SHE SAID - BFI London Film Festival 2022 - Day 10

SHE SAID is a Tab A into Slot B journo-procedural that's basically a worthy TV movie.  It stars Zoe Kazan and Carey Mulligan as the real-life New York Times investigative reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey who broke the Harvey Weinstein scandal by convincing some of his victims to bravely go on the record.  This in turn helped trigger the Me Too movement.  Their story is clearly important, and this film straightforwardly shows the tenacity and courage - not to mention supportive husbands/fathers - needed expose a powerful rapist.

The question is whether a feature film is the right format to tell this story. Or whether THIS feature film made by this director and writer. My view is that Maria Schrader's direction is so workmanlike as to be banal, and uses a script from Rebecca Lenkiewicz that is faithful to the book, but is never gripping and doesn't move. In fact, the only truly moving part of the whole film is when they use actual real life audio of a very frightened young woman being goaded and harrassed by Harvey Weinstein into an entering a room with him even after he acknowledges that she feels uncomfortable that he touched her breast the day before. That is absolutely chilling and says more about this scandal than any re-enactment. Having seen it, I became convinced that this story would have been better told as a documentary.

As it is, we have a film that will educate those that did not read the original reporting or the book, and that has value I suppose. But this is NOT an award-worthy film except if virtue-signalling.  It's very much a made-for-TV film.

SHE SAID is rated R and has a running time of 128 minutes. It will be released in the USA on November 18th and in the UK on November 25th.

THE KING - BFI London Film Festival 2019 - Day Three

David Michod (ANIMAL KINGDOM) and Joel Edgerton (THE GIFT) have reworked the story of King Henry V to create this beautifully acted but historically dodgy version of a familiar tale.  So heavy is the reworking that I felt its being marketed as an adaptation of Shakespeare's Henriad went against the Trades Description Act.  Those looking for Shakespeare's inspired comedy, beautiful poetry, or inspiring eve-of-battle speeches will be disappointed.  Really, this isn't Shakespeare at all, other than including a character called Falstaff, who turns up at Agincourt unlike in the play Henry V.  Still, once you throw off those expectations, what you are left with is a very serious, rather earnest character study, of a young man who hates his father's paranoia and penchant for war, but ends up committing the very same war crimes on a humbug.

Timothee Chalamet is absolutely superb as Hal, with a perfect upper class English accent and a deep brooding concern as he slides into war.  For such a young, skinny boy, he's absolutely credible in single combat and on the battlefield. He is matched turn for turn by Joel Edgerton in the role of a lifetime. Falstaff steals the show as he should, but as a far quieter, more sage, noble man than in the play.  Sean Harris is masterfully manipulative as the King's adviser William, and even Lily-Rose Depp, in a small role at the end has a very contemporary feminist gravitas.  The only bum note is Robert Pattinson as the dauphin, so camp and shrill as to be in another film entirely.  It's also clear that the team behind the film don't really know much about medieval warfare, in terms of when and how armour and weaponry is used. That said, they did successfully convey Falstaff's battle tactics in action.

Overall, this really is a compelling film, full of strong performances - maybe Chalamet and Edgerton's best - wonderful cinematography and a subtle score from Nicholas Britell. It deserves to be seen on the big screen rather than on Netflix's streaming service and I hope they give it a decent theatrical roll-out.

THE KING has a running time of 134 minutes and is rated R. It played Venice and London and will be released by Netflix on November 1st. 

BATTLE OF THE SEXES - Day 4 - BFI London Film Festival 2017

Co-directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE) and screenwriter Simon Beaufoy (SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE) have created an immensely likeable and uplifting movie in BATTLE OF THE SEXES. It's the story of an infamous exhibition tennis match played in the mid-70s between one of the all time greats of women's tennis - Billie Jean King (Emma Stone) and an ageing former Grand Slam winner Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell).  Both are absolutely fascinating characters.  Riggs is a paunchy fifty year old on a second marriage to a rich woman (Elisabeth Shue).  He has a gambling habit and a love of the limelight, and while earning a pittance on the seniors tour become irked that the women are demanding more money.  Those women are led by Billie Jean King - who in a no-nonsense straightforward way asks why, if the women sell as many tickets as the men, they don't get paid as much? What's more, King is willing to back herself - setting up a rival women's tour with tennis promoter Gladys Heldman (Sarah Silverman). In doing so, she goes head to head with the misogynistic head of the USLTA Jack Kramer (Bill Pullman). The set up of the film is thus an exhibition match between Riggs and King where she has to win to rescue the reputation of women's tennis and indeed make a point about equality to the millions of people watching on TV.  But as she rightly points out, the real point to be made is against Kramer and his ilk rather than the buffoon-like Riggs. 

Behind the scenes we also have intense emotional battles. As the world now knows, King, though married to the deeply supportive and remarkably accommodating Larry, is equally gay. In the course of the film she begins a passionate affair with the tour hairdresser Marilyn (Andrea Riseborough), something that Larry tacitly condones, but that is hidden from the press and King's parents.  The more fascinating reaction is that of King's rival Margaret Court, who is a wife, mother and apparent homophobe. Having done a quick bit of internet research about her, I can't help but think that it let Court off very lightly.  Arguably the more fascinating relationship, because it's less well-known, is that of Riggs and his wife.  She is evidently a strong woman, and analyses their relationship very clearly.  She loves his humour and large personality, but hates his gambling and general unreliability.  Although one of the smaller roles in the film, Elisabeth Shue imbues it with such humanity and compassion that it really was the stand out part of the film.  

As for the rest, well it's all very well done. And Stone absolutely gets some of the physical mannerisms of King and Carell is almost spookily similar to the real-life Riggs. Is the direction pioneering or meaningfully interesting? No not really. But that's what this film is.  To quote Meester Phil, this is the two hour and one minute version of the one minute forty second trailer. This is a movie that really just tells a good story well - it doesn't over-complicate it, and it's a good time. 

BATTLE OF THE SEXES has a running time of 121 minutes and is rated PG-13.  BATTLE OF THE SEXES played London and Toronto 2017 and is already on release in the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It opens in Brazil on October 19th, in Hong Kong on November 2nd, in Spain on November 10th, in Germany on November 16th, in France, the Netherlands, Singapore and the UK on November 24th, in Argentina on November 30th, in Colombia on December 7th and in Poland on December 8th.

MOONLIGHT

In over a decade of watching over 200 movies a year, and trying to seek out independent movies, I've never seen a film about gay black men.  That's really quite something when you think about it.  And so it's deeply refreshing and heartening to see MOONLIGHT capture critical praise.  That said, while I found much to admire in its intent and some of its performances, it was a less moving and impressive watch than I had anticipated.  

The film is written and directed by Barry Jenkins, based on an unproduced play by Tarell Alvin McCraney and is based on their childhood experience of growing up gay in a deeply dysfunctional black community in Florida.  What's impressive is that they manage to subvert the stereotypes of the black drug dealer and the crack whore, and the entire concept of masculinity by showing us what they know. The result is a film that feels claustrophobic and melancholy - of a community that is fundamentally dysfunctional, in which its members feel trapped, but where there is some slight hope of escape. It's also a community that feels odd to English eyes insofar as it's so un-diverse - the only white face we see is a cop.

The formal structure of the play carries over to the film: we meet our protagonist at three ages, in three thirty-five minute segments.  In the first part he's a skinny schoolkid called Chiron (Alex R Hibbert), bullied for being camp, who finds solace from his crack addict single mother with a drug dealer called Juan (Mahershala Ali) and his girlfriend, Teresa (Jangle Monae).  Against all expectations, it's the drug dealer who proves caring, understanding and comforting - even going so far as to tell young Chiron that he doesn't need to figure out of he's gay yet, and even if he is, he shouldn't feel ashamed of it.  Moreover, Juan is morally complex, at once judgmental of Chiron's mother's drug addiction, but also conscious that he's the man selling to her.  The power of Ali's performance in this segment is quite dazzling, and I'm not sure the film ever really recovers from his absence.