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Month: May 2016

“Joy”—To Behold

  Joy is based on the true story of a divorced Long Island entrepreneur, Joy Mangano (played by Jennifer Lawrence), who invented the Miracle Mop in 1989. In the process she overcomes significant personal and business obstacles. Mangano develops an immensely prosperous business empire, first with QVC and later with the Home Shopping Network (HSN). This is all before retail stores realized their distribution channel was going to be decimated—first by QVC and HSN, and later by Amazon. This film (written and directed by David O. Russell) reveals a deeply poignant story about a young intelligent...

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The Good Wife—The Finale: A Good End?

  The Good Wife finale The Good Wife ended its seventh addicting season on Mother’s Day as a paean to Alicia Florrick , the award-winning Julianna Margulies, and the journey Florrick has taken over the course of seven long years. (See my earlier May 12, 2012 review of this series. ) She realizes her rebirth—from the ignominy of being an adulterous governor’s wife, the lawyer who gave up her career to raise her two children to adolescence, to the brilliant lawyer who becomes a powerhouse both in the courtroom and in the political arena her husband thought was his territory alone. [Spoiler...

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“The Danish Girl”—There are Two

Based on David Ebershoff’s novel, “The Danish Girl” is a compelling portrait of   transgender life in the early twentieth century. A dramatization of the diaries of Einar Wegener, one of the first trans women to undergo sex reassignment surgery, we see the transgender world: first, as Einar and then later, as Lili. “The Danish Girl” opens with Einar, a landscape artist (played by Eddie Redmayne, “The Theory of Everything”), who is married to Gerda (Alicia Verkander, “Ex Machina”), a painter of portraits. Both artists are supportive and sometimes resistant to each other’s career aspirations....

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The Night Manager

Based on John le Carré’s 1993 novel, The Night Manager,  this AMC/BBC television miniseries is a spy thriller directed by Danish phenomena Susanne Bier (Of “A Better World”, see my October 7, 2014 review). Luxury hotel night manager Jonathan Pine (Tom Hiddleston), situated in Cairo during the impending Arab Spring, faces off against Richard Roper (Hugh Laurie of “House” fame), a formidable gun-runner turned financier and philanthropist living on the island of Mallorca.   Roper is an international jet-setter who entertains his beautiful mistress and his entourage in the Swiss Alps, Mallorca,...

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