SHIRLEY - BFI London Film Festival 2020 - Day 3

SHIRLEY is the most remarkable film I have seen all year - as stylish, slippery and dangerous as the writer whose fictionalised inner life it portrays.  It's filled with riotous rebellious performances and deep empathy for smart women who just won't lie down. 

The centre of the film is a phenomenal performance from Elisabeth Moss (THE HANDMAID'S TALE) as the notorious, brilliant author Shirley Jackson (The Lottery, The Haunting At Hill House).  When we meet her, Shirley is already an infamous author of dangerously dark works, earning far more than her husband, Professor Stanley Hyman. But she's also undone by depression and writer's block - visibly dishevelled, scabrous and scared to leave the house.  Meanwhile her husband (Michael Stuhlbarg) is one of those aggressively extrovert characters who might seem charming at first, but is both supportive of his wife's brilliance but also capable of nasty jealousy-inflected put-downs. He also consciously uses his buffoonish behaviour to get way too close and handsy with other women. But the brilliance of this film is to show how the couple really does love each other and respect each other.  Shirley knows Stanley cheats, and even though she hates it, she'll protect him from others exploiting that fact. And most importantly of all for a couple who live by their words, it is HIS opinion of her writing that she respects most of all.  To that end, the relationship reminded me of Leonard and Virginia Woolf as much as of WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?

The fatal mistake of young Rose Nemser (Odessa Young) is to think that Shirley really does hate her husband and that she can drive a wedge between them. Poor Rose doesn't realise that while Shirley might be fascinated by her youth, and courage in sticking around despite the barbs, at some point she will force "the children" out because she has what she needs for her book. But then again, Rose also gets something out of the relationship.  When we meet her, she is a beautifully put together young wife of a young assistant professor (Logan Lerman) moving in temporarily with Jackson and Hyman while they find a place to stay.  Hyman begs them to stay longer rent-free and help look after his sick wife. Rose is pregnant and has dropped out of university and Shirley mocks her for it.  But as Rose wins Shirley's trust and they both start investigating the disappearance of a young college girl called Paula, we see the three ladies merge into one.  Shirley starts to become more put together - her hair less wild - and she starts to write again. She also imagines Rose as the disappeared Paula. And Rose becomes ragged, weighed down by pregnancy, heat, her husband's indifference and then infidelity. But she also knows more about herself and her husband and has found an inner strength and her own barbed tongue!  More profoundly, we realise that all three women are in the same position. All three have expectations of what they will be, how they will look, what barriers society will place on where and how they can be smart.  They are asked to live circumscribed lives, and is it surprising that this drives them mad?

The central performances are all stunning here, not least from Odessa Young as Rose who holds her own against Moss and Stuhlbarg.  But let's spend some time on how phenomenal Josephine Decker's direction is.  It's slippery and ambitious and deeply empathetic.  The camera is kinetic and intimate and seems to get under the skin of the characters.  For a film that's basically about four people taking around a dinner table in a single house, it never felt claustrophobic or static, unless it very deliberately wanted to be.  And kudos to the production designer too, for making a house that heaves and pens in and can feel sinister and prison-like. I loved everything about how imaginative this film was, and how the real and imagined were allowed to intertwine.  Finally, kudos to the costume designer Amela Baksic who so brilliantly uses dress and hairstyle to convey the expectations society had of women at this time, and to visually delineate each woman's state of mind as it evolves through the film.

SHIRLEY is rated R and has a running time of 107 minutes. It played Sundance, Berlin and London 2020.  It opened in the US this summer, and will open in the UK on October 30th.

FURY - LFF14 - Day Twelve

FURY is a movie that probably gives us the most realistic depiction to date of what is must have been like to be inside a tank in World War Two - the claustrophobia, dirt, fear, and almost obsessive need to trust in your fellow soldiers to get you through.  It's because of this realism and grit that you remain captivated despite the somewhat hyperbolic set-up of the film, in which a single US tank attempts to hold off of an entire Nazi regiment.  

The set-up of the film is hackneyed through and through. Brad Pitt plays the war-hardened, uber-experienced tank commander, "Wardaddy" contrasted with Logan Lerman's nervous rookie Norman Ellison. This is exactly the set-up we've gotten from director David Ayer's own TRAINING DAY as well as movies like GRAVITY. The other three members of the tank crew comprise Shia LaBeouf's religious Gunner Swann, slack-jawed yokel Travis (Jon Bernthal) and dips driver Garcia Michael Pena.  In Act One we see our boys and their Yankee brethren retake a German town.  Act Two sees our boys share a dinner with a pair of German ladies.  I think the director wanted it to be full of menace and tension and unsaid meaning but instead it just feels too contrived, patronising and ultimately getting in the way of the real story - which is the relationship between the men and their tank.  In Act Three, the men are sent behind enemy lines by their commander (Jason Isaacs) and we get into the claustrophobia and extreme peril of tank warfare.  This is what we've paid to see - the utter commitment of the production to show us the horror of war in genuine World War Two tanks with the highest quality of military advisor. 

The resulting film isn't perfect but it is affecting and gives us something genuinely new in war films.  It also gives us Shia LaBeouf in his most winning performance in quite some time - a hopeful thought in a film so devoid of hope. 

FURY has a running time of 120 minutes.  The movie played London 2014 and is on release in the Bahamas and the USA. It goes on release on October 22nd in Belgium, France and Singapore; on October 23rd in Australia, Hong Kong, Croatia, Hungary, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal and Thailand; on October 24th in Estonia, the UK, Ireland, Iceland, Cambodia, Lithuania, Latvia, Norway and Sweden; on October 30th in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Ukraine; on November 13th in the Czech Republic, Denmark, Italy; on November 14th in Spain, India and Vietnam; on November 29th in Greece; on December 5th in Kenya; on January 1st in Germany; on January 15th in Argentina; and on February 5th in Brazil and Peru.

THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER

THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER is a handsomely made, well-acted and sporadically insightful coming-of-age movie set in early 1990s Pittsburgh, and based on an apparently cult novel.  Adapted for the screen and directed by the author, Stephen Chbosky, the movie stars Logan Lerman (THE THREE MUSKETEERS) as Charlie, the eponymous wallflower, who is saved from High School wretchedness by the step-siblings Sam (Emma Watson) and Patrick (Ezra Miller).  These older teens have a comfort in their own non-comformity that inspires a starstruck Charlie - they delight in performing in midnight screenings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and Patrick is comfortable in his homosexuality.  Their friendship enables Charlie to start dating, face his feelings for Sam, and the reasons for his mental fragility.  

What I love about this film is the empathy and honesty it shows to issues of teenage sexuality, drug use, sexual and physical abuse.  It does so without feeling like a TV special, forced or contrived, and has a kind of delicate intimacy to it.  I can see why so many kids have responded so strongly to the book.  The only quibbles I have are with how underdeveloped the character of the sympathetic schoolteacher, played by Paul Rudd, is, and how such achingly hip kids wouldn't have already heard David Bowie's Heroes. 

THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER played Toronto 2012 and is on release in Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Russia, the UAE, the USA, the Philippines, Aruba, Canada, Ireland and the UK. It opens on October 9th in Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand and the USA; on October 18th in China, Hong Long, Israel, Brazil and Colombia; on October 25th in the Netherlands, Serbia and Mexico; on November 1st in India, Austria, Germany and Finland; on November 9th in Peru and Norway; on November 22nd in Portugal; on November 29th in Argentina and Australia; on December 7th in Uruguay; on December 13th in Greece and Ecuador, on December 28th in South Africa; on January 2nd in Belgium and France; on January 17th in Chile and Latvia; on February 7th in Bolivia and Spain; on February 14th in Italy; on February 21st in Croatia and on April 4th in New Zealand. 

THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER has a running time of 102 minutes and is rated PG-13 in the USA. 

PERCY JACKSON AND THE LIGHTNING THIEF - also not entirely unwatchable

Another movie that’s easy to deride is PERCY JACKSON AND THE LIGHTNING THIEF. The similarity of the source material and the fact that it shares the same director as the first two HARRY POTTER films have led many reviewers to call it “Harry Potter lite” or a Harry Potter rip-off. Certainly, you can see their argument. Percy Jackson is a boy who is “special” and that being “special” relates to his now absent father. His being special leads him to a special school where he will learn to use his secret powers, and to make two friends – a loyal but doltish boy and a much more clued-on girl. They will ultimately have to contend with another student who has conflicting loyalties, and to go on a quest for high stakes. They will be guided by a wise old teacher and their adventures will take place both in a magical realm and in our real world. The only difference is that Harry Potter is a wizard and Percy Jackson is the son of the Greek god Perseus, and is thus a demi-God. And rather than battling Voldemort, he is battling to restore to Zeus his bolt of lightning in order to prevent a war between Zeus and Hades. There are even similarities in the production design, largely because of the journeyman-like-quality of all Chris Columbus movies. He’s the go-to-guy if you want a movie to come in on time, on budget, to have some serviceable special effects and not do anything too crazy.

The resulting film is just fine. It’s not the sort of kids film that adults should go and see unless they are accompanying a small child, but I’m betting good money that any kid, bored in the school holidays, will have a good time watching this film.

PERCY JACKSON & THE LIGHTNING THIEF is on global release.

GAMER - sporadically interesting Running Man remake

GAMER is a remake of the seminal Schwarzenegger sci-fi flick, RUNNING MAN. It's set in a dystopian future, where sex and violence are commercialised in computer games, allowing obese couch potatoes to fuck beautiful women and teenagers to control ultra-violent prisoners in live-action shoot-em-ups. Why have a virtual avatar when you can remote control actual people? The game is controlled by billionaire Ken Castle (a typically mischievous Michael C Hall) and peopled by set-up con Kable (Gerard Butler) and his wife turned hooker Angie (Amber Valetta). As in the original flick, the action really takes off when the "running man", Kable, escapes the game, aided by revolutionaries (Ludcaris, Aaron Yoo and Alison Lohman).

Despite all the CGI, GAMER doesn't have the visceral thrills of the action sequences in RUNNING MAN - for a start, there are no ridiculous baddies - remember the ice-hockey guy with the chainsaw?! In fact, the action sequences were pretty dull, which has to count as a big negative in a summer action movie. It was more interesting seeing how the film-makers had updated the dystopian future to capture the full weirdness of modern gaming. In terms of style, I was pleased to see Neveldine calm down the frenetic style of the CRANK movies, delivering a film with a nice bleak, almost monochrome look, while retaining their ability to mesh computer graphics and standard live-action film. I also like the fact that this film has more layers to it than the CRANK films - simultaneously critiquing and glorying in the voyeurism and nastiness of modern entertaining culture. And let me not forgot, a song-and-dance sequence in which Michael C Hall plays to Sammy Davis Junior's I've Got You Under My Skin. Worth the price of entry alone!

GAMER is on release in Greece, Canada, Finland, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the USA, Belgium, Estonia, France, the Philippines, Russia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Cyprus, Denmark, Latvia, the UK, the Czech Republic and Austria. It opens next week in South Korea and Bulgaria. It opens in October in Brazil, the Netherlands, Iceland, Croatia and Lithuania. It opens on January 7th in Germany.

3:10 TO YUMA - outstanding Western

After GIRL INTERRUPTED, COP LAND and WALK THE LINE, here's another great film from director James Mangold. This time it's a remake of the 1957 western, 3:10 TO YUMA, itself based on a short story by Elmore Leonard. There's nothing pioneering or rocket-sciency about this movie: it's just a gripping story, really well-told.

The ever-brilliant Christian Bale plays an indebted Arizona rancher who commands no respect, even in his own eyes. In a last ditch attempt to raise some cash and do something heroic, he escorts a notorious thief (Russell Crowe) to the train station in another town, where he will take the 3:10 to Yuma prison. The small posse gets eliminated one by one as Crowe's charming but immoral villain takes them out en route. And all the time, they are being followed by the villain's gang, not least a nasty but dandy-ish side-kick, played by Ben Foster in a truly break-out performance. The drama of the piece is in the confrontation between a deeply moral but pathetic man and an amoral swaggering anti-hero. The tension builds to a thrilling final shoot-out from the town-hotel to the train station. Will Bale's character get the villain to the train? And how far will the villain, who now has a grudging sympathy for the hero, collude in his own arrest. It makes for a brilliant character play, with the added bonus of some superb action sequences and handsome design and photography. Not to be missed.

3:10 TO YUMA is already on release in Russia and the USA. It opens in the UK on September 14th, in Iceland on September 28th, in Norway on October 12th, in Italy on October 19th, in Singapore on October 25th, in Turkey on November 2nd, in Argentina on November 8th, in Estonia on November 20th and in Finland on January 11th 2008.