The ChicagoBlackhawks are exceeding all expectations this season so far. They went in with low standards and have risen above. Even if they barely miss the playoffs by a few points, in the end, it will be looked at as a season where the team competed hard every game. Although they have had a […]
Frances (Michelle Pfeiffer, left), her cat Small Frank (voice of Tracy Letts) and her son Malcolm (Lucas Hedges) relocate to Paris in “French Exit.” | Sony Pictures Classics
The farce feels forced in smug comedy of First World Problems.
Michelle Pfeiffer gives a Bentley of a performance but is stuck in a wobbly and rusty vehicle titled “French Exit,” a smug and bone-dry and ultimately insufferable farce that holds one’s interest for a time before practically inviting us to turn our attentions elsewhere. “I don’t like you people,” one supporting player says to a roomful of characters relatively late in the film, and as he heads for the door we are inclined to call out, “Can I catch a ride?”
Director Azazel Jacobs and screenwriter Patrick deWitt (adapting his 2018 novel of the same name) have delivered a handsomely appointed but tiresome First World Problems story teeming with characters who in most cases aren’t nearly as eccentric and charming and witty as they fancy themselves. The closest thing to an exception would be Pfeiffer’s Manhattan-based Frances, a strikingly beautiful and icy cold, blunt-speaking socialite who attained a certain level of gossip-site notoriety when she found her wealthy husband dead as a doornail and zipped off for a weekend getaway in Vail to clear her head before bothering to report his demise to the authorities.
Living with her exceedingly unambitious and aimless grown son Malcolm (Lucas Hedges), taunting him with barbs such as “Menstruating?” when he’s in a particularly pouty frame of mind, Frances is content to live out her days in bitter comfort when she gets some harsh news: She’s out of money. The spigot has run dry.
Well, “out of money” in a one-percenter kind of way. There’s no more cash in the accounts, but Frances can keep the profits from the sale of her estate assets, and she’s been offered the use of an apartment in Paris, so it’s not as if Frances and Malcolm and their cat known as Small Frank (so named because Frances believes it’s the reincarnated spirit of her dead husband Frank) will be on the streets with cardboard signs and plastic cups. They’re just going to have to make a relatively modest go of it for the foreseeable future.
In Paris. Rent-free.
We’re squarely in Wes Anderson (“The Grand Budapest Hotel,” “The Royal Tennenbaums”) territory here, sans the hilariously wacky characters and the rapier wit. “French Exit” has its memorable and well-choreographed set-piece moments, as when Frances puts a snooty French waiter in his place by literally starting a small fire, but with nearly every introduction of a putatively unique character, the farce feels forced. Pfeiffer is delivering one of the best performances of her career as the complex and formidable and deeply sad Frances, but she’s like a world-class basketball player stuck on the court with a bunch of weekend amateurs. There’s no one to give her a decent game.
A major problem is the Lucas Hedges character of Malcolm. Hedges is a wonderful actor who has enjoyed an incredible run playing troubled sons and/or nephews to an incredible lineup of stars, from Casey Affleck in “Manchester by the Sea” to Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman in “Boy Erased” to Julia Roberts in “Ben Is Back” to Frances McDormand in “Three Billboards …” to Meryl Streep in “Let Them All Talk.” He’s playing a similar role here, but Malcolm is such a wimpy milquetoast, it’s as if he’s barely in the room at times. He can’t even bring himself to tell his mother he’s engaged to a fantastic young woman (Imogen Poots), who breaks up with him over his cowardice but inexplicably shows up in Paris with her new boyfriend just to make sure there’s no chance of making it work with Malcolm. Why she would want to make it work with this cipher is beyond understanding.
Isaach De Bankole plays a private detective tasked with finding Small Frank when the cat goes missing, while Danielle Macdonald is a medium who just might be able to communicate with Small Frank. In the most unfortunate development of all, we actually hear from the cat, and not even the great Tracy Letts as the voice of Small Frank can salvage that trainwreck of an idea. “French Exit” has a few grace notes in its final chapter, with Pfeiffer delivering beautifully subtle work as Frances comes to terms with her fate, but it’s too little, far too late.
Ariel Roman, an unarmed man who was shot by a Chicago cop last year at the Grand station, was compelled to appear before a federal grand jury earlier this year.
Federal authorities have opened a criminal investigation into a high-profile Chicago police shooting last year at a Red Line station that was caught on cellphone video, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.
As the evening rush was starting on Feb. 28, 2020, Officer Melvina Bogard shot 34-year-old Ariel Roman on a platform at the Grand station, one of the city’s busiest train stops.
Roman was ordered to appear before a federal grand jury on Jan. 14 at the Dirksen Federal Building, according to a subpoena obtained by the Sun-Times. He was asked to provide medical records that stemmed from the shooting.
A letter signed by John Lausch, Chicago’s top federal prosecutor, noted those records were being sought “pursuant to an official criminal investigation.”
Roman’s shooting has prompted ongoing probes by the city and the Cook County state’s attorney, but the federal investigation hasn’t previously been reported. Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Fitzpatrick declined to comment, saying only that his office “can neither confirm nor deny the existence of an investigation.”
Before the police department was able to issue a statement about the shooting, video captured by a passerby went viral, fueling media attention and stoking public interest in the case.
Before the shooting, Bogard and her partner, Officer Bernard Butler, saw Roman moving between cars on a northbound Red Line. When Roman hopped off the train, the officers trailed him and tried to place him into custody at the foot of an escalator to the station’s main concourse.
During a struggle, Butler urged Bogard to shoot, and she fired once at Roman. Then, after Roman ran up the escalator, Bogard shot at him again. Video footage also showed two deployed stun guns laying on the station’s floor.
Roman suffered gunshot wounds to his hip and buttocks, and he was taken into custody and charged. Cook County prosecutors later dropped the resisting arrest and narcotics charges filed against him.
Andrew M. Stroth, one of Roman’s attorneys in a federal lawsuit against the officers and the city, said his client is still dealing with the fallout from the shooting. Over a year later, Roman has accrued roughly $500,000 in medical bills and still has a bullet lodged near his sciatic nerve, Stroth said.
“The video speaks for itself,” Stroth said. “Ariel Roman was unarmed and did not present a threat when he was shot by the officers.”
The shooting is also the subject of an “active review” by the state’s attorney’s office’s Law Enforcement Accountability Division, according to spokeswoman Tandra Simonton, who wouldn’t comment further.
In addition, sources said recommendations made by Chicago Police Supt. David Brown that could lead to administrative action against the two officers have been forwarded to the city’s Law Department, which prepares formal charges in police discipline cases.
A spokeswoman for the Law Department didn’t respond to questions from the Sun-Times. A CPD spokesman declined to comment on the federal criminal investigation.
COPA was expected to call for severe punishments for both Bogard and Butler. Just days after the shooting, COPA suggested the department strip both cops of their police powers, a move carried out by then-interim Supt. Charlie Beck.
Ephraim Eaddy, a COPA spokesman, said he was prohibited from disclosing the agency’s recommendations, which haven’t been made public. In addition, police spokesman Howard Ludwig couldn’t say whether Brown agreed with COPA’s findings or provide information about his response.
If the superintendent agrees with COPA in a disciplinary case, an officer is charged and faces an evidentiary hearing before the case is decided by the Chicago Police Board, a process that can take several years.
However, Eaddy noted his agency doesn’t know where exactly the case stands because the Law Department has “no defined timeline that I’m aware of that they have to do whatever their process requires.”
A 17-year-old boy has been charged with a fatal shooting in September in Austin on the West Side.
The boy, whose name has been withheld because he is a minor, has been charged with a felony count of first-degree murder, Chicago police said.
About 4:55 a.m. Sept. 26, 2021, officers responding to calls of shots fired in the 200 block of North Latrobe Avenue, found 20-year-old Richard Soward unresponsive with multiple gunshot wounds, police said.
Soward was pronounced dead at the scene, police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office said. He lived in East Garfield Park.
The 17-year-old was arrested Tuesday after he was identified by police as the person who allegedly fired the fatal shots, police said.
Four people were shot Monday in Chicago, including a 27-year-old man who was wounded in a drive-by in Heart of Chicago on the Near West Side.
About 11:20 p.m., he was walking in the 1700 block of West Cullerton Street, when someone inside a passing white sedan fired shots, Chicago police said. He was struck in both legs and brought to Stroger Hospital in fair condition.
Minutes prior, A 37-year-old man was wounded in a drive-by Monday in Lawndale on the West Side. About 11 p.m., he was walking in the 3900 block of West Filmore Street, when someone inside a passing white sedan fired shots, police said. He was grazed by a bullet on his right leg and brought to Stroger Hospital in fair condition.
An 18-year-old man was shot at a Near North hotel. He was on the 22nd floor of a hotel about 10:50 p.m. in the 100 block of East Superior, with several people when someone fired shots at him, police said. He suffered a gunshot wound to the abdomen and was transported to Northwestern Memorial Hospital in fair condition.
In the day’s first reported shooting, a man was shot in Bronzeville on the South Side. He was arguing with someone about 11:40 a.m. in the 4100 block of South Indiana Avenue when a male he knew got involved and opened fire, police said. The 30-year-old was struck in the back and taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where his condition was stabilized.
An off-duty Chicago police officer shot someone breaking into their home Tuesday morning in Portage Park on the Northwest Side.
About 12:55 a.m., a man was breaking into a home in the 3100 block of Bell Plaine Avenue, when he was shot in the face by the home owner, an off-duty Chicago police officer, Chicago police said.
The man was rushed to Illinois Masonic Medical Center in serious condition, police said.
The suspected home invader’s weapon was recovered from the scene, according to Chicago police spokesman Tom Ahern.
No other injuries were reported.
Area Five detectives and the Civilian Office of Police Accountability are investigating.
