TICK, TICK...BOOM!****

 

I came to TICK, TICK...BOOM! knowing nothing about its subject, real-life musical theatre composer and performer, Jonathan Larson. I know RENT - his hit show - primarily for its South Park spook, "Everybody has AIDS". So when the opening framing device revealed that Larson died the night before his hit show opened, I assumed it was from AIDS. What an idiot. Two hours later, I learned that Larson died of aortic failure in his early thirties having slaved away at various commercially failed projects, living in a crappy 1990s New York apartment, and generally struggling to hold onto this love of theatre despite the temptations of getting a Real. Job. 

That I found Lin Manuel Miranda's movie of Larson's last decade is testament to Andrew Garfield's lead performance. To call it big is an understatement, and for anyone less charming, Larson might come off as an insufferably insecure, selfish attention seeker. In Garfield's hands, one cannot but admire Larson's energy and gregarious good humour even as he suffers crippling self-doubt and ... whisper it quietly... his songs aren't that good. Maybe RENT was though? I shall endeavour to find out.

TICK, TICK...BOOM! has a running time of 115 minutes and is rated PG-13. It was released earlier this year on Netflix.

DESTROYER - BFI London Film Festival 2018 - Day Five - Official Competition

DESTROYER is a movie so tightly written, so well directed, so brilliantly tense, that by the end of the screening it was hands down the best film I had seen to date in the festival - and all that despite the fact that the make-up work is so over-done it kept bringing me out of the film for its entire running time. 

The film takes place over three time periods.  The earliest is when Nicole Kidman's young local cop, Erin Bell, is teamed up with Sebastian Stan's Fed, to go undercover with a gang of bank robbers led by Toby Kebbell's Silas. In this era, everyone in the gang is playing their age, but Kidman is playing 25 years younger with some very well done subtle make-up and hair.  The next period is maybe a few months or a year later. The young couple are ensconced in the gang, and living rough has made Erin - well - rougher:  her hair is messier, her eyes start to get dark circles.  Still very credible.  And then we move forward 16 years to the current day. A now older Erin still works for the police, and is investigating a murder that signals to her that her old adversary, Silas, is back and settling old scores.  Erin is maybe in her early 40s, so actually younger than Kidman.  But she looks at least mid 50s and incredible worn by what we have to assume is heavy drinking.  The circles under the eyes, the red bloodshot look, the extreme weathering of the skin, the sunspots on the hands.  To me, this all felt just way too much. And it's not helped by the fact that director Karyn Kusama (JENNIFER'S BODY, AEON FLUX) decides to focus on Bell's aged face at both the start and the end of the film. The guy who designed the make-up - Bill Corso - has done a fair bit of horror work before, and even DEADPOOL more recently. I just feel that a more naturalistic look may have worked better here. And I'm very curious to see whether other viewers found the make-up as distracting as I did. 

Anyway, the good news is that this film more than survives the bad make-up.  That it does is down to a genuinely tricksy, beautifully constructed script by long-time writing partners Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi; a sound-track that is alternately pulsating and violent or sweet and melancholy from Theodore Shapiro, and a landscape that is bleached out, harsh and lonely, created by DP Julie Kirkwood and the director. This bleak landscape beautifully frames our complicated, dark, angry protagonist - a woman trying to deal with the damage her past decisions have caused.  Some of this is done with smarts, but there's a fair amount of brutal violence, and what I love about the direction is that every punch, every kick, seems to really hurt.  This is no typical Hollywood violence. This has consequences. And the broken battered face and body of Erin Bell - just as of Jake in CHINATOWN - symbolise corruption - except this time it isn't the city, but the person. In other words, where DESTROYER creates that same tense thriller style of the great LA Noirs, the real subject isn't the system, but the personal struggle of a woman to protect those she loves, and ultimately to be at peace with herself. That this protection can only come with violent vengeance is fascinating - because it creates a female character as tough as any we've seen on screen, but one that is also hurt, fragile and trying to love. And that complexity is what makes this film so gripping. 

A final comment from Mr Phil:  The score was very reminiscent of 1970s David Shire scores from films like THE CONVERSATION and this is a good thing.

DESTROYER has a running time of 123 minutes. The film played Toronto 2018. It opens in the USA on December 25th and in the UK on January 25th.

GET OUT

GET OUT is a confident, subversive and visually assured horror movie from debut feature director (and longtime stand-up comedian) Jordan Peele.  It tells the story of a young African American man called Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) whose girlfriend (Allison Williams - GIRLS) takes him home to meet her parents (Catherine Keener and Bradley Whitford) for the first time.  As with all the best horror, there's a deep and subversive commentary on social conditions here.  And in the case of GET OUT, Jordan Peele is trying to tell us that the most insidious form of racism is that is secretly practiced by liberal educated rich white people - the people who vote for Obama and donate to the ACLU but don't actually want their daughters to date black men.  The director also seems to be sending a message to his fellow African Americans - a message warning against complacency about race relations. And this message is embodied in Chris' hilarious best friend Rod, who warns him against going to his girlfriend's parents house in the woods early on, and is instrumental in helping Chris as her parents turn out to be quite literally using the silver spoon of privilege to subjugate him.

This tale of modern day racial slavery is, then, deeply profound and provocative, but this film is also hilarious and frightening by turns.  It's quite astounding to see a debut director handle the tonal shifts with such aplomb, not to mention the impressive production design of the oppressive house and his eye for framing a visually iconic shot. The cast all deserve praise, although it was particularly interesting to see Allison Williams subvert her GIRLS character's preppy self-absorption in this film. But the subversive nature of this film is many faceted. I particularly enjoyed the fact that the most hated of bureaucrats and petty power brokers - the TSA - turn out to be good guys here. 

Ultimately, GET OUT feels like exactly the right movie for our times - in which the happy surprise of Obama's election is over-turned by the surprise victory of Trump - and in the wake of the #blacklivesmatter movement.  It entertains us but also reflects the deep fractures in American society.  And this may well be why the film continues to do so well at the box office.  

GET OUT has a running time of 104 minutes and is rated R.  The movie played Sundance 2017 and opened earlier this year in the USA, Canada, Philippines, Greece, Singapore, Estonia, UK, Ireland, Denmark, Kuwait and France. It opens on April 7th in Indonesia, Lithuania and Norway; on April 20th in Sweden, Hungary, Malaysia and Turkey; on April 28th in Poland; on May 4th in France, Australia, Switzerland, Chile, Germany, Portugal and Finland; on May 11th in Russia; on May 18th in Hong Kong, Italy and Spain; and on June 15th in Brazil.