Then Came You (2018)

09 Saturday Feb 2019

Tags

Asa Butterfield, Cancer, Comedy, Drama, Friendship, Hypochondriac, Maisie Williams, Nina Dobrev, Peter Hutchings, Review, Romance

D: Peter Hutchings / 97m

Cast: Asa Butterfield, Maisie Williams,Nina Dobrev, Ken Jeong, Tyler Hoechlin, David Koechner, Peyton List, Tituss Burgess, Sonya Walger, Colin Moss

(And the award for worst movie poster of 2018 goes to…)

Calvin (Butterfield) is nineteen and a committed hypochondriac: he keeps a journal of his symptoms, and is a regular at his long-suffering doctor’s. When his doctor sends him to a cancer support group in the hopes that it will put Calvin’s “problems” into perspective, he meets Skye (Williams), a sixteen year old whose condition is terminal. Skye latches on to Calvin, and browbeats him into helping her tick off the items on her bucket list. As they get to know each other better, and Calvin sees how Skye copes with her illness (and her impending demise), his own fears and worries begin to fall away, and he even entertains the idea of talking to the woman of his dreams, an air stewardess called Izzy (Dobrov) (Calvin works as a baggage handler at the local airport). With Skye and Calvin’s friendship helping both of them to recognise what’s important in their lives, a reticence on Calvin’s part threatens his budding relationship with Izzy, while Skye comes to realise that the items on her bucket list aren’t as important as she first thought…

And we’re back… in that strange realm where teenagers are saddled with the kind of emotional baggage that can only come from having back stories forged in the mind of a cruel screenwriter (here the wonderfully named Fergal Rock). Calvin’s hypochondria is the by-product of the guilt he feels for surviving the car accident that killed his twin sister when they were eight. Skye’s devil-may-care attitude hides her genuine fear of dying before she’s had a chance to really experience life. And in true movie fashion, their friendship allows them both to shrug off the emotional chains that they’ve allowed themselves to carry around (like teenage versions of Jacob Marley’s ghost), and to become better people as a result. All of which begs the question, just why is teenage suffering so widely explored in the movies? And why is it so often explored in such a lightweight, overly familiar, and generally superficial manner as it is here? Even if you had never seen this kind of movie before, you’d still be able to work out its dynamic and where it’s headed, and pretty quickly too. It’s a strange conundrum – why keep combining a coming of age drama with a tragic, illness of the week scenario?

In the hands of Rock and director Peter Hutchings, Then Came You lacks surprises, depth, and any appreciable consistency in the tone of the material, preferring instead to make an amiable comedy out of dying, and to use one character’s terminal illness to make another character feel better about themselves. If this leaves a nasty taste in the mouth, it’s as nothing to the scene where Calvin takes Skye to visit his sister’s grave, and explains how she died. It’s such a monumentally insensitive thing for Calvin to do, and yet you can tell this is meant to be one of those “important” moments that speaks to the pain he’s been suffering (poor thing!). Badly thought out as it is, it could have been a whole lot worse, but thanks to the combined efforts of Butterfield and Williams, scenes such as this one, and many others, look and sound better than they would do under closer inspection. Their performances (and Dobrov’s) are enjoyable, and their efforts allow Calvin and Skye’s relationship to appear more credible than it has any right to be. And this all speaks to the overall problem that the movie struggles to overcome: it never feels real and it never feels as if you could ever meet the likes of Calvin and Skye in real life.

Rating: 4/10 – with its central message – if you’re feeling bad about yourself, go find someone who’s worse off than you – Then Came You is a romantic comedy drama that plays derivatively as a romance, uneasily as a comedy, and disastrously as a drama; its attempts at being quirky fall flat, and without its talented cast to prop it up, it would all collapse like a poorly cooked soufflé, an analogy that is entirely apt once you realise just how little this movie has to say about death, love, and finding happiness.

Early Man (2018)

21 Sunday Jan 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Aardman, Bronze Age, Comedy, Drama, Eddie Redmayne, Football, Maisie Williams, Nick Park, Review, Stone Age, Timothy Spall, Tom Hiddleston

D: Nick Park / 89m

Cast: Eddie Redmayne, Tom Hiddleston, Maisie Williams, Timothy Spall, Miriam Margolyes, Rob Brydon, Richard Ayoade, Mark Williams, Kayvan Novak, Johnny Vegas, Gina Yashere, Nick Park

In Nick Park’s debut feature as a solo director (and somehow that doesn’t feel right), we’re asked to take a lot on faith: that football was created by an isolated tribe in the Stone Age, that said tribe have remained isolated until the arrival of the Bronze Age, that they’ve lost the ability to play football during that period, and that they’ve somehow survived all this time purely through hunting rabbits (and though they all wear the skins of much larger animals – whom we never see). All perfectly plausible, right? Right. And especially so in the uniquely weird and wonderful world of Aardman animation. After all, what could be so unlikely about a challenge match between a Stone Age team of under-achievers and a Bronze Age team overseen by a villainous nobleman called Lord Nooth (Hiddleston)? There’s nothing unlikely in that at all. The only thing about it that’s unlikely is that audiences might not be charmed and amused by the exploits of Dug (Redmayne), his pet wild boar Hognob (Park), his tribe, and their bronze coin loving adversary. It’s Aardman; what’s not to like?

Now if that all sounds like a set up designed to reveal that the movie isn’t very good, then rest assured it is good, and very much so. But Early Man is an Aardman movie that requires audiences to approach it with a certain amount of caution. First of all, it’s very funny, and in the whimsical, very British way that only Aardman can manufacture. Park (who came up with the original story idea) and co-writers Mark Burton and James Higginson have created a world full of inspired sight gags, inspired dialogue, inspired character-based comedy, and a ton of in-jokes. The animation, as expected, is on a par with previous Aardman movies and shorts – meaning it’s excellent – and there is a limited use of CG that, for once, is in support of the Claymation process and doesn’t overwhelm it. Park’s direction is fluid, with an economy of style that matches the material, and there’s terrific voice work from the entire cast, though if you had to highlight anyone’s performance, it would be Brydon as the messenger bird (think Zazu from The Lion King (1994) but with increased attitude). Like all Aardman productions there is a surfeit of riches, and it’s immensely enjoyable.

The caution, though, is to do with the storyline. It’s slight, very slight. So slight in fact that there are periods where the movie stalls in its own version of a half-time break. This is where Park and his co-contributors provide more exposition than is actually needed, where the rhythm of the movie slows noticeably and the pace struggles to be regained, and the need to make the movie play out to around the ninety minute mark becomes all too obvious. All these things stop Early Man from being on a par with Chicken Run (2000) or Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005). Here – and despite all the plusses to be found elsewhere – by the time the match starts it’s with some semblance of relief. At this point, the script and the movie both knuckle down and provide a satisfying climax and they earn enough overall merit points to make it all feel as if it’s been time well spent… which it has. It’s an unusual feeling, to be watching something that’s so enjoyable, while at the same time, feeling that there’s something lacking, but that’s the vibe that Early Man gives off. But it’s still a must-see movie, if only to witness once again the absolute pleasure that can be achieved with, and by, lumps of clay.

Rating: 7/10 – like Pixar, Aardman work to very high standards, so when a movie doesn’t quite hit the heights that they or their fans are expecting, it’s always a bit of a disappointment, but though Early Man isn’t as impressive story-wise as it could have been, it’s still a great movie with much to offer; Hognob is like a Stone Age Gromit (no bad thing), there are more football puns than you can shake a woolly mammoth at, and look out for dinosaurs Ray and Harry – a lovely tribute to stop-motion legend Ray Harryhausen.

Postscript: Early Man was given a preview screening at London’s BFI Southbank on 20 January 2018. Following the screening there was a Q&A with Nick Park. Questions were taken from the audience, and one little girl asked, “What was the name of the rabbit?” (a rabbit, a likely ancestor of Hutch from Curse of the Were-Rabbit, is the main target of Dug’s tribe). Park admitted that the rabbit was never given a name, and then he asked the little girl what she thought the rabbit should be called. There was a pause, and then the little girl replied (and with perfect timing), “Rabbit.”

Mini-Review: The Falling (2014)

09 Wednesday Sep 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

1969, Carol Morley, Drama, Fainting, Florence Pugh, Girls' school, Greta Scacchi, Maisie Williams, Mass hysteria, Maxine Peake, Mystery, Review

D: Carol Morley / 102m

Cast: Maisie Williams, Maxine Peake, Greta Scacchi, Florence Pugh, Anna Burnett, Joe Cole, Rose Caton, Lauren McCrostie, Katie Ann Knight, Evie Hooton, Morfydd Clark, Monica Dolan, Mathew Baynton

At a British girls’ school in 1969, Abbie Mortimer (Pugh) is liked and admired by all, especially her best friend, Lydia Lamont (Williams). Abbie though, has a rebellious streak, and is the first of the girls to have sex. But this leads to her falling pregnant and a subsequent series of fainting spells that lead to her unexpected death. Stunned by this sudden turn of events, Lydia begins to feel unwell herself, and soon she too is fainting, both at school, and at home where her mother Eileen (Peake) hides herself away from the world.

Lydia now assumes the role Abbie had in the school, and much to the vexation of teacher Miss Mantel (Scacchi) and school head Miss Alvaro (Dolan), more and more of the other girls begin to show similar signs of illness, and start fainting as well. At first, Miss Alvaro refuses to believe that anything is wrong, and is certain that Lydia and the rest are faking their attacks. But when it also affects one of the other teachers, Miss Charron (Clark), at an assembly, the school is faced with no option but to send the girls to hospital for tests to see if the pupils are guilty of deception, or if there’s a real medical reason for what’s happening.

Despite the crispness of Agnès Godard’s often exquisite photography, and an insistent but strangely apt soundtrack involving original music by Tracey Thorn, The Falling is not as mysterious or dramatic as it seems, relying heavily on visual motifs and too many shots that are meant to increase the sense of foreboding, but which only go to show that trees used as a metaphor actually remain just trees. The same goes for the repetitive nature of the faintings – instead of instilling any sense of dread they happen so regularly that by the time we see a group of schoolgirls hyperventilating in a hospital corridor, it’s more a cause for laughter than concern.

Morley leaves a lot of questions unanswered (not the least of which is the cause of Abbie’s death), and avoids taking one or two subplots down roads that would have made for more dramatic results (Lydia’s growing attraction for her brother, Kenny (Cole), for example), while the cast do their best with poorly motivated characters and the kind of dialogue that only teenagers in the movies come out with (Lydia even yells “Kill the system!” at one point). It’s all meant to be a fervent hotbed of paranoid mass hysteria, and while it’s a situation that obviously goes too far, there are few consequences for the characters involved, and by the end we’re back where we started. There’s a decent idea here, but there’s also too much that’s elliptical or left hanging, leaving the movie only occasionally successful in what it’s trying to do, and only occasionally rewarding for the viewer.

Rating: 5/10 – dramatically unsound and lacking in any clear focus as to what it’s trying to say (other than that teenage girls are incredibly susceptible to hysteria), The Falling is a psychological mystery overlaid with an arthouse approach that doesn’t suit the material; obtuse and trying to be profound, the movie stumbles along revealing little about its characters beyond the obvious, and does its best to keep them at a distance.