Manglehorn

2015 "You get one shot at life. Try not to miss."
5.5| 1h37m| PG-13| en| More Info
Released: 19 June 2015 Released
Producted By: Worldview Entertainment
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
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Synopsis

AJ Manglehorn is an aging, ordinary guy in a small town. He nurses his sick cat, squeezes out a conversation with the local bank teller every Friday, and eats at the same place every day. But there is more to Manglehorn than meets the eye: he’s an ex-con who, 40 years ago, gave up the woman of his dreams for a big ‘job’. After a dramatic effort to start over, Manglehorn faces a terrifying moment and is unmasked as a guy with a very, very dark past.

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rabbitnmoose Single star rating due to unavailability of negative rating.
yc955 Reminded me so much of another great movie also with Al "Frankie and Johnny". The story is different and Al is quite a bit older. So the story this time around is edgier and darker too. Al is just fantastic, can't think of anybody else pull this one off without overshooting it. He's right on the spot! Holly Hunter is a complete surprise for me. Instead of the quick wit smart mouth woman, she's, well, you have to watch the movie for yourself. She is simply GREAT! I can't think of Streep doing any better than her here. This is the kind of film you can breath with it and smell the dust as well as the fragrance in it. It's movie at its best and most powerful - seeing the things most us seeing everyday, but with the beauty and meaning most of us missed. Only thing is the ending seems to me a bit hurried. It's great to know that not everybody is out there making Superman Forever and good film is still made.
Scarecrow-88 David Gordon Green was behind the helm for this "return to form" for Pacino (I'm not sure he ever lost his form, as much as, being stuck in unflattering films he attempted to keep alive ("88 Minutes" or "Righteous Kill" or "Jack and Jill" come to mind) by sheer will. He stars as a lock and key business owner (he does the opening cars and doors, and fixing up keys for folks himself, driving a van with his name in distinctive name in print pimping his small business) named Manglehorn, still pining for lost love (someone named Clara, who has perhaps become more of a myth than real person), and encountering potential romance (with an excellent Holly Hunter) with a bank teller. Manglehorn's relationship with his investor son, Jacob (Chris Messina) is strained to say the least. And his beloved white cat, Fannie, needs surgery after swallowing a key (talk about the irony!). What else exists is kind of an everyday mundane life that seems to go on, day in and day out, without much excitement. It could all change, perhaps, if he could just escape this obsessive fantasy about Clara, and realize just what is missing. Hunter's scene in a Golden Coral / Ryan's type restaurant, trying to make small talk and get to know Manglehorn is as good a piece of acting work as you will see all of 2015. When he drones on about Clara, how special she is, and his past experiences with her (as if Clara were some sort of mystical siren written in Greek folklore) it ruins the here-and-now of two lonelyhearts, detonating the chemistry (it doesn't help that Manglehorn demeans her by pretty much saying no one could equal Clara's qualities, and talking about how beets give him diarrhea!) that had potential for something quite magnetic. Her face going from enchantment and the idea of a promising relationship gradually deteriorating into disappointment, insult, and ultimately hurt, Hunter ably conveys the offensive nature of Manglehorn's comments about a woman who no longer exists in his life while sitting and eating at a table under this woman who could replace her.I was a bit indifferent to the film overall, because Manglehorn is often his own worst enemy. People come in and out of his life, and he fails to offer them a strong reason to embrace him. Manglehorn does have this natural charm about him that seems to ingratiate positively with others, but then he kind of retreats into his own head, removing the reality around him in favor of devotion to a woman and what his thoughts and feelings are for her. Hunter's conversations with him, for instance, never quite go anywhere and I wondered to myself why she'd even try. His interest seems distracted while hers is focused attentively on him. Only at the very end, when he finally faces the Clara illusion and shatters it by removing all reminders of her from his home, does reality around him start to gain his attention. He mumbles to himself, and Gordon Green carries us right into Manglehorn's lost face, and the noise of his thoughts are made known to us. His animosity with Jacob is particularly established…their dialogue is too often of the "father is disappointed in his successful son's affluent lifestyle, focus on the business and money" variety. It's an act that gets a bit tiring. You just don't see Manglehorn positing any affection, with this cold fish response seemingly all he can give.Highlights include Manglehorn walking around with his cat right after a massive vehicular pile-up, Manglehorn realizing that a kid he thought was making a decent living for himself (abrasive film director Harmony Korine, quite an unflappably Chatty Cathy who rarely shuts the f--- up; I'm glad the film doesn't spend too much time with this jerk) is operating a whorehouse under the disguise of a massage parlor, and this A cappella number in a bank where a man emerges singing as those inside the building wonder what is going on (he's singing to a teller he's in love with; the teller begins singing along with him!). I wish the dialogue and conversations between characters had more depth compared to the performances. Still it is nice to see Pacino in parts like this again. The Texas locations are rich in natural flavor (the key store, clubs, local establishments, and bank carry an authenticity to them that is appreciated in order for us to accept the characters as relatable to us who do live in the real world).
temrok9 David Gordon Green continues to be one of the best directors of our time, and one of the most underrated.Every movie of his-with the exception of Your Highness-is terrific in its own way, and Manglehorn is no exception.In Greece it was the only one of the three movies with Al Pacino this year that didn't make it to the theaters, and when it appeared in DVD I ran to have it and watch it.I was rewarded.Green is a master director whose art is not pretension but pure poetry.All of his films are elegies that take us closer to the heart of humanity, and his craft is so admirable that he can change mood and technique from film to film without changing character. He is really one of the few auters in the contemporary American cinema;in fact, I believe that to consider his films in the general context of indie movies is not fair at all.I also think that it is a disgrace that he is never a candidate for the Oscars- although I suspect he mustn't be that interested-and Manglehorn is a film that would deserve at least a nomination-if not the prize-for the best direction of the year. I won't say anything about the plot;I will just mention the homage to Blow up(Antonioni's)at the end, with a somehow different context. An oasis for our regard!