GENERATION WEALTH

Here's a funny story.  Well not really.  A while ago the documentarian Lauren Greenfield made a short doc called KIDS+MONEY and I reviewed it on this site. The post got insane numbers of hits. Disproportionate to any other post. And when I looked at the stats of how people were coming to that post, let's just say they were evil evil people. I took the post down.  Her doc had nothing to do with what they were looking for, but it was disturbing in its own way. Because it showed just how far young kids were becoming materialistic and money obsessed - superficial and blighted by a hunger for wealth that could never be satiated.

A while later I reviewed Lauren Greenfield's 2012 doc THE QUEEN OF VERSAILLES. The subject was the same - about the insidious corruption of greed. But in this case it focussed on a rich couple building a gargantuan mansion in Florida on the eve of the Global Financial Crisis.  I can never remember the wife getting into her limo and taking her kids to a McDonald's drive-thru.  Because they should grow up in a massive mansion but with no actual care or attention.

So now we come to her next feature length doc - GENERATION WEALTH - which continues and expands upon these themes. Following up on interview subjects she met when teens in Hollywood and trying to examine the impact that extreme wealth has on kids' sense of self and morality.  She puts herself in that same cohort - she is after a private school kid, layering on her training as an anthropologist, in order to make sense of her childhood.  With shocking vulnerability, she admits to feeling sensitive about not being able to afford fancy clothes, or being dropped a block away from home because she was ashamed of it.  

I've seen some interviewers object to this personalisation but I found it really fascinating both of itself here and as context for her career.  I found the scattershot organisation of the film far more frustrating.  It's as though the film is a series of individually quite interesting ten minute segments, but all thrown in the air and assembled in no particular order.  I felt very strongly having watched this that it needed a lot more context from expert talking heads explaining the phenomena rather than just showing lots of different superficial people. We just needed a few social anthropologists and critical theories to talk more about the influence of TV and social media, and political and financial analysis. And I mean actual financial analysis rather than from some German monetarist on the run.

GENERATION WEALTH has a running time of 106 minutes and is rated R. It played Sundance and SXSW 2018 and was released in the USA and UK this July in cinemas and on streaming services. In the UK you can watch it on Sky and Curzon Home Cinema, for example. 

HOUSE OF CARDS - S4E13 - Chapter Fifty Three

Thoughts:  Notably this is the only chapter of this season written by series creator Beau Willimon. So I guess this sets us up for the House of Cards tumbling in season 5? Is that the last season?  Altogether it feels like this season didn't really have a coherent story arc to itself. It started off as Frank vs Claire. It then became Frank and Claire vs Conway and Tom Hammerschmidt.  I felt we suffered from not having enough of the top drawer writers and directors from the first two seasons involved. You could absolutely tell Beau Willimon's hands weren't on the typewriter. We learn that it's three weeks to the election and the Underwoods are going to "make time" to fight.  The final exchange is chilling and the delicious irony of Frank echoing Obama is the kind of high level dark wit we'd come to expect from this series but all too rarely got this season.

"I'm done trying to win over people's hearts," says Claire.

"Let's attack their hearts," replies Frank.

"We can work with fear."

"Yes we can." 

Similarly, the final line of the season is operating on a level of darkness and Machiavellian genius that we should've been operating on for the entire season.

"That's right. We don't submit to terror. We make the terror."

Running time: 55 minutes. Written by Beau Willimon. Directed by Jakon Verbruggen.

Detailed and spoiler filled plot summary:

HOUSE OF CARDS - S4E12 - Chapter Fifty One

Thoughts:  Perhaps my favourite moment of this entire series is when Hannah Conway asks Claire Underwood if she regrets not having children, and Claire asks if she regrets having them in return.  It's amazing how many mothers feel it's fine to ask that question because it's assumed to be the default setting. I must remember to use that rebuttal in future!  Other than that, I'm suspending judgment on this episode until I've seen the next one because it's evidently meant to be viewed as a tense two-parter.

Running time: 46 minutes.  Written by Laura Eason & Bill Kennedy. Directed by Jakob Verbruggen.

Detailed and spoiler filled plot summary:

HOUSE OF CARDS - S4E11 - Chapter Fifty

Thoughts: Badass Freddy Hays - what a hero - the only man willing to tell the President he's a motherfucker but also to beat up the journalist who would bring him down! But beyond that we get to what is so strangely open and confident in the marriage of Claire and Frank with his offer to keep Tom on. They are a strong enough partnership that it can admit of a menage a trois. But isn't this fascinating ground that we already covered in seasons 1 and 2?  It feels like this series has taken Claire's storyline - that was all about her personal empowerment in season 3 and the first few episode of season 4 - and put her back exactly where she was. She works with and for Frank and he just throws her a live-in plaything to tend to her needs. Is this really the definition of a strong woman in the new millennium?  Even Doug Stamper's growing obsession with Laura Moretti feels rather stale.  With only two episodes left, one wonders where the surprise will be? Is it that Claire will break her partnership if Frank is impeached? All feels rather lacklustre. 

Running time: 51 minutes.Written by Tian Jun Gu. Directed by Kari Skogland.

Detailed and spoiler-filled plot summary:

HOUSE OF CARDS - S4E10 - Chapter Forty Nine

Thoughts: Hugely disappointed with this episode and the direction the writers chose to take the relationship between Claire and her mother. Just as the wall graffiti moment between Meechum and Frank felt forced, this scene felt utterly unearned and out of keeping with the tone of the rest of the show. Cue the swell of violins. Just cheap writing.

Running time: 56 minutes. Written by Melissa James Gibson & Kenneth Lin.  Directed by Robin Wright.

Detailed and spoiler-filled plot summary:

HOUSE OF CARDS - S4E9 - Chapter Forty Eight

Thoughts: Ok so this episode improves with a predictable but still fun plot twist keeping the machinations going. But more importantly we see an interesting psycho-emotional dynamic playing out between Claire Underwood and Tom Yates - and it's the emotional side that was so good in season 3. I'm back on board after a very weak episode 8. 

Running time: 45 minutes. Written by Frank Pugliese.  Directed by Robin Wright.

Detailed and spoiler-filled plot summary:

HOUSE OF CARDS - S4E8 - Chapter Forty-Six

Thoughts: This is the first episode I've been genuinely bored of. Where's the scabrous dark Francis Underwood of season 3, swearing in a Church, and the nuanced and even darker emotional breakdown between husband and wife. Instead we now have the scooby gang solving the crisis of the week as if they're in an episode of Scandal.  Literally the only interesting thing that happened - narratively or stylistically - was when the actor playing Aidan Macallan did the most gonzo TV dance scene since Ricky Gervais in The Office!

Running time: 42 minutes.  Written by John Makiewisz. Directed by Alex Graves.

Detailed and spoiler-filled plot summary:

HOUSE OF CARDS - S4E7 - Chapter Forty Six

Thoughts: I am really upset that so much hard emotional and difficult and brilliant narrative work in season 3 that focussed on the breakdown of the Underwood marriage seems to have been undone by a deus ex machina plot-line so that we are now basically back to contra mundum Underwoods. This is far more dull and basically series 1 stuff.  I am also incredulous that Democratic nominee Heather Dunbar would judge that she couldn't come back from the mistakes made in the previous week and it feels rather quick and shoddy and done to allow room for us to focus on President Frank Underwood's GOP opponent, Governor Conroy. Clumsy and dull.

Running time: 51 minutes. Written by Bill Kennedy. Directed by Tom Shankland.

HOUSE OF CARDS - S4E6 - Chapter Forty Five

Thoughts: A strange episode and I'm not sure I like where the show is heading with Claire's story arc. Where are the feisty woman she was surrounding herself with? Where's Elizabeth and Leann? Has all of the angst of the previous five episodes been for nothing? Has the major plot-line with Frank reset everything?  I also feel the dream sequences are poorly done and very simplistic and heavy-handed in what they tell us about Frank's psyche. Compare them with the masterful, surreal and darkly comic dreams that Tony Soprano had when in a coma. Disappointing all round.

Running time: 47 minutes.  Written by Laura Easland. Directed by Tom Shankland.

Detailed and spoiler filled plot summary:

HOUSE OF CARDS - S4E5 - Chapter Forty Four

Thoughts: A solid if unspectacular episode. I like the idea that we're bringing back some of the journalists that initially covered Frank's malfeasance, such as Kate Baldwin, and that his good luck of evading justice will perhaps finally come to an end and Lucas Goodwin's sacrifice will actually mean something. I also  really like the increasing glimpses we're getting of Doug Stamper's true psychotic nature.  That said, I still don't find the Jackie Sharp/Remy storyline particularly interesting and I wonder how realistic it is that the Acting President could sit there IM chatting with someone during a secret diplomatic phonecall.

Running time: 47 minutes. Written by Melissa James Gibson. Directed by Tom Shankland.

Detailed and spoiler-filled plot summary:

HOUSE OF CARDS - S4E4 - Chapter Forty Three

Thoughts: A short episode but an explosive one that was literally exhausting to watch. I loved the desperation on Lucas' face and the deadening inevitability of the actions taken.  In a sense, it's perhaps surprising that the writers didn't use this plot point before but it's really fantastic to see it thrown in at such a delicate juncture. Because by the end of the episode, Claire basically has what she wants - no? There's also some brilliant comic deadpan dialogue between Claire and Luann: "What's that?" "My mother killing a lizard." And then the final coup de grace: "Watch your step. There's blood on the floor." All in all, I couldn't be happier with the way in which this season is unfolding. My only nitpick is the cloying obviousness of the cutesy moment between Frank and Meechum.

Running time: 41 minutes. Written by John Mankiewicz. Directed by Robin Wright.

Detailed and spoiler-filled plot summary:

HOUSE OF CARDS - S4E2 - Chapter Forty One

Thoughts:  An odd episode with a lot going on and maybe that's understandable for the second episode in the series.  It just didn't feel like it coalesced to me and the short running time suggests that perhaps it suffered from mis-editing? At any rate the big story here is how far Frank will go to stop Claire's candidacy and the final political coup de grace was joyous to watch. Elsewhere I find it hard to care about Remy Danton's retirement and who's stalking him.  But I do like the nuance of Claire's relationship with her mother and the idea that in order to get our from under Frank she will have to become more dependent on her mother.  Burstyn's brilliantly hysterical "I am THE MOTHER!" outburst takes this to the verge of melodrama but let's see how it's handled from now on....

Running time: 40 minutes.  Written by Melissa James Gibbons. Directed by Tucker Gates.

Detailed and clearly spoiler filled plot summary:

HOUSE OF CARDS - S4E1 - Chapter Forty

Thoughts:  The new season of House of Cards starts off just a few weeks behind where we are right now in the US political season - the primaries in Iowa are over with Frank scraping a win - and New Hampshire is happening through this episode.  But for all that, this season feels a bit like a relic given its position that establishment parties cut deals and run races.   We find Frank behind Dunbar in the polls but forced to head to Texas to stalk his wife.  At the end of last season, Claire left Frank but they clearly aren't divorced. Oh no - for this political couple that would waste far too much political capital. Instead she is trying to kick off her White House run by standing for Congress in Texas, replacing an established black female candidate. And so the remainder of the episode sees the Underwoods come to some kind of Cold War agreement not to destroy each other's political ambitions.  

I love the amount of strong female characters that have been introduced in this episode. From Neve Campbell's campaign manager Leann Harvey, to Cicely Tyson's strong Congresswoman Doris Jones, to Claire's formidable mother Elizabeth (Ellen Burstyn).  I really hope we get to explore the issue of race in politics but also the interaction of establishment vs non-establishment candidates too.   Finally, I like the idea that the series started with the Lucas Goodwin story-line, which in a sense is just a variation on the Zoe Barnes storyline.  It's good that this basic Achilles heel to Frank's presidency continues to bubble under the surface, waiting to bring him down.

Running time: 48 minutes. Written by Beau Willimon.  Directed by Tucker Gates

Detailed plot summary: