Review: The Death Of Stalin

The Death Of Stalin
Cert: 15 / 107 mins / Dir. Armando Iannucci / Trailer



Because if anyone is going to be able to blend mid 20th century Russian political satire and West End farce, it's going to be Armando Iannucci, the mind behind Alan Partridge, The Thick of It and Veep. In the company of writers David Schneider, Ian Martin and Fabien Nury, he's crafted a razor-sharp comedy which is about exactly what it says on the front, there: The Death of Stalin in Russia, 1953. It is very funny. By which I mean the film is very funny. Not the on-screen death of a 74 year old man. Although that is also very funny. In this film.

While the story takes place in its period setting, the script is interwoven with Tarantino-level bickering and a timeless British-level sarcasm (and not a cod-Russian accent to be heard, which only adds to the charm*¹). The filmmakers have assembled an absolutely outstanding cast to deliver it, with everyone on blistering form. Central characters are introduced with brief in-scene title cards showing their name and position in the Soviet hierarchy, but most of what happens isn’t reliant on the audience bringing any prior knowledge. Shot in a hand-held documentary-style, the pacing for the first hour is one of escalating bedlam, with Stalin's demise creating a vacuum of both power and common-sense.

From the Act I opening of a panicked Paddy Considine, to the quiet bluster of Michael Palin and self-absorbed scheming of Simon Russell Beale, the film is the best example of institutional chaos you'll find short of the actual news. Although you might come for Steve Buscemi and Jeffrey Tambor, you'll stay for Jason Isaacs and Rupert Friend*². In its second-hour though, the pace slows and shifts to a poignant ending I don’t think it quite pulls off. Then again, this section would probably have worked better with me if I knew anything at all about that period of history. I can’t hold Armando at fault for me not bringing any prior knowledge. Everything I saw in the meanwhile was evidence of a creative team at the top of their game.

As enjoyable as The Death Of Stalin is, Iannucci ‘s directorial home is really on the small screen. There’s little here that’s inherently cinematic, and although I’ll definitely watch it again, I doubt that will take place at the flicks.

Iannucci's aforementioned TV work.
This is quite unlike anything I've been lucky enough to see in the cinema.



Only if you can't wait for the DVD/BRD/VOD to land in around 17 weeks.



I think so, although I'm perhaps not best to judge it on a content-level.



It's definitely up-there.



Not at all.



There ain't.



Level 1: This film's got The Inquisitor and Nower Jebel in it.





*¹ To the point where it seems odd at first that Olga Kurylenko has that twang to her voice, until you remember half a second later that that's her actual Ukranian/French accent when she performs in English. ^{[ BACK ]}

*² It's Rupert Friend who gets the best line in the film as Stalin's tantrum-prone spoilt son, coaching an ice-hockey team by essentially just yelling at them. I promise you no film this year will deliver a more sincere exasperation than "Play better, you clattering fannies!!". Priceless. ^{[ 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: The Girl With All The Gifts

The Girl With All The Gifts
Cert: 15 / 111 mins / Dir. Colm McCarthy / Trailer



Oh, it's that kind of Zombie-flick, I see. When it's not poking adoring-fun at the genre*¹, British cinema has a tendency not only to slightly over-egg the claustrophobia in a living-dead scenario, but also to avoid using the Z-word altogether (which can easily come off as a sort of snobbishness). Y'see, for all the BFI funding, arty posters, delicate cinematography and complete lack of the aforementioned word in the script, The Girl With All The Gifts*² is a zombie movie. And is all the better for that.

Not wanting to jump right onto the pre-established bandwagon, the infection-vehicle in this movie is a fungus which infects the brain leading to an almost complete shut-down other than ravenous hunger for anything which is alive and uninfected. But it's still spread by bites, blood and bogeys though, and the end result is the same: shambling in stand-by mode, feral and desperate when they get a whiff of fresh meat, and anything other than a heat-shot will only slow them down. The film takes place after the initial plague of society-rending infection has occurred, with the remains of humanity hiding in bunkers frantically searching for a cure. A potential avenue seems to be a generation of children born after the outbreak, who exhibit the uncontrollable craving for human flesh when they're within nose-shot of it, but appear normal in all other situations. By applying blocker gel to mask their scent, a research team tests and educates one particular group in a fortified military base outside of London, keeping them in borderline barbaric conditions (it's not the fact that they're secured in wheelchairs during lessons which evokes notes of Guantanamo, but that they're forced to wear Crocs). When the undead hordes breach the base's defences, a small group of survivors treks toward the capital in search of civilisation, reinforcement and hope…

From the outset, the film waves its symbolism-flag proudly (if slightly heavy-handedly). Mike Carey has adapted his own novel for the screen, which is always preferable, but some of the story's more delicate points feel hammered home a little, especially in the third act. Sennia Nanua is great as Melanie, the eponymous Girl, while Paddy Considine and Gemma Arterton walk a delicate line between dour-drama and camp-action-movie. But it's Glenn Close who gets to do most of the heavy-lifting in delivering exposition to the audience (her role as the chief scientist researching a vaccine makes this natural at first, but by act-three you know that every time she opens her mouth it's so that the film doesn't have to show something).

In fact, from the cast to the cinematography, to the percussive score and to Colm McCarthy's tense direction, everyone seems very committed to the project. You just get the feeling they were shooting a slightly better film than the one that came out of the editing suite, somehow. I can't work out if the story runs out of steam or just paints itself into a corner. More details are crammed into the life-cycle of the virus, but at a time when we're more concerned with the characters. By the time we reach the crescendo, all the foreshadowed circles are closed neatly enough, but the film is running rigidly on its rails. Never clichéd exactly, but there are fewer surprises in the screenplay the further along it goes, and the conclusion feels far less convincing than the premise*³.

If The Girl With All The Gifts film had kept to the symbolic and philosophical path, I think I'd have enjoyed it more. The film is a valiant effort as it stands, but seems to be happy being a a slightly run-of-the-mill apocalyptic thriller when it could be so much more…

The film's closest spiritual relative is probably 28 Days Later, although there are splashes of Dog Soldiers and even Never Let Me Go in there, too.



For the immersiveness of the cinematography, maybe, but you won't lose too much by watching this at home.



I think it probably does; but the question is, is that enough?.



Probably not best but solid, certainly.



Nope.



Nope.



Level 1: Daniel Eghan. He plays a soldier in this movie, and he's due to appear in Rogue One this December as a militiaman. Me neither, I'm afraid. Sorry Daniel.

Obviously I only know this from IMDB. That's how I research most of these, but when you get an extra and/or bit-part actor, it really underlines it, I know. Anyway, it's still more satisfying than the Level 2 connection of Glenn Close appearing in Guardians Of The Galaxy alongside Peter 'voice-of-Maul' Serafinowicz. Level 1s are just better, trust me.





*¹ Or even just the times when British cinema thinks it's poking adoring-fun, but is actually just failing spectacularly on every level.

² And can I be among the first to say how nice it is to see that The Girl has ended her dangerous pursuits of Playing With Fire and Kicking Hornets Nests, and is now doing nothing more dangerous than coming home after a long afternoon's Christmas shopping…

…and while you may well groan and place bets on that joke being recycled from Twitter, it was nevertheless recycled from my own Twitter-feed, at least.
I thank you.

*³ SPOILERY questions for those of you who've seen the film (highlight-to-read):
1) While it's a ghoulish picture that Caldwell paints about the second-gen zombies 'eating their way out' of their mothers, how would foetuses be able to do that when babies don't start teething until about three months after they're born? Plus it'd take them ages to get out of there, how would they breathe once the host is dead and all circulation of blood and amniotic fluid has stopped? Hey, don't look at me, I'm not the one who decided to throw biology into the screenplay...
2)Not withstanding that the pack of feral children seem to have learned to feed, walk and generally support themselves with precisely no outside guidance (a newborn cub will die on its own, instincts or not), surely by the time they're herded together to start learning as the credits roll, all the behavioural bad-habits are burned-in? The kids in the research centre had been 'rescued' at a younger age and raised more like regular humans; this lot are rolling around the floor in their own shit…


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: Macbeth

Macbeth
Cert: 15 / 113 mins / Dir. Justin Kurzel / Trailer



STURGICALLY REMOVED!
McACTORS TAKE THE HIGH ROAD.
Scotland's Thespians Recalled by Parliament Following Referendum Snub...

In an audacious blow to the British film industry, SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon has recalled all Scotch actors not currently overseas to the north-side of The Wall.

Following the anniversary of the SNP's referendum defeat, a faintly downcast Sturgeon decided that England could cast its own bloody Caledonian characters, if it thinks it's so bloody easy.

Crucially, the ruling doesn't apply to the likes of Ewan McGregor and Gerard Butler, the majority of whose undemanding work comes via the Hollywood studio system, and who send their muckle pay back home to relatives in the top half of the British Isles.

SCOTCH
"If you're going to shoot The Scotch Film outside an English castle, you can fucking well whistle if you think we're going to stump up James McAvoy or David Tennant for it," Sturgeon thundered, sitting on a bench outside Hollyrood Palace in Edinburgh. "Hey, why not use Paddy Considine from Staffordshire, and David Thewlis from Lancashire, eh? They should have no trouble at all pulling the accent off! In fact, I'm sure that's exactly what yon Wullie Shakespeare envisioned, the bleddy Sassenach…"

Despite a number of renegade Scotch character actors defying the bill and playing smaller, supporting roles in the production, the subsequent casting of two French actresses, one American and three English actors to play the film's principally Scotch characters caused the predicted amount of consternation within the industry.

DUCK
Further controversy arose when German/Irish thespian Michael Fassbender was added to the roster in the lead role. In a statement from the front steps of RADA in London last week, Fassbender assured the press and fans alike that the majority of his speech for The Scotch Film is in a register so low and gruff that he adopts His Film Voice™ which, whilst technically English, is devoid of nationality until involved in any conversational dialogue, after which point it's Fassbender As Usual™.

The new film's Australian director, Justin Kurzel, was less than fazed by the reaction. "Traditionally, those Scotch Lairds and the like were all sent to England for a private education anyway, which is why they had English accents like Richard Briers did in 'Monarch Of The Glen'. In our adaptation of the story, we'll just say that Ian Macbeth's private school was situated equidistantly between Dublin and Los Angeles. And Delhi."

DOOBIE
Famously, Fassbender is restricted with a voice-over ban until 2021 after being charged with failing to control an accent in a built-up screenplay during Matthew Vaughn's 2011 X-Men sequel.

"We've trademarked the word 'Scotland' as well," Sturgeon added, "…so good luck!"

In terms of cinematic spectacle, absolutely. The real reason for that largely sarcastic-sounding review above is that I just don't have too much to say about it. I'm really not a fan of Shakespeare (largely because of the dialogue, not the stories themselves), and had to swot-up on Macbeth beforehand, a precaution which served me well.

But this is much, much more than a play which has been fed through the Weinstein's screenplay machine. This is a full thematic adaptation, more film than play but still firmly rooted in the source-text. Macbeth looks utterly fantastic, almost like an art installation with a story being performed around it.



Scholars of The Bard will want to buy this and analyse the connection with its parent-work (and the areas where it stands on its own feet). For the rest, a rental should suffice.



The film is fantastically acted, even if the accents are all over the shop (although rarely in Scotland, funnily enough).



As noted above, it's difficult for me to tell if the themes of the play are transcribed accurately (I know some have certainly been re-interpreted).
But going with my instinct, I'd say yes.



Nope.



Unless it's been well-buried in the opening battle-scene, no.



Marion Cotillard appeared in 2003's Big Fish, as did Ewan 'Kenobi' McGregor.
Who is Scotch.







DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.

• Yes, I know it's 'Scottish' and not 'Scotch', thanks. Except that a) That there Rabbie Burns used to use the word 'Scotch', and he was more Scottish than Ian Braveheart swigging a cocktail of Buckie and Irn Bru at the top of Arthur's Seat whilst hurling foul-mouthed insults in the direction of Berwick, and b) My use of the term 'Scotch', much like the rest of this review, is not intended to be taken seriously. The focus point of any joke here is not the Scottish people, rather the notable absence of them in the film's major roles, and the fact that the castle used for the central location is in England. 'The Scottish Play', indeed. Oh, and Michael Fassbender's accent (again).
So by all means leave that indignant missive in the Comments-section, but I assure you there's no need ;)

• 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: Child 44

Child 44
Cert: 15 / 137 mins / Dir. Daniel Espinosa / Trailer



Now, I haven't seen Child, Child 2, Child 3, Child 4, Child 5… [ I should point out at this juncture that as a dyed-in-the-wool devotee of Lee & Herring, I will never tire of this joke. Never, I tell you.] … Child 42 or Child 43, so I had a fair bit of catching up to do in the first ten minutes. Luckily, the film makes little-to-no mention of previous installments, so this should be ideal for newbies to the franchise.

Stalinist Russia, 1953, and a series of child-deaths determined by the authorities to be 'accidents' bear all the hallmarks of a serial killer. MGB agent Leo Demidov is determined to unravel the case, but finds his progress hindered by his superiors, colleagues and even those he thought of as friends. Because how do you track down a killer when "there can be no murder in Paradise"..?

The film's setting is its unique selling point, but it the darkness of the era and that of the story never seem to gel the way you know they should. Not especially cinematic in either tone or form, Child 44 feels like a solid four-hour TV drama which has been compacted for a single big-screen outing, often at the expense of the narrative-flow. The film does a fantastic job of following the 'show, don't tell' ethos, resulting in some solid character building for Hardy's Leo, but things still feel rushed, even at two-and-a-quarter-hours. Noomi Rapace and Tom Hardy are reliable as always, but are crying out for stronger scripting and more focussed direction. In fact, it feels like Paddy Considine is the only member of the cast really grabbing the dramatic bull by its horns, and he outshines everyone with the momentum he brings to the film.

A major stumbling block (for me, at least) is that stretches of dialogue feel casual to the point of being improvised (and if they're not improvised, that's even more of a problem). This results in 21st century, English speech-patterns inserted into a 1950s Russian setting. Not quite as jarring as the way Julian Fellowes writes characters in Downton Abbey saying "…as if", but on the same page, certainly. The assortment of accents are distracting enough*¹ without being pulled out of the story by the script itself. The worst offender in this department is Tom Hardy's line: "Obviously we are all guilty by association, irregardless." You can have irrespective, or you can have regardless. But 'irregardless' isn't a real word. How did this make it into the final edit?

A great story let down by dodgy accents, mumbled, off-the-cuff dialogue, atrocious shaky-cam and a rushed approach to storytelling, Child 44 is thoroughly intriguing but fails to live up to its full potential.

…not really.



Probably a rental; I doubt you'll get more than a couple of watches out of it.



With the best will in the world, no.



Narratively, yes. Dramatically, no.



I won't.



Well, who makes a film featuring a full-on battle scene in the first ten minutes and doesn't insert a Wilhelm Scream? The guy who hires sound-designer Christopher Assells, that's who…



Gary Oldman and Tom Hardy are both Nolan-era Batman alumni of course, as is Liam 'Qui-Gon' Neeson.



^^ That's a strong four, but a four nonetheless.




*¹ Although I'm also aware that Noomi Rapace and Vincent Cassel both speak heavily accented English to begin with, so maybe giving fake Russian accents to the cast puts everyone on the same handicap, so to speak? That said, Child 44 contains another small role for Charle Dance, illustrating that he either can't do All The Accents, or just chooses not to.

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: Pride

Pride
Cert: 15 / 120 mins / Dir. Matthew Warchus




I got the feeling when I first saw the trailer for Pride that it could be something of a mixed bag, and that feeling was indeed borne out in full with the film's screening tonight. Stephen Beresford's screenplay is at times touching and delicate, and at others almost overbearingly condescending. Thankfully, the former outweighs the latter, although when the moments of shrieking tweefulness do arrive, they do so with all the subtlety of a hen party locked in a sex shop.

The biggest problem, for me, is that there are just too many characters for the runtime. Although the film doesn't shy away from issues facing the LGBT community in 1984, there's also the feeling it's sanitising them somehow, with each of the London-based activists sporting a different problem (and regional accent), most of which seem neatly tied up by the end-credits (their problems, not their accents). It seems odd that a film which is all about unashamedly being who you are and following your heart often feels like it's pretending too hard. The group's counterparts in the Welsh mining village receiving their support are treated a little more evenly, although the initial feeling of stand-offishness between the mining community and the metropolitan fundraisers doesn't play as large a part as you might expect. As a whole it works very well, but I can't help feeling that a six-part TV drama could have explored the motivations and backgrounds of everyone better than a two hour film really can.

But despite my nitpicking there's not a duff performance in the whole movie, with Ben Schnetzer, Paddy Considine, Faye Marsay, Dominic West and Bill Nighy slightly underplaying their roles to perfection. George MacKay also fares well, and Joseph Gilgun is criminally underused. In all honesty, it's the cast that make the film what it is, and while I don't think it's perfect, it could certainly have been handled more poorly in less caring hands. I'm just worried that the inevitable comparisons to the likes of The Full Monty will detract from a story which is far, far greater.

Pride is a picture painted in very broad strokes, which works for and against it, but makes for a very effective film and has its heart is in the right place, which counts for a lot. If you're not at least smiling by the final reel then you really have no soul.

Close enough for jazz, yeah.



Mostly, although I also found my eyes rolling a couple of times.



Almost certainly.



As much as I enjoyed it, this is a DVD-movie.



Nah.



I will, but probably not for a while.



There ain't.

It's not just me that had it with the shrieking though, is it?

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.