Pretty Persuasion

Title: Pretty Persuasion 
Director: Marcos Siega 

Released: 2005 

Starring: Evan Rachel Wood, James Woods, Ron Livingston, Elisabeth Harnois, Adi Schnall, Stark Sands, Jane Krakowski, Michael Hitchcock, Danny Comden, Jaime King, Selma Blair

Plot: Kimberly Joyce (Wood) is a student at a prestigious Beverly Hills school for the wealthy along with her best friend Brittany (Harnois) and Randa (Schnall) who soon find themselves drawn into her scheme to take revenge on her teacher Percy (Livingston) after he humiliates Brittany. 

 

Review: I originally watched this film back when it was first released and while I certainly enjoyed it back then it hardly moved me. Of course returning to it now as an older and arguably wiser movie watcher it was great to see that it had actually improved with age. Essentially a reworking of “Wild Things” as Kimberly and her friends accuse their teacher of sexual assault, its clear from the start that Kimberly clearly has darker intentions than she is first letting on. 
 

Opening to Kimberly auditioning for a role on a generic teen soap which she hopes will finally give her the big acting break she’s been chasing despite living a life of luxury thanks to her wealthy father. Still its clear from these opening moments that she already has her ideas of where she wants to be and possibly how to get there especially when she shows the first hints of her ruthless side early on. Kimberly its clear is not one to hold her opinions as we see her openly verbally abusing her step mother at the dinner table with accusations of “fucking the family dog”, while her father seems more concerned with his dog than what she is doing. 
 

Perhaps because of the free reign she is given from the obvious lack of parental supervision, let alone her privileged background its equally obvious that Kimberly sees no limit to what she can achieve or who she has to use or destroy to get there. The most facinating aspect to her character though is how she can convince both Brittany and Randa to go along with her morally questionable plan to essentially destroy their teacher.

While the film might sound like a reworking of “Wild Things” which it essentially is, here though director Marcos Siega infuses the story with a vein of pitch black humour which brings to mind the films of Todd Solondz such as “Welcome To The Dollhouse” which this film certainly shares a similar tone with. At the same time Siega gleefully plays around with our perceptions of the characters almost as if he is determined to create a world in which all the characters are all flawed with the depth of said flaws being used as to how much the audience can side with them. Case in point being Perry who might be setup as a victim here, yet we see him in his personal life every bit the sexual deviant as he has his fiancée play the naughty school girl, reading out Kimberly’s disciplinary essay in what we discover later is his attempt to re-enact her seductive turn. Of course by the time we reach the court room Kimberly is selling it in a much more innocent light. 
 

This constant twisting of facts and reality is where the strength of the film really lies for while we might feel that we know what is going on, Siega it seems is constantly able to find a way to question a character or the direction the film is going to go especially as the film finds ever darker comedic veins to mine, though its hard to say if this as part of a deliberate attempt to provide further shocks or if he’s attempting to satire the privileged lifestyles of these characters. 
 

The assembled cast here are all great with Evan Rachel Wood giving a surprisingly mature and confident performance here as Rachel, easily able to switch between her various states of manipulation so that you never have any doubts about how she is managing to constantly convince people to follow her or allow themselves to be drawn into her schemes be it through blackmail or sexual manipulation regardless of gender as we see when she seduces the local new anchor Emily (Krakowski) to bring more sympathy for her court case and not even the media is resistant to her charms. 
 

Equally fun here is James Woods as Emily’s father who whole largely a supporting role attacks every scene with all pistons firing, spewing out profanity laced comments and projecting rage on all those who don’t meet with his own vision for the world. His money and status like so many around him only fuelling his own delusions of being untouchable so that he can rant freely about women, Jews and “beaners”.

The wasted member of the cast here though is Adi Schnall whose character with her innocent nature and certainly lack of expose to the lifestyle of her fellow students seemingly has been setup to provide some kind of moral centre to the film. Sadly due to the lack of development we get for her character she ends up becoming a missed opportunity, ultimately falling along the wayside as Siega instead chooses to focus his attentions on the ever more complex game which Kimberly is playing.

While Siega it seems certainly has a lot of things he wishes to cast opinion on from the central theme of false rape claims, he also chooses to give nods to high school shootings, racism, porn, teenage sexuality and the effect on children of being brought up under such privileged circumstances it does however mean that the film can feel like its going off in random directions as Siega attempts to find a way to tie it all togther which might feel alittle too disjointed for some tastes, especially with the ending being almost a sure fireway to ensure that everything that came before it is nicely tied up, even if its at the sacrifice of the original direction for the story and really only works thanks to how he has spent the rest of the film developing Kimberly’s character so that her final actions are easily to believe that she would choose to make them. 
 

While perhaps not as dark as the work of the aforementioned Todd Solondz this film still goes some way to providing that same dark humour fix. Yes a similar tale of student manipulation can be found with both the likes of “Election” and “Wild Things” but unlike those here we have a film which is not afraid to push things further still which while certainly not for all tastes is still a film worth giving a spin.

Ace Attorney

Title: Ace Attorney

Director: Takashi Miike

Released: 2012

Staring: Hiroki Narimiya, Mirei Kiritani, Kimiko Yo, Takumi Saito, Ryo Ishibashi, Akiyoshi Nakao

Plot: Phoenix Wright (Hiroki Narimiya) is a novice lawyer brought in to first defend Maya Fey (Mirei Kiritani) for the murder of her sister Mia (Kimiko Yo), a case which pits him against expert prosecutor Miles Edgeworth (Takumi Saito), whom he is soon called on to defend when he is charged with murder in a case which will see him having to face the legendary Mandred Von Karma (Ryo Ishibashi) who is yet to loose a case in forty years! However despite seemingly being separate cases Phoenix soon realises that the two cases may be more linked than first appeared.

 

Review: For one reason or another it seems that the courtroom thriller has become something of a lost artform, or at least a concept which isn’t exactly crying out box office potential or so it would seem to the studio bosses, especially considering how long it has been since we last saw a new addition to this genre. Still thankfully Takashi Miike latest film sets out to resolve this with his latest film which continues to mark out a noticeable change for Miike and the films he is choosing to make, for it would seem as his profile as a director continues to rise that the former L’enfant terrible of Asian cinema Takashi Miike is mellowing with age, something which become more and more clear with each new film he releases, especially having reached the zenith of splatter with the notorious “Ichi the Killer”. Yet despite being responsible for some of the most shocking cinema ever created, this film marks his current interest in moving away from the ultra violence and Triad movies which he crafted his legacy with and his focus on working in other genre’s as here he presents his adaptation of the popular video game “Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney” a film which once again shows that Miike is more than capable of adapting his visual style to any genre he chooses.

Based on the second and forth cases in the game, but rather than trying to make the usual video game adaptation mistake of trying to bring the events of the game into a real world setting, Miike here instead throws us something of a curve ball by giving us a live action version of the game, but changing none of it’s video game styling’s. So cue anime hairstyles, overly dramatic characterisation and court room proceedings like you have never seen before, as evidence isn’t just presented but blown up onto giant holographic images.

Despite the character of Phoenix Wright perhaps not having the instant recognition as a popular video game character, Miike makes the film still highly accessible to those who might not even realise that it is a video game adaptation or folks like myself who don’t own a DS and hence have not played the games, as he instead skilfully combines moments of madcap comedy within the framework of a courtroom thriller. However despite the title, when we meet Phoenix he is anything close to the “Ace Attorney” the title would have you believe he is, for while the prosecutors he faces dress like French noblemen projecting an air of unflappable confidence, Phoenix on the other hand is a lot more green as he frequently finds himself flustered by the prosecution while somehow always managing to amass a mountain of papers on his desk from seemingly nowhere. Yet despite this lack of courtroom experience he is also prone to moment of decisive genius with an eye for the most minute of details, while also receiving perhaps a slightly unfair amount of assistance from the psychic projections of Maya.

These courtroom sequences are far from dreary procedure and tedious statements, as the sci-fi edge of having the evidence shown as projections, which can be easily moved around and enlarged in the courtroom keep things fast paced and easy to follow, especially when the key points of the evidence are blown up to such gigantic scale it’s hard not to realise what is currently the point of focus in the case. Still within the Ace Attorney universe, the courts are inundated with so many cases that the Japanese legal system have turned to carrying out “bench trials” were the two attorneys are given three days to present their cases before a judge, though I’ve no idea whose random it was to have the verdicts appear in huge letters erupting out of confetti explosions!?! Still despite the surreal presentation of the cases they are still surprisingly meaty and genuinely engaging as Miike crafts a convoluted labyrinth of intrigue, surprise evidence and objections, while once again making me wonder why Asian cinema has got such an effective grasp over the use of CGI in it’s films, while Hollywood’s attempts to master this technique still continue to noticeably take the viewer out of the film rather than add to it in any way.

Still clocking in at just over two hours, the film certainly has a generous run time, which feels more than justified here, especially when it is just so much fun to spend time within this world, whether battling cases in court or just hunting for new clues in the case, which usually involves Phoenix encountering one of the random local residents, the majority of whom have been given some form of comical edge, especially when it comes to the madcap antics of Phoenix’s childhood friend Larry (Akiyoshi Nakao). We are also frequently given flashbacks to Phoenix’s school days were it would seem that the Japanese school system likes to promote mock courtroom debates early on, while more amusing is that all the characters dress exactly the same with the only difference being the fact that they are being played by child actors.

For the soundtrack Miike has once again teamed up with K?ji End?, to provide another memorable soundtrack, which takes it’s cues from the game and combining it with newly composed background music which perfectly suits the action and certainly adds the required drama and tension when required, while the colourfully named Japanese group “Porno Graffitti” who previously have provided music for both the anime series “Full metal Alchemist” and “Bleach” and here continue provide another memorable song with the theme song “Spark”.

Ultimately this film manages to combine both elements of courtroom drama with a warm sense of humour, while proving once that Miike is far more than a one trick pony, as he once more surprises us with his range as a director, while loosing none of his visual flair. This is not only a gentle introduction to his film, especially considering the splatter of his early films which made him so popular to begin with, especially with some western fans who will continue to groan with frustration as he moves further away again from his gore soaked roots. However I can safely say that this was one of the few occasions were I feel a sequel to this film cannot come quick enough.