Two Right Films

You plunk down your $10.50. You sit through your 7 previews and 2 commercials. Your reward is 90 to 120 minutes of escape. Hollywood has perfected this model. You exit the theatre with a smile and yawn and reenter the real world. An aspect of the movie-going experience is how little you need to think during the process. In the rare event that the director trusts the audience to think, the impact can be profound.

The offbeat 2007 film "Juno" was a surprise hit. "Juno" is a story of a pregnant teenager who decides to give her child up for adoption. The main character Juno defies society's conventions with a smart and confident attitude. She refuses to hide her pregnancy and continues to attend her high school through her term. At one point, the movie appears to fall into formula as she meets the couple who she agrees to adopt her child. The wife, played by Jennifer Garner, is presented as the overbearing Stepford wife looking for the perfect child to complete her storybook life. The husband, played by Jason Bateman, is introduced as the cool husband who finds himself suffocated by his overbearing wife. As the story develops, something interesting happens to the model couple. The wife turns out to be human yet flawed. The husband turns out to be "cool", but disturbingly selfish and childish. In the end, the real human drama unfolds as this couple grapples with their life altering decision. We are left feeling that like many of our friends, family and acquaintanences, these folks have their positive aspects, as well as their less desireable qualities. Who is right, the husband or the wife? "Juno" leaves the question unanswered, though hints that there is no easy answer to this question.

Golden Globe winner "Slumdog Millionaire" is a vivid portrayal of two brothers growing up in Mumbai, India. The imagery is powerful. The two boys end up using their street smarts to hustle their way through the tragedy and poverty of the streets of Mumbai. The paths they take eventually diverge and the hero Jamal ends up working at a multinational call-center, while his older brother Salim takes up with a Mumbai crime boss. The story stretches the experiences of the two boys in order to showcase the color and culture, as well as the dark, seedy side of India. The power of "Slumdog" is the choice of direction of Danny Boyle. The movie takes you through three periods of Jamal and Salim's lives. There are parallel events that foreshadow and link back to past events. Boyle trusts the audience to discover these connections without the usual obligatory explanations or flashback scenes.

"Juno" and "Slumdog" are vastly different in tone, message, and direction, but they share the rare quality of respecting the audience's intelligence. Hollywood are you paying attention? Although we do love to escape in movies, we don't mind engaging our brain as well.