Month: January 2020

Weathering With You

15/01/20

There’s a lot riding on Makoto Shinkai’s latest film. After the extraordinary success of Your Name (2016),  currently the highest earning anime of all time, many of his peers urged him to do something more ‘meaningful’ with his next feature. Perhaps that’s why the subject of climate change is what fuels Weathering With You. The problem is, it’s hard to know what the animator’s views on the subject actually are. Comments made by some of the older characters here feel suspiciously like climate change denial, while the actions of its younger ones come across as pure selfishness – and that’s a worry.

The story takes place in Tokyo where the seasons have been disrupted into one long bout of torrential rain. Hodaka (Kotaro Daigo), a teenage boy from the country, has run away from home and is eking out a precarious existence in the Shinjuku district of the city, where he struggles to find ways to support himself. He meets up with Hina (Nana Mori), a girl who claims to be a little older than him and who is living a similar hand-to-mouth existence. The two of them strike up a friendship.

Hodaka soon discovers that Hina is a ‘Sunshine Girl,’ able to influence the elements through prayer to create short spells of fine weather. He also realises that there are people out there who would be prepared to pay handsomely for her skills, so the two of them set up a business together, one that quickly begins to pay dividends. But a Japanese legend suggests that Hina must eventually pay a terrible price for possessing such powers – and, when the weather continues to worsen, the couple are presented with a difficult decision.

The first thing to say about Weathering With You is that it is every bit as jaw-droppingly beautiful as its predecessor. The depictions of the rain-ravaged city are extraordinary, finding a kind of ravishing beauty in the power and fury of nature. Some of the scenes here are almost photo-realistic, while Shinkai is also adept at focusing on tiny details that capture the essence of a scene. Furthermore, the story is peopled by a selection of fascinatingly flawed characters, who take the viewer into the kind of edgy territory where the likes of Disney would fear to tread. Throw in some exciting chase scenes and a long suspense-laden sequence where Hodaka attempts to reconnect with Hina and you’ve got an undeniably compelling slice of cinema.

So it’s a pity that the ending feels so fudged – the subject of climate change is vitally important and I’m left unsure about Shinkai’s position on it. Is he saying that humanity is too selfish to ever remedy the situation? Is he suggesting that the younger generation are so consumed with their own agenda they fail to see the problem? Or does he believe that climate change is simply a natural process, unaffected by the excesses of humanity? As presented here, all of these answers are possible – and none of them is satisfactory.

It’s this nebulous quality that denies Weathering With You the knock-it-out-of-the-park satisfaction of Your Name. That said, lovers of quality animation will have to look very hard indeed to find a more eye-popping example of the art.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney

Richard Jewell
(L-r) NINA ARIANDA as Nadya Light and SAM ROCKWELL as Watson Bryant in Warner Bros. Pictures’ “RICHARD JEWELL,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo by Claire Folger/Warner Bros.

14/01/19

We’re only two weeks into the new year, yet we’re already on our third excoriating movie exposé of a corrupt American justice system. Appalled? Yes. Saddened? Yes. Surprised? Not so much. Not any more.

Richard Jewell is the story of a hapless security guard, the focus of an intense FBI and media investigation. His crime? Discovering a bomb and alerting the authorities. But lazy  stereotyping (‘he’s a bit of an oddball and he lives with his mom’) is enough to convince the forces-that-be that Jewell is the perpetrator, responsible for two deaths and more than a hundred injuries, despite a lack of any evidence whatsoever. And, once that suspicion is leaked to the press, Jewell loses control of his life.

Paul Walter Hauser gives us a convincing portrayal of a decent man driven almost to despair. He portrays Jewell as utterly sincere – a naïve, mild-natured, over-zealous employee, a stickler for the rules. His mother, Bobi (Kathy Bates), has always taught him to respect authority, and Jewell has absolute faith in law and order. He is devastated when it proves to be a phoney, a façade.

Sam Rockwell plays Watson Bryant, the real estate lawyer who comes to Jewell’s rescue (in real life, Bryant employed a team to help him; here – for the sake of a stronger storyline – he goes it alone). It’s a terrific performance, giving us a real sense of the man’s selfishness and impatience as well as his deep-rooted morality. Thank goodness for Bryant; I dread to think what might have happened to Jewell if he hadn’t once worked in the same building and earned the man’s respect. Without representation, who knows?

It’s so depressing. How can a so-called mature democracy have a justice system that is so blatantly unfair, where guilt or innocence is decided by how much money an individual has, or by the colour of their skin, or by how desperate the law enforcers are to meet their targets? And Eastwood’s film delivers this message well.

A shame, then, that the women’s roles are so reductive, and that real-life AJC news reporter Kathy Scruggs (Olivia Wilde) is depicted as having slept her way to success. It’s an evidence-free stereotype as offensive and pervasive as the one the movie exposes.

It’s not the film’s only fault. Billy Ray’s script is somewhat pedestrian – long-winded in places – and the cinematography a little murky but, nevertheless, taken in conjunction with Seberg and Just Mercy, this amounts to a searing condemnation of a broken institution.

3.5 stars

Susan Singfield

Seberg

13/01/20

In the year 2020, who even remembers the name of Jean Seberg? Not many people judging by the meagre crowd gathered at tonight’s screening. 

But hers is a fascinating story of toxic stardom, of a young performer whose life was systematically destroyed by the FBI; of a reckless but well-intentioned young woman, who got embroiled in events she couldn’t hope to control – events that would eventually destroy her. 

Catapulted to stardom at the age of seventeen, Seberg starred in Otto Preminger’s Saint Joan and suffered serious burns when her character’s onscreen immolation went horribly wrong. A few years later, she became the darling of the French New Wave when she starred in Jean Luc Godard’s Breathless. But Seberg, directed by Benedict Andrews, examines her ill-fated trip to Hollywood in the late 60s, where she’d gone to film the Western musical Paint Your Wagon. (Or ‘Clint Eastwood Sings!’ as it’sfondly remembered my many.)

Seberg (Kristen Stewart) reluctantly leaves her husband Roman (Yvan Attal) at home with their young son. On the plane to America, she meets up with Hakim Jamal (Anthony Mackie), an influential player in the burgeoning Black Power movement. She shows solidarity with his cause, contributing funds for the school he runs and, shortly afterwards, embarks on an affair with him. This brings her to the attention of the FBI, where operative Jack Solomon (Jack O’Connell) is directed to put her under intense surveillance. When Seberg starts to engage with more powerful members of the Black Panthers, the agency sets put to discredit her by making the details of her affair with Jamal public – and, in the increasingly poisonous atmosphere that ensues, Seberg’s sanity is pushed to the edge of the abyss…

Seberg is an interesting if somewhat flawed film. Stewart is an assured actor (and, given the invasive media coverage she herself has endured, it’s easy to see what attracted her to this role), but the fictional elements of this retelling of Seberg’s story are rather less successful. O’Connell’s tightly buttoned FBI man doesn’t really have enough to do, hanging around the edges of events, listening in on her via bugging devices and serving as the audience’s collective conscience. His exchanges with his hard nosed colleague Carl Kowalski (Vince Vaughan) are nicely drawn but don’t add much to the telling.

The era is nicely evoked but I would have liked to have seen some recreations of the filming of Paint Your Wagon thrown into the mix. (This is, after all, a biopic.) Perhaps there simply wasn’t the budget for that approach or more likely the filmmakers couldn’t obtain the rights. There are a couple of tantalising glimpses from St Joan and Breathless, but its not enough.

In some ways, this could be seen as the tale of a luckless individual crushed by the corrupt might of American law enforcement. But really, as Seberg herself says, ‘I am not the victim here.’ There is a much bigger  story – a shocking demonstration of the depths that the American justice system will sink to in order to prevent black people from ever achieving any sort of equality.

There seem to be quite a few such stories around right now. Add Just Mercy and Richard Jewell to the mix and we’re beginning to see a familiar trope. All of these films offer the same narrative: America is a corrupt and unforgiving place and things aren’t getting any better for the poor and the dispossessed.

This is worth seeing for Stewart’s powerful performance in the title role, but I can’t help feeling it could have been more effective than it ultimately is.

3.8 stars

Philip Caveney

 

1917

10/01/20

Blame Orson Welles. 

In his 1958 film, Touch of Evil, he decided to kick proceedings off with a twelve minute continuous tracking shot and, in doing so, opened future filmmakers up to the idea of what might be done with the concept once technology had made it easier to accomplish such marvels. 

In 2016, Sebastian Schipper finally took the idea to its logical conclusion with his low-budget thriller, Victoria, a nail biting two hours and 18 minutes filmed in one continuous take. Surely, there was nowhere else left to go?

Clearly, nobody told Sam Mendes. 1917, based on stories told to him by his grandfather, a World War 1 veteran, isn’t quite a single take movie – it really couldn’t be, not on the scale envisaged for this epic drama – but it is composed of several lengthy tracking shots, cunningly spliced together to make it look like a seamless sequence. There’s only one (intentionally) obvious cut in its entire run, which – given the story’s circumstances – seems entirely justified. 

There’s no time wasted on needless exposition. We are quickly introduced to the two protagonists who will lead us through the story. They are Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) and Schofield (George MacKay), two young soldiers, who – within minutes of the film opening – have been charged with a monumental task: to travel miles across enemy-occupied territory to call off a planned attack by another division, set to occur the following morning. Aerial surveillance has exposed the endeavour as a carefully laid trap, the Germans forces giving the appearance that they are in retreat when, in fact, they are primed to exact a punishing slaughter. To add extra jeopardy to the situation, Blake’s older brother is serving with the battalion that is about to go over the top. If the message doesn’t get through in time, sixteen hundred men will be needlessly massacred…

And, in terms of plot, that’s all you need to know. With the clock ticking, the two men set off along the crowded trenches until they reach the final outpost and are obliged to walk across no-man’s land, weighed down by the awful knowledge that every moment of delay brings disaster a step closer.

Roger Deakins’ cinematography is a thing of wonder. I soon forget the gimmick (because a gimmick; it most certainly is) and find myself caught up in the almost unbearable suspense of the situation. 

This is a war movie that feels horribly immersive. The distance between the screen and my seat seems non-existent and I am in those trenches along with the protagonists, wading through mud and across rat-ravaged corpses. I am dodging bullets and bursts of shrapnel; I am shivering with cold and running frantically past blazing buildings, stranded amidst the architecture of a world gone mad. Yes, this is undoubtedly a technological marvel but, more importantly, it is a riveting, pummelling experience that drives home the horror and futility of war. Lest I make it all sound unbearable, let me add that there are a couple of instances of unexpected beauty in this film, scenes where elements of nature and the resilience of humanity shine like jewels amidst the smoke and devastation.

A whole host of top-flight actors put in cameos as commanding officers, but it’s the two young leads who carry this film and it’s easy to see why it has already earned itself a well deserved ‘best picture’ award at the Golden Globes. 

For all the razzmatazz of its structure, it’s inevitably story that comes first and this delivers at every level, resulting in the first truly unmissable film of 2020.

5 stars

Philip Caveney

 

Just Mercy
This image released by Warner Bros Pictures shows Jamie Foxx in a scene from “Just Mercy.” (Jake Netter/Warner Bros. Pictures via AP)

09/01/20

Michael B Jordan plays civil rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson in this compelling biopic, directed by Destin Daniel Cretton and based on Stevenson’s own memoir. It’s a cautionary tale of how racism and corruption lurk at the very heart of the United States’ legal system, where truth comes a poor second to prejudice.

Although the storytelling here is somewhat workmanlike, the subject matter and strong performances are engrossing; only the hardest of hearts could leave the cinema without feeling utterly outraged. How can a so-called democratic country persist in such appalling and blatant injustice?

Cretton focuses on one of Stevenson’s early cases, representing Walter McMillian (Jamie Foxx), a black Alabama business owner sentenced to death in 1987 for the murder of Ronda Morrison, a white teenager. Stevenson, who is using his Harvard law degree to defend those most vulnerable to the system’s ingrained bias, is appalled to discover the flimsy evidence that has condemned McMillian, known locally as Johnny D. One co-erced testimony from a white felon, it seems, counts for more than dozens of alibis from the accused’s black family and friends; one co-erced testimony, it seems, rules out the need for further corroboration of any kind.

But Stevenson is determined to expose the law’s hypocrisy, to save the poor, the black and the dispossessed one case at a time, so he sets up the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery. Assisted by Eva Ansley (Brie Larson), he takes on the establishment, forcing DA Tommy Champan (Rafe Spall) to acknowledge that, when he says upholding McMillian’s conviction is helping ‘local people’ to feel safe, he is in fact prioritising certain social groups; local black people feel a lot less safe, exposed to the knowledge that the state can and will kill them for crimes they haven’t committed.

The two leads are perfectly cast, with both Jordan and Foxx delivering outstanding, nuanced performances. Rob Morgan is also most affecting as anguished death-row inmate, Herbert Richardson, whose story illustrates that even guilty lives matter and deserve mercy.

The most heartbreaking thing of all is that, thirty years later, nothing has really changed: parity of justice is still just a pipe dream in the US. But, as this film illustrates, even the most inflexible of systems can be challenged and slowly, with determination, changes can be wrought. It’s just shameful that this battle is so far from being won.

It’s a pity, perhaps, that Cretton has opted for such an understated style: more anger, more excoriation, more subtlety in the depiction of the establishment, might have elevated this to a big-hitter, conveying its vital message to a wider audience. As it is, its an important piece of work, but probably destined to be viewed by relatively few.

3.9 stars

Susan Singfield

Bombshell

07/01/20

It was perhaps inevitable that #MeToo would eventually inspire a movie and it’s rather ironic that the first one out of the gate has been written and directed by men – moreover, the director is Hal Roach, previously best known for the Austin Powers films, a franchise that never troubled itself overmuch with the subject of women’s rights. Nonetheless, Bombshell is a powerful and prescient story that takes a close look at the Fox News scandal and the people who lived through it.

Charlize Theron plays Megyn Kelly, Fox’s most influential news anchor, who, at the film’s opening, is exchanging excoriating words with one Donald Trump, an event that will put her on the Republican party’s shit list for an entire year. Kelly has long ago learned to co-exist with Fox News’s all-powerful boss, Roger Aisles (the usually avuncular John Lithgow, cast against type here as a loathsome philanderer). Aisles constantly keeps an eye peeled for new opportunities and soon finds it with the arrival of ambitious young TV producer, Kayla Pospisil (Margot Robbie). Kayla has a yen to step in front of the cameras herself. The question is, how much will Aisles demand to help her achieve that ambition?

Meanwhile, another veteran presenter, Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman), finds her power at the network fading. She’s already been shunted to a less prestigious afternoon slot because of her refusal to kowtow to Mr Aisles’ increasingly sexist demands – and, when she is summarily sacked for no good reason other than she is getting older, she decides to sue Aisles for wrongful dismissal. She hopes that other women who have suffered at his hands will join her cause but, as she soon discovers, many employees at Fox (including Kelly) have too much to lose to risk incurring the wrath of the network…

Charles Randolph’s screenplay does a pretty thorough job of depicting the toxic atmosphere at Fox News during this period. Both Theron and Kidman, sporting convincing prosthetics to make them look more like the genuine players, offer their customary assured performances, but are perhaps hampered by the fact that, when playing real life personalities, finding their inner life can be problematic. It’s therefore Robbie who is the real revelation here. Since her character is a fiction, an amalgam of Aisles’ many victims over the years, she has more freedom to explore the role – and runs with it. The scene where Aisles compels her to ‘give him a twirl’ is an object lesson in understatement, the character’s hidden turmoil brilliantly expressed in every movement and gesture – while later on her tearful phone conversation with a female friend is emotive stuff. Lithgow too is excellent, horribly convincing as the oleaginous Aisles, a man who can make the very act of breathing look unpleasant.

I like the unflinching realism here. There’s no female bonding on display, no sense of the women working together for a common purpose – indeed, the major protagonists of this story barely exchange half a dozen words with each other. It’s a sobering demonstration of how personal ambitions can get in the way of a greater good. But that makes it all the more believable, more like something that could actually happen in such a cutthroat, competitive world.

Watch out for a cameo from Malcolm McDowell as a (pretty convincing) Rupert Murdoch and don’t miss the closing captions, which point out how the guilty parties in this debacle came away with (surprise, surprise) a lot more money than its supposed victors.

Bombshell may be the first film to properly explore the subject of  #MeToo, but I’m quite sure it won’t be the last. And, for a opening salvo, this hits most of its targets.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney

The Souvenir

06/01/20

Writer-director Joanna Hogg’s latest feature is as much a study of film-making as it is an intimate portrayal of a flawed relationship. Its the early 1980s and wannabe film-maker Julie (Honor Swinton Byrne) is trying to find her voice. She’s in her mid-twenties, and keen to explore a story that will take her out of her ‘bubble.’ And it is quite a rarefied bubble, with a Knightsbridge flat and a place at film school all funded by her parents, a set of privileges that both advantage her (giving her the space and opportunity to pursue her dreams) and infantilise her (‘Can I borrow some more money, Mummy? No, I promise, I’m not being extravagant…’). Julie is keenly aware that hers is a narrow worldview, but soon realises that appropriating someone else’s experiences isn’t going to work. And, when she meets Anthony (Tom Burke), it soon becomes apparent that even she is not impervious to drama and to strife.

Julie lacks confidence, and Anthony has lots of it. He’s ebullient, arrogant, charming and dismissive. He’s a bit older than her, works for the foreign office (or so he says), and has a taste for the finer things in life. Julie is swept off her feet but, at a dinner party, Anthony’s friend, Patrick (Richard Ayoade), reveals a disturbing secret. As time goes on, Anthony’s behaviour becomes ever more erratic and manipulative, and Julie’s fragile sense of self takes a real battering.

It’s beautifully acted by all involved, although – given the film’s preoccupation with privilege – it’s a little concerning to see the emergence of another acting dynasty, with Swinton Byrne’s real-life mother (Tilda Swinton) playing her fictional counterpart with consummate skill. Swinton Byrne has certainly inherited the family talent and is mesmerising on screen, but I’m still not sure I like a world where directors’ godchildren are cast as leads in their films. It speaks too loudly of closed doors.

Still, that aside, this is a clever, thought-provoking film. It moves slowly and leaves gaps, as much revealed by what is not said as by what is. Julie is often rendered mute by Anthony’s outbursts; her parents are models of politeness and restraint. But the relationships are vivid nevertheless, and Julie’s core determination to create something of her own shines through, despite her ongoing ordeal.

Burke is especially interesting as Anthony, ensuring we empathise with him even as we despise his actions. As he gradually exerts more and more control over Julie’s life, we begin to will her to break free from his clutches, but she seems incapable of shrugging off his malignant influence. Meanwhile, the era and lifestyle against which this toxic relationship plays out are evocatively portrayed, the cinematography’s washed out tones a subtle reminder of the historical setting.

This exquisite slow burner of a film is, most definitely, one to watch.

4.3 stars

Susan Singfield

The Gentlemen

01/01/20

When Guy Ritchie first burst onto cinema screens in 1998 with Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, his felt like a genuinely fresh voice and, two years later, Snatch served to consolidate his reputation. But his output over the intervening years has not been as assured. (Anybody who had the misfortune to witness his attempt to reinvent King Arthur as a diamond geezer will know where I’m coming from here.) While his recent box office crowd pleaser Aladdin doubtlessly put him back into the black, it could have been directed by just about anybody. So, perhaps it’s no surprise that The Gentlemen is an all too-obvious attempt by Ritchie to return to his glory days. It’s all here, complete with an 18 certificate and enough C bombs for ten films. Take that, Walt Disney!

The lead ‘gentleman’ of the story is Rhodes scholar turned pot dealer, Mickey Pearson (Matthew McConaughey), who is the top drug baron of the realm. He mingles with the aristocracy, who cheerfully help him to grow his crop, and is rich beyond the dreams of Croesus. But he’s looking to get out and spend quality time with his wife, Roz (Michelle Dockery), so he offers to sell his business to Mathew (Jeremy Strong) for a cool 200 million dollars. As you do. But of course, other ‘gentlemen’ are sniffing around, including Dry Eye (Henry Golding) and, naturally, there are various attempts by various others to muscle in on the deal. On reflection, maybe the film should have been entitled The Scumbags, because there’s nobody here to root for, each successive character as nasty and depraved as the previous one. McConaughey, by the way,  has very little to do here except wander listlessly around in a tuxedo.

The story is related by seedy private eye, Fletcher (Hugh Grant, entertainingly playing against type) to Raymond (Charlie Hunnam), Mickey’s right hand man. Fletcher, it seems, has blackmail on his mind, and has written a ‘screenplay’ about the whole thing. He pitches it to Raymond (and the audience) as if trying to get us on side. A convoluted shaggy dog story ensues…

Sadly, Ritchie’s attempt to get back to his former strengths misfires horribly. Despite a pleasing turn from Grant and another from Colin Farrell as ‘Coach,’ this comes across as one of the most unpleasant and racist films of recent years. ‘I’m an equal opportunities offender,’ boasts one character and sure enough, all the non-caucasian characters in the film – black, Jewish, Asian – are treated with the same insulting, tone-deaf approach. Furthermore, poor Michelle Dockery, who has pretty much the only speaking role for a woman in the entire film, is horribly served, her one scene of any consequence marred by a spurious and gratuitous sexual assault. The main problem, of course, is that Ritchie is doubtless blissfully unaware of these shortcomings, a privileged white man still trying to prove his ‘street’ credentials.

Society has moved on considerably since the 1990s, but Ritchie, it seems, has not. He’s still stuck in that decade. And this is not a promising start to 2020.

Philip Caveney

2.6 stars