Game Night Cert: 15 / 100 mins / Dir. John Francis Daley & Jonathan Goldstein / Trailer
Now obviously, trailers notwithstanding, the audience's initial frame of mind before the movie even begins is in no way, shape or form the fault of Game Night screenwriter Mark Perez, directors John Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, nor indeed the plentiful cast. So, as the Cineworld Unlimited faithful were gathered for the latest advance screening to which they'd been invited, the patron to my immediate left waited until the point in the trailer for Wes Anderson's Isle of Dogs where the names of a lot of famous people are listed on-screen for doing the voices. They then observed loudly "Oh, they've got a lot of famous people doing the voices for that!". What I'm saying here is that I tried to give Game Night a fair crack of the whip, but may not have been quite as receptive to A Good Time as the rest of the crowd*1. This, I thought to myself, is going to be a long night. And so it proved.
So. Super-competitive suburban couple Annie (Rachel McAdams) and Max (Jason Bateman) host regular game-nights at their house with a group of friends, playing everything from charades to board-games. But when Max's high rolling investment-trader brother Brooks (Kyle Chandler) arrives one evening, he soon devises an idea to raise the stakes, and arranges an interactive role-playing experience in which one of the players will be kidnapped while the rest have to track them down. It's here that Brooks's shady private life catches up with him and the lines between gaming and gangsters become dangerously blurred. But by this point, the players have little choice...
So by now you'll be thinking Oh, so is 'Game Night' like David Fincher's 1997 movie 'The Game', but played more for laughs? Yes, frankly. There's the feeling watching the trailer that it can't quite work out what it wants to be, action-comedy or character-led, dynamic thriller. And in that respect, the trailer is a very fitting representation of the final film. From the off, it becomes clear that everyone's trying slightly too hard, here. But with a cast headed by seasoned performers such as McAdams and Bateman, this feels like it could be more the result of over-direction than flat-out overacting.
That's not to say there isn't fun to be had in the meanwhile, however. The action and comedy setpieces work well in and of themselves (with many laugh-out-loud moments), there's just slightly too much plot, too many sub-plots and too many inevitable twists for the already-weighty run-time, bludgeoning the audience into not thinking too hard about anything. It would also be a much smoother (not to mention shorter) ride without the weapons-grade application of film references*2 and characters constantly stopping to point out the punchlines*3.
Our players never give the less than their full attention, but Game Night feels like it's been cast entirely with supporting-actors, even though McAdams and Bateman should be (and have been) above that level by now. I suppose I should just be grateful that the whole thing isn't being headed by Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler. Within the first ten minutes, Annie and Max's surly, withdrawn, policeman neighbour, Gary (Jesse Plemons), feels like a joke which is going to wear thin very quickly, but actually turns out to be one of the most restrained and consistently funny high-points of the whole affair.
Interestingly uneven, Game Night is an amusing time-passer which certainly beats sitting round the backgammon board for the evening. But in terms of real skill and excitement, Daley and Goldstein are still trying to understand the rulebook…
The Game, Date Night.
I mean it's basically that.
Not unless it's raining and you've got a couple of hours to kill.
Entertaining as this is, rewatch-value will be low; stream/rent.
Nope.
Nope.
Nope.
Level 2: This film stars Sharon Horgan who was in that Man Up, as was Simon 'Plutt' Pegg, Harriet 'Kalonia' Walter and Phoebe 'L3-37' Waller-Bridge.
*1 And not to get too far ahead of myself, but boy did I know that they enjoyed it. I mean I quite enjoyed it too, but when the adorementioed patron bellowed with laughter every single time someone fell over (that's quite a lot), it's difficult not to resent the film for going so low, so often. But hey, I'm here to judge the movie not the audience, right? Haha. Right. [ BACK ]
*2 At one point, Annie brandishes a handgun in a bar, directly quoting the entire "If any of you fucking pricks move..." line from Pulp Fiction. Max immediately follows this up with "Haha yeah, a bit of Pulp Fiction there for you!". As if a) the people who remember Pulp Fiction hadn't noticed, and b) this will then become funny to anyone who hasn't seen Pulp Fiction and therefore has no reference point for the gag. On top of this there are many other heavy-handed (although some reasonably subtle) references to movies from across the years. Like, 'fan-film' many. You don't have to convince us you're a film geek, Mark Perez - you're writing screenplays for a living now, we'll sort of assume that to be the case... [ BACK ]
*3 Using the same gun, Annie accidentally shoots Max in the arm (this is in the trailer). After a moment of realisation, including a lengthy framing of the bullet wound, Annie then shrilly exclaims "Oh no, I can't believe I shot you!". Oh, is that what happened there? Thanks for pointing it out. [ 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.
The A-word.
It's the bane of cinephiles, everywhere.
That book you love; the comic you remember; the show you used to watch; the game you lost an entire summer playing? Oh, someone's adapted it and it's getting made into a movie! Whether a cause for pre-emptive celebration or foreboding caution, it leads to only one thing: expectation. And expectation is the death of the 'clean' movie-viewing experience; no matter how closely the film sticks to its source material, or how much it tries to distance itself, it will be faced with the hurdle of comparison.
And while the movie industry loves the pre-built marketing buzz of 'now a major motion picture!', they loathe the comparative references which will be made from the first review onwards. Because many punters will expect to get exactly the same reaction from a completely different medium, to a story they already know. And therein lies the problem.
In this monthly series, we'll look back at some of the most respected and best-loved properties which have made the perilous journey to the big screen; often with some controversy, and almost always with far too much hype. This isn't so much a review of the films themselves, more an appraisal of their suitability as an adaptation.
And so, the final stretch of Adaptation's televisual leg moves forward to its next decade, smack-bang in the middle of the 1980s when social and political unrest in the UK was a given, and everyone somehow got by with the perpetual fear that nuclear annihilation may well arrive before the weekend did (cf. what I was saying last month about 'inappropriate synchronicity'). It stood to reason then that a six-part conspiracy-thriller in the post-watershed 9pm slot would do fairly well, but Edge of Darkness flourished so much that the BBC2 drama was repeated on BBC1 a month later and went on to win six BAFTAs. While I was definitely of TV-consuming age in 1985*1, this type of thing wasn't exactly on my radar, hence me watching it for the first time now, and without the tinted lenses of nostalgia.
The story follows Ronnie Craven (played by Bob Peck*2), a police inspector from Yorkshire who attempts to unravel the murder of his daughter Emma (Joanne Whalley), an environmental activist trying to expose a cover-up at a British nuclear waste processing plant. But the path of truth (let alone justice) is never smooth nor straight, and Craven soon finds himself mingling with the top brass of the Ministry of Defence, the CIA not to mention those with a more commercial interest in the matter…
The mistrust surrounding the nuclear industry and governmental authority in general make this very much a thing of its time (there's at least more education these days about nuclear processes). Outside of our main protagonist, it's not entirely clear who 'the bad guys' really are at the start, middle or end of the tale, which only serves to make them all the more compelling. Among the supporting players are distinguished character actors such as Ian McNeice, Hugh Fraser, Joe Don Baker, Zoë Wanamaker, Charles Kay and John Woodvine; familiar faces to TV audiences, but always willing to submerge themselves in their roles, here as untrustworthy types all round.
Not that it's all po-faced realism, though*3. The series is as much a study of grief as it is a political / ecological / conspiracy thriller. Although Emma dies early in the first episode, Ronnie continues to both see and converse with her, as he tries to come to terms with what's happened, to the point where she leads him toward clues surrounding the case. Their interactions are at odds with the rest of the procedural-aspect but not unwelcome at all, being the one wild-card the screenplay has constantly up its sleeve. This surreal factor is grounded by the documentary-style camerawork and terse scripting, the length and frequency of Emma's 'visits' correlating directly with her father's level of emotional stability and focus.
Speaking of focus, there's some beautiful tracking camerawork on display, a bystander's point-of-view syncing with characters moving in and out of the lengthy shots. Generally speaking it's the kind of cinematography that the pacing of a film doesn't really allow for (certainly not to the extent it's used here), whereas director Martin Campbell has around five and a half hours to tell writer Troy Kennedy Martin's story, allowing for a lot of great 'character' moments. And while I'm on with the more technical aspects of production, as nice as it is to have Eric Clapton's guitar-work on the soundtrack, he's going to wear out that riff if he's not careful. Although like most TV before our current age this wasn't really meant to be binge-watched, so the hooks of weekly scheduling can quickly become repetitive*4.
From the outset, there's the feeling that the programme isn't sharing as many secrets as it could be. Not that it's saving them up for the finale necessarily, just that since the story is told almost exclusively from Ronnie's point of view, there'll be a fair amount that he doesn't uncover personally (with the writer being completely unafraid to leave behind previously-pivotal characters once the story's location shifts). Scenes 'external' to Ronnie's immediate thread take place to keep the audience in the loop, but only as much as the narrative flow requires.
So it was some relief when I watched the disc one bonus features (namely a segment from the long-running review show Did You See) and saw the critic-panel remarking that at three episodes in, they weren't entirely sure what was going on half the time. Which is good because I thought it was just me. All becomes clear in the end, or as clear as it needs to be at any rate. Although it almost didn't; Troy Kennedy Martin originally wanted push the reality-envelope and have Ronnie to turn into a tree. Spoiler - that doesn't happen. Well, not quite…
Intriguing in scope and satisfying in execution, if Edge of Darkness were made in this day and age it would probably explore the elements of psychosis and spiritualism more deeply. Of course, a movie released a mere seven years ago pretty much is in this day and age, so let's take a look...
Landing in our cinemas back in 2010, I watched this at the time (before I started reviewing everything here) but didn't recall too much about it*5 (which is partly why I started reviewing everything here). While Troy Kennedy Martin's story has been adapted for the big screen by William Monahan and Andrew Bovell, original series director Martin Campbell has returned, which lends a sense of continuity at least (and with BBC Films getting a production-ident).
Watching in relation to its televisual forebear however, the changes other than shortened run-time are interesting in their counterpoints. The heathland of Yorkshire becomes the rocky coastline of Massachusetts; Bob Peck's grieving British father becomes the American Mel Gibson, while the American 'security expert' and uneasy ally of Joe Don Baker becomes the British Ray Winstone (it's also curious to note that our hero goes from being Ronnie Craven to Tommy). The core storyline of an assassinated daughter and government/corporate nuclear conspiracy still remains, but how it's expanded out is markedly different*6.
The key divergence here is that Mel Gibson's Craven doesn't spend the film talking with Emma. His daughter's 'adult' voice is heard in the scenes immediately following her death, but the film doesn't go as far as having her physically appear*7, which undercuts the severity of Tommy's fight against total psychological breakdown. There are several appearances by his child-aged daughter, but they're framed more as vivid flashbacks than full-on hallucinations.
And naturally, Mel brings his own style to the proceedings. While his furtive brooding is certainly on-par with Peck's, this telling becomes less of a metaphysical conspiracy puzzle and more a procedural revenge thriller. Gibson can do a lot of things, but 'concerned everyman' isn't one of them, his theatrical scowling only topped by Mr Winstone in a role that's no longer Craven's behavioural diametric opposite. The nuclear aspect is also ramped up a little heavy-handedly, but the original BBC version probably didn't look particularly subtle back in '85 either, I imagine.
Best line:"…you're in a position where you'd better decide if you're hangin' on the cross, or bangin' in the nails.". I'd be lying if I said I'm not now looking for an opportunity to use this in a conversation at work.
So, they re-made the 1985 drama in this day and age, and didn't explore the things which made the original work interesting. Okay.
A serviceable (if ultimately forgettable) action-thriller, Edge of Darkness has a decent go of capturing the politics and mechanics of the original story at a brisker pace, even if that means jettisoning the philosophical baggage and going Full Neeson in the process…
It bears all the hallmarks of mid-80s televisual drama, but yes.
It's not as good as I remember. Then again, in 2010 I hadn't just finished watching a far more nuanced version of the same story.
Either will work as Sunday night entertainment, but you'll get more out of putting six hours aside for the company of Bob Peck.
For the film version...
Level 1: In a break from my usual front-of-camera comparisons, I'm going to go for Mr Steve Mair, who played double-bass in the orchestra for Edge of Darkness as well as for The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi.
*1 While I've mentioned plenty of times before that I generally navigate the chronology of my life by the release of Star Wars films, it's also true that my first fifteen years or so also use TV programmes as pegs in the ground, the next fifteen are attributed to the release of rock/metal albums and anything after that is cinema in general. [ BACK ]
*2 Man, I fucking love Bob 'they remember' Peck. Early on, I thought I was going to have A Macnee Moment™ in realising that Ronnie Craven, this dour, determined middle-aged man on the edge of breaking, may well be the same age me (a sprightly 44), casting chronological and dramatic disparity between the performer and the audience once again. Not to worry, though! Peck was born in 1945, which means that when Edge of Darkness was being filmed, he was actually 4-5 years younger than I am now… [ BACK ]
*3 Seriously, if you think computer-hacking sequences are painful to watch now, you should see how the BBC were doing it in '85. From the information the MI-5 computer gives out based on the 'commands' typed in, you'd think it had a psychic-awareness-modulator plugged into the back … [ BACK ]
*5 Other than being the start of my obsession with screen-performers mangling the Boston/Massachusetts accent, in particular. It's not even an accent I can do myself, I just know when it's being recreated badly. [ BACK ]
*6 Of course, it was only after watching the preceding six hours of television plus bonus content that I noticed that the movie DVD has a featurette titled 'adapting the Edge Of Darkness mini-series'. Which, I'll be honest, sort of makes you wonder why you bother. During this short add-on (it's three and a half minutes, which is less time than you'll spend reading this rambling), screenwriter William Monahan is on-camera as saying "The series… really shouldn't hang over this film at all. It's only the premise". And that, William, is why Adaptation is happening at all. Because it does hang over the whole thing. All cover-versions do. I suspect you're saying this because you know it's a lie but you feel it's a one you must refute, William. I'm onto you. And on a physical-media related note (and one which is not-at-all-the-fault-of-the-filmmakers), the DVD transfer of this movie is appalling. There are interlacing lines all over the shop and the default volume level is 'barely audible'. This disc was released in 2010, it's not like DVD was a new format then. Icon Entertainment should be mortified. [ BACK ]
*7 Although oddly, Emma does appear at the end of the movie, which I remember thinking odd when I saw the film in 2010. Without the context of Tommy speaking with his daughter throughout the story, it makes almost no sense and hints at another cut of the movie (or draft of the screenplay, at least) which explored this more thoroughly. [ 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.
Wonder Woman (2D / Spoilers in the footnotes)
Cert: 12A / 141 mins / Dir. Patty Jenkins / Trailer
Well, the long-awaited day arrived, amid a flurry of media hype and no small amount of subsequent expectation. And so it was that a respectably-sized audience*1 gathered to see if Patty Jenkins Wonder Woman movie could live up to the buzz which threatened to overtake it.
Mythology meets alternate-history when the studious life led by a tribe of Amazons on the island of Themyscira*2 is interrupted when an escaping American WW1 pilot (Chris Pine's Steve Trevor) emerges through a dimensional portal, followed by a German battleship and its full contingent of furious Axis footsoldiers. Carnage ensues*3, leading to Diana (Gal Gadot) venturing back through the aperture in a bid to find and kill Ares the god of war, ending the global conflict. As her weapons, she has the purity of innocence, the conviction of righteousness, The Bulletproof Bangles™, The Sword of Omens™ and The Lasso of Overacting™. One of these gets used to the point where it's almost worn out. There is sass, there is action and there are big decisions to be made along the way, as well as a few laughs.
I'm quite surprised the Daily Express haven't made more of this movie, actually. It's literally Princess Diana vs The Evil Germans. All that's missing is a subtext on house-prices and they'd be frothing at the press...
But anyway, yeah, it's a pretty damned good film. Although if you've got a hunch that it sounds like half an hour of Thor, ten minutes of fish-out-of-water jokes, then an hour and a half of The First Avenger*4, with a few beats thrown in from X-Men, Guardians of the Galaxy and Inglourious Basterds, you'd be absolutely right.
Gal Gadot does well in the lead role here, but she has a lot of cinematic-lifting to do. While we certainly get a refreshing central female-focus from director Patty Jenkins, there's no escaping the fact that the film was written by three guys*5. After the opening act on Themyscira where the women drive the narrative, the story reverts to more or less standard superhero form once Diana is over the threshold and into the First World War. Other than Lucy Davis in a small comic-relief role and Elena Anaya being wasted as an enigmatic and thoroughly underused Axis weapons scientist, it's just Gal Gadot surrounded by cardboard cutouts of gawping Boys Own heroes and villains*6.
Wonder Woman is good fun and a step back to form for Warner/DC, certainly their most focused and relatable timeline-movie since Man of Steel. But the feeling never left me that rather than figure out their own way to tell stories, DC are still trying to be Marvel Studios*7 - and that's not their race to win…
Update: After sleeping on it*8, I have some final thoughts. With the best will in the world, I'm probably not going to see Wonder Woman again in its theatrical run, so I've updated the post to add them here.
The amount of online discussion and media-buzz prior to this release means it feels like one of those movies you should have a strong opinion on either way, and if the end result lands somewhere in the middle you end up wondering 'have I understood this properly?'. Truth be told, there's not that much there to understand, and that's absolutely fine. But who wants 'absolutely fine' as a pull-quote on their poster? After watching Wonder Woman, I think I certainly like it more for socio-political reasons than dramatic ones. Because at the end of the day, I don't really give two fucks about DC characters, and there's very little the film can do about that…*9
Wonder Woman is absolutely fine.
Well I think I've covered that already…
For big-and-loud, yes. It's a fine looking movie.
It does
Although I'm less convinced about what it sets out to do than whether it achieves that.
For Gal Gadot, possibly the best so far.
For everybody else, no.
Nope.
There isn't.
Which is bloody ridiculous as there are many, MANY perfect spots for one.
Level 1: Bern Collaco's in this.
Me neither, but he's Indian Regiment Soldier in Wonder Woman and he was Stormtrooper in Rogue One andFirst Order General in The Force Awakens. I genuinely hope he gets a character name next time around. Like, in anything. Seriously, look at the dude's IMDB page, it's a litany of anonymous sorrow. He's been in Eastenders twice and only got "Police Detective" and "Pharmacist".
*1And of for all those sitting in the room that night, only five of us hung around for the after-credits scene; there isn't one. Fair enough…[ BACK ]
*2And really though, imagine making a mythical island full of actors speak with a heavy eastern accent, just to explain away the suspicion that Gal Gadot can do no other…[ BACK ]
*3And while I'm very aware that this film is a certificate 12A, the beach-battle between a crew of fully armed soldiers and a tribe of expert archers and swordswomen is glaringly blood-free, other than a nasty scratch on Diana's arm in its final moments (the resulting scab/scar of which we don't see again throughout the film, but given she's a super-heroine that's understandable)[ BACK ]
*4To the point where, after recruiting a side-crew of international heavy-drinking misfits in a London boozer, Noble Captain Steve sacrifices himself by flying off in a German plane full of super-bombs intended to kill millions, and all his superbly capable brunette love-interest is left with is a sepia photo and memories of the brief time they shared. No, seriously, they did that.[ BACK ]
*5And Diana was not, I repeat not - I repeat NOT - wearing her armour under that blue dress. Those writers put her in the figure-hugging blue dress because they wanted to see Gal Gadot in a figure-hugging dress. Don't care about the back-scabbard, wasn't happening mate. If she'd have been wearing the armour underneath it, it would have looked like she'd turned up to the gala dinner party just to smuggle out the cutlery…[ BACK ]
*6And the next time I'm on complaining about Marvel's track record with slightly sub-standard movie villains, please please remind me that none of them have been as resoundingly shit as David Thewlis being Palpatine with a moustache and tweed overcoat. His performance in this film is nothing short of fucking excruciating. To the point where Richard E. Grant's Dr. Rice looks positively nuanced by comparison. Thewlis is better than this, and I just ended up feeling embarrassed for Patty Jenkins having to direct such utter, utter drivel. There. I said it.[ BACK ]
*7You would of course be perfectly justified in asking me "Oh, why do you have to compare DC films to Marvel?". Well, I'll stop doing it when DC do…[ BACK ]
*8Of course it'd be lovely to be able to ponder and sleep on everything I watch, before writing a balanced and intricate review of the film probably while sitting on a veranda in the mid-morning sunshine in a light flannel shirt and sipping an espresso. But my brain doesn't work like that. The stream of jumbled praise and nitpicking you read above the edit-point is what's in my brain as I get home from the cinema. If I don't write that down before I go to bed, it's lost like the contents of an unsaved file when you power off a computer. There might be an auto-backup, but you can't rely on it containing everything you need. All you'd get the next day would be "Yeah, it's pretty good I suppose, apart from David Thewlis". If I take notes in the screening (yeah I'm sometimes that guy) then I've got that dark-room-scrawl as well I suppose, but it all just increases the gap between me watching a film and posting a review. I'm not made of time y'know, I've got a day-job in which to be unfulfilled...[ BACK ]
*9That said, Man of Steel was the first movie to make me actually interested in Clark Kent as a character, so maybe Diana could have done with more emotional conflict rather than physical. But not with Gal Gadot driving, one suspects...[ 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.
Big Eyes (SPOILERS*1)
Cert: 12A / 106 mins / Dir. Tim Burton
About twenty minutes into Tim Burton's Big Eyes, you have to wonder if the awkwardly accelerated, whirlwind romance between Margaret (Amy Adams) and Walter (Christoph Waltz) is a deliberate discomfiture to set the audience on an uneasy edge for the rest of the film, or just slapdash screenwriting. As the story powers through its checkpoints toward what should be a massively satisfying ending, you rather suspect it's the latter of the two.
The 1950s/60s story of acclaimed artist Margaret Keane (nee Hawkins) and her husband Walter, who for years passed off her work as his own, coercing her into producing hundreds of original pieces for millions of subsequent posters and prints, is told for the most part through Adams and Waltz's performances. And while I very much like Christoph, he's now at the point where he seems to end up just playing Christoph Waltz*2. Amy Adams fares slightly better, but neither headliner gets the opportunity to spread their wings and deliver the performance you know they're capable of, mired by the speeding-bullet screenplay and a heavy-handed script. Worse still, while Waltz gets to be the moustache-twirling villain, his scene-grabbing charisma a necessity, Adams' Margaret is under-represented to the point where her character drops through sympathetic until the viewer actually begins to resent her timidity (which, correct me if I'm wrong, is the precise opposite of the point of the film).
The tale of the swindle is told in a nuts-and-bolts way, but a story about Art (capital A) needs a far more delicate touch, and Big Eyes could have been more sincere and surreal, candid and confessional. That it's not lies more at the feet of writers Scott Alexander and Larry Karazewski than director Tim Burton, I think. Speaking of Burton, other than the kitsch 1960s setting and the subject matter of Margaret's paintings, there's little of the Kookiness™ you'd expect from him, here. In fact, the brief segments where Margaret has semi-hallucinogenic visions of real-world people with huge eyes would have done the film huge favours by being expanded, to help the audience experience the paranoia and guilt as she does. Alas, they only serve as an all-too-brief reminder of who's directing.
Other hiccups come in the form of a narration from Danny Huston's San Francisco gossip columnist, Dick Nolan, which is so sporadic that when it re-appears every half hour or so, it feels unnecessary and even intrusive. The best eyebrow-raiser is reserved for Madeleine Arthur as Margaret's 16yr old daughter in the final act of the film, when she announces "I'm not a little girl any more!", underlining the fact that she looks nothing like Delaney Raye, who was playing her younger character half an hour earlier.
The most crucial part of Big Eyes, the courtroom showdown where Margaret challenges Walter legally over the creation of the artworks, seems to spend more energy on Mr Keane's comical attempts at legal self-representation than it does on the argument-settler of actually paining a picture. When the final victory arrives for Margaret, rather than bringing euphoria, it feels expected and oddly understated. Even the pre-credits slides, showing photographs and updates of the actual Keanes, don't carry as much weight or closure as they should.
Despite all my moaning (and how), Big Eyes is still in itself a good film, but I think the awe-inspiring story and Bruno Delbonnel's gorgeous cinematography are far more interesting than the screenplay.
I was ready to be swept away by Margaret Keane's story, but instead I was only carried along.
The trailer suggests slightly more than the film has to deliver.
Kinda, but not as much as I'd hoped I would.
From a story-telling perspective, absolutely. From an emotional one, not so much.
Cinema if you're a Burton/Adams/Waltz fan; for everyone else, this is a Sunday night DVD.
Nope.
At some point.
There isn't.
When Margaret is nervously going through her portfolio at the furniture company, was I the only one thinking of Old Gregg?
"I call this one Baileys… I call this one Baileys…"
*1 Yes, I'm very aware that this is a 'true story' from the early 1960s and as such is pretty hard to call 'spoilers' on, but much of my review centres around the actual events of the plot. Look, don't complain because I've given the end away, alright?
*2 And not to sound too catty about it, but I can see why that would appeal to serial Depp-enabler, Tim Burton.
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.
The Congress Cert: 15 / 123 mins / Dir. Ari Folman
Have you ever seen a film which you thoroughly enjoyed, but your summation to other people is "well, I can tell you what happened, but I'm a bit more vague on what it's about"? That. A beguiling combination of live-action and 2D animation, The Congress feels like a present-day tribute to The Matrix and Yellow Submarine.
Robin Wright plays Robin Wright, a famous yet troubled actress feeling increasingly left behind by the film industry with each passing year as she raises her two teenage children alone. With the acting work just about dried up, Miramount studios make her a tantalisingly lucrative offer: sell the rights to your image, your emotions, your soul, and never need to act in-person again…
Now. There are some fascinating ideas about the future of digital entertainment presented in The Congress, dressed up to seem satirically exaggerated, even though the viewer knows full well they're not. A lot of the notions in the first act which seem borderline dystopian are actually the logical progression of the way the business is headed (for example, imagine explaining Big Brother to the average TV viewer in the 1960's; it'd seem pointless at best and like some obscene sci-fi at worst). The first act deals with Robin's "current" situation and the contract presented by studio boss Jeff (Danny Huston) through her agent, Al (Harvey Keitel). So far, so through the looking glass. The second act of the film is animated, and it's at this point that the fanciful notions presented not half an hour earlier will begin to seem like the telephone directory, by comparison…
The disjointing thing (for me), is that the overall concept of The Contract and what it entails is explained clearly and painstakingly (as it is to Robin, essentially), whereas the animated section isn't really. There's a brief pre-amble from a security guard explaining (again, to Robin and the audience) that she's entering 'a strictly animated zone', she pops an ampoule and it's felt-tip central. We get used to the world and its mechanics along with Robin, and for all its kookiness, it still makes sense (within the context of the story). The film's strength lies in that no matter how batshit-crazy it gets, the plot never pulls you out of the moment and back into your seat; it's hallucinogenically mesmerising, and makes sense in the same way that a dream does while you're in it.
The film's final act returns us to live action, and it was here that I pretty much admitted defeat with the plot. As an inverse-reaction to itself, The Congress seems to somehow explain less and less as it goes on, despite the characters giving a running synopsis of what's happening. The fault here lies with the viewer, in this case. As I can't explain why the wheels fell off for me without spoiling the plot, I can only leave you to watch the film and then ask me "What are you talking about? That made perfect sense."
Stunningly beautiful in both concept and execution, but not to be taken on lightly or without a full span of concentration. A film which seemt to be a metaphor for another metaphor, The Congress is one of the finest works I've seen this year, but I know for a fact that I only understood about half of it…
Oh, and I'm pretty certain that on the animated cruise-ship, one of the robot bellboys is using R2-D2 as a floor polisher. Look out for that.
Representative of parts of it, but not of the whole.
For the first two acts, yes.
Almost certainly. What that is? That's what's beyond me.
Cinema's nice, but you won't lose too much by watching this at home.
Nah.
I will.
There bloody well is, an'all! Right at the top of the animated segment. Mint.
Come on, help me out here. Tell me why the final segment is as great as the first two.
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• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
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