Saturday, April 13, 2024
CIVIL WAR*****
BACK TO BLACK****
Marisa Abella (Industry) delivers a stunning central performance as Amy Winehouse in this new biopic of the singer. She captures Amy's caustic wit, her physical mannerisms, and most impressively, her spoken and singing voice. Director Sam Taylor-Wood (NOWHERE BOY) tackles the audience's apprehension head on in an opening scene showing Winehouse's Jewish parental family singing together. Abela freestyles Fly Me To The Moon and the audience relaxes, safe in the knowledge that Abela's Amy is spot on. Her Amy is straightforward to the point of rudeness, full of energy and sheer talent. But also troubled way before she meets her much vilified husband Blake Fielder-Civil. She is already bulimic and alcohol dependent with a self-acknowledged streak of self-sabotage, particularly when it comes to men. This is something that Matt Greenhalgh's script, using her own lyrics, explores from the first scenes.
About forty minutes into the film, Amy's first album has been a breakout success but she has been told to restyle herself for America. This plays into all of the insecurities that have fed into her self-abuse. And at that moment we meet Jack O'Connell (UNBROKEN) as Blake Fielder-Civil. He is charming and fun and has a deep knowledge of music over which he and Amy can bond. It's another powerhouse performance. There's an immediate spark and we are swept up in young, heedless romance. According to this version of the story, it was a genuine love affair on both sides at first, and while he was already using Class A drugs she stuck "only" to alcohol and weed. It's only when they reunite after a break-up that he was motivated more by her fame and money and ability to fund his smack habit. Once inside prison, he cleans up and realises what's obvious to the rest of us - that this is a desperately toxic codependent relationship with competitive self-harm. He wants to break free. Fair enough. But it breaks Amy in the process.
Needless to say, this is a more nuanced and sympathetic portrait of Fielder-Civil than we got from contemporary news reports, or from Asif Kapadia's superb 2015 documentary AMY. My only criticism of Kapadia is that he often creates pantomime villains in his films - whether Alain Prost in SENNA or Fielder-Civil and Mitch Winehouse in AMY. Greenhalgh and Taylor-Wood may have swung the pendulum back too far in BACK TO BLACK but I really appreciate the attempt to treat humans as flawed real people. And we have to remember that Fielder-Civil was also a young man and an addict at the time.
The whitewashing of Mitch Winehouse, played by the innately sympathetic Eddie Marsan, is probably going to be even more controversial. In this film, he is portrayed as an indulgent father who is totally out of his depth when it comes to Amy's addictions. This kind of tracks with Amy's mother saying, in Kapadia's documentary, that when Amy told them about her bulimia they just kind of ignored it and hoped it would pass. We don't see the avaricious exploitative father of Kapadia's doc at all.
But let's not be fooled into thinking this film is a whitewashing of the brutality of addiction and bulimia. Amy's descent into full blown class A drug addiction is shown explicitly, but never exploitatively. We see her ability to go clean for periods, but that she is, in the scripts words, always on edge, so that it doesn't take much to push her over. In this film, it's always heartbreak that does it - whether Fielder-Civil leaving her, or her inability to get pregnant and have the stable family life she craved. The narrative is convincing, and Abela's central performance is heartbreaking. I love that we spent so much time with Amy and her beloved Nan (Leslie Manville) and saw that Amy's heart was rooted in jazz. I felt I had an understanding of her deep familial musical heritage that I didn't get from Kapadia's doc. And this is, I think, one of the most important things that we need to know about her.
BACK TO BLACK is rated R and has a running time of 122 minutes. It went on release in the UK today and goes on release in the USA on May 17th.
Thursday, April 04, 2024
RIPLEY (TV)**
I absolutely adore Patricia Highsmith's Ripley novels. They are slippery and subversive and dark and dangerous and about the best crime procedurals you can read. I have also loved many of the iterations by which Ripley has found himself on the big screen, from PLEIN SOLEIL to RIPLEY'S GAME and Anthony Minghella's superlative TALENTED MR RIPLEY.
When I first heard that Andrew Scott (ALL OF US STRANGERS) was cast as Ripley I was excited but I assumed that this would be an adaptation of one of the later books when Ripley was older. I was shocked to discover that this was actually an adaptation of the source novel where the characters are meant to be in their twenties. Johnny Flynn's Dickie is also in his forties. The problem is that this makes the concept of the book seem ... well ... odd. Dickie Greenleaf dodging his responsibilities on a kind of extended gap year in Italy feels right for pretty young things but doesn't quite work for middle-aged men. And thanks to Zaillian's choice to go for black and white photography, life in Italy never feels beautiful and lush and seductive. Rather, we start off in a world that is decaying and deserted and rather drab. It's hard to see what in Dickie and Marge's existence would be attractive to Tom. Their life doesn't feel particularly luxurious. And there's no sexual tension between Dickie and Tom, and certainly no apparent love for Dickie on Marge's part. It's just all so flat.
As we move into the second act, things pick up pace. The crime procedural has its own momentum. Whether it needs five episodes though, is doubtful. We see the quality of Eliot Sumner as Freddie Miles in their pivotal scene with Tom. A scene that is played very differently to how Philip Seymour Hoffman played it, but with no less menace. The problem is that Eliot is a good fifteen years younger than Andrew Scott and seems to be in a totally different film.
So far so problematic, but where this adaptation totally loses it is in the final episode. We begin episode eight with a flashback to Caravaggio which is way too on the noise, and a clear case of a showrunner being given way too much running time to pad out. We also get a confrontation between the police inspector and Tom that's so literally incredible it destroyed any respect I had for this adaptation. Minghella's choice to have them never meet was the more elegant solution.
RIPLEY was released on Netflix today.
Monday, March 25, 2024
DAMSEL**
DAMSEL is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 110 minutes. It was released on Netflix a few weeks ago.
SHIRLEY***
ROAD HOUSE (2024)**
ROAD HOUSE is rated R and has a running time of 121 minutes. It played SXSW and is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
MADAME WEB**
New York, 2003. A tough cynical loner paramedic resents her dead mother for conducting dangerous experiments in South America while pregnant, so dying in childbirth. After an accident, the loner discovers she can see into the future and so prevent bad stuff happening. She also finds herself taking care of three young women who are being stalked by an evil villain in a spider suit. He's also had a vision that these wastrels are gonna kill him in the future. Meanwhile, our heroine's best friend and fellow paramedic Ben Parker's sister-in-law is about to go into labour.
The well known problem with MADAME WEB is that 15 years into the Marvel revolution nobody gives a shit. Dakota Johnson - whose low-key low-energy style suits many an indie film - definitely doesn't give a shit about a lead role she is miscast in. Tahar Rahim (NAPOLEON) and Zosia Mamet (Girls) is wasted as the baddie. The three young women are given underwritten parts that are just a bag of tropes. Spoiled rich brat, nerdy shy girl etc. The action scenes from first-time feature director S J Clarkson are uninspired. The prologue is unnecessary. And the script is overlong with too many establishing examples of how being pre-cog works. The final shot features a now blind and paraplegic Madame Web hovering, masked, with her three proteges. It's a flash forward to a film nobody wants to see.
MADAME WEB is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 113 minutes. It is on global release.
BOB MARLEY: ONE LOVE**
BOB MARLEY: ONE LOVE has a running time of 117 minutes and is rated PG-13. It went on global release last month.
Thursday, March 21, 2024
LOVE LIES BLEEDING**
MERCHANT IVORY*****
MERCHANT IVORY played BFI Flare 2024 and will get a US release at some point this year. It has a running time of 112 minutes.
Saturday, March 09, 2024
THE GENTLEMEN (TV)****
Guy Ritchie comes to our TV screens with a series that is a highly satisfying greatest hits mash-up of his mockney gangster films, like LOCK, STOCK to SNATCH. All the classic Ritchie tropes are here. Colourful East End gangsters in well-cut tweed. Thick as mince posh boys snorting coke getting rinsed by aforementioned gangsters. A cool, smart, stunning woman at the centre of it all. Vinnie Jones in a cameo role. Illegal boxing. Travellers. Ganga farms on country estates. And a handsome protagonist who spends most of his time sorting out other people's bullshit. Oh and let's not forget the plotting - so complex, so full of double-crosses - and yet all resolving beautifully in the final act.
The good news is that while this show is set in the same world as Ritchie's feature film of the same name, you don't have to have watched that to enjoy the TV show. It opens cold establishing the bona fides of our hero, Eddie Horniman. He's a British soldier serving with UN Peacekeepers - and his skill for refined violence and defraying anger are going to come in handy. Eddie is played with suave cool by Theo James, of White Lotus season two fame. James treats this is a James Bond audition and is highly convincing in the role.
The action begins when Eddie's father dies, leaving his title and estate to Eddie rather than his feckless big brother Freddy. Turns out daddy was leasing out the estate to Bobby Glass (Ray Winstone) to grow industrial quantities of ganga, managed by Bobby's daughter Suzy (Kaya Scodelario). Oh, and Freddy is in hock to some mean Liverpudlian cocaine-dealers who funded his drug-induced gambling binge. Meanwhile, Giancarlo Esposito plays a mega rich American dealer who is keen to take over the business, and Eddie just wants to clear his brother's debts and get his estate back. The series arc is effectively the process of Eddie discovering that as much as he says he wants out, he's actually pretty good at being a gangster.
I really enjoyed this show. The lavish country house settings are beautifully filmed. The characters are compelling, the costumes stunning and the music propels the action scenes. Ritchie knows exactly what he's doing with this material, and while the the tropes are familiar, it still felt fresh and I was genuinely struggling to figure out how it would all resolve. I absolutely loved the final final final twist and really hope we get a second season.
Of the performances, Daniel Ings is the break-out star, with an instantly iconic chicken scene - you'll know what I mean when you see it - at the end of the first episode. I was also pleasantly surprised to see Vinnie Jones deliver a modulated performance, rather than just playing a pastiche of his bad boy football persona. I can't believe I am saying this, but it's Jones who delivers the one genuinely emotional scene in the whole series. Kudos to him.
THE GENTLEMEN is an eight episode miniseries available on Netflix.
Tuesday, March 05, 2024
MARY & GEORGE (TV)****
This gives our heroine Mary Beaumont her chance at societal advancement, wealth and power. Born a serving woman, by the time we meet her she has already successfully faked an aristocratic lineage and buried her first husband. She marries a country booby in order to maintain her children, and grooms her son George to seduce the King. That they both achieve great power and set up her descendants as those the Dukes of Buckingham is a testament to Mary's intelligence, ruthlessness and strategic brilliance.
Iconic actress Julianne Moore (MAY DECEMBER) perfectly embodies this complex and ambiguous woman. She is no feminist - happily sacrificing a rich heiress to her mentally ill and violent younger son. But one cannot help but admire her resilience and resourcefulness in a world where she had no lineage and few legal rights. It is testament to Nicholas Galitzine (RED, WHITE & ROYAL BLUE) that he matches her beat for beat. When we first meet his George he is young, fragile and drifting. By the end he is out-strategising both his mother and the King. He remains compelling throughout. In smaller roles, I admired Tony Curran's ability to make James so much more complex and indeed admirable than just a "cockstruck" dilettante. I also very much liked Sean Gilder as Mary's new husband, and Nicola Walker gets all the best lines as the scabrous, independently wealthy Lady Harron.
The production design, costumes, music, and locations are all beautifully done. The show is a joy to watch, and as far as I can tell, the broad historical outlines are close to the real history. My only real criticism of the show is that it cannot maintain the brilliantly funny brutal comedy of its opening episodes and that once the Villiers get closer to power, a dark pall falls over the show. I felt that somewhere around episode 5 the drama lost its intensity and zest and we drifted toward the inevitable grim ending. I wanted more of the bawdy language and nakedly open powerplays - notably between Mary and Lady Harron. The show suffered for the latter's loss.
MARY & GEORGE is available to watch in its entirety in the UK on Sky. It releases next month in the USA on Starz.
Sunday, March 03, 2024
DUNE: PART TWO***
THE IRON CLAW*****
SILVER HAZE*****
Thursday, January 18, 2024
THE COLOR PURPLE (2023)**
THE BOYS IN THE BOAT**
Sunday, January 14, 2024
DREAM SCENARIO****
DREAM SCENARIO is rated R and has a running time of 102 minutes. It played Toronto 2023 and was released in the USA and UK last November.
THE DISAPPEARANCE OF SHERE HITE****
GOOD GRIEF**
Friday, January 05, 2024
SOCIETY OF THE SNOW*****
SOCIETY OF THE SNOW is rated R and has a running time of 144 minutes. It played Venice 2023 and was released today on Netflix.
Thursday, January 04, 2024
STRANDED (2007) *****
In 1972 a charter plane carrying a Chilean college rugby team crashed into the Andes when the pilot made a navigational error amidst a heavy snowstorm. These were rich medical students who lived by the sea and had, many of them, never seen snow before. The atmosphere on board before the crash was one of high jinks and festive jubilation. This ended abruptly with the crash. The pilots soon died, the back of the plane had been sheered off, there was very little food, and the radio told them the rescue had been called off. Faced with certain death, this group of Catholic college boys were rallied by two things - the leadership of their team captain who rationed their food with discipline and fairness. And then the profound decision to cross the taboo of cannibalism in order to survive. For some, this was a challenging but rational decision - these were men of medical science after all. But for others, with a deep Catholic faith, it was a sin that could damn them, and it needed to be justified in terms of an act of consuming the Eucharist.
Gonzalo Arijon's documentary, made 35 years after the accident, is a triumph of film-making. He has access to many of the survivors and their family members and reconstructs the events through their testimony and some recreations. They are candid about their emotions at the time and in retrospect. We hear grown men describe almost dying - slowly through starvation - and suddenly when an avalanche buries them alive. We see the pain on their faces and in their voices when they discuss the need to eat their friends. We see the deep care taken to respect the dead, and to be honest with the rescuers for the sake of the families.
The result is a film that is by turns moving and dramatic. Despite knowing the outline of the story I was again and again taken aback by the men's candid insights and resilience. Truly this is a story of the importance of friendship, camaraderie and the willingness to survive. I was left with nothing but admiration for the men.
STRANDED has a running time of 130 minutes. It played Sundance 2008 and can be viewed in full on YouTube.
Wednesday, January 03, 2024
THE ARCHIES**
THE ARCHIES has a running time of 141 minutes. It was released on Netflix last December.