Drama

THE SQUARE

Cert 15 151mins Stars 3

Dominic West takes time out from Tomb Raider to appear as a famous artist in this satirical Swedish drama.

Alongside him is Elisabeth Moss, fresh from her Emmy awarding winning turn in TV’s The Handmaid’s Tale.

As a journalist she has an affair with the smooth curator of a museum of modern art in Stockholm.

Played by Claes Bang, he finds life spiralling out of control as he tries to drum up media interest in his latest exhibition.

Winner of the prestigious Palme d’Or at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, this is a lengthy exploration of contemporary Sweden society and the gap between its ideals and citizens’ behaviour.

Immaculately photographed, the script expresses its ideas through visual metaphor, but at the expense of drama. 

Mocking the moneyed metropolitan middle class, the most powerful moment comes during a fundraiser where wealthy patrons are assaulted by a semi-naked neanderthal performance artist.

I could have done with more of the monkeying about.

 

 

WONDER WHEEL

Cert 12A Stars 4

Kate Winslet has been grievously overlooked during awards season for her magnificent turn in Woody Allen’s dark period drama, his 48th film as director.

When even your leading lady distances herself from your movie for personal reasons, one suspects time’s up for Allen’s big screen career.

Allen’s work exists within its own little bubble, and it’s the small differences which separate his films from each other. For the most urban of directors, it’s almost alarming to find this one is set on the beach and filled with bold saturated colour.

In a welcome gender inversion, she plays the ‘Woody Allen’ character, a neurotic and romantically minded waitress having an affair with a younger lover.

Justin Timberlake is the hunky lifeguard on whom she projects a fantasy future together.

As ever in Allen’s films, when someone chooses to pursue a fantasy existence over harsh reality, tragic events occur. This is not one of Allen’s funny ones.

 

DARK RIVER

Cert 15 90mins Stars 4

A torrent of family grievances cascade across the Yorkshire Dales in this bitingly real rural drama. 

The death of a sheep farmer leads to his estranged daughter returning home for the first time in many years.

Isolated in the sodden and majestic landscape, Alice struggles with her brother Joe for legal tenancy and the legal, spiritual and moral ownership of the land, with tragic consequences.

Mark Stanley and Ruth Wilson are tremendous as the warring siblings, and a weathered Sean Bean appears in flashback as their tyrannical father.

Wilson’s talent and commitment to her role shoulders the film, in a role which must have as punishing to perform as it is to watch.

Mixing a fiercely clear eyed authenticity with echoes of Emily Bronte’s Wutherin’ Heights, this dark tale is full of slaughter, violence, abuse and alcoholism.

However writer and director Clio Barnard is careful to sow a seed of redemption to leaven the bleak tone.

 

LADY BIRD

Cert 15 94mins Stars 4

A high school student yearns to spread her wings in this compelling coming-of-age drama.

In director Greta Gerwig’s typical semi-biographical style, she’s fashioned an honest and droll account of high school, which could almost be an unofficial prequel to her 2013 arthouse hit, Frances Ha.

Only 23 years old and convincingly playing five years younger, Irish-American actress Saoirse Ronan has deservedly secured her third Oscar nomination as Christine ‘Lady Bird’ McPherson. 

With wit and quiet economy, the script also acts as a critique of other teenage films by turning traditional Hollywood narratives on their head. 

So driving tests, prom night, and losing ones virginity aren’t the grandstanding life changing experiences they’re frequently presented as being. Instead Lady Bird slowly begins to appreciate her mother is also a person.

Nominated for five Oscars, apart from Ronan I doubt this will win on the big night. But any film which tells teens they’re not the centre of the universe has got to be worth watching.

 

LOVELESS

Cert 15 124min Stars 4

Grim fatalism hangs over this magnificently maudlin and bitterly bleak Russian drama, which won best film at 2017’s prestigious London Film Festival.

The tense cold war between a recently divorced couple is heightened when their unwanted 12 year old son goes missing.

Boris and Zhenya savagely unload blame and guilt on each other when they eventually realise something is wrong. The more time we spend with them the more we pity their young teen.

This is a damning critique of modern Russia, with the church, state and corporations failing to offer assistance or solace.

A voluntary organisation provides the only help, and their selfless members are an argument there’s nothing wrong with the Russian people, but a great deal at fault with the governing institutions.

Loveless has been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film as was director Andrey Zvyagintsev’s previous film, 2014’s even more scathing Leviathan, which won the Oscar.

 

 

ROMAN J. ISRAEL, ESQ.

Cert 12A 122mins Stars 2

Even though I’m a huge fan of two times Oscar winner Denzel Washington, I’m staggered he’s been nominated for his turn in this heavy-handed drama.

A spin on Dustin Hoffman’s character from 1988’s Rain Man, Washington plays plays the civil rights lawyer of the title, who is a savant with social difficulties.

Roman’s name is a broad clue to the films intent to offer a modern day parable, in which integrity and sacrifice can inspire ordinary people to achieve great change. 

There’s a hint of romance, uncomfortable moments of comedy and a brief foray into thriller territory.

Unconvinced and lacklustre throughout, it says a great deal about Hollywood if it imagines the world needs a lawyer to save it.

With Romans’ big hair, a bad suit and awkward social manner, I was distractedly reminded of Richard Ayoade’s character in TV sitcom, The IT Crowd. Which was always considerably more entertaining than this.

PHANTOM THREAD

Cert 15 130mins Stars 5

Prepare to be tied up in knots by the exquisite and twisted pleasures of this remarkable period melodrama.

Incurable bachelor Reynolds Woodcock is a 1950’s fashion designer to the super wealthy, who begins a poisonously passionate relationship with his latest young muse, Alma. 

Daniel Day-Lewis and Vicky Krieps are mesmerising, and their on-screen romance is refereed with arch imperiousness by Lesley Manville as Reynolds’ spinster sister. 

She’s deservedly Oscar nominated alongside Day-Lewis, but it’s a staggeringly unfair oversight the equally impressive Krieps hasn’t been recognised by the Academy.

The timing of Day-Lewis’ run to another possible Oscar for best actor, is as immaculate and precise as the fabulous dresses created by his character. It would be a record-breaking fourth victory.

A dapper and cruel monster of seductive grace and charm, Reynolds is capable of making the audience leap from their seats when he barks.

It’s a voice with lisping echoes of James Mason, the Brit actor who played the villain in Hitchcock’s North By North West and a predatory paedophile in Stanley Kubrick’s Lolita. Directors of huge influence here.

Reflecting Day-Lewis’ cadaverous appearance, there is no fat on this lean and sinuous affair which is far removed from cuddly Sunday night TV drama. It’s a shocking and intense tale of obsession, with alarming moments of humour.

Paul Thomas Anderson steered Day-Lewis to Oscar success in 2007’s oil epic, There Will Be Blood. He’s nominated for best director and picture, among six in total for his film.

Moving from the chilly north Yorkshire moors to the hard London interiors, Anderson fashions a world of stylish fetish and embroiders it in the manner of Alfred Hitchcock.

This disguises it’s macabre underpinning which is revealed with an outrageous final flourish.

I take Day-Lewis’ announcement of retirement with a large dose of salt, and as with all great divas he’s left me clamouring for more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

GOD’S OWN COUNTRY

Cert 15 Stars 4

With my family roots deep in the fertile of soil of the Yorkshire Moors, I was always going to be partial to seeing God’s own country on the big screen.

This remarkably assured and accomplished debut is one of the best British films of last year, and won the gong for Best Film at the British Independent films awards.

Described as a British Brokeback Mountain, it explores the growing relationship between a young farmer and a Romanian migrant worker.

With ambition transcending it’s low budget, this is as raw, uncompromising, honest and beautiful as the magnificent Yorkshire countryside setting.

ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD

Cert 15 132mins Stars 5

Director Ridley Scott has made his Citizen Kane with this exceptional real life kidnap thriller.

Orson Welles’ 1941 masterpiece was a scorching evisceration of the soul-rotting nature of obscene wealth. And Scott follows in the maestro’s footsteps with this fascinating and enthralling portrait of oil magnate, J. Paul Getty.

When his grandson is kidnapped in Italy, the wealthiest man in the world refuses to pay the $17m ransom, a staggering sum in 1973. This leaves Getty’s estranged and penniless former daughter-in-law to try and negotiate her son’s release.

Michelle Williams is terrific as Gail and deservedly receives top billing.

Adverse headlines were generated when original star Kevin Spacey became embroiled in the Hollywood sexual assault scandal. Even though filming had finished, his part was hurriedly and successfully reshot with the veteran Christopher Plummer replacing him in the role of Getty.

And it’s impossible to imagine Spacey could have been better than Plummer, who delivers a monstrous and intriguingly sympathetic figure.

It’s also important to not to underestimate the strength of Mark Wahlberg’s performance as a former CIA operative, employed by Getty to assist Gail.

Fittingly there is Rolls Royce craftsmanship in all departments, and we’re swept elegantly along by Scott’s accomplished driving of the story.

He confidently sculpts a typically fabulous visual texture as he moves fluidly from the US to Africa and Europe.

There’s a fist in the mouth ear cutting scene to rival the infamous one from Quentin Tarrantino’s Reservoir Dogs. And Scott has the confidence to slow the pace to create tension as the tock clicks down.

Scott, Plummer and Williams have all received prestigious Golden Globe nominations and a run to the Academy Awards is in their sights. Scott may go one better than Welles and win a long coveted and deserved best director Oscar, and that’s something all the money in the world can’t buy.

 

 

STRONGER

Cert 15 119mins Stars 3

There’s a muscular performance at the heart of this competent real life drama based on events following 2013’s terrorist bombing of the Boston marathon.

Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Jeff Bauman, a bystander who lost his legs above the knee and struggles to adjust to life afterwards. 

But for all his earnest agonies, the LA born privately educated 37 year old actor doesn’t convince as the younger working class Bostonian warehouseman.

Mind you,  in a showy role geared to attract awards attention I’m prepared to believe the famously intense thesp would consider removing his legs if it were to improve his Oscar chances.

Tatiana Maslany matches his workrate as Bauman’s girlfriend Erin, who engages in a tug of war for attention with Miranda Richardson’s showy turn as the paraplegic’s mother.

Straightforward and sincere with grim injury detail, it ends on a note of flag waving defiance and a salute to the US lives altered and lost in the long running war on terror.