The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Monday, February 2, 2015 — 5A

Classifieds

Call: #734-418-4115
Email: dailydisplay@gmail.com

ACROSS
1 Burst into tears
5 Wander off the
point
11 Rainy
14 Hodgepodge
15 In the plane’s
cabin, say
17 New Year’s __
18 Pennsylvania
borough in
today’s news
20 Clinton’s
instrument
21 Ambulance VIP
22 ’50s nuclear
experiments
23 Founded, on signs
25 Foe
27 Approved, briefly
29 Pop singer
Diamond
31 Henry VIII’s sixth
wife Catherine
32 Conk out
35 “Make up your
mind!”
37 Germany’s __
Republic, 1919-
’33
40 Flip-flops
41 What we’ll have
of 3-Down,
according to
folklore, if 18-
Across 62-Down
sees his 50-Down
on 65-Across
43 Puppies
45 Bahamas capital
46 Thick fog
metaphor
48 Dirt road groove
49 Amt. on a new car
window
53 Venus de __
54 Mess of hair
56 Employee
handing out
playbills
57 Stoolie
59 Workshop
grippers
63 Word after Iron or
Stone
64 Corp. leader
65 February 2, every
year
68 Coffee hour
vessel
69 Asian language in
a region famous
for tigers
70 __ vault
71 Letter before tee
72 La Brea discovery
73 Filled with wonder

DOWN
1 Girl who lost her
sheep
2 Barnard
graduate
3 Cold season
4 Bagel go-with
5 Landslide victory
6 Poker pot starter
7 Corp. execs’
degrees
8 Bend before in
reverence
9 Lucky Luciano
cohort Meyer __
10 Before, in poetry
11 Cowboy movies
12 Shirking, as
taxes
13 LBJ’s home state
16 Salon coloring
19 Speak
24 Sweetie pie
26 Dennis the
Menace’s
grumpy neighbor
28 Hate
30 Part of UCLA
32 Chinese
appetizer
33 “I think ...,” in
texts
34 Make, as money
36 Mets’ old stadium
38 Old Montreal
baseballer
39 Back

41 Flippered
aquarium
attractions
42 Sch. with a
Spokane campus
43 Typist’s stat.
44 Some young
cows
47 Pennsylvania
raceway
50 Sundial casting
51 Entertain in style
52 Victimized, with
“on”

55 Outlet inserts
56 GI show gp.
58 USSR secret
service
60 Santa __: West
Coast winds
61 1551, to 
Caesar
62 Given name of
the critter in
today’s news
64 Billiards stick
66 NBA official
67 Dean’s list no.

By Warren Stabler
©2015 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
02/02/15

02/02/15

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

RELEASE DATE– Monday, February 2, 2015

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

xwordeditor@aol.com

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NBC

“Is that Llewyn Davis?”
‘Parenthood’ ends
in perfect form

Series finale of 
tearjerking show 
ties it all together

By CHLOE GILKE

Managing Arts Editor

There’s a certain art to crafting 

the perfect series finale. The ideal 
finale has to wrap everything up 
in a satisfying 
way, but still 
leave a few ends 
untied. It has 
to 
boil 
down 

seasons’ worth 
of 
storylines 

and 
episodes 

into one final 
message, one ending that gives 
meaning to the hours that viewers 
devoted to watching this show, 
instead of, you know, working or 
spending time with their families.

“Parenthood” 
successfully 

accomplishes the basics, but also 
does something rare with its series 
finale. More than just validating 
hours spent in front of the TV, it 
reinforces the relationships that 
viewers maintained with these 
characters and this family who 
felt as breathing and real as the 
ones sitting on the couch next to 
them. “Parenthood” is a notorious 
“mom show,” a supreme cry-fest 
because of its relatability. As the 
Bravermans embrace on a baseball 
field in the sunshine, the lines 
between real family, real grief and 
real love disappear into the script 
and the images.

It’s not a TV show anymore. 

This is family.

“Parenthood” 
begins 
this 

perfect hour of television by 
setting 
up 
Sarah’s 
(Lauren 

Graham, 
“Gilmore 
Girls”) 

wedding, bringing the family 
together for this joyful celebration. 
Sarah hastens her plans so her 
ailing father Zeek (Craig T. Nelson, 
“Coach”) could be there to see his 
“favorite” child wed to a kind and 
stable man worthy of her open 
heart and unconditional love. Of all 
the Braverman siblings, Sarah was 
the one to lean on her parents the 
most; she lived in the Braverman 
compound until her parents sold 
the house, and they supported her 
financially until she found a good 
career as a photographer. Before 
her father passes, she wants to 
show him that all his support 
allowed her to find happiness and 
love, one final thank you to all he’s 
given her.

Sarah’s situation finds a parallel 

in her daughter, Amber (Mae 
Whitman, “The Perks of Being a 
Wallflower”). Amber appeared 
to be making all her mother’s 
worst mistakes, getting involved 
with a man who drank too much 
and couldn’t be bothered to hang 
around to raise their child. But she’s 
already on the path to a happier 
future, after her uncle Crosby 
(Dax Shepard, “Hit and Run”) 
offers her a job at his revamped 
Luncheonette recording studio. 
Rather than running away and 
trying to do everything on her own 
like Sarah did, she accepts help 
from her family from the start. At 
the wedding reception, Zeek tells 
Amber that he’d like her to live 
with them for their “third act” 
of life. With Zeek’s finale rapidly 
approaching, this is a double act of 
kindness: Amber has a supportive 

place to raise the baby, and Zeek’s 
wife Camille (Bonnie Bedelia, “Die 
Hard”) will have company once he 
passes.

Their wedding is predictably 

upbeat and beautiful, but even 
more remarkable is how the show 
uses the wedding scenes to weave 
effortlessly 
between 
ending 

narratives for different characters. 
While swaying around the room to 
reception music, Joel (Sam Jaeger, 
“Inherent Vice”) and Julia (Erika 
Christensen, “Swimfan”) decide 
to adopt another child. Though 
they’ve only just reconciled, they 
promise that this is it, that they’re 
a couple and a family and will 
never break again. As he holds 
her while dancing and whispers 
that the child “is already ours,” we 
truly know their union is stronger 
than ever.

Even Max (Max Burkholder, 

“The Purge”) finds his happy 
ending 
at 
the 
wedding. 
All 

season, he’d been chasing after a 
girl who didn’t understand that 
his Asperger’s made navigating 
his crush difficult, and didn’t 
like him back. Max is the acting 
photographer of the wedding, 
but instead of hiding behind his 
camera all night, he goes off to 
dance with a young, friendly 
wedding attendee. The parallel 
between 
Max 
and 
Hank 
is 

striking: Hank (Ray Romano, 
“Men of a Certain Age”), Max’s 
mentor and a fellow Aspie, found 
an understanding and wonderful 
woman to share his life with, 
and when Max looks at his dance 
partner and lets her touch his 
shoulders, it’s evident that Max’s 
future is similarly bright. He’s not 
defined by his disease — he can take 
impressive photos, connect with 
other people and even graduate 
high school. It’s a long way from 
his portrayal in earlier seasons, a 
hopeless burden to his family and 
the “difficult child” that his sister 
describes in her heartwarming 
conversation with him. Leaving 
Max Braverman on this note, that 
he’s got a promising future beyond 
a textbook definition of “high-
functioning,” almost makes up for 
the fact that we won’t get to spend 
more seasons watching him grow. 
Almost.

But 
beyond 
the 
wedding, 

the element linking the entire 
episode together and bringing 
it to transcendent heights was 
its tribute to Zeek. Despite his 
brashness 
and 
averseness 
to 

change, he’s always been the glue 
of the family and the leader of 
Team Braverman. We know going 
into this episode that his heart 
condition is dire, but that doesn’t 
make it any less painful to hear 
Camille calling out his name at 
home and see the look on her face 
when there’s no response. The 
most heartbreaking scene in the 
episode (and possibly the entire 
series) is Zeek sitting like a peaceful 
king in his leather armchair, eyes 
closed but still watching over 
his territory, the home he loved 
so much. After Camille walks 
over to him, the scene quickly 
cuts to a baseball field, where the 
Bravermans spread his ashes and 
play a celebratory game of ball.

The final montage is the 

ultimate eulogy to Zeek: we see 
what accomplishments the rest 
of the Bravermans are up to in 
the years following his death. 
Considering that the rest of the 

episode set the characters down 
these paths, these flash-forwards 
could seem fairly redundant. Joel 
and Julia have four kids, two boys 
and two girls just like Zeek and 
Camille did, and open presents 
on Christmas day with their big 
family. Crosby and Amber record 
in the studio, while Adam (Peter 
Krause, “Six Feet Under”) hands 
a diploma to a cap-and-gown-
clad Max. Camille finally visits 
Chez Marie, the place Zeek told 
her about in the weeks before his 
death, the place they were going 
to visit together. Instinctively, we 
knew where all the characters 
were going, but actually seeing it 
(set to the most gorgeous cover 
of Bob Dylan’s “Forever Young”) 
gave the episode a special sense of 
finality.

If the best finales leave you with 

one final message, “Parenthood” 
offers its parting words in the last 
shot. The Bravermans, arm-in-
arm and supporting one another, 
walk off the baseball field and onto 
the green grass together. In the 
end, “Parenthood” was all about 
the power of loved ones to hold, to 
heal, to love unconditionally.

It’s not a TV show. This is family.

A+

Parenthood

Series Finale

NBC

‘A Most Violent Year’ 
explores corruption

By JAMIE BIRCOLL

Senior Arts Editor

There’s a particular dearth 

of violence in “A Most Violent 
Year,” which is perhaps contra-
dictory to its 
title. But vio-
lence is not the 
subject of the 
film; 
rather, 

it’s the back-
drop for a story 
of 
corrup-

tion. 
There’s 

an 
inherent 

anger 
and 

frustration 
in 

the characters of this story, 
and “A Most Violent Year” is 
director J.C. Chandor’s (“All is 
Lost”) exploration of how that 
anger and frustration manifests 
itself. 
Honest 
businessmen, 

housewives, gangsters, hopeful 
employees, ultimately everyone 
turns to some form of corrup-
tion, and sometimes that cor-
ruption turns into violence.

Oscar 
Isaac 
(“The 
Two 

Faces of January”) plays Abel 
Morales, the wealthy immi-
grant owner of a heating com-
pany, which he bought from his 
wife Anna’s (Jessica Chastain, 
“Interstellar”) gangster father. 
Abel prides himself on play-
ing fairly, staying honest, never 
resorting to the shady dealings 
that the corrupt heating busi-
ness tends to use. He’s good at 
what he does, better than most 
in the business, and he looks 
to expand. But assailants con-
stantly rob his oil trucks while 
on the job, and the DA (David 
Oyelowo, “Selma”) is seeking 
to file charges against Abel, 
believing that he’s cheating the 
system. Abel wants to handle 
all of these matters honorably, 
working with the DA and the 
police, paying his debts on time, 
but the compounding weight of 
all of these issues threatens to 
undo his credo.

Really, what we have in “A 

Most Violent Year” is a perverse 
reworking of the fable of the 
American Dream. It seems hon-

esty can only get one so far. The 
New York City presented here is 
a crumbling, ruinous center of 
urban and moral decay, and if 
those ruins can be navigated by 
stepping over or on that which 
hinders you, you can achieve 
success. But Chandor makes 
clear that with one’s success 
comes another’s failure. The 
American Dream is attainable, 
sure, but only to some — the rest 
will be crushed beneath it.

“A Most Violent Year” is not 

dissimilar to “The Godfather” 
in that each portrays the undo-
ing of a good man; Oscar Isaac 
even resembles a young Al Paci-
no. Isaac’s Abel is an admirable 
character, 
vying 
desperately 

to retain those ideals that have 
carried him up the social lad-
der. It’s impossible not to hear 
the defeat in his voice when he 
says, “So this is what it’s come 
to? Walking outside like a cou-
ple of gangsters?”

But the film’s most compel-

ling character is Anna. Chastain 
proves a force to be reckoned 
with as a sort of Lady Macbeth 
— seductive, persuasive, indom-
itable, almost femme fatale. 
Her charm is only superseded 
by her bite, undoubtedly grown 
out of her gangster upbringing. 
Chastain dominates the screen, 

taking control of each conversa-
tion, her eyes piercing into the 
souls of the other characters. 
She is utterly electrifying, and 
her absence from the Acad-
emy Awards’ Best Support-
ing Actress Category is truly 
regrettable.

Despite these performances, 

the film often drags through 
heavy-handed dialogue that, 
while important and plot driv-
ing, slows much of the film’s 
uneasy energy. Chandor also 
has no problem hitting the audi-
ence over the head with meta-
phors, going so far as to include 
a scene where Abel must rely on 
his wife to kill a deer that’s been 
hit by his car. But these early 
setbacks are overcome in the 
film’s second half when Abel is 
pushed further into the muck.

Chandor has an uncanny 

ability to pick apart the human 
psyche under pressure. How do 
we respond to adversity: do we 
yield to it? Fight it? Be destroyed 
by it? And if adversity is defeat-
ed, how much of ourselves have 
we lost? The streets of New York 
City are not paved with gold, but 
its rivers run black, thick like the 
oil of Abel’s tankers. And it’s in 
flowing down those rivers that 
Abel, for better or worse, finds 
his heart of darkness.

FILM REVIEW

B

‘A Most 
Violent Year’

Rave 20 and 
State Theatre

A24

A24

“Is that the guy from ‘Coach’?”

TV REVIEW

