ACROSS
1 Got taller
5 Etching supplies
10 Ski area in Utah’s
Wasatch
Mountains
14 See 66-Across
15 Bad news for the
waiter
16 Classic cars
17 Fall in love with
something at the
home
improvement
center?
19 “Pretty please?”
20 “Frasier” role
21 Debuting on
screen
23 iPhone, e.g.,
briefly
24 Scooby-__
25 Bring Bugs into
harmony?
30 Golf tee, e.g.
31 “Flashdance...
What a Feeling”
singer Cara
32 Barbecue pair
33 Solo in a spotlight
35 Smallish
batteries
36 Med. condition
with repetitive
behavior
37 Get voices in all
ranges?
42 Colony resident
43 Gallery filler
44 Went like crazy
46 Second thought
49 Get fuzzy, as
vision
51 Grand __ Opry
52 Severely criticize
the store special?
54 “Breaking Bad”
org.
55 Org. offering
written and road
tests
56 Mason jar
attachment
57 Humdrum
59 Start bubbling
61 Criticize the
stringed
instrument?
65 Greek peak
66 With 14-Across,
event with batons
67 Site with tech
reviews

68 __ end

69 Wild West
transport
70 Run-of-the-mill

DOWN
1 __ Joe, Charlie’s
companion on his
tour of Wonka’s
chocolate factory
2 Time before TV
3 Environment-
related
4 “Where __ you?”
5 Actress Ortiz of
“Ugly Betty”
6 Fish sticks fish
7 Midori on the ice
8 Pop singer
Warwick
9 Binge
10 Reliever’s asset
11 Seize, as an
opportunity
12 Pooch in your
lap, maybe
13 Most people
18 Actor Morales
22 Keep an eye on
26 Personal attribute
27 Rip (up)
28 Opens, as an
official document
29 Commotions
34 Jordan’s only
port

36 In base eight
38 No later than
39 Space
40 Tiny tunes player
41 Big events for
film studios
45 Gives a hand
46 Somewhat flabby
male physique,
informally
47 Diffuse slowly
through a
membrane

48 Permit to enter
the States
49 Unwise wager
50 Country’s
McEntire
53 Whopper
creators
58 Basics
60 Young chap
62 According to
63 Give in to gravity
64 Word after eagle
or hawk

By Bruce Haight
©2017 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
09/27/17

09/27/17

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

RELEASE DATE– Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

xwordeditor@aol.com

6A — Wednesday, September 27, 2017
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

MUSIC BOX FILMS

Catherine Frot stars in ‘The Midwife’
Understated but lovely, 
‘The Midwife’ triumphs

Claire 
(Catherine 
Frot, 

“Heureux en France”) is a 
midwife who lives a quiet 
but pleasant life in a suburb 
outside Paris. Her placid days 
are interrupted by the return 
of a figure from her past, 
Béatrice (Catherine Deneuve, 
“Le Cancre”), the mistress of 
Claire’s late father. Béatrice 
is a force of nature whose 
free-spirited and unreserved 
personality 
clashes 
with 

Claire’s 
tempered, 
careful 

nature. And yet, Béatrice and 
Claire strike up an unlikely 
friendship, 
beginning 
when 

Béatrice reveals that she is 
dying of brain cancer.

“The Midwife” is a slow 

burn. Not much happens, per 
se, but the relationships are so 
carefully and gently developed 
that you find yourself engrossed 
nonetheless. Director Martin 
Provost (“Violette”) takes his 
time letting the characters 
warm up to each other, and 
the patience is well worth it. 
It’s a great film, not because 

it’s big or dramatic, but rather 
quite the opposite: it makes 
the most of the tiny intimacies 
in this quiet slice of life. The 

heart of “The Midwife” is in 
the details, carefully layered 
to create a work that’s rich and 
emotionally complicated.

The 
best 
moments 
are 

the beats between the big 
character 
confrontations, 

when we simply follow Claire 
through her life. Over and over, 
we see Claire birth a baby with 
expert skill and pass it on to 
the mother. She’s a constant 
witness to some of the greatest 
joys and pains these women 
will ever see, and she gives 
her whole heart to them, 
every time. It’s a masterful 
performance by Frot, equal 
parts warm, empathetic and 

heartbreaking as we realize 
her profound loneliness. That 
is, until Béatrice arrives.

Deneuve and Frot really 

bring out the best in each other. 
Just like their characters, they 
build on each others’ strengths, 
and their dynamic feels real 
and lived-in. Deneuve brings 
a certain vulnerability to the 
oftentimes callous and careless 
Béatrice, and in her capable 
hands, she becomes a character 
who’s more tragic than grating, 
which she so easily could 
have been. Together, the two 
actresses are a powerhouse 
team, and by the end of the 
film, you find yourself caring 
as much about them as they 
do about each other. It’s a 
testament to the writing and 

acting that a story as simple as 
this can achieve the emotional 

peaks it does.

It’s a beautiful movie. A 

little sad, a little funny, quietly 
triumphant, full of earnest 
feeling. It’s small and personal, 
but somehow feels universal. 
At its core, it’s about betrayal 
and friendship, romance and 
heartache, birth and death — 
and all the spaces in between.

There’s a moment near the 

end of the film when a young 
woman comes stumbling into 
Claire’s birthing clinic, in labor 
and all alone. It’s the middle of 
the night and the midwives are 
all on break, so nobody hears 
her as she cries out for help. She 
finds them eventually, and the 
six women help her through 
her 
birth. 
She’s 
supported 

from every angle, surrounded 
by these kind women who ease 
her fears.

We find out later that this 

young woman was one of the 
first babies Claire had ever 
helped birth, now all grown 
up and continuing the cycle. 
Claire wipes away a tear, and 
I can’t help myself — I do too. 
Because really, this is a very 
old story: Women taking care 
of each other, holding each 
other up through the pains in 
their lives, one day at a time.

ASIF BECHER
Daily Arts Writer

“The 

Midwife”

Music Box 

Films

Michigan 
Theater

FILM REVIEW
DAILY COMMUNITY CULTURE COLUMN

What we miss while 
we’re looking down

You walk into the elevator. 

I’m standing right next to you, 
on my way down to floor one. 
This is our typical morning 
routine. You have pulled out 
your phone, your safety net 
of sorts, and your crutch to 
avoid the situation that you 
are now in. My eye contact 
has 
immediately 
prompted 

the movement of you taking 
out your phone, and pulling it 
closer to your eyes. You must be 
looking at something. The more 
I try to study the screen you’re 
so enthralled by, the more I 
realize I am mistaken. You’re 
not typing an email or a text. 
You’re not reading anything. 
You have your phone open to its 
home screen. And you’re just 
staring at it.

This situation exposes many 

problems — but my objective in 
describing it, is to discuss our 
lack of communication, both 
in terms of desire and ability. 
I want to really understand 
how on earth we have reached 
this point. Where suddenly, a 
20-second ride from floor six to 
floor one has proven impossible 
for most people to look up from 
their screens, and say “hi” to 
the person standing next to 
them.

You may be wondering why 

I didn’t say “hi.” Right? Here I 
am talking about how we don’t 
communicate at all with those 
around us and yet, I didn’t say 
anything first. Well, I’m afraid 
I’ll throw you off guard. I’m 
afraid you’ll look up, and feel 
forced to converse with me, and 
thus frustrated that I took you 
away from the crucial task of 
studying your home screen. I’m 
afraid I am taking you out of 
your normal morning routine. 
And most of all, I’m afraid 
that this has really become the 
normal morning routine.

Recently, I watched a video 

about 
a 
man 
named 
Otis 

Johnson, who was in prison for 
44 years. Following his parole, 
he was sitting in Times Square, 
observing the people around 
him, and was struck by the 
phenomenon of iPhones held in 
front of faces, and headphones 
plugged in. He noticed that 
everyone seemed to be talking 
to themselves. They didn’t 
look up to see where they 

were walking (really smart 
in Times Square), and they 
weren’t conversing with the 
people around them. This was 
puzzling to him, considering 
44 years prior, he remembered 
people were engaged, they 
looked around, and they talked 
to those around them.

To address what I think of 

technology and our generation 
of smartphones, I would have 
to compose a separate column. 
But it’s worth recognizing that 
we have become dependent 
on them in ways that stretch 
beyond sole convenience. We 
shouldn’t feel “thrown off,” 

or at times, really scared, if 
someone says “hi, how are 
you?” in public. Of course, 
every situation calls for proper 
judgment, and maybe there are 
moments when staying quiet 
really is most appropriate.

But in the elevator, on my 

way to class, I don’t think it 
is so outrageous to converse 
with someone who is also in 
the elevator, and maybe also on 
her way to class. However, it 
isn’t routine, and people simply 
don’t do it.

During my freshman year 

of college, we were all advised 
to attend the New Student 
Convocation, 
and 
when 
I 

attended with the rest of 
my residence hall, the CSG 
president at that time gave a 
speech, which urged us to “look 
up.”

He insisted that we look up 

and see what surrounds us, who 
surrounds us, and then engage 
with those things. There is 
about a two-week window at 
the start of the school year 
when it seems our student body 
commits to social interaction. 
Then we get started, we settle 
in, and we plug in. Many 

opportunities to engage, learn, 
grow, and probably meet really 
interesting, intelligent people 
quickly vanish as time goes on.

You can tell me you’re shy, 

you’re an introvert, you’re an 
INFP according to the Myers-
Briggs test, so it wouldn’t be 
natural for you to say “hi” to 
me first. I’m not suggesting 
we have a full out conversation 
about 
all 
our 
hopes 
and 

dreams in the elevator. I’m just 
suggesting we say “hi” to one 
another, and that that isn’t an 
odd thing to do. The speech at 

the convocation was built on a 
lot of truth, I just didn’t realize 
at the time that while observing 
those around me look down and 
disengage, I would become like 
them in the process.

The 
moments 
I 
have 

fought the urge to stay silent, 
I have actually met some 
wonderful people. Last year, I 
complimented a girl standing 
next to me on the pants she 
was wearing. She thanked me, 
asked what I was studying, 
and I later explained that I 
hope to attend law school. She 
then told me she was in the law 
school, and she still remains a 
good friend that I go to for my 
various pre-law questions. It 
took almost nothing to talk and 
discuss our interests.

Saying “hi” to the person 

next to you is probably not 
taking you away from anything 
important most of the time. If it 
is crucial that you respond to an 
email or text, I can’t stop you. 
But my message is clear: look 
up. Look around. Engage with 
all that surrounds you. You 
might like what you see.

BAILEY 
KADIAN

Not much 

happens, per 

se, but the 

relationships are 
so carefully and 
gently developed

The best 

moments are the 

beats between 

the big character 
confrontations

The moments 
I have fought 
the urge to stay 

silent, I have 

actually met some 
wonderful people

ARE YOU LOOKING FOR A LIFETIME 
OF FULFILLMENT, LIFE INSURANCE 
AND A LIFETIME WARRANTY ON 

YOUR NEW HONDA?

E-mail arts@michigandaily.com for 

information on applying.

J
O
I
N

D
A
I
L
Y

A
R
T
S

P
L
E
A
S
E

