Movie Review

Acting generations come together for awkward family drama Sam & Kate

Dustin Hoffman and Sissy Spacek are two of the most notable actors to ever appear in films, with each winning at least one Academy Award alongside multiple other Oscar nominations. Each has a child – Dustin’s son Jake Hoffman and Spacek’s daughter Schuyler Fisk – who has followed in their parent’s footsteps in the acting profession, although neither has achieved similar success despite respectable careers.

The new film Sam & Kate brings together the two generations in an ill-fated attempt at capitalizing on show biz legacies. Sam (Jake Hoffman) has come back home to live with and take care of his father, Bill (Dustin Hoffman), who is in somewhat ill-health. Sam, who calls his dad Bill instead of Dad, temporarily works at a chocolate factory with his friend Ron (Henry Thomas).

Sam also develops a crush on Kate (Schuyler Fisk), a woman his age who works at a bookstore. A chance encounter with Kate and her mom, Tina (Spacek), at a restaurant brings them all together, and the two would-be couples start a tentative flirtation. But each person has their own set of issues that threaten to prevent a romance before it even starts.

Written and directed by first-time feature filmmaker Darren Le Gallo, the film features a lot of awkwardness, and not in a good way. It’s clear that both Bill and Tina are supposed to be different types of misanthropes, and that Sam and Kate essentially have to try to make up for their respective parent’s quirky ways. But Bill and Tina’s issues are only lightly explored, never becoming all that interesting.

Worse is the coupling of Sam and Kate. Sam is far from the smoothest flirter in the world, and every attempt he makes at wooing Kate is so cringy that it’s painful. The combination of Le Gallo’s basic dialogue and Jake Hoffman’s less-than-stellar acting defuses any romantic potential, as none of it is cute or endearing. It is said at one point that Kate is way out of Sam’s league, and the film does nothing to dispel that notion.

It’s almost like Le Gallo – who’s married to Amy Adams, an executive producer on the film – had the idea of putting both pairs of parent and child together in a film, and couldn’t figure out what to do from there. The film is competently made, but the story is never involving or convincing in the slightest. The characters merely exist without a compelling reason for telling their stories.

Each of the actors does what they can with the material, with varying degrees of success. Neither Dustin Hoffman or Spacek delivers an Oscar-quality performance, but that seems to have more to do with the filmmaking than them. Fisk has the best role in the film, which isn’t saying much, but she maintains her appeal throughout.

In naming the film Sam & Kate instead of Bill & Tina, Le Gallo seems to have been trying to pass the baton from one generation to the next, but he forgot to come up with a good story in the process. Both the Oscar-winning actors and their progeny deserved a better showcase.

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Sam & Kate is now playing in select theaters; it will be available on-demand at home starting November 18.

Photo courtesy of Vertical Entertainment

Jake Hoffman, Schuyler Fisk, and Sissy Spacek in Sam & Kate.

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Movie Review

Jessica Chastain drama Dreams stumbles through steamy romance

Photo courtesy of Teorema

Isaac Hernández and Jessica Chastain in Dreams.

The opening scenes of the new drama Dreams are bracing, fictional sequences that call to mind real-life scenarios. In them, a young Mexican man named Fernando (Isaac Hernández) goes through a somewhat harrowing journey from the back of a semi truck in South Texas all the way to San Francisco. It’s a familiar immigrant story that seems to set the stage for a film with something interesting to say.

It turns out, however, that Fernando has not made the long and arduous trek for a job. Instead, it’s to be with Jennifer McCarthy (Jessica Chastain), a rich woman who helps lead a foundation dedicated to multiple things, including funding dance academies. Fernando, a talented dancer, and Jennifer have been in an off-and-on affair for years, with Jennifer wanting to keep their relationship a secret.

Although both are drawn to each other in an inexplicable, lustful way, their bond is tenuous, with each of them dissatisfied for different reasons. Fernando clearly sacrifices much more of himself than Jennifer, who wants for nothing except maybe more affection from her father, Michael (Marshall Bell), and brother, Jake (Rupert Friend).

Writer/director Michel Franco seems to try to inject tension into Fernando and Jennifer’s relationship from the start, an attempt that is only halfway successful. It’s clear from the way they greet each other - not to mention a steamy sex scene shortly thereafter - that they have known each other for a good length of time. Franco is able to get across this familiarity with an economy of scenes, and the intensity of their bond holds for a while.

But as the film progresses and both of them grow disenchanted with their arrangement, Franco starts taking the story in some odd directions. The biggest issue is that it’s never clear at what point in time the story is taking place. Fernando ends up making multiple trips back and forth across the border, with Jennifer doing the same at one point, and Franco’s use of flashbacks muddies the waters, wrong-footing the audience when he should be trying to draw them further into Fernando and Jennifer’s complications.

Revelations in the final act make the story even more confusing, as both main characters start saying and doing harsh things that seem to come out of nowhere. That would be all well and good if Franco actually committed to their changes of heart, but he keeps things wishy-washy for most of the final 15 minutes, resulting in an ending that makes little sense for either character.

Despite the story issues, both Chastain and Hernández give compelling performances. Chastain has been a little under the radar since winning an Oscar for The Eyes of Tammy Faye, but she keeps this character interesting longer than it should have been. Hernández has limited credits and appears to have been cast for his dancing ability, but he goes toe-to-toe with Chastain on more than one occasion and acquits himself well.

Dreams had all of the ideas to explore a more in-depth story about the complicated immigration policies between Mexico and the U.S., or how wealthy people take advantage of those less fortunate. But Franco never finds the right footing, settling instead for a titillating and somewhat mystifying relationship story that feels half-baked.

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Dreams is now playing in select theaters.

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