Tag Archives: Nicole Kidman

Destroyer (2018)

27 Sunday Jan 2019

Posted by in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

D: Karyn Kusama / 121m

Cast: Nicole Kidman, Toby Kebbell, Tatiana Maslany, Sebastian Stan, Scoot McNairy, Bradley Whitford, Toby Huss, James Jordan, Beau Knapp, Jade Pettyjohn, Shamier Anderson, Zach Villa

Seventeen years after an undercover operation in which she was involved went badly wrong, leaving her partner, Chris (Stan), dead, and the head of the gang they’d infiltrated, Silas (Kebbell), vanished along with most of the rest of his gang, LAPD detective Erin Bell (Kidman) learns that Silas is back. She receives a dye-stained $100 bill in the mail that can only have come from Silas, and which relates to the bank robbery that his gang carried out, and which saw Chris killed. Determined to make up for not being able to save her partner, Erin decides to track down the other members of Silas’s enclave, beginning with Toby (Jordan), who leads her to Arturo (Villa), who in turn leads her to a shady lawyer called DiFranco (Whitford). After some “persuasion”, DiFranco confirms that he makes monthly payments to Silas via Silas’ girlfriend, Petra (Maslany). At the next drop off, Erin follows Petra to her home. The next morning, Petra meets up with five men, one of whom could be Silas. But there’s a snag: when Erin sees them meet up, it’s just before they attempt to carry out another bank robbery…

A tense, riveting thriller, Destroyer is also a tough, uncompromising, and visceral crime drama, where almost all of its characters exhibit shifting moral perspectives, and notions of right and wrong are deliberately occluded. It’s hard to think of a recent movie that has been as deliberately and purposefully gruelling as this one, and it’s hard to think of another recent movie that has painted such a bleak portrait of human behaviour. This is not a movie where good fights evil and emerges triumphant. Instead, good takes an early retirement, and bad flourishes in its place. The nominal heroine, Erin is so plagued and consumed by her demons that even when she tries to do the right thing, it’s no good because she’s fatally compromised from the word go. Her motive for catching Silas – Chris’s death – may be the nearest thing to pure that the movie can come up with, but even that reason is revealed to be dubious at best and self-serving at worst. Erin is damaged in ways that even she doesn’t fully comprehend, and she moves forward like a shark, refusing to let anyone stop her. She avoids her colleagues and her superiors, bullies, threatens and cajoles (and in one scene, gives a handjob to) Silas’s accomplices, and retaliates in kind when she’s violently assaulted. It’s tempting to nickname Erin Dirty Harriet, but even that wouldn’t cover the psychological damage that she has failed to deal with over the past seventeen years.

Of course, all this is brought to vivid and impressive life thanks to an incredible peformance from Kidman. With her blank stare and ravaged, withdrawal-like features, she’s impossible to look away from. A physical and emotional mess, it’s only Erin’s recollections of the undercover operation that allow us to see her when she had ambition and hope for the future. As these recollections unfold we see the circumstances that have led her to her current situation: alone, unhappy, and at odds with her teenage daughter, Shelby (Pettyjohn). Spiralling ever further down the rabbit hole, Erin looks to make amends for her past, but she’s a doomed soul, and redemption is frustratingly out of reach. Kusama, making only her fifth feature in eighteen years – we can forget Æon Flux (2005) now, okay? – is on dazzling form, tightly controlling the narrative and doling out pieces of the larger puzzle like all good film noirs, modern or otherwise. However, she’s unable to breathe convincing life into the subplot involving Shelby and her much older boyfriend (Knapp), or make Silas into the badass bogeyman he’s painted as. These issues, and a couple of times when the script connects the dots a little too conveniently, stop the movie from being as all round devastating as it should have been, but this is still a strong, intelligent and bold movie that deserves to be seen by as wide an audience as possible.

Rating: 8/10 – some may complain that the pace lags at times, but Destroyer‘s narrative allows for a slow build up of details that makes the ending all the more effective for making you question everything you’ve seen already; the rest of the cast trail (understandably) in Kidman’s majestic wake, but Julie Kirkwood’s exemplary cinematography paints Los Angeles in gritty, washed out colours tthat make LA seem at times like an alien landscape.

A (Not So) Brief Word About the Oscars 2019

22 Tuesday Jan 2019

Posted by in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

There are dozens, nay hundreds of movie awards ceremonies that take place every year, but there’s only one that sucks the air out of the room and leaves everyone dizzy with anticipation and excitement. The Oscars occupy their own rarefied atmosphere, the awards ceremony that demands more attention than any other, and which is seen as the pinnacle of any winner’s career. In recent years it’s been dogged by controversy, from accusations of racial inequality in its membership, to the mix up over the Best Film winner (Moonlight? La La Land?), and this year, whether Kevin Hart should or shouldn’t be the host (when the better question was, aside from Ellen DeGeneres, was anyone really excited when his name came up?). This year’s crop of nominees was announced today, and looking through the main categories, it’s hard not to wonder if the Oscars pre-eminence in the world of awards-giving is entirely deserved. Perhaps this year’s social media trend should be, #OscarsTooSafe.

The Best Film – sorry, Motion Picture of the Year (how grand!) – category is particularly dismaying. Can anyone really say that Bohemian Rhapsody or Vice deserve to be there when the likes of First Reformed, Leave No Trace, and Eighth Grade were also released in 2018? How can the Academy justify such safe choices when up to ten movies can be nominated? There’s not even a dark horse to make it look even halfway interesting (how cool would it have been to have seen Mission: Impossible – Fallout make the list, a movie that critics and audiences both agreed was one of the very best movies of 2018). And don’t get me wrong, but good as Black Panther was, Avengers: Infinity War was easily the better movie. So why isn’t that nominated instead if it’s time to be acknowledging superhero movies?

The acting categories also reflect the Academy’s inability to sort the wheat ffrom the chaff, with the same names showing up for tuxedo/gown duty like regulars at an all you can eat buffet. Good as he was in Vice, Christian Bale has given better performances in other movies, while Willem Dafoe’s portrayal of Vincent Van Gogh in At Eternity’s Gate is one of the Academy’s usual attempts at highlighting a performance hardly anyone has seen. You want to applaud this, but the likelihood of Dafoe winning on the night seems as likely as Kevin Spacey turning up as a surprise presenter. On the distaff side, it’s hard not to be cynical over the choices of Lady Gaga (nominated for playing herself), and Melissa McCarthy (nominated for being serious), while anyone who has seen The Favourite is probably wondering why Olivia Colman isn’t the only actress to be nominated (she’s that good). Oh, and if you were Nicole Kidman, you might also be wondering what you had to do to get noticed.

If the Oscars are truly about recognising the best that 2018 had to offer (or any year for that matter), then they desperately need a major overhaul. With all the talk of inclusivity over the last few years, let’s jettison ideas such as needing to separate animated and foreign language movies into their own categories; why can’t they be Best Motion Pictures too? (And can anyone explain how Roma can be up for Best Motion Picture and Best Foreign Language Film this year?) Conversely though, can we please stop pitting black and white movies against their colour counterparts in the Best Achievement in Cinematography category; these are two entirely different disciplines – and besides, black and white should win hands down every time. And lastly, whoever does host the show, is it too much to ask that they actually be funny for a change? (Silly question; of course it is.)

The Upside (2017)

13 Sunday Jan 2019

Posted by in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

D: Neil Burger / 126m

Cast: Kevin Hart, Bryan Cranston, Nicole Kidman, Aja Naomi King, Jahi Di’Allo Winston, Golshifteh Farahani, Genevieve Angelson, Tate Donovan, Julianna Margulies

Parolee Dell Scott (Hart) is fresh out of prison and trying his best (which isn’t much) to avoid going straight back in. Tasked with finding a job as quickly as possible by his parole officer, Dell attends what he thinks is an interview for a cleaning job. The number of waiting applicants surprises him, but when time drags on and he’s in danger of not picking up his son, Anthony (Winston), from school on time, he crashes the interviews in order to get a signature to say that he’s attended. But the job proves to be a life auxiliary for ex-businessman Phillip Lacasse (Cranston), who is paralysed from the neck down. Against the better wishes of Phillip’s associate, Yvonne (Kidman), Phillip takes to Dell’s unconventional attitude, and decices to hire him. Unsure at first, Dell’s decision is made for him thanks to a row with his wife, Latrice (King), over his inability to properly provide for her and Anthony. Realising that being a carer for Phillip could solve a lot of his problems, Dell accepts the job, but soon finds that he’s not quite as prepared for it as he thought…

The third remake of the French movie Intouchables (2011), The Upside reaches us long after its first screening at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2017. Caught up in the scandal involving Harvey Weinstein, the movie’s planned release in March 2018 was shelved until it was picked up for distribution by STX Entertainment and Lantern Entertainment (the successor to the Weinstein Company). Now the only question is: was it worth the wait? Sadly, the answer is, not really. This is a movie that is almost entirely depth-free, and dramatically inert. It’s a standard Hollywood interpretation of the kind of feelgood story that comes along every now and then and which, thanks to its sincerity and innate positivity, tugs at the heartstrings. But as usual in Hollywood, this kind of narrative can’t be allowed to exist in and of itself; it has to be treated with a level of over-simplification that five year olds would find frustrating, and slathered with enough gooey sentimentality to induce Type 2 diabetes in the unsuspecting viewer. There’s often a formula to these kinds of stories, but the best versions try their best to wrest something new from the material. Here the formula is embraced wholeheartedly… and then some.

This leaves the viewer with two choices: to either go with the flow and settle for spending an occasionally amusing, occasionally effective couple of hours that will leave them unmoved, or to rail against every predictable plot and story development for being so obvious. Either will involve a tremendous amount of effort on the viewer’s part, and neither will see them coming away singing the movie’s praises. For despite the chemistry between Hart and Cranston, and their performances – which at least stop the material from becoming too sappy – this is very much a movie that coasts for most of its running time, and which struggles to find anything to say. Burger does what he can, but someone really should have stepped in at the first draft stage and told screenwriter Jon Hartmere that a by-the-numbers approach wasn’t what was needed (though you do get the feeling that’s exactly what the producers wanted). Cranston is good value as always, and Hart, trying to broaden his range, is okay, but he doesn’t do anything to make us think that there’s a serious actor inside him who’s desperately seeking the dramatic limelight. And then there’s Kidman, on something of a role at the moment, but so under-utilised it’s hard to work out why she said yes. Like much about this movie, her presence begs a secondary question: was it worth the effort?

Rating: 5/10 – though its leads work well together, and there are some good comedic moments in amongst the otherwise routine material, The Upside is, unfortunately, a movie that doesn’t live up to its title; with issues around disability, class and race carefully ignored in favour of making this purely a feelgood movie, even the obligatory falling out between Dell and Phillip feels as manufactured as everything else.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)

15 Friday Dec 2017

Posted by in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,

D: Yorgos Lanthimos / 121m

Cast: Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Barry Keoghan, Raffey Cassidy, Sunny Suljic, Alicia Silverstone, Bill Camp

In Yorgos Lanthimos’s follow up to the multi-award winning The Lobster (2015), he teams up again with Colin Farrell to tell a story adapted from Iphigenia at Aulis by the Greek playwright Euripides. Lanthimos is an idiosyncratic writer/director, and his approach to movie making can often seem experimental and/or challenging. That’s certainly the case here, as he shines a light on the aftermath of a man dying during surgery, a man that Farrell’s character, cardiothoracic specialist Steven Moore, operated on. Steven is part of a traditional nuclear family – wife Anna (Kidman), teenage daughter Kim (Cassidy), younger son Bob (Suljic) – is well respected by his peers, and appears to have everything he could need. The only odd thing about his life is his relationship with a teenage boy called Martin (Keoghan). They meet in coffee shops, and though Martin at first seems as if he could be some kind of outpatient that Steven is treating, his openly expressed neediness is at odds with Steven’s more reserved demeanour.

Martin begins to visit the hospital instead of waiting for their meetings outside. He appears without warning, and his beahviour becomes increasingly erratic. In an effort to placate him, Steven invites Martin to his home for dinner. Over time, Martin ingratiates himself into Steven’s family, and wins the affection of Kim. A reciprocal arrangement sees Steven going to dinner at Martin’s home, where he meets Martin’s mother (Silverstone). The evening doesn’t go well, and it prompts Steven to start ignoring Martin’s calls and attempts to meet up. Then one day Bob wakes to find he’s paralysed from the waist down. Soon he’s refusing to eat as well, but despite the best medical treatment that Steven can arrange, there is no physical reason found to explain what’s happening. And then, during choir practice, Kim too loses the use of her legs, and she and her brother find themselves in hospital, in the same room, and facing the same outcome: death.

In adapting Iphigenia at Aulis, Lanthimos has taken the central theme – what would you do if you had to kill a loved one to avert a greater number of deaths – and made it into a psychological thriller that proves difficult to engage with from the very start. Beginning with a close up of a beating human heart that’s been operated on, this is as close as the movie gets to displaying anything like the same kind of “heart” to its characters. As a result, Steven, Anna, Martin et al become chess pieces to be moved around a board of Lanthimos’ design, and with no greater ambition than to reach the endgame. What doesn’t help is the emotional constraint the movie adopts, particularly with Steven, where his dialogue is largely clipped and/or neutral in its relation to other dialogue in any given scene. This makes Steven something of an emotional cipher, physically present in the moment, but otherwise withdrawn or remote from the people around him (he’s more present with his children but then only when they’re doing what he expects of them). And even when he does display any real emotion, such as during a row with Anna, his responses are childish and inappropriate; he’s a man approximating what it is to feel anything.

Steven is also a dissembler, hiding the facts about his relationship with Martin from everyone else until matters dictate he reveal the truth. This should lead to a point from which the audience can begin to have some sympathy for his predicament – in order to save the lives of everyone in his family he must choose to kill one of them deliberately, to make a sacrificial offering as atonement for his sins – but thanks to Lanthimos’ determination to continue on and make Steven’s predicament a tragic one, the movie becomes instead a visual treat if not one that is likely to stir any feelings beyond impatience or apathy. The how and the why of his children falling ill is explained fully and with no room for misunderstanding, but despite this the actual source of their illness remains illogically set up and maintained. As an act of revenge it has its merits (as Euripides knew), but it’s introduced in a way that robs it of any merit as a narrative device; the audience is expected to go along with it because the script doesn’t offer any alternative. It also leaves the inter-relationships between the likes of Martin and Kim, and Steven and Anna – and most notably, Anna and Matthew (Camp), one of Steven’s colleagues – feeling contrived and under-developed.

There are times when it seems as if Lanthimos is more interested in mood and tone than he is in characterisation or narrative meaning, but what this does mean is that the movie has such a strong, consistent visual aesthetic that it compensates for some of the more wayward decisions made in regard to the plot. Each shot is lovingly framed and lit by DoP Thimios Bakatakis, and there are moments of quiet beauty, such as the very high, overhead shot of Anna and Bob that sees them about to leave the hospital after Bob has been allowed to go home, only for him to collapse. The camera stays fixed in place, maintaining its distance, as Anna desperately tries to rouse him. There are other moments where the cinematography excels, but these moments aren’t always in service to the narrative, unless Lanthimos’ intention really is to keep the viewer at a distance, and make it more difficult (than it is already) to engage with the characters.

In the end, and despite Lanthimos’ best efforts, this is a movie that relies on its main character behaving inappropriately and oddly in spite of the gravity of his situation, and Keoghan giving the kind of performance that is technically impressive – and that’s about all. As the movie spirals down towards a scene that is likely to have viewers laughing when they should be horrified, the nature of the material reveals itself to be a carefully constructed farce rather than the psychological mystery thriller that it appears to be (though whether or not this is Lanthimos’ intention is still debatable). Watched as such, the movie makes more sense and is more enjoyable, but if taken at face value it’s more likely to alienate viewers than entice them in with the offer of a probing, insightful melodrama. More simply put, and despite a handful of good performances, it’s a movie that looks very good indeed on the surface, but which lacks the necessary substance when you look more closely.

Rating: 6/10 – an arthouse thriller that takes a step back from its central plot before it’s even begun, The Killing of a Sacred Deer strives for eloquence and meaning, but falls short because of its detachment from the material; Farrell et al are left stranded sometimes by Lanthimos’ approach to the movie’s subject matter, and there are too many occasions where the viewer’s response will be one of bemusement or disbelief at what they’re seeing.

The Beguiled (2017)

11 Friday Aug 2017

Posted by in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

D: Sofia Coppola / 94m

Cast: Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning, Oona Laurence, Angourie Rice, Addison Riecke, Emma Howard

Remakes are ten-a-penny these days, with movie makers deciding that familiarity will attract more moviegoers than not, and if the original movie is one that is fairly well known and/or regarded (and even better, financially successful), then it makes it easier to justify revisiting said original. But it’s unlikely that anyone was clamouring for a remake of Don Siegel’s minor classic The Beguiled (1971), a movie that bombed on its initial release but which has gained a sterling reputation since then. However, on the advice of production designer Anne Rose, writer/director Sofia Coppola watched Siegel’s version and began thinking of ways in which she could update the movie for modern audiences. The result is a movie that is atmospheric, sophisticated, beautifully shot, and yet curiously distant in its evocation of female desires.

As with the 1971 version, Coppola has adapted the novel A Painted Devil by Thomas P. Cullinan. In it a Union Army corporal named John McBurney (Farrell) suffers a serious leg wound during battle and manages to get away from the fighting. He makes it to some nearby woods where he is discovered by a young girl, Amy (Laurence). She helps him up and takes him to the girls school where she resides along with the school’s owner (and teacher), Miss Martha Farnsworth (Kidman), another teacher, Miss Edwina Morrow (Dunst), a teenage girl called Alicia (Fanning), and three other young girls, Jane (Rice), Emily (Howard), and Marie (Riecke). McBurney’s arrival causes consternation and divided opinions amongst the staff and the pupils, with some of them insisting he be turned over to the Confederate Army as a prisoner of war, and others insisting that he be allowed to stay and at least recover from his wound. In the end, Miss Farnsworth decides that he can stay until his leg has healed.

McBurney’s presence gives rise to his being the recipient of overly attentive behaviour from the women and the children alike. Miss Farnsworth tends to his leg, while Miss Morrow hovers around offering assistance at every opportunity. Alicia too is in close attendance, and the rest of the girls all take an exaggerated interest in McBurney’s well-being. As his leg improves he begins to move around the school, and shows an interest in the garden, which he helps to maintain. He begins to spend more time with Miss Morrow, and eventually professes his love for her. They arrange to meet in her room late one night after everyone has gone to bed, but when McBurney fails to turn up, Miss Morrow goes to his room and finds it empty. And then she hears noises coming from another room…

Where the 1971 version traded on a more fervid atmosphere in order to tell its tale, this version remains an austere and measured accomplishment, with Coppola giving limited expression to any desires held by the female characters. While it’s a given that Miss Farnsworth and Miss Morrow would strive to remain aloof in relation to the presence of a wounded yet otherwise virile soldier, and for the perceived sake of the children in their care, thanks to the precise nature of Coppola’s screenplay, their being aloof hampers the effectiveness of the emotional outbursts that occur as the movie progresses. These outbursts are generally well handled by the cast, but in dramatic terms they don’t have the impact needed to make the viewer sympathise with the characters involved, and even though McBurney suffers more than an injured leg, what should be a moment of horror – both for McBurney’s discovery of what’s happened to him, and the ease with which his suffering is agreed upon and carried out – is let down by the restrained melodrama that precedes it.

This distancing between the viewer and the characters has a strange effect on the story and how it plays out. In many respects, and by making the directorial decisions that she’s made, Coppola has taken Cullinan’s novel and decided to explore it from a female perspective. And usually, this would be all well and good. But Coppola, rather than hold to the idea that repressed sexual tension should be the catalyst for the events that follow McBurney’s arrival at the school, instead makes it all to do with a failing of manners and etiquette on the soldier’s part. This may not be the most obvious reading of the story, and it may not have been Coppola’s main intention in telling the story, but nevertheless, what comes across is a tale of one man’s refusal to accept implicitly the hospitality he has been given, and the consequences of taking that refusal to “behave” too far. When McBurney is seeking to fit in, and to reward his convalescence by helping in the garden, he’s a favoured “guest”. Once his true motives are revealed, his benefactors become his gaolers and his transgressions must be paid for. It’s Old Testament retribution wrapped up in New Testament flummery, but determined by an arch, emotional rigidity of manner that suits Coppola’s arthouse style of movie making but which does a cruel disservice to the material.

The issue of passion in Coppola’s remains unaddressed by the director herself, and though she elicits good performances from all concerned, the somewhat stuffy dialogue and repressive mood often defeats the cast’s attempts to break free of their acting “chains”. Farrell gets a chance to rage out, but against the restrained nature of the residents of Martha Farnsworth’s Seminary for Young Ladies it’s like witnessing a sudden downpour on any otherwise brilliantly sunny day. The movie does, however, look wondrous, with exquisitely composed exterior shots (moss has rarely looked this beautiful) and tastefully lit interiors that hint of secrets hidden just out of frame. Against the backdrop of the US Civil War, there’s a pleasing sense of deliberate isolationism that may or may not be a reflection on modern US politics, and Coppola wisely exploits the notion of being careful of what you wish for, and on both sides of the gender divide. But all in all, there’s less here than meets the eye, and for that, one shouldn’t be too surprised.

Rating: 7/10 – though Coppola has deliberately dialled down the “hothouse” nature of Don Siegel’s original, The Beguiled lacks for enough passion to make the young ladies of the seminary, and their teachers’ emotional dilemmas, entirely believable; as a thriller it has its moments, and as a drama it’s riveting enough to get by, but technical achievements aside, it’s another movie where Coppola somehow manages to disengage herself from the material too often to provide viewers with a movie that retains an emotional through line.

Genius (2016)

30 Thursday Mar 2017

Posted by in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

D: Michael Grandage / 104m

Cast: Colin Firth, Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, Laura Linney, Guy Pearce, Dominic West

If you’ve never heard of Maxwell Perkins (Firth) – and it’s very likely that you haven’t – then Genius, the debut feature by Michael Grandage, won’t actually tell you very much about him. You will discover that he was an editor at Charles Scribner’s & Sons during the Twenties and Thirties, and that he helped shape the writing careers of both F. Scott Fitzgerald (Pearce) and Ernest Hemingway (West). You’ll also learn that he had a wife, Louise (Linney), five daughters, and – apparently – never took off his hat, even at home. But these are just facts about the man. What made him tick, so to speak, what made him so passionate about books and writers, well, that’s another matter. And it’s one the movie, despite being based on A. Scott Berg’s National Book Award-winner Max Perkins: Editor of Genius (1978) and adapted by John Logan, fails to address.

Instead, the movie focuses on Thomas Wolfe (Law), an aspiring novelist whose first work of full-length fiction has been turned down by every other publishing house in New York except for Scribner’s. The novel, O Lost, is long, unwieldy, and overly descriptive in a grand romantic manner, but Perkins believes sincerely that it should be published, though with a fair bit of judicious pruning. Wolfe can’t believe his good luck, and agrees to working with Perkins to wrestle the novel into a more publishable form. Long months pass, and in 1929, Wolfe’s first novel is published to great acclaim with a new title, Look Homeward, Angel.

The two men are polar opposites. Perkins is quiet to the point of apparent catatonia, while Wolfe is brash, loud, and unapologetically hedonistic. He also writes like a man possessed, producing hundreds of pages of prose almost every day, but with no idea of how to corral that prose into a consistent format, or how to self-edit. Hence his need for Perkins to work with him. Wolfe’s success is compounded by his second novel (initially even more long, unwieldy and overly descriptive in a grand romantic manner), Of Time and the River, being just as well-regarded and received as his first. But now, jealousy and paranoia begin to take hold of Wolfe, and the idea that his books are only successful because of Perkins’ involvement, starts to nag at the author, and he takes steps to distance himself from Perkins and claim all the credit. This leads to an estrangement between the two men, as well as Wolfe signing with another publisher.

Genius moves at an agonisingly slow pace for the majority of its running time, and there are no end of scenes where Perkins sits reading manuscripts with nothing else happening within the frame. His is an interior, contemplative existence, allied to a contained, watchful existence that allows for few displays of honest emotion (when he raises his voice in anger to Louise at one point, it’s like a verbal slap across the face, such is the shock of it). Perkins may live most of his life through the pages of the books he edits, and he may be deliberately reclusive in terms of having a social life, but his skills as an editor can’t be challenged. The movie makes this point quite cleverly and quite succinctly, during a sequence where Perkins’ skill as an editor is given the spotlight. At first he reads out a passage Wolfe has written about the central character in O Lost falling in love at first sight. It’s overlong, and Perkins is unconvinced by much of Wolfe’s prose. And so he challenges Wolfe’s assertions at every turn, and soon the passage has been whittled down to a single, concise paragraph. And it’s so much better.

It’s also one of the very few occasions where the movie attempts to speed up or show a sense of urgency, but this is down to the editing of the sequence – step forward, Chris Dickens – rather than anything that Logan’s script or Grandage’s direction does. The slow, measured pace of the movie is its biggest obstacle to being liked, though the way in which Wolfe is introduced to the audience doesn’t help either. Where Firth underplays Perkins to silent perfection, Law is a bundle of energy as Wolfe, but in a way that soon proves wearing. He’s overly voluble, lacks filters, and is unconcerned if he upsets the people around him, a trait that become more and more entrenched the more successful he becomes. By the time Law has theatrically made his way through his third or fourth literary-style monologue, it’s clear that the template for the character has been set. Law is good as Wolfe, but his performance is one that Grandage doesn’t seem able to rein in when needed, and as a result, Law seems more in control of his performance than his director is.

While Linney is consigned to the background as Perkins’ demure, supportive wife, Kidman is given the more dramatic role of Wolfe’s lover, Aline Bernstein. Aline supported Wolfe when he was trying to get O Lost published, but as he found fame and fortune, their relationship became more and more adversarial, thanks largely to Aline’s feelings of betrayal and abandonment. Wolfe became dismissive of her feelings, and the disintegration of their relationship adds some much needed meat to the bones of Logan’s script. Kidman is caustic yet vulnerable as Aline, and it’s a shot in the arm for viewers who may have been thinking that the actress’s best work is behind her.

Despite the performances (Pearce is also on good form as a struggling Fitzgerald), the movie appears deliberately gloomy thanks to an almost monochrome colour scheme that’s been lit in equally dreary fashion by DoP Ben Davis. This makes the movie seem drier and even more constrained than it actually is, and again, Grandage doesn’t have any answers to combat this. Maybe it was a deliberate choice, and the movie is certainly consistent enough for this to be the case, but by making the movie look so unappealing and drab it has a knock-on effect on the material as a whole. It’s one of those occasions where you wonder if anyone was watching the dailies that closely.

In the end, the movie is less about Perkins and his talent as an editor, and it’s even less concerned with his legacy (trotting out scenes with Fitzgerald and Hemingway appears to be an attempt to do this, but these scenes are more about them than Perkins). The focus is on Wolfe and his need to write to the exclusion of all else that doesn’t further his writing. A scene midway through has Wolfe take Perkins to a jazz club. There the differences between the two men are highlighted, but in such a way that Perkins is left adrift as the scene concentrates on Wolfe. What Grandage and Logan have forgotten, it seems, is that Perkins is their main character, and not Wolfe, and this in turn makes one wonder: where was someone to shape and polish the script in the same way that Perkins shaped and polished the novels he helped publish? A fair point, maybe, but not one you’re likely to find an answer to.

Rating: 6/10 – good performances all round can’t help Genius avoid being labelled as tedious, tepid, or perfunctory; lacking emotions that might instil reactions from its audience, the movie is a dry, humdrum examination of literary excellence behind the scenes, and a love of the printed word aside, never takes flight in the way that it should do.

Lion (2016)

19 Sunday Feb 2017

Posted by in Movies

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

lion-movie-poster-01-1594x2362

D: Garth Davis / 115m

Cast: Dev Patel, Rooney Mara, Nicole Kidman, David Wenham, Sunny Pawar, Abhishek Bharate, Priyanka Bose, Divian Ladwa, Deepti Naval, Tannishtha Chatterjee, Nawazuddin Siddiqui

If you watch enough movies you soon learn that the world is full of inspiring true life stories where people from all walks of life overcome seemingly insurmountable odds in order to achieve a particular personal or professional goal. In 2016, movies based on true stories included the likes of Hacksaw Ridge, The Finest Hours, The Infiltrator, and Sully. And then there’s Lion, the story of a young Indian boy, Saroo (Pawar), who finds himself lost and alone in a part of India he doesn’t know, and who ends up being adopted by an Australian couple, the Brierleys (Kidman, Wenham). Twenty years later, Saroo (Patel) decides to go in search of his birth family: his older brother Guddu, his mother Kamla, and younger sister Shekila.

As expected, Lion is a movie of two halves. In the first we meet Saroo and Guddu (Bharate), brothers who steal coal from trains that they then sell on so as to be able to afford groceries. On one such mission they travel to a train station, where they end up separated. Saroo boards a train in the hope of finding Guddu, but he falls asleep. When he wakes the train is moving and he’s unable to get off until it arrives at its destination: Calcutta. Though he’s taken in by a kindly young woman, Noor (Chatterjee), Saroo flees from her home when a man she knows, Rama (Siddiqui), appears set on selling Saroo into the sex trade. Eventually, he finds himself in the care of the authorities and lodging in a children’s home. Some time later, Mrs Sood (Naval), from the Indian Society for Sponsorship and Adoption, tells him that an Australian couple want to adopt him. Saroo travels to Hobart, Tasmania, where he meets his adoptive parents, John and Sue Brierley. He settles in, and the Brierleys also adopt another orphaned Indian boy, Mantosh.

https-blueprint-api-production-s3-amazonaws-com-uploads-card-image-281971-sunny_pawar

This first half is compelling stuff, due largely to Pawar’s winning presence, and the sympathy his plight elicits. From the moment Saroo falls asleep on a platform bench, and despite his brother’s instruction to stay there, it’s obvious that it’s all going to go wrong (there wouldn’t be much of a movie otherwise). But this awareness in the viewer is what makes it work so well. Watching Saroo calling for his brother – and knowing he won’t appear or answer – adds to the sense of isolation that Saroo will soon begin to feel, and it’s one of those situations we can all appreciate. And when he falls asleep on the train that will take him far away from home, it’s especially heartbreaking. As the young Saroo, Pawar’s performance is pitch perfect, his natural way in front of the camera making it easy to identify with Saroo and hope that he doesn’t come to any harm. Pawar plays him as a cheeky, happy-go-lucky child at first, but when things become more serious, he’s more than able to display the sadness and dismay inherent in Saroo’s situation.

In the second half, Saroo is now studying hotel management in Melbourne, and begins a relationship with fellow student, Lucy (Mara). At a party with friends, Saroo experiences a flashback to his childhood, and it proves to be the first of many. Lucy and his friends suggest he uses Google Earth to try and find his hometown in India. But the town name he remembers doesn’t exist, and the only memory he has of the station where he last saw Guddu is that there was a rain tower there, something not uncommon at Indian railway stations. As his search continues, and with less and less luck or progress as time goes by, Saroo’s relationship with Lucy begins to suffer. Eventually, Saroo finds a clue on Google Earth that points him in the right direction, and brings the prospect of finding his Indian family even closer.

lion3

With the movie’s first half proving so compelling and so emotionally effective, it becomes something of a surprise when the second half appears to be doing its best to undo all the good work of the first. As an adult, Saroo’s floppy-haired, well-liked personality soon gives way to miserable, semi-tortured whinger as his efforts to find his birth family fail to provide the results he wants, and his disappointment causes him to treat Lucy like a stranger, and his adopted brother Mantosh (Ladwa) with callous disregard. It’s this transition that doesn’t make sense dramatically, and it’s an issue that Luke Davies’ otherwise exemplary script never addresses satisfactorily. The why of Saroo’s change in behaviour may well be due to accrued frustration, but why he should deliberately jeopardise his relationships with those closest to him remains a mystery, one greater than if he’ll succeed in his search. Not even Patel, normally a perceptive and thoughtful actor, can’t make anything of this turnaround, and for a long stretch any sympathy for the character that the viewer has, is in danger of being lost for good.

The second half is also where the script trots out too many subplots that don’t always add up to a coherent whole. Mantosh is seen as having issues surrounding his role in the Brierley family, but the reasons for these are never explained, while the reason for the Brierleys having adopted two Indian boys instead of having their own children is given at a point where Sue’s health is precarious. Sue’s health issues, though, are left hanging so that Saroo can head off to India with her encouragement and blessing, but not with anything resembling a backward glance. The whole pace of the second half is off as a result of these narrative fumbles, and some scenes feel as if they should have been excised in favour of a shorter, yet more dramatically sound approach. When you lose interest in the main character’s search or journey because of how he behaves, then you know the movie’s doing something wrong.

maxresdefault

Making his feature debut, Garth Davis makes the most of the Indian settings, painting a portrait of life as seen through the eyes of the young Saroo – a world full of wonder (a kaleidoscope of butterflies, the taste of a cold fizzy drink), and a world full of danger (predatory sex traffickers). Davis is on solid ground here, depicting Saroo’s journey with heart and compassion, and making it clear just how lucky Saroo was to be adopted. Many of the scenes in Calcutta show Saroo surrounded quite literally by the rush and press of its populace, but Davis is quick to show just how isolated he is at the same time. And he follows through with this idea with the adult Saroo, but instead of Saroo becoming isolated through the vagaries of Fate, this time he becomes isolated because of what he does. It reinforces the idea of Saroo not being settled in terms of his heritage and the connection he has with his past; he doesn’t want to continue being adrift.

Visually, Lion is often impressive to watch, alternating between the brooding, teeming city life of Calcutta, and the bright open spaces of Melbourne. Greig Fraser’s cinematography catches the mood precisely, his use of close ups in particular adding to the resonance of the story. Of course, those close ups wouldn’t be entirely as effective if it weren’t for the quality of the acting. As mentioned above, Patel has problems making Saroo credible in terms of his behaviour, but does a good job nevertheless. Mara makes a minimal impression because, one scene aside, her character is the standard girlfriend seen in too many other movies. As the Brierleys, Wenham is sidelined in favour of Kidman’s sterling performance, one that sees her regain some of the critical favour she’s lost in recent years. But if the movie “belongs” to anyone in the cast, it’s young Pawar, whose sweet, angelic features are difficult to resist, and even harder to ignore. Without him, Lion would not be as powerful as it is, or as rewarding.

Rating: 7/10 – let down by a second half that isn’t as focused as its first, Lion is still worth watching, but not as much as its various awards nominations – and wins – would have you believe; a true story that at least doesn’t preach to its audience, its tale is a remarkable one but in this version, not one that will necessarily linger too long in the memory.

The Family Fang (2015)

21 Tuesday Jun 2016

Posted by in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

The Family Fang

D: Jason Bateman / 106m

Cast: Nicole Kidman, Jason Bateman, Christopher Walken, Maryann Plunkett, Jason Butler Harner, Kathryn Hahn, Harris Yulin, Linda Emond, Marin Ireland, Mackenzie Brooke Smith, Taylor Rose, Jack McCarthy, Kyle Donnery, Michael Chernus, Josh Pais

Annie and Baxter Fang (Kidman, Bateman) are the children of performance artists Caleb (Walken, Harner) and Camille Fang (Plunkett, Hahn). While growing up they took part in their parents’ various performances, which were often carried out in public places and without the people around them being aware they were taking part in a performance. Caleb and Camille have always used these “artistic moments” to highlight their idea that true art is only present in the moment it happens (they don’t acknowledge that they might be manipulating “art” in these circumstances rather than allowing it to be spontaneous).

As adults, Annie is an actress whose participation in a series of movies is under threat because she is no longer regarded as essential to the productions; she’s further challenged by a requirement to appear topless that she hadn’t previously agreed to. Baxter is a novelist whose last novel wasn’t well received. While he works on his latest book, he writes articles. On an assignment, he ends up shot in the head by a spud gun, and winds up in hospital. While he’s being treated, and much to Baxter’s consternation, the hospital staff contact Caleb and Camille, who agree to come and take him home. Not having seen his parents in years, Baxter contacts Annie and implores her to come and help him deal with them. Reluctantly, she agrees.

TFF - scene3

Back at the Fang family residence, old animosities surrounding the way Annie and Baxter were treated as children, and their involvement with their parents’ art, leads to their being involved yet again in one of Caleb’s schemes. But it backfires, and Caleb and Camille announce they’re heading off for a break. A while later, the local sheriff informs Annie and Baxter that their parents’ car has been found at a rest stop. The pair are missing, and there’s blood all over the inside of the car; foul play is suspected. Annie is adamant that it’s yet another of their parents’ performances, and that they’ll turn up safe and sound somewhere sometime later. Baxter isn’t quite as certain, and harbours some doubts. Annie challenges him to help her look for them in order to prove she’s right, but their efforts go unrewarded, until a song from their past provides them with a lead, one that finds them learning some uncomfortable truths about their parents, and the reasons for their disappearance.

The Family Fang is Jason Bateman’s second directorial feature – after Bad Words (2013) – and while it’s the kind of indie project you might expect Bateman to be attracted to, it’s not as good a fit as it seems. From the trailer the movie looks like a comedy but while there are some great comedic moments, this is a drama that examines notions of parental responsibility, the function of art in everyday life, sibling dependency and rivalry, fame, and personal fulfillment. But while the movie examines these notions, what it doesn’t do as successfully, is reach any conclusions or provide any answers to the questions it raises.

TFF - scene1

What it also fails to provide the audience with is anyone to connect with. For all of Annie’s complaining about her childhood, she’s actually broken away from her parents when we meet her. Any issues she has as an adult she relates back to when she was a child, but the movie – and in particular, David Lindsay-Abaire’s adaptation of Kevin Wilson’s novel – doesn’t make a convincing connection between the two. Likewise, Baxter’s inability to stand up for himself when confronted with Caleb and Camille in the flesh. There are flashbacks to instances where Annie and Baxter’s involvement with their parents’ “art” can be construed as inappropriate, but these don’t adequately explain the animosity they display. Without that connection it’s hard to see Annie (specifically) and Baxter (occasionally) as anything but whinging ingrates.

Unfortunately for the viewer, Caleb and Camille don’t come off any better. The movie never reconciles their unwavering dedication to their art with the selfishness that goes with it, and it never attempts to explain or rationalise Caleb’s anger when the public doesn’t recognise or understand what he’s trying to say. And Camille is so much the uncomplaining follower that when it’s revealed she had a promising career ahead of her before she met Caleb, and that she gave it all up to be with him, her reasons for doing so sound insubstantial and contrived.

TFF - scene4

As the feuding family, Kidman’s insecure and wailing Annie hogs most of the screen time, while Bateman takes a (largely) back seat as the lacking in confidence Baxter. Walken gives another of his semi-engaged performances, doing just enough to make it look like he’s interested, and is easily outgunned by Plunkett, who at least makes Camille a figure of sympathy even if she has only herself to blame for her predicament. As the younger Caleb and Camille, Harner and Hahn inject some much needed energy into proceedings, while Yulin contributes a pleasant enough cameo as Caleb’s mentor.

Watching The Family Fang, there are too many scenes where it feels that Bateman hasn’t gained a sufficient enough grip on things to make them entirely effective. Also, the pace of the movie works against it, as Bateman directs with a stubborn determination to make each scene work in the same way as all the others and with as much emotional impact (which is mostly diluted). The end result is a potentially intriguing movie that never finds its feet or a direction for it go in. And this despite some sterling camera work by Ken Seng and another wistful, deceptively emotive score by Carter Burwell.

Rating: 5/10 – a movie lacking in focus and drive, The Family Fang never rallies its constituent parts into a unified, satisfying whole; with no one to care about, the movie becomes a stilted, unconvincing piece that is only occasionally interesting, and some well judged moments of comedy aside, isn’t as sharp, or knowing, as it should be.

Monthly Roundup – May 2016

31 Tuesday May 2016

Posted by in Movies

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Max (2015) / D: Boaz Yakin / 111m

Cast: Josh Wiggins, Thomas Haden Church, Lauren Graham, Luke Kleintank, Robbie Amell, Mia Xitlali, Dejon LaQuake, Jay Hernandez, Owen Harn

Max

Rating: 6/10 – after his handler is killed in Afghanistan, Max goes to stay with his handler’s family, and helps expose a plot to supply arms to a Mexican cartel; a feature that ticks every box in the “family movie” canon, Max is enjoyable enough but is also too lightweight to make much of a sustained impact, even though the cast enter wholly into the spirit of things.

They Came to a City (1944) / D: Basil Dearden / 78m

Cast: John Clements, Googie Withers, Raymond Huntley, Renee Gadd, A.E. Matthews, Mabel Terry-Lewis, Ada Reeve, Norman Shelley, Fanny Rowe, Ralph Michael, Brenda Bruce, J.B. Priestley

They Came to a City

Rating: 6/10 – nine individuals find themselves in unfamiliar terrain and on the outskirts of a vast city – and have to decide if they’re going to stay there; J.B. Priestley’s play is as close to a socialist tract as you could have got during World War II, and while They Came to a City betrays its stage origins and is relentlessly polemical, it has a stark, overbearing visual style that is actually quite effective.

Crazy About Tiffany’s (2016) / D: Matthew Miele / 86m

With: Jessica Alba, Katie Couric, Amy Fine-Collins, Fran Lebowitz, Baz Luhrmann, Sam Taylor-Johnson, Jennifer Tilly, Andrew & Andrew

Crazy About Tiffany's

Rating: 6/10 – a documentary charting the rise and rise of Tiffany’s, the jewellery store made even more famous by Truman Capote and Audrey Hepburn (who he despised in the role of Holly Golightly); a tremendously indulgent puff-piece for the company, Crazy About Tiffany’s is redeemed by some fascinating anecdotes, and the faint whiff of pretentiousness given off by most of its customers.

Queen of the Desert (2015) / D: Werner Herzog / 128m

Cast: Nicole Kidman, James Franco, Damian Lewis, Robert Pattinson, Jay Abdo, David Calder, Jenny Agutter, Holly Earl, Mark Lewis Jones, Christopher Fulford

Queen of the Desert

Rating: 5/10 – a biopic of the explorer and writer, Gertrude Bell (Kidman), and how she  won the trust of numerous Middle Eastern tribes at a time when British colonialism was  looked upon with distrust and contempt by those very same tribes; not one of Herzog’s best (or Kidman’s), Queen of the Desert suffers from being treated as history-lite by the script, and never quite being as courageous in its efforts as Miss Bell was in hers (and not to mention a disastrous turn by Pattinson as Lawrence of Arabia).

Zombie Cheerleader Camp (2007) / D: Jon Fabris / 85m

Cast: Jamie Brown, Chris White, Nicole Lewis, Jason Greene, Brandy Blackmon, Daniel Check, Terry Chandeline Nicole Westfall, Micah Shane Ballinger

Zombie Cheerleader Camp

Rating: 2/10 – when cheerleaders attend a summer training camp, they’re unaware that a squirrel exposed to toxic waste will be the catalyst that turns them and a group of horny males into flesh-eating zombies; all you need to know is that Zombie Cheerleader Camp was made at the extreme low budget end of movie making and features camera work that’s so bad it’s almost a challenge to find a well-framed shot anywhere in the movie (and then there’s the “acting”…)

Sharkansas Women’s Prison Massacre (2015) / D: Jim Wynorski / 84m

Cast: Dominique Swain, Traci Lords, Christine Nguyen, Cindy Lucas, Amy Holt, John Callahan, Corey Landis, Skye McDonald, Chris De Christopher

Sharkansas Women's Prison Massacre

Rating: 3/10 – fracking causes the release of an unspecified number of prehistoric sharks into the Arkansas waterways, and this jeopardises the escape of several women prisoners from a work detail; yes, Sharkansas (actually filmed in Florida) Women’s Prison Massacre is as bad as it sounds, and yes it is as cheesy as you’d expect, but it’s also one of the tamest and most annoying of all the recent shark-related movies we’ve had foisted upon us, and not even the talents of low budget movie maestro Wynorski can rescue this from the bottom of the barrel.

The Whip Hand (1951) / D: William Cameron Menzies / 82m

Cast: Carla Balenda, Elliott Reid, Edgar Barrier, Raymond Burr, Otto Waldis, Michael Steele, Lurene Tuttle, Peter Brocco, Lewis Martin, Frank Darien

The Whip Hand

Rating: 6/10 – a journalist (Reid) on vacation stumbles across a mystery involving a lake where the fish have all died, and a nearby ghost town where the remaining locals aren’t too friendly, and he finds himself prevented from leaving; a well-paced but forgettable effort from master production designer Menzies, The Whip Hand starts off well but soon ties itself inside out in trying to be a confident thriller, an ambition it fails to achieve thanks to untidy plotting and thin characterisations.

Secret in Their Eyes (2015)

11 Thursday Feb 2016

Posted by in Movies

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Secret in Their Eyes

D: Billy Ray / 111m

Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Nicole Kidman, Julia Roberts, Dean Norris, Michael Kelly, Joe Cole, Alfred Molina, Zoe Graham

Remakes of foreign language movies are never easy. Not everything translates as well in another language, and some of the idiosyncracies or nuances of the original movie will be lost in the process. But that’s not to say that foreign language movies shouldn’t be remade in English, or that movie makers shouldn’t try to put their own stamp on an existing idea/concept/storyline, just that if they do, we shouldn’t be too surprised if the end result isn’t as compelling or as satisfying as the original.

Such is the case with Secret in Their Eyes, the English language remake of El secreto de sus ojos (2009), an Argentinian thriller that was a bit of a surprise when it was released, and which garnered critical acclaim around the world. It’s a gripping, very stylishly realised movie, and easily one of the best movies of that particular year, a fact supported by its taking home the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. With that version being so successful, the question that needs to be asked is: do we need this one as well?

SITE - scene3

The answer is not really, no. It was always going to be a difficult challenge, but when it was announced that the writer of Captain Phillips (2013), Billy Ray, was going to write and direct the movie, and the services of Messrs Ejiofor, Kidman and Roberts had been secured for the trio of lead roles, you could have been forgiven for thinking that this was one remake that couldn’t go wrong. But right from the start there’s a sense that something’s not quite right, that whatever magic made the original such a breath of fresh air is missing, and that what follows is likely to be more disappointing than rewarding.

And so it proves. The basic plotting and structure are retained but where the original wove its connected stories over a distance of twenty-five years, Ray reduces it to thirteen (perhaps to avoid having to cast two sets of actors in the lead roles). He also retains the cutting back and forth between the two time periods, as Ejiofor’s obsessed FBI Counter-Terrorism expert Ray Kasten investigates the death of his friend and colleague Jess Cobb’s daughter (Graham). While Jess (Roberts) is overwhelmed by grief, Karsten determines to bring her daughter’s killer to justice, but soon finds himself in hot water when his main suspect, Marzin (Cole), is connected to a surveillance operation he’s a part of, and none of his superiors, including DA Martin Morales (Molina), want to know anything about his potential involvement in a murder.

While Kasten battles political expediency, he finds an ally in newly appointed Assistant DA Claire Sloan (Kidman). Together they try to build a strong enough case against Marzin, but their efforts go unrewarded. Thirteen years later, and with Marzin having gone to ground in the meantime, Kasten stumbles across new evidence that points to Marzin’s whereabouts. He gets back in touch with Claire (now the DA, having succeeded Morales) and Jess, and vows that this time they’ll get Marzin. Claire is hesitant and unconvinced, while Jess seems unimpressed and unwilling to help. Kasten presses on, but as before his plans go awry, and catching Marzin proves as difficult as it was thirteen years before.

SITE - scene1

By retaining the twin storylines and having them run side by side as the movie unfolds, Ray strives to keep the audience guessing as to the eventual outcome of both, but in the process he robs the material of any pace, and makes some scenes appear out of context to what’s gone before. Others seem to have sprung out of thin air, with certain relationship developments – a lukewarm romance between Kasten and Claire being the main culprit – stuttering in and out of life. It’s as if certain editorial choices were made in the cutting room, and the structure was the ultimate loser. It also makes for several frustrating moments when the viewer has to stop and remind themselves of where they (and the movie) are.

And unfortunately, Ray isn’t anywhere near as good a director as he is a writer. Too many scenes lack the appropriate energy, and his use of the camera doesn’t always show a knack for effective framing, leading to some shots where his cast are marginalised unnecessarily at the expense of the broader composition. He and the audience should be grateful then that, despite all these bars to their doing so, Ejiofor and Roberts both come up with terrific performances (Kidman is good but as with so many of her performances in recent years, she somehow manages to fall just shy of impressing completely). Kasten’s dogged, guilt-charged determination gives Ejiofor the chance to flex his acting muscles to highly charged effect, while Roberts steals every scene she’s in as the detached, grief-stricken mother who is a shadow of her former self; her de-glammed features display Jess’s sorrow so perfectly it’s heartbreaking to look at her.

But these are two unexpected positives in a movie that steadfastly refuses to provide its audience with anything other than a concerted diet of perfunctory plot and character developments, and which also asks said audience to take several leaps of faith in terms of the narrative and how it plays out (at one point, Kasten and Claire make a deduction – which Ray clumsily illustrates – that they can’t possibly have arrived at in the way that they do). And the end, which should be quietly powerful, as well as disturbing, lacks the necessary heightened emotion to provide the payoff the movie so badly needs by this point.

SITE_030515_182.CR2

Thanks to an ill-considered approach to the material, Ray’s adaptation lacks appeal and falls flat far too often to be excusable. As remakes of foreign language movies go it’s not up there with the best, but rather occupies a place much lower down the table, and serves as an object lesson in how not to compensate for the loss of nuance and subtlety present in the original. Some movies, as we all know – and studio executives should know by now – deserve not to be remade, and this is as good an example as any that El secreto de sus ojos should have been one of them.

Rating: 4/10 – laborious, and lacking in too many departments to be anywhere near as effective as it needs to be, Secret in Their Eyes may well be too much of a chore for some viewers to watch all the way through; however this would be doing a disservice to Ejiofor and Roberts, but their performances aside, there’s really very little to recommend this particularly unnecessary remake.

Trailer – Secret in Their Eyes (2015)

03 Monday Aug 2015

Posted by in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

When The Secret in Their Eyes, an Argentinian thriller, was released in 2009, it was perhaps inevitable, given its critical success, that Hollywood would attempt a remake at some point – and here it is. Boasting a fantastic cast, including an almost unrecognisable Julia Roberts (could they have made her look more dowdy?), Secret in Their Eyes looks edgy and dark and compelling, and with Billy Ray in the driving seat as director and writer (bear in mind his last script was for Captain Phillips), this has all the potential to be as riveting as its predecessor, and pick up a healthy clutch of awards come 2016.

Before I Go to Sleep (2014)

05 Friday Sep 2014

Posted by in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,

J2730_BeforeIGoToSleep_OneSheet_31F.indd

D: Rowan Joffe / 92m

Cast: Nicole Kidman, Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Anne-Marie Duff, Adam Levy, Dean-Charles Chapman

Christine Lucas (Kidman) wakes up each morning with no knowledge of who she is, and no memory of her life since her early Twenties.  Her husband, Ben (Firth), tells her she was in an accident ten years before and she is suffering from a form of retrograde amnesia: when she goes to sleep each night, her memory of that day is wiped clean and she remembers nothing about her situation.  To help her, Ben has put up pictures of their life together, and has left lists of items and instructions to help her get through the day while he’s at work.

After Ben heads off, the phone rings.  A man at the other end identifies himself as Dr Nasch (Strong).  He tells Christine he’s been treating her for a while and that she should go and look for a camera hidden in a wardrobe in the bedroom.  Nasch has persuaded Christine to use the camera as a kind of video diary, an aide-memoire that she can use each day to help her remember things.  The last entry shows Christine looking visibly upset and cutting the recording short when Ben returns home.

Two weeks before: Dr Nasch begins treating Christine and gives her the camera, advising her not to tell Ben about it.  She begins to make daily recordings, and in the process she learns things that don’t make sense: her accident proves to be a near-fatal assault by an unknown attacker; she and Ben have a dead son; and a friend of hers called Claire (Duff) has been trying to get in contact with her (though Ben tells her he doesn’t recall anyone by that name).  As Christine begins to piece together the mystery of the assault and the past ten years, she begins to suspect that someone, either Ben or Dr Nasch, is hiding the truth from her, and that she may be in danger.

Before I Go to Sleep - scene

Adapted from the novel by S.J. Watson, Before I Go to Sleep is a hard movie to really like.  It’s competently directed by Joffe, ably performed by its cast, and wrong foots the audience on at least two occasions with considerable shrewdness.  But it lacks any real tension, and despite the best efforts of all concerned, has a too-familiar feel to it that robs the movie of any lasting effect.  Christine’s predicament and the limitations of her memory, while intriguing, are too easily overcome; it’s hard to believe that no one’s come up with the idea of a video camera before now.  And for the purposes of the plot, Dr Nasch’s insistence on keeping Ben in the dark, while highly suspicious by itself, seems more of a contrivance than something reasonably developed to aid in Christine’s treatment.

Once Christine begins to unravel the mystery of the assault, the clues come thick and fast, and while the movie as adapted by Joffe may think it’s being very clever, it only succeeds in making it easy for its heroine to learn the truth.  It also loses a large amount of credibility when Christine agrees to meet Claire at Greenwich, but is later revealed to not even know the address of where she lives.  It’s in the mid-section that Joffe trots out a series of twists and turns that threaten to sink the movie’s credibility, but he manages to hold it all together until the arrival of the more generic confrontation that, alas, soon descends from tense showdown to tiresome violent retread.

Later, as the plot begins to unravel further, and the truth about the assault becomes clearer, what has been a fitfully absorbing psychological thriller becomes yet another damsel in distress movie with Christine forced to face off against the man who assaulted her all those years ago.  With such a predictable denouement, the movie adds an extended coda that seeks to give full closure to everything Christine has discovered (it also provides an emotional resonance that’s lacking elsewhere), but while it’s an effective scene in and of itself, it comes too late to save matters overall.

There’s also the issue of the movie’s look.  Joffe, along with director of photography Ben Davis, has chosen to film in muted colours, and with the dimmest lighting design seen for some time.  As a consequence, the movie is drab and depressing to look at, its dour interiors sucking the life out of proceedings and proving an obstacle to the performances, the cast struggling to stand out against the morose and dreary surroundings.  Even when Christine meets Claire at Greenwich, the colour mix is toned down so that the natural greens and browns seem as subdued as the rest of the palette.  As a reflection of Christine’s mental state, it comes across as pretty heavy handed, while also keeping the audience at a distance from the action.

Kidman plays Christine as a fragile, easily disturbed, yet strangely trusting woman who shows only few signs of being the strong, confident person she was before the assault (it’s only her memory that’s affected, not her personality), and while she’s as capable as ever – only Julianne Moore can show dawning, horrified realisation as well as Kidman can – she’s hemmed in by the character’s limitations (even an actress of Kidman’s calibre can do shock and surprise only so many times in a movie without it becoming repetitive).  In support, Firth gets to play angry and resentful in between being supportive and creepy, while Strong does what he can with a character who, ultimately, is there for exposition purposes more than anything else.

There are obvious connections that viewers will associate with Memento (2000), but Before I Go to Sleep lacks that movie’s inventiveness and if they were programmed as a double bill, Joffe’s would definitely be the second feature.  With obvious nods to movies such as Groundhog Day (1993) and Shattered (1991), this tries hard to be a riveting thriller but ends up looking and sounding too mundane to make any lasting impression.

Rating: 5/10 – disappointing and routine for most of its running time, Before I Go to Sleep could have done with more pace and more intensity; with few surprises, and even fewer moments to make an audience gasp, this is one thriller that doesn’t fully live up to expectations.