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Stuff I'm Watching

 I just rewatched "The Night House," which has an excellent Rebecca Hall front and center. (When people talk about Hall, they use the epithet "always outstanding," and here is a case where I'm part of the hive mind.)


In this movie, Hall's husband has just murdered himself. Hall is full of rage, but she insists on going back to the high school where she teaches. A mother comes in to complain about her child's grade.

"Who's your kid?" says Hall. "Hunter Y? Hunter Y. It's just that I have so many Hunters...."

The mother is taken aback. "How many Hunters?"

And Hall--clearly lying--says: "Three."

The mother makes her case, and Rebecca Hall grows bored. "I see," she says. "All this happened on the last day of school. I was out because my husband had shot himself. In the brain. With a gun. I didn't even know we owned the gun!"

The mother grows uncomfortable.

"Anyway," says Hall. "Do you want a B for your son? Or how about an A? Let's make it an A. I don't give a fuck."

Rebecca Hall made an important movie with Catherine Keener--"Please Give"--and I have a theory that Keener has inspired Hall. Keener is wonderful at depicting transgressions; her characters speak at length about their smelly sponges, steal antiques from old people, and confuse grungy Princeton professors with representatives of "the unhoused." I think Hall may have studied Keener's bewitching rudeness--then turned in her own Keener-esque performances, in both "Christine" and "Night House."

That's just my guess.

I'm looking forward to Hall's next film; it arrives this August.
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