Nostalgia (2018)

Let's be realistic.

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Admirable film.

Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

Well, it is a movie. They definitely hired actors and filmed a...movie.

This film was fantastic, it pulls on the heart strings and makes you realise that everyone has a story, is going though a heartache or struggle of some sort. It is also the actors that stand out in their performances, I felt as though I was there with them on their journey through pain and suffering as none of us are immune. The film shows the lives of 3 different families, and how getting old and being alone is not the way one should live. Some of the children want their piece of the pie where others have nostalgia over memories shared as children and realise that a house is just a house and nothing is forever. We accumulate so many items in our lives and to whom are they special for once we depart this earth. I highly recommend this film. You won't be disappointed as it will definitely get you thinking and stop sweating on the small stuff like most of us do.

Nostalgia is director Mark Pellington and screenwriter Alex Ross Perry's collaborative effort that could have been aptly subtitled, "The Objects in Your Life." The big question that's raised here is whether (for example) all that bric-a-brac you've accumulated up in the attic over the years is worth saving (and perhaps venerating) or is simply a collection of junk that needs to be thrown out. Nostalgia focuses on these objects and one in particular (an old baseball signed by Ted Williams) that becomes a MacGuffin of sorts, connecting two disparate stories which constitute the bulk of the proceedings in a narrative that can be best classified as an ensemble piece.Perry's tale begins deceptively, focusing on Daniel (John Ortiz) an insurance assessor/adjuster, who appears to revel in listening to claimant's confessions regarding the aforementioned objects. Daniel's first visit is with a curmudgeon, Ronald (Bruce Dern), who balks at going through his accumulated "stuff" looking for valuables to the chagrin of his granddaughter, Bethany, who obviously feels that parting with some of the bric-a-brac, is a practical and worthwhile idea (owing to the potential financial remuneration involved). Daniel's meditation on the existential value of these nostalgic remnants sets the stage for his second visit with Helen (Ellen Burstyn), who has just lost her home in a fire. As Chuck Bowen writes in Slant, all the characters are "suffering saints" and "every scene concerns people's attachments to things that trigger past moments." Perry hands Bustyn a very long-winded monologue who meditates on the importance of her late husband's baseball, so intricately tied up with their life together. At first she appears overly attached to the baseball and just like Bethany, her son and daughter-in-law feel such an attachment unhealthy.But eventually Helen comes around and decides on a trek to Las Vegas where she agrees to sell the ball to a collector, Will (Jon Hamm). Before we move on to the third story, the ball inspires another long monologue about the scourge of old age where Helen mournfully acknowledges she'll pass on and will be forgotten.Once the baton is passed, Will is now the focus of a narrative that emphasizes his lack of fulfillment, due a heartbreaking divorce with his ex-wife. He visits his sister at the family home where they need to clean out the attic. The objects there (including the swimming pool) evoke childhood memories for Will but all the meditation brings the narrative to a virtual standstill.Suddenly, out of the blue, Perry injects a family tragedy to spice up the drama in the form of the death of the sister's daughter, killed in a freak car accident. Catherine Keener, as the sister, gives the strongest performance in the film, as she breaks down over the death of her child. Nonetheless Perry's handling of his theme about the objects in your life goes awry when he has the father of the girl (James Le Gros) bemoaning how all her photos have been lost once her cell and iPad are destroyed in the car accident. Ray Green writing in The Wrap correctly notes Perry's faux pas: "Apparently Hamm and LeGros have never heard of social media, where the average teen's every meal, night out and camping trip is chronicled across friends' profiles in greater detail than Boswell gave to his "Life of Samuel Johnson." It's a straw-man argument, and a fusty old-guy one at that."Ultimately Nostalgia doesn't have much to say and is dependent on its classical sounding score, which intrudes into almost every scene, and attempts to create more feeling than what is actually written on each page of this well-meaning but shallow screenplay.

I love good movies. This wasn't quite one. I love great acting between seasoned and new pros. This was full of shivers. Ellen Burstyn (she still lives here) and Jon Hamm (no longer just a pretty face) at the pawn shop. Bruce Dern's pauses and smiles are still tops (the old track star's still got it). Sadly, no Dern/Burstyn scenes (since 1972?) . Hamm and James LeGros ( super good) with stupendously blowsy and full-blown Catherine Keener (who knew, when she finally let go?). Not sure about the epic preceding review but if you want to see old and new pros in action, directed with care and excellence, see this. And take as many old people as you can find. They'll put you in their wills.