"The Great Gatsby"

 3.5 / 5 

Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby is a surprisingly faithful adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's celebrated novel, so frequently despised by high-school students (and adults who remember it as a slog) that takes far fewer liberties than Luhrmann's reputation and pre-release publicity would have you believe.

Its best parts have to do with Gatsby himself, and it makes sense that he's played this time by Leonardo Di Caprio, since Jay Gatsby is, after all, the character Titanic's Jack Dawson would have become if he hadn't gone down with the ship.  He's a self-made man, and his fulfillment of the American Dream is as suspicious as it is enviable.  Di Caprio brings him a surprising amount of sympathy, but it takes a while to get there -- the same goes for the movie as a whole.  Its first half is undeniably entertaining, but misses the ennui and tone of detached melancholy that fills the novel.

It's this that is the most disconcerting aspect of The Great Gatsby as reconceived by Luhrmann and co-screenwriter Craig Pierce.  They have every artistic right to bring their own vision to Gatsby, and while what they've done to it musically may be unnecessary, it's not at all off-putting.  The bigger problem is their inability apply a steady new tone: In the end, The Great Gatsby's strengths and weaknesses are the ones inherent in the source material.

On the page, The Great Gatsby is unabashedly literary.  Fitzgerald's lush, carefully considered prose makes the novel dazzle (or distract, depending on your view) 88 years later.  What he described as "extraordinary and beautiful and simple and exquisitely patterned" is, indeed, that.  Luhrmann's film may be beautiful, it is at times extraordinary, but it is far, far from simple.

In Luhrmann's eyes, big and loud are not enough: Everything must be bigger than big, louder than loud.  So Gatsby's stately mansion rivals Hogwart's for size and Gothic elaborateness.  That's all well and good, but the means by which Luhrmann achieves this epic, oversized vision are less effective. Everything is rendered through complicated, dizzying visual effects that look, well, fake.  The colors are too rich, the camera moves too impossible, and the animation too obvious.

For the first hour, everything is too over-the-top.  The 3-D effects (I saw it in 2-D) are aggressive and relentless, the blending of 21st-century hip-hop and dance music with Jazz Age visuals a bit too self-satisfied.  It all feels like a Disney-esque blend of live action and animation, and the actors often barely seem to exist within their digital environments.  There's also an odd, uncomfortable comedic tone that, critically, undermines the first meeting between Gatsby and Daisy.

The movie also misses the mark with its decision to underplay the recollection of how Daisy and Gatsby first met.  By glossing over this crucial section of the plot, the weight of the central romance and ultimate tragedy are hard to latch on to emotionally.

If it's a little difficult to quite believe Gatsby falling for Daisy all over again, that was, to be fair, always part of Fitzgerald's point: The past can't be revisited, and Daisy has changed in ways Gatsby can't grasp but Nick can.  In the novel, that central realization is conveyed by Nick through narratived description; in the movie, Nick recites many of Fitzgerald's words but they lose their impact.  As spoken narration, there's no time to linger over the complex ideas being conveyed, and the movie has to resort to underlining its thematic points through thudding dialogue that feels forced and insincere.

Emotionally, The Great Gatsby is just a little too aloof.  In part, it's due to the miscasting of Carey Mulligan as Daisy.  She's a terrific actress, and by the end she does convey some of Daisy's emotional ambivalence, it's just hard to understand Gatsby's obsession.  Mulligan just doesn't make the impression she needs to as a shimmering, fragile, unattainable beauty.

The second, more heavily plotted half of Gatsby works better on film, and a crucial scene between Nick, Tom Buchanan (tremendously well played by Edgerton), Jordan Baker (Elizabeth Debicki) and Daisy in an overheated Plaza Hotel is pitch perfect.  It's the best sequence in The Great Gatsby, and it's no coincidence that it's the one in which Luhrmann and his hyperactive camera are the most restrained.

Reworked with a completely unneeded framing device, The Great Gatsby works better than it should.  Luhrmann's visual and musical rethinking are no less valid than any reconsideration of a classic text, but they overwhelm the more nuanced moments.  Luhrmann has tried to redefine The Great Gatsby as an entertainment for the masses, but he can't overcome the basic limitation of the novel: It's a literary and intellectual exercise more than an emotional one.  That Luhrmann manages to wring as much emotional satisfaction as he does is pretty impressive.

Viewed May 18, 2013 -- ArcLight Sherman Oaks

2045

"Star Trek Into Darkness"

 3 / 5 

How much you enjoy Star Trek Into Darkness will largely depend on your appreciation of certain of the previous big-screen Star Trek adventures, though 21st-century Internet decorum dictates I refrain from saying exactly which one.

But it's the measure of 2009's Star Trek and now the confusingly titled Star Trek Into Darkness (what is this darkness into which the Starship Enterprise is trekking?) -- and certainly a measure of the pop-culture-obsessed times in which we live -- that a great part of the enjoyment and ultimately the disappointment of this film is counting the allusions to other movies.

In just over two hours, I noticed references to Robocop (and not just in casting), Inception, The Silence of the Lambs, The Poseidon Adventure, Avatar, Raiders of the Lost Ark and at least three, maybe four, of the previous Star Trek movies. Its giddy, wink-wink fanboy self-satisfaction becomes not only distracting, it does the film itself a disservice: Instead of creating something boldly, entirely new, J.J. Abrams and a team of high-profile writers have crafted a Frankenstein-monster version of Star Trek, and it's hard not to notice all the different parts stitched together.

But it moves at a relentless -- almost exhausting -- pace, so by the time you notice and start thinking about what it means, you've missed the rapid-fire exposition.  It goes something like: Kirk (Chris Pine), Spock (Zachary Quinto) and the Enterprise have to hunt down a terrorist who appears to be a Starfleet officer, and in the process discover that the peaceful tools of the 23rd century are being turned into weapons of war.  That's the easiest way to say it.

It's quite understandable if you come out of Star Trek Into Darkness not really understanding quite exactly what happened, because the movie never really pauses long enough to make its story seem meaningful or terribly coherent.  There's no lack of plot, but not quite enough of a story.

It's nonetheless a lot of fun, mostly, and a perfect example of escapist summertime entertainment, whizzing and gleaming, spinning and exploding in just the right amounts to never once let anyone in the audience be bored.

Keep in mind, though, that the Trek unfaithful have long accused both the series and more than a few of its subsequent movies of being just that: boring. They consider questions of ethics, moral imperatives and philosophy with abandon: 1982's Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, arguably the pinnacle of Star Trek entertainment of any sort, was an unapologetic rumination on aging, maturity and friendship.  Thirty years later, those are hardly the sort of topics a studio wants to gamble $200 million on, so today's Star Trek is an unapologetic reverie of fanboy obsession and genuinely stunning visual effects, all shot in a fashion that makes Michael Bay look like a model of restraint and pacing.

If you're a Star Trek purist, Into Darkness may make you apoplectic; if you're less enthusiastic, this may be the perfect blend of Star Trek and not-Trek, even better than Abrams' first film.

Star Trek Into Darkness certainly has a lot of great moments, none better than a gentle, thought-provoking exchange between Spock and Lt. Uhura, who in this re-imagined Star Trek universe is his girlfriend.  But their dialogue comes during a frenetic descent onto an alien planet, and its weightiness (which is genuine) is undermined by the explosive action happening around it -- "Don't take this all too seriously," the movie seems to be saying, "it's all in jest anyway."

And that makes some of the bigger scenes, which actually want to be emotional, feel underwhelming.  You can never be too sure just when Abrams' Star Trek is being serious and when it's being jokey.

For all of it, though, Star Trek Into Darkness has one epic miscalculation, which is not to trust its own choice of villain.  Benedict Cumberbatch from TV's Sherlock has a suave, confident presence and a sonorous voice -- but it turns out he's only one of two possible villains, and the movie spends a lot of time trying to justify the actions of both of them.  (I have a much larger problem with one of those villains, an unnerving and complicated one, which I'll address later, when its discussion won't be considered a "spoiler.")

Star Trek Into Darkness, then, feels like a conflicted movie, both in its tone and its meaning: Throughout, it condemns the machinations of war while glorifying them; it revels in violence and destruction while claiming to abhor them; it recalls 9/11 and the first wars of the 21st century over and over again without quite knowing what commentary to make.  Is unjustifiable war the inevitable destiny of humanity, or is it a despicable and cowardly thing?  That could have been a fascinating question for Star Trek to tackle.

Without the conviction of a single central villain, Star Trek Into Darkness lacks the conviction of a singularly focused story and feels a little weightless.  But it sure looks and sounds great and moves at a lightning pace, and for a world that, in general, moves much faster than it thinks, that may well be enough.

Viewed May 17, 2013 -- Arclight Hollywood

2045

Favorite Films: "Terms of Endearment"

What everyone remembers, 30 years later, is the big "plot twist" about two-thirds of the way through 1983's Terms of Endearment. View the movie again through new eyes -- like I got to do at a recent screening hosted by the American Film Institute -- and the plot doesn't seem so twisty.

Terms of Endearment is bookended by two funerals.  One of them, anyone who's seen the movie (or even heard of it, likely) knows all about, but the other one is easy to forget even though it really is at the heart of the story: the husband of Aurora Greenway (Shirley MacLaine) and the father of Emma Greenway (Debra Winger) has just died.  He's virtually never mentioned again, but his death is what drives mother and daughter so close together they practically fuse into one.

You might recall these two women as being strong.  They are certainly vivid characters, and they certainly have forceful personalities.  But they can't function without each other.  Even when Aurora does a hateful thing and refuses to attend her daughter's wedding, both of them understand that it's about showing love and respect for each other.

"I always think of us as fighting," Aurora says to her daughter, who answers, cuttingly, "That's because you're never satisfied with me."  Neither can ever be satisfied with each other because they are mirrors of each other, one appearing before the other and reflecting back every shortcoming.  Their dissatisfaction springs from their deep, unyielding love.

These may be two of the best, most honest female characters ever written for the big screen, which can't be a big surprise since Terms of Endearment was the directorial debut of its screenwriter James L. Brooks, who also wrote and directed TV's best female character, Mary Richards in The Mary Tyler Moore Show.  In Terms of Endearment, he takes characters from a novel that was also written by a man (Larry McMurtry) and reveals two of the most complex, thoughtful women in film history.

Complex, indeed -- keep in mind that one of the film's central plot points pivots around Emma's decision to have an affair with a mild-mannered banker (John Lithgow), partly out of boredom, partly out of suspicion that her frequent-failure husband Flap (Jeff Daniels) is carrying on himself.  She tells this to Aurora, who's having her own dalliance with the wacko astronaut who lives next door (Jack Nicholson).  And they both talk about it.  They don't judge each other, and the film doesn't dwell on these conversations, but they are both fully aware that they are flawed as humans.

Aurora is proper and frequently stern.  Emma is looser and a bit rebellious, but cut very clearly from the same cloth.  When these women don't approve of behavior, they make themselves known -- and it is what endears them to the men who can't help but fall for them.  There are a lot of affairs and flings happening in Terms of Endearment, but the central relationships remain rock-solid.  The film follows people who genuinely love each other -- Aurora and the astronaut, Emma and Flap, Aurora and Emma -- even though they very often can't stand each other.

For much of the film, we're carried along by the loosest of stories: Aurora doesn't approve of Emma's husband, she marries him anyway, mother and daughter rack up astronomical pre-cell-phone long-distance bills, and then ...

Aurora falls in love, quite unexpectedly and against her better judgment.  Flap gets a job and moves the growing family.  And something else happens.  It happens as naturally and effortlessly as the rest of the film, and quite matter-of-factly: By the time we realize what's going on, the plot has moved far ahead of us.  It simply accepts that this development is part of the lives we are watching.

And that, ultimately, is the supreme beauty of Terms of Endearment: It is an effortless movie.  Everything works, the dialogue, the straightforward (but carefully crafted) style, the exquisite acting by everyone involved.  There's not a single unbelievable moment.  There's not a single easy laugh -- or easy tear.  They're earned, legitimately and richly.

Watching Terms of Endearment, I was struck by how funny it is, not just in the early, more carefree moments, but all the way through to the end.  It's a movie that understands how we use humor to shield us and to embolden us, to mask our feelings and to convey our feelings.  It doesn't try to be funny, it just finds humor in even the darkest situation -- humor that springs from the recognition of these characters as mild variations on people we all know, very likely ourselves.

"The Place Beyond the Pines"

 3.5 / 5 

In the first shot of The Place Beyond the Pines, stunt motorcyclist Luke Glanton (Ryan Gosling) bursts out of his trailer in a traveling carnival that's passing through Schenectady, New York.  He's a bleached-blond raw nerve who fidgets and smokes and locks eyes with a sultry woman in the crowd.

They have a past together, and it's central to the ambitious, three-part story in a sprawling, ambitious movie that gets off to such a roaring start, overstuffed with adrenaline and emotion, from which it never quite recovers.

The three sections of The Place Beyond the Pines are all connected to these two people and their deep, genuine love and passion for each other.  Luke and the woman, Romina (Eva Mendes), have a son -- one he didn't know existed.  Hurt, curious, scared and proud, Luke decides in a flash that he's going to be part of the boy's life, no matter what.

Luke will do whatever it takes to give the little boy the things he didn't have, including a father's love, even if it means resorting to crime.  He doesn't think about the consequences of that decision, or of pretty much any decision -- so he can't know just how profound and long-lasting they'll be.

A botched robbery leads to an armed confrontation with a local cop (Bradley Cooper), who in turn makes his own fateful, split-second decision.  It's another momentary incident with ripples that will be felt across generations.

The sins of the fathers weigh heavily on the minds of director Derek Cianfrance and his co-screenwriters Ben Coccio and Darius Marder.  The Place Beyond the Pines takes place over more than a decade and a half, considering the consequences of actions that happen in the blink of an eye.  It's a more grounded, less chaotic version, in a sense, of Paul Thomas Anderson's unforgettable Magnolia, a big, messy movie drunk on possibility.

The Place Beyond the Pines is more mannered for much of its running time, much more circumspect and sometimes too mannered.  Though violence always simmers under the surface, the movie never quite feels as dangerous or unpredictable as in its first hour.  Gosling is white-hot, his Luke so tortured by his own limitations that, unbound, anything is possible.

By comparison, Cooper is buttoned-down and safe.  That's not to say his story isn't compelling -- it is, but in a completely different way, and after the hand-drawn tattoos and fiery temper of Gosling, Cooper comes across as comparatively bland.

The final third stumbles as it tries to draw the first two parts together to make a grand statement about the way crime and violence perpetuate themselves.  It would be unfair to reveal up front just who they play, but Dane DeHaan and Emory Cohen, the two young actors who spring to the forefront here are in over their heads. Following in the footsteps of first Gosling then Cooper, they simply aren't commanding presences, and the movie suffers for its strict adherence to its structure.  (You keep waiting for a Gosling flashback that never comes.)

Other actors, particularly Mendes and the stunningly creepy Ben Mendelsohn, are well-used, while others like Bruce Greenwood and especially Ray Liotta -- playing exactly the kind of role you expect Ray Liotta to play -- seem out of place.

The overall result is a curious one: Gosling's Luke is a character whose outsized personality is intended to be felt throughout the story, even when he's not on screen.  Gosling delivers a towering, dazzling performance.  The only problem is, it's too towering.  The Place Beyond the Pines is one-third stunning and brilliant, two-thirds very good; but compared with stunning and brilliant, very good almost doesn't seem enough.

Viewed April 13, 2013 -- Arclight Hollywood

2030

The Screen Darkens: Farewell, Roger Ebert

Today, I lost a friend I never met.

But Roger Ebert had the uncanny ability to make everyone feel they were listening to their best friend -- their smartest, wittiest and sometimes most irritating friend -- urge them to share his passion, feel his enthusiasm, argue with his opinions.

Ebert died today, and with him went the certitude of his thoughts, the disarming and unbelievable intelligence he brought to even the simplest of ideas.  Whether in his prolific, Pulitzer Prize-winning writing or his fiery arguments (and just as passionate agreements) with rival film critic Gene Siskel, Ebert condensed and often simplified -- without dumbing down -- complex and frequently challenging views.

When Ebert reviewed films, he did so neither with the sensibilities of a pop-culture enthusiast nor with the highbrow elitism of a film theorist.  He rarely discussed a movie's artistic genesis, the oeuvre of an artist, the composition or intent of a filmmaker.

He just told you whether he liked a movie or not.

Behind his judgment was the enthusiasm of a young boy riding high on adventure, a man aware of life's pitfalls, a celebrity-in-his-own-right who hob-nobbed with the biggest names, an ink-stained journalist who cared about words.

He could be cultured, he could be simple, he could be outrageously smart, he could be silly.  Though he could not have been untouched by his own status, he rarely let his position and accomplishments affect his views on movies.  He just knew what he liked -- and what he didn't.  More often than not, it aligned with what other Americans liked and didn't.

Ebert could be scathing, he could tell everyone from his platform, "I hated, hated, hated this movie."  He could become practically rabid in his zeal to tear down or build up a movie that inspired passion in him.  And then he would listen to the other point of view, most famously represented by slightly more upscale Siskel, and share it or attack it with equal fervor.

Just the way you do when you go to movies.

He didn't care about the budget of a movie (well, almost never), he didn't care about the stars or the political and corporate machinations that went into making a movie.  He just wanted you to see the good ones, steer clear of the bad ones -- and sometimes secretly enjoy a wretched one.

My moviegoing life was shaped by Ebert.  Siskel, too, absolutely, but it is Ebert we mourn today (and Siskel we remember -- an irony the longtime foes would probably both hate and relish), and mourn him we should.  We often lose people.  We often lose people with great ideas or who have made great accomplishments.  So rarely do we lose a voice.

Ebert helped me understand that it was OK to like a film everyone else despised, to find magic in the flickering lights of the theater even when others saw something different.  He helped me learn that the best way to analyze a movie wasn't through its mise-en-scene, its cinematography, its editing or the artistic sensibilities of its director; the best way to analyze a movie was by deciding whether you liked it or didn't, and being able to articulate that.

"No good movie is too long, and no bad movie is short enough," Ebert famously said.  I think of that phrase a lot when I look at the running time on a DVD box and think, "I can't sit through a three-hour movie."  But he was right, not just about long (good) movies, but about other kinds of films: documentaries, which can show you a different way; lengthy films and foreign films, because they can transport you to places you never dreamed possible; independent films, because they remind you not everyone sees things the same way.  He was right about bad films, too -- short bad films, long bad films, or successful and popular bad films: Life's too short.

Ebert's certainly was.

Roger Ebert was always right about movies.  Even when he was wrong, he was right.

"Room 237"

 4 / 5 

Almost everyone who sees The Shining has the same first reaction: Huh?

For a movie that's supposed to be a horror film, it's not particularly scary.  For a movie directed by a genius, visionary director, it seems a step down from the greatness of 2001: A Space Odyssey or A Clockwork Orange.  For a movie based on a Stephen King novel, it sure doesn't feel like Stephen King.

There's a reason for that, says one of the several unseen narrators of the vivid, unique documentary Room 237.  It's because The Shining isn't really The Shining at all; it's really just Stanley Kubrick's cinematic confessional, a visual apology for his role as the director of the faked Apollo 11 moon landing on a soundstage, the footage that fooled the world into thinking we had gone to the moon.

Unless The Shining, as two more of the five narrators offer, is actually about repressed sexual urges, filled with subliminal images.  Or about the psychological need to deal with and exorcise the past.

Then again, it isn't that deeply buried by Kubrick: The Shining is an exploration of lingering guilt over the horror of the Holocaust.  Unless it's about the genocide of Native Americans by white Europeans.

But rather than offering up a bunch of crackpot ideas from suspect sources, Room 237 instead has found tremendously well-spoken, intelligent, interesting people who, for one reason or another, became obsessive devotees of the film, which more or less bombed at the box office when it debuted in 1980.

Over the years, they've all recognized that a Stanley Kubrick film was never just a movie, it was a work of art as carefully designed and executed to be as tantalizingly detailed and symbolic as a Da Vinci painting.  Indeed, there are times when hearing these people (including ABC News veteran Bill Blakemore) talk about The Shining recalls some of Dan Brown's most breathlessly complicated passages about Da Vinci's hidden meanings.

When you hear them laid out, all of the explanations seem both perfectly logical and perfectly ludicrous, usually simultaneously, even the one about the moon landing.  It's enough to make you check your own brain -- watching Room 237 will have you agog at your own willingness to believe that Stanley Kubrick faked the moon landing.

That's how beautifully laid out these theories are, and while Room 237 wisely never shows any of the narrators on screen (we judge far too readily based on outward appearance), it does incorporate a rather jaw-dropping amount of footage from The Shining itself, often slowing it down, capturing still frames, adding helpful arrows and diagrams, and making us see things we've never seen before.

There's the Playgirl magazine (yes, the one with naked pictures of men) that Jack Torrance reads when he visits the Overlook for the first time.

There are the carefully placed containers of Calumet baking powder and Tang.

There are the glaring continuity errors, some so bizarre and incomprehensible once they're pointed out that they can't be simple mistakes.

There must be a lot more to The Shining that meets the eye ... there must, right?  Room 237 certainly makes a brilliant case for it, and in doing so leaves you both in awe of and slightly worried about these people who have become downright obsessive about the film.  For the better part of two hours, they point out inconsistencies, symbols (real and imagined) and unexplained quirks you never noticed, and maybe never wanted to notice.

The most visually arresting section comes when one Shining devotee relates the moment in which he realized the film was a visual Moebius strip that could be viewed both forwards and backwards -- and then, astonishingly, we watch scenes from the movie played out just this way.

Right before our eyes, it becomes clear that Kubrick was a visual architect of the highest order, a filmmaker with a precisely calculated design for constructing his film. Well, either that, or he liked to put all of the important images in the exact center of the screen.

By the end of Room 237, The Shining makes 2001 look almost simple in its symbolism by comparison. (There are a lot of moments that put the two films side by side, not surprisingly, but none is as mind-blowing as the moment when 2001's Star Child and the screaming face from Saul Bass's The Shining poster appear next to each other.)

Did Kubrick, a notorious perfectionist, use common consumer products like Calumet and Tang intentionally and with great meaning, or did his production designer just think they looked good on screen?  Why so many eagles in the movie?  What's with the number 42?  Why is there no hedge maze in the establishing shot of the hotel?  Why does the pattern on a carpet change at a key moment for Danny, and why is the little boy wearing an Apollo 11 shirt?

How much did Kubrick intend to plant as clues to some unknown puzzle, how much of what is interpreted is accidental, and how much was just toying with his fans?

The more you try to dismiss Room 237 as cinematic conspiracy-theory nuttiness, the more compelled you become by the theories it's putting forth.

Making it even more compelling is the brilliant way director Rodney Ascher tells the entire story by using clips from The Shining and from dozens and dozens of other movies, both classic and obscure.  If there's ever been a documentary about a particular film made up largely of clips from other films, I don't know it -- and what Room 237 does editorially is a bit of a cinematic miracle.

There are some weird touches throughout, such as the insertion of clips or images from The Shining in other movies, and often the film begins taking us down one path only to stop and change course.  That's because there seem to be about as many interpretations of The Shining as there are fans of the film.  The Shining can apparently be almost anything you want it to be, without the nuisance of the filmmaker himself expressing an opinion.

Room 237 will likely be most interesting to those who have studied film criticism and film theory -- as well as anyone with a background in literary interpretation.  But that makes it sound awfully highbrow. Yes, at times it's complicated and makes references to things, ideas and people that may be lost on some people; but mostly, it's a movie that really makes you look hard at a film you may have seen many times, but you've never really examined.

Some of the narrators go too far (I still can't see Kubrick's face in the clouds above the Volkswagen), some not far enough (if it is about the Holocaust, then what is it trying to say?), but mostly they leave you almost slack-jawed by the realization that a film you thought you knew is one you actually don't know at all.

Room 237 is now available on Video on Demand.

Viewed March 29, 2013

Favorite Films: "Run Lola Run"

There are some worthwhile philosophical questions at the heart of Run Lola Run, the 1998 German film that makes very difficult things look astonishingly easy.

For instance, the movie wonders how much of life is unchangeable, how many things simply will be no matter what we do -- and, at the same time, what kinds of consequences, both intended and unforeseen,  our actions can have on the world.

It suggests we can shape our own lives and our own destinies, except for the things we can't.  It considers that the smallest change in our intended path can have astounding consequences, but that we'll never know what the other options might have been.

More vitally, Run Lola Run changes the way we think of film.  Through traditional live-action film, animation, still photography, visual effects and, most of all, pulsating, rhythmic music, it blends and bends these media into forms previously unimagined.

And yet, Run Lola Run is probably the most accessible, engaging, exciting, happily entertaining arthouse/experimental film you'll ever encounter.  Many people have avoided it because it's in German -- but the majority of the film can be enjoyed without even looking at the subtitles.  Other people think it looks too experimental and edgy -- but even if you're the staunchest film traditionalist, after two or three minutes you'll be hooked.

The story is so simple it only takes about 25 minutes to tell it, which the movie does three times in a row.  Manni (Moritz Bleibtreu) is the small-time thug boyfriend of Lola (Franka Potente), and he's in bad trouble.  He's lost a bunch of money that he was supposed to deliver to his bosses, and he's got 20 minutes before they find out -- and they're not going to be happy.

He calls Lola and begs her to help.  She speeds into action.  The choices she makes, the steps she takes will all determine the outcome.  With lightning speed, she acts, she thinks, she decides, she's like one of those "Choose Your Ending" books, except she doesn't know that she's making all of these choices, nor that certain things she does, sometimes blindly, will change the course of life for the people she runs across.

Director Tom Tykwer, who arguably has never again reached the imaginative heights of Run Lola Run, has nothing but fun with some serious themes.  There is, for instance, a moment in which Lola stumbles into a muttering, angry woman on the street, and through a rapid succession of still images we peer decades into the woman's future and see how that one momentary meeting will have profound consequences.

Once the 20 minutes are up, Lola and Manni have to live with the consequences -- and the film immediately swoops back in time to look at what would happen if Lola did something just slightly differently, if she stopped here to pet a dog, or she turned left there instead of right.  Will she change the outcome?  Or, more to the point, is it possible to change the outcome?

Run Lola Run is a fascinating puzzle, an adrenaline-rush of a movie that offers up deep, profound questions, then delights in never giving us a single moment in which to consider them, much less to breathe.