Review: The Nun

The Nun
Cert: 15 / 96 mins / Dir. Corin Hardy / Trailer



I've got a spreadsheet where I list all the films I've watched*¹, link to reviews, categorise them by score, BBFC rating, genre etc. One of those genres available in the dropdown is 'True Story'. Corin Hardy's The Nun opens with a caption-card reading "The following occurred in Romania, 1952". Now, The Nun wasn't categorised in my spreadsheet as 'True Story' before I sat down in screen 5, and it sure as fuck isn't afterward, either. If anything, an early sequence in which our eponymous villain glides slowly down a corridor sees a crucifix on the wall slowly turning upside down the closer to it she gets. As The Nun™ draws parallel to the now-inverted cross, it bursts into flames, and I realised these particular real events have apparently been screenwritten by a 17yr old Cradle Of Filth fan…

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The Nun is the fifth movie in the Conjuring universe. It is the very definition of A Studio Horror, in which an ancient demon is summoned into the body of a middle-aged woman in an Eastern European convent, and is so furious at this that it then goes a bit mad and kills pretty much everyone at every opportunity. For obvious reasons the Vatican isn't too happy at the ruckus being caused, so they send Father Burke (Demián Bichir) to investigate with a collection of suitcases, accompanied for reasons which really aren't made clear by prospective good-nun Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga*²). Hell on.

It's the kind of film where a French-Canadian farmer living in Romania answers the door to a pair of strangers by speaking in English. The range of accents here is astounding.

The film's basically fine if that's what you're into. But as is so often the case, you'd have to be pretty new to the genre to be wrapped up in anything it has to say. At this point in the ongoing Conjuring saga, the storyline itself is almost completely linear. But wearing the continuity badge upfront like a press-pass, at least that's expected. If anything, I'd much rather have this movie be middling as part of a series than standing alone thinking it's better than it is. The Nun is well enough assembled, but in a way that suggests no-one involved believed they were making something unique, so just didn't try. The wardrobe and set-dressing are nothing less than meticulous, yet I still didn't believe for a single frame that this was taking place 66 years ago*³.

Oh, and when the power is pulled from a radio, the music will just cease, it doesn't drop in speed and pitch like a turntable. Not even in 1952. Although I'm also aware that nothing else in that particular sequence makes sense either.

The Conjuring series has been up and down like a rollercoaster, but this is an absolute ghost train of a movie. With dusty tombs, papal crisis meetings, an Act II backstory exposition reel and more jump-scares you can throw a crucifix at, it's more a tribute to the genre than a pastiche, but still made with a knowing glint in its eye. And with its motifs of guilt and possession in a Romanian setting, The Nun owes as much to Bram Stoker as it does William Friedkin.

Oh, and when farmer Terry is walking around the catacombs with the flaming torch in the film's crescendo? The audience can see where the inbuilt gas jets are, mate.

Still, the bits with the pentacles made me laugh. I mean out loud*⁴.


The Nun is much like the cave on Dagobah.
"What's in there?"
"Only what you take with you."



Well let's take a wild guess, shall we?



Well, not unless you're a hardened fan of the series.



Not unless you're a hardened fan of the series.



It's not.



Probably not.



Definitely not.



Level 1: Rogue One Dr. Evazan's in this.





*¹ Not that regular readers will be surprised by this, obviously ^{[ BACK ]}

*² And for the record, Taissa Farmiga is a very capable and competent central performer here (given the state of the screenplay), who is the younger sister of Conjuring 1 & 2 star Vera Farmiga, and who looks and acts very much like Vera Farmiga, and whose point in the story's timeline suggests that her character could just be a younger version of the character played by Vera Farmiga, and whose experiences in the film point towards a third-act reveal surprising approximately no-one that 'hey this is really Lorraine from the Conjuring films!', especially since Vera Farmiga appears in the film's bookend scenes, but then that doesn't happen and you have to wonder why the actual fuck Taissa would be cast if the family resemblance wasn't going to be a thing because otherwise it's just really distracting. ^{[ BACK ]}

*³ While watching The Nun, It crossed my mind (because it's the sort of film which allows the viewer's train of thought to wander well off the tracks) that I have no problem believing in Santa Claus when I'm watching a great Christmas movie. Just between the opening titles and closing credits, obviously, and just as a dramatic conceit to tell the story. So why am I so cynical when it comes to supernatural horror? Why can't I just switch off and be 'in the moment'? I suspect it's something to do with caption cards claiming some sort of documentary heritage, but I'm snarky at movies that don't have these, too. Answers on a postcard, please. ^{[ BACK ]}

*⁴ No real code-breaking in this, since I was sat in my local's massive screen 5 on my own for the entire movie. Which I didn't mind at all, as you can imagine. That said, the only worry I had was that I'd look round at one point and there'd be someone dressed as a nun sitting four about seats away. Anyway, that didn't happen. Although if I ran a cinema, I'd make sure one of my staff members was doing that with every screening. ^{[ 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: A United Kingdom

A United Kingdom
Cert: 12A / 111 mins / Dir. Amma Asante / Trailer



And so Amma Asante's new film, the eagerly awaited project following 2013's Belle, lands in cinemas earlier than you'd expect, with January usually leading the charge for politically and emotionally heavyweight fare. The story centres around the post-war romance between Seretse Khama (David Oyelowo), heir to the kingdom of Bechuanaland, and Ruth Williams (Rosamund Pike), a financial clerk he meets while in London training to be a barrister. With Ruth's Britain still reeling from the effects of the Second World War and Seretse's deeply traditional homeland on edge about their ongoing partnership with the British Empire, their marriage was never going to be easy. But when government agent Sir Alistair Canning (Jack Davenport) gleefully informs them that their union has far-reaching political ramifications, personal loyalties weigh as heavily as societal responsibility…

Don't worry, it's not as heavy-going as I've made it sound. Which is sort of an issue, if I'm being honest. That the film is Worthy™ is of no doubt, and Rosamund Pike and David Oyelowo's fantastic performances reflect this no end. The rest of the cast however (particularly those playing the part of the British-establishment), threaten to turn it into a slightly twee pantomime of acidic put-downs and twirling moustaches. The deportment of Jack Davenport alone brings to mind Pirates of the Caribbean, but with more racism. He's not alone though, ably supported in his weasling ways by Malfoy-Junior Emeritus himself, struggling as ever to find a role which doesn't paint him as a complete arse. To quote Mrs Blackout upon leaving the cinema, "Tom Felton's not ageing well, is he?". To which I could only reply "Yeah, he's not acting well, either…".

A lot of the biggest problem I had with the film can be summed up by the BBFC's own summary…

…where even they can't narrow the film down to one genre and have it listed as both romance and drama (and it's the BBFC's primary job to classify things, remember). There's certainly no reason why a film can't be both of course, but A United Kingdom treats these two themes as something to pull apart from each other, rather than together (which, given the central unifying thread of the film, seems counter-intuitive). The love-story between Ruth and Seretse never gets the chance to build up the emotional momentum it needs because the story's constantly being sidetracked by sketched-in political vignettes. And the events leading to the creation of Botswana aren't given nearly enough detail because of the interruption of the rushed love-story.

But the ultimate enemy of both narrative strands is time. The film covers around ten years in just under two hours, and in doing so skips forward at a pace which threatens to leave everyone behind (plus there's that thing where none of the characters appear to be ageing at all, so you're left wondering what sort of timeframe this is all happening in, especially since the '1947' caption at the beginning is followed by precisely no others). Entire scenes exist - repeatedly - where an exterior establishing shot of a building leads to a fifteen-second conversation inside it, after which the film moves to somewhere else, days/weeks later. Like the dialogue was too important to leave out, but not to the point where you'd spend any time on it. I don't know if this is down to Guy Hibbert's screenplay or the editing from Jonathan Amos and Jon Gregory, but someone's selling this story short. Literally. Another forty minutes or so, casually scattered throughout the film, would give the story room to breathe and the characters room to grow.

I have a massive amount of admiration for Asante and her work, but I'm starting to think that the delicate way she puts a film together might be at odds with the subject matter. I know not everything can be as viscerally unnerving as 12 Years, but this is the second time I've left one of her films thinking '…how are you not more furious about all this?'. Because outside of a little historical education, the only two themes I really took away from A United Kingdom are a) racism is for dicks, and b) politicians are lying, opportunist dicks. And speaking as someone at the arse-end of 2016, those are lessons I've already learned pretty damned thoroughly, thanks…

There's also the matter of an old-looking Nicholas Lyndhurst existing in the film's initial 1947 timeframe*¹. Is someone going to ret-con what went wrong with the portal that caused this to happen?

Belle, Mandela; both deal with heavy subject matter in an accessible way, and both struggle to reconcile the span of the story with the running-time of a film.



It's a Sunday night DVD, to be fair.



Yes, but only just.



No, not least because everyone involved has particularly strong form.



Nah.



Nah.



Level 1: Agent Kallus is in this.





*¹ Although I should also point out that the 55 year old Nicholas Lyndhurst looks in no way old enough to be the 37 year old Rosamund Pike's father. That it's socially and biologically feasible is irrelevant, frankly, if the audience doesn't believe it. And in this case, that means me.

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.