there was a parallel between his story and mine – you guys know that I took a long time off. I didn’t make a movie for twelve years, which is kind of like having a broken neck (as Vinny Pazienza suffers in the movie) in Hollywood.
You didn’t make a film for twelve years. Why?
There’s a bunch of reasons. One, the primary reason is that the movie that I wanted to make, I couldn’t get off the ground, and I was used to getting movies made so easily. And I wrote this Isle of Man racing movie… do you guys know about the TT? It’s the oldest motor race on earth? Takes place in Ireland? None of you know that? Well, this is why the movie didn’t get made.
(Laughter)
So I couldn’t get it off the ground. I was so used to getting movies made like no problem.
So you were stubborn–
I got upset. And then I just kind of withdrew for a while.
To Switzerland?
Yeah! No, to Costa Rica.
So that’s why this is a perfect project for you then...
Yeah. And then for some reason, even when I took the job I didn’t make that parallel. And then in the middle of writing it I was like, “Oh wait, I understand this guy. Everyone’s saying it’s not gonna happen... .” So then I was like “Oh, I’m gonna stay on.”
Also, the other idea was that I have a lot of passions. During those ten years I became a pilot, I was cooking at a restaurant in Costa Rica, I raced bikes professionally for a year… so I did these interesting things–
Like motorcycle bikes?
Yeah, full-on road-racing.
Wow. That’s crazy. You’re crazy.
I’m not crazy, I just, I like trying different things.
But the point is, as much as I loved all those things, I wouldn’t... if you told me there was a chance I’d never walk again if I did one of them, the same question that was composed to Vinny, I would just say, “Well, then I won’t direct.” Or anything. I don’t have anything in my life that I love to risk paralysis, that’s what I’m trying to say.
A twenty-four-day shoot – your actors said it was OK, but being the director, how was it for you?
I was fairly prepared… also, there was too much on the – in a good way – on the line, meaning like there was… if you make a movie every two years, and some of them are fairly successful, either commercially or critically, you get a few, like, “You can screw this one up,” – like free-passes. You know what I mean? You go to director jail for like six months, or whatever they say, like that, I don’t know. But if you don’t make a movie for twelve years, you don’t have a choice. Like, if I didn’t nail this one, it’s game over.
Why Miles and why Aaron?
Miles, it was the combination of... I mean, “Whiplash” hadn’t come out, so I hired him pre-“Whiplash.” I just loved him in “(The) Spectacular Now.” Even like his other more sort-of mainstream commercial stuff, you could see, you know sometimes? You do a movie that’s either a little soft. like even in “Footloose.” There’s still moments where you just go, “Wait a second, what was that?”
Combined with the fact that he’s just not a pretty boy. Good looking kid, but not in like a “Fill in the blank.” He’s not so stereotypically, or typically, beautiful. I like that. He was in that (car) crash, I’m sure you guys all know. He’s scarred up, he looks like he could be a boxer.
And Aaron?
Aaron was about finding someone who… I feel like in each movie (I do), I take somebody and show you something you haven’t seen. So whether it’s Vin (Diesel) in “Boiler Room,” or Uma (Thurman) in “Prime,” I wanted to take somebody who was respected and, known as a great actor, but just make them, show you something different. In this case, make them unrecognizable.
I showed the movie to Steven Soderbergh, and it took him ten minutes to realize that that was (Aaron).
And he directed him in “Erin Brockovich!”
I didn’t tell him he was in the movie, and then he goes… you probably can’t use this, but ten minutes in he goes, “Is that fucking Aaron Eckhart?”
(Laughter)
So when you talked to Aaron about the movie, did you say it would be nice if we didn’t put a fat suit on you, and actually gain the forty pounds?
I mean, it wasn’t even a discussion. Ted Levine wore a fat suit – and not that he’s any less committed – but Aaron was like, he wouldn’t even hear it. He was putting the weight on, as miserable as it made him. He’s a very fit person.
We heard that when Vinny saw the movie, with you, that he cried during the family scenes.
Totally true.
Could you talk about that, and filming those scenes?
Yeah. I mean he, I didn’t know… when we finished shooting, I didn’t think it through, I just thought, “I’ll show Vinny the movie.” We were locked, and I’ll just sit next to him. And it was much more intense then I imagined. I don’t know, it seems obvious now. I just didn’t think it through. I mean, he’s seeing a movie about his life. The interesting thing is where he got emotional. It wasn’t like the big fights or the car crash, or like the moments you think. It was like these really small, tender, familial moments. Like his mother praying for him at the shrine, or his father just like putting his hand on his shoulder. And then you realize, he could look up all those other moments. Like, he can, you can see any one of those fights on YouTube, tons of Halo footage of him, even training with it on. But we created what you’re saying. We created his family life in a way that moved him. So, I knew we got it, I was pretty sure we did a decent job. But when he started crying, that’s when I was like, “OK, that’s it.”
What was the choice behind – when Vinny comes back finally from having the Halo on for three months, you have him fighting Roberto Duran right away. He actually did fight quite a few others–
Bunch of other people.
Is that because people are going to know Duran?
I’d say that was the only concession I made, as far as, embellishment. In every other way, we had to actually do reverse-embellishment. So, for example, Vinny started training, that scene with the bar lifting – that happened five days after the halo went on, in real life. I couldn’t present that, because no one would believe it.
(Laughter)
Same with like, for Ciarán Hinds' performance of Angelo. Angelo was such a colorful character that he bordered on like, a caricature of an Italian-American in New England. If I showed him as he was, you would say I was racist or we would have made a comedy.
East coast people have a surface-specific view that might seem cliché when presented on screen. How did you manage to keep it to where it felt like natural no cliché in terms of the acting and the accents?
Compared to – oh, not boxing movies, you mean just specifically that, regionally? Yeah. That was a fear. Boxing-wise, there’s so many clichés. Those I was like, “We’re going to avoid those, those are easier to avoid.” But yeah, this was tougher because the actual accents can, themselves, sound caricature-like.
So, we had a great dialect coach, Tom Jones… not the singer. He works at Brown, really talented guy. And we prayed. And we were just careful and like, you really listen. I wasn’t looking on the monitors, I just stood next to camera and just stared and just, you know when someone’s bull-shitting, and when they’re not. And you just can tell when they’re getting it. Even if you don’t know the world, there’s just something, if you really pay attention.
The family dinners were really key, because it set a realistic tone. It looked like it was a real house, you know, not a movie house.
Real food too!
Real food?
Real food, like, real local cook, yeah.
How did it go in terms of “The Fighter.” Was that an inspiration? One of the trade reviews noted the similarity with the energy and the family dynamics.
Well, that’s a comparison I’d love to get. Yeah, David’s movie is one of my favorite boxing movies, it’s up there with, top three. I mean, “Raging Bull” is obviously a cut above everything, but I’d say “The Fighter” is top three boxing movies of all time. So yeah, most of the boxing movies that I watched, to be fair, were cautionary tales for me, less than they were influencers. I just wanted to make sure I didn’t get it wrong, I had enough faith in myself to know that when I did start rolling camera I’d start paving my own way, but there were things I didn’t want to do, and that’s when I started watching other boxing movies.
What are the other two top three boxing movies?
Um… “Rocky,” the first “Rocky.” You know Vinny saw Rocky when he was sixteen and decided he was going to be a fighter? There’s a scene that didn’t make the final cut, it was a great scene, but it was just, we were pressed on time, we had to be ruthless. But it’s Angelo and Kevin (Rooney) sitting in the hospital while Vinny’s getting the surgery. And this is something Angelo actually said to Kevin, at one point he just said, “You know Vinny went and saw ‘Rocky’ when he was sixteen, came home, rode his bike home, and said, ‘I’m going to be a fighter, I’m going to be a world-champ.’” And he went on to say, “How many kids you think came home from that movie and said that? How many kids do you think went on to win three world championships… five world championships?”
There’s a story that you told at Toronto Film Festival, about how hard it was to finance this movie…
Yeah, I’ll give you the short version, it’s a long story...
But basically we had a horrible day on set, and the scene that I wrote wasn’t working, I had to re-write it, there wasn’t time… my parents were there the one day out of twenty-four they came to visit set. And at lunch the producers came to me and said, I gave my whole salary up for this movie. Literally. I just, I gave it back to this movie because I wanted two extra shooting days. The Guild doesn’t want you to do that, the Director’s Guild, they won’t let you defer your salary, cause if they did, then you would just get it straight away, just get it right back. So what they make you do to discourage you is, if you want to put your salary in the movie, you have to get paid, pay taxes on that movie, and then invest that back in, just like any… So I did that, because I wanted these two days, cause I wanted to make, I had, the movie had to be good. And then halfway through on an already miserable day when my parents were there the producers came to me and said we gotta take one of those days away. And it was no fault of anyone’s, the tax incentives from Rhode Island didn’t come in the way we had thought, no one to point a finger at, but just, this is the reality. And so that was it, I was just like, defeated.
And I left, we left, I think we might’ve even wrapped early that day cause the scene wasn’t even working that we were shooting. And then I went to a restaurant and met my parents for dinner. I’d sent them home after we had got that news because it was too much. So they had gone home, and then we had got to dinner and they sat across the table from me and slid a check for one-hundred thousand dollars over so that I could get the day back. But my mom is a social worker, my step-dad is a math teacher, they are middle-class at highest, and it was from like from my mom’s 401k.
Did you cash it?
No, I started crying. I was done, that was the final, I couldn’t even help it. I was just openly weeping in a restaurant.
You mentioned how Vinny was inspired after watching “Rocky,” was there a movie that inspired you when you were young that inspired you to say I have to do this job?
No-one’s ever asked me this question, strangely, and I’ve been avoiding it for sixteen years, because I have to tell the truth. But it is Steven Segal’s “Above the Law.” It was his first movie, I was sixteen years old, I cut school, I was going to Yeshiva, like a Jewish seminary school, and I cut and I went and saw it, and it was the first time I realized that someone made movies, like that there were people behind it, some thought had gone into it. It was mostly that opening, they used – actually, that’s actually an amazing tie-in, I just realized this, to this movie, because there’s archival footage for the first thirty seconds. It’s footage of Segal as like a nineteen or twenty-year old studying martial arts in the far East, cut together with the narrative they were doing, it was about him being a CIA operative... the movie holds up, I see it probably once a year. It’s completely watchable.
We all have our guilty pleasures.
I wouldn’t even call this one.
(Laughter)
So that’s when you decided, that’s when you said, “I’m going to do this”?
Not that moment, but that was, that was the, it took a few more years. I mean, the background I come from, there’s not a huge emphasis on the arts and pursuing your dreams. More about learning a profession, keeping your head down, and, you know, not having what happened to my grandparents, if you know what I mean. So I didn’t quite get that far. But that really was, I’m just glad you asked because that’s kind of what I’ve secretly always wanted to say–
(Laughter)
There are a lot of other moving pieces in this movie apart from the boxing, with the family dynamics and relationships. What was the thing that you had to keep reminding yourself was the center of the movie?
He’s an unusual character, I don’t mean for the obvious reasons, I mean from like a, I don’t know how interested you are in like the minutia of screenwriting, but he doesn’t have an arc, Vinny. He’s all-in when you meet him, he’s all-in at the mid-point when he crashes, he’s all-in at the end. So, like, the reason that it works is because his desire is so strong. And I felt like that was the thing that I had to see, that was the thing that centered the movie in me and every scene with Miles. So like, even that shot of him, when he comes home from the Halo surgery, and he’s looking in the mirror at himself, and then he just like, you just barely see that he’s making a muscle… the guy’s, his spirit, it was and is indomitable, and like that’s, I think that was the center-line.
Having finished this two years ago, do you want to make another one or do you want to go back –
Costa Rica?
Or riding motor-bikes.
You do look back on it with, I mean look – it was a great experience, but the hardships? Yeah, you… the fact that I’m sitting at this table now makes it hard, it’s very difficult to remember how hard it was. Like I could tell the stories, but like the sense memory of it is gone, which is great, I mean human beings possess that, that’s how you like, move past like bear attacks and all the things we probably used to…
(Laughter)
So yeah, we acclimate quick. Cause yeah, like, I don’t really remember the, I know it was hard, but like, no, it’s all about, “Let’s just keep going, this is too fun.”
So you’re going to get back on track with the movie that you want to get made?
So, "Aisle of Man," it’s fully financed. We got thirty million, we’re going with Bold Films.
And what’s your time frame on that?
Well the TT itself, the race is the first two weeks of June, so the idea would be to shoot the race almost as like a documentary film. We already hired a professional Cameron Donald, he’s easily Google-able, and Honda is our partner, so they’re going to provide full-on superbikes. And then we’re going to shoot the race with him as the rider, and then afterwards, three months with the actor–
Who is...?
We’re not sure yet.
Somebody under twenty-five?
No no, he’s thirty-five. He’s a retired American racer who goes to the Aisle of Win as a spectator, sees what’s there, realizes he’s got something left in the tank, stays on for a year, and works on a farm, then competes the following year.
So it could be Miles even?
Could be.
'Bleed For This' is now playing in select cities. For our review, click here.
Aaron Eckhart Talks Physical Transformation in 'Bleed For This'
"Bleed For This" is now playing in select cities. For our review, click here.
Aaron Eckhart walks into the Beverly Hills Four Seasons Hotel looking about as athletic and toned as a middle-weight boxer – you'd think it was he who had to get in fighting shape for "Bleed For This," the new boxing biopic about Vinny Pazienza, the boxer who trained his way back from devastating spinal surgery to defend his World Champion title.
But here, Eckhart plays Kevin Rooney, Vinny's trainer who was suffering from drinking and gambling, which Eckhart had to gain forty pounds to embody. Even at this stage of his career, he proves he's full of surprises. Which is why when he walks in holding a tiny white dog and says he's going to do the full interview as the canine (he doesn't), it should also come as no surprise.
In our round table interview, Eckhart talks about the difficulty of gaining weight, working with Clint Eastwood in "Sully," and what's next – directing.
“Bleed For This” is such a contrast from your last movie, “Sully,” because we could recognize you in “Sully.” In this movie, people will watch for fifteen, thirty minutes before they realize it’s you.
Well, I mean, if you go and look at [boxing trainer] Kevin Rooney… at this time, he had just been fired by [Mike] Tyson- and he was once a good fighter himself- and he sort of lost himself. Gained weight, psychologically he was damaged, felt betrayed, started drinking and gambling, let himself go, and that’s where we first meet him. So, I tried to look like him – I gained forty pounds, I shaved my head and tried to tackle that accent.
Were there any facial prosthetics you used?
I stuffed some stuff up my nose. We had plastic tubes that we had in our noses all the time that would just give you a little bump right here.
(points to nose)
Which helped.
When did you start gaining weight? This movie was shot two years ago.
Yeah. I circled a date on the calendar about two and a half months, three months before, and said, “OK, this is the day I’m going to stop roping, biking, lifting, and all that sort of stuff, and I’m going to start eating pepperoni pizzas."
(Laughter)
And that day came way too soon! You know, most people think it’s a dream. But you know, to just stop working out has a psychological and metaphysical, or metabolic effect on you. I obviously got bigger jeans, and I never buttoned the top button, and I would walk around the mall… you know, we were in Rhode Island, and my hotel, or apartment, was connected to a mall, and I would just walk around with my pants unbuttoned, my belt, a big shirt, and I would just walk around going–
(imitating Kevin Rooney)
“No, Vinny Pazienza, pound for pound’s the best fighter in the world.”
(Laughter)
And I would just walk around this mall all day long until I had to go to the set or whatever... it was that kind of a thing. But you know, everybody in this movie, from Ted Levine, to Ciarán Hinds, to Miles [Teller]... obviously, Katey [Sagal]… you couldn’t look anywhere and not see people’s passion for this movie. You could see it in Ben [Younger, the director]. Everybody was on fire. We had very little time to do it.
"I gained forty pounds, I shaved my head, and tried to tackle that accent."
Twenty-four days – to do a boxing movie!
Yeah. But in retrospect, it didn’t seem... maybe to Ben it seemed rushed. To us... to me, anyways, I felt like – you know, in independent film you’re not getting all the coverage. That’s fine by me, doing everything in two shots and master shots. That means you get to communicate, everybody’s working at the same time.
That’s better for an actor because now your response is going to be in the movie! It’s not like I have to now go cover you, so we can overlap each other... we can be more natural. I think it’s better for a movie. And that’s why, I think oddly enough, independent film is a better experience overall for audiences in terms of cinema verité, or reality.
But “Sully” was so great. And that was a Warner Brothers movie?
“Sully” was a lot of the same way. Clint–
Doesn’t overthink things.
Yeah, oh my gosh, Clint does not. In fact, I remember the first day we were there on the Harbor, on the Hudson. We had all of the first responders, it was the actual drivers of the boats, the captains that were actually there on the day, and they said, “OK, we’re ready to roll.” There are hundreds of people around, and nobody had told us one word about what we were doing. And I said to Tom [Hanks], “Tom... we’re ready to roll...” and Tom’s like, “…OK.”
(Laughter)
So Tom said, “I’m going to go down here,” I said, “OK, I’m going to follow you there,” you know, as actors will do, because you know, survival at that point. And, boom – we worked it out. Clint never said a word to us, and –
And that was the only take you did?
We did it a few times. I think it’s Clint’s reputation that he doesn’t do takes… I will tell you a story…
We’re in the hotel room and it was just me, so Tom wasn’t in the picture. And so, I did the take on the bed once, and I was where you are, and Clint was back here with the camera, so he’s pretty far away from me... and so it’s just a whole shot of the room. And I did [the take], and Clint goes, “OK, that’s enough of that crap."
(Laugher)
And literally was like, "OK, let’s move on." And the DP’s like, “Clint... Boss… let’s just move it a little closer, change the lens, and we’ll just do it one more time.” I didn’t say anything, I was perfectly happy with that. And so Clint’s like, “Yeah, yeah, let’s do that.” So we did it a few more times. But that certainly does happen!
But you know, it doesn’t exhaust your actors, which is great. And there were times where I asked Clint, I’d say, “Hey, can I do it again?”
"[In 'Sully,'] Clint was back here with the camera, pretty far away from me... and so it’s just a whole shot of the room. And I did [the take], and Clint goes, 'OK, that’s enough of that crap.'"
And he would do it?
Yeah, but he’d let you know too, that he trusted you. I remember in rehearsal one time, we were around the table, the first time we meet the NTSB [National Transportation Safety Board], and we went through it in rehearsal – which Clint didn’t really like to do too much – and Clint just kind of looked at us and said, “Well, that’s why I hire great actors.” And then just shot the scene. Which tells you that you’re doing a good job. He’s happy you’re there, and so we don’t ask too many questions.
I remember the first day we were shooting, the first day I was on set – I’m climbing up the ladder, and then the camera’s here, and I walk up past the camera there. And, for some reason, I had a question. You know, like, "What are we doing?" And Clint was here, and so I get up and start walking toward Clint – Clint just turned around and walked away. And I said right there, I said, "OK, that’s how Clint works."
(Laughter)
You and Miles had done “Rabbit Hole” together, but you didn’t have too many scenes together. What was it like building the chemistry for this movie?
It was good to know Miles a little bit. Any time that you’re on a movie, and you have a previous experience with somebody, it just makes everything so much easier going into it, because you can relax a little bit. And Miles and I have the same agent as well, it was good.
As a supporting actor, your job is to define your star, the protagonist of the piece – you’re there to move around him. If you look at Tom, if you look at Miles, whoever it is. You suss them out with the tone, how they’re going to lead their pitch, what they’re going to do, and then you find your way around them. It’s all about defining your hero.
And so, very early on, Miles would be in the gym with his trainer, choreographing fights and going through doing the mitts and that, and I would come and I would just sit there. And then all of a sudden, I’d just pick up the water bottle, and I'd start watering Miles. Then I’d start toweling him off. Then I would start telling him what to do. Meanwhile, his trainer’s looking at me going, “Uhhh…”
(Laughter)
But as an actor, I create my job right off the bat. So, nobody gives Miles water but me. Nobody towels Miles off but me. Nobody massages Miles but me. Nobody does anything psychologically, but me. That way when we’re in the movie, it’s just so natural that he expects me to give him water, and when I come to him he opens his mouth. It’s not like, “OK, I’m going to come to you and then you’re going to open your mouth,” – that’s too late. We’ve ruined the reality.
So, that’s my job. And plus, the trainer-fighter relationship is sacred. There’s so much trust. It’s so dangerous, it’s so vulnerable, that you have to have total trust there. And the stakes are at the highest level, so that’s another thing we have to create. I have to make Miles look at me like I have the keys to the kingdom. Like the holy grail is right in here.
Did meeting Rooney help you get into that mentality?
I never met him.
Has he passed?
No, he’s in the hospital with dementia. And I never got to meet him. I met his son. My preparation for this film was with Freddy Roach at Wild Card boxing gym. [He] let me be a fly on the wall during the Pacquiao-Bradley fight. So the months before they were in camp, I would come every day, and I would just sit on the wall and watch Freddy train Manny. How he did the mitts with him, how he talked to him, how he watered him, how he dealt with him when he came to the gym, how he did, everything.
Then I went to the fight, and I was there behind the scenes, so I was in Manny’s hotel room. I was in the locker room before and after watching how Freddy manipulated the other team, how he manipulated the ref – and it’s a huge, huge deal. Freddy would tell me things, subtle things, that he would do to psyche out the other fighter. Even if he was just passing him in the hall. And he said every little thing counts. Which was great for me, because I could then incorporate that into the film.
"I have to make Miles look at me like I have the keys to the kingdom. Like the holy grail is right in here."
And while you were doing that, that’s when you were doing your pepperoni pizza dinners?
Well no, I wasn’t. In fact, I was this weight or lighter than I am now. And, look – Kevin Rooney’s a big deal in the boxing world. He trained Tyson, he was with Cus (D'Amato), he was with Vinny. So people know him. So when I went to Freddy at first, he had absolutely no belief in me whatsoever, because here I am, looking like I look with this California accent, and I didn’t have much belief in myself either at that point.
And when I went to Vegas. I met all the promoters, from (Larry) Merchant to the old promoters, and I said, “I’m playing Kevin Rooney.” And they go, “Well I know Kevin, and you look and sound nothing like him.” But I knew in the back of the mind what I was gonna do for this part.
What do you think of the Oscar buzz surrounding your performance?
(Pause) I don’t know anything about it.
Really?
No... I don’t know anything about what you’re talking about.
(Laugher).
I think that there are good performances in this movie, and so, we’ll leave it at that. I mean, I was happy to do the part.
What’s next?
I’m going to direct a movie. That’s what I’m going to do. I feel like I’ve worked with such great directors and writers and actors, I really want to go see if I can go tell a story from beginning to end, and get outside of myself. I really want to work with great actors and push them like Ben pushed us, and that’s the most exciting thing, is to work with actors. I’m gonna give that one a shot.
"Bleed For This" is now playing in select cities.
Miles Teller on Appreciating the Nuances of Boxing in 'Bleed For This'
'Bleed for This' is now playing in theaters everywhere. For our review, click here.
It's early on a Saturday morning – if you want to call nine thirty early in the morning – when Miles Teller, with leather jacket cool, walks into the Beverly Hills Four Seasons hotel room for our roundtable interview.
Looking ever the Movie Star part, one wonders how the twenty-nine year old actor might have spent his Friday night just the night before: whether working, traveling, promoting, or partying (or all of the above), he's all focus this morning as he discusses his latest movie "Bleed For This," the Vinny Pazienza biopic in which he stars as the boxer who trained his way back into the ring after suffering a spinal injury that nearly paralyzed him.
In our interview, Teller discusses the grueling process of getting into boxing shape, wearing the Halo head device ("highly uncomfortable"), and embracing the unknown future ("This is like, the first time in probably four or five years where I don’t know the next thing I’m doing and that I think for me right now that’s probably a good thing.")
Growing up in South Jersey, did that help at all with the Rhode Island accent that you have for the movie? It’s near, but far away…
The Jersey accent is different. Like, it’s just impossible to sound… intelligent, honestly.
(Laugher)
Especially with South Jersey. But I was thinking about that. I do think... I mean, I moved to Florida when I was twelve, I moved to a really small kind of country town. The North-East has a very specific kind of energy, and even though Rhode Island is totally different from New Jersey, I’ve just been around those guys. Yeah, so I think it probably added something to the relation that I found to Vinny.
What was the most difficult thing that Vinny had as a person for you to “get” for the movie?
I mean, the physicality was very tough, to have the conditioning to be able to shoot a boxing fight for… that last fight, it was the only day we went overtime, and that was like a sixteen hour day. The last two fights, back to back days, each fight took one day, which is almost unheard of. We shot the movie in twenty-four days.
But to even just look like a boxer, that was eight months. I had to shoot two movies in between... but that was eight months of just very strict diet and working out, and I lost twenty pounds, then got down to six percent body fat, for the first fight.
But Vinny also moved up in weight, you know, one title in light-weight and junior-middle, and we showed that. That’s also something very unique and special to Vinny’s legacy – he and Roberto Duran were the only two guys to win titles in those two weight classes specifically. So, I started at one-sixty-eight, then had to gain fifteen pounds to get to one-eighty-three, in like, two and a half weeks. But that was fun – once I had to gain weight, that was fun.
(Laughter)
"I had to shoot two movies in between... but that was eight months of just very strict diet and working out, and I lost twenty pounds, then got down to six percent body fat..."
Ice cream and pizza?
It was a lot. It was just like, Dunkin’ Donuts, and Federal Hill – I don’t know if you guys have been to Providence, but Federal Hill has like, amazing Italian food. So, I could find ways.
But you were still in the gym at the same time, though. Even though you’re eating a lot you still have to be boxing…
Oh yeah. I was cast two and a half years ago, we filmed it two years ago, so this was pre-“Whiplash”… I had never done anything where I got to play a man, like, a world-champion boxer. Even when I was on set, if I had any time in between I was always doing something, push-ups or sit-ups, cause I didn’t walk into this movie with like this god-given talent of being in shape – even though that’s not really a talent, you just have to work out. I think I went “anti” that early on in my career, cause I was just like, “I don’t want to be that guy with a six-pack, and a tan…”
(Laughter)
Did doing this project help you appreciate the nuances of boxing–
Yeah.
Or is that something you already had being a sports fan?
I was a big MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) fan, and I still am. I started watching it in high school when it was the WEC (World Endurance Championship). I was sixteen years old. And then boxing, I always played the video games, you know. Certain guys like Tyson and Holyfield and Lennox Lewis, the heavyweights back then who were kind of the big draws.
But absolutely – once you start training in it, yeah. They say it’s a sweet science, and you realize it’s highly nuanced. I don’t see it as just two guys, barbaric, bloodsport… no. I see it as technique.
"I don’t see it as just two guys, barbaric, bloodsport… no. I see it as technique."
The mind is very important to be a champion boxer. Strategy…
Yeah, for sure. That’s what they say, it’s like – you have a game plan, until you get hit in the face–
(Laughter)
And then it all goes away. I think I only had five weeks in LA with my boxing trainer, and he was Sugar Ray Leonard’s trainer for eighteen years, and just a high-level guy. The first fight in the movie against Roger Mayweather, I had five days to work with that boxer, the second boxer we had like a day and a half, and the third boxer, Edwin Rodríguez, he was a top-ten guy, and he actually got in a fight – professionally – that he wasn't supposed to. He told Ben (Younger, the director) he wasn’t gonna fight, got in a fight, luckily knocked the dude out, didn’t get messed up, flew down, and I think I had like, honestly maybe a day with him. And so, a lot of the movie is not choreographed.
The first fight is choreographed. Up against the ropes, I come out, they can bring the camera back. The other times the camera kind of has to come in… we didn’t know what we were going to get, so there were a lot of moments of free boxing. And to do free boxing, so much of it is mindset, and that was what Darrell (Foster) really taught me.
On top of the physical transformation of getting into shape, you also had to wear the Halo brace that keeps your head and spine immobile. What’s the difference between reading that in the script, and then actually putting that on and shooting with it?
Yeah so, the beginning physical transformation, it was eight months of just all that stuff that you hear – you can’t eat any bread or drink for that time, and you’re just eating like a rabbit – and you know, hoping that it all pays off. (Vinny) dedicated everything and his life to this, so it would’ve been very immature of me to like, slack off and mess with that.
As far as the halo goes, that was highly uncomfortable. Again, you don’t like to complain because Vinny, you know, it was screwed in his head. But for me, it wasn’t actually screwed in my head…
(Laughter)
So we really had to make it as tight as possible, cause if the thing moves at all, then it doesn’t matter what you just did in that take – and you only get so many takes – it’s not usable. Because as soon as that thing moves, people understand it’s not real, and it sucks. But yeah, if this was like a big budget studio film I would’ve had like, a ton of fittings with it. Like, I just did a firefighting movie (“Granite Mountain") – I had more fittings for my boots then I did for this thing.
(Laughter)
Like, a girl just went to a hospital in Providence and got (a halo brace) from them. And then we put little rubber pieces on the end and just put it so far in my head that I used to be able to... I could tell when it was in the right spot because I just had like, indentations in my head.
"As far as the halo goes, that was highly uncomfortable. Again, you don’t like to complain because Vinny, you know, it was screwed in his head..."
Did you get headaches from it?
No… I didn’t really get any headaches. I guess I was pretty durable.
Vinny himself – was he around?
He was on set a little bit. I think he was a really good resource for Aaron [Eckhart] and Ben. For me, certain things I absolutely wanted to talk to Vinny about. Other things, you know, he’s a little older now, making a movie about his life, I had a lot of material to build my character of Vinny, twenty-five years ago, so that was important.
But the time that I absolutely needed Vinny to be on set was when I try and bench press for the first time (wearing the halo brace). Because I just didn’t know how to get underneath the bench, honestly, with this thing on, and so I had to ask him like, “How did you do that?” And he was like [impersonating Vinny] “Well, you know, I get down here, and then I kind of shimmy down there, and then I start pumping 'em out bro.”
(Laughter)
How was working with the director, Ben? Did he give you freedom on set?
He did. I think that a lot of directors feel like they have to mess with it all the time, cause there’s other people on set and they want, maybe all the credit for it, or they need to feel validated. But what I would say about Ben is he's confident enough to just sit back, and when he feels like it’s working, he doesn’t have to mess with it. And then when Ben would come in and give a note, it was very succinct. And Ben wrote the script. , In my experience of working with a writer/director, they’re usually the best resource that you have in terms of character and material.
Boxing is obviously, one of the most featured sports in movies.
Yeah.
When you go into such a project, do you think to yourself, what stands out about this?
MT: I mean, my job on this was just to, you know, play Vinny. I know the producers and the director obviously had the ghosts of all the boxing movies present when they were working on this one and trying to make it different. But also, I finished this movie before Mike (Michael B. Jordan) shot “Creed.” I remember that because we were just doing “Fantastic Four” reshoots, and his got pushed back, and we didn’t know “Hands of Stone,” and “Southpaw,” and “Creed,” we didn’t know all those, like I said we shot this two years ago so you know, at the time you don’t really know. It is interesting, everybody kind of gets the same idea at the same time. But for me personally, yeah, I was very excited to play a boxer. I didn’t know I would get that opportunity at that point, at twenty-seven or whatever it was. But yeah, for sure, I wanted to play a boxer, I wanted to play a soldier. I like blue-collar guys, those are guys I can relate to. I was very nervous about it but at the same time it’s, you get to play the boxer on screen, a guy like Vinny who’s always just covered in blood, broke his nose every fight, and was just the biggest warrior and had more heart I think than anybody – you have to risk paralysis because you love this thing so much. That faith is going to be tested, how much you love the sport truly is going to be tested when you’re risking literally never being able to walk again.
Did he watch it, did you get his reaction?
He watched it with Ben the first time, and he – Ben will give you a better response but yeah, he was crying, and not at the parts that you would think. Like, he was crying like at the dinner scenes, around the table, cause his parents aren’t around. But yeah, it was very touching for Vinny, and I got to talk to him about it, and that means everything.
When you play a real life guy, like the firefighter – the only survivor in this terrible fire in the movie that you just did with Jeff Bridges. When you do something like that, is it a whole different thing because he’s not really well known the way playing real life Vinny is?
It’s different in terms of that, there’s nothing less important about the prep and the process for me. There was a little added, not pressure, but expectations, because I knew that afterwards… you know, I’ve seen biopics and stuff, and you know that at the end of the movie they’re going to play archival footage, or people are going to be able to look it up. And yeah, you’re damn right, you kind of want to have the voice down and you want people to see how close you can get.
There are similarities between your character in “Whiplash” and Vinny here, are you drawn to these determined characters with that risk of self-destruction with their determination?
Yeah, I mean, I think it’s nice to, if you can explore that on a movie set, it’s a lot easier than I think going through that in real life, but there’s going to be certain parallels there. Yeah, I don’t know. I think Vinny’s story is really inspiring, truly. I mean, when someone’s telling you it’s impossible, it’s never been done, and just to have that sense of self to say well I’m going to be the first one to do it – yeah, I do like that, and I think obsession and passion and focus and drive, yeah those are, if I had the physicality to be a baseball player, like, I would’ve. That was something that I would’ve given everything to. I’ve been lucky to be put in a nice position, as far as acting goes where I’m able to get some good scripts and yeah, I’m more than willing to give everything to them and I think they’re just cool stories. I like intense stuff. Like, when I was in college, I wasn’t doing scenes of me sitting at a coffee table talking to the girl and flirting. I was like, “No, let’s do the scene where it’s like, shit is just happening and flying and everyone’s just into it.”
So what’s on your blue-collar bucket list?
Um… I want to do a baseball movie, but it can be anything. Honestly, it could be the guy who, he’s a garbage man, or he’s a construction worker, anything. Vinny obviously is a bit of a historical figure, but I’m just inspired by like, everyday people – the guy who’s working three jobs to pay for his kids, to do any of that stuff, that’s inspiring. Some of my closest friends are construction workers and military guys.
What’s next?
Next, I’m taking some time off. I did two movies this year, and I’m going to do an animated film, and this is like, the first time in probably four or five years where I don’t know the next thing I’m doing and that I think for me right now that’s probably a good thing.
Is that scary?
What?
Not knowing?
No, I don’t feel like I’m done working.
(Laughter).
In 'Bleed For This,' Teller and Eckhart Go the Full Twelve Rounds
There's a fire that burns in "Bleed For This," the latest boxing-story-to-screen movie about boxer Vinny Pazienza, who suffered what should've been not only a career-ending but life-ending car accident and his insane decision to once again enter the ring. His perseverance and commitment to the sport he loved so much is the fuel that not only made him dig so deep, but which clearly also inspired the creative talents in this movie to give their very best, as Miles Teller, Aaron Eckhart, and director Ben Younger are all heart in this inspirational sports drama that's a little bit more.
Rhode Island-proud Pazienza (Teller) is clearly the showboat type, as fast on his feet as he is with his mouth. After a few early successes, he decides to go for the Belt, enlisting the help of trainer Kevin Rooney (Eckhart) and becoming world champ. As he continues to train for the next competition, Pazienza is struck by his biggest blow yet–a head-on collision that puts him in critical condition. When he stabilizes, he is given the options of either fusing his spine, the safest measure to ensure walking, or having Halo surgery – literally screwing a cage around his head that would attach to his shoulders, which would allow his spine to fix naturally. Despite the doctor's concerns and simply human reason, Vinny is convinced that the second option gives him a better chance of returning to the only thing that makes him happy: boxing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ6ny-fROX8
This underdog against-all-odds training story could have been enough to focus on, but director Ben Younger extends the scope of "Bleed For This" even further to show more of Vinny's world. The film lives congruent to the world that David O. Russell built with "The Fighter," similarly giving multiple people close to the boxing champ their onscreen moments to craft more of a familial drama rather than a personal one. Younger opens up the story to include the relationships between his father Angelo (Ciarán Hinds) and mother Louise (Katey Sagal), but the strongest connection comes from Rooney (Eckhart). Eckhart transforms into a character we've never seen, literally, adding weight and a prosthetic nose makes him nearly unrecognizable. Whereas this connection between boxer and trainer should be perhaps the most intimate in a film like this, other relationships (like the ones with his parents) seem to crowd this space, which, although are fantastic performances, lessen the effect of Vinny's personal struggle.
"Bleed For This" has a ferocious dedication to these relationships and the actual true-life events, making this movie one to spar with. Younger's desire to make this more than just a boxing movie and to extract these character relationships gives the film a bit more to play with. Although, like the success of the seminal "Rocky," one has to wonder what this movie could have been if this was developed as a "Miles Teller vehicle," perhaps focusing a little more on the grittiness of Vinny's rehabilitation and his head-on fight with mortality (coincidentally, Teller has both a personal history of car accident injuries, which also showed up in a previous film, "Whiplash"). However, "Bleed For This" makes its case for being a movie that goes a full twelve rounds in dedication and heart.
116 min. "Bleed For This" is rated R for language, sexuality/nudity, and some accident images. In theaters this Friday.
Slow-burning 'Dark Night' is a Chilling Meditation on Mass Shootings in American Culture
This film was reviewed as first seen at this year’s AFI Fest presented by Audi.
Unfortunately, we all know the aftermath of first hearing about a mass shooting. In fact, most Americans would say they've come to know it too well. That pang of learning the horrors from the news, social media, or overhearing it in public is followed by the same footage of squad car lights and crying faces. What follows is the natural outpouring of grief and sadness that stays in the news and political discourse, before unfortunately, all but disappearing from the national conversation. Until the next incident occurs.
But what happens before the tragedy ensues? What happens on that very same day? Can we better understand the senseless act if we first see the fabric of the culture beforehand, captured in naive living, before the event? Writer and director Tim Sutton's third film attempts to show exactly that. "Dark Night," chronicling one full day of a mass-shooting from sunrise to sunset, is a meditative experience, creating an impressionistic account of what would be the day's events before such a tragedy.
Loosely based on the Aurora theater shooting of 2012 (the film's title refers in part to the movie that was playing during the event, Christopher Nolan's Batman sequel, "The Dark Knight"), "Dark Night" follows six young Americans, capturing moments from each of their lives before weaving their stories together in the film's climactic end. Taking place in the suburbs of Florida, we see a young skateboarder, a fitness obsessive, two teenage Latina friends, and a father with his toddler son.
We also see some of the other types of people to varying uncertainty: a young punk who dyes his hair orange (the same color the Aurora shooter's) and a young male undoubtedly on the spectrum of sociopathic and who delivers nearly all of the film's dialogue in a constructed interview-type setting. And finally, we follow the shooter himself, icy blue eyes seeing only the worst in things. All of these characters together form the whole picture of frustrated and isolated youth life.
It should be said now: For viewers that are hesitant to take to this film, you should know that there is no massacre to witness here. It's pretty much the exact opposite of gruesome exploitation, telling the tale in chilling silence and observation. Sutton and his cinematographer Hélene Louvart ("Pina"), capture the suburban life in a ghost town way. Video games, Google Earth, and cell phones tell the story of the characters' relationship to their environment, their reality.
Silent, slow-burning films like "Dark Night" highlight the emptiness and negative space of the story, which allows viewers to be sucked into it. Perhaps the closest connection to this meditative style is Gus Van Sant's "Elephant," which soberly captured the day of the Columbine shooting.
"Dark Night" is 85 minutes.
'The Comedian' Review: This Comedy Fails to Land Its Punchlines
This film was reviewed as first seen at this year's AFI Fest presented by Audi.
The character of the insult comic is one ripe for investigation: what life events drive someone to pursue a career in stand-up comedy – and more fascinating still – what drives someone to pursue the professional career of an insult comic? Unfortunately, "The Comedian," the story of an aging insult comic who struggles – or more aptly, shmoozes – his way through his later years for celebrity relevancy, doesn't attempt to answer these questions. In fact, much like his more recent outings including "The Intern" and "Bad Grandpa," Robert De Niro's latest ends up being nothing more than another vehicle for the legendary screen actor to win hearts by cashing in on the light laugh of an old man living in a young world.
If there's any place that stand-up comedy would need to be told, it's New York City, which "The Comedian" sets itself in and employs like another character in the film, splashy jazz music romanticizing the city at every corner. It's where quick-witted insult king Jackie (DeNiro) lives and works, a creature born from the city that never sleeps. Well, not exactly the city, since his pedigree has taken a hit. Jackie's at a point where he takes the subway on a snowy night to get to a crappy stand-up gig, and frustrated as he may be, as long as he's making his insults, he takes it all in stride. And while his shocking brand of sarcasm doesn't phase his manager Miller (Edie Falco), it's always the case for his audience who expect the sitcom stylings of his infamous Archie Bunker-like character Eddie from "Eddie's Home" from years before. It's at one such crappy comedy club that, as Jackie is riling the crowd, an audience member baits him and leads a firey Jackie into a scuffle, which is also captured on someone's phone. While Jackie is booked and serves time in the clink, his video goes viral, so when he gets out of the clink, he's ready to start looking for more gigs.
Where an inciting first act incident like a stint in the clink could propel a story and character to re-examine a rock-bottom life, "The Comedian" only sets up this jail time to have a newly-released Jackie ask for money from his brother (Danny Devito) and do community service, which leads him to meet and connect with Harmony (Leslie Mann), a woman also stalled out at this stage in her life and much to the chagrin of her over-protective father Mac (Harvey Keitel). There's an easy breezy banter that defines their affections and connection, and Leslie Mann plays nice, as if she's all too familiar with knowing how to stroke the ego of a comedic partner (she's married to Judd Apatow in real life).
Within the formulaic beats of the pair's innocent-enough courting are middling low-stake career pit-stops that Jackie takes to re-spark his career, including unsuccessfully pitching a scripted series to a millennial-aged cable channel, bombing a dais-spot for Friar's Club awardee May Conner (Cloris Leachman) (which ends in a morbid state), and another unsuccessful reality show hosting gig. Except since the film never establishes Jackie as ever having been at any sort of real low point, it's impossible to know what the motivation is for why he's trying to achieve any of this at all. Where exactly is Jackie at this point in his life, and where is he trying to go? You'll have to be satisfied with the scattered, dirty jokes here, because in "The Comedian," all we need to know is that Jackie is just one of those politically-incorrect people from a time bygone who should be loved despite himself.
The best version of "The Comedian," would have been a character piece that shows a person past the prime of his life and trying to get that back without looking foolish or imploding first – like "The Wrestler," if Mickey Rourke's biggest dream was to play New York's famous The Comedy Cellar (who knows if a more in-depth examining was ever developed, as this has been De Niro's passion project for years). Director Taylor Hackford should have tapped into the inner grief of artistically-tortured artists that made his Academy Award-winning "Ray" so compelling and time-standing. Unfortunately, Hackford doesn't understand or tap into what could have been a stirring and worthwhile examination of the tragic life of the insult comic, leaving "The Comedian" to ask for laughs with material that bombs.
"The Comedian" is 119 minutes.
'Come and Find Me' Review: Aaron Paul Keeps This Mystery Crackling With Intrigue
Now playing in select cities nationwide, Come and Find Me, is a new thriller about the disappearance of a young woman and the search her boyfriend makes to track her down. Starring Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad), Come and Find Me is a playfully pulpy mystery in the same vein as Gone Girl where the deeper the search goes, the more questions arise that point to the missing person not being exactly who she says she is. Although Come and Find Me is a much more harebrained cat and mouse chase that loops in Russian gangsters and secret agents, it's still tightly-wound and intriguing.
Come and Find Me launches into action when Los Angeles-residing David (Aaron Paul) wakes in his house one morning and finds the other side of the bed – the side his free-spirited girlfriend who calls herself Claire (Annabelle Wallis) sleeps in – empty. A worried David doesn't find her at the dry cleaners where she works or the dark room she develops her pictures in, transforming him from normal graphic designer to a Philip Marlowe (which the movie lazily jokes at) entering a world of danger full of Russian mobs, a corrupt venture capitalist cult-leader (whose story is little more than merely introduced and conveniently dealt away with, and happens to lead him to the tax-incentivizing location of Canada). A final torture scene and guns-a-blazing showdown leave things in a totally different world than where we first started, and it's part of this fun that Come and Find Me has.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKDSGy_FsBI
Aaron Paul grounds Come and Find Me, which, for all of the whirling and tangential storylines, could have felt entirely ridiculous instead of just passably ridiculous, which is what the movie manages. The wide-ranging Paul plays all things that the movie requires of him at any moment, bringing cool-guy charm when first meeting Claire and in the fragments of their relationship, worry and anxiety that made his turn as Jesse in Breaking Bad an essential part of the classic series, and leading action-hero bravado when his heroics are required. Newcomer Annabelle Wallis brings a self-assured and strong performance to Claire, being at both times the uncertain and fun girl as well as a dangerous question mark, making her relationship with Paul's David one where power and footing is traded at all times. At the heart of it, the two have sizzling chemistry, perhaps serving as the flick's most substantial and steady element that makes the whole charade work.
Written and directed by Zack Whedon (younger brother of director Joss of The Avengers fame), the reason you may want to take on Come and Find Me is that, while it feels like camp, it still feels serious and worth following along for. It doesn’t hold up in terms of being entirely plausible per se, not caring to develop the story in full that actually answers any questions at to why Claire has disappeared and who she really is, and centers its whole drama around a generic roll of film that everyone wants to get their hands on– as it may expose a character– but none we have any firsthand relationship with. But despite all this, Come and Find Me manages to crackle with intrigue which makes this a fun-enough sleuth story.
112 minutes. "Come and Find Me" is rated R for language and some violence. Opens at the Laemmle Monica Film Center, Santa Monica and on VOD this Friday.
'Arrival' Review: This Year's Smartest Sci-Fi Flick
With such searingly-laced dramas as 2013's Prisoners and in last year's more-blistering still cartel-drama Sicario, director Denis Villeneuve once again proves he is second to none in being able to craft an affecting human drama set in a consumingly dangerous world – and proves it here on his largest scale to date.
Inevitably, alien invasion movies must ask themselves – and their audience – the same critical question: What are they doing here? And yet, before this question can even be poised to alien life forms, the small hurdle of needing to teach word-based human language to an alien species of entirely symbol-based communication for which to even understand what a "question" is, must be developed. Good thing the world would have time for such a laborious undertaking and wouldn't likely be on the brink of planet-wide war.
This is the premise of Arrival, a multi-layered sci-fi movie that hinges its dramatics on a linguist's attempt to find a way to communicate with aliens amidst a ticking-time-bomb that is a Cold War standoff between international nations and extraterrestrials. Add to this a circular, non-linear time-space narrative that marries the unlocking of alien language to alternate realities, and Arrival stands as the smartest sci-fi offering of the year.
When twelve unidentified flying objects land – or more so, ominously hover – over the world, linguistics professor Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams) is called upon by Colonel Weber (Forest Whitaker) to aid the US military in figuring out how to communicate with Earth's newest visitors and uprooted from her rudimentary undergraduate teaching career. Seen to not be leaving any family behind, Louise gets choppered to the Montana landing site, where she meets another civilian-turned-top-security-cleared-specialist in physicist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner). Yet as quickly as she is absorbed into this new world and its high-stakes stresses, so too do lapses of grief flare up, tied to memories of both her lost child and failed marriage, which the movie opens with in somber flashback, seeing the fleeting glimpses of a child's birth, through childhood, through ultimately being taken by disease at her side – leaving a now alone Louise to shuffle blindly into a new reality before cutting to present-day invasion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFMo3UJ4B4g
Downloaded on their missions, Louise and Ian are shuttled up into the alien pod's entry doors when they open every eighteen hours, floating through the gravity-less pod to get to the chamber to communicate with the life forms inside. After a few unsuccessful trials, initial anxieties and fears subside and Louise is drawn closer to the aliens, eventually stripping away her oxygen suit to convey who her "self" is, leading to more breakthroughs in communication. Yet the closer she comes into proximity and contact with the aliens, more vivid do the fragmented memories of her daughter become, bringing Ian closer to support Louise and her lengthy teaching process which, let's not forget, runs counter to the timelines of both Colonel Weber and the world. Without giving much else away, Louise and Ian's relationship develops into what leads to the movie's largest idea of non-linear realities.
With such searingly-laced dramas as 2013's Prisoners and in last year's more-blistering still cartel-drama Sicario, director Denis Villeneuve once again proves he is second to none in being able to craft an affecting human drama set in a consumingly dangerous world – and proves it here on his largest scale to date. In Arrival, Villeneuve deafens the galactic-absurdity of alien life (yet still taps into fantastic imagery of the design of the aliens and their symbol based communication system) to ultimately show the resounding human drama underneath. Whether it be the intimate devastation of a mother who must manage the memory of a deceased child on one end to the conflict of worldwide human civilization needing to work together amidst a fractured modern landscape of language and politics before world war ensues, Villeneuve handles an entire range of drama to polished success.
Arrival, like Villeneuve's filmography, is pristinely photographed and operates in chillingly measured pace, and it's great fun to see the director maintain his human-drama talents while dipping his toes into the world of sci-fi – which, in its final act, ups the entire ante by unveiling the full stakes of the quantum time-leaping canvas: that unlocking the alien's language may lead to the discovery of alternate timelines that only Louise may be capable of unlocking to save humanity. If at that point, this reality-bending closer feels a bit rushed in having to wrap up all of the movie's loose ends, and where MacGuffins start to come sailing in like meteor showers, Arrival is still an expertly crafted film that lifts the sci-fi genre to even greater, more thoroughly constructed heights.
116 minutes. "Arrival" is rated PG-13 for brief strong language. In theaters this Friday.