OPERATION MINCEMEAT***

 

In 1943 the Allies were desperate to land troops in mainland Europe and open up a second front against the Axis powers, and the most obvious candidate was an amphibious landing in Sicily. The problem is that this was equally obvious to the enemy.  So, British counter-intelligence cooked up a cockamamie scheme to convince Hitler that the invasion would actually take place in Greece. The schemers did this by taking a dead Welsh man and floating him into harbour in Spain, disguised as a drowned Royal Marine Officer complete with locked attache case containing the fake plans. Why Spain? Because it was a technically neutral country filled with agents, double agents and triple agents, where the British felt they could map out the path of the fake intel all the way from Spanish fisherman to Hitler himself.  This operation was dubbed Mincemeat, and in Ben Macintyre's wildly popular non-fiction account of the ruse, he argued that it was the most successful intelligence operation in history. Who can tell? We can for sure say that by allowing the Allies to land on a less well defended beach, Mincemeat saved Allied lives.

This new film adaptation of the story is compelling when it sticks to the espionage plot.  John Madden (SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE) does a good job of telling a complicated story and while it does rather drip with British heritage derring do, it's not as jingoistic as it might have been.  Madden and screenwriter Michelle Ashford manage to add shades of nuance with the casting of Mark Gatiss as the potentially treasonous brother of the naval officer in charge of the deception (played by Colin Firth).  I wish they had explored this subplot further. Rather, they waste their time adding a fictional romantic triangle between Montagu - his nerdy colleague Cholmondely (Matthew MacFadyen - SUCCESSION) and their subordinate Jean Leslie (Kelly Macdonald - BOARDWALK EMPIRE).  I felt this love story was rather tacked on and artificial and simply distracted from the real meat of the story.  It was actually far more interesting to see what was happening in neutral but spy-ridden Spain and I was pleasantly surprised to see the rather frank depiction of how the British attache (Nicholas Rowe) was pleasuring his former handler into taking the bait. 

In the supporting cast I thought Jason Isaacs rather wasted in the role of the British military commander unimpressed by the Mincemeat plan. By contrast Johnny Flynn (EMMA) was having great fun as a young pre-James Bond Ian Fleming. But Penelope Wilton (DOWNTON ABBEY) was the real moral heart of the film as the secretary of the espionage unit.  The sight of her, on the eve of the Sicily landing, praying fervently in the office that the Germans had taken the bait, was genuinely moving and brought home the true stakes of the deception.

OPERATION MINCEMAT has a running time of 128 minutes and is rated PG-13. It is now on release in cinemas and on streaming services.

PUZZLE

PUZZLE is worse than banal, it teeters on the offensive.  The banality begins with the slow-moving uninteresting tale of a middle-age housewife who lives as a martyr tending to her family.  In her spare time she does jigsaw puzzles and soon teams up with a glamorous exotic Indian millionaire to train for a competition.  Naturally - predictably - they end up falling for each other, and the affair gives her the confidence to demand a more equitable share of labour around the house and for her sons to take control of their lives. But in the end she drops out of the competition and her affair and returns to her now reformed family. And what of the Indian puzzler who enables this renaissance? He's cast off casually having done his part. The whole thing struck me as very dodgy and unconvincing. I get why she would be fascinated by him but not what he would see in her. Every now and then the script those in a line where he says she's beautiful, but they never have a conversation that shows a spark, and the two actors - Kelly Macdonald and Irrfhan Khan - have no chemistry. The resulting film is just too dull, and then dodgy, for words. It's the racial equivalent of films that creative manic pixie dream girls whose only purpose is to prompt a character reversal in a man, or that create wise old black women whose only purpose is to enlighten the young white protagonist. Enough already.

PUZZLE is rated R and has a 103 minute run time. It played Sundance 2018 and is now available to rent and own.  

ANNA KARENINA (2012)

I have a major problem with director Joe Wright. I think he is a technically accomplished director who creates wonderfully fluid, extravagantly choreographed shots that are entirely at odds with the content of his films. I first noticed this in ATONEMENT, where his long tracking shot on the beach at Dunkirk didn't advance either plot or character - it was a showy distraction in what should have been (viz. the novel) a tightly structured, chamber drama. Sadly, in ANNA KARENINA, this desire to be as contrived and artificial and intricately choreographed as possible has over-taken the film to the point where all passion, tragedy and joy is lost in a never-ending series of delicate backdrops that showcase the Chanel Haute Joaillerie collection.  This film is not so much a tragic romance as a musical without songs, and a perfume advertisement that lasts two hours.

I am not entirely sure who is to blame.  Who was it that came up with the conceit to imprison what many have called the greatest novel ever written in the simplistic straitjacket of a theatre metaphor?  Was it Joe Wright, or playwright/screenwriter Tom Stoppard? In their version of 1870s Imperial Russia, high society becomes a theatre in which every aristocrat has a part to play, and rules to which they must confirm, or else be brutally cast aside.  This is the lesson which Anna Karenina learns when she sacrifices her son and her marriage to have an affair with the dashing Count Vronsky.  He also loses - his Commission, his freedom, the respect of society - but not as much as Anna -  because he can still contract a good marriage and so redeem all.  Both Anna and Vronsky learn that happiness is tarnished by the exigencies of real life, and ultimately, they are made wretched by each other and their situation. 

The intensity with which Wright and Stoppard used the theatrical metaphor is dazzling in the open twenty minutes of the film - so ingenious it quite crowds out our attention.  I barely noticed Anna and Vronsky fall in love, or Kitty's heartbreak when Vronsky leaves her for Anna.  Anna's brother Stiva becomes a caricature of a decadent aristo, like a larger than life minor comic character in Dickens.  I kept waiting to see marionette strings.  And as for the production design - it was so rich and beautiful as to be claustrophobic, and then became a parody of itself, with Princess Betsy turning into Effie Trinkett from THE HUNGER GAMES with her outlandish dresses and coiffeur.   Underneath all the anachronistic dance moves that distracted with their inelegance and artifice, I detected what looks to be a more mature and nuanced performance from Keira Knightley, and especially Jude Law as her dogmatic husband Karenin.  Too bad those performances didn't have room to breathe. But as for poor Aaron Taylor-Johnson, his Vronsky was never more than a vain poseur.  When never feel and see his love for Anna, and his motivations are not rich enough - either in respect to Anna or the  eligible young Princess Sorokina. Maybe it's the fault of the script, but Jude Law did better with less.

The result is a film that looks fabulous and moves with the intricacy of a Swiss watch, but which feels insubstantial and skates over us too lightly.  Perhaps it's because Vronsky is so poorly written.  Perhaps it's because the larger, metaphysical discussion is entirely absent.  In the novel, Anna's attempt to escape society's constrictions is contrasted with the gloriously good but conflicted and occasionally delusionally idealistic Levin, who flees to the country but never quite loses sight of the dark backing to the mirror.  We see nothing of Levin's confusion, nothing of Kitty's process of maturing, nothing of his happiness and final equivocations.  Short-changing this story might have seemed like a narrative necessity in a two hour film - editing the "secondary" story to give Anna and Vronsky more screen time. But it's a fatal cut.  Anna's story works in relation to Levin's.  And, indeed, it's possible to see ANNA KARENINA as Levin's story after all.  Without it, the film has none of the intellectual heft of the book - and it loses perhaps the best description of happiness in literature.  Still, given these constraints, I have to say that Domnhall Gleeson was absolutely superb as Levin.  I just wish I'd seen more of him.

Of course, I am well aware that after my tirade against TINKER TAILOR, I might be giving the impression that I have a pantheon of novels that have become so much a part of my life that I cannot conceive of a film-maker's interpretation that would do my vision justice. Not so in the case of ANNA KARENINA.  I admired the 1997 Bernard Rose adaptation, starring Sophie Marceau, Sean Bean and Alfred Molina, very, very much indeed. 

ANNA KARENINA played Toronto 2012 and is released this weekend in the UK and Ireland.  It opens on November 16th in the USA and on December 6th in the Czech Republic, Germany, the Netherlands and Portugal. It opens on January 3rd in Russia and Turkey; on January 10th 2013 in Denmark; on January 17th in Australia; on January 24th in Australia; on January 31st in New Zealand and Brazil; on  February 14th in Argentina, Norway and Sweden; on February 21st in Italy; and on March 13th in Belgium and France.

BRAVE

BRAVE reached our shores much maligned - a Pixar movie that was too Disney, too earnest, too mashed up in the re-writes, not funny enough, not adult enough..... And it's true, BRAVE isn't your standard issue Pixar fare.  The protagonist is female, the setting is medieval Scotland, and instead of male bonding and pop-culture references we get an earnest, emotional and frightening film about maternal love and maturity.  Princess Merida (Kelly Macdonald) rebels against her arranged marriage to a clan heir, refusing to be a demure feminine wife like her mother Elinor (Emma Thompson).  Happening across a witch (Julie Walters) she unwittingly casts a spell that turns her mother into a bear - an animal her father Fergus (Billy Connolly) is most intent on killing. Moreover, if Merida can't undo the spell within two days her mother will remain a bear forever.

I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by the film, and it even got a little dusty in the theatre by the end of the movie. Maybe that's because I am a female reviewer, or maybe it's because if you approach the film with an open-mind: while it's different from Pixar classics, it's still a good relatable movie.  I liked the voice work.  I really believed in the reconciliation between mother and daughter and that the stakes were real.  

Moreover, on a technical level, the film once again pushes the envelope.  Rural Scotland has never looked more lush. The scenes were Merida gallops through the countryside on her pony are just breathtaking.  And as for her wild, curly, red hair - I am just stunned by the movement, texture and detail that the animators were able to render.  I also loved the fact that the animation tips its hat to Studio Ghibli, with the witch-character and the will-o-the-wisps straight out of PRINCESS MONOKO or SPIRITED AWAY. Finally, let's not overlook the fact that for the first time ever we have a film with proper Scottish accents rather than Mike Myers painful imitation.

BRAVE was released in June in China, Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Russia, Ukraine, Canada, India, Indonesia, Taiwan and the USA. It was released in July in Pakistan, Vietnam, Argentina, Chile, Israel, Paraguay,  Belgium, the Netherlands, Peru, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Japan. It was released earlier this August in France, the Philippines, Cambodia, Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria, Scotland, Ireland, Hong Kong, Singapore, Croatia, Iceland, Lithuania, Spain and Venezuela. It opened earlier this week in the UK and opens this weekend in Portugal, Romania and the Czech Republic. It opens later in August in Finland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden. It opens in September in Georgia, Italy, Serbia, Turkey, Panama, Slovenia and South Korea.

CHOKE - Fuckin' Knave!

What if FIGHT CLUB were a Sundance-style, whimsical, sun-lit relationship drama? What if Tyler Durden were a thirty-something college drop-out, working in a medieval theme park? What if he was emasculated by an emotionally manipulative mother? What if, instead of literally fighting back, he fucked women compulsively? What if, instead of meeting suicidal Martha Singer, he met a similarly delusional doctor? What if, instead instead of a dark, visually inspired, menacing thriller, you got a sporadically very funny but ultimately uneven film called CHOKE?

The problem with CHOKE is that actor turned director Clark Gregg skates over the truly sinister and provocative aspects of the source material - transforming a subversive text about sexual inadequacy and mental illness into an off-beat comedy. Sam Rockwell excels at these loser-outsider roles, but the character is simply two-dimensional. Angelica Huston has fun as his mentally ill mother, but the dress-up during the flashbacks is distracting and undermines any sense of profundity. Half way through this film I just wondered why I should care. Accordingly, the film is reduced to a superficial comedy, and while it has its moments, the humour isn't consistent enough for it to really sustain viewer interest.

CHOKE played Sundance 2008 where Sam Rockwell won the Best Actor prize. CHOKE opened last autumn and is currently available on DVD and on iTunes.

The Coen Bros. return to form with NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN is a beautifully crafted, darkly comic thriller adapted by the Coen Brothers from an acerbic novel by Cormac McCarthy. A hick Texan called Llewelyn Moss stumbles on the aftermath of a drug deal gone horribly wrong and in a moment of weakness abandons a dying Mexican and absconds with a suitcase full of money. Problem is, a psychopathic murderer called Anton Chigurh is tracking the money and Moss, via a transponder stuck in the briefcase. Meanwhile, a decent old-fashioned copper, Ed Tom Bell, is trying to reach out to Moss via his wife Carla Jean. So the film is essentially about two men - a murderer and a thief - stalking each other through motels in small towns - and the impact of this gruesome hunt on a mild-mannered Sherriff. The violence is graphically depicted as is its aftermath. We feel every bullet wound and see every attempt to repair the human body. Watching blood ooze from Moss' body, or Chigurh jabbing lidocaine into his punctured leg - the impact on the audience is visceral. The tension is constant and intense. I can't remember a recent thriller where so much attention was paid to the shadows cast by madmen hiding behind doors. But what makes this such a unique film is the fact that the dialogue is so darkly funny. It's really impressive the way in which Cormac McCarhy and the Coen Brothers manage to bring out the quirkiness of Texan idiom without under-mining the general air of menace. Moreover, despite the fact that a lot of the characters speak and dress like the kind of stereotypes mocked in the Coen Bros.' O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU?, they are fully developed, magnetic characters. Tommy Lee Jones, who has so often played these Texan law officer parts, is particuarly sympathetic as the world-weary Sherriff, who simply cannot comprehend modern, random violence and prefers not to carry a gun. In an era of CSI, it's also refreshing to see an old-fashioned copper check out a scene and use good old-fashioned logic to work out what went wrong. Josh Brolin is a revelation as Llewelyn Moss. He's far more than just a dumb hick who got lucky - he's loyal, honest (after a fashion), resourceful and ballsy. Faced with a psychopath, he doesn't back down. He's a tremendously likeable character. However, I suspect the character that will become an icon is Javier Bardem's ultimate bad-ass, Anton Chigurh, with his laughable bowl-hair-cut; sinister, deadpan use of idiom; and quirky method of despatching locks and people alike.

All three actors are worthy of Best (Supporting) Actor nods. Indeed, it's a measure of how finely balanced this movie is that the movie seems to belong to all three actors equally. In genuinely supporting roles, Kelly Macdonald puts on a fine Texan ccent as Carla Moss and Woody Harrelson has a funny turn as a bounty hunter. Garret Dillahunt is also hysterically funny as the Sherriff's sidekick. In the end, though, it's the talent behind the camera that makes NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN the masterpiece that it is: in particular, Roger Deakins' attention to the framing and lighting of every shot and the Coen Bros. perfect marriage to the source material.

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN could knock off every film on my Best of 2007 list bar 4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS, 2 DAYS. Roger Deakins would certainly make the Best DP list and the Coen Bros. would make the Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Director lists. This is a tremendous return to form for film-makers who stunned us with FARGO but slipped into mediocrity, ill-judgement and self-parody with INTOLERABLE CRUELTY and THE LADYKILLERS. And to those critics who hold back a little - and criticise the denouement of this film - I simply can't understand what they object to.

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN played Cannes, Toronto and Vienna 2007 and was released in the USA in November 2007. It opens in the UK on January 18th in Belgium, France and Australia on January 23rd and in Argentina on January 31st. It opens in Brazil, Russia, Estonia, Mexico, Iceland, Portugal, Slovakia, Norway and Sweden in February 2008. It opens in Greece, Denmark, Finland, Spain, Turkey, Singapore, Japan and Italy in March and in Germany on April 10th.

LASSIE - cute but just for kids

Yes, yes, I know. To my eternal shame, I went to see LASSIE. But in my defence, I had to take my god-daughter to the flicks, and in the interests of protecting her cinematic intergrity, Narnia was a no-no. Well, folks, what can I say? It's a great film! Set in post-WW2 we have a straightforward remake of the original Lassie story: poor family sells dog to rich Laird, dog gets homesick, has eventful journey home. There are no insider-jokes for the adults, so unless you have to take a kid, this is not for you. But adults do at least get a stirling cast - notably Peter O'Toole, who is looking more Jeffrey-Bernard-ish every day, Kelly MacDonald and Samantha Morton - and the kind of luscious photography as one would expect from the man who directed Brideshead Revisited. So all in all, if you have a kid and a spare 90 minutes, you could do worse.

LASSIE is on general release in the UK. It goes on release in France n the 6th July 2006. There is no US release date as yet.