"Star Wars: Episode VII: The Force Awakens"

In today’s film culture, where the influence of Star Wars is felt in every mainstream action/adventure film to the point where it’s almost invisible, making a balanced and level-headed assessment of a film like The Force Awakens is an almost herculean task. From the perspective of a critic who also happens to be a lifelong fan of the saga, the need to remain lucid and alert is doubly imperative: No matter how crushingly bad the prequels may have been, standards must remain sufficiently high to avoid mistaking mere mediocrity for quality. And as important as the tie-in merchandising may have been in shaping our childhood imagination, their existence demonstrates that the Star Wars saga is now a corporate brand as well as a story – a brand now owned by the Walt Disney Company, arguably one of the most powerful entities on the planet. Decades of pop-cultural osmosis and omnipresent merchandising combined with the current consumerization of nostalgia have imprinted the same message within our minds: The next Star Wars film will be good. The next Star Wars film must be good.

The underlying fear behind the hype was that all the hopes and fantasies we have projected onto the saga’s title would once again find themselves invalidated. Worse still were the silent, insidious questions traveling across our collective unconscious that this fear represented: Could it be that Star Wars never was as good as we made it out to be? Or that these films were the near-miraculous product of a specific concoction of inspiration, luck, creative restrictions and contemporary cultural influences that just happened to come at the right time in history? In other words, could it be that our generation and the generations to come will simply have to accept that they will never get “their” Star Wars?

The Force Awakens opens enough new avenues to make an affirmative answer seem possible, but its reluctance to venture outside its forebears’ towering shadow leaves the question open. As many critics and bloggers have pointed out, J. J. Abrams’s directorial career has so far consisted entirely of reviving stories he and his target audience grew up watching. In the span of almost ten years, he has directed five theatrical features, three of which are modern cinematic updates of popular 1960s TV shows. Even Super 8, his only film not based on pre-existing intellectual property, is a faithful-to-a-fault copy of the boyhood adventure fantasies produced by Spielberg and his movie-brat friends in the 1980s.

Abrams is thus, for better and for worse, the emblem of contemporary geek culture; the poster child of a once-marginalized identity built around popular entertainment marketed towards children and teenagers, now in complete creative control of Hollywood’s hottest properties. That The Force Awakens is his best film so far is particularly fitting, so illustrative is it of both the strengths and limitations of our elevation of childhood nostalgia to cultural godhood. It understands the narrative mechanics and economic-but-efficient characterization that made the original trilogy work so well, but works so hard to get them right that it struggles to find a voice that is entirely its own. Like a talented but star-struck apprentice fearful of deviating from the template set by his master, Abrams recycles narrative devices, settings, plot beats and visual cues from the original trilogy with just enough changes to suggest paths to eventual self-sufficiency.

The very first shot following the introductory crawl – the underbelly of a gigantic Star Destroyer gradually obscuring the stars as it crosses the frame’s verticality – looks like A New Hope’s iconic opening shot seen from a different angle, minus the rebel ship. The plot revolves around a cute little droid (BB-8, who looks like a metallic football with a revolving head) hunted on a desert planet by evil space fascists for the vital data it’s tasked with bringing to the heroes’ headquarters, only to come across an orphan dreaming of a better life. With the help of a fugitive, they escape the planet on board the seemingly decrepit old freighter Millennium Falcon and become involved in a race against time to destroy the villains’ devastating superweapon, as the orphan gradually learns the ways of the Force.

The reason the plot to A New Hope resonated so strongly within audiences worldwide is that it somehow managed to unite the elements of what Joseph Campbell called “the monomyth” that speak most directly to that mysterious part of the human mind that knows neither cultural nor temporal boundaries, only the limitless capacity for imagination. To see it imitated in its own sequel is disappointing but not altogether surprising – at best, Abrams and his co-writers – which include Star Wars veteran Lawrence Kasdan – use these glory days reminders to ensure the torch is passed along smoothly to the new generation of characters.

Indeed, most of the film’s strongest points derive from moments in which the past meets the present for one last dance before taking its final bow and making way for the future. Many of these moments are supplied by Harrison Ford’s Han Solo, who takes on the role of veteran-from-past-war-in-charge-of-mentoring-the-heroes previously assumed by Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan Kenobi. Whatever frustration Mr. Ford himself may have with critics, audiences and filmmakers continually bringing his career back to the two characters that made him a star, his performance makes it very easy to understand why this keeps happening: Their very existence is a miracle for which he is largely responsible. He not only manages to cobble together the disparate pieces of pop culture from which these characters are made, he infuses them with nonchalant lifelike charm that feels almost unintentional. His acting in The Force Awakens illustrates that gift perfectly: With only a few words and glances, Han Solo isn’t just brought back to life – he steps back into our imaginations with the weight and shadow of a long unseen life spent running away from broken dreams and personal failures.

Chief among these failures is Han’s wayward son Ben – better known under the moniker Kylo Ren – whose desertion of his familial and political unit in favour of the evil First Order virtually drives the entire plot. It’s an ingenious reversal of the Luke-Vader dynamic that cumulates plot and character beats from all three original films, culminating in a scene that crystallizes all the film’s reference points and cardinal directions in one lightsaber stroke. Like A New Hope, it involves the battle-worn mentor getting killed by a primary villain to whom he has a personal connection. Like The Empire Strikes Back, it takes place on a beautifully-shot horizontal platform overlooking a chasm. And like Return Of The Jedi, it’s cross-cut with a space battle over the very station in which these dramatic personal events are unfolding.

This is the scene in which the callbacks to the original trilogy are given meaning and purpose. The death of Han Solo doesn’t just represent a dramatic narrative game-changer; as administrated by Kylo Ren, it’s an act of cathartic release – one that, given Abrams and his co-writers’ choices, seems outright necessary to allow the franchise to grow autonomously.

Kylo Ren, you see, is The Force Awakens’ most innovative creation. When we are first introduced to him, see his tall black-cloaked figure and hear that deep metallic voice coming from beneath the faceless mask, we are given every reason to dismiss him as a poor Darth Vader imitation – just another reminder of a perfect villain the franchise may never surpass. But the more we get to see of him, the more it becomes apparent that that is exactly the point. Kylo Ren has gone through an as-of-yet undefined journey to the dark side not unlike Anakin Skywalker’s, except that he is still learning the ropes. Behind the mask hides a scared, unbalanced and uncertain young man who has latched onto an idealized vision of his illustrious grandfather to compensate for his own perceived lack of identity. Put simply, Kylo Ren is – for want of a better word – a fanboy. A dark reflection of the generation Abrams represents: Gifted, privileged and passionate, but lacking in maturity and perspective.

Because this messy bag of hormones is also the film’s foremost antagonist, he is arguably the most difficult character to get right: He has to be simultaneously cruel and pathetic, uncertain all while projecting an aura of confidence, convincing as a threat even as his efforts to be threatening are discernible. That Adam Driver succeeds at walking that line is one of the film’s unqualified successes; correcting Hayden Christensen’s blandly petulant Anakin, he turns his character’s post-adolescent self-pity into a destructive, unstable weapon. His Kylo is a spoiled moody teenager with power and authority far above his understanding, all at the service of an ideology that thrives on dominance for its own sake.

Driver, best known for his work on Lena Dunham’s NYC dramedy show Girls, is an ideal fit for so relevant and complex a character. His gawky college-student face provides the perfect mask for the millennial confusion, resentment and self-absorption Kylo represents. In that respect, his eerily grateful act of patricide – the film’s indisputable high point – represents the culmination of our generation’s gradual acceptance of the fallibilities and inadequacies of our childhood hero creators, and the necessity to move on with their blessing (notice the reluctant compliance expressed by Ford’s body language in his dying moments).

The other big step in a new direction is John Boyega’s Finn. Of all the story’s arcs, his may be the most interesting because it’s one we’ve never seen in any Star Wars audiovisual media before: A non-violent Stormtrooper who, for reasons unknown even to him, has somehow resisted lifelong conditioning to unquestioning obedience and deserts everything he has ever known at the first opportunity, just so he won’t have to kill any more innocent people. This introduces opportunities to study the perceived naturalness of violence and aggression – which the Sith and their far-right politics consider self-evident – that demand to be exploited. Boyega himself is easily the best of the three new leads, a naturally likeable everyman that doubles as a uniting force between actors, creating spontaneous chemistry with every person he shares the screen with. As orphaned heroine Rey, Daisy Ridley’s relative inexperience sometimes sticks out, but she nonetheless acquits herself with spunk and stamina.

A pity that so many other new characters exist mainly to set themselves up for later installments, as though they were in a pilot for a TV show – you can probably blame Abrams’s TV roots for that. Gwendoline Christie cuts an imposing figure as the stormtroopers’ steely Captain Phasma, but only appears in all of three scenes to end up as a punchline for yet another New Hope call-back joke. Despite being the most seasoned actor of the new main cast, Oscar Isaac’s role amounts to little more than an extended Top Gun cameo. And while Andy Serkis does imbibe him with foreboding omniscience, Supreme Leader Snoke remains as generic a threat as the MCU’s Thanos.

As a director, J. J. Abrams has always come across as a competent technician that also happened to be a studious enough follower of better filmmakers to fool some critics into thinking him an auteur. Here, however, he is in his element. Refraining from his usual tendency to flash up expository scenes to hide their unengaging nature, he gives his characters enough leeway to express themselves in a way that isn’t constrained by plot mechanics or the need for spectacle. In scenes such as the climactic lightsaber duel between Kylo and Rey, he even uses his more familiar flash-and-slash style to effectively turn his screenplay’s implicit stage directions into concrete visual storytelling: Contrasting with the original trilogy’s slow-burning Kurosawan face-offs as well as the prequels’ theatrical acrobatics, Abrams films his characters’ fight in mobile, heavily-cut shots that follow their movements and match their mutual status as novices: It’s a clumsy, unevenly-focused affair with virtually no choreography to speak of – and it works beautifully.

To be sure, the film is not entirely exempt from issues common to modern blockbuster filmmaking: The rushed pace doesn’t find its proper rhythm until the second act, the political background is not well defined (apparently, a recently-restored Republic still needs a Resistance movement to face enemies that threaten its power) and the disappointingly uneventful destruction of an entire solar system proves once more that excessive build-up – in this case, a few shots of terrified civilians facing their imminent doom – tends to nullify rather than magnify emotional impact.

Still, Star Wars: Episode VII: The Force Awakens contains enough spark and soul to reinvigorate even the most cynical viewer’s faith in modern mythmaking. As much a mirror to our present culture’s psyche as its predecessor was an antidote to 70s malaise, it calls upon us – and upon its own creators – to grow as both storytellers and audiences. May the sequels demonstrate that we have listened.

"Much Loved"

Banned in its native Morocco due to its uncommonly frank depiction of sex and prostitution, Much Loved premiered at Cannes scented with scandal and bearing the mark of artistic victimhood – shaping it up to be the kind of film western critics feel so honour-bound to champion in the name of freedom and social progress that they tend to overlook its eventual shortcomings. Happily, this particular film, while perhaps not breaking as much ground stylistically as it does thematically, deserves most of its plaudits.

The story revolves around a trio of prostitutes and their daily struggle for survival in a patriarchal world that preys upon their bodies while simultaneously punishing their services with judgment, violence and disdain. Soukaina (Halima Karaouane) is a romantic both on and off-duty, simpering love messages to a sugar daddy on the phone one minute, answering the door to her homeless boyfriend the next. Semi-closeted lesbian Randa (Asmaa Lazrak) dreams of reuniting with her absentee father in Spain. Serving as the group’s “big sister” figure is iron-tempered Noha (Loubna Abidar), whose authoritarian attitude is partly due to the strain her breadwinning efforts cause on the very family they’re supposed to be helping, with her toddler son never seeing his mother, her own mother displaying open shame and resentment, and her sister threatening to follow the same path.

Every other night, their elderly driver Saïd (Abdellah Didane) takes them to parties attended by Moroccan businessmen and Saudi oil sheiks. There, they entertain their opulent hosts by dancing, twerking to hip-hop music, stripping, snorting cocaine on each other’s bodies and otherwise performing the kind of acts that would almost certainly warrant brutal corporal punishment in their guests’ country. When they’re not performing or having intercourse with them, they sit down and discuss sex, global economics and even the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but it’s all a big joke and they’re not even really in on it. Whenever one of the women dares to voice a genuine heartfelt opinion, their clients respond by either insulting them or turning the situation into another joke about how ridiculous it all is.

Such is the absurdity of these women’s situation: They provide a clearly much-wanted service, yet are derided and degraded even as they provide it, by the very men who demand it and benefit from it. At every turn, their clients remind them of their social position. In one particularly startling moment, a Saudi drops a precious gem in a swimming pool, promising it as a reward for the first girl to find it – all just to watch the underprivileged sex workers jump in fully clothed and compete for what amounts to an insignificant speck of his immense wealth.

Little wonder then that the very first thing we hear over the introductory black screen is an animated conversation between our protagonists about last night’s johns’ performances and their own personal tastes in men. Although they rarely do it to their faces, they turn their clients’ sexual objectification and mockery back on them and use it to strengthen their sisterly bond. Yet even this only further illustrates how sex and the abstract idea of romance serve as the inescapable constants around which their entire lives seem to revolve. Even outside the nightclubs and mansions where they work, they put on performances, selling the illusion of love or happiness to themselves almost as much as others. Only in each other’s company, in stolen little moments as simple as watching a Bollywood movie and imitating its dances or sharing a meal with a crossdressing gay streetwalker friend, can they truly be themselves.

All this is fairly quick and easy to understand once the first twenty minutes or so have passed, which can lend a slight air of redundancy to subsequent scenes in which the women dreams of escape through a rich, respectful Prince Charming, or receive verbal abuse from spurned prospective clients at a nightclub. Twice following a particularly harsh episode do we get close shots of Noha in a car seat looking tired and pensive, intermingled with long lateral tracking shots of Marrakech streets from the car window’s perspective, as sad violin and piano music plays on the soundtrack. It works effectively the first time as a silent reminder of the greater context in which these events occur, but its reappearance only creates the uncomfortable sensation of being pressured for sympathy.

There is discomfort, too, in the opulent party scenes. Director Nabil Ayouch films his actresses with a hand-held camera, tracking their sensual movements and the delight of their patrons as a fellow partygoer would. It adds an extra touch of immersion, yes, but is it not also merging with the clients’ gaze? And in doing so, is it not unconsciously endorsing it? Questions that Ayouch does not satisfactorily explore, which means that the viewers are not challenged or interrogated on their way of looking at these women’s bodies in such scenes, as they were so brilliantly in Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers.

Still, these occasional lapses into banality do not undercut the patent empathy Ayouch displays for these women, nor do they deny them their humanity. Much Loved’s best moments occur in temporary openings through the surface of seemingly commonplace scenes: Randa’s immobile tenseness as her first female client to put her hands on her, controls her and guides her to her bed; the scene in which pregnant newcomer Hlima (Sara Elhamdi Elalaoui) negotiates payment in money and vegetables with a poor middle-aged vendor after sex – the closest thing to a consensual, equal rapport between merchant and customer in the entire film – or the dinner date scene during which the camera captures all the skepticism, feigned interest, resignation, acceptance and false hope contained within a single facial expression of Loubna Abidar’s, as her character listens to her wealthy French client recite empty declarations of love.

In moments such as these, we get miraculous glimpses of seemingly new emotions and states of being that are far more disturbing and important revelations than a client’s repressed homosexuality or a dirty cop’s depravity. We penetrate strange and unfamiliar territory where people lose their masks and expose themselves to our scrutiny when we least expect it.

Rough around the edges and not always apt at dodging familiarity, Much Loved is nonetheless a frank and compassionate tableau of female friendship and sisterhood whose occasional hiccups are redeemed by first-class acting, with special mention to Loubna Abidar’s revelatory turn as Noha. It deserves to be seen not because of its ban or its subject, but because of its humanity.

"Hope And Glory"

 « War as seen through the eyes of a child » is a favourite theme of both journalists and filmmakers. It’s a reliable, sometimes facile way to get the audience emotionally invested in your story and more susceptible to agreeing with whatever you have to say about it. After all, what could bring out the inherent brutality and absurdity of war more powerfully than the perspective of an innocent, impressionable child? Blissfully unaware of the political complexities that lead to war, a child experiences its horrific consequences firsthand; from that point on, they may choose to accept and endure them for what they are, or instead cope – as children often do – by simply integrating it into their daily routine and turning potential trauma into just another game.

Hope And Glory lies firmly in the latter camp, and its unabashed nostalgia for this dark and violent period of British history is at the root of its most affecting moments. Based on writer/director John Boorman’s own childhood experience of the Blitz, it takes full and complete advantage of its protagonist’s youth to colour every moment of happiness and hardship with equal fondness. Any consequent softening of the pain of war is tempered by Boorman’s tenderly accurate understanding of boyhood cruelty and imagination. Through the eyes of 10 year-old Bill Rowan, Nazi bombings and the subsequent enlistment of all military-aged males turn a peaceful London suburb into a vast playground in which both adult and childhood fears and desires that were either hidden or sublimated become more apparent, even if he presently lacks the maturity to fully understand them.

This puts an interesting spin on the expected pre-teen rites of passage: Scenes such as Bill’s initiation into a gang of miniature bomb site scavengers – which involves a hammer and a live bullet – strip what we think of as “typical” childhood group behaviour of its social codes to reveal the violent power dynamics these codes sanction and sublimate. A slightly older girl becomes a temporary sideshow curiosity after losing her mother in an air raid, only to then be coerced into showing her genitals in order to be accepted into the gang. It may seem like typical kid stuff, but viewers familiar with John Boorman’s work will notice a pattern: as he did before in Hell In The Pacific, Deliverance, Excalibur and most infamously in Zardoz, Boorman is studying people’s adaptation to the collapse or endangerment of societal structures. In each case, the plot is driven by a Hobbesian narrative that assumes violence to be man’s natural state, although the degree to which Boorman accepts and endorses that premise varies from film to film. Outside of its autobiographical nature, what makes Hope And Glory an especially notable entry in that saga is the demographic feminization caused by the call-up. With his neighbourhood depleted of its adult male population, Bill finds himself surrounded by female characters – particularly his mother and two sisters – to which the scavengers and his ex-womanizer of a grandfather provide a counter-example. Nowhere is this experience better exemplified than in the clothes shop scene, in which the camera pans out and sideways as Bill’s mother (Sarah Miles) and a friend make their way across rows of clothes racks and progressively undress while discussing their lack of sex life until Bill emerges from the rack behind them; after a brief bust shot of the two women, we cut to a lateral tracking medium shot that allows us to follow Bill at his eye-level and partake in his exploration of female figures and undergarments.

In that respect, Hope And Glory mirrors Zardoz’s juxtaposition of a castrating matriarchy with the toxically virile “Brutals” manipulated into doing its dirty work, and corrects that film’s misogyny all while identifying its source. Instead of regurgitating adolescent clichés without giving them any flesh, Boorman opens his audience’s eyes to the myriad of ways pre-teen boys see the world and tune it to their dreams.

The entirety of the film’s events, including those depicted in scenes that do not adopt Bill’s point of view or from which he is absent, are seen through that same semi-subjective filter. Like A Christmas Story, nostalgia is woven right into the film reel itself, except that Boorman – who, unlike Bob Clark, is telling his own story – doesn’t use it to sugarcoat his own memories, but rather to underline the meaningfulness of moments and feelings that, in the face of the existential threat posed by war, seem deceptively insignificant: A drunk grandfather humiliating his wife by toasting his old flames, only to get increasingly tearful as he struggles to remember a name; an older sister smuggling her stationed Canadian boyfriend through her siblings’ window to have sex; wistful conversations between a married mother and her husband’s best friend that reveal old, fully-preserved love that will never be consummated… Bill may not fully understand all of these things but he bears witness to them nonetheless, passively accepting them as though somehow aware of how important they are.

1987 was quite a year for war films. Not only did it see the release of Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece Full Metal Jacket, it saw no less than three major films revolving about children – or, more specifically, boys – experiencing different facets of the Second World War: Empire Of The Sun, Au Revoir Les Enfants and Hope And Glory. Of these three, the last two were based on their respective filmmaker’s personal memories. Hope And Glory does not quite reach the same emotional impact as Spielberg and Malle’s films, perhaps because the same acquiescent lucidity on his own nostalgia that makes his film so distinct paradoxically prevents Boorman from completely renewing the familiar boyhood tropes with which he peppers his story. Nevertheless, the acumen with which he portrays his rapport with the opposite sex as well as the source of his fascination with man’s psychological and physical violence rises it well above most cinematic childhood portraits.

"Bridge Of Spies"

There’s a very good reason Steven Spielberg’s name has become a metonym for Hollywood itself: Aside from being a visual storyteller of unmatched influence, he embodies and perpetuates Hollywood’s uniquely American liberalism more authoritatively than any other director alive. Characterized by unwavering faith in the fundamental goodness of the nation’s institutions and founding principles, this left-of-center patriotism has been the staple of such rightly-cherished political films as Seven Days In May, 12 Angry Men and Three Days Of The Condor.

Having previously studied the practical application of these values in 2012’s splendid Lincoln, Spielberg continues his probe of current political issues through historical parallels in Bridge Of Spies. Through the remarkable true story of lawyer-turned-diplomat James B. Donovan’s role in the defense of convicted Soviet spy Rudolf Abel and his later exchange with two American captives, Spielberg likens our present Islamist-inspired climate of fear to Cold War-era existential anxiety, and argues the case for integrating empathy and due process in our response.

Spielberg is arguably Hollywood’s most idealistic living filmmaker and Bridge Of Spies reflects that idealism to a fault in a typically classical style that occasionally slips into emotional shortcuts and easy roleplaying even as it continues Lincoln’s approving exposé of backdoor politics at the service of freedom.

The first half of the film, which sees Donovan and his family tossed in the center of a geopolitical storm most of them only understand in broad simplistic terms, keeps itself content with meeting audience expectations without exploring the personal ramifications of its protagonist’s actions or his relationship to his country’s state of mind beyond a few clever ideas: A beautifully-edited sequence in which the trial’s opening ceremony transitions to a classroom reciting the Pledge of Allegiance before watching a propaganda cartoon warning of Soviet attacks; Donovan’s youngest son following the cartoon’s instructions when his own countrymen take shots at his house… These elements aside, the Donovan family never truly deviates from Rockwellian patriarchal archetypes. Amy Ryan in particular is given little else to do but play the concerned housewife fearing for her family’s safety and reputation, a role so trite and common it’s virtually invisible.

Most of this section follows Donovan as he develops a respectful rapport with his client and argues for him to be treated as an honourable enemy combatant with every right and privilege granted by the Constitution despite him not being an American citizen. Tom Hanks plays Donovan as a living personification of America’s liberal conscience, a privilege earned from decades spent as the face of his country’s populist spirit and one he exercises with the kind of natural ease Henry Fonda used to display. As if to counter Hanks’s comforting familiarity, Spielberg cast little-known stage, TV and arthouse veteran Mark Rylance as Rudolf Abel, a move that proves most judicious but is ultimately one of the film’s missed opportunities; Abel’s character and his interactions with Donovan are merely adequate when they could have been fascinating. A quiet, unassuming bespectacled little nobody whose average looks and demure bearing make him an ideal spy, Abel is too ostentatiously mysterious to be feel authentic. His persistent calm in the face of probable death and near-universal hatred is treated as an occasion for one of the film’s many cutesy recurring lines – “would it help?” is his invariable response whenever Donovan asks him if he’s afraid – and Rylance is allowed few opportunities to show any cracks in that façade. His most prominent one – a monologue in which he recounts a childhood story about a friend of his father’s who kept standing up in the face of multiple beatings – is mostly there to valorize the protagonist via obvious symbolism (and get a dramatic callback at the film’s climax) rather than humanize him a little further.

Routine though most of it may be, the film’s first half does contain its share of surprises and typically Spielbergian masterstrokes: The opening scene, which sees Abel dodging FBI agents while on his way to pick up a microfilm-loaded nickel, brings to mind some of the period’s finest thrillers. The trial itself is completely skipped over in favour of behind-the-scenes negotiations and narrative setups for Francis Gary Powers’ fateful mission over Sverdlovsk¹.

But it is not until Tom Hanks is once again sent off to rescue one of the boys trapped behind enemy lines as he did 17 years ago in Saving Private Ryan that the story truly comes alive, as Donovan jumps from hoop to hoop, assisted by CIA handlers that don’t seem especially keen on trusting him with the job, never quite sure of exactly whom he is talking to. Determined to save both Powers and an unfortunate economics student caught on the wrong side of the newly-built Berlin Wall, Donovan bends all the rules established for him by all sides of the conflict to bring everyone back home safely.

It’s easy to see why James B. Donovan’s story appealed to Spielberg so much. Like Oskar Schindler, Frank Abagnale Jr. and Abraham Lincoln before him, Donovan is a historical figure that conveniently fits a certain kind of American liberal mythology: A charismatic, resourceful hero using rhetorical prowess and sheer audacity to outwit a system and solve conflicts non-violently. The inevitable simplification that results from such a reading is compensated for by Hanks’s innate trustworthiness and a politically astute screenplay – credited to Matt Charman and the Coen Brothers – that navigates Donovan through a diplomatic maze filled with verbal traps and political stumbling blocks, where everything, even events as random as a mugging, seems to be purposefully staged and set up to serve an agenda. Watching Donovan flush out these agendas and turn them to his advantage, all without pretending to be more sophisticated or knowledgeable than he really is, is one of the film’s chief pleasures. The little Coenesque touches, such as a comically awkward meeting with Abel’s “family” that ends with his “wife” bursting into tears, do a nice job of gently reinforcing the unfamiliar nature of Donovan’s experience.

If it had taken more chances with its characters and refrained from the occasional bout of audience manipulation, Bridge Of Spies could have been a truly thought-provoking political thriller. Thanks to Spielberg’s steady hand and the Charman/Coen Brothers team’s clever pacing, it avoids most of the pomposity associated with Oscar season period piece. Entertaining though it may be, those of us who appreciated Lincoln and the underrated Munich cannot help but miss Tony Kushner’s insight and wonder why Spielberg did not team up with him again.

¹A city now known as Yekaterinburg.