Review: Woman In Gold

Woman In Gold
Cert: 12A / 109 mins / Dir. Simon Curtis / Trailer



You know when you read a human-interest type story or article, and somewhere near the bottom there'll be a line saying "negotiations have opened over the film-rights to the story", and you mentally picture an over-excited lawyer on the phone to his mum with one or both of them saying "Ooh! Perhaps you'll/I'll be played by Ryan Reynolds in the movie!" and you instantly dismiss that thought, not because the conversation wouldn't happen but because that's just not a feasible casting choice for a gentle, Sunday afternoon drama..?

Well, Woman In Gold stars Ryan Reynolds as fresh-face lawyer, in the true story of Maria Altman, a Jewish refugee who managed to flee Austria during the Second World War, and their legal campaign to reclaim Gustav Klimt's iconic Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, when documentation is unearthed revealing that the Austrian State Gallery acquired the painting in terms which voided the original intent of the owner's will.

If you think that sounds more like an earnest courtroom drama than a film about art, then you'd be partially correct. The film spends around two thirds of its running-time in the early twenty-first century, following Maria (Helen Mirren)'s legal proceedings with her lawyer, Randol Schoenberg*¹, complete with research-montages full of brow-rubbing and photocopiers with green scanner-lights. The other third of the film is an ongoing flashback-thread, showing Maria's home-life in Vienna as a little girl with her aunt (Adele from the painting) and during the war as a young woman, up to and including her escape to the USA as a refugee.

I think it's fair to say that the period-pieces are far more engaging than the modern ones, and the story of the painting is far more interesting than the one of the legal battle surrounding it, even though the strands rely on each other fully. The cast in the earlier timeline were largely unknown to me (and the ones I did recognise, I recognised as 'character' actors) so it was easier to believe in that part of the story. Because as credible as they both are in this, you never forget that you're watching Helen Mirren and Ryan Reyolds. They're both 'good', but the film should really be about the painting, not the performers, and I think a slightly less starry level of casting would have helped this (although obviously the names help put bums on seats, which is the other important thing).

Woman In Gold has some stretches of absolute, undiluted brilliance (in both of its timelines); moments which make you glad you've gone to watch the film in a cinema; moments in which the massive screen concentrates and amplifies the emotion of the story and the history of the artwork. But these are punctuated by some of the most cliched and perfunctory scenes you've witnessed outside of a Channel5 made-for-TV movie. The film doggedly hangs on to its 'will the underdog succeed in winning the battle?' methodology, which - even if the viewer is unfamiliar with the story of the painting - is redundant to the point of insulting the audience. SPOILER: Yes, they win. It's a true story. People don't make films of this sort of thing unless they win. Although to be fair, people don't make films of fictional cases like this unless they win, either.

But the great moments outweigh the bad ones and make Woman In Gold well worth watching. It's certainly changed the way I'll look at the painting, and that's the important thing, i think.

With the best will in the world, probably not.



It's a sort of "£5 on DVD" type film. You might watch it more than once, but you won't watch it repeatedly.



Sadly not.



Despite battling with its own screenplay, it does.



Nope.



There isn't. Surprisingly.



Helen Mirren voiced Deep Thought in 2005's Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy film, a film which also starred Warwick 'Wicket' Davis.







*¹ I wanted to say 'her lawyer and nephew' there, but I'm fairly certain he's not her nephew. They're definitely related, but in such a convoluted way that the film doesn't actually put a name on the connection. Anyway, my bad for not paying attention to that part of the exposition at the start of the film.

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: The Riot Club

The Riot Club (aka Posh)
Cert: 15 / 107 mins / Dir. Lone Scherfig




If you live in the UK, Lone Scherfig's The Riot Club (adapted from Laura Wade's Posh) needs little in the way of introduction. Set against a highly fictionalised (one would hope) version of the now infamous Bullingdon Club at Oxford University, the film explores power, privilege and influence in 21st century Britain. It's also about four years too late*¹. While the film puts its ideas and arguments across passionately, they aren't particularly new, and they're all espoused in either bold text or capital letters as broadly-painted partisan characters hammer their points home pretty relentlessly.

But it's that energy which keeps the whole film afloat, captured by some magnificent performances (and chiefly by the members of the club itself). Max Irons plants his flag as the most interesting character in the film, Miles, and Sam Reid, Douglas Booth, Freddie Fox and Ben Schnetzer support ably with varying levels of smugness, entitlement and self-doubt. But it's Sam Claflin who steals the show as the dastardly Alistair, in a magnificent display of unrighteous ire which will have people shouting at him in the street for some time to come. Jessica Brown Findlay and Holliday Grainger fare a little less well as Rachel and Lauren respectively, with their roles being reduced to pretty much one opinion and/or facial expression. Admittedly, the film is told from the boys' point of view, but that's no reason to have such one-dimensional female characters, surely? (Natalie Dormer's Charlie falls into a similar trap, but has the getout clause of at least being an incidental character)

The film opens with a short period-segment showing the establishment of the club itself in 1776, which feels ironically anachronistic in a present-day film, and everything between the opening credits and the final scene in shiny-London looks like it's been filmed in Hogwarts. As is frequently the case with camerawork in Oxford*², many shots have been tightly positioned to give the impression of a leafy, sandstoned, oak-panelled world which doesn't actually exist any more. Although in fairness, exactly the same thing can be said of the screenplay. It also feels a little unfinished with only Claflin's Alistair getting any kind of narrative closure, which seems unbalanced as the film had been more Miles' story until that point. I can see how the ending would be ideal for the stage-version, but I'm not convinced enough adaptation was put into the screen iteration.

The Riot Club's stage-roots could go some way to explaining why it often feels like a pantomime, but watch for the performances rather than the politics and there's much to enjoy.

For the most part, yes.



Not quite as much as was intended, I think.



I don't think it quite does.



It's already fairly televisual in places, so watching it at home will be fine, but catch it on Orange Wednesdays for the big screen.



Nope.



Probably.



There isn't.

An elitist institution in one of the world's oldest universities wouldn't get their super-exclusive hip flasks screen-printed though, would they? They'd have them engraved. Was the budget really that tight? Jeez, I know a guy who can get you a good deal on laser engraving, if you're struggling?

*¹ The stage play the film is based on, Posh debuted in 2010, riding a lot closer to the zeitgeist, to be fair.
*² Although filming also took place in Hertfordshire and Hampshire, but the same principles apply.

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.