The Personal History Of David Copperfield Cert: PG / 119 mins / Dir. Armando Iannucci / Trailer
A disclaimer. I haven't read Charles Dickens' David Copperfield. Also, I haven't watched any television, film or stage adaptations of David Copperfield. There's no agenda behind that, it's just the way these things fall. I've heard of it obviously, but the only Dickens I'm reasonably familiar with is A Christmas Carol, and even then it's only because some new adaptation is filmed almost every year. And it's not like I employ the same level of reverse-snobbery for his work as I do with Shakespeare's material.
So when I went to see Armando Iannucci's The Personal History Of David Copperfield this evening, I did so because I like its cast, I like Armando Iannucci and I trust them all to make an entertaining retooling of a thing I'm not familiar with in the slightest. This review is of the thing I just watched, not the thing I was expecting or the thing I was necessarily wanting it to be. And with all that in mind, this will either be the exactly the viewpoint you're after or the last opinion you want to read. Either way, you're very welcome...
JOLLY And what a delight it turns out to be. By definition of the material alone it's a far more jolly ride than Iannucci's previous cinematic outing, as he works Dickens' classic into a sprawling comedy of manners with tight scripting and sharp performances to match. Opening with a theatrical framing device, the whole thing has an air of knowing artifice, yet never waivers in its conviction. The film is energetic without tipping over into the chaotic, stagey without being forced. sumptuous without feeling stuffy.
Although Iannucci runs a wide social gamut of Victorian England, the grime of that era (in this story's settings) is barely present. Yet there's a detailed richness to the production design letting the audience know this is an aesthetic choice rather than a time or cost-saving measure. David Copperfield looks, and feels, gorgeous.
CHIPS
The cast are as superb as you'd hope. Dev Patel shines as always in the eponymous role, as does Jairaj Varsani as the younger Copperfield. At the film's height (and especially with Tilda Swinton involved), there's an almost Coen-esque farce going on, and it even begins to approach the claustrophobia and nightmare-logic of Aronofsky's mother! as reality becomes blurred and we're once again reminded of the narrated performance structure.
David Copperfield is a whistle-stop tour of a big-old book, and the two-hour runtime feels optimistically cramped in some places, while there are entire sections of the hero's life that would clearly benefit from a full, serialised adaptation for a more emotional connection. I'm reliably informed that some key story-elements have been altered here, although as this is the director's re-imagining of the saga, that's absolutely permissible*1. That Iannucci keeps masterful control of the whole thing is a credit to his dedication and enthusiasm for the source-text.
YSCIENCETHEATER3000 This is a timely companion-piece with Greta Gerwig's Little Women, both stylised adaptations of stories from the mid 1800s which are just as engaging for audiences today. Gerwig's film has more to say of course, but both channel the stunning vision of their writer/directors.
David Copperfield is snappy, stylised and consistently funny. But it's also a bit of a confection, almost a curiosity, and despite its period-setting this version won't be for everybody. Which is probably a large part of why I enjoyed it so much.
.
If it's your bag, certainly.
It is.
This should certainly be near the top of everyone's CVs for the foreseeable future.
*1 More 'strict' adaptations of David Copperfield already exist and will no doubt be made in the future. Think of this as the Dickensian equivalent of Cumberbatch's 'accompaniment' Sherlock Holmes, rather than Jeremy Brett's more canonical interpretation (even though this version of Copperfield is still set in its original time period). [ 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.
Okay, help me out film-buffs: Are all Jim Jarmusch movies as sloppily written and mechanically acted as The Dead Don't Die? Is this the point? I only appear to have seen one other thing on his resumé, but I tend to hear his name spoken with respect and some artistic reverence. And this movie inspires neither.
OUTBREAK The Dead Don't Die is a film where a zombie outbreak occurs in a small, backwater American town. That's about it. There's not really a story, it's more a series of events, most of which are interlinked by the chronology of the piece, if nothing else. The dead come back to life and start attacking the living, a lot of people die as a result. That's about it. Oh, and Iggy Pop in zombie-makeup looks exactly like Iggy Pop. Make of that what you will.
This feels like Jarmusch hates zombie films and has decided to take that out on an unsuspecting genre-audience. The movie is overflowing with clumsy, literal dialogue. Characters narrate their inner monologue, repeat each other as if they're stalling for time and describe everything they do or see. Form an audio standpoint, it's like a badly improvised radio drama that's somehow been caught on film.
The problem could be that stiltedly reproducing something in a wry yet artless manner is not the same as deconstructing it. And if you're not going to deconstruct your subject, don't try to make a smug, arthouse-friendly movie about it. All the knowing glances and fourth-wall-nudging in the world can't stop this from feeling like the first draft of a pastiche written by somebody who's only seen two zombie movies but figures they know enough to have a crack at writing their own anyway. Because if I can't let Crispian Mills get away with using fracking as a plot device, I'm sure as shit not going to let Jim Jarmusch walk out with it under his arm either.
MRS DOUBTFIRE That cast, though. You've got to assume they were drawn in by either the reputation or existing relationship with the director, rather than reading the script. That's assuming there's a script. Most of the delivery here sounds like the cast are either ad-libbing or having their lines fed directly to them through an earpiece as the camera rolls. It's all deliberate of course, but imaging spending this much money just for Bill Murray to look uncomfortably bored. The film has a few wry chuckles and some good ideas, but doesn't employ the vocabulary it needs to express them properly*1.
And because there's no structured story, Jim didn't have to write an ending! The film finishes because the characters die, with no drama, excitement or intrigue. A decomposing, stone-cold mess. Not half as clever as it thinks it is, but twice as boring.
I can tell that Jarmusch is trying to provoke the casual audience who will watch this because of its cast, its title or its poster-art. And if anything, I thoroughly respect the product for being precisely what he intended to make.
But The Dead Don't Die is the emperor's new clothes of zombie movies.
Tellingly, transparently so…
Level 1: Kylo Ren is in this. There's also a Star Destroyer reference which I imagine is supposed to come off as ironic, but it's as self-indulgent as everything else in the film.
*1 Now there's a Film-Twat™ thing to say, and I'm delighted it's come while writing about a Jim Jarmusch movie, if only because I know how vehemently yet disdainfully he'd disagree with it... [ 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.
Suspiria Cert: 18 / 153 mins / Dir. Luca Guadagnino / Trailer
Let's be honest, if you're having a production meeting and one of the outcomes is that Thom Yorke should do the music for your film, there's a good chance that you're making something which is going to test my fucking patience. Suspiria is impeccably made, but I'd be lying if I said there weren't long stretches during which I was thoroughly bored.
The plot: In 1977, a young American woman runs away from her religiously strict family to a dance school in Berlin, right next to the wall which divides the city.
Turns out it's run by witches. There we go.
BREAKING MY HEART Now to be fair, my main problem here is that I don't 'do' dance. I appreciate the coordination and precision, and I understand that there's emotion and symbolism contained within, and that's all well explained within the film itself. But it's just not a visual language I understand*1. They may as well have the characters speaking in tongues, frankly.
A point of note could also be that I haven't seen Dario Argento's 1977 original movie, but in all honest that shouldn't matter - this is a remake, not a sequel. I'm under the impression that this is a relatively faithful interpretation and expansion of that, so any issues I had with the new film are likely to stem from the original.
SHAKING MY CONFIDENCE Another problem could be that Dakota Johnson is interesting to watch, as is Tilda Swinton, but everybody else? Really not so much. The overall grotesquery is nicely escalated, but it's like a two and a half hour episode of The League Of Gentlemen without any jokes. Any which way, Luca Guadagnino's Suspiria is too long. I expected self-indulgence, I'd just like to be more engaged while that's happening (cf. Mandy).
Don't get me wrong, I admire Suspiria a great deal. But over two and half hours, it's going to take more than chin-stroking to keep me onboard. Besides, at least I'm not the guy in front who sighed audible for the last 120 minutes of the film.
Oh, and since the film prides itself on its technical prowess, I'm just going to say it: the drop-shadow on the subtitles is too far from the source lettering, there's a gap between the two and it's distracting as fuck. Yeah, I do typography, not dance…
I imagine it'll struggle even harder to capture your attention in the living room, unless you're already onboard and are the kind of viewer who'd normally watch it in the cinema anyway.
No.
Hahahaha, absolutely.
There isn't.
Level 1: Prosthetics makeup designer Mark Coulier also worked on Attack Of The Clones, and since Suspiria has some truly outstanding effects, I'm counting that as a direct link.
*1 Nor is it a series of movements I can fully understand, ie - I don't dance. Not that I watched the film with a sense of growing envy you understand, but at no point was I thinking 'yeah, I know that move'. The dancing itself is fine, is what I'm trying to say. It's more the fact that it meant little to me in scenes which weren't directly a telekinetic voodoo sequence. [ 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.
Doctor Strange (2D / second-pass / SPOILERS)
Cert: 12A / 115 mins / Dir. Scott Derrickson / Trailer
This review contains spoilers. Although it's been out for a few weeks now, so I guess you've seen it already and that doesn't matter, right? I mean, if you're waiting for the DVD because you can't make it to your nearest participating auditorium, you wouldn't very well be clicking on reviews of the film in the blind hope that they're spoiler-free, now would you? Nonetheless, if it's spoiler-free discussion you're after, click here for my previous review.
Apart from anything else, if you haven't seen Doctor Strange, none of this will make any sense.
Still here? Smashing. Now to be honest, not that much changed on my second viewing of Doctor Strange, other than Mordo's path being laid out more clearly than I'd first perceived. But I enjoyed the film just as much, and maintain that it's one of Marvel Studios' stronger standalone-movies. But you know what would make it better? Scrapping that prologue.
As the film opens, we meet Kaecilius and his acolytes as they break into the Kamar-Taj library and steal pages from a sacred book belonging to The Ancient One, murdering the librarian protector in the process. Their escape with the pages is then threatened by Tilda Badass herself, who pursues the group into a mirror-dimensioned London and battles throughout a continually warping cityscape to recover her property. The gang escape, safe in the knowledge that their reputations, and the film's maguffin, have been established. We then cut to a New York hospital and meet Doctor Stephen Strange…
But why is that sequence there at the start? It's a bold spectacle to establish the mystic and psychadelic elements of the film, but it blows any reveal further down the line. The first Captain America movie had a similar opening segment, intriducing the Cosmic Cube and Red Skull which would form the backbone of the film, the difference being that both were used incredibly sparingly at the church in Tønsberg, hinting at what's to come rather than flat-out showing us.
Much like Predator*1, it'd be better for the structure of the film if we skipped the went straight into Stephen's story without the page-theft prologue. Our realisation that magic is a quantifiable force in the everyday world would have unfolded with the hero's. The doctor's physical unmaking and spiritual rebuilding would be more a journey we travel with him, rather than as a passenger who's already seen a snapshot of the destination. Imagine if Strange's initial blast through the Astral Realm had been the first fantastical imagery we'd seen in the film.
As for Kaecilius, the rest of the film not only explains his character and intentions, but also recaps on that very scene when the theft is described to Strange. A tighter edit in the Mordo/Strange training conversation, so that the mention of the stolen pages cuts directly to Kaecilius summoning the floor-portal, would be all that's required for the audience to catch up. It's not even as if the rest of the screenplay expands the villain's character too much anyway, so having him as The Generic Marvel Baddie Who Doesn't Survive His First Film Appearance*2 would be equally workable without his early-doors introduction. Indeed, without the opening as it stands, Kaecilius' later soliloquy to Strange about good and evil being illusions while time is the real enemy would be so much more ambiguously convincing had we not seen him lop off a dude's head with two axes and for no real reason*3
In fact, it almost seems like Doctor Strange's opening sequence was an afterthought designed to hammer home the "these are the bad guys" schtick and grab the audience's attention from scene one, rather than tell the story with an unfolding intrigue. Are Marvel really so worried that audiences will get bored after thirty minutes of hero-building with no superpowers on display? They managed perfectly well with 2008's Iron Man, as I recall.
Anyway, I notice that the three Sanctums - Hong Kong, London, New York - providing equally-spaced supernatural cover to the world are all in the Northern Hemisphere. Who's protecting Australia? Thor, when his accent slips, I imagine…
The Marvel Cinematic Universe movies preceding it (although that's not essential to enjoying this).
For the heachache-inducing spectacle, yes.
Pretty much.
Not really, but only because of the strength of the cast..
No, but I will grill you mercilessly for reasons.
I'm not hearing one :(
Level 1: The score for Doctor Strange is provided by one Michael Giacchino, who's also on musical duties for Rogue One. In fact, I mentioned this in the footnotes last time.
I have reservations.
*1 Basically, Predator would have been a much better movie (and it's already a great one, remember) if the opening sequence of the alien craft crashing from space into the jungle had been cut from the movie altogether. That way, the reports of an unsubstantiated threat in the undergrowth would have been as elusive to the audience as they would to Schwarzenegger's Schaefer, and the gradual reveal of his nemesis would have greater weight as a result. Instead, everyone in the auditorium (okay, living room, these days) knows that a UFO has landed because they've watched it happen, and it's just a case of clock-watching until the Yautja reveals itself. The opening shot manages to rob the film of its mystery and suspense, leaving a disposable action-flick in its wake.
*2 Indeed, the recurring problem in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is how to balance the villains. If you spend time in a hero's origin story to sufficiently build their nemesis from scratch, you risk detracting from the hero's screen-time. They need a measure by which to test/prove their own strength, of course, but have the villain killed at the end of the first film and it feels like a one-dimensional, token character (cf Abomination, Whiplash, Malekith). Whereas if you don't permanently despatch the villain, the hero hasn't beaten their challenge and the film can feel like nothing's really been achieved (cf The Chitauri and Thanos, even though that one's building up to Infinity War). All you can do really is at least give your villain a decent amount of personality in the meanwhile (cf Red Skull, Ronan the Accuser, the Trevor Slattery Mandarin), or give them a sliding-scale of morality (cf Loki, Winter Soldier).
*3Kaecilius and his gang had the librarian incapacitated while they stole the pages anyway, there was no actual need to kill him if they thought they were skilful enough to carry out the heist. Worried he'll leap into a portal and follow you? Break his legs before you go. That way he suffers the humiliation of having to explain to The Ancient One how he failed to stop the theft (damn I'd make a great supervillain). But if the pages are as powerful as Kaecilius believes (and they are, remember), then leaving survivors behind becomes irrelevant, surely?
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.
Doctor Strange (3D / first-pass / SPOILER-FREE)
Cert: 12A / 115 mins / Dir. Scott Derrickson / Trailer
And there was me being so distracted by the upcoming Rogue One that Marvel's latest entry into their ongoing canon sort of snuck up on me. Sort of.
The new offering sticks largely to the format as expected (why gamble when you've got no sign of a losing hand?), but is more rooted in the mystical side of the continuity. One where armoured suits still exist, but focusing on the magic that's merely science the characters don't yet understand. Despite the frequent brain-bending visuals, the film never quite goes full-Inception, although it does often feel like M.C. Escher got drunk and rebooted Harry Potter. Structurally, the narrative is on solidly familiar ground*1, which helps to keep everything flowing smoothly.
Benedict Cumberbatch and Tilda Swinton shine in their roles as the eponymous Doctor and The Ancient One respectively. Chiwetel Ejiofor and Benedict Wong make the most of their supporting slots, as does Mads Mikkelsen. Rachel McAdams puts in a good turn as far as she's able, but feels slightly wasted in the film, to be honest.
As mentioned, Doctor Strange takes place within Marvel's Cinematic Universe framework of course*2, and while references to the other movies and characters are fleeting, they do feel like they're being presented to the audience as a reward/reminder, a little. Tonally, the film lies somewhere between the dimension-hopping disorientation of Thor: The Dark World and the humorous stellar-agoraphobia of Guardians Of The Galaxy. Director Scott Derrickson balances the action, danger and sense of fun well enough, although any philosophy the film might have been aiming for seems truncated by a run-time of just under two hours. Although after the lengthy and action-packed continuity admin of Civil War, this movie is a nice change of pace for the series.
But these are just my first impressions. Doctor Strange is a movie which is going to take a few viewings to properly sink in…
The business-end:
• Is there a Wilhelm Scream? I didn't hear one.
• Is there a Stan Lee cameo? Yes.
• Is there a mid-credits scene? Yes.
• Is there a post-credits scene? Yes.
Other movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Inception.
Yep. In 3D too, if you can bear the light-loss.
It does, but I'd have liked it to make that achievement with about an extra 20-30 minutes of run-time.
In terms of the cast, no, but director Scott Derrickson is better known for his mass-market horror fare, so most likely yes.
You'll have to justify yourself.
I didn't hear one.
But let's not rule it out.
Level 1: Galen Erso is in this.
*1 And speaking of familiar, composer Michael Giacchino is on score-duties here and seems to have loved his own Star Trek theme so damned much that he's retooled it as the recurring motif in Doctor Strange. Don't worry lads, it's only going to be geeks watching this; they won't notice…
*2 It's also interesting to note that the ever-evolving Marvel Studios ident at the beginning of the film has now dispensed with the flickering comic-panels (other than the first couple of seconds) and is comprised of their MCU screen properties. While they can hardly deny their comic-book roots, is this a sign that the company now views the cinematic stories as the definitive versions? Discuss.
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.
A disclaimer. I haven't read Charles Dickens' David Copperfield. Also, I haven't watched any television, film or stage adaptations of David Copperfield. There's no agenda behind that, it's just the way these things fall. I've heard of it obviously, but the only Dickens I'm reasonably familiar with is A Christmas Carol, and even then it's only because some new adaptation is filmed almost every year. And it's not like I employ the same level of reverse-snobbery for his work as I do with Shakespeare's material.
