![]() The character: Jack is Michael’s wise older neighbor who’s been around the block a few times, and can sympathize with Michael’s heartache over his breakup. The socials: Follow Harden on Instagram and Twitter. Harden made her Broadway debut in Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize–winning play Angels in America and returned to the Great White Way for God of Carnage in 2009. ![]() On television, you may have seen her on Sinatra, The Education of Max Bickford, She’s Too Young, Damages, Royal Pains, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Trophy Wife, The Newsroom, How to Get Away with Murder, Code Black, Barkskins and The Morning Show. Other big screen credits include Crush, Used People, The First Wives Club, Flubber, Space Cowboys, Desperate Measures, Mystic River, Mona Lisa Smile, Whip It, Moxie and the Fifty Shades of Grey films. 10 years later, she won an Oscar for her performance in Pollock. The actor: Marcia Gay Harden’s career took off in 1990 after her breakthrough role in the Coen brothers’ Miller’s Crossing. She’s getting a divorce after 28 years of marriage and is having some trouble figuring out what’s next. The character: Michael and Suzanne’s client is extremely rich and very fussy. ![]() The socials: Follow Harris on Instagram and Twitter. On stage, Harris has performed in Rent, Cabaret, Assassins, Amadeus, Company, Hedwig and the Angry Inch and, most recently, Into the Woods. An executive producer as well as the star of Uncoupled, Emmy Award-winner Harris is also known for his performances in Gone Girl, Stark Raving Mad, Dr. The actor: You remember how you, um, met Neil Patrick Harris, whether it was when he was a young star scrubbing in as the titular Doogie Howser, M.D., or decades later, when he starred as the sinister Count Olaf on A Series of Unfortunate Events, or in between those two series, when he appeared as the lovable lothario Barney Stinson on the long-running sitcom How I Met Your Mother. Now that he’s been dumped, he must confront his self-absorbed, overbearing tendencies and re-enter the dating scene. Recommended, yes, but with expectations in line with, uh, reality.The character: Michael is a real estate broker in his late 40s who thought his relationship with Colin would last forever. And the supporting cast does wonders, as cops, and as regular people, which this movie is ultimately about. Andrews, if he is your taste, is in great form, really, within his shifting role. Of course, Kazan and crew are experts, and this is no dud. And then some harder hitting reality movie like "The Phenix City Story" (1955) shows what a dramatic version of the truth, unchanged, might look like. For two sides to this coin, I'd first mention Kazan's own "On the Waterfront" which uses a real life kind of scenario but turns it into a dramatic masterpiece. No, it's just an adapted true life crime story that might have been something more. ![]() It's not a like a neo-realist hyper real movie, using amateur actors and so on. And you might well say (as I did), "How like life." Or something equally unexciting. And then the court battle ends, and the movie sort of drizzles to a stop. A large twist occurs (with something of a stutter, dramatically), and then we are in a different kind of drama, a courtroom battle, with Andrews playing the unlikely role of prosecutor looking for the actual truth in a case rather than a conviction. Facts are gathered, suspects suspected, policework unleashed, all acted and congealed very intelligently. Then, in a continuing voice-over documentary style, we are launched on a huge manhunt. And so here, we start with a horrifying crime which takes the viewer quite by surprise. Hamlet, if it were straight documentary truth, would probably shock more and enchant less. First of all, it's based (very closely) on fact, and sometimes the facts are dramatic but not necessarily good drama. It's nice early Kazan, but it stumbles at times, and never lifts off, never gels. Boomerang! (1947) In some ways this is an intensely well made and satisfying film, and when you have Dana Andrews in the lead role combined with Elia Kazan directing, and throw in first rate character actor Lee J.
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