Tag: Odessa Young

SPRINGSTEEN: DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE – Review

We must be “all in” for the end-of-the-year awards season as we’ve got a new big biographical film of a music superstar from an acclaimed director. Last year, Christmas Day to be exact, filmgoers got to do a deep dive into the 60s musical odyssey of Bob Dylan with James Mangold’s A COMPLETE UNKNOWN. Though it didn’t garner as many awards (and box office) as BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY in 2018, it still racked up lots of critical raves (and even a Sag Best Actor for its star Timothee Chalomet). Now, like that earlier biopic, this one showcases another rising young star who is best known for an acclaimed TV show. Oh, but the big difference is that this is set a couple of decades later, at the start of the 1980s. Still, there’s a lot of musical “common ground between “Mr. Zimmerman” and SPRINGSTEEN: DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE. As “the Boss” might say, “One, two…”.

After a brief black and white prologue with our young hero riding his bike through the means streets of Long Branch, New Jersey, the story jumps ahead to the splashy color of 1981 as fans are left breathless after the final concert number from Bruce Springsteen (Jeremy Allen White) at a packed arena. As he winds down backstage, his trusted manager Jon Landau (Jeremy Strong) tells him that after a few post-concert dealings (including an interview with “Creem” magazine, remember it), his rental home on a lake in Colts Neck, New Jersey is ready. After he settles in there, the Boss contemplates his next album while recalling his turbulent early life with dutiful mother Adele (Gaby Huffman) and his boozing, abusive father Douglas (Stephan Graham). Later, in an effort to “blow off some steam” he joins the local rockers at The Stone Pony bar/music venue in Asbury Park. As he leaves, Bruce runs into an old high school buddy, who introduces him to his sister Faye (Odessa Young), a single mother working at a nearby diner. She gives him her number, in case he wants to “hang” sometime. Chilling back at his lake house, he does a bit of channel “surfing” and stumbles upon the 1973 Terrence Malick classic BADLANDS. Bruce is riveted, heading to the library to gather more info on the film’s inspiration, killer Charles Starkweather, then returning home to jot down lyrics and strum on his guitar. He has an epiphany: the new song collection “Nebraska” will have no polished studio sound. He brings in his audio-tech Mike Batlan (Paul Walter Hauser) to record a demo tape using very low tech (cassettes). When Landau meets Columbia Records’ Al Teller (David Krumholtz), the exec is stunned by Bruce’s subject matter and his rules. There will be no singles, right after Bruce landed a single on the Billboard top ten. But Jon and Bruce persist. Meanwhile, the Boss struggles to get “the sound” just right while the process dredges up brutal memories from childhood. Can a burgeoning romance with the “hometown gal” vanquish the inner demons inside the rising rock and roll superstar?

Wow, in this film you get two (yes two) great Jeremys heading the ensemble. First, of course, is White, who we’ve not seen on the big screen since 2023’s THE IRON CLAW (though he continues to cook up a storm on TV’s “The Bear”). Without the use of prosthetic makeup, but with a little color “tweaking” in his curly mane, he makes us believe that he’s the “Boss”. He’s got that confident strut as he wields that guitar like a gladiator’s broadsword before the adoring throngs. But he’s more Clark Kent as leaves the backstage door, trying to blend in with the “average Joes”. However, White shows us his simmering intensity, whether achieving his artistic goals, struggling to put the right words in his battered notebook, or clamping down on his childhood monsters. Plus, he projects an almost boyish charm during his “downtime” with Faye. The other J is the superb Mr. Strong (so wonderful in last year’s THE APPRENTICE) as the laser-focused Landau. He’s Bruce’s strong right hand, whether he’s dealing with the press or anxious record execs demanding more “hits”. Strong’s stare seems to burrow into White’s brain, forming a connecting line of creative thought. The two actors’ performance anchor the tale. But then they have a great supporting cast. Young exudes a sexy “tough gal” persona as the smitten, but steadfast (not putting up with any “Boss BS”) as Faye. Hauser provides a few needed laughs as the perplexed but hard-working audio geek, Mike (he questions, but never refuses Bruce’s needs). The other big emotional role may be Graham as the stoic papa Stephan who lashes out in order to “toughen up” his boy, while casting a dark shadow that looms over the crumbling house, leaving Hoffman as mama Adele as the sole bright light in the lad’s life. Krumholtz is also funny as recording bigwig Teller, while the great Marc Maron shines with just a few lines as audio mixer Chuck Plotkin.


The acclaimed filmmaker is director/screenwriter (adapting the book “Deliver Me from Nowhere” by Warren Zanes) is Scott Cooper (CRAZY HEART), Wisely, he decided to focus in on an important year or two in Bruce’s life, rather than giving a full “life story” (though we do have those 1957 snippet flashbacks), to not get into the cliché biopic “checklist” (then he did this, then that, then…) which gives the personal drama more room to “breathe”. Also, it allows Cooper to really explore the creative process of an artist, which is usually a “stumbling block” (always a problem with stories about writers). At times, Bruce seems rigid and too unwavering, but Cooper shows us that it’s a quest for purity in the music’s intent. The era of the early 80s is painstakingly recreated with nods to pop culture and a big ode to the power of cinema, not only BADLANDS (young Bruce watches a 1950s cult classic with his pop). The pace is rather languid, with bursts of the remarkable rock and folk anthems. At times that measured pace is sidetracked by the romantic subplot, (it somewhat evaporates by the final act) which doesn’t add much to the story of the creation of an album. And a few fans may wish there were more recreations of the marathon concerts, but Cooper gives us enough of a taste to convey the power of Mr. S. But in those final moments, Cooper provides a positive message about seeking help from mental health professionals (might nudge those struggling to see a “rock god” getting back on track) It’s not a bombastic tune-filled spectacle, but rather a powerful, intimate portrait of a man exploring new artistic territory while exploring his own past. That power of creation fuels SPRINGSTEEN: DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE.

3.5 Out of 4


SPRINGSTEEN: DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE is now playing in theaters everywhere

MOTHERING SUNDAY – Review

Odessa Young as Jane Fairchild, Josh O’Connor as Paul Sheringham in MOTHERING SUNDAY. Image by Jamie D. Ramsay (SASC). Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

What looks at first like period drama, a steamy “Downton Abbey,” set in England in the wake of World War I, morphs into something deeper and more far-reaching, as MOTHERING SUNDAY follows the changing life of a young maid, tracing the awful legacy of that devastating war and the transformations it wrought, and also depicting a literary awakening and three stages in an artist’s life.

MOTHERING SUNDAY starts out in1924 at a British country manor house on Mother’s Day, known there as Mothering Sunday, when aristocrats traditionally gave their servants the day off to visit their mothers. Young Jane Fairchild (Odessa Young) was raised in an orphanage so she has no mother to visit. However, she has other, secret plans, to visit her lover, Paul (Josh O’Connor, the young Prince Charles on “The Crown”), the son of aristocrat friends of her employers, kindly Mr. Niven (Colin Firth) and stern, unsmiling Mrs. Niven (Olivia Colman), who are joining Paul’s parents to picnic on the banks of the Thames along with another aristocratic couple whose daughter, Emma Hobday (Emma D’Arcy), is engaged to Paul.

But Paul is going to show up late, claiming he’s studying, although he’s really meeting Jane , his longtime lover, at his home, for a rare chance for them to enjoy a comfortable real bed. We get scenes of the maid and young aristocrat cavorting joyfully, with full frontal nudity by both Odessa Young and Josh O’Connor.

After her lover Paul departs, young Jane wanders, sans clothing, around the deserted mansion, as the film flashes back and forth in time. Also inter-cut are scenes with the aristocratic families picnicking on the banks of the Thames, the party that Paul is going to join.

The nudity is one of the things that lingers in the mind with this drama, along with its unusual non-linear structure. Despite the film’s unusual structure, we are never lost or unclear about where or when we are, a tribute to director Eva Husson’s skill. The film also impresses with its rich visual beauty and the gem-like performances explore the lasting impact of the particularly devastating WWI.

The flashbacks show Jane earlier in her long romance with Paul, as well as going about her work at the Nivens’ mansion or in conversation with another maid, who lost her fiance to the war. It jumps forward in time to scenes of her working in a bookstore and with a philosopher played by Sope Dirisu, who became her husband, and then Jane late in life as a famous writer, played by the legendary Glenda Jackson. It is a life of loss and triumph, from humble beginnings.

The class divide dooms Jane and Paul’s romance while Paul’s engagement is a more “suitable” marriage for both young people. But it is a prospect less wanted by either of the engaged young people than their parents, the reasons for which are eventually revealed.

This story does not remain the steamy period romance it appears to be at first, although we sense a sadness underneath from the start. We first meet Jane as a young maid, who was born the out-of-wedlock daughter of a maid, raised in an orphanage, and working as a servant in an aristocratic house and having an affair with a young aristocrat. It is not a life with great promise but in shifting times, Jane’s life takes her far from the manor house, through a number of changes as she becomes the famous writer she will be.

Director Eva Husson’s film, using a script by Alice Birch, departs from the original story by Graham Swift but in doing so, the film expands its scope include the bigger shifts in British society at the time, as well as the remarkable life of this woman.

The film is flooded with a deep visual beauty, particularly in the earliest part, thanks to Jamie Ramsay’s fine photography. The tragedy of the war, and other losses that follow, shape Jane’s life indirectly but while there is plenty of personal heartbreak and loss in this tale along with its triumphs.

The film sports an impressive cast of British greats, although many of them get only brief screen time. Still, they each deliver gem-like performances. Olivia Colman plays Clarrie Niven, the dour wife of Colin Firth’s sweet Mr. Niven, who we may dislike until the reason for her grimness, and other unspoken tensions, are revealed at the picnic in a heartbreaking scene. Firth, O’Connor, and Emma D’Arcy, as Paul’s fiancee, also give searing, heart-rending performances, but a standout is Sope Dirisu, as the man who opens to door to Jane’s literary awakening and adds another tragic note. These fine performances, however brief, powerfully help depict the devastating legacy of the war and the other experiences, good and painful, that shape the protagonist’s life and career as a writer.

It is better not to describe too much of the story, which risks spoilers, but the changes in this young woman’s life reflect the changes in British society after WWI, particularly shifts in the class system and the expanding opportunities for women. That war nearly wiped out a generation of young men, leaving parents bereft but also a generation of young women with no young men to marry, women who then had to consider how to make their own way in life, and maybe seek more. None of this is expressed directly, but indirectly it is reflected in the life of the woman we meet as a young maid who becomes a famous author, a transformation nearly inconceivable in an earlier era.

This fine drama has many rewards, and not just its evocative visual beauty, with director Eva Husson’s skillful storytelling and fine performances by a cast of British greats. MOTHERING SUNDAY opens in theaters on Friday, Apr. 8.

RATING: 3.5 out of 4 stars

SHIRLEY – Review

At this time of quarantine, self-isolation, and (in several major urban areas) imposed curfew, who’s ready for a film about a person dealing agoraphobia? Yes, that’s right. A person who can physically leave the house , but mentally cannot. But there’s much more to this film than that. It’s a fictional tale set during the life of a celebrated and still studied actual author. So, this isn’t a standard biography, rather an imagined incident occurring during a real career. Much as with J.D. Salinger who was the subject of a standard bio in 2017, REBEL IN THE RYE, and a supporting player in the fictional COMING THROUGH THE RYE two years previous. There’s a couple of things that make this “what if” story unique. The first would be the fact that the author in question is a woman (a rarity in cinematic portrayals of the profession). And second, she was best remembered for the genre known as horror (both psychological and supernatural), though a couple of centuries after Mary Shelly. In between Poe and King there was Jackson, the woman known as SHIRLEY.


It all begins aboard a passenger train in the early 1950s, as restless anxious recent bride Rose (Odessa Young) is immersed in the world of the recently published short story, “The Lottery”. The tale has added impact by the fact that she and her hubby, aspiring literature teacher Fred (Logan Lerman) will meet the author later that day. A trip to the restroom (far from the “mile high club”) alleviates some boredom and tension. As dusk settles over rural Vermont, the young couple arrives at the home of Fred’s mentor/supervisor, Bennington College’s Professor of Music and Folklore Stanley Hyman (Michael Stuhlbarg) where a big party is in full swing. Sitting inside the two-story manor house is his irritated chain-smoking spouse, celebrated writer Shirley Jackson (Elisabeth Moss). The plan is for the young couple to stay with the Hymans until they can find a suitable rental property, but Stanley has other plans. Since they’ve just lost a housekeeper, perhaps the new arrivals can stay rent-free, until new house help can be hired, with Rose doing the cooking and cleaning in between her classes and while Fred tackles his new job. The first private home dinner doesn’t go well as Shirley guesses that Rose is with child (she’s right) and hurls verbal barbs at her about their “shotgun wedding”. Rose is mortified, but Stanley convinces them to ignore his wife’s venom. The young couple stay put. As the days pass, and Fred spends more time with Stanley on campus, the tensions between the two women dissolve. They even become partners as Shirley sends out Rose (the author will not leave her home) to collect research information about a local young woman from the college who has been missing for many weeks. Shirley decides that this will be the basis of her new work, a full novel. But as she begins the story, her new friendship with Rose begins to blossom into something compelling and eventually passionate. How can their relationship continue in the repressed ’50s in New England?

When last we saw Ms. Moss she was carrying the recent “re-imagining” of the H.G. Welles classic THE INVISIBLE MAN just a few months ago (right when we could view it in a movie theatre…remember those). She returns here as a very different type of heroine whose complexity just emphasizes Moss’s remarkable acting gifts. During the opening sequences her take on Jackson is that of a true monster, one just as frightening as those that haunted Hill House. She sneers at the party guests from her “throne” couch alternating between gulps of booze and drags on an ever-present cigarette. It appears as though she’s saving up her strength to strike, which she does at the next night’s supper, with Rose her stunned prey. Moss takes a huge creative risk in making her so venal, knowing that she must win us back, which she does “in spades”. We see that Jackson is fighting several mental health challenges, though she will tolerate no pity. Her creativity fuels her as the big town mystery imbues her with the strength to pound on the manual typewriter, making it sound like a “Tommy-gun” (you’d think sparks would be flying from that Underwood). Some time later Moss shows us Jackson’s emotional vulnerability as her new friend seems to unearth long-buried passions. This performance, coupled with her superb TV roles, cements her reputation as one of today’s most versatile and compelling actresses.

Luckily, another superb actor is on board as her spouse/adversary. Stuhlbarg is once again playing an academic, but it’s a twisted turn on his nurturing art professor in CALL ME BY YOUR NAME. Hyman is a strutting peacock, in class and at home. seeking to always be the center of attention. He feeds on it and almost drools at the prospect of “feeding” off the young couple. While shamelessly flirting with Rose, he cultivates admiration from Fred, well until he feels threatened by the ‘upstart”, and slams him back to earth with a scathing critique. But they still don’t see his full cruelty as he batters his spouse with passive-aggressive verbal slaps. He tells her to get out of bed, but says she’s “biting off too much” with plans for a novel. Stuhlbarg makes him a truly charming cad. Particularly as he clumsily pursues Young who brings a wide-eyed wounded feel to the confused Rose. She’s being trained and groomed to be the perfect faculty “wifey’ since Jackson is too much of a “pill”. But Rose’s new friendship with Rose literally awakens her to injustices in this new “role” for her. Young conveys this with a change in body language, standing straight as she goes toe-to-toe with anyone hoping that she’ll just “sit quietly”. Lerman as Fred is visibly “gobsmacked” by her refusal to be a placid part of his life plan. Though he seems more hurt by his father figure Hyman “gut-punching’ him with an academic “wake up call”. He’s a big part of this film’s formidable acting quartet.

Director Josepher Decker brings a languid dream-like quality to this quirky character study. What starts as a real-life riff on WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOLF ( the troubled older couple drawing in the fresh-faced younger two) twists into an awakening fable and an unconventional love story. The symbolism often feels a bit heavy in the screenplay by Sarah Gubbins based on the book by Susan Scarf. As Rose strides across campus, she passes a bevy of nubile co-eds wrapping around the limbs of an old tree recalling Circe and her sirens luring sailors to the rocks, destroying ships (or in this case, marriages). And the whole missing student mystery too often echoes Rose’s off-kilter journey to enlightenment. Plus there’s a frequent confusion with the abundant dream montages, making us wonder if we’re in the head of Jackson or Rose (or both). But the locale of a sleepy college town (scandals aplenty) is expertly recreated in all its post-war ivy league glory (those proto-hippies, the beatniks, seem to be just lurking around the next corner). Despite the leisurely pacing, the bravado compelling performances of the cast, led by exceptional Moss, makes SHIRLEY an engaging look at a still influential literary icon.

2.5 Out of 4

SHIRLEY opens on selects screens and is available as a Video On Demand on most cable and satellite systems, along with many media platforms. SHIRLEY is also now streaming on the Hulu app.

First Trailer For NEON’s SHIRLEY Starring Elisabeth Moss, Odessa Young, Michael Stuhlbarg and Logan Lerman Is Here

Special Jury Prize – Auteur Filmmaking at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, here’s your first look at NEON‘s SHIRLEY starring Elisabeth Moss, Odessa Young, Michael Stuhlbarg and Logan Lerman.

The film will be available everywhere on June 5.

Renowned horror writer Shirley Jackson is on the precipice of writing her masterpiece when the arrival of newlyweds upends her meticulous routine and heightens tensions in her already tempestuous relationship with her philandering husband. The middle-aged couple, prone to ruthless barbs and copious afternoon cocktails, begins to toy mercilessly with the naïve young couple at their door.

Elisabeth Moss starred earlier this year in THE INVISIBLE MAN, the box office hit and reboot of the classic monster movie, for Universal/Blumhouse and makes an appearance in the upcoming Wes Anderson film, THE FRENCH DISPATCH.

She will star in Taika Waititi’s NEXT GOAL WINS, opposite Michael Fassbender and Armie Hammer. Most recently, Moss starred in the Alex Ross Perry film HER SMELL, which she also produced, for which she was nominated for a Gotham Award and an Independent Spirit Award, as well as opposite Melissa McCarthy and Tiffany Haddish in THE KITCHEN, an adaptation of the DC/Vertigo crime comic book series of the same name.

SHIRLEY is directed by Josephine Decker and written by Sarah Gubbins.

Decker says of her film and main character:

Shirley Jackson was a wildly unorthodox human and storyteller. Encountering her work was like finding a map towards becoming the kind of artist I would like to be. Daring. Intimate. Structured yet dreamlike.

Shirley’s work rides on the skin between imagined and real, seducing with its oddness and humble cracks until you can’t tell if you’re looking up the stairwell or into your own mouth. I felt strongly that this film needed to feel like a Shirley Jackson story. Cinematographer Sturla Grovlen and I tried to build an ever-evolving visual language for the film that would feel both real and surreal. I remember Sturla saying at some point on the shoot, “Usually, as you go along, it becomes easier to make choices. You understand the film you are making, and then it becomes clearer what you need to do in each scene. This is the only film I have made where that is not the case. The rules are constantly changing.” This was one of the challenges of the film and also one of its thrills.

Sarah Gubbins wrote a fantastic script that inhabits many worlds: the world inside Shirley’s house so different from the world outside Shirley’s house; the world inside Shirley’s mind at times inextricable from the world outside it. The layers kept folding in upon themselves. The napkin dropped. The spoon became a fork became a ghost. We were constantly chasing the reality, and I think this is one of the things I find most special about our film. I deeply adore collaboration, and on this project, we let the mystery remain a mystery. I hope that this was true on all levels of the process- – the acting, the production design, the cinematography. We had to work on the edge of what we knew so the process could remain fresh and alive, as mysterious as Shirley’s mind.