This Beautiful Fantastic (2016)

14 Sunday May 2017

Tags

Andrew Scott, Drama, Gardening, Horticulture, Jeremy Irvine, Jessica Brown Findlay, Review, Romance, Simon Aboud, Tom Wilkinson

D: Simon Aboud / 91m

Cast: Jessica Brown Findlay, Tom Wilkinson, Andrew Scott, Jeremy Irvine, Anna Chancellor, Eileen Davies, Paul Hunter

Bella Brown (Findlay) was a foundling child, abandoned in a park and kept alive by ducks. She has grown up to be a young woman with obsessive compulsive disorder, and an ambition to be an author. She works at her local library where her love of books has made her a valiuable, if persistently late, member of staff. Her home is a modest property with an expansive garden, one that she doesn’t maintain due to an extreme aversion to flora. She is shy, modest, inquisitive, and in the words of her neighbour, Alfie Stevenson (Wilkinson), has been “sent here to test us”.

One day at the library, Bella meets Billy (Irvine), a young man interested in the works of Leonardo Da Vinci. He leaves behind a piece of paper that Bella can see has the imprint of a drawing on it. She takes it home and uses a pencil to raise the image, which is of a bird. As she gazes on it, the window to the garden flies open due to a storm outside, and the drawing is whisked away into the branches of a tree. Plucking up courage, Bella goes into the garden and retrieves it. In the process she falls and loses consciousness. When she comes to, Bella finds herself in the home of her neighbour, Alfie, and being tended to by his doctor, Milly (Davies), while in turn, Alfie is being tended to by his housekeeper, Vernon (Scott). Alfie is an old curmudgeon, and berates Bella for the condition of her garden, calling her a “horticultural terrorist”.

Alfie’s displeasure at the state of Bella’s garden leads to Vernon working for her instead, which in turn leads to a battle of wills as Alfie tries to browbeat Bella into letting Vernon go back to him. Soon after, Bella receives a visit from her landlord, Mr O’Brien (Hunter), who tells her that unless her garden is kept to a reasonable standard, then she’ll be evicted. Bella has a month to make good on this condition, and with the help of Vernon and Alfie she begins to tackle the momentous job of clearing and redesigning the garden before O’Brien returns. Meanwhile, she begins a relationship with Billy, who proves to be an inventor. But when she sees him with another woman, she suffers such a sense of betrayal and loss that her commitment to the garden is put in jeopardy, and with O’Brien’s return getting closer and closer, it’s going to take a small miracle to keep Bella in her home.

Although This Beautiful Fantastic is only the second movie written and directed by Simon Aboud – after Comes a Bright Day (2012) (itself well worth checking out) – it’s not a feature that falls foul of “difficult second movie syndrome”. Instead it’s an appealing, sweet-natured, even goofy at times, romantic-comedy-drama that does its best to put a smile on its audience’s faces, and all with a lightness of touch that makes it an undeniable pleasure to watch. Aboud’s “movie in microcosm” is such a delight from start to finish that it’s like having cheesecake ahead of a main course at a restaurant: it’s definitely a movie to savour.

And it’s all so simply constructed and put together, with Aboud’s confidence behind the camera matching the quality of his screenplay, and the performances fitting perfectly into the whimsical nature of the material. This isn’t a movie that springs any surprises on its audience, and it’s definitely not a movie that tries to be different, but it does have a tremendous amount of quiet, understated charm, and a delightfully winning way about it. From its opening scenes, which offer a brief appraisal of Bella’s childhood coupled with Alfie’s sniping comments about her, This Beautiful Fantastic is a movie that sets out its stall from the start, and which doesn’t disappoint as it expands on its contemporary fairy tale theme and keeps its narrative wrapped tightly around its quartet of main characters.

In keeping with its lightness of touch and playful nature, the romance between Bella and Billy is engaging and kept just this side of annoyingly saccharine, with Irvine’s eager puppy of a young man a perfect foil for Findlay’s more restrained, and yet attentive Bella. Their relationship fits the bill in terms of boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl-through-unfortunate-mix-up, and then regains-girl-through-apologetic-explanation-of-mix-up, but again it’s all done with the full acknowledgment by all concerned that this is a fairy tale, and in fairy tales there are certain rules that have to be followed, and one of them is that the princess always gets her prince.

With the romantic elements having been taken care of, Aboud is free to create dozens of comedic moments that act as an undercurrent to the central drama of Bella making sure her garden doesn’t remain an eyesore. Alfie’s cantankerous, acidic nature is portrayed by Wilkinson with a deftness of touch that makes a virtue out of waspish pomposity, and the character’s arrogant outward appearance belies a romantic soul whose passion for horticulture is more personal than expected. As Vernon, Scott delivers a mannered, sympathetic portrayal of a widower with two twin girls whose sense of self-worth has taken a bit of battering thanks to Alfie’s bullying ways. But there’s a way back for him, and Scott makes sure that Vernon’s recurring way of dealing with Alfie is one of the movie’s more pleasing highlights. For her part, Findlay is something of a “straight woman”, and though she gives a fine, rounded performance, she’s not required to “dazzle” as much as her male co-stars, and has to leave the comedy to Chancellor, who plays her boss, Mrs Bramble (her insistence on complete silence within the library leads to a great sight gag three quarters in).

The drama is concerned with Bella’s voyage of self-discovery through gardening, as evidenced by her checking obsessively that her front door is closed every time she leaves home, and which falls by the wayside as she begins to experience love for the first time (though whether being in love really constitutes a cure for OCD is a bit of a stretch). Bella gains in confidence, and her ambitions as a writer, stalled until the arrival of Billy, allow her to blossom even further beyond the confines of her garden. Aboud ensures that Bella’s journey is punctuated with the necessary number of setbacks, all of which allow for and encourage her personal (allegorical) growth at the same time that the garden begins to flourish also. Alfie develops too, although his development is less about personal growth and more about acknowledging the past and its lasting effect on him. Again, Aboud handles all these elements with a great deal of skill and compassion for his characters, and the end result is a movie that will make you laugh a lot, cry on occasion, and feel glad that you took a chance on a movie that could have missed its target by a country mile.

Rating: 8/10 – with a couple of last-minute revelations that unfortunately undermine the good work Aboud has put in in assembling his movie, This Beautiful Fantastic is still a movie that provides a very pleasant viewing experience indeed; one of those movies that make you feel great if you’ve found it without help from critics or word of mouth, it’s a lovely piece that knows its limitations and works within them to provide a beautifully designed and established visual delight – just like Bella’s garden.

Denial (2016)

05 Sunday Feb 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Andrew Scott, David Irving, Deborah Lipstadt, Drama, Holocaust, Libel case, Mick Jackson, Rachel Weisz, Review, Timothy Spall, Tom Wilkinson, Trial, True story

D: Mick Jackson / 109m

Cast: Rachel Weisz, Tom Wilkinson, Timothy Spall, Andrew Scott, Jack Lowden, Caren Pistorius, Alex Jennings, Harriet Walter, Mark Gatiss, John Sessions, Nikki Amuka-Bird

“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.” That quote, made by George Orwell, is a particularly apt phrase when looking at Denial, a movie that explores the libel case brought by Holocaust denier David Irving (Spall) against renowned historian Deborah Lipstadt (Weisz) and her UK publishers, Penguin, back in 2000. In her book, Denying the Holocaust: the Growing Assault on Truth and Memory (1993), Lipstadt had referred to Irving as a “Holocaust denier, falsifier, and bigot”, and also stated “that he manipulated and distorted real documents.” Irving sued Lipstadt in the British courts for one very good reason: in the UK, the burden of proof is on the defendant. In this case it meant that Lipstadt and Penguin had to prove that the Holocaust did actually happen, thereby proving that Irving was a falsifier and the accusations in her book were true.

If you were around in the late Nineties, it’s likely you would have heard of David Irving. He was notorious for his denial of the Holocaust, and the very nature of the trial made it headline news at the time. In bringing this incredible true story to the screen, director Mick Jackson and screenwriter David Hare have managed to somehow make a movie that gets the salient points across but which does so with a minimum of apparent enthusiasm. Perhaps it’s the nature of the subject matter, and the makers have gone for a dour, unspectacular approach in recognition of this. If that’s the case, then they’ve done the movie a massive disservice.

From the moment we see Irving challenge Lipstadt at one of her lectures, the very idea that the Holocaust didn’t happen – and that someone would willingly say such a thing, and then challenge someone to prove it did happen – is so bizarrely unnerving that it should make Irving all the more intriguing, and yet, as played by Spall, he’s more like a kindly uncle who’s gone slightly off his rocker. When he makes his opening speech at the trial – Irving represented himself – his off-kilter rhetoric and less than fashionable beliefs show a man whose disregard for historical truth has brought him to the last place he should ever want to be: in a courtroom, where his beliefs could be challenged under law and where his convictions could be exposed as terrible shams. Irving may have thought he was being clever bringing the case in an English court, but it was hubris that made him do so, and inevitably, he paid the price.

It’s an aspect that the movie fails to grasp, instead highlighting Irving’s sense of self-aggrandisement, and his talent for being a fly in the ointment of accepted historical fact. Spall is good in the role (when was the last time Spall wasn’t good in a role?*), but as written, Irving never appears truly threatening; he never comes across as someone who ever had even the slightest chance of winning, but the movie tries to make it seem as if he did. There are nods to the oxygen of publicity that encourages him in his efforts, but the real question that should be on everyone’s lips is never asked: Why? Why be a naysayer for the Nazis?

With Irving filling the role of boogeyman to Lipstadt’s crusading historian, the movie settles back, happy with its principal villain, and finds itself struggling to make the defence team just as interesting. As Lipstadt, Weisz brings determination and passion to the role, but it’s directed too often in opposition to her legal team, headed by barrister Richard Rampton QC (Wilkinson), and solicitor Anthony Julius (Scott). She butts heads with them over how she thinks the case should be handled, questions their commitment, and then wonders why her passion isn’t as openly shared as she expects. Wilkinson bounces back and forth between carefree bonhomie and courtroom gravitas, while Scott essays patrician superiority at every turn, all of which leaves little room for the rest of the defence team to make much of an impact.

In the courtroom, any expected fireworks fail to be set off. There’s so little tension, and so few moments where the inherent drama of the case is allowed a bit of breathing room that the viewer can only wonder if Hare somehow forgot that these scenes were meant to be gripping. The same could be said for Jackson’s direction, which relies on the same camera set ups throughout, the cut and thrust of Rampton’s cross-examination of Irving, and a last-minute inference from the judge (Jennings) that the defence’s case might crumble at the final hurdle to instil some heightened drama. But by the time it happens, most viewers will have ceased to care if Irving loses or not, just as long as there’s an end to the story.

All in all, Denial works as a generalised account of an important moment in British legal, and Holocaust, history. But in taking the generalised road – the road most travelled, if you will – the movie loses any sprightliness it might have had, and resorts to plodding along, picking up plot points along the way, and under-utilising its very talented cast. It doesn’t fall down at any point; instead it lumbers along as if it’s about to. The only time it breaks free of its self-imposed shackles, is during a trip to Auschwitz, where Rampton appears to be insensitive to the surroundings. It’s a bleak, mournful sequence that speaks to how gripping the rest of the movie could have been.

All in all, it’s not everyone’s finest hour, but it does do just enough to give people the sense of what it was like back then, with Irving seemingly unassailable and the very real possibility that Lipstadt might lose. But the movie’s dry, methodical approach undermines the material – and the performances – too often for comfort, and though this is a worthy piece, it never gains the necessary traction to make it compelling as well.

Rating: 6/10 – not a straight up fiasco, nor a contentious thriller either, Denial falls somewhere between the two camps in its efforts to be absorbing and persuasive; a movie that could, and should, have been made as a legal thriller, it keeps a respectful distance from the horrors that Irving would have had us dismiss, and only really gets under its own skin when it’s at the real Auschwitz-Birkenau camp.

*The last time Spall wasn’t that great in a role? Sofia aka Assassin’s Bullet (2012). Don’t check it out.

Snowden (2016)

27 Sunday Nov 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

CIA, Drama, Eavesdropping, Edward Snowden, Hong Kong, Joseph-Gordon-Levitt, Laura Poitras, Melissa Leo, NSA, Oliver Stone, Review, Rhys Ifans, Shailene Woodley, Thriller, Tom Wilkinson, True story, Whistleblower, Zachary Quinto

D: Oliver Stone / 134m

Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Shailene Woodley, Rhys Ifans, Melissa Leo, Zachary Quinto, Tom Wilkinson, Joely Richardson, Timothy Olyphant, Ben Schnetzer, Scott Eastwood, Lakeith Stanfield, Logan Marshall-Green, Ben Chaplin, Nicolas Cage

By now, most of us have heard of Edward Joseph Snowden (Gordon-Levitt), the NSA whistleblower who revealed the extent of the US’s surveillance programme both at home and abroad. In June 2013, Snowden flew to Hong Kong to meet with documentary movie maker Laura Poitras (Leo), and Guardian journalists Glenn Greenwald (Quinto) and Ewen MacAskill (Wilkinson). There, at the Hotel Mira, Snowden explained his reasons for disclosing the documents he appropriated from NSA data banks, and why he felt that the extent of the US’s “eavesdropping” was both inappropriate and damaging to the integrity of the US and its intelligence-gathering agencies. Following the publication of the files Snowden provided, he was charged with offences under the 1917 Espionage Act*, and though he tried to reach South America via Russia and Cuba, his passport was revoked while he was en route to Russia, and he was forced to remain in the transit area of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport. And Moscow – though not the airport – has been his home ever since.

Snowden’s story is one that seems tailor-made for an Oliver Stone movie. Anyone who’s seen his documentary series The Untold History of the United States (2012-13), or read the accompanying book, will know that Stone is largely unimpressed with the way in which his country has become a land run by self-serving neo-conservatives for whom “by any means necessary” is a proud motto. And while you could argue that this has been the status quo in America for a lot longer than the last fifty years, what is without doubt is the extent to which the intelligence agencies have abused their remits post-911 to eavesdrop not just on suspected terrorists but everyone. But with all this now out in the open, and Snowden’s place in history assured – and already explored in Laura Poitras’s excellent, Oscar-winning documentary CITIZENFOUR (2014) – what is there left for Stone to bring to the screen that hasn’t already been explored? Unfortunately, the answer is not much.

Watching Snowden is a somewhat dispiriting experience. Stone does what he does best over two and a quarter hours: exposing the clandestine activities of several branches of the US government, highlighting the insidious effects these activities are having on an individual’s human rights, and revealing how those same human rights aren’t even protected by the courts (who seem to be bypassed at every opportunity). But Stone’s usual passion and sense of outrage seems to be muted here. This is like watching a movie made by someone who’s intellectually aggrieved by what the NSA has been up to, but doesn’t quite feel the need to get emotional about it as well. This is Oliver Stone in restrained, almost reflective mode – and it doesn’t feel right.

What all this means is that Snowden feels like objective reportage for much of its running time, with scenes placed and set up to impart relevant information, allowing Stone and co-screenwriter Kieran Fitzgerald to give audiences all they need to know about Snowden himself and the secret world he was a part of. But it’s this matter-of-fact way in which Stone has decided to present both the man and that world that curtails any tension, and thereby lessens the drama. The scene where Snowden downloads a mass of files right from the heart of the NSA’s base in Hawaii, a scene that many directors could have made into a nerve-shredding exercise in trepidation and anxiety, lacks all those elements and plays out with a minimum of fuss and bother.

Watching as Snowden becomes increasingly aware of the extent of his country’s malfeasance – and the ways in which he’s unwittingly contributed to that malfeasance – Stone shows Snowden’s baffled disbelief, and his somewhat naïve demeanour, but there’s a distance between the viewer and the beleaguered whistleblower that stops any real sympathy or connection from forming. As Joseph Gordon-Levitt goes about the process of making Snowden’s initial commitment to the NSA appear noble and necessary, he can’t quite overcome a lack of personality that keeps the man from registering as more than a name most people will recognise, but few outside the US will truly care about. This is partly due to the script, which, instead of showing the man behind the name through his commitment to the truth, attempts to do so through his relationship with his girlfriend, Lindsay Mills (Woodley). Would that these scenes had more of an impact, but there’s a pedantic, going-through-the-motions feel to them that Stone can’t quite shake off. There are times where they also border on soap opera, as Mills’s frustration with Snowden’s work leads to several moments where she invokes the whole “it’s me or the job” ultimatum.

Elsewhere, the movie plods along, only occasionally engaging with the material in a way that appears earnest or committed, but doing enough to keep interested viewers interested, while not doing enough to keep viewers new to Snowden’s story on board for the duration. It’s not that Stone is doing anything particularly wrong – he still has a strong visual sense (bolstered by crisp, insistent cinematography from Anthony Dod Mantle), and the movie is expertly edited by Alex Marquez and Lee Percy – but somewhere along the way, any sense of urgency about the subject and its ramifications seems to have been lost. Perhaps it’s due to the time that’s passed since Snowden blew the whistle; in today’s need-to-know-now society is his story relevant anymore?

There are good performances all round, but mostly amongst the supporting turns, with Ifans a standout as Snowden’s mentor and über-spook Corbin O’Brien. Its also good to see Nicolas Cage, albeit in a minor role, deliver the kind of performance that we know he’s capable of. Spare a thought though for the trio of Leo, Quinto and Wilkinson, stranded in a hotel room in Hong Kong and not really given much to do except listen and look amazed/appalled/astounded as appropriate (it makes the scene where Greenwald barks orders at his editor (Richardson) all the more striking – and out of place). Woodley is hamstrung by a role that requires her to be unsupportive and selfish for the most part, and which is left hanging by a script that doesn’t explain why she’s now living with Snowden in Moscow. And as Snowden, Gordon-Levitt gives a diffident, constrained portrayal of a man who made a momentous personal and professional decision, and the actor carries the gravitas of that with aplomb. If only he didn’t sound like Keanu Reeves…

Rating: 6/10 – Stone adds another American life to his list of movie subjects, but in doing so seems more like a director for hire than the tirelessly challenging agent provocateur he usually is; what hampers Snowden is a sense that its story is no longer important, and that the movie is aware of this, which stops it from being the impassioned, thought-provoking movie it should be.

*The 1917 Espionage Act is a particularly apt (and predictable) piece of legislation for Snowden to be charged under. Such is the loose nature of the Act, if Snowden were to return to the US and be put on trial, he wouldn’t be able to use any information relating to the offence as evidence that he wasn’t guilty; because of the nature of the information he released, it would still be regarded as classified and therefore not admissible, and the jury wouldn’t be privy to it. And that’s without the cost of the defense itself: anywhere between $1 million and $3 million.

Jenny’s Wedding (2015)

17 Thursday Nov 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Comedy, Drama, Gay marriage, Grace Gummer, Katherine Heigl, Lesbian, Linda Emond, Mary Agnes Donoghue, Relationships, Review, Tom Wilkinson

D: Mary Agnes Donoghue / 91m

Cast: Katherine Heigl, Tom Wilkinson, Linda Emond, Grace Gummer, Alexis Bledel, Sam McMurray, Diana Hardcastle, Matthew Metzger, Houston Rhines

Jenny Farrell (Heigl) is the eldest daughter of fireman Eddie (Wilkinson) and housewife Rose (Emond). She works at placing foster kids and orphans in suitable homes, is well liked and admired by everyone around her – except maybe her younger sister, Anne (Gummer) – and is in a lesbian relationship with her (ostensible) flatmate, Kitty (Bledel). Jenny has never come out to her family because she doesn’t think they’d be able to handle it. Of course, this means she’s lied to them for a number of years now, and as with all lies that are prolonged beyond any possible good they may have done in the first place, Jenny has at least understood that if she tells them, they’ll be hurt and disappointed. But a conversation with her father about marriage and having children and all the responsibility that comes with it, leads Jenny to realise that that’s what she wants: to be married and have kids too.

So, now she needs to own up about her sexuality, and try and do so in a way that won’t upset everyone. She tells her mother first, but Rose is upset; not for herself per se, but for the knock her standing in the local community will take if everyone else was to know. She makes Jenny promise not to tell anyone else except her father, and not even Anne. Not wanting to upset her mother further, Jenny agrees. She tells her dad and while he’s shocked at not having realised after all this time, he’s initially much more supportive than Rose, though he goes along with her wishes.

Jenny and Kitty begin to plan their wedding. While they do so, Eddie and Rose struggle with the knowledge that Jenny has lied to them, and that they don’t know how to react. The relationships between the three of them begin to unravel, and are thrown into even more chaos when Anne sees her sister and Kitty kissing in a bridal store. When she learns that her parents have known about Jenny being a lesbian, and haven’t told her, Anne is devastated. But it does make her begin to question her marriage to layabout Frankie (Rhines), and the reason their front lawn isn’t green (don’t worry, it does makes sense within the movie). Things reach boiling point, though, at a funeral for a friend and neighbour where a confrontation between her father and Jenny leads to them becoming estranged. As the big day approaches, loyalties are challenged, relationships are tested, and prejudices appear set to interfere with, and derail, Jenny’s happiness.

Okay, let’s get the obvious out of the way, right at the start: this is not a good movie. Jenny’s Wedding is tired, predictable, asinine in places, dramatically inert for most of its running time, features another performance from Heigl that makes you wonder how she’s still getting lead roles, and looks and sounds like a Bible reader for those who find lesbianism distasteful. It’s a movie that suffers from trite dialogue, an unconvincing scenario, poorly realised motivations, and some extremely dodgy sexual politics. It tries hard not to be offensive, but fails every time it tries to make Eddie and Rose’s feelings “acceptable” in terms of their characters. Not even Tom Wilkinson, an actor who can inject genuine feeling and credibility into (almost) every role he plays, is stymied here by a script – courtesy of Donoghue – that asks him to either spout platitudes or inanities as a matter of course, and hunch over as if the weight of the world (or the movie’s ineptitude) was on his shoulders.

But there is one area where the movie is interesting, and it’s one that’s far beyond any expectation of achievement you could have hoped for. While Donoghue piles agony after agony onto a much more deserving Jenny than she probably intended, the movie’s creator tells a much better story about the lies we tell and the reasons we tell them. Jenny lies from the start but puts the onus on her parents for doing so, an act of cowardice that should offset any sympathy we have for her. As the movie progresses, Jenny continues to justify her having lied to her family because she’s unable to trust them to be supportive, and then she acts all hurt and surprised when the amount of time she’s spent lying to them prompts the exact reaction she’s been afraid of. The movie actively punishes her for doing so, an act of retribution that’s far more effective than expected precisely because Jenny is the main character and the audience is – nominally at least – supposed to be on her side.

But Jenny’s parents are just as bad, and although it’s out of confusion, their lies are based around, first, their helplessness about how they feel, and second, about the repercussions they’re likely to experience amongst their friends (in Rose’s case) and colleagues (in Eddie’s case). They lie out of fear and mistrust of others, and it’s here that Donoghue unexpectedly provides the most interesting aspect of the movie as a whole: that daughter and parents are entirely alike. And yet when the inevitable last-minute reconciliation occurs between Jenny and Eddie (Rose comes around much sooner), this isn’t mentioned at all. Instead, Donoghue, clearly unaware of the connection she’s made through her own script, trots out a sorry tale of male emasculation for Eddie’s recalcitrance, and leaves Wilkinson looking embarrassed for having to explain it all.

There are lies and lying behaviour elsewhere in the movie. Anne’s husband Frankie is always going out on “business” late at night, a clear indication that he’s having an affair, and Rose’s friend, Ellen (Hardcastle), is the kind of hypocritical busybody who’ll take any piece of bad news and use it to her own ends, and embellish her own role at the same time. Her faux sympathy and understanding are a kind of insidious lying, and all the more unforgivable. Again, it’s this element of the movie, whether deliberately included or not, that gives it an edge that the so-called drama of Jenny getting her wedding day as wished for and planned doesn’t have (of course she’s going to get married and have kids – eventually; this is a fairy tale dressed up as a middling drama of expectations).

Like many other romantic dramas, Jenny’s Wedding could be seen as a comedy at heart, but while there are a handful of comic moments, this is a serious attempt at exploring… something. If it’s not readily clear then it doesn’t really impact on any enjoyment that can be had, and aside from the waste of Tom Wilkinson’s time and effort – it really is a stinker of a role – there’s Gummer’s performance to be appreciated, and odd moments where Emond also elevates things by sheer dint of effort. Otherwise, Donoghue struggles at maintaining a consistent tone, and avoids making anyone a bad guy, something that might have upped the drama and made it more interesting. She also marginalises the very relationship that Jenny is involved in, leaving Kitty in the background like an afterthought, and making it all about a self-absorbed coward and liar who wants it all her own way… and if you pay close attention, that attitude never changes.

Rating: 4/10 – some interesting aspects set around lying as a form of personal protection aside, Jenny’s Wedding lacks focus and a central character you can warm to; pedestrian in both its ideas and its presentation, it’s a movie that you’ll forget about soon after seeing it, and serves as another reminder that Heigl’s career is heading nowhere fast.

Monthly Roundup – May 2015

31 Sunday May 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Antonio Banderas, Art heist, Artificial intelligence, Ballard Berkeley, Bat Masterson, Berlin, Boston, Bullying, Burger Beard, Chappie, Christopher Plummer, Clancy Brown, Comet, Conrad Phillips, Crime, Dave Franco, Dead body, Drama, Emmy Rossum, Eric Stonestreet, Father/son relationship, Frank R. Strayer, Gay bar, George Pastell, Glory holes, Hugh Jackman, Impact, Irene Ware, James Marsden, Joel McCrea, John Miljan, John Travolta, Joseph M. Newman, Julie Adams, Justin Long, Karl Urban, Ken Scott, Krabby Patty formula, Matthias Schoenaerts, Monthly roundup, Murder at Glen Athol, Murder mystery, Neill Blomkamp, Peter Maxwell, Philip Martin, Plankton, Review, Romance, Sam Esmail, Sharlto Copley, Sienna Miller, SpongeBob Squarepants, Swarf, The Duke, The Forger, The Gunfight at Dodge City, The Loft, The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, Thriller, Tom Denny, Tom Wilkinson, Tye Sheridan, Unfinished Business, Vince Vaughn, Wentworth Miller, Western

There’s a phrase that everyone will be familiar with: “Too many [insert item here], too little time”. When it comes to the number of movies that I watch in any given month, that phrase is apt in relation to the ones that get reviewed here on thedullwoodexperiment. I would love to have the time to post reviews of all the movies I see, but it’s just not practical; and besides which, some movies just don’t merit the attention (Annabelle (2014), for instance). Sometimes it’s a case of choosing one movie over another, sometimes Life gets in the way of blogging and a movie falls by the wayside. To combat this, and to give these “other” movies their due, I’ve decided to present, at the end of each month, a brief “review” of all the other movies I’ve seen. There won’t be any synopsis, or proper full-length analysis, just the title, director, running time, cast, and then the traditional two sentence ratings summation. So, let’s see which movies didn’t quite make the cut in May 2015.

The Forger (2014) / D: Philip Martin / 96m

Cast: John Travolta, Christopher Plummer, Tye Sheridan, Abigail Spencer, Anson Mount, Marcus Thomas, Jennifer Ehle, Travis Aaron Wade

Rating: 5/10 – Travolta’s art forger comes out of prison to spend time with his dying son (Sheridan) and pull off an audacious robbery; a derivative, occasionally unappealing crime drama that tries to do something different with its dying child angle, The Forger is nevertheless a movie whose “one last heist” scenario has been done to death elsewhere, and with far better results.

The Gunfight at Dodge City (1959) / D: Joseph M. Newman / 81m

Cast: Joel McCrea, Julie Adams, John McIntire, Nancy Gates, Richard Anderson, James Westerfield, Walter Coy, Don Haggerty, Wright King, Harry Lauter

Rating: 6/10 – Western legend Bat Masterson (McCrea) tackles corruption supported by Haggerty’s devious sheriff in Dodge City and faces romantic problems as well from minister’s daughter Adams and saloon owner Gates; a middling, mildly diverting Western, The Gunfight at Dodge City benefits from McCrea’s solid, no-nonsense performance and Newman’s underrated abilities behind the camera.

Comet (2014) / D: Sam Esmail / 91m

Cast: Justin Long, Emmy Rossum

Rating: 7/10 – Long and Rossum are the soulmates whose on-again-off-again relationship is examined over the course of six years; with the narrative continually fractured and reassembled, Comet is replete with the kind of “serious” romantic musings that sound alternately pretentious and profound, but the two leads have a definite chemistry and this helps immensely in making the movie as enjoyable as it (largely) is.

Murder at Glen Athol (1936) / D: Frank R. Strayer / 67m

Cast: John Miljan, Irene Ware, Iris Adrian, Noel Madison, Oscar Apfel, Barry Norton, Harry Holman, Betty Blythe, James P. Burtis

Rating: 5/10 – two murders and a dying confession confuse matters for a detective (Miljan) who’s just trying to take a vacation – next door to where the murders have taken place; packed full of seemingly endless exposition and no shortage of suspects, Murder at Glen Athol is a sprightly murder mystery that packs a lot in but not always to its best advantage.

The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water (2015) / D: Paul Tibbitt / 92m

Cast: Antonio Banderas, Tom Kenny, Clancy Brown, Bill Fagerbakke, Rodger Bumpass, Mr. Lawrence, Carolyn Lawrence

Rating: 7/10 – when the formula for Krabby Patty is stolen by the notorious Burger Beard (Banderas), SpongeBob (Kenny) is forced to team up with Plankton (Mr. Lawrence) to get it back… and venture above the surface; freewheeling fun with the denizens of Bikini Bottom that features lots of gags and the usual bright visuals, but takes an awfully long time in getting to the “sponge out of water” part.

Chappie (2015) / D: Neill Blomkamp / 120m

Cast: Sharlto Copley, Dev Patel, Hugh Jackman, Ninja, Yo-Landi Visser, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Sigourney Weaver, Brandon Auret, Johnny Selema

Rating: 6/10 – with a robot police force firmly established in Johannesburg, the introduction of artificial intelligence leads to one robot, named Chappie, learning what it’s like to be human; disappointing outing from Blomkamp that never quite gels or seems sure of what it’s trying to do or say, but does feature an excellent performance from Copley.

Impact (1963) / D: Peter Maxwell / 61m

Cast: Conrad Phillips, George Pastell, Ballard Berkeley, Linda Marlowe, Richard Klee, Anita West, John Rees

Rating: 5/10 – when newspaper reporter Jack Moir (Phillips) is framed for robbery by arch-nemesis “The Duke” (Pastell), he swears to get even when he gets out of jail; a low-key crime drama that seems busier than it is and which gets bogged down in the mechanics of Moir’s revenge plot, Impact does allow for a welcome appearance by Berkeley aka Fawlty Towers‘ Major, and an above average performance by Pastell.

The Loft (2014) / D: Erik Van Looy / 103m

Cast: Karl Urban, James Marsden, Wentworth Miller, Eric Stonestreet, Matthias Schoenaerts, Isabel Lucas, Rachael Taylor, Rhona Mitra, Valerie Cruz, Kali Rocha, Elaine Cassidy, Margarita Levieva, Kristin Lehman, Robert Wisdom

Rating: 6/10 – the discovery of a woman’s dead body in the loft apartment shared by five married men for their secret liaisons prompts them to suspect each other of the crime; alternately gripping and implausible, The Loft is a modern day cautionary tale that loses credibility with its solution then recovers with a great twist, but still has the air of a thriller that its writer never quite got to grips with.

Unfinished Business (2015) / D: Ken Scott / 91m

Cast: Vince Vaughn, Tom Wilkinson, Dave Franco, Sienna Miller, Nick Frost, James Marsden, June Diane Raphael, Britton Sear, Ella Anderson, Uwe Ochsenknecht

Rating: 5/10 – Swarf salesman Dan Trunkman (Vaughn) has to overcome all sorts of obstacles to land the contract that will save his fledgling company from going under, including a visit to a Berlin gay bar; a bit of a strange fish, Unfinished Business suffers from being two separate movies joined at the hip: one a raucous comedy, the other a thoughtful study of bullying, but together they don’t make for a cohesive whole, and it’s yet another movie where Vaughn coasts along on former glories.

Selma (2014)

10 Tuesday Feb 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Alabama, André Holland, Ava DuVernay, Carmen Ejogo, David Oyelowo, Drama, Edmund Pettus Bridge, Lyndon B. Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr, Racial equality, Review, Tim Roth, Tom Wilkinson, True story, Violence, Voting rights

D: Ava DuVernay / 128m

Cast: David Oyelowo, Tom Wilkinson, Carmen Ejogo, André Holland, Stephan James, Common, Lorraine Toussaint, Giovanni Ribisi, Tim Roth, Wendell Pierce, Alessandro Nivola, Stephen Root, Oprah Winfrey, Dylan Baker, Cuba Gooding Jr, Martin Sheen

1964. Martin Luther King Jr (Oyelowo) receives the Nobel Peace Prize, mere weeks after the deaths of four children in an explosion at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Also in Alabama, Annie Lee Cooper (Winfrey) tries to register to vote but has her application denied. King visits President Lyndon B. Johnson (Wilkinson) at the White House to ask for federal legislation that will allow black citizens to register without being impeded. Johnson tells him that, while he agrees with King about the issue, it’s not one that he’ll be focusing on any time soon. Having already decided to march on the courthouse in Selma, Alabama if the President refuses to help, King sets things in motion.

Joined by members of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), King and his followers march on the courthouse where they’re confronted by the town sheriff and his men. A brawl ensues during which Clark is assaulted by Annie Lee Cooper and King and several others are jailed. Alabama’s governor, George Wallace (Roth) is angered by the protest, and when a night march in Marion is planned, he takes steps to have it dispersed. The march ends in violence and leads to the death of a young protester, shot while trying to avoid trouble in a restaurant. Following this, King receives criticism for his beliefs but he continues to insist that people should be fighting for their rights.

Another march is planned, this time from Selma to the state capital, Montgomery, a distance of fifty miles. Leaving Selma, the march crosses the Edmund Pettus Bridge where it is met by state troopers who instruct everyone to disperse. When they don’t, the troopers put on gas masks and start hurling tear gas into the crowd; they also attack the march using clubs and other weapons, as well as riding people down. It’s all witnessed by TV news crews and broadcast live across the nation, leaving Johnson angry at Wallace’s actions. He sends John Doar (Nivola), the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights to try and persuade King to call off the next attempt at marching to Montgomery, while he personally attempts to coerce Wallace into resolving the issue of registration and the use of state troopers if the march goes ahead.

White Americans who support King’s cause and civil rights in general, arrive to take part in the march. Again they cross the bridge, but this time King is leading. When they see the state troopers, they’re surprised to see them step aside. King kneels and prays for a few minutes, then heads back into Selma, effectively cancelling the march. More political manoeuvrings go on, including Johnson asking Congress for the quick passing of a bill to eliminate restrictions on registering, and the march to Montgomery finally goes ahead.

For America, the Sixties were a turbulent decade, one that saw a variety of freedoms and rights enshrined in law, and the beginning of a transition from the kind of post-War conservatism that saw danger in any type of change, to a more free-minded liberalism that challenged the old order on almost every front. Racial issues were high on the agenda, if not for the politicians, then certainly for black people, and not just in the South. It was a time when people from all walks of life began to stand up and say, “enough is enough” (or to paraphrase Howard Beale in Network (1976): “We’re mad as hell, and we’re not going to take it anymore!”). But as ever, the battle was an uphill one, and there were plenty of people, equally, who were prepared to see it fail.

The determination and the will to succeed that existed in Martin Luther King Jr is shown here as forceful and impassioned, but there’s a measure of self-doubt as well, and it’s this rounding of the man that helps make the movie as commanding as it is. Avoiding any attempts at mythologising King, Selma gives us a portrait of a man fully aware of his mission in life and confident enough to second-guess himself when needed. It’s a balance that could have been lost on several occasions during the course of the movie, not least in its depiction of his troubled marriage, where the script so neatly sidesteps any possibility of descending into soap opera that it makes for a refreshing change. And the complexities of the organisations involved and how they all interact with King, are also well handled, showing the figurehead but not the leader. The movie shows King making decisions based both on his own ideas and those of others, and if his opponents – such as Wallace – appear too one-dimensional in comparison, well, maybe that’s because they just were.

King is played with tremendous gravitas and skill by Oyelowo, imbuing King with a pride and a sensitivity that never seem at odds with each other. It’s an impressive achievement, sharply detailed, perfectly pitched, and one of the finest acting performances you’re likely to see in a long while. It helps that he has a passing resemblance to King, but it’s the voice that he captures so well, that distinctive, low cadence that could rise to a crescendo so effortlessly in the middle of a sentence. It’s not far from the truth to say that Oyelowo inhabits the man rather than impersonates or mimics him (listen to the speech the real King made when the march reached Montgomery, and then listen to Oyelowo’s version and see how close he is), and he’s just as effective in the movie’s more pensive moments as he is when called upon to be the fiery orator.

Good as Oyelowo’s performance – and it is very good – he wouldn’t have been anywhere near as imposing if it weren’t for an extremely well-structured and heavily nuanced script, courtesy of Paul Webb (his first). He makes the politics easy to understand, the characters easy to empathise with or condemn (as necessary), and he doesn’t rein in on the complexities of the issues concerned. It’s a great screenplay, and the rest of the cast, aided and abetted by DuVernay’s strong, sanguine direction, relish every scene and line at their disposal. (If there is one area, though, where Webb fails to convince, it’s in Johnson’s refusal to address the issue of voting registration; his arguments are spurious at best, though they may have been so at the time – it’s hard to tell.)

DuVernay, making only her third feature, emphasises the various relationships that develop between the different factions, and never loses sight of the human factor in amongst all the politicking. She uses the camera with aplomb, particularly with medium shots, imparting a level of detail some more experienced directors fail to achieve ever. And there’s a richness about the movie that speaks of carefully considered choices made ahead of filming, of everyone involved knowing exactly what’s required and everyone involved having the conviction to carry it off. The mood of the times, and the look of the times, are tellingly rendered, and the atmosphere surrounding the planning of each march is palpable, taking the movie – unwittingly perhaps – into thriller territory. But the drama remains throughout, and by the movie’s end, the audience is rejoicing almost as much as the characters are.

Rating: 9/10 – a rewarding look at a particular place and time in American history, Selma takes a flashpoint that resonates far beyond its happening, and makes it as compelling and vital as if it were happening today; a triumph for all concerned and buoyed by Oyelowo’s superb performance, DuVernay’s apposite approach to the material, and Webb’s rewarding screenplay.

Good People (2014)

12 Sunday Oct 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Crime, Drama, Henrik Ruben Genz, Hidden money, Jack Witkowski, James Franco, Kate Hudson, Liquid heroin, Review, Thriller, Tom Wilkinson

D: Henrik Ruben Genz / 90m

Cast: James Franco, Kate Hudson, Tom Wilkinson, Sam Spruell, Omar Sy, Anna Friel, Diarmaid Murtaugh, Michael Jibson, Oliver Dimsdale, Francis Magee

Tom Wright (Franco) and his wife Anna (Hudson) have moved from America to London to make a fresh start, and to renovate the house left to Tom by his grandmother. Where they’re living, they rent the basement to a man named Ben Tuttle (Magee). When they find Tuttle dead from an apparent overdose, the police investigation brings them into contact with DI Halden (Wilkinson). Although Tuttle had a criminal background, Halden is after bigger fish: Jack Witkowski (Spruell), a vicious gangster whom Tuttle had recently helped steal a consignment of liquid heroin from French drug dealer, Khan (Sy). Later on, while clearing the basement, Tom finds a hidden bag of money with over £300,000 in it. With bills mounting and his grandmother’s house costing more to put right than he’d expected, Tom suggests they keep the money hidden and when the time is right, begin to use it to settle their debts and get ahead.

Anna reluctantly agrees to Tom’s plan, but both use the money in small ways, and it comes to Halden’s attention. Tuttle’s whereabouts, meanwhile, have come to the attention of Witkowski, who has been looking for him since the theft of the liquid heroin. Tuttle had double-crossed him and taken both the money and the heroin, as well as contributing to the death of Witkowski’s younger brother. Witkowski visits the basement flat and finds the heroin but not the money.

Tom is then approached by Khan who is looking for revenge on Witkowksi and his drugs and money back. He impresses on Tom the importance of being a team player, leaving no doubt that he and Anna will suffer if they don’t help him. Things get worse when Witkowski returns to their home, attacks Tom and demands the money. Anna arrives home and bargains for their lives, stalling long enough until, by good fortune, Halden appears and Witkowski leaves. The Wrights come clean about the money, though Halden tells them they’re not out of the woods yet. He suggests setting a trap for Witkowski and they organise a rendezvous in a park to drop off the money. The trap goes wrong and Halden is shot, leaving Tom and Anna to negotiate another meeting… but this time at Tom’s grandmother’s house.

By most standards, Good People is – and let’s make this perfectly clear from the outset – a shockingly bad movie. It labours under the misapprehension that it’s a thriller and it’s almost entirely a case of what you see is what you get – there’s little or no depth here, and even less that’s credible or convincing. Based on the novel by Marcus Sakey, the movie stumbles and staggers its way from disjointed scene to disjointed scene with barely a moment to pause and consider where it’s going or how it’s going to get there. There are problems literally everywhere, from the police’s inability to trace any of Tuttle’s relatives (while Witkowski finds a cousin at the drop of a hat), to Halden’s vigilante-style approach to police work, to Tom’s attempts at action man heroics, to a number of undeveloped subplots, and the extended showdown at the end that seems to be de rigueur these days (and stretches the boundaries of human physical endurance).

Matters aren’t helped by muted performances from the two leads – unsurprising in Hudson’s case as she’s off screen more than she’s on – and Wilkinson overdoing the weary policeman routine to the point where it wouldn’t surprise anyone if he fell asleep during a scene and started snoring. And he delivers his lines with a kind of bored, indifferent approach that begs the question as to why he took on the role in the first place (surely he’s still not making mortgage payments?). Spruell exudes an icy menace (one of the few positives the movie manages to provide), while Sy comes across as less a disgruntled gangster and more like a petulant catalogue model made to wear a jacket with an ugly stain on it. And Friel, as Anna’s friend Sarah, has a priceless moment where, after being held hostage with her baby by Witkowski, escapes the house at the end and promptly runs off without a backward glance.

There really isn’t much to recommend about Good People. Kelly Masterson’s screenplay gives new meaning to the phrase “all over the place”, and is a major step down from his adaptation of Snowpiercer (2013), while in the director’s chair, newbie Genz displays a liking for odd camera angles that add little to the proceedings other than to leave the audience trying to work out what they’re looking at. The cinematography by Jørgen Johansson makes London look interminably grim and depressing, and there’s an unfortunate emphasis on subdued lighting that adds to the movie’s too-sombre look. There are also issues with the continuity within individual scenes that haven’t been addressed in the editing suite.

Rating: 3/10 – unappealing, contrived and as wearying to watch as Tom Wilkinson’s equally weary performance, Good People is dispiriting fare that never really knows what to do with its basic plot; one for Franco or Hudson completists only, or fans of pedestrian thrillers that leave out the thrills.

Belle (2013)

20 Friday Jun 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Amma Asante, British history, Captain John Lindsay, Dido Elizabeth Belle, Emily Watson, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Lord Chief Justice, Lord Mansfield, Racism, Review, Slavery, Tom Wilkinson, True story, Zong

D: Amma Asante / 104m

Cast: Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Tom Wilkinson, Emily Watson, Sam Reid, Sarah Gadon, Penelope Wilton, Miranda Richardson, James Norton, Tom Felton, Matthew Goode

The illegitimate offspring of Royal Navy captain John Lindsay (Goode) and an African slave woman named Maria Bell, young Dido Elizabeth Belle is sent to live with his uncle, Lord Mansfield (Wilkinson) and his wife (Watson) at Kenwood House. Despite her mixed race heritage, Dido is brought up as one of the family though some social – or possibly, household – conventions are upheld: Dido is unable to take part in dinner parties but is allowed to take coffee with guests afterwards. She grows up in the company of her cousin, Elizabeth, who is also a ward of Lord Mansfield. When both girls become of age, Dido (Mbatha-Raw) and Elizabeth (Gadon) expect to “come out” and find a husband. However, Lord Mansfield has other ideas: with Dido having received a substantial inheritance upon the death of her father, he feels that her financial independence would only frighten off any potential suitors; he wants her to stay on at Kenwood and run the household.

While Elizabeth attracts the attention of James Ashford (Felton), it is his brother, Oliver (Norton) who finds himself drawn to Dido. Unfortunately for Oliver, Dido has affections for John Davinier (Reid), a headstrong young lawyer-in-training who Lord Mansfield takes under his wing. When the two men fall out over a ruling Lord Mansfield has to give – he’s the Lord Chief Justice – on the matter of the Zong slave ship (where slaves were cast deliberately overboard to drown), Dido endeavours to help Davinier as much as she can. While the Mansfield household resides in London in their efforts to secure a husband for Elizabeth, Dido secretly meets with Davinier and his pro-abolitionist comrades and supplies them with as much information as she can about the case. As the time approaches for Lord Mansfield to give his ruling, Dido’s involvement is revealed and Oliver Ashford proposes marriage. With her future happiness hanging in the balance, Dido must decide if the life she requires will be dictated to her by social expectations or by her own desires.

Based – very, very, very loosely – on a true story, Belle is a handsomely mounted, beautifully lensed movie that tackles its subject matter with intelligence and a keen eye for the vagaries of the social hierarchy of Britain in the late 1700s. The ingrained racism of the times is depicted far more subtly than expected, and is best expressed in the actions and thoughts of Lord Mansfield as he displays public disgust over the concept and practice of slavery, but in the privacy of his own home, represses Dido with his notions of correct social etiquette (and that’s without mentioning the implicit sexism of his position as well). With the crusading Davinier to root for, and his “colour blindness”, the movie gives the viewer someone to help navigate the maze of 18th century politics, and just as Dido herself has an awakening in this matter, it’s one of the strengths of Misan Sagay’s heartfelt screenplay that matters become as clear as they do.

With the racism and the politics and the social niceties of the period so well rendered, it’s disappointing that the romantic aspects of the movie aren’t as strongly defined or developed. Elizabeth is the trusting young hopeful, an almost stock character of the period whose lack of experience with men is redeemed by her telling Dido, “We are but their property”. Against this, Dido is necessarily more confident and aware of the pitfalls of relationships though her confidence is established too easily, and there are times when the movie’s need for her to be a support for Elizabeth becomes irritating (Elizabeth isn’t exactly vapid but she is unremittingly naive). Davinier’s ardent pursuit of Dido is too avid at times, and his passion for both the cause of abolition and Dido’s freedom from social strictures, as written, leaves the character looking almost (but not quite) insufferable.

In the title role, Mbatha-Raw gives a perceptive, masterful performance that is both emotionally honest and fiercely intelligent, and she is skilfully supported by Wilkinson and Watson, the former imbuing a cleverly written and yet difficult character with sincerity and charm. Reid is earnest and declamatory (thanks to the script), and Gadon’s coquettish take on Elizabeth is occasionally affecting but she too is hindered by the restrictions of the script. Wilton, Richardson and Norton flesh out their roles to good effect but Felton is stifled by a character who is never allowed to be anything more than the stock villain (not only is he an outspoken racist but he assaults Dido as well, as if his odiousness was in some way in doubt).

In the director’s chair, Asante shows an assured and substantial understanding of the issues being examined, and is particularly impressive when exploring the curious anomalies of Dido’s life at Kenwood House. Under her committed and often powerful guidance, Belle overcomes its romantic Georgian soap opera elements to become a potent, articulate condemnation of a period in British history when endemic racism and the commerce of slavery was beginning to be challenged both socially and in law.

Rating: 8/10 – the aforementioned romantic elements and Rachel Portman’s often intrusive score aside, Belle is a vivid, impassioned look at the often complex life of a woman whose social position meant she was too low to eat with her family and at the same time, too high to eat with servants; a powerful, accomplished movie from a powerful, accomplished director.