KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON*** - BFI London Film Festival 2023 - Day 5

Martin Scorsese is an iconic masterful film-maker and his latest film, KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON is perfection in every frame. The problem is, to quote the King in Amadeus, there are too many notes.  Scorsese's film is three and a half hours long and could easily have shed an hour of its running time and lost none of its narrative coherence, political importance or emotional resonance. I fear that Scorsese has become a victim of the lack of discipline afforded to directors funded by streamers.  He has lost sight of what it feels like to be a cinema audience asked to endure nearly four hours of a beautifully crafted but lugubrious narrative.  Maybe he should just admit that - as much as he advocates for cinema - this is just meant to be viewed on Apple TV over consecutive nights as a kind of self-curated TV series.

The film takes place in Osage County, Oklahoma and tells the true story of a series of horrific murders that took place in the inter-war years.  The Osage discovered oil on their land, and became ludicrously wealthy thanks to head rights to the leases.  But the white man could not abide this upending of the racial order, and just as he took revenge on the black middle classes in Tulsa, he took revenge in Osage.  Osage were often placed under a kind of conservatorship so they couldn't freely spend their wealth, they were ripped off by white merchants, and finally they were married and murdered for their head rights.

This film and the excellent book upon which it is based by David Grann focuses on the story of one family, while making it clear that there were many other murders. Mollie Burckhardt is one of four sisters, whose mother will eventually leave them her head rights.  Mollie falls for Ernest Burckhardt, whose uncle "King" Hale poses as a friend of the Osage while plotting to make sure that all of that inheritance flows to his nephew. The tragedy of the tale is seeing how far Ernest betrayed the woman he loved, and his own children, because "I sure do like that money". Eventually the crimes become so heinous, that, with the help of substantial Osage lobbying, Washington cannot ignore them. The nascent FBI is called in and justice is served of a sort.

The structure of this film is broadly speaking two hours of family life and murder followed by 90 minutes of police and courtroom procedural.  I feel we could have lost a lot of time from both but particularly the latter section. That said, as I said, everyone is on top form here. Robbie Robertson's score (his last) is kinetic - Rodrigo Prieto's cinematography is beautiful; Lily Gladstone is magisterial as Mollie and Leonardo di Caprio and Robert de Niro are compelling as her husband and his uncle respectively. I just felt zoned out by the end of it, and the final epilogue of justice lost its impact, which is a tremendous shame.

KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON has a running time of 206 minutes and is rated R. It played Cannes and London 2023. It goes on global release on October 20th.

FERRARI* - BFI London Film Festival 2023 - Day 5

Michael Mann (HEAT, THE INSIDER) returns to our screens with an execrable biopic of the iconic Enzo Ferrari.  It is a film that pays no respect to history, cultural specificity or the ethics of what one chooses to show on-screen of real-life horrific crashes.

In Mann's version of Ferrari's story, as written by Troy Kennedy Martin (THE ITALIAN JOB!) we focus on the year 1957. Mann and Kennedy choose to make this a make or break year for the company, whose road car sales are insufficient to subsidise the racing.  The notoriously paranoid, selfish, dictatorial Enzo Ferrari needs to bring in outside financing and give up control in order to compete with the advances being made in England and Germany. Films need stakes, so Mann/Martin argue that Ferrari must win the Mille Miglia road-race to attract investors. Yeah I guess.... But Ferrari was constantly in trouble and flirting with investors. 

Similarly, while Enzo may have transferred some assets to his wife's name for tax and political reasons, I cannot imagine he was walking around like a proto-feminist claiming they built the company together, and the book does NOT suggest that she was the business strategist behind the throne. This all sounds like modern retconning to give Penelope Cruz something to do other than scream hysterically.  Enzo WAS in fact a notorious womaniser and misogynist. The film only hints at how horrific he was. 

The truth of the film lies in how devastated both parents were at the death of Ferrari's only legitimate son Dino, and how Enzo kept the existence of his illegitimate son secret from his wife for many years.  It is not known how Laura finally learned about Enzo's mistress Lina Lardi, or of the existence of Piero, but it is true that Piero was only legitimised after Laura died. This was not, as the film implies, because of some cash-for-bungs bribe that Laura paid Enzo, but because of the constraints of the Italian legal system.

Now to move from history to drama. Is the film emotionally involving? No. Because the acting is terrible. Adam Driver is miscast as Ferrari. He is way too young. The Commendatore was 59 in 1957.  Driver is not yet 40.  He looks not yet 40 with a fake belly and a bad hair dye job. He looks nothing like Enzo - fine - Enzo has a very specific face. But he doesn't move or walk or talk like a c60 year old provincial Italian. Would it have killed them to either a) cast an Italian or b) someone who could do a passable Italian accent?

But this problem of bad acting is way worse when we consider Shailene Woodley's attempt at Lina Lardi.  Her accent is so appalling it isn't even Italian-adjacent. I was reminded of Jodie Comer's note perfect accent-work in THE BIKERIDERS and left with the cruel realisation that Woodley is simply a YA film actress over-promoted and best-forgotten.

Finally, we have Penelope Cruz - the only decent performance in the film but one that is for sure Spanish not Italian, and so at odds with the real woman as to be laughable. It's as if there is nothing of merit or interest in Laura's betrayal and pain unless she's a porto-modern boss bitch.

All of this I could have forgiven had the racing been good. And to be fair, most of the footage of the testing at Monza, and the road racing in the Mille Miglia is really well done with great recreations of the historic vehicles rebuilt with the help of the Ferrari factory. Kudos to Mann and cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt (MANK) for that. My only issue here is the very distinct choice Michael Mann has made to show very graphic crash footage, not just of Castelotti but also of Guidizzolo.  As one of the few audience members who knew exactly what was coming, I was in fear once I saw the Monza crash.  It's strange to say but in the history of motorsport films we have rarely if ever seen a frame by frame replay of an horrific crash, especially one involving civilians. Think of FORD VS FERRARI where Christian Bale simply disappears over a hill. Or even the way in which Asif Kapadia handles the crash in SENNA. But Mann shows no such finesse here. He does not leave anything to our imaginations. I found it pretty exploitative. I might have forgiven the choice, or understood it better, in a better film. But in such a trashy, melodramatic, soapy film, it felt cheap, and frankly disgusting.

FERRARI has a running time of 130 minutes. It played Venice and the BFI London Film Festival 2023. It will be released on December 25th in the USA and December 26th in the UK.

THAT THEY MAY FACE THE RISING SUN**** - BFI London Film Festival 2023 - Day 5

THAT THEY MAY FACE THE RISING SUN is  quiet, patience, delightful film that utterly swept me up in spite of myself. As it began, I am ashamed to say I rather held it in contempt. Who are these people, I thought, meandering about their farm in rural Ireland, talking about nothing with seemingly endless oldies in their kitchen? And what is with this young couple? Who goes about learning to keep bees, and weave baskets, and card wool except for Gwyneth Paltrow wannabe super-rich wannabe holistic arseholes? I was exactly the English urban-dweller that these Irish rural oldies describe as almost comically alien to them.  

But slowly and surely I was drawn into this beautiful, patient, kinder world.  I fell in with the rhythm of the year, the changing seasons, the meandering conversations, the surprising love stories, and the economic hardships. I found myself admiring the couple for immersing themselves in the world without condescension, and caring deeply for the villagers who accepted them into their midst. 

Apparently this film is based upon a much-admired novel by John McGahern and I am now desperate to read it.  And I am full of admiration for director Pat Collins and to all his cast for so beautifully rendering the everyday beauty of the slow-life and the true worth of real human connection. This film made my heart sing, and transported me. It was a gift. 

THAT THEY MAY FACE THE RISING SUN has its world premiere at the BFI London Film Festival 2023.

HIT MAN***** - BFI London Film Festival 2023 - Day 3

Richard Linklater's HIT MAN is a super-sexy, laugh-out-loud comedy that had its London Film Festival audience burst into spontaneous applause mid-way through.  This is a film so smart, so brilliantly written and acted, so full of uproarious mischievous joy, that everyone involved deserves accolades and awards.  

Linklater and co-writer/lead actor Glen Powell (TOP GUN: MAVERICK) based their script on a Texas Monthly article by Skip Hollandsworth: a formula that worked well for Linklater in his 2011 comedy BERNIE.  The film tells the amplified and fictionalised story of a real guy called Gary Johnson who pretended to be a hit man to entrap criminals for the local police. 

In this version of Johnson's story, we see Powell's Gary transform from contented but dull psychology professor to cool sexy hit man and discover that he is happier and more confident in his alter-ego of Ron.  Problem is, Gary invokes the jealousy of bent cop Jasper (Austin Amelio - The Walking Dead) and this causes even more complications when Jasper figures out that "Ron" has started dating one of his suspects, the glamorous Madison (Adria Arjona) who may or may not be organising a hit on her douchebag husband.

The resulting film is absolutely hilarious, as Powell transforms Gary into a variety of Rons, tailor-made to the fantasy each of his potential clients have of what a hit man would look like. He can be a Russian thug, a Maga Proud Boy, Patrick Bateman or a mop top Scouser. At a more profound level, we are seeing a man with a perfectly respectable life try on other lives for a day.  The question this movie asks is whether one can use that experience to truly change. How stable is the self, and why shouldn't we all have the chance to change?

Powell deserves all the credit for his outrageously good lead performance, but I have to say I was blown away by Adria Arjona as his love interest and Austin Amelio as Jasper. This is just an incredibly strong cast, having a blast, taking the audience with them. I loved every second, and wouldn't change a thing. Netflix have  acquired the rights but if you can, and they let you, do try and see it at the cinema. This is a film that deserves an audience reaction.

HIT MAN has a running time of 113 minutes. It played Venice, Toronto and London 2023.

MAY DECEMBER** - BFI London Film Festival 2023 - Day 4

Todd Haynes' latest film fails to ignite. What's the point of setting up such a grungy nasty little tabloid scandal, complete with melodramatic music and Chekhov's hunting rifle, if you aren't going to truly mine the emotional gore?  Instead, we get a limp, anaemic relationship drama, enlivened only by the occasional caustic barb from the matriarch (SALTBURN vibes, anyone?) but one that ultimately wastes great performances from its twin leads of Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman.

Moore stars as the deeply delusional and manipulative Gracie, now 60. She lives with her husband and three nearly grown kids. The twist is that Gracie, when 36, seduced aforementioned husband when he was ijust 13 (although British audiences may fail to grasp just how young a seventh grader is for most of the running time.)  Over twenty years later there is no sign that Gracie realises that she has done anything wrong, and her husband seems to be living in a state of arrested development, more elder child than partner.  So much so that I spent much of the film trying to figure out if Charles Melton was a bad actor or just directed to look simple.

The family's fake-we're-fine lives are upturned when Natalie Portman's TV actress comes to town to research an upcoming movie.  In her own way, Portman's Elizabeth is just as fake and manipulative as Gracie, except she is more self-aware of why she is behaving the way she does.  It's a great role for Portman who gets to show us her subtle manipulations.  Portman also has a fantastic monologue straight to camera that is as good as anything she has done since BLACK SWAN.

I just felt that all of this was wasted in a script by Samy Burch that fails to really go as nasty and melodramatic as it could've done. I wanted more about how a young abused child comes to realise he was taken advantage of, his life thwarted. I wanted more of the kids' reactions to being raised in this weird set-up. I wanted twisted queer frissons between Gracie applying lipstick to Elizabeth.  I was waiting for something, anything to happen, and all I got was a tease. Chekhov's rifle failed to fire. 

MAY DECEMBER is rated R and has a running time of 113 minutes. It played Cannes and London 2023.

THE KILLER***** - BFI London Film Festival 2023 - Day 3

David Fincher returns to our screens with his mordantly funny, coolly stylish, impressively spare hitman procedural, THE KILLER.  The film is based on Alexis' Nolent's cult graphic novel, adapted for the screen by Andrew Kevin Walker who also penned SE7EN.  We spend the film inside the mind of a ruthlessly pragmatic hitman played by Michael Fassbender (SHAME).  We watch him narrate and then fuck up a hit on a French businessman, and then spend the rest of the film taking revenge on the people who tried to wipe out the chain of evidence leading to the fiasco. There isn't much on-screen dialogue, but flashes of deliciously dark humour and social satire from our deadpan narrator as he deftly takes down German tourists, New Orleans restaurants and Floridian ex-cons. As for Fincher, his social satire extends to self-absorbed beanie-wearing billionaire tech-bros, as superbly exemplified in Arliss Howard's cameo.

There is nothing not love about a film this well-made. It's just so stylish and handsome in its execution, so dark in its humour, so brilliantly scored by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, so pure in its focus....  All I want to know is whether Fincher is taking the piss out of Morrissey or legitimately using his songs in his score. Do please try to see this on a big screen and not at home on Netflix. This deserves a proper screen and audio setup.

THE KILLER is rated R and has a running time of 118 minutes. It played Venice and London 2023 and will be released on Netflix on November 10th.