Greed Cert: 15 / 104 mins / Dir. Michael Winterbottom / Trailer
Five days before his 60th birthday, boorish retail magnate Sir Richard McCreadie (Steve Coogan) is overseeing preparations for a lavish party on Mykonos. A coterie of minions and hangers-on surrounds him including his mother (Shirley Henderson*1), current partner (Shanina Shaik), ex-wife Samantha (Isla Fisher), son Finn (Asa Butterfield), PR Manager*2 (Sarah Solemani) and personal assistant Amanda (Dinita Gohil).
Also lurking in the background is Richard's hired biographer Nick (David Mitchell), tasked with chronicling the great man's success story. The problem is that the more people Nick meets, the harder it becomes to write anything nice about his subject...
MISH And what an almighty mess this film is. No, seriously. Greed should, by all accounts, be a story uncovered for the audience by the on-screen author. Instead we just get a mish-mash of everything. He's a writer, so somehow we get talking-head cutaways from a completed mocumentary as well as his own amateurish cam-footage. The film opens on the day of the party before flashing back to five days earlier, then we get more flashbacks and flashbacks-within-flashbacks until it becomes unclear who's telling each segment and what the point of it is. The fast cuts are migraine-inducing, even outside of the stylised montage sequences.
As well as the incoherent editing, we get a number of sketched-in subplots. An Oedipus thread with Finn and the building of a plywood amphitheatre are at least fitting for the storyline, as are the Syrian refugees living on the beach next to Richard's party venue. But the constructed-reality show being filmed on the island featuring McCreadie's daughter Lily (Sophie Cookson), other than bumping into the refugee story, feels like it's been dropped in from another movie. When there's A Message to convey, Greed is very on the nose. It also keeps forgetting there's a message.
The film either employs improvised dialogue shot on a first take to increase spontaneity, or Michael Winterbottom is actively directing his cast to talk over each other with no natural end-point to each scene. It is intolerable that this left the editing room.
MONSTER The real shame is that there's a fantastic cast here, all of whom have been much better elsewhere. Even Coogan struggles in a role which feels like it was written for Sacha Baron Cohen. His central figure should be an absolute monster of a man. Clearly - CLEARLY - a composite of around 15% Alan Sugar, 85% Philip Green, McCreadie is a character we already know on an instinctive level before the opening titles have even finished. But for all the bull-headed excess and yelling at subordinates, Coogan plays him pretty much as his own Gareth Cheeseman character from the mid-90s, with a little bit of Del Boy swagger and a few cracks of awkwardness mined from Alan Partridge. IE three comedy characters. Two of whom are his own. No drama.
Coogan forgets to be unlikeable or Winterbottom forgets to direct him as such. Quite possibly both. So when the film's climax comes lumbering into view, what should be a shocking, even sobering, moment instead means... *checks notes* NOTHING. I spent more time wondering where they found the CGI budget than I did empathising with Amanda*3.
PIEAND Because in its final moments, the film suddenly grows a conscience, lecturing its audience with captioned statistics on global inequality and the fashion industry, as if it's taken anything else seriously in the preceding 100 minutes. While there is certainly a point (indeed A Better Film) to be made, this is cack-handed frowning like that time Russell Brand pretended to be outraged that a cleaner doesn't earn the same money as a CEO, despite the two having completely different jobs and responsibilities*4. The whole thing is painfully wearing.
Is Greed a raucously sharp comedy? Is it a thought-provoking satire? Or is is it just an ADHD mood-board, a prolonged elevator pitch thrown together by a sleep-deprived first year film student, the cinematic equivalent of being yelled at for 100 minutes?
Michael Winterbottom doesn't know, so why the hell should we?
I was going to throw on an extra point for the bit with James Blunt because that was good, and then I decided not to because the rest of the movie isn't good enough to have earned that one, brief high-point.
*1 What the fuck accent is Shirley Henderson meant to be doing in this film, though? Anyone? She's normally great. The characters here say she's Irish, but it sounds like the Belfast suburb of Cardiff. Much like Jude Law's verbal wrangling in that submarine movie, I suspect the accent is either a very specific regional twang that she knows intimately from relatives across the water, or she can't do it at all and has opted for Shop Demonstration Mode. [ BACK ]
*2 This isn't me being rude by the way, if I haven't named a character above it's because those aren't recorded on the film's IMDB or Wiki pages. [ BACK ]
*3 Because with the best will in the world, it's not McCreadie's fault that Amanda's aunt died in a fire at another factory because she was sacked from McCreadie's supplier weeks earlier. A fire in the original factory, if they'd had to cut safety measures because McCreadie was driving down costs elsewhere? McCreadie's fault. Malnutrition or illness from working long underpaid hours at the original factory? McCreadie's fault. The original factory being struck by a meteorite while her aunt was working a shift? Not McCreadie's fault, mate. The fire could have happened anywhere. Remember this is fiction, Winterborrom. You have the absolute power to make these things link up into a coherent narrative.[ BACK ]
*4 Y'know, as if when Russell did his Arthur remake, he got the same salary as a 17yr old who spends the day bringing everyone coffee on-set. [ 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.
Laika's latest follows intrepid 19th century explorer Sir Lionel Frost (voiced by Hugh Jackman) as he follows a lead to Canada in search of the Sasquatch, or Bigfoot, certain that it represents the missing link in human evolution. When he arrives, the creature in question is a good deal more civilised than Frost had anticipated. Naming his venerable new partner Mr Link (Zach Galifanakis), the pair seek help from Frost's former acquaintance Adelina Fortnight (Zoe Saldana) and trek to Nepal in a bid to locate the Yeti colony - a place where Link might finally feel at home…
CHANNEL The plot structure itself seems to channel Aardman's The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists somewhat. Taking potshots at colonial attitudes that may seem like an easy game in the 21st century, but they're undoubtedly deserving targets nonetheless. What's more, the third-act turnaround is just enough to give the audience something to think about, too.
Laika's work may not be as gag-laden as Aardman's but they're the two animation studios who can proudly stand shoulder-to-shoulder to Disney, precisely because they don't try to emulate what the House Of Mouse does*1. Each just makes its own brilliant films in their own brilliant way, and they're often much deeper thematically as a result.
FAMOUS Hugh Jackman gives a great vocal turn in the lead role (the model bearing fantastic likeness when it comes to his facial movements) with only a couple of minor slips in the accent*2. While Zoe Saldana and Zach Galifanakis are solid here, there's the feeling that they're probably not the best casting for the parts, both feeling like they're doing impersonations of their characters rather than bringing life to them.
It's a common gripe that if you're noticing the tiny but beautiful details in an animated film that there's something missing from the writing. And that may very well be the case, but with work as exquisite as this, that's understandable. That said, Chris Butler's story does feel a little linear. It's never less than fully engaging for the duration of the film, but I have to admit that once I'd left the cinema the lack of oomph quickly became apparent.
SLAUGHTERHOUSE As has become the norm for this studio's work, hang around during the credits to get an idea of the sheer scale of the production. Once the names start rolling (and brilliantly, this begins by crediting the animators) you can make your way to the exit.
It's a damn good road-trip romp either way, and after witnessing the atrocity that is the trailer for The Qu*en's C*rgi, you know Missing Link is going to be one of the year's highlights…
No, but only because the bar is unfeasibly high for cast and crew alike.
That's possible.
Depends how wrong you are.
There isn't. Bah.
Level 2: Emma Thompson's voice is in this (she's perfect, naturally), and she was in Love, Actually with Liam 'Qui-Gon' Neeson, Keira 'Sabé' Knightley and Thomas 'Thanisson' Brodie-Sangster.
*1 For the record, I wrote this review on Sunday night but didn't post it until Monday evening. Between those points, I caught up with the previous Friday's Wittertainment podcast, knowing I was 'safe' to do so with my thoughts on this new movie now written down and untouched by the subconscious influence of a critic I respect and admire a great deal (even if I only actually 'agree' with him about half the time). Anyhow, between the in-show interview with writer/director Chris Butler and Mark Kermode's review which followed, the points I've made about comparisons with Aardman, not needing to emulate Disney and cocking a snook at the British Empire of days past all arose, as did Kermode's view that the film is very, very good, but still not the best it possibly could be. Just thought I'd drop this in now so that you don't read this review and think 'yeah he's just copying what he heard on the radio again'. Fuck it, I'm not re-writing my review now, even though I know Wittertainment's observations aired before I'd even watched the film. It's just that on this occasion, Dr Kermode agrees with me… [ BACK ]
*2 The guy's Australian so he's already got a fantastic blank canvas for accent work, but there are a couple of moments where his 'a's are short where they should be long, in his role as a Victorian gentleman (it's the difference between 'cat' and 'cart' with a Brit accent). Anyway, I put it down to an oversight in the direction. It's certainly not a big deal, but regular readers will know how much things like this bug me. [ BACK ]
*3 Okay, Coco (and yeah that's a Disney film), but I mean apart from that. [ 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.
V for Vendetta Alan Moore & David Lloyd (w. Tony Weare) (1982-1989)
Hahaha! Remember that time I read Watchmenand called it 'heavyweight'? Dear lord. If ever a book was unintentionally written for the age in which we find ourselves, V for Vendetta would be the one. Really, though. As with the film below, I hadn't read this before, although given my past-aversion to paying attention to socio-political matters, it's doubtful whether I'd have been the right audience for the it, anyway. It's not even the permanent story-threads of a broken society, chaos, anarchy and revolution which resonate, but the overriding view that humanity is its own worst enemy, ever willing to make a bad situation worse by revealing new depths of self-important immorality.
Although bound in one volume, the novel is split into three books, originally beginning publication episodically in 1982's Warrior anthology magazine and ending in its own dedicated comic title six years later. Set in 1997 London, we're introduced to a country ruled by a dictatorship after a nuclear war in Europe*1. An inaccessible police-state rules the streets after disposing of undesirables in 'resettlement camps' but a masked anarchist, Codename V, knows how brittle the short chain of command actually is and sets about reshaping the power structure in a long and self-destructive strategy game.
Much of the story takes place at night, and even daytime scenes are dirty and claustrophobic. At times,V's artwork feels like the Batman approach of drawing onto black paper, so that everything which isn't specified as a lit-object falls into shadow, a style which is all the more desaturated by the pallid colouring. Visually and tonally, the writing and art are pulling in the same direction, which is great if a little... overpowering.
I found the first book to be more intense and (say it quietly) coherent than its successors, although it's also a thing that being written over such a long period, the story adapted and changed from its initial trajectory. The result of this is a few threads left hanging early in the text which aren't picked up again. And it's certainly not a question of the story lacking direction, but David Lloyd and Tony Weare have a very loose art-style, combined with several characters who look quite similar and a script which shies away from over-using names once the players are established. As a result I found myself getting a little lost as I wasn't sure whose story I was following until several pages later when they were directly referred to by another sketchily-illustrated characters. It's the comic-equivalent of shooting a movie in low-light with actors who look basically the same and don't speak much. I enjoyed the book very much, but I was enjoying it more at the start than at the end.
But like all the best works, I know I'll get more out of V for Vendetta by reading it again. Not right at this moment though, I'm not made of time. And by then of course, I'll also have the cinematic-version rattling around my head. But I've read the book to lay the groundwork, so that's the important thing.
The alterations in the cinematic version of the story are upfront, and unapologetically so. Set in 2028 rather than 1997, and with a nuclear winter being replaced with the aftermath of a biological attack on Britain resulting from a prolonged war, the core aspects of the story mechanics are there. But many secondary characters have been removed and the Wachowski's*2 screenplay is more linear and audience-friendly than its origin (Alan Moore's name is conspicuously absent from the main burst of credits). As it goes on, the film takes considerable liberties with the original story structure, but given the slightly haphazard nature of that, it's perhaps no bad thing.
Much like Watchmen, no matter how hard the film tries to be gritty and urban, there's something very 'clean' and normal about this dystopian futurescape (although maybe that's the point?). The state-control doesn't feel particularly oppressive and the regular families under its influence don't appear to be suffering too much when we join the story. Which sort of makes you wonder where the angst is going to come from? In the fight-choreography, the film feels almost like Tim Burton's Batman, and much like the caped crusader, V is presented from the outset as more of an idea, leaving his actual identity satisfyingly unnecessary.
Natalie Portman is outstanding here, not only with the range she gets to display but also a near-faultless Brit accent. Hugo Weaving's on slightly less solid ground, although he does well with a character whose theatricality has been amplified through the screenplay to be almost pantomime at times (and his turn as a subway vagrant who sounds like Alan Bennett). The only other really notable performance is John Hurt in full scenery-chewing mode, thoroughly over-egging the pudding and not at all like his literary counterpart, although I'm also sure that's exactly the turn he was hired to give.
James McTeigue's V for Vendetta is a solid enough reworking of the ideas in the book, but as an adaptation of the story and themes, it's lacking somewhat. It feels like the journey to the screen has stripped the original tale of its quiet, pragmatic nihilism in place of an Anarchy™ everyone can feel comfortable with. Although maybe that's the real subversiveness?
Apart from anything else, this film shows the sun setting at 7pm on the 4th of November, when anyone who's spent a winter in the UK will know that happens at around half-past four at that time of year. Still, that's alternate-reality for you…
It is.
…it is, but I don't think it's as good, and that's taking into account my reservations about the book, too.
*1 And while you may furrow your brow at the notion of any survivors at all after a global nuclear conflict, this is a naiveté. which Moore himself addresses in his 1988 introduction to the completed work. [ BACK ]
*2 Okay genuine question, and one for whose clumsiness and insensitivity I apologise in advance. The screenplay for V For Vendetta was written by the Wachowskis, the creative sibling team who directed The Matrix and Cloud Atlas, of course. The Wachowskis consist of sisters Lana and Lilly, formerly known as Larry (who fully transitioned in 2008), and Andy (likewise in 2016). My question is, what's the accepted way of identifying them in a film-criticism/historical context? Obviously common courtesy would dictate that Lana and Lilly Wachowski wrote the movie, since it's not as if someone transforms into another person when they transition gender (quite the opposite, in fact). But it's also true that the names listed in the film credits are Larry and Andy, and I'd be surprised if the payslips they received from Warner Bros in 2006 said any differently. I don't want to refer to each of them as 'different' people in reference, but at the same time I'm a stickler for accuracy (or at least I try to be). I only ask because it feels awkward to refer to them just as The Wachowskis, as if I'm making some subtextual point by not referencing their first-names or gender (they were previously known collectively as The Wachowski Bros).
Anyway, hit me up in the comments and let me know, unless of course I've stepped over the line completely, in which case tweet me about my indiscretion so I can come back and quietly edit this bit out and we'll all pretend the whole dreadful incident never occurred. Much like I've tried to do with their more recent film Jupiter Ascending... [ BACK ]
*3 Seriously though, if I can level-one Toby Kebbel for having done that, everyone in there gets a mention. It'd be at the top of my CV, certainly until I appeared in one of the films anyway… [ 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.
Infinity may be referenced in the title and the script, but this film is anything but, positively constricted by its 109 minutes. There's the feeling in the opening act that this is a story which has been butchered to fit a standard run-time as we meet Ramanujan (Dev Patel), a lowly clerk for a British-run firm in Madras, shortly before the first world war. His intellect is anything but lowly, of course, although we only learn this by having almost every other character openly refer to him as a genius, without actually showing us how or why he's so special. Because how do you break things down to a potentially "non-mathematical" audience without losing them completely? Well, in TMWKI's case, you don't, really.
By which I mean that it's largely not demonstrated, not that the film loses its audience with complicated explanations of numerical brain-aches. Now I'm no rocket-scientist (no, you shut up), but even I was wanting to 'see the working out' as much as Ramanujan's mentor in old Blighty, Hardy. The main problem (for me) is that the prodigy's early schooling isn't even mentioned, much less shown. I bought that he was an intuitive mathematician, and I accepted his frustration at being 'slowed down' by the establishment wanting to fully test his theories. But the fact that his apparently self-taught skills manifested themselves in the Western form of written equations, that the staff at Cambridge University could understand at a glance yet still not fully comprehend? Not explained. Even a duck has to be taught to swim.
As well as powering through the five-year timespan as if it had invented a time-machine while it was on, the film also has to deal with an Indian academic living in England during a global war, when emotions are at a high and ethnic diplomacy isn't. This delicate subject is addressed rather indelicately, as is the more institutional xenophobia of the 'old guard' of the time. Director Matt Brown's script takes a very button-pushing approach, which would be more forgivable if its resolution wasn't handled with equal naivety in the film's final throes.
The humorous lines intended to lighten the mood don't fare too much better, often feeling contrived. Although to be fair, the largely senior audience around me merrily chortled their way through gags which evoked little more than a wry grin from myself, leading me to think that maybe this film is perfectly fulfilling the task for which it was created, and that I'm just a massive film-snob. But then, I know I'm a massive film-snob, and even accounting for this, the film isn't that funny.
Most typical scene:
INT. Hospital. Day. Hardy (Irons) stands by the hospital bed of Ramanujan (Patel), quizzing a doctor, Muthu (San Shella) on the TB-ridden patient's condition.
Hardy: …is it bad?
Muthu: I'm afraid so, sir.
Hardy: Well, can't we do anything?
Muthu: I'm afraid not, no. This is the worst case of Second Act Screenwriter's Cough I've seen in some time, and with a protagonist as virtuous as Ramanujan here, it's unlikely he'll make the credits.
Hardy: Well, I'm sure his inevitable moral vindication at the film's finale will temporarily remove the conspicuous-looking dark patches under his eyes so that "poorly film-makeup man" isn't the lingering image in the memory of the audience as they file out of the auditorium…
Both Dev Patel and Jeremy Irons give it their all, but they're let down by the kind of script that makes a callback (the "1729" reference) to a setup which occurred less than five minutes earlier, and which is less than five minutes before the end of the film. Either the writer is to blame for this structural faux pas, or the editor.
Where is the wonder, where is the awe? Where is the titularly-implied infinity?
With the best will in the world, this is a poor man's Theory of Everything; a great story let down by an awful screenplay which doesn't do its subject justice. And shoehorning in Stephen Fry and Toby Jones won't change that…
Level 2: Many level 2s to choose from here, but let's go for Jeremy Irons, who starred in 1995's Die Hard With A Vengeance alongside Sam 'Windu' Jackson.
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.
Five days before his 60th birthday, boorish retail magnate Sir Richard McCreadie (Steve Coogan) is overseeing preparations for a lavish party on Mykonos. A coterie of minions and hangers-on surrounds him including his mother (Shirley Henderson*1), current partner (Shanina Shaik), ex-wife Samantha (Isla Fisher), son Finn (Asa Butterfield), PR Manager*2 (Sarah Solemani) and personal assistant Amanda (Dinita Gohil).
