ALL IN THE FAMILY
TWO-TIME OSCAR WINNER SEAN PENN AND HIS CHILDREN SPARKLE IN COMPELLING DRAMA
Flag Day Cast: Sean Penn, Dylan Penn Director: Sean Penn Duration: 1 h 49 m Available: Flag Day opens Aug. 27 in theatres in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver, with other cities to follow
It’s nice to see a director return with a vengeance. Sean Penn’s last film as director was The Last Face, a 2016 war drama/love story starring Charlize Theron and Javier Bardem. You probably haven’t seen it. If you have, you’re among an unlucky few, including an audience at the world première at Cannes. We chuckled openly at the self-important opening about “the brutality of love between a man ... and a woman” and didn’t so much boo as bray at the ending, 130 interminable minutes later.
But all is forgiven with Penn’s newest, Flag Day, in which he does double duty as director and star, and also casts his kids, Dylan and Hopper, as the offspring of the ne’er-do-well character he plays. Does that make this a self-conceited movie? If so, it’s going to give vanity projects a good name.
Flag Day is based on the 2005 memoir Flim-flam Man: The True Story of My Father’s Counterfeit Life, by journalist Jennifer Vogel, and adapted by Jez Butterworth (Edge of Tomorrow). Dylan Penn stars as the adult Jennifer, though it must be said that newcomer Jadyn Rylee, playing the same character as a tween, does a great job of setting up the issues and conflicts to come.
The film opens on a June day in 1992, where we learn that John Vogel (Sean Penn) has been found guilty of passing $50,000 in counterfeit currency.
“He printed $50,000?” the daughter asks. Nope, the police inform her. He passed $50,000. He printed $22 million.
From there, we reel back to the summer of ’75, to a scene in which John puts Jennifer, then 11, on his lap at the wheel of his car during a long road trip, so he can catch some shut-eye.
“I’ll be right here if you need me,” he tells her before nodding off. Get this man a Best Worst Dad Ever mug — and some coffee to wake him up!
The family drama that follows is shot resolutely through the eyes of the daughter, who at first looks up to her father, but gradually comes to realize he’s congenitally unreliable, forever lurching from one harebrained scheme to the next, his head always just above water.
In addition to Jennifer, John’s orbital influence includes his son Nick (Hopper Penn), estranged alcoholic wife Patty (Katheryn Winnick), and Josh Brolin as Uncle Beck, a title I think is more friendly than family.
But it’s really the father-daughter dynamic at play here, and Dylan nails the performance as the weary, wary daughter who, when applying at the University of Minnesota to study journalism, tells the admissions officer simply: “I want to matter.”
Penn does great work in his role as a con man. There’s a laughout-loud moment where he’s pretending to be on an important phone call and then catches sight of Jennifer holding up the unplugged cord, letting him know she knows there’s no one on the other end. Not missing a beat, he cups his hand to the receiver and mutters: “I’ll call you right back.”
But we expect no less from the five-time Oscar nominee and winner for Mystic River and Milk. What’s truly fantastic is to watch his directing choices play out. (And it’s worth remembering that, in addition to the stinker that was The Last Face, Penn helmed the amazing 2007 biopic Into The Wild, steering a young Emile Hirsch into his breakout role as a doomed wanderer.)
Here the camera work is fluid but never shaky; the grain and lighting from cinematographer Daniel Moder reminiscent of a dream or a memory (or the memory of a dream); and the musical choices evocative without being overwhelming. They include old standards by R.E.M. and Bob Seger, a new number from Glen Hansard, and something very old by Frédéric Chopin.
I’ll admit I was briefly taken out of the story when Jennifer comes closed to being raped. How a director father manages to shoot such a scene with his actor daughter is beyond me, but I guess I don’t understand Hollywood types. And it’s a vital moment in the movie, to be sure.
Flag Day will stay with you for a long time. If you’re only as good as your latest project, then the Penns (all of them) are very good indeed. ∏∏∏∏ out of 5