Alison Janney

The Creator

30/09/2

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Director Gareth Edwards made an impressive feature debut with Monsters in 2010, but followed it with a lacklustre Godzilla reboot and, in 2016, an underrated Star Wars standalone, Rogue One. The Creator marks a significant step up for him. This epic sci-fi adventure is set on a war-torn planet Earth in the year 2070 and its story – about the struggle between humans and AIs – could hardly be more topical, particularly as Edwards (who co-write the screenplay with Chris Weitz) takes it in an entirely unexpected direction. Who are the bad guys in this story? Wait and see.

Twenty-six years after a nuclear explosion has ravaged Los Angeles, Joshua (John David Washington) is an American Army operative, working under deep cover amidst AI forces, who are based in New Asia. He’s fallen in love with and is married to enemy scientist, Maya (Gemma Chan), which is complicated to say the very least, particularly as she’s now pregnant by him. But when the mission goes badly awry, Maya is caught in the crossfire and Joshua only just manages to escape with his life.

Some time later, he’s approached by Colonel Howell (Alison Janney), who has compelling evidence that Maya is still alive and wants Joshua to join a new mission to hunt her down. What’s more, she assures him, Maya is deeply involved in the creation of a new AI ‘super weapon’, something that American forces are desperate to eradicate. Sensing an opportunity to be reunited with his wife, Joshua agrees to the mission – but when he comes face to face with the new weapon, he is understandably bewildered. Alphie (Madeleine Yuna Voiles) is a child, possibly the most adorable-looking creature in the universe – and she may even contain Joshua’s own DNA.

What ensues is a fabulous slice of world-building, a series of breathless action sequences set against majestic eastern landscapes. There may be a little too much gunplay here for some – and the 12A certificate means that punches are occasionally pulled to try and constrain all that violence – but it’s impossible not to be swept up in the steadily rising suspense, as Joshua desperately tries to get Alphie to safety.

The Creator looks like a big expensive project but Edwards has brought the film in for a comparatively miserly eighty million dollars (it sounds like a lot but is a third of what these sci-fi extravaganzas usually cost). What’s more, the story, which sounds like broad strokes on paper, is considerably more nuanced than most sci-fi adventures and I find myself constantly impressed by the film’s invention, the grubby reality of the AI creations that populate this imagined world. Edward’s script fearlessly challenges our expectations about America. The usual Hollywood message is completely subverted and the age-old macho-saviour complex revealed as a toxic sham.

John David Washington makes a compelling hero (and, after Tenet, he must be relieved to star in a film that viewers can actually understand), while Madeleine Yuna Voiles is quite simply mesmerising as Alphie. If you like action and you like sci-fi, chances are you’ll enjoy The Creator. And happily, you won’t have to pay fifty million dollars to see it.

4.4 stars

Philip Caveney

To Leslie

20/03/23

Now TV

Ryan Binaco’s script for To Leslie doesn’t have a lot of plot: woman wins lottery, pisses the money and years away on booze, then finds her way to recovery. But that doesn’t matter, because this is essentially a character study – an examination of the impact of sudden wealth and (local) fame on a person ill-equipped to deal with it.

Andrea Riseborough is magnificent in the title role. Her best actress Oscar nomination might have come as a surprise, but it makes sense. She’s utterly compelling, embodying that recognisable mix of grit and vulnerability we’ve all seen in addicts. Under Michael Morris’s direction, we’re shown what lurks beneath the glamorous exterior of the world’s richest country – the shameful underbelly of the rural blue-collar folk, with their dilapidated, no-hope towns and miserable motel lives. When, having exhausted all other avenues, Leslie has to come ‘home’, it’s to a community that’s furious with her, because she’s exposed the lie they all live by. A winning ticket isn’t enough if you’ve already lost in the lottery of life. And Nancy (Alison Janney) isn’t going to let her off the hook.

It’s not a great film: there’s nothing here we haven’t seen before, no fresh insights or profound revelations. What’s more, there’s something a little uncomfortable about the spectacle of Leslie’s decline; it feels a bit like poverty tourism. “You wouldn’t want people watching you,” her son, James (Owen Teague), tells her, when she suggests going to the zoo. “They do,” she says. And we are – but there is much to admire too. I like the way that Leslie’s problems are solved within her own community, not by a middle-class outsider, or a big organisation. Instead, it’s down to her to make the change, to begin to see the possibility of a future where she can make peace with her failings. In this, she is aided by the kindly Sweeney (Marc Maron), who offers her a job cleaning up in his motel, and the quiet, non-judgemental friendship she so badly needs.

Riseborough veers between desperation and fury, hurt and vitriol, and the depiction is always nuanced and believable. Leslie’s burn-it-all-down attitude is heartbreaking to watch (there’s a clear exposé here of why a simple ‘roof over their head’ approach isn’t enough to solve the homelessness problem), and her redemption, when it comes, feels very well-earned – even if it is too heavily signposted early on.

In the end, To Leslie is a rather ordinary cautionary tale, elevated by an extraordinary performance. And that’s all I’ve got time to say, because I need to pop to the shops for a ticket for tonight’s lottery…

3.6 stars

Susan Singfield

I, Tonya

18/02/18

Just when you think  the Oscar race can’t get any tighter, in swaggers I, Tonya, straight out of left field and hits you with a hefty sucker punch, right in the kisser. This noisy, brazen biopic is wonderfully enervating and it’s clear that its claim to be ‘the Good Fellas of figure skating’  isn’t so very wide of the mark. Indeed, the constant jumping from time-frame to time-frame, the fake interviews, the occasional deadpan remarks delivered straight to camera and, above all else, the wonderful classic rock soundtrack – all serve to remind you of Martin Scorcese’s finest movie. But it’s much more than just a pale imitation of that film. There’s so much to admire here, not least Margot Robbie’s incendiary performance in the title role.

Tonya Harding, it seems, had a fight on her hands from her earliest days. Knocked around by her hard-as-nails, chain-smoking momma, LaVona (Alison Janney, in brilliant Oscar-baiting form), beaten up by her ne’er-do-well husband, Jeff (Sebastian Stan), she manages to battle through, performing manoeuvres on the rink that no other skater has ever dared to try –  but her ‘wrong-side-of-the-tracks’ persona doesn’t stand her in good stead with the judges, who like to see a little more deportment doled out alongside the leaps, twirls and pirouettes.

Of course, we all know why she came to wider attention – through the notoriety of a vicious attack on her main rival, Nancy Kerrigan (Caitlin Carver), which left her hospitalised just as they were both preparing to skate in the Olympics. Despite being only tangentially involved in the incident – it was originally devised as a series of poison pen letters by Jeff and then pumped up out of all proportion by Tonya’s so-called ‘bodyguard,’ Shawn – Tonya ends up paying the highest price when Shawn decides to go a bit further with the plan and enlists the aid of some very dodgy people indeed. What follows is so bizarre, it can only be a true story…

Director Craig Gillespie handles the material with an edgy, almost experimental approach, throwing in slow-mo and jump cuts with glee – and the mesmerising skating sequences are so cleverly staged, you literally cannot see the joins. That appears to be Robbie on the screen, skating up a storm, but it can’t really be, can it? Like many other recent biopics, there’s a final sequence of interviews showing the real life protagonists, just so you can fully appreciate how close these characterisations keep to the originals, which is particularly surprising in the case of Paul Walter Hauser’s hilariously off-the-wall performance as the cartoonish Shawn. It’s an eye-opener.

Go and see this riotous, hard-hitting and occasionally hilarious film and enjoy what must qualify as one of the strangest sporting stories in recent history. And as for that rock soundtrack, if you can manage to sit in your seat without twitching and foot-tapping along in accompaniment, then you’re made of sterner stuff than me.

4.9 stars

Philip Caveney