{"id":5199,"date":"2018-03-11T12:29:40","date_gmt":"2018-03-11T19:29:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=5199"},"modified":"2018-03-12T05:34:00","modified_gmt":"2018-03-12T12:34:00","slug":"review-submission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=5199","title":{"rendered":"Review: SUBMISSION"},"content":{"rendered":"

Early success stunted Ted Swenson. And although, years later, he has a beautiful and successful wife and an intelligent and interesting daughter, there\u2019s something missing.<\/p>\n

\"\"Richard Levine\u2019s \u201cSubmission\u201d is a film about filling a void. It\u2019s a subtle and authentic look at how bad decisions might be necessary, even essential.\"\"<\/p>\n

Ted is played by Stanley Tucci, an actor who instantly engenders a kind of genuine warmth. He\u2019s perfect here as a cynical college professor, whose early novel made him a writer to watch. But as Ted settled into his life with a wonderful wife, child, and solid, but mediocre career, he\u2019s become restless.<\/p>\n

Enter Angela Argo (Addison Timlin), a precocious, young student with an active imagination. And she can write well. When Angela asks Ted to read a few chapters of her novel, he\u2019s instantly smitten. But sexually? Maybe, but not in the carnal way you might think.<\/p>\n

Ted is married to Sherrie (Kyra Sedgwick), a doctor, who is immensely supportive of Ted. Whether or not he writes another best-seller doesn\u2019t matter, Sherrie clearly loves Ted for who he was and who he turned out to be. But this isn\u2019t enough for Ted, and through Angela\u2019s writing, something is unlocked.<\/p>\n

\u201cSubmission\u201d is a tightly shot drama reminiscent in some ways of John Patrick Shanley\u2019s \u201cDoubt\u201d or David Mamet\u2019s \u201cOleanna.\u201d Although similar, writer\/director Levine (\u201cMasters of Sex\u201d) adapts Francine Prose\u2019s novel \u201cBlue Angel\u201d without Mamet\u2019s clipped and staged dialogue or Shanley\u2019s set bound mystery.<\/p>\n

And while \u201cDoubt\u201d and \u201cOleanna\u201d are both more intense than \u201cSubmission,\u201d the theme still resonates. Levine gives us the pedagogical process placing on display a jaundiced teacher and an ambitious student engaged in a complex and tricky educational relationship. Don\u2019t laugh, but the actual sex here is really an afterthought.<\/p>\n

Ted\u2019s attraction to Angela starts with her intellect, and the unfortunate sex thing just gets in the way. But will their flawed decisions result in emotional growth and creative satisfaction? Progress is a destructive and damaging beast. And \u201cSubmission\u201d serves up only the first step in a life-long journey that might not end well. But end it inevitably does.<\/p>\n

Frustrating but sincere and well acted, especially by Tucci, who embodies a middle-aged man in transition, \u201cSubmission\u201d explores well the risk associated with stepping out of one\u2019s comfort zone and shaking free from the stranglehold of mediocrity. But it made me reflect on the sad perspective: you\u2019re only mediocre if you think you are.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stanley Tucci plays a man in transition in Richard Levine’s interesting morality tale.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[114,116,112,113,43,50,115,109,110,111],"class_list":["post-5199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-addison-timlin","tag-doubt","tag-kyra-sedwick","tag-masters-of-sex","tag-movie","tag-movie-review","tag-oleanna","tag-richard-levine","tag-stanley-tucci","tag-submission","no-thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5199"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5206,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5199\/revisions\/5206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}