Film

Booksmart

06/05/19

It’s the day before they graduate from high school, and best friends Amy (Kaitlyn Dever) and Molly (Beanie Feldstein) are secure in the knowledge that they have achieved first class grades. They’ve managed this by working hard and staying well away from the kind of distractions that their less dedicated classmates have enjoyed to the full – parties, romances, drink and recreational drugs. Amy and Molly are the kind of students who spend their leisure time in the library and who can’t help correcting the grammar on the graffiti in the school toilets. They are – basically – swots.

So when Molly discovers that all her hard-partying classmates are also going to graduate with honours and will attend the finest universities in the land, she’s understandably dismayed. She vows that, tonight, she and Amy will attend the wildest party in town, that they will pursue the long-held romantic interests they have deliberately set aside, and  indulge in all the hedonistic pleasures they can lay their hands on.

In short, they will, for once in their lives, let their hair down and enjoy themselves. The only problem is, they don’t actually have the address where the party is being held…

Dever and Feldstein are terrific as the central couple and the witty script expertly kindles the laughs as the duo experience alarming setbacks in their quest to experience those forbidden pleasures. There are some genuinely heartwarming moments too, as the girls finally address the unspoken issues that lie at the heart of their mutual dependancy.

The real strength of Booksmart, however, lies in the way it cheerfully sets up a whole string of audience expectations, only to cleverly subvert them – from the school’s sardonic principal (Jason Sudeikis), who moonlights as a taxi driver, to the resident rich kid (Skyler Gisondo), reduced to trying to lure friends to his party by offering them free iPads.  Nothing here is ever quite what you expect and none of the characters are allowed to descend into cliché.

Directed by actor Olivia Wilde, Booksmart is a joyful little peach of a movie: sharp, clever and perceptive. It’s sure to make you laugh and you may even emerge from the cinema (as I did) with a lump in your throat. Enjoy!

4.6 stars

Philip Caveney

Woman at War

05/05/19

Halla (Halldóra Geirhardsdóttir) is a woman with a mission.

Well into her forties and gainfully employed as a respectable choir mistress, she spends her down time as an ecological avenger, waging a one-woman war on the local aluminium smelting industry, which she feels is despoiling the country she loves. With the aid of her trusty longbow and the occasional lump of stolen semtex, Halla takes every opportunity to disrupt the nearby plant, knocking down electricity lines and blowing up pylons. Secretly aided and abetted by minor politician, Baldwin (Joründa Ragnarsson), she keeps her mission a secret from her friends – and even her twin sister, Ása, a cerebral yoga instructor.

But when Halla learns that her four-years-pending application to adopt a child has finally come to fruition, she is faced with a difficult choice. Should she continue with her mission to save the planet or focus instead on her much longed-for role as a mother?

Director and co-writer Benedikt Erlingsson has created something really unique here. While he gleefully utilises all the tropes of the Hollywood action movie, Halla’s pursuits by helicopter and drone across stunning Icelandic backdrop still have a realistic tone that makes every scene feel perfectly plausible. But the film is much more unusual than that implies. A three piece band (and later a trio of Ukrainian singers) are constantly onscreen, like some weird Greek chorus. They provide a jaunty soundtrack, and also act as observers and commentators, sometimes complicit, sometimes disapproving. It’s this element more than anything else that lends Woman at War a surreal and quirky edge that you’d frankly never see in a Hollywood movie.

Geirhardsdóttir submits a fabulous performance both as Halla and her twin sister, and there’s nice support from Jóhann Sigurdarson as a local farmer who might just be Halla’s cousin. Whether you agree with her approach or not, you’ll be rooting for her every step of the way.

This was Iceland’s entry for the foreign language Oscar at the 91st Academy Awards, but it didn’t make the shortlist, which either means the standard was incredibly high this year or people just weren’t getting it – and for sure, this won’t appeal to everyone. If however, you relish original film-making with a delicious subversive tone, this one should be right up your alley.

4.8 stars

Philip Caveney

Tolkien

04/05/19

The Tolkien Estate have taken against this biopic of the famous writer in no uncertain terms, but it’s hard to understand exactly why. As embodied by Nicholas Hoult, he’s an admirable fellow: handsome, witty and completely loyal to his friends – all attributes that he would eventually hand on to his fictional characters in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

The film concerns itself mostly with the writer’s early years: his childhood in Sarehole, Worcestershire (which would become the model for ‘The Shire’); his time at a boarding house in Birmingham, after the death of his mother, where he meets and eventually falls in love with fellow orphan, Edith Bratt (Lily Collins); and his school years at King Edward’s, Birmingham, where he and three close friends found a secret society, the TCBS. This fellowship continues when the boys go on to University, and it remains strong until the First World War intervenes and changes everything.

Director Dome Karukoski and screenwriters David Gleeson and Stephen Beresford are keen to show how Tolkien’s horrific experiences at the Battle of the Sommes contributed to the imagery that would dominate his future books, and the sequences that depict mythical beasts rising from the carnage of trench warfare are perhaps the strongest scenes here, handsomely mounted and never overdone. Tolkien’s protracted courtship of Edith, while rather less spectacular, is also nicely handled, and Hoult and Collins make an engaging couple. There’s a nice cameo by Derek Jacobi as the Oxford Professor who encourages Tolkien to develop his flair for languages, and another from Colm Meaney as the Catholic priest charged with the responsibility of ensuring that things work out for Tolkien in the long run.

While it’s certainly a gentle and low key affair, I find the film absorbing and, ironically, much more interesting than the great books themselves, which – try as I might – I have never really managed to enjoy. Don’t tell the Tolkien Estate. They’ll probably sue me. For heresy.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

Avengers: Endgame
Marvel Studios’ AVENGERS: ENDGAME..Nebula (Karen Gillan)..Photo: Film Frame..©Marvel Studios 2019

30/04/19

It’s pointless to try and give this one a body swerve. It lumbers over the cinematic horizon like a behemoth, gobbling up viewers and crushing box office records beneath its massive feet. Resistance is futile.

As one of the few reviewers who was distinctly underwhelmed by Infinity Wars, I still need to see how the Russo Brothers are going to extricate themselves from the corner they’ve seemingly painted themselves into. Oh, right… like that. Well, I guess it was the only way possible…

By the way, those of you who like to cry ‘plot spoiler!’ every time a tiny detail is revealed may want to think twice about reading the following two paragraphs. Just saying.

Endgame opens briefly on events shortly after Thanos (Josh Brolin) has made the most calamitous finger-snap in history. It then moves on five years to show the remaining Avengers trying to come to terms with what has happened to the world. Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) is now a ruthless swordsmen, carving up Japanese gangsters with relish, whilst sporting a disastrous new haircut that makes him look like a disgruntled cockapoo. Captain America (Chris Evans) is attending therapy classes, but is still impossibly clean and healthy. Thor (Chris Hemsworth), on the other hand, has really let himself go and now sports hippie dreadlocks and a fearsome beer belly. Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) has learned to manage his anger issues and is permanently trapped in his green, oversized alter ego, Hulk. And… well, so on.

Then, up pops Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) recently returned from imprisonment in the quantum realm. He brings along an idea that might just undo the Infinity Curse and return the world to where it was five years ago. So the Avengers assemble for one more mission.

OK, so my main beef with this is the same as it was with Infinity Wars, only even more so. There are just too many superheroes for comfort. The way things stand here, they seem to outnumber ordinary people, which can’t be right, surely? And you know, I, for one, am happier with those movies (like Shazam!, for instance) that know they are essentially kids’ film’s and feel no shame about it. Endgame, however, is for the most part so serious it hurts – it’s a great lumbering leviathan, creaking beneath the weight of its own self-importance. Happily, the po-faced stuff is leavened every so often by some much-needed humour, most of it coming from Hemsworth’s corner. (I love the fact that Thor never has to apologise for losing that gym-ready look and Hemsworth always has a cheeky glint in his eye that suggests he knows how ridiculous it all is but couldn’t care less.)

To give the Russo Brothers their due, this doesn’t really feel like a bum-numbing three-hour marathon. It’s action packed enough to allow the time to zip by and, if the script occasionally feels ridiculously over-complicated, well that’s just par for the course when you have an audience that picks so avidly over every little detail. And pick they will. Reports are that people are going back to watch the film over and over again.

Of course, as ever, we are presented with a great big climactic battle, made even more of an endurance test by the fact that the scriptwriters feel duty bound to include every single lead character from the preceding twenty-one movies in the Marvel EU. That’s an awful lot of spandex to take in. And then of course, once the punch up’s done and the dust has settled, there’s the little matter of tying up all those loose ends…

Look, the cinema going public has made its mind up on this, and who am I to say that they’re wrong? I can only speak for myself when I repeat the old mantra ‘less is more.’ Give me one superhero and one villain, and I’m a relatively happy bunny.

Endgame is undoubtedly a big movie, but maybe not in the way it thinks it is.

3.8 stars

Philip Caveney

 

 

Greta

29/04/19

Neil Jordan is always an interesting director. From his debut with Angel in 1981, through Hollywood blockbusters like Interview With the Vampire, to little jewels like Breakfast on Pluto, he has steadfastly resisted being confined to a particular genre, instead choosing to nip effortlessly back and forth across various categories with alacrity. Greta sees him diving into an old-school psychological thriller, once again tearing up the rule book as he goes, and emerging with something gloriously off-kilter.

Frances McCullen (Chloë Grace Moretz) lives in a swish Tribeca apartment with her rich and spoiled flat mate, Erica (Maika Monroe),  earning her rent money as a waitress in a swish Manhattan restaurant. Heading home from work on the subway one night, she chances upon a handbag, which contains the ID for Greta Hildeg (Isabelle Huppert). Though Erica urges Frances to spend the bundle of money that’s also in there,  she decides to do the decent thing and return it to the owner, who turns out to be a lonely piano teacher. Frances has recently lost her mother, and she instantly warms to Greta’s maternal and affectionate manner.

Much to Erica’s disgust, Frances and Greta quickly form a friendship, but Greta soon begins to overstep the mark, coming on way too strong. When Frances makes a chilling discovery in Greta’s apartment, she attempts to call a halt to the friendship, but Greta does not want it to end and seems prepared to go to any lengths in order to keep Frances in her clutches…

This is by no means a perfect film – indeed, there’s a plot twist at one point that frankly beggars belief – but Jordan is very adept at using the tropes of more conventional horror movies to create almost unbearable levels of suspense, something he manages to maintain until the very final frame. It’s refreshing too to see a film that offers three terrific lead roles for women, while the male cast members are merely incidental characters. That said, I felt a tad sorry for Jordan’s old comrade, Stephen Rea, lumbered with a thankless cameo as a detective, stumbling towards his own destruction. Huppert is terrific in the title role (so good that I’m almost ready to forgive her for her involvement in the repellant Elle) and Moretz and Monroe also acquit themselves well.

Given the unfortunate timing of its release (pitched against the audience-gobbling behemoth that is Avengers: End Game) Greta has inevitably been somewhat lost in the shuffle, which is a great shame because – that dodgy plot device notwithstanding – there’s plenty to recommend in this wiry, old-fashioned thriller.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

Eighth Grade

28/04/19

I love a good coming-of-age story, and Bo Burnham’s directorial debut is a fine example of the genre. It’s charming and excruciating in equal measure, specific to contemporary America yet universal in its appeal. We haven’t all grown up with social media, but we have all endured those painful teenage years, negotiating the complexities of school and home, trying to find where we fit in.

Kayla (Elsie Fisher) is about to graduate from middle school; she’s lonely and self-conscious, desperate to dispel the myth that she is ‘quiet.’ She vlogs a more outgoing version of herself, but no one seems to be watching; she’s a voyeur, viewing the world through the prism of social media, willing herself to live up to the persona she projects online. Her to-do list is dreadfully sad: get a best friend, be there for them no matter what. She doesn’t want much, but even these small dreams seem beyond her reach.

What’s clever here is the sheer ordinariness of it all. Kayla isn’t odd or unusual; she’s a dorky, awkward everykid. Her dad, Mark (Josh Hamiltion) is a loving parent (her mum is absent; she ‘left’ when Kayla was little, but we don’t find out why, and it doesn’t seem to be a real issue). She isn’t bullied at school; she’s just ignored. Even the stuff that seems scary from the outside – a school shooting drill; an older boy making a pass – doesn’t materialise into anything bigger than Kayla can cope with. This is not a sensationalist film.

Elsie Fisher is delightful in the lead role, as natural and appealing as it’s possible to be. Her vulnerabilities are writ large, but so is her underlying optimism, and the kindness that defines the character. Hamilton is also terrific as Kayla’s devoted dad, patiently struggling to communicate with a daughter who is monosyllabic in his presence, and who reacts angrily to his well-meaning attempts to offer reassurance and love. Theirs is a convincing relationship, a beacon of hope.

As you might expect, there is a lot of humour here too: Burnham is a comedian, after all. But it’s a gentle sort of comedy, delivered with affection; this is, ultimately, life-affirming stuff.

A heart-warming little movie – and one that might just make you want to cut those moody teenagers some slack…

4.8 stars

Susan Singfield

The Zookeeper’s Wife
4101_D009_03963_R Jessica Chastain stars as Antonina Zabinski in director Niki Caro’s THE ZOOKEEPER’S WIFE, a Focus Features release. Credit: Anne Marie Fox / Focus Features

27/04/19

Like so many recent movies, The Zookeeper’s Wife is based upon a true story, even if closer examination quickly reveals that (as ever) several major liberties have been taken with the facts in order to dramatise the proceedings. But there is a remarkable tale at the heart of this film and it’s evident that Atonina and Jan Zabinski were an extraordinarily brave couple, who really did risk their lives in order to save those of around three hundred Jewish people during the Second World War.

The film opens in 1939, when Antonia (Jessica Chastaine) and her husband, Jan (Johan Heldenbergh), are the proud owners of the Warsaw Zoo. There’s an idyllic, chocolate-boxy feel to the early scenes, as Antonina pedals cheerfully around the zoo grounds dispensing love and care to the resident creatures – doubtless intended to contrast with the grim realities to come. And come they do, because, of course, pretty soon Warsaw has been invaded by the German army and the zoo devastated by bombing raids.  An acquaintance of the Zabinskis, German zoologist (and Nazi) Lutz Heck (Daniel Bruhl), offers to take the zoo’s rarer species to Germany ‘for safe keeping’. He also exhibits evident romantic interest in Antonina.

The Zabinskis consequently decide to exploit this interest by offering to turn their zoo into a massive pig farm, using the resulting meat to feed the German troops, something that Heck happily agrees to – but the couple are secretly planning to use the extensive cellars of their zoo to hide Jews, smuggled from the nearby ghetto, in order to help them escape to freedom. It’s a reckless ambition and one that’ll expose them to considerable danger…

This is a decent and perfectly watchable film, built around a strong performance by Chastain in the central role but – even though the story incorporates some devastating events: the heartless rape of a young Jewish girl; the callous murder of two other women;  the desperate plight of Warsaw’s Jewish population – the film never quite manages to generate the emotional power you’d expect from a story like this. I feel somehow distanced from the onscreen horrors and that is a problem.

Still, this is nonetheless an interesting tale plucked from the pages of history, and the courage of the Zabinskis deserves to be celebrated. The good news is the film is available to watch right now on Netflix.

3.6 stars

Philip Caveney

The Sisters Brothers

15/04/19

The western movie has ridden some twisted trails over the years, but few of them are quite as strange as the one followed by The Sisters Brothers. The first feature in English by French director Jacques Audiard, it’s based on the acclaimed novel by Patrick De Witt. It’s a good deal more philosophical than your average oater and it takes it owns sweet time to relate a decidedly bizarre tale.

The titular brothers are hired guns, working for the mysterious Commodore (a thankless non-speaking role for Rutger Hauer). Eli (John C Reilly) is the shy, sensitive one, who’s clearly not cut out for this kind of work, but is nonetheless deadly with a revolver, whenever push comes to shove. He tends to play second fiddle to the more nihilistic Charlie (Joaquin Phoenix), a habitual drunkard, who somehow manages to turn everything he touches into absolute chaos.

For their latest mission, the brothers are despatched to rendezvous with another hired gun, John Morris (Jake Gyllenhaal), in order to apprehend the charismatic Herman Kermit Warm (Riz Ahmed), a man with a spectacular (and, it would seem, almost magical) secret. But when Morris bumps into Warm, he soon falls under the man’s peculiar spell and the two of them quickly become business partners – a move which makes the brothers’ latest mission even more complicated than they expected.

This is a weirdly metaphorical film, where strange images loom out of mythic landscapes – a film where blazing horses career through the night and chunks of gold shimmer invitingly at the bottom of a creek – where opportunities pop up unexpectedly from the sagebrush only to metamorphose into death traps. As the brothers bicker and quarrel their way across the screen, we begin to learn that they are pioneers of their own misfortune, doomed to keep running from the seemingly endless adversaries that are pitched against them – and, even when they too find themselves partnering with their former target, it is only to unleash more dangers.

The Sisters Brothers certainly won’t be for everyone – and, with a running time of just over two hours, it will try the patience of those who want something more straightforward. But once settled into its peculiar rhythm, I find myself beguiled and occasionally startled by it. This is a Western the like of which I’ve never seen before and, trust me, I’ve seen many. I enjoy the ride.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

Missing Link
Sir Lionel Frost (left) voiced by Hugh Jackman and Mr. Link (right) voiced by Zach Galifianakis in director Chris Butler’s MISSING LINK, a Laika Studios Production and Annapurna Pictures release. Credit : Laika Studios / Annapurna Pictures

14/04/19

Since its Oscar-winning debut feature Coraline in 2009, Laika Animation has resolutely ploughed its own furrow through the world of stop-motion, steadfastly avoiding the obvious and always maintaining the highest standards. Aardman may be the better-known company, but Laika are more consistent – and they seem to have perfected the trick of creating animations that really are suitable for all ages.

Missing Link is a good case in point. This is the story of fearless Victorian adventurer, Sir Lionel Frost (Hugh Jackman), a man with an unshakable belief in his own brilliance and a matching resolve to hunt down the mythical creatures of the world. When his attempt to photograph the Loch Ness monster makes him a laughing stock at the Adventurers’ Club, he decides to go in search of the legendary American Sasquatch – and, in a plot strand that owes an unspoken debt to Around the World in 80 Days, even makes a bet with the society’s villainous leader, Lord Piggot-Dunceby (Stephen Fry), that he will prove that the creature is more than just a legend. If he succeeds, he will be granted membership. As insurance, Piggot-Dunceby sends evil assassin Willard Stenk (Timothy Oliphant) to ensure that Frost fails to make good on his wager.

Frost soon locates said Sasquatch, whom he quickly dubs Mr Link (Zach Galifianakis). But he is more than a little surprised to discover that this particular Bigfoot can talk, read and even write – indeed, he has penned the letter summoning Frost to meet up with him. He wants more than just an exchange of pleasantries. He wants Frost to take him to meet his closest cousins – the Yetis of far off Tibet…

Everything about Missing Link is spot on – the gorgeous, idiosyncratic animation, the astute characterisation, the fleet footed storyline that scrambles from one thrilling escapade to the next. There are some very funny scenes here, enough to get a Sunday afternoon audience laughing along throughout and there are also several eye-popping sequences that combine the stop-frame puppets with state of the art CGI work, a storm at sea being a particular standout.

It’s also great to note that Zoe Saldana’s adventurer, Adelina Fortnight, is given enough chops to compete on an equal footing with her male companions, whilst neatly sidestepping the possibility of being cast as (ho hum) the film’s love interest.

This is wildly entertaining stuff – and it’s been quite a while since I enjoyed an animated feature quite as much as this one. If you’re looking for the perfect family feature, you can’t go wrong with this.

4.6 stars

Philip Caveney

 

The Highwaymen

11/04/19

In 1967, director Arthur Penn created the unforgettable Bonnie and Clyde. Featuring Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty in career-defining roles, it treated the young outlaws as folk heroes and their bloody slow-mo deaths in a hail of bullets transformed them into martyrs. It was emotive stuff and few people emerged from a screening dry-eyed.

John Lee Hancock’s The Highwaymen takes an altogether more sober look at their three year reign of terror and concentrates on the two elderly men who ultimately brought them to justice. Indeed, here, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow are demoted to the periphery of the action, glimpsed only in longshot until the very end – an approach that somehow serves to accentuate their charisma.

Kevin Costner stars as former Texas Ranger, Frank Hamer, brought out of comfortable retirement in order to hunt down the seemingly unstoppable duo. He teams up with old comrade, Maney Gault (Woody Harrelson), and the two ageing men embark on the long quest to find their elusive quarry. Their uncomfortable, odd couple relationship lies at the heart of this film, which is beautifully shot by John Schwartzman, the endless vistas of the American plains shimmering enticingly. This is, in many ways, an elegy for the old West, a world where new fangled automobiles struggle to deal with the kind of landscape where only horses previously ran.

Writer John Fusco is interested in the popularity of Bonnie and Clyde, the way they generated a huge fan following in a time of absolute poverty. They were widely seen as Robin Hood figures, outlaws who only ever stole from the rich. The scenes of mass hysteria when the couple’s bullet-riddled corpses are brought before the public are sobering indeed.

It’s interesting to read that the relatives of the real Frank Hamer successfully sued Warner Brothers for defamation of character over his depiction in the Arthur Penn classic. Costner sets the record straight here, playing him as a pragmatist, a man who takes no pleasure in killing them, but sees their deaths as a necessity – mad dogs to be put down in the public’s interest, even if the public don’t realise what’s good for them.

While The Highwaymen doesn’t have a lot to offer in the way of high drama, it’s nevertheless an interesting and very different take on a story you may already think you know well. Interested parties will find it on Netflix.

3.6 stars

Philip Caveney