Other Doctor Lives: A Thousand Kisses Deep (2011)

*Premise spoilers.*

Although this Jodie Whittaker film certainly could have been better, it’s an interesting story helped along by solid acting. Also, it’s always fun to discover that an actor who’s played the Doctor was part of a time-travel story prior to their time on Who.

Mia Selva is shaken when an old woman in her building dies by suicide, jumping out the window clutching a picture of Mia’s abusive ex. Further investigation shows that the dead woman’s flat is filled with Mia’s things. Something is going wrong with time, and in order to fix it, Mia has to travel through her own past to put things right.

There’s a lot that interests me here. I like that this is a very personal time travel story, and that it’s used to explore Mia’s past and relationships more so than any world-ending calamity. I enjoy the concept of the lift/elevator that can move residents through time as well as to different floors, and Max, the landlord, makes for a frustrated but sympathetic guide for Mia.

However, I don’t think the film uses its premise as well as it could. The reason Max sends Mia on this journey is because she takes a letter from the old woman’s flat. He tells her, “You made a mistake, Mia. Time is out of joint. You have to put it back.” But the further into the past Mia goes, the more caught up she gets in her own history and the less attention she has for not interfering. She never fully seems to grasp the severity of her meddling. Additionally, there are scenes where she interacts with people from her past, as well as with her younger self, and because Jodie Whittaker is playing both versions of Mia, it’s so weird that no one comments anything stronger than, “You look familiar.” Really?? You’re seeing a woman with an identical face to your girlfriend, and you’re wondering if you might’ve met her somewhere before? Young Mia has no reaction to meeting her doppelganger? For the sake of the performance, I understand why Whittaker is playing both, but for the sake of the narrative, it might’ve been better to cast a different actress to play the younger Mia. Or they could’ve even used the device where we see a different actress playing the young Mia in a reflection, showing that that’s what the other characters are using, even if Whittaker is playing both throughout those scenes.

What begins as an attempt to repair her inadvertent meddling in time quickly becomes an active quest on Mia’s part to save herself from her past abusive relationship. She travels back through the lift to different points in her history with Ludwig, a toxic jazz musician who’s much older, married, and a narcissistic creep. Mia doesn’t just want to fix what she broke by taking the letter. She wants to convince her younger self to leave Ludwig, or prevent her from getting together with him in the first place. It’s never clear how this would solve any of the issues happening with time, but it is understandable that a survivor of abuse would want to use her opportunity with time travel to prevent her own suffering.

A few familiar faces in the cast. Emilia Fox, who I’ll always remember best as Georgiana Darcy in the Ehle/Firth Pride and Prejudice, plays Mia’s mother in the past. And we have not one, but two actors who went on to guest star in new Who themselves, both in series 7. David Warner (the Russian scientist from “Cold Blood”) plays Max with a nice mix of brusqueness and warmth, and Dougray Scott (the ghosthunter in “Hide”) is suitably creepy as Ludwig. When he screams in Mia’s face, ties her naked to her bed, and then tells her how much he loves her, it’s skin-crawling.

Then, of course, there’s Whittaker as Mia. Despite my issues with her playing both the older and younger versions, she does well with the character. It’s a very grounded, naturalistic performance, which is fitting for a very grounded time-travel story. Whittaker reacts honestly to the various situations Mia is in, from her terror at witnessing her past abuse, to her revulsion at still feeling some sort of pull to Ludwig, to her anger at her father not doing more to stand up for himself at a critical moment in the past.

Accent Watch

RP-ish. Not precisely posh, but definitely not Whittaker’s usual Northern accent.

Recommend?

In General – Maybe. Like I said, it could’ve been better, but there’s enough good stuff here that I’d say it’s worth it.

Jodie Whittaker – I think so. Whittaker doesn’t have a ton of starring roles in her filmography, and this is a pretty good one for her.

Warnings

Violence (including domestic violence,) sexual content, drinking/smoking/drug use, and strong thematic elements (including suicide.)

Unhatched Observations: Spider-Man

It’s that time again—looking over some of my old posts about a story with Big Neurodivergent Energy and realizing how it resonated with me as an “unhatched” autistic ADHDer. Today, we’re looking at Spider-Man, mostly MCU with a dash of The Amazing Spider-Man. ADHD-coded (and maybe autistic-coded?) Peter Parker, how I love you! Plus, bonus autistic-coded MJ! For what it’s worth, Miles Morales reads as ADHD to me too—what is it with these teenage superheroes?—but my old posts on the Spider-Verse don’t really highlight those traits.

 

Favorite Characters: Peter Parker (The Amazing Spider-Man)

[Peter is] prone to impulsive decisions, he can be stubborn and immature, and his emotions can get the better of him.  […]  He gets distracted by his love life, and when he’s disheartened, his mind can go into “I don’t know what to do!” overdrive, heightened by the trademark Great Responsibility that comes with his Great Power.

***

He’s a genuine smart cookie, designing his web shooters among other techie gizmos (some apropos of nothing—I love the mechanical lock rigged up for his bedroom door,) taking a frequently analytical approach to solving his superhero problems, and just generally being enthusiastic about knowledge, calculations, and experimentation.  He uses his webs to get around and to immobilize baddies, of course, but he also uses them creatively and intelligently to accomplish a variety of goals; I really like how he sets up a network of webs to search for the Lizard in the first movie, along with the relation between webs and electric conductivity with Electro in the second.

 

Spider-Man: Homecoming

[Tom Holland’s] youth makes the “teenage” part of this teenage superhero really hit home.  We get so used to seeing 25-year-olds play high schoolers that whenever an actor who’s even 18 or 19 comes along to play a teen, it’s astounding how young they are.  And that’s Holland’s Spidey all over.  Whether it’s his awkwardness around girls, his short attention span, or his helpless fear when he really gets in over his head, this Spidey feels genuine in a way that his predecessors, despite their own merits, can’t manage.

 

Favorite Characters: Peter Parker a.k.a. Spider-Man (MCU)

His awkward teenage problems, like running into his crush in the hallway or getting himself stuck in detention, feel genuine, as does his dorky enthusiasm at all the cool superhero stuff he can do – I love the moments where he’s geeking out with Ned over himself.  This Spidey is every inch a teenager, and that’s reflected in how he agonizes over whether he should investigate bad guys or hang out with a cute girl.  How he makes lame excuses to his aunt and talks himself into doing really ill-advised things.  How he debates the merits of using the suit to impress girls.  How he races into things without thinking and then suddenly realizes he’s going to need a plan when he gets there.

This is a Spider-Man who’s still rough around the edges.  He gets himself in over his head, he sometimes blunders into situations where he doesn’t belong, and he has no idea what to do when he’s in the suburbs and doesn’t have any tall buildings to attach webs to. 

 

Favorite Characters: MJ

I like that she randomly hangs out in detention (despite not having detention herself) because she “[likes] drawing people in crisis,” and I love that she’s the only kid who doesn’t tour the Washington Monument when the Academic Decathlon team goes to D.C. because she doesn’t want to celebrate something that was built by slaves. Throughout the movie, lots of little moments add up to give her a glimpse of who she is: someone frank, someone deadpan, someone observant, and someone a little bit dark.

***

Not to mention, she doesn’t miss a trick. As Peter works up the courage to tell her that he likes her, she assumes he’s going to tell her his other secret, the one she’s already (mostly) figured out: the fact that he’s Spider-Man. Maybe MJ initially started watching Peter because she had a crush on him, but the things she saw while doing that led her to a correct supposition, and while she wasn’t convinced, she was sure enough to say it out loud to him. That takes a gift for observation, some good deduction skills, and the ballsiness to actually run with what probably seemed at first like a ludicrous theory.

 

A Few Thoughts on Peter Parker (Spider-Man: No Way Home)

Tom [Holland’s Peter] is the youngest, prone to impulsive/excitable dumb decisions but still a kid with a decent head on his shoulders, one who desperately wants to do what’s right and feels the heavy weight of that responsibility when things go wrong.

 

Relationship Spotlight: MJ & Peter

We also see that she’s tuned into Peter in a way that a lot of the other kids aren’t: since becoming Spider-Man, he’s given up most of his extracurriculars, a fact that only she picks up on. She puts it down to her observant nature, rather than any personal investment she has in him, but the lady doth protest too much.

***

It’s cute that he very specifically likes her weirdness, planning to get her a dahlia necklace, which is her favorite flower “because of the murders.”

 

The Apprentice (2024, R)

Like a lot of people, I was apprehensive when this movie was first announced—as I fan of Sebastian Stan, I know I wasn’t alone in wondering, “Who asked for this?” But then I started hearing some interesting things about it, and as award season kicked off, I realized that I was starting to look forward to seeing it.

What’s It About?

In the 1970s, real estate scion Donald Trump dreams of putting his own stamp on New York City, obsessed with revitalizing a seedy part of the city with a massive hotel bearing his name. To accomplish his goals, he learns at the unscrupulous feet of Roy Cohn, a crooked lawyer who never lets the law or morality get in the way of winning. We follow Trump’s haphazard meteoric rise, seeing who he steps on to get there.

Who’s in It?

I’ve been a fan of Sebastian Stan for over 15 years, and despite my skepticism on this one, I can agree that he knocks it out of the park as the young Donald Trump. It probably helps that this is a younger Trump, before his gimmicks fully devolved in self-parody, but Stan’s performance is fantastic. Critically, it never feels like an impression. While the Trumpisms are definitely on display—the voice, the hand gestures, the facial expressions—Stan plays him as a person, not a caricature. He’s alternately fascinating and revulsive in the role. I was less sold on Jeremy Strong’s Roy Cohn at first; his performance does feel a bit more like an impersonation, albeit of a figure whose mannerisms I wasn’t familiar with. I came around more in the second half of the film, especially in the passages where we see Roy Cohn more on the ropes. And while I knew about Stan and Strong, I had no idea that Maria Bakalova was in this film too, playing Trump’s first wife Ivana.

What’s It Nominated For?

The Apprentice was nominated for two Oscars:

·        Best Leading Actor – Sebastian Stan

·        Best Supporting Actor – Jeremy Strong

What Do I Love About It?

·        I thought this movie was really well done. The acting is at the top of the list for me, but the script is sharp—equal parts funny, terrible, and biting. The story moves at a good pace, and the film captures the grimy feel of the 1980s New York real estate business, replete with all the underhandedness and cheap excess you’d expect.

·        There are a few places where the script feels a little too on-the-nose, like in a scene where a young Roger Stone asks Trump if he’d ever consider running for office, but for the most part, I think it does a great job of showing us Trump’s past while evoking the present. Most significantly, the three rules Roy Cohn teaches Trump loom over the entire film, and it’s depressingly easy to see how they play out in America today.

·        The biggest feat of the movie is that it gives me some insight into better understanding Trump, contextualizing his rise and how he became the man he is today. But understanding and context is never used as a means to excuse or justify Trump. It can be hard for stories to give perspective to the “antagonist” without sympathizing with them, but The Apprentice doesn’t flinch in its depiction here.

Warnings

Strong thematic elements (including the early days of the AIDS crisis,) language (including sexist and homophobic slurs,) drinking/smoking/drug use, sexual content, and violence (including sexual assault.)