Review: Belfast

Belfast
Cert: 12A / 98 mins / Dir. Kenneth Branagh / Trailer

A quasi-memoir from writer-director Kenneth Branagh, Belfast centres around 9yr old Buddy (Jude Hill), a young resident of the eponymous city at the start of the troubles in the summer of 1969*¹. Living with his family, Jude has to juggle the domestic strains of urban prepubescence with a rising tide of political violence on the streets, as communities are literally torn apart in an escalating series of clashes.

Presented in high-contrast monochrome (with the exception of a largely needless present day fraction of a framing device which looks like it's gone through Instagram*²), Belfast is a fine-looking film, initially at least. While cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos captures some striking and moody imagery, it soon becomes apparent that the black-and-white filter is doing all the heavy lifting in assuring the audience that this took place In The Past. Because as meticulous as the wardrobe and set-dressing departments have been, the look of the film feels slightly exaggerated in its period detail, like an overdone cosplay or episode of Life On Mars. Not helping this is the music. Van Morrison's incidental work is fine, but there are needle-drops in every second scene, like Kenneth's got his eye on three soundtrack albums before the film even hits Netflix. A bizarre Commitments-lite moment in the third act blurs the lines of age-distorted reality.

BLUNT

What's more of a problem however, is the director not quite knowing what type of film he wants to make. Belfast is an uneven mix of a bittersweet, slightly mawkish childhood tale of crumbling innocence in the days before coming of age, and a socially-charged drama where there are no right answers but plenty of wrong choices. To be blunt, Branagh's not quite the filmmaker to bridge the two, and the end result is depressing without being especially gritty; heartfelt without being particularly uplifting. While he doesn't hold back on getting up-close to the era's atrocities, the 12A certificate can't quite do justice (if that's the word) to the outrage and panic the audience feel in watching the scenes of violence. They're done well but feel like they're from another film altogether, and presented as as a recurring irritant rather than a rising tide.

In terms of performance, the central figure is of course Jude Hill. While he certainly shows a lot of promise, the young actor is not yet strong enough to pull together the whole film, and although Jamie Dornan and Caitríona Balfe put in great turns as his parents, they seem to do this around Jude rather than with him. He does get a handful of great scenes with Ciarán Hinds as his grandfather though, and you suspect this is where the real heart of the film lies (certainly the wisdom), but there isn't enough of the interplay to make it a defining feature. Judi Dench is also in the film*³.

Too fluffy to be a real hand-wringing awards-nudger*⁵, not quirky enough to go full Yellow Poster™, Belfast is an odd and unsatisfyingly unsatisfying experience. The film's clearly been made with a lot of love, but that's not enough. The message gets lost in the confusion.

Unless that is the message..?

*¹ This film could have been a Bryan Adams jukebox musical instead, I'll leave you to think about that. ^{[ BACK ]}

*² And I say this as someone who's a fan of Instagram, but still. ^{[ BACK ]}

*³ Look I love Dench as much as anybody, the very definition of A National Treasure™, but her scenes seem to have been filmed during pre-production when Judi was still trying to decide if her accent should be Belfast, Byker or Bombay*⁴... ^{[ BACK ]}

*⁴ Yes I know it's Mumbai now, but the film's set in 1969 and it was Bombay then. Plus alliteration, y'know? ^{[ BACK ]}

*⁵ Although I'm sure it'll pick something up. It'll probably land Best Flick at the BAFTAs now, if only to make my review look even more redundant. That's precisely the kind of thing they do over there... ^{[ BACK ]}

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Red Joan

Red Joan
Cert: 12A / 101 mins / Dir. Trevor Nunn / Trailer



Oh, ITV called. They said their Sunday night schedules are full for the foreseeable wondered if you might like to try the cinemas instead? Besides, they're probably going to need something to show over a week on the single screen that isn't running back-to-back Avengers…

ARRESTED

So we open circa 2000, with the slightly curmudgeonly Joan (Judi Dench) being arrested on historical spying charges following revelations arising after the death of a government minister. As Joan is interviewed, we see her past as a wartime communist sympathiser unfurl in a series of lengthy flashbacks at Cambridge University and the Ministry of Defence, in which she's played by Sophie Cookson.

Now, since this is all based on a novel which is in turn inspired by an actual case, the immediate pitfall is one of maintaining dramatic tension when the audience could know how it plays out. Joan maintains her innocence throughout, on a moral level at least. But the problem is that the film is called "Red Joan", so we know she did it. To make matters worse the first act tells us how and even why she did it. All that's left for the following hour is a checklist of events which have been telegraphed from the word go.

I know little to nothing of the actual political machinery around and following the Second World War, and even I found this to be simplistic and heavy-handed.

PERSONAL

Dame Judi does quite well for a performance which is essentially a series of very short monologues with people watching. But perhaps crucially, Old Red Joan never actually narrates or even presents the Young Red Joan segements - these are sparked in her memory by facts read to her by the police. As a result, the other half of her performance is essentially reaction shots.

Cookson has more to work with and comes out of the whole thing better, but it's an inescapable fact that she doesn't look like a young Judi Dench (even though her vocal mannerisms are spot on). It's not just a matter of the latter's outstanding career history, she's long since passed the line where she can disappear into a character. No matter how good Judi Dench is, you never forget you're watching Judi Dench™.

What's more odd is that Sophie Cookson often carries an air of Keira Knightley in her more animated performances. Not that there's much potential for character flashbacks there, of course.

THIRD-STAGE DISCIPLINARY HEARING

With a theatrical name like Trevor Nunn helming proceedings, I'd been woried this would be quite a stagey affair. And while that definitely comes through with Dench's present-day (or as close as) scenes, the past-narrative is almost completely televisual. And not great, dynamic, better-than-its-ever-been television, just very ordinary Sunday night fare.

The story as it stands is now two decades old, and this telling doesn't seem to take any risks or challenge its audience in any way. You have to wonder who Red Joan was really made for, other than being a shelf-warmer in the £3 section of Asda's entertainment section.

It's basically fine.

This is Philomena meets The Imitation Game, without the emotional punch of either.



Not particularly.



Stream it, tops. Or wait for it to be on telly since that's clearly where it belongs.



It is not.



That's possible.



There isn't.



Level 2: Sophie Cookson was in that Kingsman film, with Mark 'Skywalker' Hamill, Sam 'Windu' Jackson, Ralph 'Garmuth' Ineson and even Geoff 'Frobb' Bell.







DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Murder On The Orient Express

Murder On The Orient Express
Cert: 12A / 114 mins / Dir. Kenneth Branagh / Trailer



Okay first off, if you haven't seen any version of Murder On The Orient Express before, Kenneth Branagh's new presentation will be ideal for you. Seriously. The performances, sets, costumes, lighting, sound-design and soundtrack are all exquisite, and the photography will tick the boxes for all those whose first reaction to a sunset is to fire up Instagram. While the production certainly never strays far from the precedent set by previous outings, lensmaster Haris Zambarloukos's approach is inherently cinematic.

The rest of us, however, spend the best part of two hours asking why another retelling of Agatha Christie's most famous story is necessary; a question which the film fails to convincingly answer.

In a bid add a fresh lick of paint to an old carriage, this iteration borrows rather heavy-handedly from other icons of intrigue. The style of the opening sequence, which sees Hercule Poirot wrapping up his previous case, is a clear nod to the James Bond / Indiana Jones in medias res approach, while our hero's on-the-spot deductions in the first act owe more to Baker Street's most famous resident than even Agatha herself would care to admit. There's the feeling with these inserts that the Belgian sleuth is perhaps being pushed toward a more active cinematic presence, and a couple of sequences later in the film shore up this suspicion, despite feeling uncomfortably out of place themselves.

Speaking of incongruities, I'm happy to report than Mr Branagh's moustache and accent combination-set are thankfully nowhere as... awkward as they were in the reveal-trailer*¹. Both take some time to get used to, but at least they're not too problematic. Branagh is a fine actor of course, and an even better director. But he's slightly lacklustre as Poirot, somehow.

Back at the coalface however, Orient Express itself is the very essence of character-driven storytelling, an approach which is borderline impossible when this many familiar faces are in the room. Harking back to the golden age of ensemble-dramas, the all-star cast is impressive but frankly too big. It's relatively easy to hide one guest star in a movie like this, but here you'll never forget that you're watching Johnny Depp*² and Kenneth Branagh and Michelle Pfeiffer and Judi Dench and Derek Jacobi and Willem Dafoe and Josh Gad and Daisy Ridley. Despite the tried and tested structure of the oft-adapted tale, the film sags in the middle and never quite regains its pace, even with a thoroughly sincere denouement.

But all-in-all, Branagh's Murder on The orient Express is a perfectly acceptable re-telling of the story. If a largely unnecessary one. I certainly can't resent the creative team for trying to put their own stamp on a classic, but this will always be Dame Agatha's, first and foremost…

If we get nothing else from this, we can be at least take comfort from new audiences being introduced to Poirot's (Christie's) serene wisdom:

"Every day we meet people the world could do without, yet we do not kill them. We must be better than the beasts..."

Oh, and this loses a point for the Death On The Nile setup-line in the final moments. It's cheap, it's cack-handed and it's canonically illiterate*³.



Other screen versions of this same story, I shouldn't wonder, or Agatha Christie adaptations in general.



Well, it's a testament to the enduring legacy of Christie that a Wednesday evening screening in the second week of its run was over two thirds full (and with a story which, once you know 'whodunnit', you tend not to forget). The film's also scheduled to run next week, too, so it's clearly pulling in the punters across the board. Smashing work, folks.



Well, ish. The film achieves enough to justify its existence (as a one-off entry, at any rate), but in the grand scheme of things, perhaps the interpretative net should have been thrown wider?.



With a cast of this pedigree? Of course not.



Nope.



There isn't.



Level 1: Rey's in this, also there's a 'stepping in poo in a sun-bleached environment' joke three minutes into the film which I'm taking to be a clear homage to The Phantom Menace.





*¹ Upon viewing the first trailer in the cinema (I'd avoided it at home), it appeared that Poirot's 'new' moustache and windswept hair made him look like he'd been sleeping in a doorway, while the snippets of the accent we heard made it seem like that doorway was somewhere in Gateshead. Mrs Blackout was appalled to the point where she (an ardent fan of Agatha Christie) didn't come to see the film.
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*² Although with one recent exception, can we ever? ^{[ BACK ]}

*³ It's no spoiler to say that in the closing scene of the film, Poirot meets a representative form the British Consulate who informs him that there's been a murder in Egypt ("and only on the Nile!") . The reason Death On The Nile works from a plot-mechanics perspective is that all the characters are established and introduced to Poirot before the murder takes place - while Poirot is also on the boat - so the murderer has to be present in his company and known to him. If the Karnak is going to shore up to let the detective onboard then there's nothing stopping the murderer escaping, before or during his arrival. There's also no reason for the British Consulate to be involved at that point, unless 20th Century Fox are planning to completely retool the story from the ground-up. It's that sort of haphazard reinvention which threatens to derail The Orient Express on more than one occasion...
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DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Victoria & Abdul

Victoria & Abdul
Cert: PG / 112 mins / Dir. Stephen Frears / Trailer



Landing in cinemas like a Sunday Night TV Drama with a Sunday Afternoon DVD cast is Victoria & Abdul, a dramatised account of Shrabani Basu's 2010 non-fiction book of the same name. It examines the platonic friendship between England's reigning 19th century monarch and Abdul Karim, a low-grade clerical administrator from Lalitpur, India, who was chosen to present to her a gift from the Empire's subjects. Dame Judi Dench stars once more as Her Majesty, while Ali Fazal takes the role of the semi-eponymous Abdul. The two-hour runtime covers approximately 15 years, albeit in a fashion which uses a title-card at the beginning, another at the end with some additional 'old-age' makeup, and nothing between.

You may be sensing my mood by this point. I hope so.

The fundamental problem here is that director Stephen Frears doesn't have that much story to actually tell. Queen Victoria befriends someone you wouldn't normally expect in accordance with royal protocols and the accepted social attitudes of the time*¹. Her advisors and family aren't too keen on this. She doesn't give a shit, she's the queen. Scenes. So between the film's trailer and a broad historical knowledge, you already know pretty much what's going to happen*².

While the film looks every bit as sumptuous as one would expect, Lee Hall's script is literal and heavy-handed, with glib witticisms and low-level slapstick frequently shoehorned into the first half attempting to create a dramatic counterpoint with the chin-stroking and institutional racism of the second. Frears takes a frankly outstanding cast and over-directs them as if the whole thing were a pantomime. Dench and Fazal overcome this by virtue of being the ones with the most to do on-screen anyway (and despite everything I'm saying here, they are both on great form), but not a single line from the supporting cast is left under-delivered*³.

In a similar vein to The Man Who Knew Infinity, there is almost certainly a more emotionally affecting story here, buried under layers of historical commentary and costume drama frippery. The memory and legacy of Abdul Karim would be better (and far more sincerely) served by making a documentary about the whole thing.



…those films where the first half of the trailer is scored with an intricate piano solo, breaking after around 70 seconds into sweeping orchestral mode and a title card reading "the untold and/or inspirational true story".



If you're going to watch this at all, it's a Sunday afternoon DVD.
That way at least the pubs will still be open when you finish.



Probably not.



Definitely not.



Absolutely not.



Although there is a Wilhelm-person, he remains silent.



Level 1: Jonathan Harden's in this (as the aforementioned Wilhelm), and he's in the upcoming The Last Jedi. Don't know his character-name yet, mind, but think he's in the Resistance.





*¹ And not to be too much of an angry liberal about all this, but while it's nice to believe that Victoria may have been a decent sort underneath all the pomp and bluster of monarchy, it's hardly as if her progressive social views extended as far Her Actual British Empire; the very thing of which she was In Actual, Real Charge, which was presumably too busy pillaging and enslaving the rest of the world to take half an hour on the loo with a copy of The Guardian... ^{[ BACK ]}

*² SPOILER: Queen Victoria is not currently alive and the film's denouement reflects this. Do not expect to see her dancing through the end-credit sequence. ^{[ BACK ]}

*³ Including, I'm sorry to say, one Eddie Izzard, portraying the then-heir Edward 'Bertie' Prince of Wales. With magnificent wardrobe and makeup, he looks the part 100%. Then opens his mouth and delivers his admittedly acerbic lines sounding exactly like Eddie Izzard™. The only way around this of course is by not casting Eddie Izzard in anything where he is required to be anything other than Eddie Izzard™. I am not a casting director, I have no say in making this happen. I love the guy to bits, but still... ^{[ BACK ]}


DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children

Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children (2D / SPOILERS)
Cert: 12A / 127 mins / Dir. Tim Burton / Trailer



Well, pre-judge not lest ye be pre-judged. As much as the trailers*¹ had led me to believe that Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children (look, MPHFPC, yeah>) was going to be 'Tim Burton's X-Men Juniors'*² with a light dusting of Hogwarts, it turned out to be more a mashup of Goodnight Sweetheart and Nightbreed. Which is far cooler, when you think about it…

When placid outsider Jake receives an ominous message from his grandfather Abe, he arrives at his house to find him murdered. Against the full support of his parents, this leads to an emotionally charged journey to an orphanage in Wales, and the unravelling of a secret Abe had been hiding in plain sight for years…

Even under its 12A safety-blanket, the film is surprisingly dark given that it will be put on the same shelf as its more mainstream contemporaries. In thematic terms this is attributable to the source-novel's author, Ransom Riggs of course, but an equal hat-tip has to go to screenwriter Jane Goldman for translating it so intensely (it was she who adapted the inexplicably-12A Woman In Black, if you remember). But Goldman's natural darkness is tempered by Tim Burton's propensity for kookiness, although this never quite reaches its regular default level because of Goldman's focus.

At just over two hours, MPHFPC is by no means a short film, but I'd have been happy to have an extra half-hour or so scattered throughout, if only to connect me more with Jake. After the cursory Hero's Journey setup in act one, the film spends a lot of time introducing a lot of fantastical elements, and any awe, wonder or fear we feel is most probably our own, not the protagonist's. I was engaged and intrigued throughout, but I wasn't really moved by anything I saw; the pace of the story and rapid world-building not allowing the relationship between Jake and his grandfather Abe to have any real weight*³. Another part of the disconnect was that I could feel Burton struggling to fully direct a screenplay that wasn't his own based on a story he hadn't written. It's not that he hasn't left a stamp on MPHFPC, but Tim's definitely playing in someone else's sandbox, here.

And on the subject of wants-lists*⁴, I'd have liked the mechanics/limitations of the time-travel and causality looped explained more thoroughly (why/how can Abe make phone calls and send letters to the past, given that he's a spotter, not a time-controlling Ymbryne? Do all loops have to be limited to 24 hours?) Then again, if they'd gone into all of that, I'd probably only have written another couple of thousand words picking it all apart.

Still, the costs of on-set catering were presumably minimised by the scenery-chewing competition going on between Eva Green and Sam Jackson. They're both great (thanks in no small part to Burton's direction, of course), but their constant mugging is definitely A Thing™.

All in all though, Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children is better than I expected, and a solid effort given its internal struggles.

As above; Harry Potter, X-Men, Nightbreed.



For the visuals, sure.
The story itself will work on any size screen, though.



I think it probably does, just about.



Probably not.



Probably not.



Definitely not.



Level 1: Chancellor Valorum and Mace Windu are in this.





*¹ Speaking of trailers, I'm relieved to note that the fucking trailer song (which only has one fucking line, apparently) isn't used in the film. Well, not in the main body, at least, I left before the first song of the credits had ended in case it was going to be in there. I should also point out that I don't dislike the song itself, nor Disa Jakobs' voice. Just the way she keeps truncating the word "coming" as if she's a fucking blues singer or something, her delicate delivery tripping over the word every single time like a member of the aristocracy trying to eat a kebab with a knife and fork. Yeah, it fucking bothers me.

*² …because a group of gifted youngsters being looked after by an older teacher/guardian and using time-travel to repeatedly evade their predators is the basic setup for X-Men: Days Of Future Past. A film which Jane Goldman also screen-wrote. I'm not dumping the similarity at her door, by the way. Much as MPHFPC is based on the 2011 novel, the X-Men movie sprang out of the 1981 comic series. I'm sure the whole thing is a massive, chronological coincidence.

*³ Also cobbling the emotional-stride of the film is Terence Stamp taking "crazy old man" to previously undiscovered levels. I love the guy to bits, but there are few other performers who can manage to overact whilst being dead on-screen. Oh, spoilers.

*⁴ And on the subject of non-wants lists, point-deducted for Tim Burton's blink-of-an-eye cameo appearance which still managed to be wall-shatteringly obvious. I wasn't even waiting for it, and he still may as well have been carrying a neon sign...


DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.