Film

Captain America: Brave New World

18/02/25

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Heading to the screening for this, I have a wistful recollection of earlier times, when going to see the latest Marvel movie was actually something to look forward to. You know, Avengers Assemble, Guardians of the Galaxy, that kind of thing. It wasn’t so very long ago and yet it already feels like a distant memory. These days, the best I can hope for is, ‘Maybe it won’t be terrible.’

Marvel Studios are victims of their own success. Too many sequels, too many prequels, too much product. But as long as the crowds keep coming, they’ll continue, right?

There are maybe eight people in the huge IMAX auditorium this afternoon, which makes me suspect that I’m not the only one who’s bored with the MCU’s recent output. And okay, Deadpool & Wolverine did make an almost indecent amount of money – largely, I think, by daring to opt for a 15 certificate instead of the more usual 12A, but it was no masterpiece. It makes me wonder how much longer the studio can survive offering insipid releases like Captain America: Brave New World.

Mind you, on paper, it sounds surprisingly promising. Get this: recently elected American president, Thaddeus Grant (Harrison Ford) is showing signs of instability. (Given the current situation in the USA, this could have played out like a clever satire, but all too predictably, it doesn’t.) Grant sends Sam ‘Cap’ Wilson (Anthony Mackie) and Joaquin ‘Falcon’ Torres (Danny Ramirez) to Mexico to combat sneering villain, Sidewinder (Giancarlo Esposito), who has stolen some… er… classified items. A massive punch-up duly ensues. Lots of people die in polite 12A fashion – there’s no blood to speak of and the cameras never really register the impact that big explosions have on the human anatomy.

When Sam and Joaquin return victorious, exhibiting a kind of smug self-satisfaction that’s hard to endure, they discover that President Grant is acting very strangely indeed. He appears to have become fixated on the discovery of a new metal called adamantium, which can only be found on the mysterious ‘Celestial Island,’ and which he’s desperately keen to get his mitts on. On a trip to the White House, Sam and Joaquin witness an assassination attempt on the president, which is initiated by their old friend, super soldier Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly). Afterwards, he has no explanation for his behaviour…

But look, I don’t know why I’m bothering to go into the alleged ‘plot’, which took no less than five screenwriters to create, since it’s mostly an excuse to throw together a series of action set-pieces, leading up to the penultimate scene where Grant mutates into… well, if I say it here, there will doubtless be indignant cries of, ‘Plot spoiler!’ – even though what happens has been blatantly revealed in all the film’s trailers and even features on the poster. I hope they paid Ford a lot of money to converted into pixels and I also hope that ace actor Tim Blake Nelson was paid a shit-ton of the stuff to wander about sporting a head like a rotting cauliflower and muttering dark threats in the role of evil genius Samuel Sterns.

I’m left with the inevitable questions. Why does Torres talk and act like a hyperactive teenager when he’s clearly in his 30s? What were those ‘classified items’ anyway? And how come, when a man turns into a Hulk, he still has a pair of pants that fit him?

At least this one comes in at just under two hours, for which relief much thanks, but if ever proof were needed that Marvel have squeezed this franchise as thin as it will go, surely here it is. But no, as the inevitable post-credit sequence grimly intones, Captain America will return…

Which sounds more like a threat than a promise.

2. 3 stars

Philip Caveney

Heart Eyes

16/02/25

Cineworld Edinburgh

We are romantic sorts here at Bouquets & Brickbats, so come Valentine’s Day (or at least, forty-eight hours after it) we seek out this timely tale of a young couple who set out for a romantic night on February 14th… only to find themselves being pursued by a relentless serial killer. We’ve all been there.

Despite that unprepossessing title, Heart Eyes, directed by actor Josh Ruben and written by Phillip Murphy, Christopher Landon and Michael Kennedy, is a spirited mash-up, mixing familiar elements from famous rom-coms with gnarly images from slasher movies. In a snappy pre-credits sequence, we see the titular killer (named because of the heart-shaped goggles he wears over the inevitable fright mask) interrupting the romantic proposal of Patrick (Alex Walker) and Adeline (Lauren O’Hara) in a very aggressive manner. Suffice to say, it gets messy.

Credits done, and we learn that Heart Eyes (thus dubbed by the ever-sensitive press) has been active for a couple of years, and these Valentine slaughters are an annual occurrence. He moves to a different city for each successive spree. This time it’s Seattle.

And does this put people off celebrating the event? No, it does not. Go figure.

We meet Ally (Olivia Holt), who works at an advertising agency and has just angered her boss, Crystal (Michaela Watkins), by attempting to pitch a romantic ad campaign that’s based around the subject of er… death. It doesn’t go down well. Crystal introduces Ally to Jay (Mason Gooding), handsome, smooth-talking and almost definitely there to take Ally’s job away from her. Jay suggests that the two of them should head out for dinner so they can discuss the way forward. She points out that it’s Valentine’s Day and he assures her that everything will be fine…

Heart Eyes isn’t exactly reinventing the wheel here, but I have fun with the premise. Ruben seems to delight in propelling his leads along a twisting path of unforeseen – and sometimes preposterous – events. The danger here, of course, is that rom-com fans will be put off by the regular bouts of gory 18-certificate violence while hardcore fright fans will be sniffy about the romantic stuff. For those who can enjoy both, this is a propulsive ride that flings viewers gleefully from one situation to the next, often with tongue firmly in cheek.

If some of the ‘twists’ don’t exactly take me by surprise – Chekov’s metal straw, I’m looking at you – there are plenty of lines that manage to catch me in the chuckle muscles, especially those from Ally’s rom-com obsessed best friend, Monica (Gigi Zumbado).

If you see this in the cinema, make sure you stay in your seat for a mid-credit scene, which most of the viewers at the screening I attend manage to miss. For once, this is actually worth waiting for.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

The Seed of the Sacred Fig

09/02/25

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Written, co-produced and directed by Mohammad Rasoulof, The Seed of the Sacred Fig is a monumental achievement, filmed in secret to avoid censorship by Iran’s Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, which restricts depictions of social issues, criticism of the regime – and female hair. When this movie was selected for the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, Rasoulof was sentenced to eight years in jail, as well as a flogging and a fine. He fled to Germany, a perilous escape. And he’s not the only one: almost all of the actors have had to leave their homeland too. Only Soheila Golestani remains in Iran, where she has faced numerous interrogations and is currently banned from either working or leaving the country.

Golestani plays Najmeh, mother to college student Rezvan (Mahsa Rostami) and teenage schoolgirl Sana (Setareh Maleki). The story opens with the news that her husband, Iman (Missagh Zareh), has been promoted to the prestigious role of ‘investigator’ for the revolutionary courts. The family’s celebrations are tinged with foreboding, as Iman warns his daughters that they need to be careful. They can’t tell anyone about his work, they can’t post pictures of themselves on social media, and their behaviour must be beyond reproach. ‘Investigators’, we learn, are tasked with deciding which criminals should face the death penalty – and there’s an inherent danger from those seeking revenge. Alone in their bedroom, Iman shows Najmeh the gun his boss has given him. “For protection,” he says. She’s terrified.

The timing could hardly be worse. The fictional Iman’s promotion coincides with the real-life Mahsa Amini’s death in police custody, after being arrested for contravening morality laws (i.e. refusing to wear a hijab). As angry young protestors flood the streets, demanding change, the government responds in force. Suddenly, Iman is coerced into signing hundreds of death warrants every day. It takes its toll, especially as he soon finds himself at odds with his outspoken daughters.

The family functions as a microcosm for Iranian society. Iman represents the government, whose strictures Najmeh accepts and therefore perpetuates. Rezvan agrees with the protestors, but she’s passive and obedient, and doesn’t dare to act. Sana, on the other hand, has no such compunctions: she wants her freedom and she’s ready to do whatever it takes.

And then Iman’s gun goes missing. He knows that only three people have had the opportunity to take it, and so he subjects his family to a terrifying interrogation, illuminating the allegorical nature of the title. Just as the sacred fig is a parasitic plant, which grows around and eventually strangles its host, so the regime corrupts Iman. By the end, its tendrils have destroyed him, and the honourable, loving man he used to be is completely gone.

This isn’t a perfect movie, but it’s a mightily impressive one: the mind boggles at the thought of the bravery it must take to participate in something so important and with such high stakes. The almost three-hour running time gallops by, and I am completely invested in the family’s drama, while also learning more about Iranian politics. The four main actors are all utterly compelling, their characters entirely credible, even in the final act, where the plot is more figurative than literal, and everything spirals out of control.

The Seed of the Sacred Fig has been nominated for the best international feature Oscar (albeit representing Germany and not Iran) and I sincerely hope it wins. According to Rasoulof, the Iranian authorities won’t announce verdicts on those members of his cast and crew who stand accused of “spreading immorality and propaganda” until the result is announced. They don’t want the adverse publicity.

As art, as protest, as an act of courage, this is a film you don’t want to miss.

4.8 stars

Susan Singfield

Bring Them Down

09/02/25

The Cameo, Edinburgh

In the Wild West, as we all know, men are men and they have vengeance in their hearts. And naturally they always take the law into their own hands. In the case of Christopher Andrews’ directorial debut, Bring Them Down, we’re talking about the West of Ireland, somewhere near Athenry, judging by what’s printed on the side of a van. The story is set in the present day but you’d be forgiven for thinking that it’s some time in the 1950s.

Michael O’Shea (Christopher Abbott) is a sheep farmer, stranded out in the middle of picturesque nowhere with his disabled father, Ray (Colm Meany), grumbling and snarking in the background. The two of them are constantly in dispute with their neighbour, Gary (Paul Ready), who is building holiday homes on adjoining land and seems to be spoiling for a fight. It doesn’t help that Gary is married to Caroline (Nora-Jane Noone), with whom Michael shares a troubled history (as we’ve seen in the film’s opening flashback). Gary and Caroline have a son, Jack (Barry Keoghan), who is tormented by the fact that his parents are in financial straits and appear to be on the verge of splitting up. He’s desperately on the lookout for ways to earn some extra money.

When somebody steals a couple of the O’Shea’s rams, Michael discovers them in Gary’s herd. He is at first reluctant to challenge his neighbours but, spurred on by his father’s angry tirades, Michael soon succumbs and sets off on a bloody quest for vengeance…

A more reductive view of the Irish would be hard to imagine. Every male character we meet seems intent on hurting, taunting or maiming those who get in their way and these people are seemingly unaware that the Garda even exist. Somewhere around the halfway point, Andrews’ script does a backward loop and offers a fresh perspective on what we’ve seen up to now, to indicate that things are not entirely as they seem, but it hardly helps matters, and I simply cannot credit one scene where Jack and his pal Lee (Aaron Hefferman) embark on an escapade so heinous it beggars belief.

There are other problems here. Keoghan is supposedly a teenager (Jack certainly acts like one) but unfortunately looks every day of his actual thirty-two years; and, while Abbott (an American actor, last seen undergoing supernatural changes in Wolf Man) makes a halfway decent stab at an Irish brogue and even delivers lines in Gaelige, this is thick-eared stuff that appears to offer an unpleasant subtext, suggesting that women shouldn’t be allowed to leave their men, as it messes them up.

Bring Them Down at least does what it says on the can. I leave the cinema wishing I’d skipped this film and looked elsewhere for a afternoon’s entertainment.

2.6 stars

Philip Caveney

September 5

08/02/25

Cineworld, Edinburgh

It’s September 1972 and in Munich the sports department of ABC television are busy in their studio in the Olympic village, beaming live coverage of the Games to viewers all over the world. In this pre-digital age, they need to use every trick at their disposal to ensure that they capture the action. And then some of them hear the sound of gunshots…

Swiss director Tim Fehlbaum’s ingenious account of this true-life story, written by Fehlbaum, Moritz Binder and Alex David, is a dark claustrophobic tale, which adopts the same approach as the broadcast team, never pointing the finger of blame but simply laying out what happens in meticulous detail. Geoffrey Mason (John Magaro), a relatively inexperienced studio director, has been handed the opportunity to helm today’s coverage and is anxious to do a good job, under the ever watchful gaze of head man, Roone Arlege (Peter Sarsgaard), and producer, Marvin Bader (Ben Chaplin).

But when eleven members of the Israeli team are taken hostage by the Palestinian Black September group, the stakes are suddenly kicked into the stratosphere. The terrorists announce that, if their demands are not met, they will kill one athlete every hour…

Arlege is determined that, as the crew closest to the action, the sports team must hang on to this ‘scoop’ at all costs. It is their responsibility, he claims, to ensure that the unfolding story is shown to the world. As the only person in their office who can speak German, young assistant Marianne Gebhardt (Leonie Benesch) finds herself pressed into service as an interpreter, horribly aware that she has been plunged headlong into a demanding position.

I’m old enough to actually remember the event but its shocking outcome (I’m almost ashamed to admit) has drifted into the mists of time. Consequently, September 5 wracks me with suspense throughout, the tension steadily mounting as the film hurtles towards its shattering conclusion.

Fehlbaum’s production team has done an incredible job here, seamlessly interweaving found footage with authentic recreations of the era and using sequences featuring the original presenter, Jim McKay, to great effect. I’m constantly impressed by the inventiveness of the original technicians, who have to come up with all kinds of tricks and shortcuts to ensure that their coverage reaches the widest possible audience.

It’s sobering to learn that the live broadcast (one of the very first of its kind) was seen by more than 900 million viewers. But be warned, this is real life and therefore not one of those action romps that results in a neat, heartwarming, happy ending. Nonetheless, it’s an assured and provocative film that’s earned its Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

4.4 stars

Philip Caveney

Companion

02/02/25

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Occasionally I find myself wishing that I haven’t already seen the trailer for a film and Companion is a good case in point.

Writer/director Drew Hancock’s debut feature is a spirited genre mash-up, part sci-fi, part horror, part comedy. The aforementioned trailer has no qualms about alerting potential viewers to a major plot reveal in the story. (Even the film’s poster is a dead giveaway!) Okay, the revelation occurs only twenty or so minutes into proceedings and, yes, there are a whole bunch of hints along the way but still… when the revelation occurs, I can’t help thinking what a delicious shock it would have been if only I hadn’t known this was coming. No matter, because there are a whole bunch of other surprises studded throughout the audacious, twisty-turny storyline that ensure I still have plenty of fun.

We open with a flashback as Iris (Sophie Thatcher, last seen interviewing Hugh Grant in Heretic) wanders dreamily through a Stepford Wives sort of supermarket and has a meet-cute with Josh (Jack Quaid). In a voice-over, she tells us about something major that is going to happen later on. Another spoiler? Yes, but weirdly that’s not the one I’m worried about.

We cut back to now (somewhere in the near future). Iris and Josh are an established couple and are heading off in their self-driving car to the swish lakeside home of mega-rich Russian oligarch, Sergey (Rupert Friend). Sergey happens to be dating one of Josh’s friends, Kat (Megan Suri), and we learn early on that Kat isn’t keen on Iris. Also invited along for the weekend are Josh’s friends Eli (Harvey Guillén) and his devoted partner, Patrick (Lucas Gage).

From the beginning it’s clear that there’s something different about Iris; she’s almost too perfect, too well-informed about a whole variety of subjects… and well, that’s because she isn’t human, but a highly sophisticated AI companion, or as Josh puts it a tad more bluntly, a ‘fuckbot.’ (Always nice to know you’re appreciated.) It turns out that the aforementioned meet-cute between Iris and Josh is actually just a manufactured memory, picked at random from a list of possibilities, designed to enforce Iris’s abiding devotion to the man who is her, er… boyfriend?

Companion is the kind of film that isn’t shy about swinging for the fences and really, the less I reveal about the plot from this point, the better. Suffice to say, whenever it seems in danger of petering out or treading on over-familiar territory, Hancock throws in something totally unexpected – something violent, or something funny – and even when the film appears to be heading into a straightforward chase scenario, Iris finds herself faced with yet more unexpected situations. Of course, we’re all familiar with those ‘evil AI’ plots, but Companion turns that idea on its head and makes me feel sorry for Iris and hoping that she can extricate herself from the mess that she’s been dropped into. As her woes steadily mount, so the film’s subtext becomes increasingly feminist.

Thatcher is terrific in the lead role, managing to convey her Uncanny Valley persona with great skill and I’m sure we’re going to see more of her on the big screen in due course. I’ve noticed a few ‘too cool for school’ reviews that have slammed the film as being ‘not as clever as it thinks it is,’ but I beg to differ. For my money, this is an assured debut and I’m already fascinated to see what Hancock comes up with next.

Companion gets a big thumbs-up from B & B and I would urge you to go and see it at your earliest opportunity. And, if you haven’t seen the trailer… so much the better.

4. 4 stars

Philip Caveney

Hard Truths

01/02/25

Cineworld, Edinburgh

It’s been quite some time since we had a new film from Mike Leigh. His last, 2018’s Peterloo, made for Amazon, was an attempt to transfer his inimitable style onto a bigger canvas and the results were somewhat mixed. With Hard Truths, he’s back on what feels like his home turf, in one of his intimate, unflinching examinations of the human condition.

Pansy (Marianne Jean Baptiste) is in a bad way. Plagued by awful nightmares, she’s not a great deal happier when awake and is prone to unleashing her acid tongue on anybody unlucky enough to cross her path. Her regular targets include her monosyllabic husband, Curtley (David Webber), and her disaffected son, Moses (Tuwaine Barrett), who has taken to reading children’s picture books and blocking out sound with his headphones, while she snarls and raves. And there are plenty of others who find themselves targets for a tongue-lashing: various shop workers, luckless members of the public… even the girl at the supermarket till is told to ‘do something about her face.’

Pansy’s sister, Chantelle (Michele Austin), is her polar opposite. A hairdresser by trade, she has a warm, sunny disposition, always up for a giggle and a gossip, and she has raised her two daughters, Kayla (Ani Nelson) and Aleisha (Sophia Brown), to have the same happy-go-lucky approach to life, even when their own work situations are sometimes challenging.

As the anniversary of Pansy and Chantelle’s mother’s death approaches, a family get-together is planned but making things work with Pansy’s forbidding ‘ghost-at-the-feast’ presence is going to prove a tall order…

This feels like a classic Mike Leigh project and, as ever, his unique approach to filmmaking yields remarkable results. Both Jean Baptiste and Austin offer extraordinarily affecting performances in the lead roles, but the film is more than just a simple two-hander, with all the subsidiary characters beautifully delineated in a series of short set-pieces. Leigh handles a large cast with his customary skill: neither Webber and Barrett is given much in the way of dialogue, but their despair is written large in their desperate sidelong glances. And watch out for Samantha Spiro in a deliciously unpleasant cameo as Kayla’s employer, Nicole.

It’s fascinating to experience the film’s transformation, from the early scenes which are somehow caustically funny (and which have already spawned some internet memes) into a confrontation so utterly heartrending that I find my eyes involuntarily filling up with tears. Hard Truths won’t be for everyone. There’s a devastating melancholy at the heart of this film that seems to seep from the screen, and some of the later scenes make for harrowing viewing. But it’s proof if ever it were needed that Leigh is a unique filmmaker, who has always allowed his actors the creative freedom to explore their characters and in the process, yield extraordinary results.

4.4 stars

Philip Caveney

Presence

26/01/25

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Steven Soderbergh’s latest film is Presence, a taut little ghost story told with absolute assurance. Striking a perfect balance between genre tropes and a fresh approach, this is an intelligent and entertaining piece of work, well worth eighty-five minutes of anybody’s time.

Rebekah (Lucy Liu) is immensely proud of her son, Tyler (Eddy Maday), and determined to maximise his chances of a swimming scholarship, even if it means relocating to a different school district. Her husband, Chris (Chris Sullivan), is unconvinced. After all, it’s only a couple of months since Tyler’s younger sister, Chloe (Callina Liang), lost her best friend to a drug overdose. How will she cope with the upheaval?

But Rebekah is an unstoppable force and so the family duly moves. But Chloe becomes aware that there’s a presence in the new house. Someone – or something – is watching her. Did something bad once happen here?

So far, so predictable – but don’t be fooled. Written by David Koepp, this is a highly original tale with twists and turns aplenty. Its simple surface belies its depths: I find myself thinking about it for hours afterwards, recalling hints and clues that were hiding in plain sight.

Soderbergh’s cinematography sets a claustrophobic tone, as we witness everything from the point of view of the titular presence, peering out from behind the shadows, apparently unable to leave the house. Time sputters forward jerkily: the rooms are empty, then filled with furniture; the walls change colour; trinkets appear; messes are made. The family dynamics are slowly revealed: the cracks in Chris and Rebekah’s marriage; Chloe’s longing for her mom’s attention; the chasm separating Chloe from her jockish brother. Whatever the presence is, it doesn’t seem to want to cause her harm…

Liang might be a relative newcomer, but she more than holds her own in the lead role, creating a compelling and engaging character for the audience to root for. Liu and Sullivan convince as a disaffected couple, while Maday and West Mulholland (as Tyler’s team-mate, Ryan), provide the boyish bantz.

It would be criminal to reveal more here, and so I won’t. Suffice to say that this is a welcome addition to the ghost story cannon. And I look forward to seeing what else the prolific Soderbergh has to offer, in next month’s highly anticipated Black Bag.

4 stars

Susan Singfield

The Brutalist

25/01/25

Cineworld, Edinburgh

It’s evident from the very beginning of The Brutalist that director Brady Corbet is determined to establish his own rules. Instead of rolling vertically, like every other credit sequence you’ve seen, the words slide horizontally across the screen and resemble the work of a groundbreaking graphic designer. Using VistaVision – a screen format popularised in the 1950s – the film has its own distinctive look. It has a prodigious running time of over three-and-a-half hours, but, much like the old epics of David Lean, viewers are afforded a fifteen-minute interval, so we can avail ourselves of a toilet break.

It’s a wonder then that The Brutalist is so utterly compelling that I barely even notice its length. This is monumental in every sense of the word and perhaps the biggest wonder of all is that it’s been created on a budget of less than ten million dollars – a fraction of most films conceived on this scale.

The story begins in 1947 with a series of fragmentary glimpses of Jewish refugee, László Tóth (Adrien Brody) travelling by ship from his native Hungary to begin a new life in America. He has been forcibly separated from his wife, Erzsébet (Felicity Jones), and his orphaned niece, Zsófia (Raffey Cassiday), and imprisoned in Dachau concentration camp for most of the war, but has now been offered sanctuary in Pennsylvania by his cousin, Attila (Alessandro Nivola), and his Catholic wife, Audrey (Emma Laird). The couple run a small furniture store and Attila is well aware that, before the war, László worked as an architect of the Bauhaus School. His design skills, Attila thinks, will come in useful.

Attila is approached by Harry Lee Van Buren (Joe Alwyn), who wants to commission László to redesign his father Harrison’s private library as a birthday surprise. Rather than do a straightforward upgrade, László transforms the room into a stunning work of art. When Harrison (Guy Pearce) arrives home earlier than expected, he clearly doesn’t approve of what’s been done in his absence and flies into a rage, ordering László and Attila to leave. Harry subsequently refuses to pay for the work and, as a consequence, László finds himself thrown out of his cousin’s place, with no better prospect than labouring to earn his daily bread. With his friend, Gordon (Isaac de Bankholé), he sinks into heroin addiction.

But when the redesigned library appears in the pages of an influential style magazine, Harrison undergoes a dramatic change of heart. Suddenly, he wants to be László’s patron, to converse with him, to fully understand his working methods. What’s more, he has influential Jewish friends who will be able to help him to bring Erzsébet and Zsófia over from Hungary to be with him. And then Harrison starts talking about a new commission: a massive civic centre dedicated to his late wife, a place where the local community can meet and enrich their lives.

But in the fullness of time, László will discover that such indulgences come at a price that will utterly compromise his artistic freedom – and will impinge upon his life in ways he could never have anticipated…

The Brutalist is a remarkable film in so many ways, not least because of Brody’s powerful performance in the lead role, a tortured artist, forced to compromise his talent at every turn. Pearce is also terrific as the self-aggrandising Harrison and Alwyn excels as his sneering, deeply unpleasant son, a man used to getting his own way in everything he approaches. Jones doesn’t enter the story until the film’s second half but submits a beautifully nuanced performance as Erzsébet, a woman still physically tortured by the aftermath of the starvation she suffered during the war. I should also mention Daniel Blumberg’s wonderful score, which provides the perfect accompaniment to Lol Crowley’s eye-popping cinematography.

The film has plenty to say about the creative process and it nails perfectly the powerful seduction that success offers to any artist – the fateful allure of patronage and its unpalatable compromises. Brady’s screenplay, co-written with Mona Fastvold, is wise enough to hint at unspeakable things rather than spelling them out – and it keeps me hooked until the final frame.

Will Brody lift the ‘best actor’ gong at this year’s Oscars? It’s a strong possibility in a year that features a whole bunch of commendable performances. Meanwhile, go and see The Brutalist and marvel at its epic qualities – and, if possible, watch it on an IMAX screen to best appreciate the wonders of VistaVision.

5 stars

Philip Caveney

Wolf Man

18/01/25

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Director Leigh Whannell last plundered the vaults of Universal Studios with his reboot of The Invisible Man (2020), where he managed to completely reimagine the 1933 source film (starring Claude Rains) as a twisty-turny nail-biter with Elisabeth Moss. The Wolf Man, a 1941 fright flick for Lon Chaney, has had plenty of remakes over the years, but few of them have ever managed to unleash the story’s full potential. While Whannell makes a spirited attempt here, framing this as an allegory about a man trying to escape from the toxic influences of his late father, the telling is poorly-paced and runs out of steam long before it ends.

It begins with an effective flashback. A young boy called Blake (Zac Chandler) heads out on a hunting expedition into the forests of Oregon with his authoritarian father, Grady (Sam Jaeger). The two of them live alone in a remote cabin (in the woods, naturally) and Blake has overheard Grady talking on the CB radio, making ominous remarks about something ‘dangerous’ that lurks in the forest, so the kid is understandably pretty nervous. Sure enough, in a thoroughly gripping sequence, the two hunters find themselves becoming potential prey as they are pursued by an unseen creature…

40 years later, Blake (now played by Christopher Abbott) is living in San Francisco. He’s a would-be writer who has lost his mojo and is playing the role of house-husband while his journalist wife, Charlotte (Julia Garner), puts food on the table. Blake is constantly worried about their young daughter, Ginger (Matilda Firth), and sees his sole reason for existence as a mission to protect her from harm.

Grady, meanwhile, has been missing presumed dead for a very long time. When news comes through that the authorities have officially pronounced him ‘deceased,’ Blake comes up with an idea. Why don’t the three of them hire a van, drive out to Oregon and clear out his father’s cabin, whilst having a relaxing holiday in the process? At this stage, I’m not sure which is most unlikely – Blake’s suggestion or his wife and daughter’s decision to say ‘Hey, why not?’

But it happens anyway and, in what feels like a rather rushed narrative, the three of them drive to Oregon and find themselves menaced by a mysterious upright beast even before they properly arrive at their destination…

To give the film its due, Whannell manages to cook up impressive levels of suspense for the film’s first hour. Stefan Duscio’s murky cinematography and Benjamin Walfisch’s eerie music add to the steadily mounting sense of dread. When Blake suffers an injury and begins to transform into – well, take a wild guess – his situation seems to mirror a whole series of possible references from drug addiction to generic inheritance. But just as I’m thinking that this is going to be a triumph, there’s a major development (I’m confident you’ll spot it when it arrives) where the story reaches its logical conclusion, and where it really ought to end.

Except that there’s still another half hour to fill – and so the action continues, squandering most of the Brownie points earned so far, in what feels like a series of completely superfluous extra scenes. As is so often the case, the more we see of the titular creature, the less menacing it becomes. A last, thought-provoking scene arrives a little too late to undo the damage.

A shame, because that first hour definitely takes the viewer to some very uncomfortable places – and it’s hard not to conclude that, if it had only taken the family a little longer to get to the cabin, this could have been a much more satisfying experience.

3.4 stars

Philip Caveney