For the 16th time, Ö1 and Viennale are organizing the Breakfast Films. Film-loving early risers have twice the opportunity to go to the cinema in the morning and to enjoy a movie and a free breakfast!
MARRIAGE STORY
Director: Noah Baumbach
US 2019, 137 Min
Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver
Noah Baumbach’s new film begins with a young couple musing fondly on each other’s best points – a montage that feels sentimentally cosy until we realise that this ideal pair are actually deep into an acrimonious break-up. Nicole is an actress who has turned her back on Hollywood to work in New York with her husband, theatre director Charlie. Now she is returning to Los Angeles, and the differences between the couples, and the lifestyles of the East and West coasts, are tearing them apart – as is the American way of divorce.
At once witty, insightful and acutely painful, this beautifully observed piece is Baumbach’s most substantial and adult work to date. It is magnificently acted by the leads, while a superb support cast features Julie Hagerty as Nicole’s neurotic mother, Wallace Shawn as a narcissistic actor, and a trenchantly funny trio playing three very different types of attorney: touchy-feely but ruthless (Laura Dern), Terminator-ish (Ray Liotta), avuncular and philosophical (Alan Alda). You will laugh, you will certainly cry, and you will gasp at Driver’s emotionally note-perfect rendition of Steven Sondheim’s “Being Alive”.
BOOKSMART
Director: Olivia Wilde
USA 2019, 102 Min
Cast: Kaitlyn Dever, Beanie Feldstein, Jessica Williams
Olivia Wilde’s directorial debut is a coming-out and coming-of-age story surprising for its irony and irreverence. How refreshing it is to find two girls as protagonists, talking freely about their sexuality at the very moment when they’re maturing individually and socially.
Molly and Amy are first in class, engaged in political debates or humanitarian missions. They feed their determination and show disdain for those who ignore them. They train themselves with aggressive autogenic meditation, reciprocal declarations of love, and messages passed via a secret code of fidelity. On the last day of school, they learn that their time-wasting peers will also gain access to the same university they’ve entered through so many sacrifices.
The film turns into a night-long journey to regain the experiences unobtainable from books. Both girls will realize that they too have helped feed the very same stereotypes they thought themselves the only victims of. Across a succession of situations and plot twists of smart parody and cinematic sensitivity, the characters show a greater complexity than what we are used to seeing in comedies about growing up. BOOKSMART equally offers an unusual, proactive perspective and never ceases to demonstrate an intelligence that moves way beyond sarcasm. (Eva Sangiorgi)
Coffee and breakfast from 5:30 pm!
Tickets are available as from October 19, 10 pm at pre-selling offices, at the festival cinemas, via telephone and online on www.viennale.at.
In collaboration with