KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON*** - BFI London Film Festival 2023 - Day 5

Martin Scorsese is an iconic masterful film-maker and his latest film, KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON is perfection in every frame. The problem is, to quote the King in Amadeus, there are too many notes.  Scorsese's film is three and a half hours long and could easily have shed an hour of its running time and lost none of its narrative coherence, political importance or emotional resonance. I fear that Scorsese has become a victim of the lack of discipline afforded to directors funded by streamers.  He has lost sight of what it feels like to be a cinema audience asked to endure nearly four hours of a beautifully crafted but lugubrious narrative.  Maybe he should just admit that - as much as he advocates for cinema - this is just meant to be viewed on Apple TV over consecutive nights as a kind of self-curated TV series.

The film takes place in Osage County, Oklahoma and tells the true story of a series of horrific murders that took place in the inter-war years.  The Osage discovered oil on their land, and became ludicrously wealthy thanks to head rights to the leases.  But the white man could not abide this upending of the racial order, and just as he took revenge on the black middle classes in Tulsa, he took revenge in Osage.  Osage were often placed under a kind of conservatorship so they couldn't freely spend their wealth, they were ripped off by white merchants, and finally they were married and murdered for their head rights.

This film and the excellent book upon which it is based by David Grann focuses on the story of one family, while making it clear that there were many other murders. Mollie Burckhardt is one of four sisters, whose mother will eventually leave them her head rights.  Mollie falls for Ernest Burckhardt, whose uncle "King" Hale poses as a friend of the Osage while plotting to make sure that all of that inheritance flows to his nephew. The tragedy of the tale is seeing how far Ernest betrayed the woman he loved, and his own children, because "I sure do like that money". Eventually the crimes become so heinous, that, with the help of substantial Osage lobbying, Washington cannot ignore them. The nascent FBI is called in and justice is served of a sort.

The structure of this film is broadly speaking two hours of family life and murder followed by 90 minutes of police and courtroom procedural.  I feel we could have lost a lot of time from both but particularly the latter section. That said, as I said, everyone is on top form here. Robbie Robertson's score (his last) is kinetic - Rodrigo Prieto's cinematography is beautiful; Lily Gladstone is magisterial as Mollie and Leonardo di Caprio and Robert de Niro are compelling as her husband and his uncle respectively. I just felt zoned out by the end of it, and the final epilogue of justice lost its impact, which is a tremendous shame.

KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON has a running time of 206 minutes and is rated R. It played Cannes and London 2023. It goes on global release on October 20th.

A STAR IS BORN (2018)

What an absolute surprise to find that Bradley Cooper's remake of A STAR IS BORN is so well-made, so well-acted, so desperately moving and watchable! I approached it with caution, a sense of wonder that it was necessary at all, but all my fears were over-turned by this beautifully naturalistic, painfully raw depiction of an ingenue tragically in love with a traumatised, alcoholic old showman. 

As in the other versions of the film (see below) the film begins with a meet-cute between the two artists. The first is the alcoholic country rock star Mason Craine, played by a grizzled Cooper, and fairly close in tone to Kris Kristofferson's interpretation of the role.  Cooper adopts an accent that's so deep and southern I sometimes struggled to hear him through his mumbling, but later realised this was to make his being Sam Elliott's younger brother credible.  It's a superb impersonation.  Cooper doesn't hold back at all from showing the true depths of drug abuse and depression, and the rare moments when his eyes light up seeing Ally (Lady Gaga) sing are genuinely delightful.  We know that, as in other versions of the tale, he isn't jealous of her at all. Rather it's a relationship founded on the idea of a jaded, cynical, weary man, falling in love with is art again through the genuine joy of his protégée making the same journey he once did. I utterly believed in his character, and despite knowing how every beat would play out in this version of the film so faithful to the 1976 predecessor, I was genuinely tense at the set pieces.  And I really loved the fact that movie shifted its centre of attention a little from the leading lady to the man's story.  Kudos to Cooper as screenwriter for giving us this backstory. 

Lady Gaga is truly a revelation as Ally (the screenwriters have finally ditched the name Esther - a shame!) Stripped of the make-up and bleach blonde hair of her stage persona, Lady Gaga is truly beautiful, and delivers a performance of real nuance, strength and charisma.  But there's an added bizarre-o aspect as we see Gaga essentially act out the beats of her own career - the first experience on a big stage, the first Grammy nominations. There's also a meta discussion about Ally refusing to "pretty up" and then acquiescing to further her career. In all this I remain surprised that Gaga herself, reflecting on her experience making this film and how stunning she looks on screen, continues to market herself as a persona.  After all, she is not credited under her actual name but as Gaga. And she went back to blonde as soon as the film was over.

The meta narrative continues with a final reflection from Mason Craine - that the artist only plays with the same 12 notes over and over, and all he can do is offer up to the world his interpretation of them.  This is essentially what Cooper is doing with this well-worn material. But in centring it on a story of childhood trauma, rehab, youtube videos and SNL sketches, he has both made it contemporary and more profound. 

A STAR IS BORN is rated R and has a running time of 136 minutes.  It is on global release.

You can read reviews of the previous versions of A STAR IS BORN here:

The 1937 version starring Janet Gaynor and Fredric March [link]

The 1954 version starring Judy Garland and James Mason [link]

The 1976 version starring Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson [link]

EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE

EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE is an offensive film based on a faithful adaptation of an offensive novel. To that end, the blame for this exploitative, incredible (literally) movie lies with Jonathan Safran Foer - the novelist who exploited 9-11 to further his narcissistic fictional stylings.  It's hard to see how screenwriter Eric Roth could've adapted the film while minimises the absurd central conceit that powers the film.  And as for Stephen Daldry - once again, is it his poor judgement or his inability to disentangle himself from the mawkishness and self-indulgence that pollutes the novel?

The Big Idea is that a kid called Oskar Schell (Thomas Horn), borderline autistic, is so traumatised by his father's death in 9-11 that he obsesses over the idea that his father might have left him one last puzzle - a key with the name "black".  So he roams Manhattan interviewing every black, looking for the lock that his key will fit - some of the time, accompanied by a mute old man call The Renter (Max von Sydow) who turns out to be his grandfather (no real spoiler there).  Eventually, he finds the lock, and we discover why his mother is being so apparently irresponsible, but none of it really feels credible.  And, as with all high concept films, the incredible nature of the premise truly undermines our empathy with the characters. That said, even without the ludicrous concept, EXTREMELY LOUD & INCREDIBLY CLOSE would stretch any viewers patience.  The characters either fall between the downright irritating (Oskar Schell and his mother) or the unbelievably good-hearted (Oskar's father - surely the most attentive screen dad in history).  One can only assume that it's the presence of Hanks and Bullocks - Oscar sweethearts - that got this film nominated.  Max von Sydow is sympathetic - sure - but his nomination looks like an end-of-career pat-on-the-back rather than a specific acclamation.   

All I can say is that this is hands down the most irritating, exploitative film I have seen in quite some time. I discard it.

EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE is already on release in the USA and Canada. It will play Berlin 2012. It opens on February 16th in Germany, Portugal, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, the UK and Japan. It opens on February 24th in Argentina, Australia, Chile and Finland. It opens on February 29th in Belgium, France, Singapore and Brazil. It opens on March 8th in the Czech Republic and the Netherlands; on March 16th in Italy, Spain and Turkey; and on March 22nd in Slovenia.  EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE has been nominated for the Best Picture Oscar and Max von Sydow has been nominated for Best Supporting Actor. 

THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON - technically brilliant, emotionally sterile

THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON is a very, very long, oppressive movie based on a very, very short, funny story about F Scott Fitzgerald. The only commonality is that both book and film are about a man called Benjamin who is born as an old man and ages backwards - through decrepitude, into middle-age, to the sexual immaturity, childhood to infancy and then death. His life experiences come in the right order, but his body rebels. As a newly born old man he has cataracts and arthritis. As a long-lived infant he suffers from dementia. In middle age, he has to grapple with how to live someone who is "going the other way".

The movie is broadly speaking, an elegy. An elegy for the young men who died needlessly in World War One and the old men slaughtered in front of Benjamin's eyes in World War Two. It's an elegy for lost opportunity and failed marriages. It's an elegy for those who we condemn to death before their time, shutting them away in nursing homes, fit only for ceremonial visits once a year. Finally, most clumsily, it's an elegy for the New Orleans that was destroyed in Katrina.

Insofar as the movie works at all, the first ninety minutes pass quickly. The viewer is mesmerized by the fairy-tale feel of the story - enlivened by the fabulist prologue concerning a blind watchmaker and tales of a man struck by lightening seven times. I could have used more of that charming whimsy. The movie simply looks fantastic, and as David Fincher and DP Claudio Miranda take us into steamy brothels, misty tug boats, and shabby Soviet hotels, the senses are overwhelmed. 

Where the movie falls down is when the traveling stops and Benjamin returns home after the war and we focus on his relationship with Daisy. She was fascinated by him as a child, throws herself at him as a twenty-something, rejects him at thirty and finally has a passionate affair with him in her forties. They "meet in the middle", but their tragedy is that they cannot grow old together. I think this part of the movie failed for me because I just didn't buy into why Daisy would find Benjamin so fascinating - a character who has become a passive observer of a world he is separated from by his freakish aging process. I find passive heroes very hard to get a hold of. I also just didn't buy into the motivation that underpins a major decision at the centre of the second half of the film. And if you don't buy into it - if you don't feel you are being swept up in an emotional tragedy - the second half of the movie is a pretty tedious affair.

All of which got me thinking what I really liked about the film. It certainly wasn't the passive performance from Brad Pitt as Benjamin or the rather typically good but not outstanding performance from Cate Blanchett as Daisy. Rather, I responded to the little vignettes, and the colourful characters that filled the margins of the story.  Taraji P Henson, Tilda Swinton and Jared Harris all give strong performances but the latter is particularly charismatic as the drunken Irish sailor who takes a semi-decrepit Benjamin from his "child-hood" home in New Orleans to Communist Russia and thence to World War Two. In addition, there's also something fascinating and funny about "fish out of water" stories. To that end, seeing an old-looking but pre-teen Benjamin visit a brothel or get drunk is wonderfully funny. But let's not get too pretentious. It's the same brand of entertainment as FREAKY FRIDAY.

So, in the final analysis, for me BENJAMIN BUTTON is a game of two halves - a beautifully made, elegaic fable enlivened by the odd flash of raucous humour, somehow hitched to a film that tries to be an epic love story but left me cold. 

THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON opened in 2008 in the US and Australia. It opened earlier in 2009 in Turkey, the Philippines, Brazil, Sweden, Egypt, Greece, Portugal, Denmark, Poland, Argentina, Germany, the Netherlands, Russia, Switzerland, Austria, Iceland and Venezuela. It opens this weekend in Belgium, France, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Estonia, Italy, Norway, the UK and Japan. It opens next weekend in South Korea and on February 20th in Finland.

LUCKY YOU - strangely unengaging

LUCKY YOU is a truly banal film. The movie is about a professional poker player called Huck Cheever (Eric Bana) struggling to a) get the entry money for the World Series of Poker b) defeat his estranged father, two-time world champion LC Cheever (Robert Duvall), and c) win the heart of pure-hearted singer Billie Offer (Drew Barrymore).

Each of these three story strands utterly fails to engage the audience. As each actor is gifted, I can only put this down to bad writing and direction. Curtis Hanson, who so skilfully directed LA CONFIDENTIAL, films the poker games in an entirely pedestrian style. He also fails to elicit memorable or even engaged performances from his lead actors. Hanson also fails to use his DP, Peter Deming, well. Consider that the same DP, working with David Lynch, created the unforgettable visuals of MULHOLLAND DRIVE. As a co-writer, Hanson has the bad fortune to be mixed up with screen-writer, Eric Roth. Roth is a serial offender, creating one bloated, over-complicated, banal script after another. I give you MUNICH, ALI, THE GOOD SHEPHERD, and THE HORSE WHISPERER as evidence. Here, Roth resorts to truly painful platitudes. At the key emotional moment of the film, he has Billie tell Huck: "You know what I think? I think that everyone's just trying not to be lonely." Ye Gods. L C Cheever tells his son Huck, "You got it backwards kid. You play cards the way you should lead your life. And you lead your life the way you should play cards." Such wisdom!

The final, fatal problem with this movie is that while there is too much poker for the uninitiated to deal with, for anyone with a passing interest in the game, the hands are either too dramatic and improbable, or too curtailed to be engaging.

Grim. With the exception of fascinating five minute cameo from Robert Downey Junior.

LUCKY YOU was released in the US, France, the Philippines, Australia, Portugal, Greece and Argentina earlier this year. It opens in Brazil, Italy, the UK and Japan this weekend. It opens in Germany on June 28th, in Belgium in Jly 18th and in Spain on July 27th 2007.