Misbehaviour Cert: 12A / 106 mins / Dir. Philippa Lowthorpe / Trailer
Bolstering the March schedules comes the crowd-pleasing portrayal of the infamous events surrounding the 1970 Miss World contest, touching as it does on misogyny, racism, conformity and activism. Don't worry, it's not as heavy as all that sounds. Which turns out to be a problem, if anything. The main hurdle not quite cleared by Misbehaviour is that the story is about the ongoing struggle against women being reduced to entertainment. A struggle which is, for the most part, reduced to entertainment.
The outstanding cast of Keira Knightley, Jessie Buckley, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Keeley Hawes, Loreece Harrison and a criminally-wasted Lesley Manville arguably handle the story's racial politics with more dexterity than the sexism, but still with surprisingly few sharp edges. Spirited performances from Rhys Ifans and Greg Kinnear wisely resist going full-pantomime under the director's auspices (very much the point, in fact), and are better for it.
Director Phillippa Lowe just about spins the plates of highlighting exploitative behaviour and the fact that the competition does mean a lot to its contestants. It just does this in a way that's not going to challenge or upset its audience*1. In its weaker moments, Misbehaviour feels like a victory-lap for a race that's still ongoing (a point it acknowledges in closing). Awareness is everything of course, and I certainly won't criticise the film's intention, but there's a more biting, urgent and ultimately satisfying movie to be made here. With Lowe at the helm of Rebecca Frayn and Gaby Chiappe's screenplay, the film may not be bound by the patriarchy but it's still very much a part of the cinematic establishment.
This is at its best during quieter scenes, when the script has more to say and can be heard more clearly. There's some fantastic character-interplay between Knightley and Buckley, then Harrison and Mbatha-Raw. Gugu is probably better than the rest of the film in fact, although that's not unusual. But at the end of the day it's a textbook Pathé Films offering with Nina Gold casting and too many musical montage sequences; this has West End Stage Adaptation written all over it...
Misbehaviour is good.
Is good enough?
It's a bit Made In Dagenham, a bit Kinky Boots, a bit Pride.
*1 Unless my wishing for a grittier interpretation of the story is the challenge, of course. [ 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.
Who waits six years to release a sequel? That's way too long for a movie to seem like a much-needed follow up piece*1, but far to short a time to be intended as a revival of any sort. Not to worry, The House Of Mouse luckily managed to get Alice Through The Looking Glass in the can while the inimitable Mr Rickman was still with us, and even I'll admit that my eyes became more moist than usual at his first scene in this movie.
Where the 2010's Wonderland adaptation always seemed to be a faltering balancing act between the visions of Disney, Burton and Carroll, this part-sequel/part-prequel is a lot more focussed, building on what's come before with a brand new screenplay by Linda Woolverton (rather than trying to visually re-invent a world which didn't really need it). The production design is a lot more sure-footed this time around, and the established characters and settings are now the pieces for what is essentially a time-travel adventure movie. And while I'm certainly no expert on Carroll's original stories, that's handled in a way which fits seamlessly into the newly Burtonised Wonderland.
What will also raise eyebrows among the purists is the number of action sequences in the film that feel like levels from a video-game adaptation. Not necessarily what I'd expect from a piece with such literary origins, but there are also much more subtle hat-tips to both Back To The Future and Blade Runner (which I'm always up for).
The performers are on solid form (a pleasantly surprising range for Mr Depp, and Mia Wasikowska is great as usual), even if a lot of the secondary characters seem shoehorned in for the sake of perceived continuity. And while Sacha Baron Cohen sticks largely to playing Sacha Baron Cohen™, his part itself as the personification of time is as intricate as the clockwork mechanism he's made of. Unfortunately as the film nears its climax, the plot tries to become more complex but only succeeds in being louder and more chaotic as a result.
I'm not entirely sure if Looking Glass is a 'better' film than Alice in Wonderland but I definitely found it more interesting, which counts for a lot. That said, the final fifteen minutes or so are needlessly, horrifically mawkish; the sort of thing I thought Disney had left behind now. In screenwriting terms, it all appears to be the satisfying finale which wraps up the audience's hopes and expectations, but in the cinema, it comes off more as a self-congratulatory group hug for a relatively well-executed idea.
Ultimately, Alice Through The Looking Glass wasn't aimed at me. While I was neither bored nor annoyed, I'll have pretty much forgotten about it tomorrow. Make of that what you will…
Well, Alice in Wonderland, let's be honest.
Only if you're a fan. In which case, you probably already will have.
Just about.
Sadly not.
Probably not.
Pretty sure there's not.
Level 1: This movie stars none other than Lindsay 'TC-14' Duncan and Richard 'Bravo Six' Armitage, both from The Phantom Menace.
And while I'm on the subject, an honourable mention has to go to this fella on the right-hand side in the church scene (I think it's Frederick Warder playing Poomally, but please correct me if I'm wrong), for inadvertently pulling off the best Doctor-Who-era Peter 'Tarkin' Cushing I've ever seen:
*1 Not least since the events of the film (before all the time-travelling, at any rate) take place three years after the previous one, suggesting the screenplay had been in development-limbo for some considerable time.
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.
Mr Nobody Cert: 15 / 153 mins / Dir. Jaco Van Dormael
Have you ever heard somebody recommend a film, full of actors that you know and themes that you love, yet you've somehow never heard of it before then? For me, that's Mr Nobody. Of course, after watching it, I realise why this didn't play at my local. It's two and a half hours of exploratory rumination on cause, effect, choice, memory and identity. Deliberately vague with its questions and evasive with its replies, I loved every last minute.
The film is a sprawling examination of chaos theory. As things go on, the threads which make up the many lives of Mr Nobody get more tangled, and the narrative switches between and across them until you're not sure which story you're meant to be following. Which, I think*1, is the point of the film; there is no one path. This, ladies and gentlemen, is 'a concentrator'. You're required to pay attention for the full two and a half hours. Don't tit about with your phone, and don't assume you can take a break in the middle and pick up where you left off. If I'm making it sound like hard work it really isn't, but the film doesn't spoon-feed you like many in its genre might.
Beautifully shot, scored*2 and acted (with extra props to Thomas Byrne and Jared Leto as the youngest and oldest iterations of Nemo Nobody, respectively), it's a hazy, hypnotising joy to watch. There aren't many films which can make you think about Everything and do it without intellectual snobbery, but this is one of them. After watching the Mr Nobody*3, you might want to absorb the Wiki page. And then watch it again.
Just… enjoy it for the art is is, and don't expect all the answers.
"I'm not afraid of dying. I'm afraid I haven't been alive enough."
The trailer is the merest hint of what's contained in the film.
Yes.
When I get round to understanding all of it, I'll let you know.
Buy. You're going to want to watch it more than once..
Probably.
Yes.
There isn't.
So if it's tails, we get drunk yeah?
*1 Opinion, obviously. It's a beautifully open-ended film.
*2 And the use of the same version of Mister Sandman as in Back To The Future was a welcome addition, too :)
*3Not much point in reading it before. Not because of spoilers, it just won't make a lot of sense. Watch the trailer as prep.
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 'catch-up' review. I watched this film at home, not at the cinema. I saw the trailer for this at the cinema, and I would have seen the film there too, but they didn't/couldn't show it. So now iTunes, Amazon, Netflix and Blockbuster get to reap the rewards of my local's advance-advertising, and I'm sure they're delighted. Now you may say "oh come on, they can't show everything down there", and that would be a valid point if they didn't do things like running Taken 2 for six weeks. Was it that successful? No, I don't think so. Twilight? Batman? Les Mes? Sure, go for it; if they're pulling the punters in then keep making that money. But Taken 2? I ask you. Anyway, this is essentially a DVD review, but still of a new(ish) film. There. I'm glad that's sorted.
• 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.
Bolstering the March schedules comes the crowd-pleasing portrayal of the infamous events surrounding the 1970 Miss World contest, touching as it does on misogyny, racism, conformity and activism. Don't worry, it's not as heavy as all that sounds. Which turns out to be a problem, if anything. The main hurdle not quite cleared by Misbehaviour is that the story is about the ongoing struggle against women being reduced to entertainment. A struggle which is, for the most part, reduced to entertainment.
