Movie Review: "double Header" Special

THE YANKLES

There may be no crying in baseball but there certainly is praying - a lot of it - especially when it comes to THE YANKLES. The greatest American past-time, baseball has seen more than its share of movies made about it. From documentaries to biopics to underdogs to dreamers and even women, baseball movies have covered all the bases. Or have they? Obviously not because brothers David and Zev Brooks come out swinging, putting a twist on the familiar with an original, funny and thoroughly enjoyable new take on the game with THE YANKLES.

How can one not stop and chuckle on seeing a group of Yeshiva students wearing their requisite black and white suits, baseball gloves in hand, cleats on their feet, Tzizits dangling from their waists and curling Payots falling from their helmets angelically framing their faces? Talk about an attention getter! All it takes is one look to not only get the gist of the film, but laugh out loud. And that’s exactly what the Brooks Brothers give us - a baseball team put together with divine intervention by the big man upstairs (and I don’t mean George Steinbrenner).

Led by Rabbi Meyer, a man with no knowledge of baseball whatsoever, he coaches the group of equally unskilled misfits with a Baseball for Dummies/How to Play Baseball manual tucked under his arm. A rather rotund man with a cheery upbeat disposition, it’s a comedic sight to see the Rabbi feverishly flip pages while frantically gesturing to his players with stilted frenetic movements and sweat dripping from his brow. But let’s face it, with only one player on the team with any honed skills or knowledge of the game, it’s gonna take more than prayer to get this team going. Thankfully, there’s the team captain, Elliot. A former MLB player, Elliot traded himself from a ball club to God’s club and now tries to meld his two passions - religion and baseball - with THE YANKLES. But Elliot also knows the team is going to need a miracle if it’s to survive. Enter Charlie Jones.

Ex-boyfriend of Elliot’s sister and ex-major leaguer, Charlie has been in a bit of a personal slump. With repeated DUI offenses and considered a “has been”, Charlie needs his own miracle if he’s going to turn his own life around. So how about begrudgingly blending community service with coaching THE YANKLES?

With sub-plots of faith, relationships, redemption and the age old bonding of fathers and sons over baseball, THE YANKLES is refreshingly upbeat, thanks in large part to the chemistry of the cast. Brian Wimmer knocks it out of the park as Charlie Jones. Bringing his own infectious brand of heart and charm to the role, Wimmer shines both when interacting with the team and in effortlessly moving through his character’s arc toward understanding, acceptance and personal redemption. He is a joy to watch.

A real surprise, and I have to say, my favorite performance in the film, comes from Kenneth Brown. A relative unknown outside of Utah, Brown steals the show as Rabbi Meyer. Looking very much like Santa Claus, his earnest devotion to the players, to Charlie, to God and to baseball elicits appreciative laughter at every turn.

After his performance as Elliot, look to see more of Michael Buster in the coming years. In possibly his biggest role to date, Buster is a delight at conveying lightness and drama, with his character serving as the communications conduit between Charlie and THE YANKLES. In a surprise casting move, Don Most is Elliot’s father, Frank. Known best as the perpetual prankster Ralph Malph on “Happy Days”, Most does heavy dramatic lifting in the strained father-son relationship between Elliot and Frank, as a father who can’t come to terms with his son choosing God over baseball.

Not to be overlooked are some memorable moments from Jesse Bennett who tackles the role of The Rebbe, head of the Yeshiva. Imparting wisdom through parables, Bennett is the calm in the eye of the storm as you head into the bottom of the ninth with the game tied, bases loaded, two out and the batter facing a full count. Elegant understanding.

Casting for acting as opposed to baseball ability, stunt doubles were ultimately used in some of the baseball scenes. “It was a challenge because there was only one of them [Gavin Bentley] that had any kind of baseball experience.” And although the actors had athletic ability, shooting in 29 days total with only 5 days to shoot all the baseball scenes, there wasn’t enough time for training.

As opined by co-writer Zev Brooks, “there’s two elements to this movie. There’s the Jewish side - particularly the orthodox Yeshiva side - and there’s the baseball side.” With their own father a Yeshiva rabbi, Zev and David Brooks (who co-writes and directs) were very comfortable with the Jewish aspect of the story and wanted to make the film so as “not offensive to members of the Jewish faith but just the opposite; portray the values inherent in Judaism.” On the flip side of the coin, they “wanted to make a commercial film that everyone could enjoy...bringing in the baseball story.”

Admitting a film like THE YANKLES “is a lot to take on for first time screenwriters”, according to co-writer Zev Brooks, “we knew when we sat down to write the script that the concept was good...the challenge for us was to [then] write a film that would have broad appeal and to write a film that had humor but at the same time was an uplifting and realistic portrayal of the Jewish culture as we portrayed it in the Yeshiva, and not be preachy or dogmatic.” Letting the collision of cultures organically collide, the humor easily flows like a loping grounder up the middle, and then at times, hits it out of the park when religion and baseball fuse as one. Particularly funny are scenes with Charlie learning Yiddish alternatives for his profanity laden vocabulary. Notable is that director David Brooks relies more on his visuals than on the dialogue to effectuate some of the funniest and most endearing aspects of the film.

Interestingly, the Brooks brothers mandated “that people stuck to the script. We spent a long time on these words...they have a certain rhythm. We didn’t want any ad-libs...except for, if the actor had an idea. [If] David thought it was worth shooting, we would at least get it on film and work on it in the editing room. We had some very pleasant surprises with some of those ideas the actors had.”

Much like a baseball team, THE YANKLES is not just filled with heart. It has depth and layers within its various elements, which bring the drama and deeper meaning to the film beyond the obvious laughter. It also has its own share of errors with some anti-Semitic bar scenes that fall flat and about 20 minutes too much film that feels like an extended 7th inning stretch. But despite these balks, at the end of the day, or the film, one has to say, “Thank heaven for baseball and THE YANKLES.” Play Ball!

VIRGINIA

Oscar winning screenwriter for MILK, Dustin Lance Black now jumps into the director’s chair with VIRGINIA. Debuting at TIFF two years ago, initial reviews were less than positive and in a surprising move, Black took heed of the critics’ comments and went back into the editing bay, making substantive changes to bring us the film we see today. With homespun quaintness and charm, VIRGINIA has a narrative and tonal clarity that is effectively engaging, and boasts one of the best performances to come from Jennifer Connelly in many a year.

Virginia is not your typical mother. A single mom, and schizophrenic, she lives with her son Emmett in a one-horse little beach town. Emmett’s father, whoever he is, has long been out of the picture. Although fiercely protective of and fiercely dependent upon Emmett, Virginia dreams of escape to live with her sister in San Francisco. But dreams cost money and for now, being on the low end of the economic totem pole, all she can do is escape as far as her affair with the town’s very married and very (hypocritically) Mormon sheriff, Dick Tipton, will take her; and that means only a few hours of sexual exploits whenever Tipton is feeling randy. But what happens when Tipton’s political aspirations get the best of him and he starts to campaign for the state senate? Extramarital affairs don’t bode well with devoutly religious voters, so Virginia gets unceremoniously dumped, something which doesn’t sit well with her already fractured mental state.

And then there’s Emmett. Although feeling a responsibility to his mother and her care, 17 year old Emmett has his own life to think about, and it centers around Sheriff Tipton’s daughter Jessie. With young love in the air, Emmett and Jessie plan for their own future at the expense of their parents’ wants and beliefs. Working at the boardwalk carnival for the summer, Emmett dreams of making enough money so that he and Jessie, with Virginia in tow, can head west to a brighter future.

With secrets abounding amongst all the townspeople, and as Virginia tries to pull off an extortion scheme against Tipton, as well as a few other things, the small town scenario goes from bad to worse with potentially disastrous repercussions for all concerned.

This is without a doubt, Jennifer Connelly’s best performance in years. Described by Black as “wonderful” and “really funny”, Connelly walks the fine line between comedy and drama to excellent result. Key is that between her performance and Black’s script, Virginia never becomes a caricature of a woman torn apart physically and mentally. Connelly gives her a fragility that is at times quite touching.

Harris Gilbertson should be on everyone’s “Someone to Watch” list. Giving Emmett a gently laced cautious naivete, he captures your heart the same way Jessie captures Emmett’s. And together with Emma Roberts’ Jessie, the two are charming, resonating young love and the unspoken dreams it holds for each. Beautiful performances by both.

Then there’s Ed Harris. He soars as Sheriff Tipton. Rough and gruff on one hand, secretive and deceitful on the other, and a few moments of tender selfishness thrown in between, he celebrates Tipton’s flaws while eschewing cliche. Nicely paired with Harris is real-life wife Amy Madigan who gives a tacitly heartbreaking performance as Tipton’s dower and dowdy, aged wife.

We already known that Dustin Lance Black can write. We’ve seen him do it. He has an Oscar to prove it. The big question is, can he direct? The answer - yes, he can. Excelling at character construction, Black also has a good visually metaphoric eye, utilizing color, lighting and framing to their best advantages as visual storytelling tools. In developing the character of VIRGINIA, Black (a consummate researcher) and Connelly met with psychologists to learn about the specifics of schizophrenia. “One of the things they cannot control is sound. It can drive them insane. What they can control is color and light. So, how would someone of Virginia’s means be able to do that?” The answer came from what Black thought from a far was a stained glass window in a rundown little house. “It was really just a Jack Daniels bottle with some water with blue food coloring, a Gatorade bottle with some green... A collection of probably a half-dozen of them. It was really lovely...Virginia might just take that and use it in a bigger way just to always be able to control the color and environment in her house.” The result is stunning.

Capturing the ambient essence of the South proved a bit harder. “It was challenging, but thanks to a great camera department we were able to achieve a southern summery look in the middle of the coldest fall in west Michigan history.” Shooting in Michigan for budgetary concerns, camera angles are played to their advantage to hide the richness of fall foliage.

Described by Black as a “low budget, homespun production, we went back and embraced it for what it was in the editing room the second time around and tried to focus in on the performances.” This new edit refocuses the narrative, honing it in, simplifying it and definitely showcases some compelling individual performances.

Calling on his own upbringing for what he calls “that Southern aspirational thing that you don’t see in films that often” Black embraces the flaws of the human condition, dismissing them as shortcomings and portraying them as liberating strengths. Giving VIRGINIA a very intimate personal sensibility, Dustin Lance Black shows us that it is truly is the simple things in life that are often the most wonderful...just like VIRGINIA.

 

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