JOY**

Director Ben Taylor (Sex Education) and writer Jack Thorne (ENOLA HOLMES) deliver a rather earnest but tepid biopic about the scientists who developed IVF.  Maybe earnestness is what this topic requires, but it does rather strain the two-hour running time.

The cast is, however, mostly great.  James Norton plays biologist Robert Edwards, fizzing with excitement and energy and impatient with barriers.  He teams up with near-retirement obstetrician Dr Patrick Steptoe (an understated and moving Bill Nighy) whose ability to delicately extract the candidates' eggs allows Edwards to attempt to fertilise them in vitro. Tanya Moodie is wonderfully stern and pragmatic as the fictional NHS Nurse who has to manage the patients and the ward.  The only weak link is Thomasin McKenzie as the real-life research nurse who project managed the entire affair, Jean Purdy.  There is something in her line delivery that I found unconvincing. 

My suspicion is that there is a far more interesting film to be made about the opposition to the research - whether religious (represented here by Purdy's mother - an always excellent Joanna Scanlan) - scientific - or simply bureaucratic. We get some of that here but it is rather lightly skated over. I also feel that the film would have been more interesting if it had focussed on why Jean Purdy was not given due recognition for decades and despite Edwards' campaigning.  Basically I wanted something grittier and more nuanced than the rather Keep Calm and Carry On plain vanilla approach taken here.

JOY has a running time of 115 minutes, is rated PG-13, and was released on Netflix last month.

ENOLA HOLMES 2****

I was an enormous fan the original Enola Holmes film and I’m please to report that the sequel, reuniting most of the talent in front of and behind the lens, is just as smart and funny. It’s even more pleasing that the central murder-mystery is really well-constructed, and that the movie manages to incorporate its real history of the rise of the women’s labour movement with a light touch that is genuinely moving, rather than being crude or too on the nose.

The film opens with Enola (Millie Bobby Brown) struggling to find customers who take her detecting skills seriously. In desperation she takes the case of a missing match-girl which leads to the wider mystery of why so many of these factory workers are dying of typhus and why the profits at the factory have mysteriously rocketed. This brings Enola into the path of her famous elder brother Sherlock (Henry Cavill) whose case about corruption at the highest levels of government and industry is seemingly connected with Enola’s.  

Along the way, we get to re-connect with Enola’s aristocratic love interest Lord Tewkesbury (Louis Partridge), the martial arts supremo Edith (Susan Wokoma) and of course the proto-feminist that is Enola’s mum (Helena Bonham Carter).  And of the new cast members, David Thewlis is particularly scene-chomping as the nasty policeman, Inspector Grail. We also get a marvellous cameo from Sharon Duncan-Brewster, who was so impressive as Liet-Kynes in the recent DUNE remake.

The resulting film is fast-paced and often Guy Ritchie-inspired in its kinetic fight scenes.  There’s plenty of fun and even some meta-comedy at the expense of the knowing fourth-wall breaking catchphrase “Tis I!”

The only character I can’t get my head around is Cavill’s Sherlock, playing against type because his character has far less action than the female characters. He mostly looks grave and concerned and doesn’t entirely convince in his early scene as a drunk.  It’s interesting to see that the writers have given him a sidekick - Dr Watson - in the final credits scene. Let’s see how Cavill does in a more conventional buddy-comedy role.

ENOLA HOLMES 2 has a running time of 129 minutes and is rated PG-13. It is released on Netflix today.

ENOLA HOLMES

 

I thoroughly enjoyed ENOLA HOLMES - a wonderfully funny, earnest and kinetic young adult detective caper starring Millie Bobby Brown as the younger sister of Mycroft and Sherlock Holmes.  In this version of fictional history, Enola (Brown) is raised by her eccentric but learned mother (Helena Bonham Carter) until said mother mysteriously vanishes.  Stuffy conservative Mycroft packs Enola off to a boarding school but she soon escapes to find her mother.  That first mystery isn't really solved, setting us up for a sequel, although it is hinted that mum is a radical activist feminist. So we get a second mystery: just who is trying to assassinate handsome but feckless young Lord Tewkesbury (Louis Partridge).  As befits a progressive work, it is Enola who saves Tewkesbury rather than the other way around, and she solves the mystery of the case before her indulgent brother Sherlock (Cavill). The result is a pleasingly feminist and funny caper that shows just how good Millie Bobby Brown is at comedy. I doubt many other actresses could get away with breaking the fourth wall as often and with such wit as she does. I am very much looking forward to the inevitable sequel.

ENOLA HOLMES has a running time of 123 minutes and is rated PG-13. 

THE AERONAUTS - BFI London Film Festival 2019 - Day Seven

Despite my cynicism at another of those classy awards-bait earnest turns from Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones, I am overjoyed to report that THE AERONAUTS is an absolutely captivating film, with characters that I deeply cared about, stunning visuals, and a wonderful message.  In these dark times, it's just so refreshing to have a film that's all about how science benefits humanity, and that it's worth risking your life for.  It's also refreshing to have a film featuring a strong female lead who doesn't confirm to society's misogynistic template of where she should find fulfilment and happiness. A couple of times I feared the film might want to give us a schmaltzy Hollywood ending but it resisted.  Science is enough! We don't need hokey romance.

So what's it all about? THE AERONAUTS is based on the memoirs of the real-life meteorologist James Glaisher, who in the 1860s flew a hot air balloon to 37,000 feet, breaking by far the previous record, and gathering all sorts of useful and wondrous scientific data.  In real life, he did it with a co-pilot who was male, but the film posits that his pilot was a female - Amelia Wren, who had flown with her now deceased husband Pierre.  In this version of events, while Glaisher (Redmayne) is a keen scientist, he lacks practical experience and very much needs Amelia's help.  Amelia (Jones) is a talented pilot but also a pragmatic entertainer.  She realises that she almost has to be a circus performer entertaining the crowd.  Throughout their journey, it's Amelia who is in control, both technically and emotionally. And this really is her story more than James'.

I really loved how the aeronautical experiment takes place in real time, with the height and time passed showed in a graph on screen. The production design, including this device, is all stunningly beautiful, and the cinematography and vis-effects are wondrous, and never feel fake.  The film really filled me with the excitement of being above the cloud line, I was alive to every twist and turn, and felt the excitement of every challenge. 

So kudos to all involved behind the lens - especially director and co-writer Tom Harper (WILD ROSE), to co-writer Jack Thorne (WAR BOOK), cinematographer George Steel (WILD ROSE) and production designers (David Hindle and Christian Huband). 

THE AERONAUTS has a running time of 101 minutes, and played Toronto, Telluride and London 2019. It will be released in the UK on November 6th and in the USA on December 6th.