Human scale

Tim Blake Nelson's 'Anesthesia' is thoughtful, emotional; 'Freaks of Nature' doesn't live up to its potential

Tim Blake Nelson’s “Anesthesia” finds the Tulsa-born writer/director at the top of his game—years after his previous film, the pleasing-but-awkward stoner comedy, “Leaves of Grass.”

“Anesthesia” brings together a large ensemble cast to tell the story of Walter Zarrow (Sam Waterston), a philosophy professor who, when we meet him, has just been brutally mugged and left bleeding in the foyer of a Manhattan apartment building. He’s found by Sam (Corey Stoll), a married father of two who is spending the night with his girlfriend, Nicole (Mickey Sumner). Walter gives Sam the flowers meant for his wife, Marcia (Glenn Close), and what might be a final message.

From there, we rewind to meet Walter as he’s contemplating the last week of his 30-year  career spent spreading the gospels of Kierkegaard, Descartes, and Benatar. He’s deeply in love with his wife, their life, and ready for the sunset, however long that takes.

Our reintroduction to Walter takes us for a ride on several narrative trains. We meet Adam (Tim Blake Nelson), a dour husband and father of two teenagers, Ella and Hal (Hannah Marks and Ben Konigsberg), who have just learned their mother, Jill (Jessica Hecht), has ovarian cancer. Sarah (Gretchen Mol) is a semi-alcoholic, well-kept hausfrau who’s suspicious that her husband is having an affair. There’s Jeffery (Michael K. Williams), a high-dollar lawyer who intervenes in the life of his childhood friend, Joe (K. Todd Freeman), who was once a writer and academic but is now committing slow suicide by heroin. Sophie (Kristen Stewart) is an existentially lonely graduate student who burns herself with a curling iron to feel alive.

Like railroad tracks that come together in the metropolis of their destination (think: Chicago), we discover how circumstance connects them all—often in ways profound, sad, and deeply satisfying.

“Anesthesia” mostly avoids melodrama and reminds us of the power of a human-scale story well told.  The film is seasoned with the philosophical naturalism of a Saul Bellow novel and simmered in a “Short Cuts”-like structure that fuses life, death, sex, despair, and hope in unequal measure. It’s a heady emotional experience, though a mostly monochromatic one.

Nelson directs with tonal assurance, and his script snaps with intelligence, both scholarly and emotional. Even when it feels a little overstuffed it never becomes numbingly so, if only because of the theatrical immediacy.

It’s hard to pick a stand out among the incredible cast, but K. Todd Freeman, as the junkie Joe, is a force. He gives an amazing, award-worthy performance equal to the talents of his co-star, Michael K. Williams. Kristen Stewart is also strong, along with Stoll, Sumner, and Konigsberg. 

And if you don’t love Sam Waterston for the national treasure he is, then you might be a robot. 

“Anesthesia” opens Friday, March 4, at Circle Cinema.

Freaks of Nature

So there’s a Twin Peaks-ish town (the opening shot screams it) called Dillford where humans, zombies, and vampires co-exist in a utopia of lazy ‘80’s teen movie clichés. Aliens show up and start dematerializing the citizenry. The previously amiable living and undead turn against each other—in a sort of civil war—when they suspect each other of summoning the aliens to wipe the others out. For whatever reason that makes sense, I’m sure I don’t know. Anyway, they figure out they’re being stupid and band together to destroy Werner Herzog. No shit.

“Freaks of Nature” is “Zombieland” meets “Twilight” meets “Twin Peaks” meets “Close Encounters,” cobbled together by two dudes (director Robbie Pickering and writer Oren Uziel) who probably love Spierig Brothers films (“Daybreakers”) but somehow managed to not make anything nearly as good as any of those things.

That’s what pisses me off so much. While what I just described sounds like the worst idea in the world, it probably had some potential at one point, given the level of comedic talent that’s ultimately wasted by this generic movie. Denis Leary, Patton Oswalt, Keegan-Michael Key, Bob Odenkirk, Joan Cusack, Tulsa native Josh Fadem, and Pat Healy do their best to make the script pop. It’s hard to believe Uziel is the same guy who wrote the inventive and hilarious “22 Jump Street.”       

As a comedy it’s lazy, derivative and almost entirely unfunny (the best gag involved Bob Odenkirk sparking a joint off an alien force field) while, as film craft, it’s often confounding. Handsome looking in the mid-budget sense, well-shot, and with good effects work, this thing had money. Yet it’s so awfully edited and paced it’s as if it were 20 minutes longer but whole chunks of even less funny material hit the cutting room floor.  

Bright spots peek through the clouds of squandered effort. The aforementioned comedians do their best, with Patton Oswalt mining some laughs (though I’m pretty sure they just let him improv his lone scene). Leary is good, I guess. Josh Fadem deserves a better film, as does “Halt and Catch Fire’s” Mackenzie Davis, who is wonderful, despite being made to look like a Zooey Deschanel clone. Davis is a load-bearing wall for the unbearably boring scenes with her love interest, Dag (Nicholas Braun). And there’s even a musical hat tip to her “Halt” character, Cameron Howe. 

Its minor joys are not enough to make this jumbled mess of bad decisions watchable. Not even close. “Freaks of Nature” is unoriginal, low-hanging pop cultural fruit like the worst of them. I’ll try and forgive Herzog.

“Freaks of Nature” is available on various streaming services.

For more from Joe, read his chat on the Oscars with Oklahoma Film Critics Circle president James Cooper.