usatoday_20170111_USA_Today

4DLIFE
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 11, 2017

“In the great green room /

There was a telephone / And a

red balloon / And a picture of — ”

Few parents are unable to fin-

ish the first line from the 1947

children’s classic Goodnight

Moon , which has sold 27 million

copies. With illustrations by

Clement Hurd, the picture book

was written by the prolific Marga-

ret Wise Brown, whose life and

work are explored in Amy Gary’s

new biography, titled (of course),

In the Great Green Room (Flat-

iron, 279 pp., eeeEout of four).

Although Goodnight Moon ’s

lulling style is familiar in to-

day’s many go-to-sleep

books for children, at the

time it was unusual, so

much so that for more

than 20 years the New

York Public Library de-

clined to include the book

in its stacks — just one of

many anecdotes Gary in-

cludes about the beloved story’s

history.

Calm though her works may be

(they include The Runaway Bun-

ny , The Little Island and dozens

more), Margaret Wise Brown’s

life was anything but.

Born into a wealthy but chilly

New York family, Brown spent

her early years roaming estate

grounds on Long Island and at

boarding school in Wellesley. In

college she discovered a love for

horse riding, poetry and the

hunting event known as

“beagling.”

A first job at noted pro-

gressive school Bank Street

let Brown create stories for

children that merged her natu-

ralist eye with her love for Ger-

trude Stein’s avant-garde style.

Yet often her writing took a back

seat to an impressive love drama

in her personal life: casting off a

wealthy fiancé, falling for an older

family man in Maine, and — most

significant — devoting herself to

one woman who would shape her

artistic and erotic path for the

rest of her life.

Brown’s decade-long relation-

ship with poet and theater artist

Michael Strange (originally

Blanche Oelrichs) nearly merits

its own book, as the women chal-

lenge 1940s conventions with

gusto: dressing androgynously,

cultivating lives of art and, of

course, being in love.

Unfortunately, it was a lopsid-

ed love, with Brown’s needs never

quite fulfilled by the older

Strange — a “vainglorious semi-

celebrity” — whose cruelty to

Brown dismayed many of her

friends. After nursing Strange

through her final weeks of leuke-

mia, Brown was bereft.

Despite her phenomenal suc-

cess with multiple children’s

books, as well as songs, poems

and essays, Margaret Wise Brown

never stopped trying — and fail-

ing — to write for adults. This

painful disappointment needs

more exploration, as we don’t

learn much about these works or

their problems. Gary also short-

changes the life-long effects of

Brown’s troubled connection to

her family, especially problematic

since it was the discovery of a

trove of works kept by Brown’s

sister that prompted this

biography.

Though her life was cut short

by illness (she died in 1952 at age

42), Margaret Wise Brown’s story

reads as a stirring evocation of a

woman who insisted on freedom

in her art and in her love life.

Emily Gray Tedrowe is the author

of Blue Stars.

The complicated woman

behind ‘Goodnight Moon’

Margaret Wise Brown’s classic Goodnight Moon was intended to lull children to

sleep, yet her private life was anything but sedate.

MICHELE GAY

Author

Amy Gary

Emily Gray Tedrowe

Special for USA TODAY

BOOK

REVIEW

The duo of director Peter Berg

and star Mark Wahlberg are be-

coming as all-American as hot

dogs and Mom’s apple pie.

Their newest col-

laboration, the dra-

ma Patriots Day

(eeeEout of four;

rated R; now showing

in New York, Boston

and Los Angeles, expands nation-

wide Friday), is their best yet, ef-

fectively capturing the tragedy of

the 2013 Boston Marathon

bombings while showcasing the

fortitude of the human spirit sans

any sense of rah-rah corniness.

The main narrative follows au-

thority figures, ordinary citizens

and the terrorists themselves

from the night before the violent

April 15 attacks to the suburban

manhunt that ends in the capture

of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (Alex

Wolff ) in nearby Watertown,

Mass. Chief among them is Tom-

my Saunders (Wahlberg), a Bos-

ton cop nursing a knee injury — a

composite of true-life officers —

who’s at ground zero when the

makeshift explosives go off at the

finish line and wreak havoc on

runners and spectators alike.

In Berg ’s signature handheld

camerawork, the director intro-

duces each player in the context

of the fateful day and weaves

their stories in the aftermath.

Tommy’s loving wife (Michelle

Monaghan) visits him at the race

just before the nightmarish chaos

erupts, young couple Patrick

(Christopher O’Shea) and Jessica

(Rachel Brosnahan) are injured

and split up in the confusion, and

Chinese student Dun Meng (Jim-

my O. Yang) survives being car-

jacked by Tsarnaev and brother

Tamerlan (Themo Melikidze)

when the bad guys are on the run.

As he did in last year’s disaster

film Deepwater Horizon (also

with Wahlberg), Berg crafts an in-

tense blast sequence on the mar-

athon route that gets up-close

and personal with its horror: A

street-level angle shows the emo-

tional effects of the carnage while

never being gratuitous.

The filmmaker weaves in real

footage where possible to add to

the overall authenticity while

dramatically rendering many of

the key sequences that captured

America’s attention — J.K. Sim-

mons, who plays a local Water-

town sheriff, figures into a

tension-filled nighttime shootout

that pits the terrorist siblings

against law enforcement.

Wahlberg exudes a watchable,

good-hearted machismo as Tom-

my, especially in a poignant

speech on love vs. hate. John

Goodman and Kevin Bacon en-

gage in scenery-chewing conflict

as a headstrong Boston police

commissioner and an embattled

FBI agent respectively, and TV’s

Supergirl Melissa Benoist breaks

from goody two-shoes type as Ta-

merlan’s American wife, a woman

determined to not break when in-

terrogated by feds.

Co-written by Berg, the screen-

play gets a little busy trying to in-

troduce its large cast in the first

20 minutes, though its timeline

settles into a tick-tock groove as

the action turns procedural in

tracking down its antagonists.

In other hands, Patriots Day

could have been a paint-by-num-

bers action thriller, but strong

performances and well-paced

momentum make it an engross-

ing watch.

Even more impressive is the

way Berg maintains an emphasis

on the heroes in those fateful

hours where a city came together,

refusing to be torn asunder.

Gripping ‘Patriots Day’

captures Boston’s heroism

KAREN BALLARD

Kevin Bacon, Mark Wahlberg and John Goodman anchor an interwoven cast.

MOVIE

REVIEW

BRIAN

TRUITT

Crowded

cast gets

woven

into a

tapestry

of

strength,

with

realism

and grit

Ben Affleck’s Live by Night
plays as a greatest-hits mash-up
of gangster epics, though the re-
sult is a haphazard,
albeit mostly enter-
taining tale of tom-
my gunners and rum
runners.
Wearing a variety
of fedoras in the Prohibition-era
piece (eegEout of four; rated
R; in theaters nationwide Friday),
the square-jawed actor stars in,
directs and adapts from the Den-
nis Lehane novel of the same
name. Small-time crook Joe
Coughlin (Affleck) finds success
in the underworlds of bloody
1920s Boston and sunny 1930s
Florida, yet is continually re-
minded of his dad’s fateful words:
“What you put out into the world
will always come back to you.”
There’s no shortage of style,
and the shoot-’em-up narrative
appeals to devotees of crime
flicks — but an inspired Affleck
tries to do too much.
Joe returns home from World
War I with an itch to rage against
the machine. Running with a
bunch of Beantown robbers, Joe
gets in the middle of a war be-
tween Irish Mob boss Albert
White (Robert Glenister) and
Italian crime lord Maso Pescatore
(Remo Girone). “I don’t truck
with gangsters,” Joe says, though
much to the chagrin of his cop fa-
ther Thomas (Brendan Gleeson),
bad decisions put him in inten-
sive care — and ultimately jail —
after he’s betrayed by his girl-
friend, Emma (Sienna Miller).
When Joe gets out, seeking re-
venge, the Italians install him in
Tampa to head up their busy rum
business. He’s the king of the
speak-easies, but beset by obsta-

cles including the Ku Klux Klan

and the preaching of anti-vice ho-

ly roller Loretta Figgis (Elle Fan-

ning) — all of which get in the

way of Joe’s grand plans to get out

of the racket and one day go legit.

The first act is an old-school

gangster’s paradise, sprinkled

with odes to classic crime cinema

and a killer car chase in vintage

vehicles. Once he gets down

South, though, Affleck creates al-

most another movie entirely, one

that explores prejudice of the

time as it leads to a bloody con-

clusion. Unfortunately, the two

parts don’t jibe seamlessly,

though Harry Gregson-Williams’

sumptuous score sets the right

mood throughout.

As the movie’s star, Affleck

gives his onscreen personality an

intriguing depth: The ne’er-do-

well Joe says that he wants to be a

good man, though his own hubris

undermines any karmic points he

hopes to earn.

Affleck has surrounded himself

with a talented cast that includes

Zoe Saldana (as Joe’s Cuban lov-

er, Graciela), Chris Messina (play-

ing Joe’s No. 2, Dion Bartolo) and

Chris Cooper (as the police chief

and Loretta’s devout father), but

those interesting characters are

mostly side players to Joe’s

journey.

Live by Night never reaches the

heights of Affleck’s best movies —

the Oscar-winning Argo and ex-

cellent The Town — but it’s defi-

nitely his most ambitious, both

thematically and in production

value. Although the filmmaker

conjures beautiful imagery and a

subtle exploration of fathers and

their children, the good stuff is

too often caught up in a muddle

of well-tread crime clichés.

Riddled with clichés,

‘Live by Night’ is less

than sum of its parts

PHOTOS BY CLAIRE FOLGER

Ben Affleck,

with Sienna

Miller, cre-

ates an old-

school gang-

ster’s tableau.

MOVIE

REVIEW

BRIAN

TRUITT

Affleck wears

many hats in

the movie:

writer, direc-

tor and star.