value fulfillment

Genesis Potini (1963-2011) (Cliff Curtis), a Maori tribesman who became a seemingly unlikely chess master (which earned him the fitting nickname “the dark horse”), may know the intricacies of the game he loves, but he has considerable trouble managing the affairs of his life. In part that’s due to his battle with bipolar disorder. But there’s more to it than that, namely, his impoverished background and troubled family life. That becomes all too apparent when he’s released from a psych ward and left in the care of his long-estranged brother, Ariki (Wayne Hapi), a gang member and the irresponsible father of a teenage son, Mana (James Rolleston).

When successful, button-down investment banker Davis Mitchell (Jake Gyllenhaal) loses his wife, Julia (Heather Lind), in a car accident, he tries to grieve but, inexplicably, he can’t. Even with the passage of time, the shock never seems to set in, leaving family, friends and colleagues somewhat perplexed. Why won’t he let out his feelings?

Ever since Eddie Edwards was a child (Tom Costello Jr.), he desperately wanted to be an Olympic athlete, despite health challenges and the nonstop criticism of naysayers, including his own father (Keith Allen). But Eddie was not deterred by these obstacles; he was determined to see his dream realized, especially when his health improved as a teen (Jack Costello). He tried his hand at many sports, though not with much success, prompting even more ridicule from virtually everyone except his mother (Jo Hartley). He seemed reconciled to spend his life working as a plasterer like his dad – that is, until he discovered winter sports.

What does the heiress to a vast fortune do with her time and financial resources if she’s in a male-dominated world and not necessarily expected to accomplish much? What’s more, how does someone like that fit in when she possesses a headstrong, eccentric personality, one that could easily ruffle the staid feathers of a society with little imagination or tolerance for unconventional thinking? If you’re Peggy Guggenheim (1898-1979), you chart your own path – and become quite a trailblazer in the process.

When forensic neuropathologist Dr. Bennet Omalu (Will Smith) performs autopsies in the morgue of the Allegheny County Coroner’s Office, he treats his subjects with a sense of respect and dignity one might not expect in such a cold, clinical setting. The highly educated Nigerian-born immigrant even speaks to his “patients,” asking them to help him discover why they died, a sensitive, humane approach that goes beyond simply cutting open the victims’ bodies and performing calculated scientific analyses to find the answers behind their demise.

In 1947, screenwriter Dalton Trumbo (Bryan Cranston) was one of the most acclaimed and best paid scribes in Hollywood, having achieved success with the scripts for such films as “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo” (1944) and the Oscar-nominated “Kitty Foyle” (1940).

In 2005, decorated New Jersey police detective Lt. Laurel Hester (Julianne Moore) was living the good life. Her career was going well, she had just moved into a beautiful new home and she was enjoying her relationship with the love of her life, Stacie (Ellen Page), with whom she had formally established a domestic partnership under the state’s recently enacted law governing such arrangements. There were some trade-offs, such as Laurel’s belief in the need to keep her lifestyle secret for career advancement purposes, but, on balance, everything seemed to be going well. That all changed one day, though, when a nagging pain thought to be a pulled muscle turned out to be something far more serious – Stage IV lung cancer.

During a time of shifts in public opinion and social values, it can be difficult to maintain the status quo, especially among those who are helping to drive those forces of change. So it was in 1914 England with Vera Brittain (Alicia Vikander), a headstrong, self-assured, independent thinker with aspirations far different from those of most women at the time. Rather than be relegated to a life of conventional marriage and homemaking, for example, Vera fought for the right to apply to Oxford to earn her college degree and become a writer, much to the consternation of her parents (Dominic West, Emily Watson). What’s more, despite the subtle matchmaking attempts of Vera’s brother, Edward (Taron Egerton), to fix her up with his friend Victor (Colin Morgan), the idealistic young nonconformist resisted these efforts, insisting that she preferred to live her life without a husband. Clearly, Vera was a force to be reckoned with.

At the age of 81, many of us might be content to settle in and get comfortable for the remaining days of our lives. But not Maria Altmann (Helen Mirren). Despite her advancing age, she embarked on one of the most arduous, yet satisfying, undertakings of her life.

When presented with one of the biggest news stories of the century, one would hope that those covering it would make the most of the opportunity to inform the public about its scope and implications. That’s especially true when those ramifications have impacts that are far-reaching, both in our everyday lives and our metaphysical deliberations. Unfortunately, when it comes to coverage of one of the most significant milestone news events of recent years, those goals never reach the fruition they deserve, as becomes regrettably apparent in the recently released documentary feature, “Citizenfour.”