Film

The Birth of a Nation
Nate Parker as “Nat Turner” and Aja Naomi King as “Cherry” in THE BIRTH OF A NATION. Photo courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures. © 2016 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation All Rights Reserved

11/12/16

The Birth of a Nation arrives on our shores burdened by the weight of considerable expectation. Premiered at Sundance in January, this independent production garnered rave reviews and a record-breaking sale to Fox Searchlight pictures and, at the time, there was much talk of Oscar nominations. Since then, however, the water have been somewhat muddied by the revelation that star/writer/director, Nat Turner was accused of rape back in  1999 (although he was subsequently acquitted) and that the film, though clearly heartfelt, might not be quite as accomplished as early reviews suggested.

The title itself is also controversial, since it is shared by DW Griffith’s infamous silent movie of 1915, which made heroes of the Ku Klux Klan and had them riding to the rescue of a young white woman (played by Lillian Gish), menaced by pantomime black villains.

Turner’s based-on-true-events film tells the story of Nate Parker, a young slave raised on an antebellum cotton plantation in the deep South of America, who manages to teach himself to read and, encouraged by one sympathetic slave owner, goes on to become a preacher, travelling from plantation to plantation in order to spread the word of God to his fellow slaves. In doing this, he is helping to earn money for his repellant master, Samuel (Armie Hammer) a once powerful patriarch, now a hopeless alcoholic, obsessed with living up to the reputation of his late father. As Nate travels, he witnesses the kind of everyday brutality meted out to black people in the system (a scene where a man’s teeth are taken out with a hammer and chisel is hard to watch) and he begins to feel a sense of outrage over their predicament; but it is not till the rape of his own wife, Cherry (Aja Naomi King) at the hands of white ‘slave-chasers’ that his thoughts finally turn to bloody rebellion.

Some of the scenes depicted here will inevitably outrage any sane viewer, but the film also commits the cardinal sin of being rather dull for long stretches and there are some decidedly ill-considered moments – Turner’s occasional visions of a angel are particularly mawkish. This is by no means a bad film; indeed, as a debut, it’s more than competent, but it must be said, that it’s certainly not the masterpiece we might have been led to expect; and judging from the few bums on seats at the afternoon performance we attended, it’s not exactly pulling in the punters either.

Brutal, hard-hitting and worthy of attention – but not as assured as it could have been.

3.3 stars

Philip Caveney

Mascots

26/11/16

This latest film from Christopher Guest (Spinal Tap’s Nigel Tufnel) takes a tongue-in-cheek look at the world of professional mascots, those stalwart individuals who don outlandish costumes and help to promote football teams/organisations/products around the world, usually by prancing about to a musical backing.  This is a Netflix original, but Guest’s methods seem to be largely unchanged from the likes of earlier films, Best In Show and A Mighty Wind. Like so many of his ‘mockumentaries’ this follows a bunch of random characters as they prepare themselves for the equivalent of their Oscars, the Fluffies, cutting effortlessly from scene to scene as the action unfolds.

The Mascots themselves include: young Englishman, Owen Golly Jr. (Tom Bennett), carrying on a family tradition as football mascot, Sid the Hedgehog, under the baleful glare of his dad, who formerly played the role; Mike and Mindy Murray (Zach Woods and Sarah Baker), a middle-aged couple desperately trying to rock their double act despite the fact that their marriage is falling apart; and art-obsessed Cindi Babineaux (Parker Posey), whose armadillo character seems aimed at an entirely different audience. And, of course, the judges and organisers prove to be a thorny bunch, most of them coming to the competition with their own hidden agendas. Guest himself performs a cameo as Corky St Clair, a pretentious dance trainer helping to put Cindi through her paces. British comic Kerry Godliman also makes an appearance as Owen’s delightful and supportive wife – making them pretty much the only non-dysfunctional couple in the entire movie.

This is wry, whimsical stuff, not exactly laugh-out-loud funny, but nicely judged and constantly amusing. It’s evident just how many artists – from Ricky Gervais to Larry David – have taken inspiration from the Spinal Tap model, which –  back in 1984 – was one of the first feature films to venture down the spoof documentary trail.

Mascots is right there on Netflix, and, if you’re already a customer, you’d be crazy not to check it out.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney

 

A United Kingdom

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25/11/16

Amma Asante’s A United Kingdom tells the true story of Prince Seretse Khama of Bechuanaland (now Botswana), and the extraordinary international response to his marriage to Ruth Williams, a white, middle-class Londoner. Ruth’s father (Nicholas Lyndhurst) isn’t happy and vows to disown her; Seretse’s uncle, Tshekedi (Vusi Kenene), believes it renders his nephew unfit to rule. But their combined disapproval is nothing compared to the horror of colonial might, and the crushing forces of British and South African politics. It’s a disturbing account of late imperialism, laying bare some awful truths about our not so distant past.

David Oyelowo and Rosamund Pike are perfectly cast as the central couple, committed as much to their ideals as to each other. They are at once proud and humble, resolved and open-minded. The film’s focus on Khama’s emotional reactions personalises colonialism in a way I have never seen before, illuminating the brazen greed, hypocrisy and gross sense of entitlement of those seizing rule of lands that are not their own. Jack Davenport, as the brutal, arrogant Alistair Canning, embodies this with ease.

The post-war era is beautifully evoked, with both London and Botswana rendered real and immediate; the cinematography is very good indeed. If there’s a problem, it is perhaps in the feelgood cosiness that somehow permeates this film, despite its immersion in some very ugly deeds. Nevertheless, this is a mightily important tale, and definitely one worth going to see.

4 stars

Susan Singfield

Paterson
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20/11/16

Jim Jarmusch is one of America’s most respected indie directors. After the somewhat disappointing Only Lovers Left Alive, he’s back on more confident form with this quirky tale of a would-be poet and the daily grind which he must endure, whilst filling all of his available down-time with his cerebral scribblings.

Paterson (Adam Driver) lives in Paterson, New Jersey – in typical Jarmusch fashion, this is presented as mere coincidence. By day he’s a bus driver and the film follows a week in his life, starting each morning with him waking up beside his partner, Laura (Golshifteh Farahani) and then following him to work, sharing his bus route and after he has returned to one of Laura’s nightmarish attempts at cooking,  accompanying him on his evening walk with Marvin (the couple’s bulldog) which inevitably ends with Paterson having a beer at his local bar. If this sounds dull, rest assured, it’s not. Through Paterson’s eyes we meet a host of fascinating local characters and experience their disparate stories – and we also share Paterson’s attempts to write new poems, which announce themselves onscreen as lines of text. His poems aren’t exactly earth-shattering, (his writing hero is William Carlos Williams, and the influence is apparent) but they do show a real intellect at work, and the fragmentary quality of them is strangely beguiling. I’ve rarely seen a more convincing onscreen portrayal of the writing method.

Back at home, Laura seems completely obsessed with making it big as something – a cake maker, an interior designer, a fashionista, a country and western singer – she’s not fussy, she’ll try anything, despite the fact that she never really rises above the ‘fairly accomplished’ in each successive project she takes on; and in the end, this is essentially what Paterson is about; the way in which people nurture some particular talent they have (or think they have) as a way of dealing with the mundanity of everyday existence.

The film throws us a late googlie-ball in an incident that really is any writer’s worst nightmare.  I  wish Jarmusch had resisted signposting it quite as much as he does; although the gasps from the row behind us suggested that not everyone had seen it coming. This however, is a minor niggle. As a celebration of the creative spirit, Paterson is a little delight, and one that deserves your consideration.

4.6 stars

Philip Caveney

Sully: Miracle on the Hudson

16/11/16

For his previous cinematic outing (the indifferently reviewed Inferno) Tom Hanks broke out the Grecian 2000 and presented audiences with an airbrushed version of his real self, trying to pass for someone considerably younger. Here, he’s playing someone closer to his own age, veteran airline pilot Captain Chesley Sullenberger,  who in 2009 managed to do the seemingly impossible, by crash-landing a stricken airliner in the Hudson River without incurring a single fatality. (Well, that’s 155 tickets sold, right there.)

Clint Eastwood’s retelling of the story is never less than compelling. Since we already know the outcome of the story, he can’t really hope to generate any real suspense; so he opts instead for a strange, circular narrative, opening with the moment that Sully and his co-pilot Jeff Skiles (Aaron Eckhart) realise that they are deep in the doo-doo after a catastrophic bird strike. From here, the story loops around like a plane looking for somewhere suitable to land, touching briefly on Sully’s early days in aviation, before finally revealing the workings of the crash landing itself.

The main tension in the story is generated when a team of crash investigators (including Breaking Bad’s Anna Gunn), assigned to examine the circumstances of the accident begin to look as though they might disagree with Sully’s account of the story, something which threatens to turn him from overnight hero to an absolute zero. A series of computer simulations have raised the distinct possibility that the plane might have been able to return safely to Laguardia airport, from where it had recently taken off. Hanks does his usual ‘Everyman’ persona with the understated dignity we’ve come to expect from him and he’s ably supported by Laura Linney as Sully’s unfortunate wife, stuck on the end of a telephone line, while her husband faces the hearing that could destroy his career.

It’s only in the film’s post credit sequences where Eastwood cannot quite resist tipping the project into cheesiness – we see the real Sully and the real survivors, making speeches at one of those celebrations the Americans love so much – and there’s an onscreen credit that pays tribute to the emergency services in New York who worked together to save so many lives. But ultimately you can’t help concluding that Sullenberger took a chance in a desperate situation and (luckily for him) it paid off.

Still, this is nonetheless an entertaining film, particularly when projected onto an IMAX screen, which makes the crash landing a startlingly immersive experience. Nervous fliers might want to give this one a miss.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

A Street Cat Named Bob

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12/11/16

Okay, so A Street Cat Named Bob isn’t anyone’s idea of game-changing cinema. It’s undemanding, sentimental, family-friendly fare – but that doesn’t mean that it’s not worth seeing. It’s undeniably uplifting, and – in this dark winter of political ferment – there’s something to be said for that.

Based on the best-selling book of the same title, A Street Cat Named Bob tells the true-life tale of James Bowen, a recovering addict, and the cat that helped him find his way. When the film opens, Bowen (Luke Treadaway) is living on the streets, enrolled on a methadone programme, but struggling to stay away from the heroin he’s addicted to. He’s busking to make ends meet but, although he’s clearly a decent singer-songwriter, there’s just too much chaos in his life. His key worker, Val (Joanne Froggatt), pulls some strings to get him set up in a flat, and stray cat Bob – making good use of an open window – decides he wants to move in too. Bob gives James a focus, a purpose; he depends on James and so James has to shape up. But it’s not a one-way street: the public are charmed by the sight of Bob perched on James’s shoulders while he busks, and his earnings increase dramatically. He and his cat become well-known, a social media sensation, and James seizes the chance to turn his life around. And, of course, there’s a love interest too, in the shape of Betty (Ruta Gedmintas), a quirky neighbour with a kind, kind heart.It’s impossible not to feel just the tiniest bit moved, and to delight in the change in Bowen’s fortune. It’s a Cinderella tale for the modern age.

The whole thing is well acted: Treadaway, in particular, is a joy to watch, and Anthony Head’s turn as Bowen’s hapless father is also a standout. However, despite dealing with the really serious issues of homelessness and addiction, the whole thing is bathed in a  golden glow, and that’s the real problem here. We do see some of the desperation felt by those living on the street, and the pain felt by addicts just trying to get by. But stark reality is not allowed to interfere much with the feel good nature of this piece, and the solutions are all in the hands of the individual; there’s no suggestion of collective responsibility.

Entertaining, then, and uplifting as I said. But this is not a film that will change anything for anyone except its hero. He’s exceptional, not representative. The problems are all still there, behind this rose-tinted lens.

3.4 stars

Susan Singfield

Arrival

11/11/16

We’re all familiar with the scenario, right? Gigantic spaceships hover over the major cities of the world, and eventually disgorge battalions of vicious alien creatures, that are hell bent on world domination. Luckily, a group of plucky resistance fighters come together to kick alien butt and free the planet from tyranny…

Thankfully, Arrival really isn’t one of those films. Director Denis Villeneuve (Sicario, Prisoners)  chooses instead to depict an alien visitation as a positive, perhaps even fruitful occurrence. This is a sedate, almost hallucinatory film, that dares to try something different with a much mistreated genre.

Linguist, Dr Louise Banks (Amy Adams) finds her everyday life rudely interrupted by the unannounced arrival of twelve huge black ellipses hovering inexplicably in the air above different locations around the world. The ellipses (surely inspired by the paintings of Magritte) are silent and make no apparent attempts tocommunicate with the human race. Louise soon finds herself enlisted by Colonel Weber (Forest Whitaker) who is leading a team of North American scientists, whose job it is to try and make contact with the aliens and work out what (if anything) they are trying to tell us. Louise finds some common ground with scientist, Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner) and the two of them set about the complex task of communicating with the inhabitants of one of the giant elipses. They are quickly dubbed heptopods and are giant octopus-like creatures, which (perhaps wisely) are only glimpsed through the haze that constantly surrounds them. As she starts to make progress, Louise is increasingly affected by images of her young daughter who comes to a tragic end…

I thought Arrival was a remarkable film, quietly persuasive in its approach and totally absorbing. The googly ball that it throws at its audience in its final stretch, hit me for six – I really didn’t see it coming – and it was only as the shock of the impact spread through me, that I began to appreciate just how skilfully the storyline’s tangled web has been put together. If the film’s ultimate message could be accused of being a little bit cheesy, it’s nonetheless a welcome relief from the usual crass Hollywood approach to alien visitations.

Worth further investigation.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney

 

Nocturnal Animals

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05/11/16

Nocturnal Animals is a spiteful little film, full of bile and petty score-settling. Beautifully styled and well-acted throughout – with a stellar cast of cameos supporting the leads – this film feels like a tragic waste of talent, a plethora of artistic skill funnelled into a project with a vacuum for a heart. The worldview here is warped. The whole thing – not just the inner story of Sheffield’s novel – feels like a sterile revenge plot, the work of an embittered soul with sadistic tendencies.

Amy Adams plays Susan Morrow, a successful but miserable art dealer, trapped in an unhappy marriage where her riches mean nothing; her life is a hollow shell. When she was young, in grad school, she was briefly married to a different man, Edward Sheffield (Jake Gyllenhaal), and he was the true love of her life. But Susan was too greedy, too bourgeois, too much like her mother, to appreciate the creative sensitivity of a man like Edward: she wanted the trappings of a middle-class life, and didn’t support him in his artistic endeavours.

Nineteen years later, a manuscript arrives on her desk. It’s a proof copy of Edward’s novel, soon to be published. It’s dedicated to her, and it tells the tale of a couple just like them, brought to life for us on screen as Susan reads compulsively. The protagonist, Laura (Isla Fisher, styled to look exactly like Adams), is raped and murdered, along with her daughter. Clearly, Edward is still a long way from getting over Susan’s rejection of him.

It’s an ugly, mean-spirited story from start to finish, with a deep misogyny at its core. From the freak-show fat women of the opening credits to the gratuitous nastiness of Laura’s death, it’s lacking any sense of proportion – or of charm. Nor does it work as a study of the dark side of humanity; it’s all too petty and too personal for that. And it’s boring a lot of the time too, all ponderous shots of people in baths, and endless scenes where Adams gasps, startled by what she’s read, adjusts her glasses, then picks up the book again. The novel’s plot is pretty turgid too: after the initial excitement of the murders, it’s a rather dull procedural, where we know exactly whodunnit, and so do the police.

Seriously, this is a disappointing film. It looks fantastic and the cast is a dream-team by anyone’s standards (Adams and Gyllenhaal are joined by Michael Shannon, Laura Linney, Michael Sheen and Andrea Riseborough, among others) but, ultimately, this just leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

2.5 stars

Susan Singfield

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back

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02/11/16

Fans of the Jack Reacher novels are an unforgiving bunch. Tom Cruise is NOT Jack Reacher, they insist. The ex-army hard man hero as described by author Lee Childs is a big shambling bear, while Cruise is… a bit more compact. No matter that Child has repeatedly endorsed Cruise’s version of Reacher. No matter that he even makes a cameo in the latest film. Crime fans are not to be trifled with.

Whatever, Never Go Back is an assured chase movie that never puts a foot wrong. At the film’s opening, Reacher has just solved another case and having had a brief telephone chat with Major Turner (the exotically named Cobie Smulders) he resolves to call around and take her out to dinner at his earliest opportunity. But by the time he gets there, things have changed somewhat. Turner is in prison, accused of espionage, and Reacher discovers that he is being sued by a woman he’s never heard of who claims that he’s the father of her teenage daughter. Reacher is promptly arrested by the military police but it’s hardly a plot spoiler to say that he isn’t incarcerated for long and before you can say ‘with one bound,’ he and Turner are on the run and have hooked up with Reacher’s ‘maybe’ daughter, Samantha (Darika Yarosh). Meanwhile, a trained killer is on their trail…

Okay, this isn’t going to win any prizes for originality, but it’s nonetheless a gripping action yarn, ably directed by Edward Zwick, that races breathlessly from one set piece to the next, before culminating in a bruising punch-up on the roof tops of New Orleans at the height of Mardi Gras. Cruise does his action shizzle with his usual aplomb, Smuthers gets to kick a lot of ass too and Yarosh is suitably appealing as the precocious Samantha, who might just turn out to be a chip off the old block. As somebody who has never read one of the source novels, I found this thoroughly entertaining and the height of the titular character really didn’t matter one jot. And when it comes to onscreen running, few people do it as well as Tom Cruise…

If you like an undemanding chase thriller, this should be right up your street. On the other hand, if you’re a devotee of the novels, you might not be so enamoured.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney

Train to Busan

31/10/16

Zombie movies are a bit like buses: you wait for what seems like ages for a decent one and then two crackers come along at pretty much the same time. No sooner are we over extolling the genre-busting virtues of The Girl With All The Gifts, than Train to Busan comes thundering down the track. We’ve all heard of Snakes on a Plane, but Zombies on a train? One look at the trailer was enough to convince us that this should be our Halloween movie of choice.

South Korean writer/director Sang-ho Yeon is in the driver’s seat of this adrenalin-fuelled delight, which eschews the slow-witted lumbering zombies of George Romero and substitutes them for some hot-footed, rabid berserkers that would leave the crowd from 28 Days Later standing on the platform. They are everywhere in this film – tumbling through glass doors, raining down out of the sky and, at one point, forming an inhuman chain clinging tenaciously onto the back of a locomotive. It’s fast, it’s frantic and, above all, it’s fun to watch.

Our hero is Seok Woo (Yoo Gong) a wealthy fund manager who, from the very outset, presents as a man who looks after his own best interests. When he is obliged to (very reluctantly) escort his young daughter, Soo-an (the adorable Soo-an Kim) to Busan to rendezvous with her mother – from whom Seok Woo is separated – he expects nothing more than an uneventful journey. But there’s a barely glimpsed ‘incident’ at the station where the train starts from and an injured woman stumbles aboard and locks herself in the toilet. When she emerges, she is one of the undead and she quickly sets about biting everyone she encounters. This is a disease that travels like wildfire and, within minutes, the train is full of unwelcome travellers.  Seok Woo and a band of fellow passengers will have to use every trick they can think of if they hope to survive to the end of the line…

Like most zombie movies, this is more than it might at first appear. The train is a great big metaphor for humanity and it quickly becomes apparent that the most dastardly travellers on board are the ones who care only about themselves. Chief among them is Yong-Suk (Eui-sung Kim) a man who thinks nothing of flinging a helpless teenage girl to the ravening hordes in order to cause a diversion to escape their clutches. Time and again, the nice people (the socialists) are seen sacrificing themselves in order to help others. The question is, which side will Seok Woo end up on?

Don’t worry – this doesn’t feel anything like a lecture. While you could argue that Train to Busan isn’t particularly scary, it makes up for that shortfall by ramping events up to almost unbearable levels of suspense, utilising some incredible set pieces along the way. This is quite simply a cinematic thrill ride, one that grips like a vice all the way to its (heartbreaking) conclusion.

Don’t miss out. Book your ticket to ride before this one pulls out of the platform and disappears over the horizon.

4.8 stars

Philip Caveney