Love away

I notice that many of the positive reviews for this film are from Scandinavia. I'm not, and I ran into some real holes in the story. The subject of the film is parents and children, and what happens when the two are separated by necessity. The film opens in New York, where Leo, the main character, has become fabulously wealthy, and loves his kid, but must fly off to Bangkok to seal a deal that will make him even wealthier. His story is the skeleton of the movie,but it's also the weakest and least convincing. Two other stories (or four) complete the film, showing us family separations-by-necessity that are more convincing. I for one found the story of the Filipino nanny much more watchable and believable. The Philippines produces too many intelligent, well-educated people for its economy to support, so roughly 15% of the adult workforce are forced to leave the country to work overseas; Gloria, the nanny, is one of them, and she has to leave her children in Olangapo while she sends money back from New York. I knew about that situation going in, but the film does a nice job of dramatizing it. meanwhile, the main story, starring Gael Bernal as the wealthy-but-tortured New Yorker, just doesn't work, partly because it's either poorly-written or not written at all. Bernal is a good actor, but here he sounds as if he's been asked to improvise his own dialogue, and it sounds just like improvised movie dialogue from other badly-improvised movies: boring, flat, and very, very, very repetitious. Improvisation can be done right, and when it is, it works beautifully, as in Happy-Go-Lucky and The Class, but not here. Whether it's improvised or not, Leo's part of the film is one long boring cliché. There are some other little glitches in the film that strain credulity, but overall I'll ignore the Leo section and give it a 6 out of 10.

In New York, the immature family man Leo Vidales (Gael García Bernal) is a successful businessman, owner of the Underlandish, a successful website of digital games and married with Dr. Ellen Vidales (Michelle Williams), a dedicated surgeon of the emergency room of a hospital. They have a daughter, Jackie (Sophie Nyweide), who is an intelligent girl that is raised by her nanny, the Filipino Gloria (Marife Necesito) that spends more time with her than Ellen. Gloria has two sons in Philippine that miss her.

When Leo need to travel to Singapore with his partner Bob (Tom McCarthy) to sign a millionaire contract with investors, Ellen operates a boy stabbed in the stomach by his own mother and she feels connected to the boy and rethinks her relationship with Jackie. Meanwhile Leo is bored waiting for the negotiation of Bob with the investors and he decides to travel to Bangkok and lodges in a rustic cottage on the seashore.

Leo meets the young prostitute and mother Cookie (Run Srinikornchot) and he has one night stand with her. Meanwhile, Gloria's ten year-old boy Salvador (Jan David G. Nicdao) misses her mother and decides to find a job. His innocence leads him to a tragedy.

"Mammoth" is a melodramatic film about motherhood – there are four parallel situations of mother and children – Ellen and Jackie; Gloria and her sons; the boy Anthony and his mother that has stabbed him; and Cookie and her baby.

I had a great expectation with this film, but unfortunately the plot does not work well and is pointless, going to nowhere. There is the contrast between people and specially children from the First and Third Worlds, but nothing new. The narrative is cold and not engaging.

Gael Garcia Bernal is miscast and his immature character has nothing to do with his mature wife. Sophie Nyweide steals the film with her top- notch performance. There are so many tragedies along the story that in the end I was expecting that Leo had contracted AIDS with Cookie and would transmit the disease to his wife Ellen. The title "Mammoth" refers to the expensive pen that Bob gave to Leo, but I did not understand the intention of the author with this title. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Corações em Conflito" ("Hearts in Conflict")

You expected him to compromise. You demanded of him not to. This goes in between.

Mammoth tells the story of the wealthy New York couple who keeps a nanny from the Phillipines for their daughter. The nanny's sons are on the other side of the world. There are certainly no equal living conditions here and the film attacks globalization.

But it does so in a rather quiet way. Moodysson has said that he's too old to judge people anymore. And that's a pity, because it makes this film rather toothless. You can't have your criticism taken seriously if everybody more or less are victims.

The acting is all right here, but still this is a very Americanized movie. Moodysson has had resources, OK, but he has lacked the artistic possibilities, working within this system.

Now that Moodysson is back from the grave (oh, but what a fine grave it was) there is ridiciously high hopes for this first international production. It usually takes about five to fifteen minutes before I get tangled up in his movies, this time though it toke almost half an hour. Mammoth is of course more complex, with much more going on at the same time in different parts of the world, than his other works. Or not more complex, maybe just wider. Nevermind; it's a fine piece of cinema, great storytelling and speaks grimly to us about the world we're raping, the time we're wasting and the people suffering becaurse of our western lifestyles. Mostly it's about the children who are crushed in the middle of our lost struggle to make a life, buy more stuff or just to survive. Does that make sense? The movie does, in a sad way.

There was a big speculation of Moodysson being a total sell-out, doing a major picture in America, but that obviously wasn't the case. It isn't Moodysson quite like you've seen before, but definitely not in a bad way. He innovated his style into new directions, without compromising his vision.

Gael García Bernal has proved himself to be one of the greatest actors of this generation in Iñárritu's pictures, and Mammoth comes as no exception. In fact I feel a little Iñárrituish vibe in the movie; the whole theme is pretty similar with Babel.

Somebody commented earlier here, that Moodysson was just "teethless" with his society critic in Mammoth, but I really have to disagree. I wouldn't even use the word "critic" in Mammoth's case - I don't see Moodysson as a preacher, but as an objective lens, which allows us to see the world differently. It's art people, not politics; pointing fingers isn't the point.