The Belly of the Whale (2018)

27 Wednesday Mar 2019

Tags

Crime, Drama, Ireland, Lewis MacDougall, Michael Smiley, Morgan Bushe, Pat Shortt, Review, Robbery

D: Morgan Bushe / 86m

Cast: Pat Shortt, Lewis MacDougall, Michael Smiley, Lauren Kinsella, Art Parkinson, Peter Coonan, Cian Gallagher, Ronan Graham, Ernie Gallagher, Áine Ní Mhuirí

In a small rural town in Ireland, there’s a caravan park called Moody’s that has been closed ever since the death of its owner a few years before. After a stint in Scotland with an aunt and uncle, the owner’s son, Joey (MacDougall), has returned to re-open the site and restore it to its former glory. He’s fifteen. Also arriving in town at the same time is Ronald Tanner (Shortt), desperately in need of money to fund his ailing wife’s medical treatments, and hoping to sell a thousand Chinese made toys to local businessman and political wannabe Gits Hegarty (Smiley). When Hegarty cruelly turns him down, Ronald parks his van at the caravan site overnight while he tries to work out what to do next. However, Joey’s curiosity about what’s inside the van gets the better of him and a badly disposed of cigar leads to the van, and Ronald’s stock of toys, going up in flames. Joey determines to help Ronald in any way he can to make amends, and when they become aware of payments Hegarty makes to a couple of local criminals, they decide to steal the next payment for themselves…

Morgan Bushe’s feature debut, co-written with Greg Flanagan, owes almost its entire existence to the work of the Coen brothers. It’s that kind of movie: an homage that pillages the Coens oeuvre freely and willingly, but alas, without adopting the control over the material that helps to make the brothers’ work so successful. It’s a bleak, misery-driven piece that has trouble expressing itself as the grimly humorous movie it wants to be, and it piles so many setbacks and obstacles onto the shoulders of its ostensible heroes that by rights they should be crushed flat before they even begin to think about robbing Hegarty. Literally nothing goes right for either one of them, from Joey alienating his best friend, Lanks (Parkinson), to Ronald succumbing to the alcoholism he’s kept at bay for so long. As misfits go they’re pretty spectacular in their ability to dig themselves a bigger and bigger hole that they can’t get out of, and it’s obvious that their get-rich-quick scheme is doomed to (relative) failure, but with Bushe determined to put them through the wringer time and time again, any real sense of self-awareness – or self-preservation – is abandoned before it’s even considered.

This all keeps the main storyline unfolding with the grim inevitability of a traffic accident that could have been avoided if both drivers had noticed the lights were on red, and though Shortt and MacDougall have their moments, their efforts are overwhelmed by the unremitting obduracy of the movie’s tone, and a mood that swings between cheerless and downbeat as if they were the only two choices available to Bushe, and which suited the narrative. Only Smiley manages to rise above the gloomy nature of the material, and he does so by being openly malign and horrible in a way that suggests he views Hegarty as the kind of moustache-twirling villain who can’t help overplaying his hand at every turn (and not as the arch manipulator that Bushe may have intended). Shot in a deliberately downbeat visual style by DoP Arthur Mulhern that further promotes the oppressive atmosphere that’s cultivated and encouraged throughout, even the sub-plots feature stories that are bleak and disturbing. With all this, it’s hard to believe that there could be any light at the end of the tunnel, there is redemption and hope on offer in the movie’s final scenes, but inevitably, these pale rays of sunshine come too late to save Bushe’s debut from giving the viewer a series case of the miseries.

Rating: 5/10 – a dark and melancholy movie that wallows in the doldrums of its own making, The Belly of the Whale is as far from a laugh riot as you can get without it being Angela’s Ashes (1999); with only occasional flashes of inspiration, and the odd, unexpected visual flourish to help things along, this “black comedy” may only appeal to viewers who will see Joey and Ronald’s individual predicaments as situations that make them feel better about their own lives.

Birthmarked (2018)

17 Wednesday Oct 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Andreas Apergis, Comedy, Drama, Emanuel Hoss-Desmarais, Experiment, Marital problems, Matthew Goode, Michael Smiley, Nature vs Nurture, Review, Toni Collette

D: Emanuel Hoss-Desmarais / 90m

Cast: Toni Collette, Matthew Goode, Andreas Apergis, Jordan Poole, Megan O’Kelly, Anton Gillis-Adelman, Michael Smiley, Fionnula Flanagan, Suzanne Clément

Ben (Goode) and Catherine (Collette) are two scientists who are interested in examining the whole Nature vs Nurture debate through an idea for an experiment they have. Newly married and with a baby on the way, their idea is to raise their own child and two adopted babies against their genetic predispositions. They’re lucky enough to find a backer for their experiment, Randolph Gertz (Smiley), and they raise the children in a remote cabin in the woods, home-schooling them as well and focusing their minds on becoming an artist (their own son, Luke), an intellectual (their adopted daughter, Maya), and a pacifist (their adopted son, Maurice). They’re aided by an ex-Olympic level Russian marksman called Samsonov (Apergis) who defected to the West in the Seventies. With twelve years of a thirteen year experiment having passed, Gertz’s assessment that the children aren’t extraordinary examples of Nurture over Nature prompts Ben and Catherine to try harder to get the results they need, but their efforts come at a cost to their marriage, their professional relationship, and the needs of the children…

Somewhere in the midst of Birthmarked there’s the germ of a good idea struggling to be noticed. Like the children that are the subject of Ben and Catherine’s slightly less than ethical experiment, the movie wants to be something it’s not allowed to be: sprightly, perceptive, and engaging. It is funny in places, though in a law of averages kind of fashion that only highlights how much of Marc Tulin’s screenplay doesn’t gel cohesively, and it has an appealing cast who are at least trying their best to put over the material, but thanks to some poor decisions along the way, the movie coasts on too many occasions, and never hits a consistent stride. A great deal of what hampers the movie from being more successful is its inability to focus on one storyline over the rest, with Ben and Catherine’s marriage drawing more and more attention during the latter half, while each individual child receives occasional turns in the spotlight, but not in such a way that we get to know them. Then there’s Gertz, the obvious bad guy of the piece, and his equally obvious machinations (revealed late on but easily guessed at long before). Add in Samsonov’s presence – friend or foe? – and you have too many characters who lack substance, and who only occasionally drive the movie forward.

All this has the misfortune of making the movie uneven and feeling like the cinematic equivalent of a patchwork quilt that has several panels missing. Hoss-Desmarais, making only his second feature, has no answers for any of this, and though some scenes work better than others, often this is due to the cast’s efforts instead of his. Goode plays Ben as a rather blinkered, the-experiment-is-all character who behaves badly for no other reason than that the script needs him to, while Collette goes from entirely reasonable to inexplicably depressed over the course of a couple of scenes in order to provide the last third with some unneeded secondary drama. The young cast are often the best thing about the movie, and that’s largely due to their playing their roles like ordinary children (which they are, despite the intention of the experiment), and there’s some beautifully austere winter photography by Josée Deshaies that at least provides the action with a backdrop that reflects the muted dramatics. In the same way that Ben and Catherine’s experiment lacks coherence in the way they deal with any problems that arise, the movie also struggles to offer a consistency of tone or content. Maybe the movie, like the experiment it’s exploring, needed a longer nurturing period before committing itself to audiences.

Rating: 5/10 – sporadically amusing, with a cast that play their roles as capably as possible, Birthmarked is moderately appealing for the most part, but is mainly frustrating thanks to the opportunities it wastes; too wayward then to work effectively, it’s a movie that should be watched under proviso, or maybe as an experiment in itself.

A Field in England (2013)

01 Saturday Jul 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Ben Wheatley, Catch Up movie, Drama, English Civil War, Hallucinations, Horror, Michael Smiley, Peter Ferdinando, Reece Shearsmith, Review, Richard Glover, Ryan Pope, Thriller

D: Ben Wheatley / 90m

Cast: Julian Barratt, Peter Ferdinando, Richard Glover, Ryan Pope, Reece Shearsmith, Michael Smiley

The British writer/director/editor Ben Wheatley has made six movies to date, all of which have been greeted warmly by critics, but less so by audiences. So what does this say about the movies Wheatley makes? Or the critics that review them so favourably? Or the audiences who aren’t as moved as the critics? Well, like any discerning director, Wheatley makes the movies he wants to make. He’s not singing or dancing to anyone else’s tune, and he’s never been just a director for hire. His movies are personal to him (and his co-writer/co-editor, and wife Amy Jump), and he brings his own unique visual aesthetic to them. Perhaps it’s this individuality of purpose that makes him so popular with the critics. But still, wider audiences haven’t taken to Wheatley’s movies, and he remains a movie maker with a great deal of critical caché but very little box office appeal.

Is this fair? Possibly not, but Wheatley’s distinctive approach to making movies isn’t always as welcoming as it could be. His fourth movie, A Field in England, is probably the best example of how his distinctive approach can get in the way of making a movie accessible, or even fundamentally appealing. Set during an English Civil War battle, the movie begins with Reece Shearsmith’s cowardly alchemist’s assistant, Whitehead, crashing through a hedge and cowering in fear from his pursuer, Commander Trower (Barratt). Rescued by a soldier named Cutler (Pope), the pair also encounter a couple of deserters, an alcoholic called Jacob (Ferdinando) and his witless companion, Friend (Glover). They decide to leave the battle and travel to an alehouse that Cutler tells them isn’t far away. They begin crossing a field that’s ringed by mushrooms, and Cutler forces Jacob and Friend to eat them. Things begin to a turn for the weird when the men seemingly haul an Irishman named O’Neill (Smiley) from out of the ground. He quickly assumes control of the group and convinces them that there is treasure buried in the field, and traumatises Whitehead into become a kind of human divining rod in order for them to know where to dig.

What follows is a series of events and episodes that may or may not be the result of the men ingesting the mushrooms, as hallucinations and psychotic breaks affect the whole group except for O’Neill (who may be real and then again he might not be; his provenance is doubtful). And this is the point where what occurs, and what follows, can’t be trusted. If you accept that Wheatley has sent his characters on a really strange trip, then you can go with the flow quite easily and just accept what you’re seeing without worrying about what it might all mean. But if you do need to know what it all means, then the rest of the movie is going to be problematic for you.

Wrongly or rightly, deliberately or accidentally, A Field in England is a movie that takes a huge stylistic and narrative gamble around the half hour mark and never looks back. It maintains a semblance of traditonal storytelling but filters it all through a succession of moments of bravura visual and sonic experimentation. At one point, while being chased by O’Neill, Whitehead shoves mushroom after mushroom into his mouth and Wheatley uses it as a cue to transport the viewer into Whitehead’s mind and expose them to the kaleidoscopic and fantastical visions that the character is experiencing. It’s a tremendous feat of editing, combining fractured and composite visuals with an overwhelming audio conflation of natural sound and music, and it’s far and away the standout moment… but, exceptional as it is, it’s also indicative of the way in which Wheatley and Jump have decided to treat the narrative, and the material as a whole.

As the movie progresses, and the characters experience vision after hallucination after extended fever dream, it becomes clear that the story, such as it is, has been abandoned in favour of transporting the viewer into a world where anything Wheatley and Jump can come up with is the new norm, and regardless of whether it makes sense or not. What makes this all the more frustrating is that the dialogue and the characterisations, which were so redolent during the movie’s first half hour, are also abandoned, and the characters – literally – all become pawns to be moved around the field at random, and until Wheatley can set up the final showdown between Whitehead and O’Neill (which ends with a line from Whitehead that has Eighties action movie cliché written all over it; not bad for a movie set during the English Civil War). In the end, the viewer has no choice but to go along with what’s happening, because Wheatley isn’t giving them a choice; and if it doesn’t make sense – which a lot of it doesn’t – then it’s too bad.

But where the movie scores highly is in its imaginative cinematography, courtesy of DoP Laurie Rose (who has lensed all of Wheatley’s movies). The crisp, pin-sharp black and white images are hugely immersive, and close ups are rendered in such a precise, detailed fashion that there are several moments where the urge to pause the movie and savour the image is irresistible. It’s a movie that’s staggeringly beautiful at times, and if it’s ever released in a 4K UHD version it would be an even more incredible viewing experience. Full marks too to sound designer Martin Pavey and composer Jim Williams for combining their work in a way that adds so much resonance to the images, and helps accentuate the profoundly disturbed states of mind of the characters once their real “journey” has begun. Without these elements – the imagery and the soundtrack – A Field in England would definitely suffer further, but thankfully they more than make up for the errant narrative and directorial choices that Wheatley has made.

Rating: 6/10 – impressive visuals and an equally impressive soundscape aren’t enough to stop A Field in England from being a disappointing, and frustrating viewing experience; loaded with style and directorial flourishes, it neglects its storyline in favour of these approaches, and leaves the movie struggling to retain any meaning, which makes it an exercise in style that overwhelms any substance it may have had in the beginning. (1/31)