99 Homes

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Ramin Bahrani/Starring: Michael Shannon, Andrew Garfield, Laura Dern, Clancy Brown and Tim Guinee

The real estate scandal that helped usher in the economic crisis in America from which we are still emerging has its culprits; all of whom will never be brought to trial or prosecuted. But the victims of said crisis are more numerous. Director Ramin Bahrani's new film; 99 Homes tells the story from the perspective of one such victim; Dennis Nash (an exceptional Andrew Garfield), who, with his mother Lynn (Laura Dern) and son Connor (Noah Lomax) find police at their door; demanding they vacate the premises. Accompanying the police is a real estate speculator named Rick Carver (a frightening Michael Shannon), who demands that Dennis and his family remove their belongings and remove themselves from the property. Carver and the police remain unmoved by the family's rage and outrage and turn a deaf ear to Dennis' pleas for more time to address the problem. Carver's callous disregard for the Nash family's problem tell us ejecting homeowners is merely business, nothing more. In an ironic development, Dennis finds himself making a deal with the devil after the Nash family is forced to take up lodgings in a motel. Unable to find work in construction, Dennis finds himself accepting Carver's offer for work after a crew refuses to clean up a house where former occupants contaminated the premises with human waste.

Dennis' position quickly evolves into the more unpalatable task of evicting homeowners. Noting Dennis' reluctance, Carver coldly lectures him about how "only winners are bailed out," and there are "only a few spaces on the ark," and offers advice about "not getting emotional about real estate."

Driven by an obsession to reclaim his family home and his desire to free his family from the unpleasant realities of motel life, Dennis involvement in Carver's real estate business grows. He quickly discovers how unsavory and unscrupulous the work can be. Carver has Dennis remove air-conditioning units and appliances from homes to decrease their value before purchasing them for a lower price. It is particularly painful to watch Dennis evict homeowners from their homes, where the tragic irony is hardly lost on him. Unlike Carver, Dennis finds his conscience and job duties clash as he sees people not unlike himself hopelessly defending their right to remain in their homes.

Shannon, who is almost peerless at playing morally-dubious sociopaths, establishes his character early on. Listening to Carver (aptly chosen name) wax cynical about his work and his cruelly dispassionate regard for those he ejects from homes, one can't help acknowledge that much of what he says also carries the stain of truth.

Though the Nash family's situation is greatly improved, Dennis refuses to tell his mother of his unholy union with his new boss.

As Carver hands Dennis ever bigger checks for his work, the sinister snares of success begin to erode his ethical reservations. He is enchanted by Carver's lush, spacious home and his boss' parties, where women and booze are bountiful.

When Lynn discovers Dennis has been working for Carver and has chosen to sacrifice their home for an upscale abode, she leaves town in disgust, with his son in tow

In time, Dennis becomes a bigger player in Carver's schemes until a major deal involving the local government becomes not only a seductively lucrative prospect but a means to more unethical and illicit behavior. The deal directly affects a homeowner of Dennis' acquaintance; who chooses to defend his home against the police and Carver after they arrive to evict him. Seeking to quell a violent situation, Dennis' conscience overcomes his greedy impulses; prompting him to divulge his deceptive role in the scheme.

The film has much to say about the greed at the core of the economic downturn and the opportunists who exploited the crisis for personal gain. Shannon's Carver reminded me of Jeremy Irons' John Tuld in 2011's Margin Call; another opportunist who sees only financial conquest in the country's economic free-fall. Where Tuld is slippery, charming and serpentine, Carver is blunt, brutal and merciless.

I think the film's singular attribute are its stars. Shannon is mesmerizing while Garfield, when free of the Spiderman costume, shows his excellent turn in The Social Network was no fluke. For what little time Laura Dern is onscreen, she proves to be quite affecting and real.

Though it seems unlikely Dennis would become Carver's henchman, it is easy to see how desperation might compromise one's ethics; transforming the oppressed into the oppressor.

Bahrani's film reminds us how government deregulation and unscrupulous lending practices by Fannie Mae and Freddi Mac left our economy in shambles. It is sobering to consider how accurate is Carver's assessment of the American capitalist system. Sometimes the devil is the greatest purveyor of truth. The stirring depiction of Carver's rapacious depredations makes 99 Homes a powerful and disquieting film.

Wild

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Jean-Marc Vallee/Starring: Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern, Gaby Hoffman and Thomas Sadoski

Who in their right mind would embark on a trail walk, which spans a stretch from southern California to Oregon; alone, laden with an overstuffed backpack and with sporadic access to food and water? And why would said person--a woman--attempt it alone? Cheryl Strayed, the author of the best-selling memoir; Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, did just that and now her story has been adapted for the big screen by director Jean-Marc Vallee, whose Dallas Buyer's Club earned its share of Oscar nominations and awards last year.

Watching Wild called to mind other films in what could loosely be called a genre: Into the Wild, which starred Emile Hirsch and 127 Hours , with James Franco. All three films are based on real-life experiences and all involve individuals seeking adventure or in Strayed's case, something spiritually therapeutic. But what distinguishes Wild from its predecessors is its female protagonist. Though all three films have their share of peril, a woman alone in a cross-continent hike intensifies the inherent elements of danger and risk, which makes for a compelling story and terrific cinema.

Reese Witherspoon seems like an unlikely choice to play Strayed; her small, slight frame makes her undertaking seem impossibly Sisyphean and improbable.

As we follow Strayed forward on her journey, we also are pulled to her past as we learn why someone with no hiking experience would attempt something so nutty.
Watching Strayed's logistical preparations inside a motel room reflect an almost comic ineptitude. Food supplies and unwieldy gear attached to her backpack make it necessary for her to bend and leg-lift the weight onto her back and watching her struggle, one wonders how she will manage a 1000+ mile hike.

Watching two cars with men at a gas station, we see Strayed decide which is the less-dicey means of transportation to Pacific Crest Trail (A.K.A PCT); a father and son in a mini-van or two sketchy guys who are the very incarnation of a bad idea. The decision is significant, for most people Strayed encounters on the trail are men, who will challenge her ability to distinguish between those who might mean her harm and those who are more benign.

Seeing Strayed struggle early in the deserty, Southern Californian part of the trail, hiking a thousand miles seems like a far-fetched notion. Though she toughs it out, she tries to overcome gear limitations, one being a portable stove unit that won't work, which condemns her daily meals to coldness.

In the first of many encounters, Strayed meets a farmer in the middle of nowhere and asks for a ride. The farmer seems reluctant at first, then insists she wait until his work is finished, which means sitting idle in his truck. On the drive, we feel Strayed's apprehension as the conversation initially sounds threatening when he insists she stay at his house but she finds to her relief the farmer is actually married and becomes helpful to her before he drops her off on the trail again the next day.

As Strayed makes her way on the trail, we begin to see her memories of her life, in the form of flashbacks, that prompted her herculean undertaking. We see her childhood; where her mother Bobbi (Laura Dern) raises Cheryl and her brother alone after the family flees their abusive father. Bobbi, whose irrepressibly buoyant spirit shapes her optimistic worldview, is tirelessly loving to her children.

Along the way, Strayed stops at small trail stations that hold registries where hikers can record their progress or leave comments. We see her leave quotes from authors and poets on the page (which also appear before us on the screen) but she adds her name to the writers', which tells us their sentiments captures her own perfectly.

Strayed begins to make progress on the trail, arriving at places where other hikers congregate. One even gives her helpful advice about her hiking shoes, which cause her excessive blistering and in one scene, a gruesome detachment of her toenails. He recommends she contact the hiking/camping outfitter REI where she bought her boots to request a better pair, which they can deliver anywhere for no charge. The stops along the way also allow her to receive care packages from friends and her ex-husband.

Further on the trail, we begin to see more of her flashbacks. We watch as her mother receives news about her terminal cancer, which devastates Strayed and her brother. In most of Strayed's memories, we see the powerful bond she shared with her mother, which makes the scene on the deathbed all the more powerful.
The agony of her mother's death leads her on a self-destructive course of heroin and infidelity that eventually wrecks her marriage. The scenes of a ragged and filthy Strayed on the street, scoring hits of heroin and having sex with strange men in hotel rooms and alley ways give us a sense of her recklessness and psychological decline. In another scene, she confides to her friend Aimee (Gaby Hoffman)that she is pregnant but is unsure of who the father might be.

It is common for recovering alcoholics and drug abusers to engage in extreme physical activity, which makes Strayed's hike a reasonable response. It seems only a cathartic 1100 mile hike through rough terrain and snow could purge the angry demons tormenting Strayed.

After watching a hiking boot slide down a snowy mountainside, the anger and emotions come to a boil, which Strayed expels with a rage-intensive scream before hurling the other offending boot after its twin, never to be seen again.

With the exception of one woman, Strayed encounters mostly men in her trek and though many are pleasant, one exception is particularly harrowing. She meets two hunters; one of whom can't let the idea of a possible rape pass. The scene is frightening but hardly unexpected. It seems one of the film's motifs involves the men in her life and on the trail and how they affect her. From her abusive father to the men she engages in adulterous sex with to the one that robs her on the street to the friendly and threatening men on the trail, to her cuckolded husband and her brother, the film is as much about how she copes with men as it is about a woman undertaking a journey alone.

What ultimately happens at the end of the hike is hardly news, given the book's popularity. While overlooking a bridge at her destination, she gleans some cleansing, hard-earned wisdom from her journey, and over the closing subtitles we learn the distance she covered (again, 1100 miles), which is very impressive, given her lack of training and proper preparation.

I was really moved by the film and Strayed's story. Rather than intersperse long and medium shots of Strayed on the trail to emphasize her alone-ness, Vallee instead keeps us close to her and her surroundings utilizing handheld cameras. I think this was a more effective way of telling the story, which allows the audience to be at her side; to hear her whispery comments and see the physical toll the long hike takes on her body. We know Strayed has been many places, in her head and in the world and it shows in her face and appearance.

I also found the use of song rather than a score to be highly effective and affective. Vallee uses Simon and Garfunkel's El Condor Pasa as a musical theme that could represent Strayed's thoughts well. But the song's lyricism also reflects her love for poetry, which serves as an intellectual and emotional companion on her journey.

Witherspoon is terrific. I must admit I was skeptical about her casting after seeing the previews but her performance is startling for its intensity and range. She handles the role quite nicely.

Whatever value judgement one assigns Strayed's actions, one thing remains incontrovertibly clear: she was brave and she showed a fierce determination. Whatever she came away with, she most certainly earned. The film could serve as a cautionary tale or as supreme inspiration. However one regards Strayed and her hike, Wild makes its indelible mark on a relatively new genre and proves (though it isn't the film's intent) that women can easily match men for mettle and mental fortitude. Its company is welcome in this season of cinematic excellence, where it distinguishes itself well.