2024 - February
All of Us Strangers (2023) 4/4
Spartan (2004) 4/4
House of Games (1987) 4/4
Homicide (1991) 4/4
Poor Things (2023) 4/4
Dune: Part One (2021) 4/4
Clue (1985) 4/4
Heist (2001) 3.5/4
The Discarnates (1988) 3.5/4
Stroke of Luck (2023) 3/4
The Cat and the Canary (1939) 2/4
The Commuter (2018) 2/4
Spartan (2004) 4/4
House of Games (1987) 4/4
Homicide (1991) 4/4
Poor Things (2023) 4/4
Dune: Part One (2021) 4/4
Clue (1985) 4/4
Heist (2001) 3.5/4
The Discarnates (1988) 3.5/4
Stroke of Luck (2023) 3/4
The Cat and the Canary (1939) 2/4
The Commuter (2018) 2/4
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- DirectorDavid MametStarsLindsay CrouseJoe MantegnaMike NussbaumA psychiatrist comes to the aid of a compulsive gambler and is led by a smooth-talking grifter into the shadowy but compelling world of stings, scams, and con men.03-02-2024
I have recently been on something of a Ricky Jay kick watching and rewatching some of his filmed performances, TV specials, and talk show appearances. What a marvel that man was! A whiz with a deck of cards, a first-rate writer, a delightfully verbose orator, and a disarmingly charming presence. Watching the recording of his iconic hit show "Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants", I was in awe not only with the acrobatic dexterity of his card shuffling skills but also with the way he seamlessly intertwines his tricks with history lessons, anecdotes, and 15th-century poetry all the while creating an atmosphere in which the audience willingly allows themselves to be tricked. He tells us that he's going to cheat us, he even gives us a hint at the way he's going to do it, and yet when he does it we are still utterly spellbound. He never asks us to suspend our disbelief - he doesn't even give us a choice. That's a correctly structured drama!
It's no coincidence that "Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants" as well as a few other of his stage shows were directed by David Mamet, another marvel of the stage and screen who has perfected the art of deception and whose command of the audience is just as spellbinding. A fair few of Mamet's films revolve around the complicated mechanics of cons, cheats, lies, and frauds and even though going into a Mamet film we now he's going to try and fool us we still willingly walk into the trap eyes wide shut.
I have seen "House of Games", Mamet's dazzling directorial debut, before today. When I started this rewatch, I knew all of its twists and turns and hoped I'd finally be able to divorce myself from the beautifully unfolding plot and focus on some of the film's less flashy elements. And yet, even as I remembered all of the secrets of the plot, I found myself taken in and beguiled by its snaking progression once again and when the big twist came, my jaw hit the floor just as hard as it did the first time I watched the movie. Although I knew where it was all going, I was still conned and, once again, that is a correctly structured drama!
This Freudian excursion into the world of con artists follows Dr Margaret Ford (Lindsay Crouse), a psychiatrist hoping to write a study on confidence tricksters, who becomes a little too involved with the subject of her research. The subject's name is Mike (Joe Mantegna) and she likes him because he's dark, rugged, and handsome. Dangerous and unpredictable, he indulges her id and yet takes her fully into his confidence. He likes her because she's blonde, tough, and unlike any woman who'd ever shown any interest in him. He tells her she's a natural-born thief and we suspect he's a little flattered by the attention.
Dr Ford meanwhile endeavours to present a strong, frigid, tightly controlled front with her androgynous, sexless exterior and officious demeanour but beneath she is yearning for excitement. The pairing, however, proves to be explosive in more ways than one and, as Mike continually reminds her, there's always more going on beneath the surface than meets the eye. "Never trust nobody," he warns her but as the film progresses, she grows to trust him... a little too much.
There is a subtly recurring visual motif of doors closing behind Ford as she sinks deeper and deeper into the mire of the criminal underworld. Mamet provides her with an out in the form of her colleague, confidant, and superego incarnate Dr Littauer (Lilla Skala) whose warnings Ford continually ignores. Instead, she pursues Mike and her forbidden desires, almost willing herself to be conned, cheated, and hurt.
Like Mamet's masterpiece "The Spanish Prisoner" and, for that matter, "Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants", "House of Games" is a devious exercise in conning the audience seamlessly intertwined with sly commentary on human nature and the very artificiality of the art form.
I love how Mamet never tries to conjure up any sense of realism. His dialogue is nothing if not mannered, the performances are deliberately dry and a tad distant, and the visuals are picturesque and artful. Cinematographer Juan Ruiz Anchia does an incredible job of evoking the atmosphere of noir and even German expressionism. Especially beautiful are the shots inside the titular House of Games, a gambling den lit by a single overhead light whose walls are painted with shadows and whose inhabitants exist solely in silhouette. Note also the fabulous shot of Mike performing a trick with a coin in what appears to be a black void. Mamet and Anchia shoot him in such a way that there is no background behind him even though he's standing in the middle of a city street. We see nothing but a man performing a trick and yet we're still deceived. After all, the whole city is his stage. Why shouldn't he be able to make it disappear at will?
As the plot moves along at a lightning-fast pace accompanied by Alaric Jens' insistent jazz score more and more characters walk into the picture. There's Mike Nussbaum's loveable old con man, J.T. Walsh as a jittery mark and even William H. Macy in an early role. Ricky Jay makes an appearance as well playing essentially himself. And yet this film belongs to Mantegna and Crouse who generate some tangible chemistry and tension as the unlikely central couple. Mamet's greatest trick is perhaps the fact that we do grow to care for both of them and see their perspectives in what ends up being a dastardly complicated narrative. That too makes "House of Games" a correctly structured drama!
4/4 - DirectorJonathan LynnStarsEileen BrennanTim CurryMadeline KahnSix guests are anonymously invited to a strange mansion for dinner, but after their host is killed, they must cooperate with the staff to identify the murderer as the bodies pile up.03-02-2024
Logically, it should be downright impossible to make a good movie based on a board game which is, structurally speaking, a plotless mechanism of rules and abilities designed to offer an open-ended and short-lived burst of entertainment. Equally, video games should be ripe for adaptation since their mechanisms and abilities are in the service of a coherent narrative which ought to make them perfectly suited for cinematic adaptations. And yet, history once again makes an ass of logic.
"Clue" is exhibit number one. About as ideal as a cinematic adaptation of a game could possibly be, it offers experienced players a faithful rendition of Cluedo with a number of easter eggs, reminders, and references to the gameplay mechanics and design features of the iconic board game while also offering a wildly entertaining ride and an engaging plot to those unfamiliar with the game.
All the familiar suspects are gathered in a creaky old mansion: Mrs Peacock (Eileen Brennan), Mrs White (Madeline Kahn), Professor Plum (Christopher Lloyd), Mr Green (Michael McKean), Colonel Mustard (Martin Mull), and Miss Scarlet (Lesley Ann Warren). Before long, the unfortunate Mr Body's (Lee Ving) body is discovered and it is up to his wily butler Wadsworth (Tim Curry) to find out whodunnit, where, and how much like a regular player at home would.
The brilliant thing about "Clue" is that it perfectly replicates a good game of Cluedo. The bizarre conclusions, the wild guesses, the unexpected twists, and the random solution. Even the atmosphere of the game is lovingly replicated the credit for which must go to production designer John Robert Lloyd who did a truly spectacular job of recreating the playing board on a sound stage.
But a game is only as good as the people you play it with and is there a better crowd to play Cluedo with than this cast? There isn't a bad performance in this film cast exclusively with the very finest comic performers of the time. The brilliant Tim Curry delivers the finest performance of his career rushing from room to room, sprinting across the palatial Hill House to find Mr Body's murderer. Just as brilliant is Madeline Kahn with her iconic halting delivery and perhaps the funniest ad-lib in the history of movies. I must also mention the underrated performance of Michael McKean as the prissy Mr Green who implores everyone and the audience that he didn't do it as he is kicked around, abused, and disrespected by everyone around him.
I rarely talk about costumes in my reviews but Michael Kaplan's work here is truly exemplary. He helps clearly define each of the characters so that the moment we see them we know exactly who they are. This is very important when dealing with an ensemble cast and Kaplan's excellent, memorable, very funny designs help every character stand out.
The film was written and directed by Jonathan Lynn, one of the last great masters of the cinematic farce. His sense of pacing, comedic rhythm, and the visual structuring of a gag is impeccable. He balances the film's large, talented cast in an exemplary fashion by never allowing any single performer to dominate the film, never allowing anyone to fall by the wayside, and never allowing us to lose sight of the complicated, hilarious plot.
His screenplay is loaded with wry observational humour, intricate wordplay, and memorable quips. He is, after all, the man who wrote the brilliant "Yes, Minister" and the dialogue in "Clue" is every bit as sizzling and clever.
The final element of this mosaic of talent is John Morris' playful, upbeat score which revels in the joy of the game while also exploring the sinister side of the film's murder-filled mystery plot.
Famously, "Clue" has three endings which were originally played at different theatres. This rather dumb gimmick backfired and certainly contributed to the film's lacklustre initial reception. When released on home video, however, the film was re-edited and now boasts all three endings separated by title cards indicating that one ending is "what might have happened", the other is "what could have happened", and the third is "what really happened".
On the one hand, this is a neat idea showing that much like a game of Cluedo, there is no real solution - just the luck of the draw. The problem is that the third ending is so perfectly brilliant that it renders the other two completely pointless. Not only is it by far the funniest of the three but it is also the only one which makes a lick of sense. In my mind, then, the perfect viewing of "Clue" is one where I only watch the third ending.
Regardless of whether you choose to watch all three endings or just one, you're in for a brilliant time watching one of the last great screen farces, as well as the finest adaptation of a game ever made.
4/4 - DirectorJaume Collet-SerraStarsLiam NeesonVera FarmigaPatrick WilsonAn insurance salesman/ex-cop is caught up in a life-threatening conspiracy during his daily commute home.05-02-2024
Insurance salesman and former cop Michael MacCauley (Liam Neeson) has been taking the same commuter train to work for the past 10 years. Today, he is taking the last time. The victim of downsizing, Michael has been unceremoniously fired mere years before retirement and as the film begins we find him dejected, embarrassed, and a little drunk in his usual seat on the train trying to come up with a way to tell his son that he won't be going to that fancy university he's been accepted to.
Had "The Commuter" been made a decade before it actually was, it would have been another sincere Liam Neeson drama about an ordinary man coming to terms with ageing and overcoming adversity with moral fortitude and some old-fashioned Irish romanticism. But "The Commuter" came out in 2018, a decade after Neeson delivered his famous cellphone monologue in "Taken" and became cinema's unlikeliest action star. This means that "The Commuter" takes a wholly different twist and becomes another pulpy Liam Neeson action thriller in which he kicks asses indiscriminately while making his way through a ludicrously improbable plot.
It all kicks off when a fellow passenger, the chatty but likeable Joanna (Vera Farmiga), sits next to him and proposes a hypothetical situation. What if she were to give him 100,000 USD and all Michael would have to do is find the one passenger on board the train who does not belong? Michael would never find out who that passenger was and what happened to him afterwards.
Of course, this is not a mere hypothetical and before long Michael is running up and down the train looking for this mysterious person who goes by the codename Prynne. To spice up the story to no great effect, the money is not his only motivation. Joanna and the mysterious people she works for have kidnapped Michael's family and will kill them unless he finds Prynne before the train reaches its final stop.
"The Commuter" shares many similarities and key personnel with Neeson's abysmal actioner "Non-Stop" in which he beat up random people on board a plane. Admirably, however, Neeson and director Jaume Collet-Serra take a slightly more low-key approach to the familiar material here. Instead of giving us wall-to-wall action, "The Commuter" tries to be more of a suspense thriller with a focus on detection and atmosphere rather than high-energy fight scenes and frenzied action.
Unfortunately, the resulting movie is curiously sleepy and not particularly engaging mostly because its central mystery is painfully underdeveloped and uninteresting. Instead of presenting us with an actual puzzle to untangle, the film throws a bunch of red herrings at us whose only job is to distract us from the fact that there isn't much of a plot here. Furthermore, there's no real sense of threat either since the bad guys are never actually seen and only interact with Michael through Joanna.
Truthfully, "The Commuter" is one of the better Liam Neeson vehicles and, for most of its runtime, I tethered between amusement and indifference. I was amused by the nifty central premise which is Hitchcockian in its minimalism. I was also amused by the excellent cast assembled to play the red herrings. The commuters include Jonathan Banks, Clara Lago, Florence Pugh, and Andy Nyman with an awful American accent. Also present are Sam Neill and Patrick Wilson playing Neeson's former cop buddies.
However, the film did eventually lose me in its apocalyptic third act in which the film goes (quite literally) off the rails. Besides the questionable CGI used to accomplish the firey chaos which ensues, the film throws away all credibility and pretence at being a low-key suspense thriller in favour of the kind of goofy ass-kicking which Liam Neeson is now known for.
The resolution to the mystery is deeply unsatisfying as well since it's essentially a cheat but I suppose that Serra and the film's writers are aware that the fans of Liam Neeson action movies don't really care about the plot anyway. But that leaves me wondering who "The Commuter" is for. I imagine it's too slow and talky for the fans of "Non-Stop" and "Taken". On the other hand, people like me who enjoy a good high-concept thriller with a neat mystery will be disappointed by its nonsensical climax.
2/4 - DirectorDavid MametStarsJoe MantegnaWilliam H. MacyVincent GuastaferroA Jewish homicide detective investigates a seemingly minor murder and falls in with a Zionist group as a result.09-02-2024
In the great race war, Bobby Gold (Joe Mantegna) identifies as a cop. He walks around with his badge proudly displayed on his hip, tells everyone he meets that he's a policeman before even telling them he's name, and repeats his favourite mantra of "I'm just doing my job". He feels so at home at the station that he sleeps, eats, and shaves there changing his clothes in front of the suspects he's interrogating.
But do his colleagues feel the same kind of kinship as Bobby? They're definitely all "hey fellow well-met" types, slapping each other on the back as they tell dirty jokes. Bobby tells his partner, the fiercely red-headed Irishman Sully (William H. Macy) that he is like family to him. "I am your family," replies Sully.
And yet, there's an unspoken divide even in the family of cops. A new breed of college-educated politically correct black senior officers is emerging much to the chagrin of the old-fashioned, two-fisted Irish coppers. Meanwhile, the homicide squad's Italian lieutenant is trying his best to play both sides of the equation.
In that great racial divide, Bobby Gold is a Jew - the only one in the squad - which means he must prove himself again and again. When there's a door to be breached, he must go first. When there's a meeting arranged, he must get there before anyone else. When there's a crime to be solved, he must solve it in record time.
And there is a crime to be solved. Not a flashy one or an interesting one but Bobby gets stuck with it because the victim is Jewish. "She's your people," the lieutenant tells him. "I thought you were my people," Bobby replies.
The old woman's death, however, turns out to be a bit more mysterious than it seemed at first. Before long, Bobby finds himself mixed up with a cloak-and-dagger group of Zionists who have been smuggling guns to Israel since the War of Independence.
To them, Bobby is an easy target. A man with no identity, an inveterate people-pleaser eager to be accepted and suffering with an almost pathological desire to be useful. They give him a spiel about belonging, about Jewishness, and about Israel being his true home and then proceed to use him for their own ends in a way which makes them seem more like the con men from Mamet's "House of Games" than the steadfast protectors of Jewishness they claim to be.
And yet, tired of his colleagues' little Jewish jokes, casual racial slurs, and having to prove himself to them over and over again, Bobby falls for their act hook, line and sinker. Before long, the Zionists are pressuring him to betray his oath to the police and his cop buddies are pressuring him to forget the Jews and come back to work.
Caught between two worlds to which he doesn't fully belong, Bobby Gold finds that he has to solve the biggest mystery of his career - that of his own identity. And yet, as in every David Mamet picture, all the clues are red herrings, all the victims are suspects and all the conclusions lead to blind alleys.
David Mamet's third directorial feature is every bit as energetic, forceful, and stylish as we've come to expect. It's a searing examination of the intriguing and much-debated issue of identity in modern America. Is it truly one nation under god or is it actually a bizarre concoction of different, warring nations constantly torn apart by self-doubt and mutual hatred?
One thing which always impresses me about Mamet's films is the rich, convincing texture of the worlds they inhabit. All of the gambling dens, the drug houses, the dilapidated precincts, and the shadowy diners feel so real, so tangible that you can almost smell them.
Here, he gives us a layered, detailed landscape of the racially charged 1990s. The film keeps cutting between the ghetto slums populated by the impoverished black community and the opulent art deco apartments occupied by rich Jewish families and yet, despite their different social statuses, there is a kinship between the two. A joint trauma of racial hatred emanating through the centuries.
David Mamet is best known for his dialogue and, on that count, "Homicide" may just be his best-written film. He is absolutely at home with the profanity-laden jargon of the streets which he turns into a kind of poetry. A Mamet film avoids the kind of documentarian realism which makes killers, pimps, and drug dealers seem banal and uninteresting. Instead, he gives them lines which are clever, insightful, intelligent, and poetic while still recognisably written in their language. He makes these denizens of the underworld sound like they're quoting R-rated Shakespeare sonnets.
As with any Mamet production, there's a whole bevvy of great supporting performances which add to the aforementioned texture of the piece. The streets, the precincts, and the apartments are occupied by William H. Macy, J.J. Johnston, Rebecca Pidgeon, Natalija Nogulich, and a truly sinister Ricky Jay. The best of them all, in my opinion, is a young Ving Rhames who in a sizzling climactic scene gives Bobby Gold the final push towards self-discovery he so desperately needed.
But Mamet proves himself yet again to be a great filmmaker by never losing track of what "Homicide" actually is about. Even though the film spends a great deal of time examining this tension-filled landscape, it is at its best when it is a sad portrait of a man consumed by self-hatred. Bobby Gold is a great cop, a smart detective, a first-rate hostage negotiator and yet in the film's dazzling climactic scene he refers to himself as a "piece of shit". The thing is that he's also a man who's been put down so much that he's started to believe that he really is worthless.
We've come to know Joe Mantegna as a fast-talking, sharply dressed wiseguy in films like "House of Games" and "The Godfather III". Here he puts in a devastatingly believable portrayal of a broken, lost man desperately in search of a place to belong. It's a career-best performance which has sadly been overlooked.
"Homicide" is structured as a dizzying, labyrinthine murder mystery which corresponds to Bobby's desperate quest for himself. He is yanked from one clue to the next, from one conspiracy to the next, and when everything is eventually revealed there is a devastating moment of recognition which I won't spoil but which is as Umberto Eco as it is David Mamet.
4/4 - DirectorElliott NugentStarsBob HopePaulette GoddardJohn BealWhen an eccentric family meets in their uncle's remote, decaying mansion on the tenth anniversary of his death for the reading of his will, murder and madness follow.09-02-2024
I suppose the enjoyment you'll get out of "The Cat and the Canary" depends on how funny you find Bob Hope. Personally, I'd have to agree with one of the characters in the film who, exasperated by his relentless stream of zingers, asks him if he ever stops babbling. I have found Hope funny in the past and he is certainly a likeable-enough presence in this film but I simply never found the material he's given all that amusing. I only just finished watching "The Cat and the Canary" and out of about a hundred zingers Hope fires in the film, I can only recall two. One of them a decent if unoriginal jab at the Republicans and the other a pretty funny though predictable gag revolving around Hope's misremembering of a play.
The other problem I had with all of Hope's jokes is that they never feel like a natural part of the story. The screenplay by Walter DeLeon and Lynn Starling is based on John Willard's popular play which, while certainly darkly humorous, wasn't such a gag fiesta. In fact, the character Hope plays in this film wasn't even in the original play. For this reason, the zingers he spouts often feel out of place in some of the film's darker moments and never once does any of his gags further the plot which would unfold in exactly the same way without him.
The film's other comedic presence is the hideously annoying Nydia Westman playing one of those hysterical female stereotypes you'd find in the worst 1930s horror films. With her childish tittering voice, overwrought physical mannerisms, and fog horn-like scream, she provoked the same visceral reaction in me that nails on a chalkboard do.
There is thus a curious tug-of-war between the film's comedic aspirations and its mystery plot. While Hope zings away and Westman screeches at every shadow, a surprisingly effective spooky atmosphere emerges in the background. This is largely thanks to the film's art directors Hans Dreier and Robert Usher whose shadowy, gothic sets are beautifully photographed by Charles Lang. Equally effective is Ernst Toch's score which seems to be taking the film a whole lot more seriously than the cast.
The plot, much imitated and spoofed over the ensuing decades, begins when a group of potential heirs gather for the reading of the will of their eccentric relative. The reading is to be held at night in his spooky, isolated manor located deep in the Louisiana bayous.
As if this is not enough, there is also a murderer on the loose - a maniac known only as The Cat who has escaped from a local asylum and is now hiding somewhere in the house.
When the family lawyer disappears it is up to the cowardly Wally (Bob Hope) and the beautiful Joyce (Paulette Goddard) to solve the mystery and find out which of their kooky cousins is the murderous Cat.
The mystery at the heart of "The Cat and the Canary" is really not particularly interesting. The suspects are thinly drawn caricatures, their motivations simplistic, and their backstories non-existent. The killer's identity, meanwhile, should be immediately obvious to any fan of detective fiction.
What's more, it takes the film an awfully long time to get to the mysterious occurrences. In fact, not much happens in the first 50 minutes of the film which consists mainly of the heirs milling about the house schticking it up. There is a promising little subplot involving a cryptic poem leading to a buried treasure which is sadly resolved in about five minutes.
John Willard's play has been adapted to film four more times but "The Cat and the Canary" suffers most in comparison with James Whale's excellent "The Old Dark House". Whale's film was charming, spooky, energetic, and most importantly, had colourful, memorable characters. In comparison, "The Cat and the Canary" feels like a pale imitation with its hackneyed zingers, thin plotting, and slow pace. As directed by Elliott Nugent, the film never finds a consistent tone or a compelling throughline.
2/4 - DirectorDavid MametStarsVal KilmerDerek LukeWilliam H. MacyThe investigation into a kidnapping of the daughter of a high-ranking US government official.10-02-2024
The title of David Mamet's "Spartan" might just as easily refer to the film's screenplay. Mamet is the only filmmaker in the world who can take on a complex, globe-trotting, political thriller yarn and turn it into a film which can be best described as sparse.
One of the things I've grown to despise most about modern, big-budget movies is their need to overexplain everything. Plots, jokes, characters, backstories... Everything has to be neatly broken down to the audience and then repeated at 15-minute intervals. Characters walk into rooms and announce their names. They describe the plot to other characters who, by the movie's logic, should already know it. They parrot information endlessly so that even the dumbest person in the theatre who was 25 minutes late to the screening can follow the movie without breaking a sweat.
And then there's Mamet's "Spartan", an exhilarating, intelligent thriller which absolutely refuses to hold the audience's hand. In fact, the first act of the movie made me feel like a child whose parents threw them into the deep end of the pool without prior warning and left them to find their own way out.
There is no scene in which a uniformed man walks into a room and explains the mission. There is no scene in which our protagonist has a flashback to his torrid past. There is no scene in which he pieces together the plot and then explains it to his eager partner. Hell, we hardly even hear his name.
The characters we follow in "Spartan" are soldiers, Secret Service agents, political aides, and Marines. They know what their jobs are, they know what they're doing, and they know each other. There's no need for them to introduce themselves. There's no need for anyone to explain what they're doing to them. So no one does.
The film begins with a marine named Scott (Val Kilmer) being assigned to find a girl. A news article briefly glimpsed during a panning shot tells us her name is Laura. Who is she? Why is she so important that mere hours after her disappearance the entire might of the US intelligence is looking for her? Well, "Spartan" never tells us that outright but we can guess by the fact that the investigation is led by the Secret Service who stand upright at the very mention of her father.
We then follow Scott as he goes about his job. He is a man of few words and we never get so much as a glimpse of his personal life but that doesn't mean he is a threadbare, cardboard character. Mamet doesn't write those. We get a sense of the man through the way he speaks, the way he moves so carefully, the way he stakes out a room before walking into it, and the way he breaks people's faces if they disobey him.
The plot moves like a tightly wound-ticking clock. It's a pure Mamet concoction - breathlessly paced, endlessly deceptive, and full of twists which come out at the speed of bullets. And yet, the plot is the least interesting aspect of this film which makes you feel like you're out in the field with Scott, following the clues, breaking the rules and quite a few bones, doing anything you can to find this girl.
I have heard some people call "Spartan" a conventional thriller. This baffles me more than any plot twist Mamet has ever come up with because there is nothing remotely conventional about this movie.
Especially unusual and refreshing is Mamet's no-frills, resolutely non-corporate approach to the way he tells his story. He never compromises his film for the sake of the lowest common denominator. He doesn't care about the audience members who left to grab some popcorn and are now completely lost in his labyrinthine plotting. He doesn't care whether you like his characters. Scott is a stone-faced soldier, without a sense of humour, uninterested in being charismatic. He murders plenty of people over the course of the movie some of them unarmed, most of them bad, some of them collateral damage. It's a rare thriller which requires the audience to be fully tuned into it and as focused on the clues as the characters are. It absolutely cannot be watched with a phone in your hand.
Also resolutely unconventional is hearing Mamet's famed dialogue in an action movie. He is a writer who adores jargon. Whether it's the way conmen talk in "House of Games" or insurance salesmen in "Glengarry Glen Ross" or cops in "Homicide". Here he takes the jargon of soldiers, spies, Secret Service agents, and politicians and makes poetry out of it. He loads their shoptalk with so much meaning, so much emotion, and so much weight that you'd think they were quoting Shakespeare.
"Spartan" is also exceedingly well made, a perfect showcase for Mamet's feel for pace, action, and suspense. It is scored with an unusually mournful, stately score by Mark Isham and features tremendous supporting performances from Mamet regulars like William H. Macy, Ed O'Neill, and Natalija Nogulich, as well as actors who were newcomers at the time including Kristen Bell, Clark Gregg, Tia Texada, and an excellent Derek Luke. Mamet's regular cinematographer Juan Ruiz Anchia bathes the film in noirish shadows giving it just the right visual texture for a conspiracy thriller.
Val Kilmer is superbly cast as Scott. He is chiselled, tough, physically menacing, and completely focused on the task at hand. Kilmer does a great job of muting his charisma and playing a man who doesn't care about being liked and doesn't like being noticed. He is a shadow dweller who never gets recognition for his work and who prefers it to stay that way.
Unconventionally again, the film doesn't portray Scott as the all-American hero. As the twists keep coming thick and fast, I started to realize that Mamet's portrayal of the soldier mentality is not necessarily praising. Scott has been taught not to think. He has been beaten into the mould of a perfect Marine - a man who follows orders, doesn't question his superiors, and kills whomever he's bloody told. However, as the film's maze-like conspiracy unfolds, it becomes clearer and clearer that to find the girl Scott will have to break out of his tight, comfortable mould.
I could go on and on comparing "Spartan" to the myth of Iphigenia, unpacking its loaded political message or considering it as an intellectual commentary on the thriller genre. However, even at its most basic face value, this is a remarkably entertaining movie. A superbly crafted thriller which quite literally left me on the edge of my seat with a tear in my eye and applauding the credits even though I watched it alone in my room. I felt like a fool but "Spartan" is so good it deserved it.
4/4 - DirectorDenis VilleneuveStarsTimothée ChalametRebecca FergusonZendayaA noble family becomes embroiled in a war for control over the galaxy's most valuable asset while its heir becomes troubled by visions of a dark future.14-02-2024
Frank Herbert's "Dune", an undisputed classic of the science fiction genre, has had a turbulent and decidedly uneven history of screen adaptations. Ranging from David Lynch's misguided misfire to Alejandro Jodorowsky's unfilmed LSD-laced pet project, it has acquired the reputation of a book which simply cannot be properly translated to the big screen.
And then, along came Denis Villeneuve, one of the few true artists and auteurs still working in the Hollywood big leagues, a superb visual stylist and a director with a profound understanding of the sacred alchemy which is filmmaking. Making a movie out of "Dune", his childhood favourite novel, had been his dream for many years and his passion and love for the material absolutely shines from the screen.
Watching the first half of his massive adaptation of the Herbert classic, one gets the impression that every ornithopter, Crysknife, and Gom Jabbar was handmade and personally approved by Villeneuve who, like a child in a chocolate factory, found it all supremely cool! I can easily picture him wide-eyed and open-mouthed jumping up and down from excitement at every single shot just out of sight of the camera lens.
The result is a film which is admittedly unwieldy but so full of texture, history, and love for this world born out of Frank Herbert's imagination that I couldn't help but be engrossed in all of its intricacies. I loved learning about the creepy sisterhood of the Bene Gesserit, for example - a religious order which holds the reigns of the "Dune" universe and controls the ebbs and flows of power from the shadows. I equally loved hearing about the ways of the Fremen, a warrior race living in the vast desert on the planet Arrakis hunted by the Imperial forces by day and the deadly giant sandworms by night.
All of this history and much more is reflected in the film's gorgeous production design by Patrice Vermette and the costumes by Robert Morgan & Jacqueline West. With their help, Villeneuve is able to jump between at least three planets, portray numerous different factions of numerous different races and yet never make the film confusing or difficult to follow. Their work gets right to the very essence of every race. You know who these people are by the way they dress, the austerity of their homes, and the paintings they hang on their walls. I'm sure whole books could be filled exclusively with the tiny details hiding in the backgrounds of shots.
And then there's Hans Zimmer's score, the crowning achievement of that now iconic composer's varied career. A soundscape so alien and yet so beguiling that it feels like a dizzying, head-first dive into the world of "Dune". Made up of rhythmic drumming, acid-tinged electric guitar riffs, and wailing voices, it adds grandeur and stateliness to a film whose scope already feels like it should be measured in centuries.
I realize I am seven paragraphs deep into this review and I haven't yet said a word about the plot. That is mainly because the plot is not all that important in this film. After all, this is "Dune: Part One" and there is a distinct feeling that it is merely a prologue to a greater story yet to unfold. This is a film which is all about getting immersed in this fictional universe. Learning about its cultures, its struggles, its divides, and its rich, long history. We meet many characters along the way who are clearly yet to play a part in Herbert's tale.
Instead of furiously furthering a narrative, Villeneuve seems more interested in the way veils flutter in the desert breeze, the way lights shine behind palms, and the way sand flows between the fingers. Those are the film's finest scenes such as the sequence in which young Paul Atreides (Timothee Chalamet), son of the powerful Duke Leto (Oscar Isaac) is taking a last look at his home planet of Caledon before they are to leave and assume power over the desert planet of Arrakis. It's a montage sequence laden with emotion and which exactly nails the feeling of a boy leaving home. I love the way Villeneuve focuses on little details full of meaning. Personal belongings being packed into wooden crates, the worried mother's hand on her husband's neck, and the last drop of water on Paul's hand.
Unbeknownst to him, Paul is about to embark on a journey which will change him from a boy into a warrior into... well, the Dune messiah, but more about that sometime soon, I hope. The narrative of Herbert's novel is sprawling and fits a tad uneasily into a conventional three-act structure. Writers Jon Spaihts, Eric Roth, and Villeneuve himself battle valiantly but there is still a feeling that we are only seeing episodes of a much bigger tale.
Never mind. The episodes are so beautifully designed, executed, and shot by Greig Fraser that I never had an issue being yanked from one event to the next. There is such a reverence towards Herbert in this film that I had the impression I was watching an adaptation of an ancient myth or religious text whose broader strokes the filmmaker already expected me to know.
My one major gripe with the screenplay and the film itself, however, is the dialogue at least 70% of which is made up of leaden exposition. Sometimes the explanations are welcome, often times they are utterly idiotic but they never manage to sound natural. At times, they even sound like narrations for National Geographic or an Arrakis Tourist Board ad. At one point, a character locks a door and another character looks dramatically towards the camera and says "He's locked the door". Gee, I wonder how I would have figured that one out.
But that gripe aside, "Dune: Part One" is a feast for the eyes and ears, a gorgeous, seductive realisation of Frank Herbert's vision which truly feels like a visit to an alien planet. And yet, as we are marvelling in the desert landscapes, we never lose sight of the fact that there are dark machinations at play shaping Paul's destiny. The film has a constant sense of oncoming dread, an atmosphere which grows more and more oppressive as the story begins to unfold. Now that the stage is set and we have been introduced to the world, roll on "Dune: Part Two" which I expect will tip over the dominos Villeneuve has so carefully arranged over these bewitching two and a half hours.
4/4 - DirectorYorgos LanthimosStarsEmma StoneMark RuffaloWillem DafoeAn account of the fantastical evolution of Bella Baxter, a young woman brought back to life by the brilliant and unorthodox scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter.15-02-2024
Only god can make a tree but only Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe) can make a chicken with the head of a pig. The eminent surgeon who himself looks like the result of an ungodly experiment, lives in an austere Victorian house populated with such weird creatures as a duck with the head of a dog and a goat with the head of a bird.
Godwin's latest experiment, the climax of his life's work, is Bella (Emma Stone), an adult woman with the brain of a baby. Along with his assistant Max (Ramy Youssef), Godwin keeps a close eye on Bella's progress - the speed with which she learns new words, the improvement of her balance, the growth of her hair...
As time passes, however, Bella develops her own sense of curiosity and becomes unhappy living as a prisoner in Godwin's home. She yearns for experience, adventure, and knowledge so she decides to set off into the world travelling from London to Lisbon, Alexandria and then Paris nominally investigating the world but actually searching for her identity and sense of autonomy.
Neither an adult nor a child, Bella is gleefully free of the constraints of "polite society". She acts like an Edwardian Larry David, unable to grasp the logic behind the senseless rituals and meaningless phrases which govern our communication. Why shouldn't she spit out food she finds disgusting even if she is at a luxurious restaurant? Why should she stand the irritating cries of a baby?
Most of all, however, she is unable to grasp the exploitative, cruel nature of the world because it is, after all, a distinctly learned characteristic that one has to acquire over years of being the subject of cruelty and exploitation.
Over the course of her journey, Bella runs into a number of men who try and trap her with such conventionalities as marriage, legally binding documents, and philosophy but Bella keeps eluding them. She is a difficult person to exploit because she is so hungry for experience and so immune to their deceptive charms. Her own childlike openness and honesty proves to be the ultimate shield against cads and frauds.
Eventually, Bella does find her own sense of autonomy but not in the manner you'd normally find in the cinema. Indeed, "Poor Things" absolutely shines with its unusually frank, unabashed, and open portrayal of sex. Eschewing the recent streak of puritanism in the movies, "Poor Things" depicts sex not as a means of exploitation and control of women but as a way for Bella to take control of her life, become independent, and hold something over those who try to use her.
Based on a novel by the great Glaswegian writer Alasdair Gray, "Poor Things" proves to be Yorgos Lanthimos' best film. Perhaps not accidentally, it is also his most accessible. For the first time in any of his films, most of which I liked very much, I found myself genuinely invested in the characters, caring about them, and believing in them as human beings.
This is doubtlessly down to the film's large, varied, and talented cast led by a fearless career-best performance from Emma Stone. Putting aside her stunning physical transformation and performance as a tottering adult baby, what makes Stone's work in "Poor Things" so impressive is that she is able to take this bizarre, otherworldly character and make her feel like a real, complete human being. In lesser hands, Bella could turn into a caricature with her stiff, silly walk, jittery mannerisms, and childlike speech patterns but Stone's performance is uniquely and utterly human and as long as we believe in Bella we'll go along with anything the film throws at us.
The rest of the cast is made up of a series of superb, witty, and often bizarre performances the most memorable of which I think comes from Mark Ruffalo as one of the cads who try to take advantage of Bella only to find themselves utterly devastated by her frankness. Dressed in the nattiest suits this side of Fred Astaire and sporting a ridiculous birds' nest-like haircut, Ruffalo proves himself to be a surprisingly nimble and precise comic performer. I've always known him to be a great actor but I never knew he was this funny!
And "Poor Things" is a very, very funny movie. I saw it in a packed cinema and within the first ten minutes the dialogue became inaudible from all the people who were screaming with laughter. A great deal of the humour comes from the dialogue which is made up of specifically patterned heightened language interrupted by sudden bursts of profanity-laden honesty. Most of the best lines are given to Bella herself who wonderfully describes her journey across the world by saying "I have adventured it and found nothing but sugar and violence".
Now, the film is possessed of that atmosphere of dread and doom which characterises all of Lanthimos' films. This is especially evident in Jerskin Fendrix's eery, screeching, wailing score. However, unlike in Lanthimos' previous films, the mood only serves to make the experience all the more bizarre and ultimately funny rather than overwhelming and disturbing. For that reason, I found "Poor Things" a great deal more accessible and frankly enjoyable than any of the director's other English-language films. Furthermore, his characteristic lack of subtlety here works in a much more natural way since Bella herself is a blunt, unsubtle character.
The sharp socialist edge of Gray's novel is also somewhat blunted by the fact that the world Bella travels is not the real world. It's a world designed and imagined by Lanthimos and his astonishing art directors. A world made up of miniatures and expressionistic matte paintings. A chocolate box-type world full of colourful buildings and anachronistic elements which wouldn't feel out of place in a Wes Anderson film.
I could easily imagine a different version of "Poor Things" in which Bella travels to the real turn-of-the-century Lisbon, encounters real starving children in Alexandria, and works at a real brothel in Paris. It would be a dirtier, grimier, and certainly more convincingly political movie but it wouldn't be a Yorgos Lanthimos picture.
What Lanthimos does with his adaptation of Gray's novel is present us with a fairy tale about an unusual and curious little girl who set out to discover the world and came back with a burning desire to fix it. Quite how she does it is so bizarre and delightful and surprising and hilarious that it alone makes "Poor Things" worth seeing.
4/4 - DirectorDavid MametStarsGene HackmanRebecca PidgeonDanny DeVitoA career jewel thief finds himself at tense odds with his longtime partner, a crime boss who sends his nephew to keep watch.16-02-2024
"Everybody needs money. That's why they call it money."
Any review of a David Mamet film or play could easily turn into a catalogue of its best lines. Since I don't have room in this review for such a list, I guess I'm gonna have to try and write something smart myself.
"Heist" is a David Mamet film and you know it's a David Mamet film because it features all the goodies from his usual bag of tricks: sparkling dialogue, dazzling twists, an impressive cast list, and plotting as cute as a Chinese baby. By now, it's familiar stuff but goodies are goodies and "Heist" is a treat.
Truth be told, it's a pretty low-key affair for Mamet. It lacks the metatextuality of his finest films or the sharp political edge. Watching it, I got the impression that this is something of a busman's holiday - a great filmmaker having fun and sharing a laugh with the audience.
The story is a clear homage to those film noirs of old that Mamet loves so much. As a heist thriller it owes more to Kubrick's "The Killing" than "Ocean's Eight". The smart thing Mamet does, however, is that he takes a familiar premise of a master thief executing his last big job, and then makes it compelling by focusing more on the thief than the job.
The guy's name is Joe Moore (Gene Hackman) and he's getting old. Back in the day, he was so cool, we're told, that when he went to bed the sheep would count him. Now, he's in his 70s and he's losing the magic touch. His loyal associates are starting to doubt him, his hot young wife Fran (Rebecca Pidgeon) is finding him less and less attractive, and his sleazy fence Mickey (Danny DeVito) screws him out of a big cut on what was supposed to be his goodbye job.
Mickey instead wants him to do another heist. In return, he will pay him the cut he owes him and give him 50% of what promises to be a lucrative robbery. Joe accepts even though he is uneasy about the odds. We get the sense that he's losing faith in himself and starting to realize that his place is on a boat, spending his twilight years in the sun.
Mickey also insists that his brash, dumb nephew Jimmy (Sam Rockwell) come along for the heist. Joe's crew is not happy about the arrangement except for Fran who recognises in Jimmy the younger version of the man she fell in love with. The cocky rookie is a staple of the genre but Mamet makes the character interesting through his relationship with Fran. While Joe is busy planning the job, the two of them become more than partners in crime. Mamet does a great job of building up their relationship through looks and gestures. They barely speak to each other in the film and yet we always know how they feel. That's good filmmaking.
The only significant innovation Mamet introduces into the genre is that he never actually tells us what the heist is until we see it. He drip-feeds us information as we watch Joe and his crew prepare and execute it. There is a wonderful air of mystery around the mythical "Swiss Job" and once we do find out what it's all about, we're not disappointed.
Mamet's directing is as precise and effective as his dialogue. He crafts some terrifically suspenseful and tense scenes in this film. From an exciting opening sequence to the actual Swiss Job and then finally to one of the best shootouts I've ever seen on film, he keeps the energy and the pace up.
I normally don't tend to like shootouts in movies very much. Gunplay to me is the most boring form of action. There's so little tension and so little personal interaction in the act of pointing a small metal object at someone. It's entirely anticlimactic. And yet, Mamet turns it into a brilliant scene by introducing so much humour and character into it. To say more would be to spoil a masterful climax.
Gene Hackman, an actor who doesn't know how not to be compelling on screen, brings his trademark sardonic world-weariness to the part of Joe Moore, one of the best performances of his later career. He has good support from Delroy Lindo and Ricky Jay who play his heist crew and are completely convincing as a kind of dysfunctional family. Also terrific is Danny DeVito in one of his sleaziest performances. He really should do more dramatic roles.
The two turns that really caught my eye, however, come from the two women in the cast. Rebecca Pidgeon always gets flack for being Mamet's wife but she has proved time and time again that she has a real flair for delivering his dialogue. She's cool and sharp and sexy as the slippery Fran and you're never in doubt as to why Joe and Jimmy are so madly in love with her.
The other woman in the cast is Broadway legend Patti LuPone who absolutely steals the picture in a very small part. She only has two scenes in the movie playing an alcoholic who inadvertently helps Joe with the robbery. However, the scene between Hackman and her which I don't want to spoil was, for me, one of the high points of a delightful film.
"Heist" is a minor Mamet picture, for sure, but it is so clever and cocky and fun that I was along for the ride all the way to the big twist. There's a playfulness to it that's infectious and it's no surprise that the final shot is a character giving a cheeky grin to the camera.
3.5/4 - DirectorNobuhiko ÔbayashiStarsMorio KazamaKumiko AkiyoshiTsurutarô KataokaA recently divorced writer is reunited with the ghosts of his parents who died when he was a boy. However, every time he sees them he loses more life energy. Now, he must choose between starting a new life or staying forever in the past.24-02-2024
"They say you can't relive the past but that's not true. You can if you want to because it's your past and it is a part of you." These lines were written by Hidemi Harada (Morio Kazama) for one of his very successful soap operas and even though he claims that he cannot remember writing them, they have become something of a motto for him.
Having recently divorced his wife, 40-year-old Harada is now forced to start his life anew at an age when most of his peers are happily settled down. Even though he puts on a brave, sarcastically defiant face, he is not taking the change lightly. He is living in an ascetically furnished apartment in an industrial zone of Tokyo surrounded by unopened boxes full of once pleasant memories of his past life.
One night, lonely and depressed, he decides on a whim to take the train to Asakusa, the district of Tokyo where he was born and had a happy childhood until his parents tragically died when he was only 12.
Getting off the train, he is happy to see that the picturesque Asakusa hasn't changed much over the years and still retains the charms of old Tokyo. It is here, on the streets of his childhood, that he is startled to come across none other than his father (Tsurataro Kataoka), as young as he was the day he died. Harada follows him back to their home which he thought had been demolished years ago and there, as beautiful and youthful as ever, is his mother (Kumiko Akiyoshi) eagerly expecting his arrival with a warm smile and an even warmer dinner.
There is nothing quite as intoxicating as nostalgia and it's not surprising that there are many horror stories written about the trappings of the past. I am instantly reminded of two of my favourite episodes from "The Twilight Zone", "A Stop at Willoughby" and "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville" both of which follow a man whose wish to return to his childhood is granted only to discover that he can never return to his normal life again. After all, the past is a foreign country.
Nobuhiko Obayashi's "The Discarnates", based on a novel by Taichi Yamada, is an intriguing, sentimental, yet unexpectedly creepy riff on the same theme. Its protagonist Harada is given an almost impossible choice - he can either go on living in the uncertain present and be forced to reinvent his entire life or he can remain forever in the comfortable, warm past, trapped with the dead. And as he soon finds out, spending time with ghosts will eventually turn you into one of them.
Obayashi does a great job of making the latter choice seem so deliciously appealing. The casting of Akiyoshi and Kataoka as the parents is absolutely perfect. They are the ideal embodiment of the nuclear family. Kataoka is especially good as the stern yet loving father. The kind of guy whose praises have to be earned but whose every kind word makes you feel like a million bucks. The house they live in is cramped but feels like home. Cinematographer Yoshitaka Sakamoto bathes it in warm hues giving it exactly the feeling of fond memories.
On the other side, the present is not nearly as comforting. Shot in cold hues and bathed in antiseptic blues, Harada's new apartment feels cold and empty like a blank page daring you to fill it. His next-door neighbour Kei (Yuko Natori), however, represents his incentive to start a new life. The two begin an unusual, somewhat perverse but oddly comforting relationship, the kind which can only be shared by two wounded people willing to tend to each other's scars.
Even though the central theme of "The Discarnates" is familiar and the film doesn't necessarily offer any new insights into it, Obayashi does a terrific job of creating genuine tension as to which world Harada will choose to inhabit. The film works largely because we grow to care about the despondent writer played with great humanity and an almost childlike hurt by Morio Kazama.
The film is also significantly lifted by its dreamlike atmosphere which is always suspensefully teetering on the edge between fantasy and horror. Obayashi uses many tricks to make us uncomfortable even during the film's warmest and most sentimental moments. Some of his techniques are a tad outdated (such as the garish scene transitions and video effects he uses to denote Harada's flashbacks) but some of them are still eerily effective. I especially liked his use of dissonate music and ADR. Note, for example, how characters on the other side of the phone creepily sound like they're standing right next to the camera while characters in front of the camera sometimes sound like they're miles away.
These qualities go a long way in making me forgive the film's hoaky and wholly unnecessary big twist which feels like it was tacked on to evoke that one last gasp from the audience. It's the kind of ending which is effective in the sense that it's unexpected and genuinely scary but which also undermines a lot of the film's symbolism and even its message. Ultimately, I don't think this is a film which needs a big, explosive climax.
"The Discarnates" does not have that lean, memorable bite of Rod Serling's best writing but it is still an interesting and disquieting film which will unnerve anyone who's ever had that unquenchable desire to have one last conversation, one more hug with a dead relative.
3.5/4 - DirectorWoody AllenStarsLou de LaâgeNiels SchneiderAnna LaikTwo young people's bond leads to marital infidelity and ultimately crime.25-02-2024
France seems to suit Woody Allen. "Stroke of Luck", his first film shot entirely in French, may not rank among his finest but it is definitely one of his most stylish and plainly enjoyable films. Right from its energetic, gripping opening, I was reminded of why I love Allen's films so much. The brilliant music, beautiful locations, fantastic costumes, and his trademark sparkling dialogue make for a truly fun night at the movies.
He is also one of the most truly underrated thriller directors of all time. His characteristic lightness of touch and assured sense of pacing allow him to tackle the darkest of subject matters and the most macabre of plots without ever making his films unpleasant or morbid. This is why "Stroke of Luck" is one of the few films which revolve around at least three attempted murders and can still be described using the word "romp".
The film begins and ends with a remarkable occurrence of pure chance. Its protagonist is Fanny (Lou de Laage), a woman thoroughly bored of her prosaic millionaire husband, his boring snobbish friends, and their dull hunting weekends in the countryside of France.
One day, while on her way to work in one of those charming Parisian art galleries, she runs into her old school friend Alain (Niels Schneider) who immediately informs her that he used to be madly in love with her when they were kids. With his tussled hair, chiselled face, and bohemian lifestyle, budding novelist Alain is utterly irresistible and indeed, within days, they become lovers.
But Fanny's husband Jean (Melvil Popuaud) is no fool. Ever the shrewd businessman, he quickly sniffs out her lies and hires a pair of bumbling Romanians to kill Alain.
As if this is not convoluted enough, Allen throws another character into the mix - Fanny's kooky, Maigret-loving mother Camille (Valerie Lemercier). Like a mother-in-law equivalent of Columbo, she spots that Jean is up to something and begins an enthusiastic investigation into the mysterious disappearance of his business partner many years before.
The plot of "Stroke of Luck" bobs and weaves and serpentines through many genres and tones before settling into being an out-and-out black comedy more reminiscent of "Manhattan Murder Mystery" than "Match Point", the Woody Allen film it is most frequently compared to.
There is a great deal going on both on the surface level and beneath it as Allen takes on the question of pure chance. Common wisdom would say that such a thing has no room in a well-written script but Allen begs to differ. He hangs all of the major twists and turns of this film on luck, coincidence, and chance which makes this a wildly unpredictable and constantly surprising film.
Unfortunately, Allen never quite manages to pull together all the disparate plotlines, throwaway details, and formal experiments into a cohesive whole. For example, a great deal of fuss is made about a lottery ticket which Alain buys for Fanny and which Jean finds but nothing ever comes of it. "Stroke of Luck" abounds in such narrative dead ends and its exceptionally funny climax leaves quite a number of plot threads hanging loose.
And yet, I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a spectacularly good time watching this film. A great deal of its success rests on the shoulders of its wonderfully talented cast. First, there's Laage and Schneider who make for a charismatic, loveable couple. Then, there's Melvil Popuaud's precise and frankly scary portrayal of a man consumed with greed and jealousy. Finally, there's my personal favourite performance in the film, Valerie Lemercier's quirky turn as the amateur detective mother-in-law, every man's worst nightmare.
"Stroke of Luck" is also a tremendously stylish affair as Allen makes the most of his Parisian locations which look as enticing as ever lensed by Vittorio Storaro. I rarely ever comment on costumes but the clothes Lou de Laage wears in this film are nothing short of spectacular. Dressed like a neo-flapper girl, she reminded me of a modern-day Audrey Hepburn.
All of this style and energy is beautifully rounded out by Allen's trademark musical choices. The soundtrack is this time dominated by American jazz trumpeter Nat Adderley's rendition of "Fortune's Child", a most apt choice for this film which may not be an awards contender for the year's best but is certainly very high on my list of the year's most enjoyable movies.
3/4 - DirectorAndrew HaighStarsAndrew ScottPaul MescalCarter John GroutA screenwriter drawn back to his childhood home enters into a fledgling relationship with his downstairs neighbor while discovering a mysterious new way to heal from losing his parents 30 years ago.26-02-2024
"Do you believe in ghosts" is one of those cliche questions people ask when conversation stalls at a dinner table. My answer, which has always been a resounding yes, usually surprises people but how could you not? Aren't we all haunted in different ways by choices we wish we hadn't made, lives we never got to live, and relatives we didn't get to say goodbye to? Don't we all see these ghosts when we close our eyes before we sleep?
Andrew Haigh's latest masterpiece, the best since his last, "All of Us Strangers" is about those kinds of ghosts. The kind who sneak up on you and whisper devastating things in your ear. It's an elegant, touching, poignant ghost story the kind which isn't aiming to scare or horrify you but rather to make you reflect and perhaps dare to speak up when you are next confronted by the ghosts which haunt you. I found it deeply cathartic.
It is based on a novel by Taichi Yamada and I suppose its Japanese origins are fairly obvious. It shares a deeply rooted sentimentality with some of Japan's finest ghost films like Hideo Nakata's "Dark Water" which focused on the horror of profound grief rather than the horror of ghost girls emerging from TV sets. However, Britain also has a long history of such emotional and psychological horror stories whose ghosts are more than mindless killers stalking our heroes. Think of the works of Henry James adapted so brilliantly by Benjamin Britten, or the works of M.R. James adapted for British television by Lawrence Gordon Clarke, or indeed the sadly forgotten 1982 TV movie "Ghost in the Water" which added a political edge to its tale of lonely ghosts seeking the warm friendly touch of a human being.
Like Yamada's novel, the film tells the story of a writer - here named Adam (Andrew Scott) - who is living a lonely, empty existence forever stuck between his cold, unfriendly present and the warm, sweet memories of his childhood. He lost his parents on Christmas Eve when he was only 12 and never quite moved on from that day.
Without anything better to do, Adam decides to take the train and visit his childhood home. There, in a beautifully understated moment, he finds the ghosts of his parents waiting for him with a warm hug and his favourite dinner on the table.
But Haigh adds a new dimension to the story which makes it all the more poignant and emotional. In his version of the story, Adam is gay which is something he never got to tell his parents though he's always suspected they knew.
In his novel, Yamada unquestionably positions the parents as ideal and welcoming. In "All of Us Strangers", there is a fascinating tension of unspoken words between the parents and Adam. This tension is eventually summed up in a single question which Adam finally gets to ask his father. "Why didn't you come into my room when you heard my crying"?
Haigh does a fantastic job of showing us how each of these encounters with his parents lifts a weight off Adam's shoulders. The more he is able to clean the slate with them, the more he is able to open up to his new boyfriend Harry. He is played by Paul Mescal who with his teddy bear warmth makes Harry an easy man to fall in love with. Adam's mother notices, however, that he has a sad face. The two lost men develop a tender, loving relationship which may lift both of them from the abyss they are falling into.
"All of Us Strangers" is essentially a chamber drama set in two locations and featuring only four actors but Haigh makes it a uniquely cinematic experience. I was especially impressed by the way he portrays Adam's shifting emotions and his rise from the pits of depression by using transitions, fades, focus pulls, and endless reflections in opposing mirrors.
All four performances are absolutely brilliant. Claire Foy is utterly convincing as the loving mother who is capable of incredible though unintentional cruelty. Jamie Bell embodies the ideal of the understanding working-class dad who is still not quite at ease with his emotions. Of course, it is Andrew Scott's superb turn as a boy desperately screaming for help in the body of an adult which carries the film. It is his finest work to date in an already impressive filmography.
Ghost stories usually end on a note of death and loss and grief. It is a credit to Andrew Haigh that he ends his film on a note of ethereal, cosmic beauty. While I admired Yamada's novel, I was never entirely gripped by it. I found its allegory more intellectually intriguing than emotionally affecting. Haigh, on the other hand, takes Yamada's premise and turns it into a profoundly moving experience.
It is cliche to say that a work of art is "moving" but it describes the experience of seeing this film so perfectly I am compelled to use it. In fact, "All of Us Strangers" is seismic. It's the first film which afforded me the experience of hearing an entire cinema sniffing in unison. And yet, it is also unexpectedly gentle and unassuming. In his inimitable manner, Haigh is never insistent or anything less than subtle. His film is made up of tender moments between a son and his parents and a man and his lover. And yet those moments are so perfectly crafted and so precisely performed that they are never anything less than utterly devastating.
4/4