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Monthly Roundup – January 2018

31 Wednesday Jan 2018

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Awakening the Zodiac (2017) / D: Jonathan Wright / 100m

Cast: Shane West, Leslie Bibb, Matt Craven, Nicholas Campbell, Kenneth Welsh, Stephen McHattie

Rating: 4/10 – no one knew it at the time but the notorious (and uncaptured) Zodiac killer filmed the murders he committed, something cash-strapped couple Mick and Zoe Branson (West, Bibb) discover when they come into possession of one of the reels, and then find themselves and those around them targeted by the Zodiac killer himself; there’s the germ of a good idea lurking somewhere in Awakening the Zodiac, but thanks to a sloppy script, wayward direction, and an indifferent approach to the Zodiac killer himself (by the end he’s just a generic movie-made serial killer), this never gets out of first gear, and settles for trundling along and signposting each narrative development with all the skill and style of a one-legged man at an ass-kicking contest.

Home Again (2017) / D: Hallie Meyers-Shyer / 97m

Cast: Reese Witherspoon, Michael Sheen, Candice Bergen, Pico Alexander, Jon Rudnitzky, Nat Wolff, Lake Bell

Rating: 7/10 – when middle-aged fledgling interior designer Alice (Witherspoon) splits from her unreliable husband (Sheen), the last thing she expects to do is allow three young men trying to break into the movie business to move into her guest house – and then become romantically involved with one of them (Alexander); it’s hard to criticise Home Again because despite it being almost drama-free and the very definition of innocuous, it also just wants to give audiences a good time, and on that very basic level it succeeds, but it’s still possibly the most lightweight romantic comedy of 2017.

Downsizing (2017) / D: Alexander Payne / 135m

Cast: Matt Damon, Christoph Waltz, Hong Chau, Kristen Wiig, Rolf Lassgård, Udo Kier, Søren Pilmark, Jason Sudeikis

Rating: 5/10 – the answer to the world’s population crisis is revealed to be shrinking people to the point where they’re five inches tall, something that sad-sack occupational therapist Paul Safranek (Damon) agrees to with alacrity, but being small proves to be no different from being normal-sized, and soon Paul is having to re-think everything he’s ever thought or believed; a closer examination of Downsizing (under a microscope perhaps) reveals a movie that contains too many scenes that pass by without contributing anything to the overall storyline, and a satirical approach to the idea itself that lacks purpose, and sadly for Payne fans, his trademark wit, making it all a dreary, leaden experience that goes on for waaaaaay too long.

Family Fever (2014) / D: Nico Sommer / 71m

Original title: Familien fieber

Cast: Kathrin Waligura, Peter Trabner, Deborah Kaufmann, Jörg Witte, Jan Amazigh Sid, Anais Urban

Rating: 7/10 – when two sets of parents get together for the weekend at the request of their respective children (who are a couple), none of them are able to deal with the fallout that comes with the revelation of a secret that threatens the security of both marriages; a German comedy/drama that doesn’t always go where the viewer might expect it to, Family Fever revels in the awkwardness and frustration felt by its quartet of main characters, and though it sadly runs out of steam in the last fifteen minutes, by then it’s done more than enough to provide plenty of wicked laughs and affecting drama.

Coco (2017) / D: Lee Unkrich, Adrian Molina / 105m

Cast: Anthony Gonzalez, Gael García Bernal, Benjamin Bratt, Alanna Ubach, Renee Victor, Jaime Camil, Alfonso Arau

Rating: 8/10 – Miguel (Gonzalez) is a young boy whose family has rejected any kind of music in order to focus on selling shoes, which leads him into all sorts of trouble in the Underworld on Mexico’s Day of the Dead, trouble that could also mean his never returning to the land of the living; right now you’re never quite sure how a Pixar movie is going to work out, but Coco is a treat, its mix of clever character design, beautifully rendered animation (naturally), heartfelt storylines, and memorable songs making it one to savour time and again… though, be warned, you will be in tears towards the end.

Darkest Hour (2017) / D: Joe Wright / 125m

Cast: Gary Oldman, Kristin Scott Thomas, Lily James, Stephen Dillane, Ben Mendelsohn, Ronald Pickup, Nicholas Jones, Samuel West

Rating: 8/10 – it’s 1940 and Great Britain is faced with a challenge: who is to lead them against the fast-approaching menace of the Nazis, and if it has to be Winston Churchill (Oldman), then what can be done to undermine him and his authority?; the answer is quite a bit – for the most part – but history is firm on Churchill’s success, and so Darkest Hour, while featuring a superb performance from Oldman, has no choice but to succumb to retelling events that have already been retold numerous times before, and in doing so doesn’t offer the viewer anything new except for a number of very good performances and assured, and surprisingly sinewy direction from Wright.

Message from the King (2016) / D: Fabrice du Welz / 102m

Cast: Chadwick Boseman, Luke Evans, Alfred Molina, Teresa Palmer, Natalie Martinez, Arthur Darbinyan, Lucan Melkonian, Diego Josef, Tom Felton, Chris Mulkey, Jake Weary

Rating: 5/10 – when his younger sister dies in suspicious circumstances in Los Angeles, South African cab driver Jacob King (Boseman) travels there to find out who caused her death and why – and exact revenge; a throwback to the kind of blaxploitation movies made in the Seventies, Message from the King at least refers to King as an angry brother in the traditional sense, but the movie’s plot is hollow, and the likes of Evans and Molina are wasted in roles that might have seemed fresh (again) in the Seventies, but here feel like caricatures for the movie to focus on in between bouts of King exacting his violent revenge.

The Commuter (2018) / D: Jaume Collet-Serra / 105m

Cast: Liam Neeson, Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Jonathan Banks, Sam Neill, Elizabeth McGovern, Killian Scott, Shazad Latif, Andy Nyman, Clara Lago, Roland Møller, Florence Pugh

Rating: 4/10 – ex-cop turned insurance salesman Michael MacCauley (Neeson) is approached by a mysterious woman (Farmiga) on his train home and tasked with finding a complete stranger who’s also on the train – what could possibly go wrong?; everything as it turns out, with The Commuter going off the rails soon after, and never getting back on track, something confirmed (if there was any doubt before then) when the script throws in an “I’m Spartacus/I’m Brian” moment (take your pick), as well as reminding everyone that Neeson really is too old for this kind of thing.

The Post (2017) / D: Steven Spielberg / 116m

Cast: Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Sarah Paulson, Bob Odenkirk, Tracy Letts, Bradley Whitford, Bruce Greenwood, Matthew Rhys, Alison Brie, Carrie Coon, Jesse Plemons, David Cross, Zach Woods, Pat Healy

Rating: 9/10 – the publication of the Pentagon Papers, which exposed the level of deceit the US government had perpetrated on its citizens about its involvement in Vietnam, is explored through the days leading up to the Washington Times‘ courageous decision to publish despite the threat of imprisonment for treason that the White House was prepared to enforce; Streep is publisher Kay Graham, Hanks is legendary editor Ben Bradlee, and Spielberg is on excellent form, giving The Post a sense of immediacy and potency that other historical dramas can only dream of (and the relevance to today’s US political scene doesn’t even need to be made obvious).

The Open House (2018) / D: Matt Angel, Suzanne Coote / 94m

Cast: Dylan Minnette, Piercey Dalton, Patricia Bethune, Sharif Atkins, Aaron Abrams, Edward Olson, Katie Walder

Rating: 3/10 – a recent widow (Dalton) and her mopey son (Minnette) get away from their grief and their problems at a house that’s up for sale – and find strange things going on there right from the start; an awful thriller that just refuses to make any sense or make either of its two main characters sympathetic, The Open House does everything it can to make you look away… and not in a good way.

Devil’s Knot (2013)

10 Tuesday Oct 2017

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D: Atom Egoyan / 114m

Cast: Colin Firth, Reese Witherspoon, Alessandro Nivola, James Hamrick, Seth Meriwether, Kristopher Higgins, Amy Ryan, Robert Baker, Rex Linn, Bruce Greenwood, Dane DeHaan, Kevin Durand, Stephen Moyer, Elias Koteas

There are times when the very existence of a movie proves puzzling, puzzling because the content of the movie has already been covered in greater depth, and with far more fidelity, elsewhere. Such is the case with Devil’s Knot, an exploration of the Robin Hood Hills Murders that took place in West Memphis, Arkansas on 5 May 1993. On that fateful day, three eight year old friends – Stevie Branch, Christopher Byers, and Michael Moore – disappeared. Their bodies were found in a muddy creek the following day. It didn’t take long for the police and the local community to ascribe the murders to a Satanic cult believed to be operating in the area. It wasn’t long either before the police had three suspects firmly in their sights: teenagers Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jesse Misskelley Jr. After Misskelley Jr was interrogated for twelve straight hours, he confessed that all three were involved in the deaths of the children, and all three were subsequently arrested. At their trials, Misskelley Jr and Baldwin were sentenced to life imprisonment, while Echols was sentenced to be executed.

The problem with Devil’s Knot is not just that it’s another movie “based on a true story” and with all the limitations that usually apply, but that the story of the Robin Hood Hills murders and the West Memphis Three (the accused) have been so well documented elsewhere. There are currently four documentaries available that cover the case, and which do so in more depth, and with greater clarity of purpose. They are Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills (1996), its sequel, Paradise Lost 2: Revelations (2000), a further sequel, Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory (2011), and a separate entry which covers the whole story, West of Memphis (2012). With all these excellent documentaries on offer (particularly the first one, which is nothing short of exceptional for the access the makers had), it remains surprising that Devil’s Knot was actually greenlit in the first place, let alone made.

Adapted from the book of the same name by Mara Leveritt, Devil’s Knot benefits greatly from having Atom Egoyan perched, however precariously, in the director’s chair. He’s a very talented movie maker, but he’s never seemed as comfortable as when he’s working from a script he’s written himself, and this proves to be the case here. Making the most of a script that doesn’t really tell us anything new and which can be found dramatically twiddling its thumbs from time to time, Egoyan shows occasional flashes of the erudite and ambitious director who has given us such modern classics as Exotica (1994) and The Sweet Hereafter (1997). But these are few and far between, and there are long periods where Egoyan feels like a jobbing director who hasn’t been able to connect with the material – and doesn’t know how to. And yet, conversely, there are moments where he does, and these contain a quiet power that is indisputably effective (and affecting).

Somewhat inevitably, the script tries to pull in various different directions, and by doing so, tries to cover too much ground all at once. This leads to scenes feeling unnecessarily truncated, and others feeling like filler. In its efforts to tell as much of the story as possible, the movie proves disjointed in its approach to the victims’ families – only Witherspoon’s grief-stricken mother, Pamela Hobbs gets a look in, and then only because she begins to believe Echols and co aren’t guilty – while the holes in the police investigation (and there are dozens of them) are allowed to go by remarked upon but under-emphasised. The trial scenes take up most of the second half of the movie but serve only to show that justice is not only blind in some US courts but sometimes half asleep as well, a situation that we’re already way too familiar with for these scenes to carry any appreciable weight. Egoyan gamely makes his way through them, throwing in an occasionally interesting shot, but relaying events in a style that resembles a TV Movie of the Week instead of a fully-fledged feature.

With the screenplay trying to fit so much in (there’s a reason the documentaries all run longer), it’s inevitable as well that some characters come to feel like observers rather than participants. Terry Hobbs (Nivola), Stevie’s stepdad, flits in and out of the narrative and remains elusive until the movie’s end when we learn something unexpected that relates to him. By the time this happens though it’s too late to have much of an impact as we haven’t got to know him well enough. Likewise for Durand’s scary-stary John Mark Byers, a potential alternative suspect whose day in court is remarkable for the way in which he’s let off the hook by all concerned (even the defence lawyers). Egoyan regular Koteas pops up as an expert on Satanic cults, Linn is the police official who knows his case is full of holes but pushes on regardless, and then there’s DeHaan as another potential suspect, Chris Morgan, who confesses then recants and is allowed to do so while Misskelley Jr does the same and ends up in prison for life. All these roles feel incidental to the overall aim of the movie, which in itself isn’t clear. As an undeniable miscarriage of justice, the movie does more than enough to get that across through some of the evidence that’s presented, but elements such as the local community’s willingness to accept the presence of Satanic cults despite there being no concrete evidence to support this, lands with a thud every time it’s mentioned.

More curious still is the decision to focus much of the movie on an outsider, Firth’s crusading legal investigator, Ron Lax. We see him challenging everyone around him to do their jobs properly, and he behaves like a man with a Messiah complex at times, but if the idea is that he’s the viewer’s guide through the maze of “evidence” and supposition that sees the West Memphis Three convicted, then it’s unfortunate but we don’t need him. There’s an awkward scene in the Robin Hood Hills woods between Lax and Pam Hobbs that is pure Hollywood speculation and has no place in a movie that’s striving to be taken seriously as a re-enactment of true events. It’s moments like these, where the script is trying to manipulate its audience, that it undermines its overall effectiveness and leaves the viewer wondering if the movie will ever settle for a consistent tone it can work with. The answer is a resounding No, and like so many other moments or issues this movie has, it’s in too much of a hurry to squeeze in the major plot points, however indifferently at times, and without giving them room to breathe.

Rating: 5/10 – as the movie equivalent of an unnecessary footnote, Devil’s Knot is only sporadically engaging, and on a severely reduced par with the likes of its documentary brethren; perfunctory in a way that shouldn’t be the case when you consider the story it’s trying to tell, this remains an ill-advised project that could have been a lot worse if it weren’t for the occasionally mindful ministrations of its director.

Sing (2016)

13 Monday Mar 2017

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D: Garth Jennings, Christophe Lourdelet / 108m

Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, Seth MacFarlane, Scarlett Johansson, John C. Reilly, Taron Egerton, Tori Kelly, Jennifer Saunders, Jennifer Hudson, Garth Jennings, Peter Serafinowicz, Nick Kroll, Beck Bennett, Nick Offerman, Leslie Jones, Jay Pharaoh, Rhea Perlman, Laraine Newman

In a world where animals inhabit human roles, Buster Moon (McConaughey) is a koala whose love of show business has led him to owning his own theatre. But his recent productions have failed to make any money, and Buster is in debt to pretty much everyone, including his own stage crew, and the bank, in the form of llama Judith (Perlman). Needing to come up with a successful idea, Buster decides to hold a singing contest with a $1000 prize for the winner. But his secretary, Miss Crawly (Jennings), accidentally adds two extra zeros to the flier he plans to distribute across the city, and when they find their way into the hands of the public, the prize money reads $100,000. The next day, there’s a massive queue outside Moon’s theatre, all ready to audition for the contest.

Amongst the hundreds of contenders, there’s arrogant blowhard Mike (MacFarlane), a white mouse with the heart and voice of a crooner; long-suffering Rosita (Witherspoon), a pig whose dreams of becoming a singer were sidetracked when she married and had twenty-five piglets; conflicted Johnny (Egerton), a teenage gorilla who wants to avoid following in his father’s criminal footsteps; wildly extroverted Gunter (Kroll), another pig who is teamed up with Rosita; aspiring lead guitarist Ash (Johansson), a porcupine whose musical tastes run to alternative rock; and reluctant Meena (Kelly), an elephant whose shyness stops her from performing. All bar Meena are chosen by Buster to take part in the contest, and rehearsals begin in anticipation of a fantastic night for all of them.

Away from the contest, all of them face personal problems that threaten their involvement in the show. As they each juggle these problems, Buster tries to find the $100,000 he needs, and targets Nana Noodleman (Saunders), a former star who performed at Buster’s theatre. The grandmother of his best friend, sheep Eddie (O”Reilly), at first she refuses to help, but agrees to see a one-off performance by all the acts. But disaster strikes thanks to Mike’s crooked fleecing of three bears in a card game. Their interruption of the show leads to the contest having to be cancelled. Buster hides himself away at Eddie’s place, but the contestants aren’t about to give up on their dreams, and they badger him to carry on. Buster refuses, until that is, he hears a certain elephant singing Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah.

A bright and breezy musical comedy with a great deal of heart, Sing is as much a feelgood musical as La La Land (2016), and maybe more so. It’s a genuinely heartfelt, uplifting experience that takes its generic “let’s put on a show” narrative and populates it with a winning collection of anthropomorphic animals, all of whom are likeable, endearing and fun to watch. The brainchild of writer and co-director Garth Jennings (who is also a hoot as Miss Crawly, an iguana who keeps losing her glass eye), the movie doesn’t offer anything new in terms of the overall material – you can pretty much predict the solution/outcome of each character’s problems from the word go – but what it does offer is a selection of musical performances that are well-staged and wonderfully rendered by Illumination Entertainment’s animation wizards.

Sing is a bright, sometimes gaudy, colourful movie that revels in its feelgood vibe, from Buster’s ebullient never-say-die attitude, to Gunter’s carefree, self-confidence, and Mike’s insistence on being the inevitable contest winner. Even the travails of the other characters are overcome by positive, ingenious thinking, with Rosita creating a husband and children management system out of weights and pulleys, and Ash relying on her songwriting skills to offset her sadness at being replaced so readily. Only Johnny’s story contains any potential upset, as his father’s refusal to accept his son’s dream of being a singer leads to an estrangement between them, especially when Johnny puts the preview show for Nana ahead of being the getaway driver for his father’s latest robbery.

Of course, the story is about people following their dreams, and achieving them despite the obstacles in their way. It’s not exactly groundbreaking, but then it doesn’t have to be. What’s important is that the characters, and the audience, are having a good time, and on this level, Sing is entirely successful, its vibrant, crowd-pleasing musical performances boasting great song choices, great interpretations (MacFarlane’s version of My Way is particularly good), and great visual representations (Rosita and Gunter’s version of Taylor Swift’s Shake It Off). On and off the stage, there’s a great selection of songs on the soundtrack, and there’s not one dud amongst them.

This being an Illumination Entertainment movie, there’s plenty of jokes, gags and visual humour, from Miss Crawly (just by herself), to Gunter’s avowal of “piggy power”, Johnny’s father’s gang wearing bunny masks on their robberies, and what happens when Rosita’s “home care system” eventually malfunctions. Only in an animated movie could you see such invention, and such comic anarchy, and only in an animated movie would it all make such wonderful, physics-defying sense. Perhaps inevitably though, there are a few maudlin moments, but there are only a few, and it’s perhaps to be expected that the script has seen fit to include them. The thing to remember is that for every sentimental moment, there’s at least five gags to compensate for it.

As is now the standard with Illumination, the animation is exemplary, with the characters’ mannerisms and foibles beautifully expressed, and Jennings is particularly adept at balancing their various storylines and subplots so that no one is reduced to a supporting role. Buster may be the ostensible lead, but the script is more than capable of focusing on each contestant without reducing the others’ screen time. Jennings has also assembled a great cast, with the likes of Johansson and Egerton proving that they’re just as good at singing as they are at acting. As Eddie the sheep, O’Reilly is a great foil for McConaughey’s chipper impresario, while Saunders delivers a sharply withering turn as the great Nana Noodleman. And for fans of innovation in animation, look out for the time-lapse photography that occurs near the end of the movie, and which is as breathtaking in its audacity as it is in its execution.

Rating: 8/10 – another critical and financial success for Illumination, Sing is a gorgeous, freewheeling exercise in the power of dreams, and features a wonderful variety of exciting musical performances; top-notch entertainment that extends the company’s run of success at the box office, this is just the kind of movie to chase away any negative feelings, and provide its audience with a thoroughly good time.

Hot Pursuit (2015)

30 Thursday Jul 2015

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Hot Pursuit

D: Anne Fletcher / 87m

Cast: Reese Witherspoon, Sofía Vergara, John Carroll Lynch, Matthew Del Negro, Michael Mosley, Robert Kazinsky, Richard T. Jones, Benny Nieves, Michael Ray Escamilla, Joaquín Cosio, Vincent Laresca

After an unfortunate incident involving a taser, San Antonio policewoman Rose Cooper (Witherspoon) finds herself stuck in the Evidence Room. She’s the butt of her colleague’s jokes, and things aren’t helped by her too eager nature and strict adherence to the police manual. But when a female officer is needed to help escort Felipe Riva (Laresca), a member of a drug cartel and his wife to Dallas, in the company of renowned Detective Jackson (Jones), her boss, Captain Emmett (Lynch) gives her the job. When they arrive to collect their witness, they find Riva engaged in an argument with his wife, Daniella (Vergara). While Cooper tries to convince Daniella not to take all her clothes and shoes, two armed men in masks break into the house – one of whom has a longhorn tattoo on his wrist – and start shooting. Then two more armed men show up and during the crossfire Riva is shot and killed. Jackson too is shot, leaving Cooper to get Daniella out of there.

They manage to escape, and though Daniella makes various efforts to get away, Cooper keeps hold of her until she can contact the San Antonio police. Two of her fellow officers, Hauser (Del Negro) and Dixon (Mosley), arrive to escort them back but Cooper notices that Hauser has the same longhorn tattoo that one of the armed gunmen had. She and Daniella evade the two officers, but discover later on that they are both wanted in connection with the deaths at Riva’s home; Cooper is even described as armed and dangerous. Having stolen a truck the two women begin to get to know each other, until they learn that there’s a man in the back of the truck. The man is called Randy (Kazinsky), and he’s a felon with an ankle tag who’ll gladly help them get to Dallas in return for the removal of his tag.

They hole up in an Indian casino for the night, but while Cooper and Kazinsky become closer, Daniella makes another escape attempt. Cooper stops her just as Hauser and Dixon arrive at their room, and thanks to Randy’s help they escape onto a tour bus. Pursued by the two crooked cops, as well as the other two armed gunmen, Cooper and Daniella manage to avoid being captured or killed, but when the bus stops, Cooper finds that Daniella has a plan that doesn’t include testifying against her husband’s boss  (Cosio), but taking a more drastic approach. Daniella gets away, and later, when Cooper is back in San Antonio, Captain Emmett commends her for her work in keeping Daniella alive and tells her to take some time off. But Cooper can’t rest knowing what Daniella plans to do, and set out to stop her.

Hot Pursuit - scene

You’re an A-list Oscar winner who’s just made a movie that features what many critics regard as your finest performance, a true life tale that reminded everyone of just how talented an actress you are. But then, what to do next? Another heavy, emotional drama that might attract more awards for your mantelpiece? An ensemble piece that combines comedy and drama to good effect? Something completely different perhaps, something you’ve never tried before, like a sci-fi movie, or even a horror flick? Of all the options and possibilities, what will be your next choice of movie?

If you’re Reese Witherspoon, then the answer is simple: go back to making the kind of comedy movie where mismatched characters learn to become best buddies during a road trip, and which offers all kinds of humorous encounters for a casual audience to laugh at. For such is Hot Pursuit, a formulaic, sporadically amusing comedy that does just enough to stop itself from being completely predictable, and which coasts along for much of its (admittedly) short running time like a student in detention asked to write out the same lines a hundred times.

There is talent here, but it’s in service to a script by David Feeney and John Quaintance that tries for substance but often resorts to the time honoured tradition of having two women insult each other in shouty voices for its humour – though they’re nowhere near the inspired level of abuse that Melissa McCarthy and Rose Byrne hurl at each other in Spy (2015). Aside from one visual gag involving a dead deer, and a short sequence involving a severed finger that leads to Witherspoon performing the Heimlich manoeuvre on a dog, Hot Pursuit moves from scene to scene without too much consideration for what’s gone before, or even what’s ahead. A lot of it doesn’t add up, such as Randy’s ankle tag: one minute it’s a way of their being tracked, the next it’s off and chucked in a river. If there’s a dramatic or even narrative need for this to happen, then it’s hard to work out why.

Fletcher’s previous movie was The Guilt Trip (2012), the Rogen/Streisand team-up that nobody wanted, and while Hot Pursuit is better than that movie, she still seems unable to add a level of madcap energy that most movies of this type require in order to succeed. Without the commitment of Witherspoon and Vergara, the movie would be even more difficult to sit through, and it’s thanks to them that it even partially succeeds. Witherspoon is an old hand at this sort of thing, and handles even the daftest developments with a practised shrug and a “let’s move on”, while Vergara doesn’t quite get out from under the role of pampered, shallow sex object (though there does seem to be a competition between the two actresses in terms of who can show the most cleavage).

Rating: 5/10 – if you were to switch off your brain and just go with the flow, Hot Pursuit would prove to be pretty enjoyable, but alas its tired scenario and merely acceptable heroics wouldn’t fool anyone who’s paying attention; not as lame as some other, similar comedies, but not quite the rib-tickler it’s trying to be either.

Wild (2014)

22 Thursday Jan 2015

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Wild

D: Jean-Marc Vallée / 115m

Cast: Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern, Thomas Sadoski, Keene McRae, Michiel Huisman, W. Earl Brown, Gaby Hoffmann, Kevin Rankin, Brian Van Holt, Cliff De Young, Mo McRae

While resting at the top of a hill and seeing to an injured toe, Cheryl Strayed (Witherspoon) sees one of her boots tumble to the bottom of the hill. Angry at this unfortunate event, she picks up her other boot and throws it after the first one. From there we flashback to her arrival at a motel and her preparations for the beginning of the 1,100 mile walk that is the Pacific Crest Trail. Setting out alone as a way of healing herself following the end of her marriage to Paul (Sadoski), the death of her mother, Bobbi (Dern), and years of promiscuous, drug-related behaviour, Cheryl’s pack is too heavy, and she needs a ride to the start of the trail, which she finds at a gas station. Once on the trail she begins to relive memories of her childhood, her mother, and her adult life, all jumbled together in a way that confuses her or makes her sad.

Along the trail she meets a variety of people, all of whom help her in some way, either by passing on good advice – fellow hiker Greg (Rankin) – by helping to lighten her pack – Ed (De Young) – or by giving her food – Frank (Brown) and Annette (Hoag). As she tries to make sense of her memories, and the events that have led her to walking the trail, Cheryl becomes more and more proficient at hiking, and more and more aware of how much her life has seemed to lack control. She remembers precious times with her mother, a free spirit who remained positive despite an abusive marriage. And she begins to remember the illness that caused her mother’s death and the effects it had on her, and her brother, Leif (Keene McRae).

The hike throws up some obstacles and encounters that Cheryl has to overcome. A detour due to heavy snowfall proves to be just as awkward as the actual trail, while an encounter with two hunters leads to an uncomfortably tense confrontation with one of them, and the loss of her boots leads to her walking fifty miles in sandals wrapped in duct tape. The hike also throws up emotional problems surrounding the period after her mother’s death, and her marriage, as well as the events that led to her deciding to walk the trail in the hope of putting her life back together.

Wild - scene

At first glance, Wild is a collection of disjointed, disconnected, randomly assembled scenes that fail to resonate with each other, and which appear to have been put together by someone whose idea of editing is to chuck each scene up in the air, see where they all land, and then connect them by virtue of which one is closest to another. But to presume that is to miss out on the virtues of one the best edited movies of 2014 – or any year – and which creates its own rhythm, a steady rise and fall that takes each stretch of the trail and cleverly complements Cheryl’s progress on the journey with the progress she makes in dealing with the issues that have brought her there.

It’s a breathtaking accomplishment, with Cheryl the touchstone connecting it all, as her initially frayed and jumbled thoughts gradually straighten themselves out and she – along with the audience – begins to understand the motives and emotions that saw her life crumble and shatter and become self-destructive. As she comes to terms with all the emotional baggage she’s carrying with her (and on top of her “monster” of a rucksack), Cheryl gains an inner strength she’s never had before, and an inner resolve that will ensure she reaches the end of the trail, and a new beginning. In the hands of screenwriter Nick Hornby, this is powerful stuff, with few punches pulled and fewer trite explanations given for Cheryl’s behaviour after Bobbi’s death.

Witherspoon is on fine form here, portraying Cheryl in a way that’s moving and sensitive throughout, imbuing pre- and post-hike Cheryl with two distinct personalities, the first of which is best summed up as unwittingly hostile in her scenes with Bobbi, and self-deprecating in her scenes with Jonathan (Huisman), who she has a one night stand with at the end of the trail (it’s almost like she’s giving herself a reward). As well as an impressive emotional performance, Witherspoon also puts in a tremendous physical performance, making it seem as if she really has walked 1,100 miles in search of the answers to Cheryl’s problems. Witherspoon is a seriously underrated actress, despite her Oscar win for Walk the Line (2004), but here she shows just how effective she can be, juggling grief, sorrow, pain, frustration, regret and anger with a studied intelligence that is quite remarkable.

Making Wild after the success of Dallas Buyers Club (2013), Vallée takes the linear narrative rulebook and throws it out of the window, creating a rich, evocative tapestry of scenes that dovetail and flex around each other with a precision and accuracy that few other directors would attempt, let alone succeed in pulling off. It’s virtuoso stuff, ambitious and bold in its construction, and it makes watching the movie like putting together a jigsaw puzzle: at times frustrating because some of the pieces won’t fit, but when they finally do, everything is that much clearer and precise. Vallée also draws a superb performance from Dern, another actress who has become underrated in recent years, but who plays Bobbi with passion, subtlety and a sound understanding of her failings as a wife and a mother.

The Pacific Coast Trail itself is beautifully filmed by Yves Bélanger, the California, Oregon and Washington locations providing a vivid background to Cheryl Strayed’s trek, and as mentioned before, the whole thing is edited with incredible exactitude by John Mac McMurphy and Martin Pensa. Vallée orchestrates everything with skill, and a visual dexterity that makes Cheryl’s journey so mesmerising to watch.

Rating: 8/10 – Witherspoon and Dern are superb, and the construction of the movie, and its visual splendour, make Wild a fantastic achievement; heartfelt, and demanding of the viewer’s close attention, it’s a movie that weaves its hypnotic spell in scene after scene and proves completely rewarding.