Joel Edgerton

Thirteen Lives

20/11/22

Amazon Prime

I’m unfashionably late to this one. This film barely had a theatrical showing in the UK and somehow managed to slip onto streaming services without much fanfare. This is a shame, because Ron Howard’s ‘based on a true story’ feature steadfastly refuses to go down the typical Hollywood hero route, instead offering a meticulously researched account that unfolds its complex story with all the authority of a documentary.

It takes us back to the familiar events of July 2018, when Thai junior football team, The Wild Boars, accompanied by their assistant coach, decides to pay a trip to a popular tourist destination, the Tham Luang Nang Non caves in Chiang Rai Province. As they wander deep into a rocky labyrinth, they are unaware that an early Monsoon has arrived, and that flood waters are already rising with terrifying speed, to come pouring in through every crevice. When the boys fail to show for a planned birthday celebration later that day, their parents raise the alarm – but, by now, their kids are trapped deep beneath the ground – and the rain is still pouring.

Among the many volunteers who subsequently arrive to lend a hand are two experienced divers from the British Cave Rescue Council, Rick Stanton (Viggo Mortenson) and John Volanthen (Colin Farrell), who handle the ensuing search through submerged tunnels with quiet calm and determination, only pausing to squabble over which of them ate the last custard cream. Both Mortensen and Farrell do a great job of capturing the men’s distinctive Coventry accents and their bluff, matter-of-fact approach to their highly specialised work – something which has already defeated the team of Navy SEALs who were first on the scene.

Finding the boys proves to be relatively easy, but getting them out alive – well, that’s a more complicated process, which will involve thirteen individual underwater journeys, each lasting more than seven hours. The boys have no experience of cave diving – indeed, some of them can’t even swim. With this in mind, Stanton and Volanthen decide to recruit more of their cave-diving chums. Chris Jewell (Tom Bateman), Jason Malinson (Paul Gleeson) and Richard ‘Harry’ Harris (Joel Edgerton) all answer the call, but it is the latter who will give the team their decisive edge, largely because of the special skills he’s acquired through his day job…

It’s hardly a spoiler to say that the enterprise has a successful outcome – indeed, pretty much the whole world knows how that went. But this film demonstrates what a complicated and dangerous procedure it was, how fraught with the possibility of disaster – and it is to Howard’s credit that though viewers already know the outcome, he nevertheless manages to generate nail-biting suspense throughout many of the extended underwater sequences.

He’s also keen to point out that the mission’s eventual success is not just due to the divers. There’s the young engineer who, with his own team of volunteers, works around the clock to divert millions of gallons of water away from the cave – and there are the local farmers who agree to sacrifice their entire rice crop for the year, in order to help with that process. There’s a whole army of ordinary people, cooking, carrying, doing anything necessary to keep the cogs turning. And happily, there’s no mention of a certain Mr Musk and his less than helpful approach to the situation.

Thirteen Lives is a story of human endurance and a celebration of the ingenuity of the many people who worked together to bring a seemingly impossible task to fruition.

3.8 stars

Philip Caveney

The Green Knight

02/10/21

Amazon Prime

Has there ever been a more divisive movie than The Green Knight?

Unceremoniously pulled from its intended theatrical release and plonked onto Amazon Prime, it’s interesting to look at the audience reviews, which feature a plethora of five star ratings and an equal number of one stars. The latter break down into three distinct groups. Many people decry that the film is simply ‘too dark’ for their modest screens – and I have to agree that, if ever a film demanded to be seen at the cinema, this is the one.

More worrying are the blatantly racist comments about the casting of Asian actor, Dev Patel, as the ‘quintessential British hero’ Sir Gawain. But this is a work of chivalric fiction, written anonymously in the fourteenth century. It’s not as if director, David Lowery set out to do a biopic about Winston Churchill. Gawain could be played by any actor and Patel is terrific in the role.

The third strand is the most baffling: people complaining that, over the film’s two hour duration, ‘absolutely nothing happens’ – even though most of them casually add that they stopped watching after twenty minutes or so! The truth is that a lot happens in this film, even if the story unfolds at a leisurely pace, and what happens is fascinating stuff, open to a viewer’s own interpretation.

Our hero is the nephew of The King (Sean Harris), and we’re first introduced to Gawain as a slovenly layabout, happily carrying on with commoner Essel (Alicia Vikander), but, despite her entreaties, showing no inclination to marry her. One Christmas Eve, Gawain is summoned to a feast at the castle where he is invited to sit at his Uncle’s side. At this point, there’s an unexpected visitor, the titular Green Knight (Ralph Ineson). He rides in and issues a playful challenge. If any man will face him in combat, he will offer them the chance to strike him with a sword. But in one year’s time, that man must present himself to the Green Knight and receive the same treatment in return. Gawain recklessly steps up to the plate and, no doubt fuelled by a little too much alcohol, lops off the knight’s head, thinking perhaps that it will end there – whereupon the ancient warrior picks up his severed bonce and gleefully rides away.

One year later, as Christmas looms, Gawain is understandably nervous. After some procrastination, and girdled by a protective belt fashioned by his witchlike mother (Sarita Chowdhury), he sets off for the Green Chapel to meet with his adversary.

A classic quest dutifully unfolds. On his travels, Gawain meets with a duplicitous young thief (Barry Keoghan), a talking fox, and a mysterious lord (Joel Edgerton). He also has a close encounter with the lord’s wife – also played by Vikander – who tests Gawain’s mettle as a ‘gallant knight’…

The Green Knight is a splendid film. I love the gorgeous cinematography, its grubby depiction of a medieval world. I enjoy the various themes that criss-cross throughout the story. Here is a profound meditation on death, on coming of age, on the need for a brash young man to find his maturity. It explores the constant struggle between pagan beliefs and the rising power of Christianity (note how the Green Knight is depicted as the Green Man of mythology). I love the strange hallucinogenic interlude where Gawain encounters a race of giants and I marvel at the fact that, hours after the credits have rolled, we’re still discussing the meaning of some of the film’s weirder moments.

Of course this won’t be for everyone. And of course, some will see it as pretentious. But in many ways, The Green Knight is one of the most original films I’ve ever seen. It should have had its proper chance to dazzle us on the big screen.

4.6 stars

Philip Caveney

Boy Erased

20/01/21

Netflix

An eighteen year old boy thinks he might be gay.

When his father, a baptist minister, learns of it, he has his son unceremoniously deposited in a ‘school’ for conversion therapy. Here, the boy is subjected to a daily diet of verbal abuse, bullying and indoctrination. This may sound like the plot of some sinister dystopian novel, but Boy Erased is based upon the real life experiences of Garrard Conley, who underwent just such an ordeal in the early 2000s. The film bears comparison with The Miseducation of Cameron Post, starring Chloe Grace Moretz, which related a similarly distressing tale.

In this version of Conley’s story, Garrard is Jared Eamons (Lucas Hedges), hiding his sexuality from his domineering father, Marshall (Russell Crowe), and his protective mother, Nancy (Nicole Kidman). But Marshall begins to have suspicions about his son when the boy’s relationship with a local girl fizzles out and, when Jared returns unexpectedly from college after being raped by one of his classmates, the truth soon emerges.

Jared finds his day-to-day life handed over to the harsh ministrations of Chief Therapist at ‘Love in Action,’ Victor Sykes (Joel Edgerton, who also directed the film, based on Conley’s memoir). Jared doesn’t protest his harsh treatment – on the contrary, he tries his best to fit in at the school, where he’s surrounded by a whole collection of other characters receiving ‘therapy’. Some of the inmates accept the religious hogwash they are being fed and do their best to change their ways – and then there are those, like Anders (Devin Michael), who have learned to play the system and convince their teachers that they are actually ‘making progress.’

To give the film its due, it’s nicely nuanced. Crowe’s character, for instance, isn’t the stereotyped tub-thumper he could so easily have been, but is shown to be a loving father, struggling with the tenets of a religion in which he truly believes, and one that he has devoted most of his life to teaching. And Kidman’s Nancy – another in a whole series of chameleonic screen characters – is perhaps the film’s strongest suit, the scenes between mother and son having particular resonance. When Nancy finally decides to stand up for Jared’s rights, it’s a moment to be celebrated.

While it may seem incredible that such institutions can be allowed to exist in the modern age, the truth is that they can and do – I have recently heard testimony to the existence of just such a place in the UK – and Boy Erased makes a compelling argument for their total eradication.

A harrowing tale, but one worth telling.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

Red Sparrow

05/03/18

There’s no doubt that Red Sparrow is a problematic film. The controversy over its apparent misogyny (with graphic depictions of rape and sexual violence) has been loud, and I have to admit I’m not predisposed to like it.

Still, I try to keep an open mind and, actually, I don’t find it particularly anti-feminist. There’s no denying the sexism of the culture portrayed, nor of many of the characters, but this feels more like a comment on what women have to do to succeed within a system that denies them any power than an endorsement of the patriarchy.

Jennifer Lawrence is Dominika, a Russian ballerina, who – after a horrific dancing ‘accident’ – is coerced by her Uncle Vanya (Matthias Schoenaerts) into attending “whore school,” where the Matron (Charlotte Rampling) teaches her recruits to respond to the sexual desires of targeted others in the name of patriotism. Once graduated, Dominika is given her first mission – to seduce American CIA agent Nate Nash (Joel Egerton), and the double-dealing shenanigans  begin.

It starts well. There’s a great sequence where Dominika’s fateful ballet performance is cross cut with Nate’s skirmish in Gorki Park, the pace of both segments growing ever faster and more frantic as the tension builds. And the ending is decent too, with a satisfying pay-off that I won’t reveal.

But there are problems with the lumpen stuff  that’s in-between. Firstly, the Red Sparrow Academy, the concept of which is – quite frankly – risible. I find myself stifling giggles as Matron impassively tweaks the cadets’ nipples, or orders  them to perform lewd acts on each other. And the stuff that follows – the actual spying – is, dare I say it, deadly dull. It’s probably a more accurate depiction of the life of a secret agent than the high-octane thrills we get from, say, a Jason Bourne movie, but it’s a lot more boring too. And then there’s the violence, which is extreme and often feels gratuitous. One lengthy torture scene in particular is very hard to watch, and the detail doesn’t add much to my understanding of the film.

The performances are as excellent as you’d expect; her recent tabloid fall-from-grace notwithstanding, Lawrence is, I think, a fine actor and she has total command of this role. Edgerton and Schoenaerts provide efficient support and the cinematography is more than just decent.

But still. It’s not enough to make this particular bird fly.

2.8 stars

Susan Singfield

It Comes at Night

11/07/17

What is the disease that’s afflicting America? In Trey Edward Schults’ stylish dystopian fear-flick, it appears to be an airborne virus that’s decimating the population, and isolating survivors. Joel Edgerton stars as Paul, an ex-history teacher holed up in his family home with his wife, Sarah (Carmen Ejogo) and their teenage son, Travis (Kelvin Harrison Jr.). They’re paranoid and distrustful, trapped in their sealed sanctuary, donning gas masks and carrying guns whenever they’re compelled to venture into the outside world.

Staggering into this powder-keg of neuroses is Will (Christopher Abbott), desperately seeking shelter for his young family. He, his wife, Kim (Riley Keough), and their infant son, Andrew (Griffin Robert Faulkner), are reluctantly invited to move in, albeit with very strict parameters. But things are bound to go wrong.’Trust no-one,’ Paul tells Travis. ‘You can’t trust anyone except your family.’ Suspicion and wariness pervade every interaction: it’s a recipe for disaster.

The film is fiercely intense. Okay, so the allegory isn’t particularly subtle: the fear and ‘othering’ of outsiders is, in fact, the disease – and it’s the same one that’s afflicting the real America today. Scare-mongering about refugees, seeking to impose travel-bans: these isolationist behaviours do not auger well. Without trust and cohesion, society can’t work.

It’s a tightly crafted film, with a real sense of claustrophobia throughout. Kelvin Harrison Jr. is particularly mesmerising as the teenage boy, struggling to mature in a disintegrating world with no peers with whom to compare experiences.  And I like that there are no ‘baddies’ here, just individuals seeking to protect themselves and their families, unwittingly destroying all that they hold dear. As their circle shrinks ever smaller, there is less and less to hold on to, and the ending (which I won’t spoil here) is beautifully bleak.

This is a sly, thought-provoking little film, with plenty to ponder and discuss after the credits roll.

4.2 stars

Susan Singfield

 

Loving

03/02/17

Writer/director Jeff Nichols seems to favour outlaws. Take Shelter, Mud and Midnight Special all feature protagonists who, for a variety of reasons, find themselves on the wrong side of the law. Loving is, however, the first time he’s based a film on a true story.

Virginia, 1958. Richard Loving (Joel Edgerton) romances his sweetheart Mildred (Ruth Negga), gets her pregnant and then arranges a hasty marriage. So far, so everyday; but it’s not as straightforward as you might suppose. Richard is white and Mildred, African-American. Though they have travelled to the more enlightened Washington DC to get hitched, such a marriage is still deemed illegal in the state of Virginia and almost before they know it, they have been dragged from their bed in the dead of night and slung into jail. The upshot is that they are faced with a difficult choice. They can get the marriage annulled and forget that anything ever happened; or they can leave Virginia for a minimum of 25 years, risking long jail sentences if they are ever reckless enough to return. But the Lovings are made of stern stuff and they vow to live together in Virginia whatever circumstance may throw at them…

It’s staggering to think that only fifty years ago such laws could even have existed and the Loving’s case was eventually the basis of a major change to the American constitution, so this is an important subject. Nichols relates the story in his signature style, taking his own sweet time, steering clear of sensationalism and coaxing superb performances from his lead actors. Neggar has already been rewarded for her efforts with a well-deserved Oscar nomination, but in many ways it’s Edgerton who has the trickier role, portraying a gruff, monosyllabic man who bears the many crosses he is made to carry with exceptional stoicism.

The film’s gentle pace is clearly something that divides people. We’ve rarely witnessed so many walkouts from a movie as We saw on the Friday evening we viewed Loving. But I found the film powerful and eloquent, an excellent addition to Nichols’ growing canon of work. Nice too to see a cameo from the director’s favourite actor, Michael Shannon, as the photographer who takes pictures of the couple for an article in Life Magazine.

Some people change the world in the glare of publicity. Others do it quietly, avoiding the limelight, but their contributions are nonetheless every bit as valuable. Loving is an accomplished film that’s well worth your attention.

4.4 stars

Philip Caveney

 

Midnight Special

Unknown

10/03/16

Writer/director Jeff Nichols has given us some fine movies over the last few years but one thing he’s not so good at is coming up with a decent title. Take Shelter? Not one of the best. Mud? A terrible title for an excellent film. And now, here’s Midnight Special, a title that for the life of me I can’t see the relevance of when applied to this absorbing story – but I suppose this is a minor niggle. The film this most reminds me of is ET… though I hasten to add, a much more sophisticated, grown up and gritty version of Speilberg’s sci fi tale.

Alton Meyer (Jaeden Lieberher) is a very special boy. It has something to do with his eyes. He must be kept in darkness as much as possible and has to wear special goggles whenever he steps into the sunlight. When we first meet him, he’s been abducted by his biological father, Roy (Michael Shannon) and his friend,  cop Lucas (Joel Egerton) from the religious community that has looked after him for the past two years. Because of the boy’s habit of ‘speaking in tongues,’ the cult’s leader,  Calvin (Sam Shepard) believes that Alton may be some kind of messiah and he and his followers will do just about anything to get him back, even if it means picking up weapons to enforce their will.

Sam and Lucas hook up with Alton’s birth mother, Sarah (Kirsten Dunst) and the four of them set off on a perilous journey to bring Alton to the special destination where he repeatedly tells them he needs to be – but how can they get there when the combined forces of the FBI, the US military and a bunch of religious fruitcakes are intent on intercepting them?

Midnight Special is expertly told, releasing nuggets of information bit-by-bit, just enough to keep you hooked and to make you want to know more. When the solution is finally revealed it is, quite frankly mind-blowing and at this point, will divide audiences into ‘hell yes!’ or ‘no way!’ categories. I, happily, belong to the former. There are compelling performances from all concerned (Adam Driver is particularly good as a baffled boffin trying to work out what’s happening) and the pace never flags.

This is a riveting story about the power of belief and the lengths to which people will go to honour it. It also confirms Nichols as a film maker at the height of his powers.

It will be interesting to see what he does next.

4.5 stars

Philip Caveney

Black Mass

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25/11/15

Time was, when Johnny Depp’s name attached to a movie could be interpreted as a guarantee of quality, but to be fair, it’s been a while since that maxim held true. A once keen ability to pick the right project has lately foundered amidst a welter of vanity puff-pieces. So it’s heartening to report that Black Mass is a major step in the right direction, with Depp submitting his best performance in a very long time.

Here, he’s depicting real life  villain James ‘Whitey’ Bulger, a career criminal who operated successfully around his home town of Boston over a period of thirty years, largely because his brother, Bobby, was a senator and his best friend, John Connolly,  an FBI agent. Bulger cannily formed an ‘alliance’ with Connolly, trading inside information on his rivals to ensure that he could operate his web of vice and murder with complete impunity.

Depp has worked hard to make himself look unattractive – complete with thinning hair, bad teeth and pale blue eyes, he’s hardly recognisable as his former self. Initial fears that this is simply going to be a ‘makeup led’ performance are soon quashed, as he submits a convincing turn as a repellent psychopath, a man who can skip from helping an old lady with her shopping, to shooting a man point blank in the face, without raising so much as an eyebrow.

There’s a lot of unflinching violence on show here, but its matched by a sharp script by Mark Mallouk and Jez Butterworth and there’s the added bonus of a supporting cast to die for – Joel Edgerton, Benedict Cumberbatch, Kevin Bacon, Peter Sargaard… Seriously, there’s enough talent on show here to fill several movies; but there’s no denying that this is Depp’s film and he has a field day with it.

Like many real life stories, if presented as a piece of fiction, this would seem unlikely. Stay in your seat for the closing credits which offer glimpses of the real protagonists and we’re finally able to fully appreciate the lengths to which director Scott Cooper has gone to ensure that his actors resemble the major players.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney

 

 

 

Exodus: Gods and Kings

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30/12/14

Ridley Scott is perhaps the closest thing we have to a director of the stature of David Lean. Unabashedly old school he is never happier than when commanding armies of extras on a massive scale, so perhaps it was inevitable that he would eventually take on a biblical subject – the story of Moses. Here, the great man is played by a scowling Christian Bale who at the beginning of the film is fighting the Hitites alongside his ‘bessie mate’ Ramses (Joel Edgerton.) But when Ramses becomes pharaoh, word gets out that Moses is actually an adopted hebrew, a fact that gets him banished from Egypt and sent back to join ‘his people’ where before very long he is instructing them to seek their freedom.

There has already been some controversy about this film which features two caucasian actors in the lead roles and Scott’s reply (that it was all about getting funding and who would pay to see Mohammed Whatever in the lead role?) was understandably badly received, but I’m going to put that matter aside and concentrate on what’s on the screen, which really is a great big curate’s egg of a film. This being a Ridley Scott production, there are scenes of incredible cinematic splendour – the construction of the pyramids is amazing, the Plagues of Egypt are particularly jaw-dropping and the climactic parting of the waves is nail-biting stuff – but along the way we have to endure too many turgid scenes of people standing around in temples talking in (suspiciously contemporary terms) about fairly boring subjects. And one has to wonder why Scott bothered to engage the services of Sigourney Weaver when he wasn’t going to bother to give her anything to say. What I did like was the daring treatment of many of the accepted fantastical elements of Moses’ story. The parting of the waves is quite clearly a tsunami, we see Moses himself carving the ten commandments onto stone tablets and most contentious of all, ‘God’ is depicted as a scruffy kid with a bad haircut. Some will hate this, but what was the alternative? A white haired, bearded old geezer speaking in a stentorian voice? A bit too Life of Brian, methinks.

in the end, Scott does it his way and God help anyone who stands in his path. Overall, I enjoyed this, but those slow lengthy passages dragged down the final score somewhat. One thing is clear. When it comes to epic cinema, nobody else comes close to the majesty that is Ridley Scott. On a sad note, the film is dedicated to his brother, Tony, who took his own life in 2012.

3.8 stars

Philip Caveney