Skip to main content

The Counselor

The Counselor

“Love is being in bed with you, the rest is waiting.”
The Counselor, 2013




I love an opening scene of a film that delves immediately into love making. The relationship is sealed, it becomes the pivotal denominator during the film, and there is nothing else that can happen that can take that importance away. The movie opens with The Counselor (Michael Fassbinder) intimately lying under white sheets with Laura (Penelope Cruz). In this tender moment he asks her to say something sexy, “I want you to put your hands up my dress”, she says, “but you're not wearing a dress”, he coyly remarks, “What does that have to do with it?”, sighing, relishing the moment, then commenting, “You've ruined me”, completely foreshadowing the tragedy that will unfold.

For the rest of the film, it is this relationship that remains as the focus, and the demise of the Counselor, whose name we never find out, as he pursues his drug trafficking quest. In the mix is the Cartel, some gruesome well timed and calculated murders, two cheetahs, fast cars, and the evil ice princess hunter, Malkina (Cameron Diaz), who masterminds the events that lead to her wealth.

The Counselor is an unusual film in that it has been scripted by a novelist, Cormac McCarthy, author of No Country for Old Men and the clever writing drives the action forward, keeps the audience interested and listening hard for the philosophical brilliance in the script. The words are carefully chosen, lyrical, methodical and revelatory, yet the film cannot sustain its perfection. I feel that some of the editing and the story therefore, could have been tighter. There seem to be scenes that have been included, just for the sake of it, because the script included some interesting dialogue yet had nothing to do with driving the story. I couldn't understand why Malkina would even attempt a confession in Church, or why the viewer has to follow the drug runner's entry into his home, and feed his dog. There was no significance in either of these scenes. To be sure it is a well written script, there are some very talented actors, Brad Pitt included, directed well by Ridley Scott, yet the editing is disappointing. The film could have been better handled in Post, and this would have inadvertently cut some of the slack that it has received to date. There has to be so much care taken during Post or else the film will lose it's lustre.

Nevertheless it is worth seeing, especially for the quotes and the philosophical stance that McCarthy takes on greed, love, and life.

Malkina:
I suspect that we are ill-formed for the path we have chosen. Ill-formed and ill-prepared. We would like to draw a veil over all the blood and terror that have brought us to this place. It is our faintness of heart that would close our eyes to all of that, but in so doing it makes of it our destiny... But nothing is crueler than a coward, and the slaughter to come is probably beyond our imagining.

Definitely a film to see so we can say Hollywood got it nearly right.


Stella Dimadis



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Writer's block

Writer's block The Writer's responsibility is to his art.  He will be completely ruthless if he is a good one.  He has a dream.  It anguishes him so much he must get rid of it.  He has no peace until then... William Faulkner  Having written films, articles, essays, reports, it has always, at one stage or another, plagued me when I have had writer's block.  That moment when I sit staring at the computer screen as if it is an alien standing it's ground in a duel for battle with me.  Eyeing me, daring me to drop my weapons of my imagination.  The frustration builds up and chocolate beckons, serenading the virtues of itself.  It is all too familiar, this battle, and I may have thrown my writing in all together had it not been for my editor in the late 90's when I completed some articles for Who Weekly. I remember grizzling into the phone line with him that my writing was not perfect...there was something missing...I couldn't pinpoint it....
2 comments
Read more

Memories are the key not to the past, but to the future.

"Memories are the key not to the past, but to the future. "   Corrie Ten Boom Corrie Ten Boom was a Dutch watchmaker, who had helped many Jews escape during the Holocaust, was a prisoner and then a writer.  She held many memories, no doubt, fears; images that would stay forever and haunt her, but they were able to unlock a future for her that she would never have imagined.  Her writing and her boldness initiated her knighthood by the Queen of the Netherlands, The King's College in New York City named a new women's house in her honour, her book "The Hiding Place", was  made into a feature film, twice. Locked away in our computer hard drives are examples of our work and lives that we lock away when our computer sleeps, forgetting about their importance because we are always told to focus on the now, forgetting about our past.  Well, perhaps it is time that we also learn to love our past, regardless of what it was like, so that we can understand what our...
Post a Comment
Read more

Cruella

Cruella “Cruella was in a box a long time, now Estella can be the one who makes guest appearances!” -Cruella Every so often, a film encapsulates all of the factors that make it ‘wow’, leaving the audience totally satisfied.  Cruella, directed by Craig Gillespie, starring Emma Stone, Emma Thompson, screenplay by Dana Fox and Tony McNamara, produced by Disney does exactly that. It was released in Australia on May the 27th, 2021, not the best year for a release due to the Pandemic and inherent lockdowns in this country, but nevertheless a real treat on any screen. The film follows Estella before she becomes Cruella De Vil; a gifted, precocious girl whose rebellious streak, fighting spirit and desire to become a fashion designer is the perfect mix for her journey through life.  She was orphaned at 12 from whom she thought was her biological mother, but of course the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree and with the help of her two childhood partners, Horace and Jasper, Estella e...
Post a Comment
Read more