Period Drama

Brooklyn

Director: John Crowley (2015)

This beguiling tale about a young Irishwoman in New York is far and away the best film released this week.

Saoirse Ronan adds another fine performance to her CV as a thoughtful, amenable soul on a voyage of self-discovery. Her subtle strength is reflected in the quality of the filmmaking.

Based on Colm Toibin’s novel, it features a charming cast working from a smart script, a lovely eye for period detail and gorgeous photography.

Much creative budget-stretching gives it a polish and sweep much better financed films should envy.

Nick Hornby also wrote Reece Witherspoon’s Wild (2015) and has found a niche writing thoughtful, female character centred films.

I wouldn’t want to wish him out of a job, but it’s a poor commentary on the industry these films probably wouldn’t be made with a non-name female writer attached.

Eilis Lacey realises 1950’s Ireland has little to offer her and so suffers an undignified sea crossing in search of a future.

When Eilis steps from the gloomy immigration hall into the bright colour of the big apple, it’s a magical moment similar to Dorothy stepping into the wonderful world of Oz.

As Eilis struggles with homesickness, heartache and the harsh winter, a Christmas dinner for the homeless diaspora is a reminder of the unforgiving nature of the world.

Thankfully the fiddle playing is kept to a minimum.

Jim Broadbent’s kindly Father Flood finds her a job in a department store under the sternly glamorous gaze of Miss Fortini, played with panache by Jessica Pare.

Eilis must also carefully navigate the politics of her boarding house dining table, refereed by Julie Walters’ mother hen of a landlady, Mrs Kehoe.

As well as having every intention of keeping god away from her nylons, Mrs Kehoe warns her female-only clientele of the sinfulness of giddiness.

The many women Eilis meets offer small kindnesses, advice and insight to her own possible futures.

As she slowly builds a life for herself Eilis is torn between sweet suitors on either side of the pond.

Domhnall Gleeson Irish rugby fan is unknowingly pitted against Emory Cohen’s baseball fanatic Italian-American.

But a secret Eilis keeps even from her mother threatens to scupper her happiness.

As the cast disarms the audience with humour, the drama to creeps up with surprising power.

Though Ellis may not quite conquer New York, Ronan’s performance will capture your heart. And no doubt an award nomination or two as well.

★★★★☆

Suffragette

Director: Sarah Gavron (2015)

Political passion and personal punishment power a prodigious performance in this stirring historical drama.

In the dark, violent world of 1912, a young mother risks everything as she battles the government for the right to vote.

Fictitious characters mix with real people and events to create a gripping story filled with emotional truth.

Following her excellent turn in Far From The Madding Crowd (2015), Carey Mulligan gives another mesmerising performance as factory worker and reluctant activist Maud Watts.

Her young son George is ominously diagnosed by Helena Bonham Carter’s chemist as ‘a bit chesty’.

Hardworking and aspirational, Maud is drawn into the bosom of the suffragettes and their world of nighttime rallies, back room meetings and property attacks.

Soon she feels the full force of the law in the form of the intelligence gathering Special Branch and truncheon wielding constables.

With Maud’s behaviour considered to be madness not badness, she’s ostracised, beaten, jailed and endures a hunger strike.

Radicalised by her experiences, she is soon waging a guerrilla war alongside veteran campaigner Emily Davison.

It mostly involves blowing up the UK’s communications infrastructure. i.e. postboxes.

Corrupt politicians collude with the media to keep the violent campaign off the front pages.

In desperation to  be heard, the women seize upon a target so big as to be impossible to ignore.

At times the heartbreaking events resemble the grimmer moments of Les Miserables (2012). With the thankful exception of the awful sing-alongs.

It’s an inspiring tale of kindness, courage and comradeship Which at times tries too hard. We’ve long since been won over by Maud by the time she’s reduced to waiting in the rain.

An intelligent script insists the women are fighting a war and the dialogue includes frequent exhortations for them never to give up.

It celebrates their bravery and solidarity against the state who use covert surveillance and brutality to suppress a popular political uprising.

However it aligns the direct methods and organisational prowess of the suffragettes with historical and contemporary terrorist groups such as the IRA.

This may prove problematical to viewers. It’s certainly the starting point for an interesting debate.

Cinematographer Edu GrauIt captures the drama in palettes of browns and greys, as films of this sort so often are.

Better known as James Bond’s Q, soft spoken Ben Whishaw is counter-intuitively cast as Maud’s working class barrow boy husband Sonny.

His subtle acting suggests a marriage of convenience and as the story progresses, Sonny’s feebleness adds perspective to Maud’s situation.

Geoff Bell stops shy of pantomime as an abusive factory boss and the film is not too sure what to do with Brendan Gleeson’s cop. His concerned reasonableness challenges you to remember he’s one of the guys.

Meryl Streep makes a brief and typically stagey appearance as head girl Emmeline Pankhurst. It veers towards an impersonation of Maggie Smith in TV’s Downton Abbey.

In The Iron Lady (2011) cinema’s grand dame won an Oscar for playing the famously unsisterly first female Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

During her divisive time in office she was not for turning when it came to civil unrest and terrorist campaigns.

Spoken of in hushed voices in her absence, Pankhurst addresses a crowd messianically from a balcony and a signed book is passed around as if a holy relic.

This is the nearest religion comes to being referenced in the film.

There are no priests in the church which offers sanctuary to the dispossessed and the position of the established church seems to be one of benign neutrality.

This despite organised religion having a poor track record in the public arena of women’s rights.

Made In Dagenham (2010) showed car factory workers campaigning for equal pay in the 1970’s. Suffragette is a spiritual prequel and in the 60 odd years between the periods portrayed, it’s sobering to realise how little progress had been made.

As a representative of all the foot soldiers of the suffrage movement, Mulligan’s emotional performance puts us at the heart of their struggles against the established order.

She easily wins my vote for 2016’s Best Actress Oscar.

★★★★☆

MacBeth

Director: Justin Kurzel (2015)

This bold and bleak adaption of Shakespeare‘s Scottish play is violent and visually arresting but curiously unmoving.

A moody, macho and masochistic Michael Fassbender frets for a couple of hours upon the stage.

He drips with menace and blood and there is much sound and fury.

After serving his King by quelling an insurrection, Macbeth encounters three witches who prophesy a royal future.

Encouraged by his wife he murders his way to the throne, and becomes consumed by madness.

A macabre tone is struck from the start with the burial of an infant. Among the battles, murders, ghosts, and witches, the rural feudal society is chillingly and chillily realised.

The relentless rain-lashed realism captures the grim hardships of the era, but there is also beauty is the landscapes, a children’s chorus and the craftsmanship of cloaks and daggers.

Fiona Crombie’s strong production design offers fine detail and heavy weathering, anchoring the actors in the period.

It’s a consistent vision, utilising wild exteriors in what was a gruelling shoot for cast and crew.

Interiors were filmed in the magnificent and contemporaneous Ely Cathedral.

Cinematographer Adam Arkapaw frames some lovely images but fellow Australian, director Kurzel rarely use his camera to fully bring out the drama of the verse.

The pair are stronger on the hoof, creating some terrific moments in battle and in the hunt.

Kurzel’s brother Jed adds to the tone with an unsettling screeching soundtrack.

Three writer’s have acceptably trimmed Shakespeare’s verse. But it’s sadly compromised through frequently flat recital, caught within beards or lost thick fog of a Scots brogue.

There’s also tendency by most of the men to employ a throaty whisper as often as possible, so we have to strain for understanding.

Only Englishman Sean Harris as Macduff and the French actress Marion Cotillard as Lady Macbeth offer engaging readings. Both characters are motivated by grief for lost children.

Elizabeth Debicki has a moment on fire but David Thewlis, Jack Reynor and Paddy Considine seem oddly removed from events around them.

Shakespeare put humour in his tragedies to emphasise his antagonists’ fall and make their doom compelling.

As Fassbender’s Macbeth moves from military machine to murderer to madman, the actor fails to find the humanity.

Devoid of love, humour or a conscience to lose or regain, the tragedy is missing in action.

What remains is a blood-soaked slog through the fog of 10th century war.

★★★☆☆  

Queen and Country

Director: John Boorman (2015)

A young conscript fights emotional battles on the home front in this stately coming-of-age post-war drama.

Based on the experiences of writer/director John Boorman, it’s a sequel to his well-received Hope and Glory (1987).

It’s handsome but unsteady in tone, lurching between army larks, misfiring satire, languid romance and dull family drama.

In 1952 the idyllic life of Boorman’s daydreaming alter ego Bill (Callum Turner) is interrupted by his conscription into the British army.

The script is keen to highlight the absurd rigours and regulations of army life, a closeted world of petty point-scoring, arbitrary discipline, paranoia and stupidity.

There’s a healthy contempt for superior officers, embodied by the brandy drinking and desk bound Major Cross (Richard E. Grant).

They are far more concerned with a missing clock from the mess than adequately preparing the troops to fight in Korea. A campaign of which the film is deeply cynical.

Alongside fellow conscript Percy (Caleb Landry Jones) Bill is quickly promoted to sergeant. Percy clearly has issues and veers alarmingly from charming lad about town to angry, officer-baiting seditionary.

They fall in with Irish skivver Redmond (Pat Shortt) and fall foul of Regimental Sergeant Major Digby (Brían F. O’Byrne) and stiff-backed stickler Bradley (David Thewlis).

We’re told Digby is an horrific bully but apart from one brief wrestling exercise and a lot of bigoted shouting, we’re forced to take the boys’ word for it.

Telling not showing is a mistake in any film and not one we’d expect from as experienced a director as Boorman.

An odour of locker-room homo-eroticism drifts through the barracks in several semi-clad fights and there is frequent questioning of heterosexuality.

It becomes more prevalent when a trooper is charged with ‘seduction of a soldier from the course of his duty’.

However once outside the barracks Percy is chasing a pretty nurse called Sophie (Aimee-Ffion Edwards).

Meanwhile Bill is entranced by an elegant, unobtainable blonde. Without embarrassment he nicknames her Ophelia (Tamsin Egerton) after the tragic figure in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

The return from Canada of Bill’s sister Dawn (Vanessa Kirby) complicates his life, not least due to her racy personal history and seemingly incestuous leanings.

Despite the female performers gamely following the director’s lead, none of their characters convince as people. Each is more of a projection of a teenage boy’s idea of womanhood.

Maybe that’s the point but it’s far from clear. Maybe Boorman finds it difficult to write female characters.

The script is sympathetic to those suffering the effects of war but the issue of post-traumatic stress – which is taken very seriously – sits uneasily with the humorous elements such as the choreography of a typing room.

Bill is not a particularly engaging chap and the exception of Ophelia aside, not much of a participant in his own life. Though events happen to him, he isn’t much affected.

With no-where else to fall, our sympathies land upon Bradley. Thewlis chalks up another excellent performance and not for the first time he’s the best thing in somebody else’s movie.

Sets and wardrobe perform a first rate job of convincing us of the era. Seamus Deasy’s graceful and seductive cinematography captures the period with a palette of greens and browns with a tender regard.

The coronation of Queen Elizabeth II is watched on a new-fangled TV set. It signals a changing of the generational guard and the ushering in a less deferential, media-led age.

But the friction of small class distinctions generates little dramatic heat while the inter-generational conflict passes with barely a ripple of interest.

 ★★☆☆☆

A Royal Night Out

Director: Julian Jarrold (2015)

A pair of incognito princesses roll out the barrel and celebrate VE Day among their unsuspecting subjects in this entertainingly light-hearted fictional romp.

It’s the evening of 8th May 1945 and the UK is having a right royal knees up. Heir to the throne Princess Elizabeth (Sarah Gadon) and younger sister Margaret (Bel Powley) are determined to join in the fun they can see from their palace window.

Their plan is drop in on the festivities in Trafalgar Square and head on to The Curzon Club before an crashing all night party at Chelsea barracks.

Margaret is the more wayward, wilful and ditzy of the two and happy to lead Elizabeth astray. In a switch from real-life, Margaret is presented as the more dowdy when compared to the raging beauty of Elizabeth.

It’s a lovely and lively comic performance by Powley who gives it plenty of royal welly. Gadon is ravishingly bewildered as her big sister.

There’s more than a hint of Cinderella and The Prince and the Pauper and it’s played with the infectious feel-good energy and saucy innocence of the original St Trinians movies.

Among much enthusiastic flag waving, fisticuffs and spiked drinks, there’s a pair of engaging central performances, some choice period dialogue, all manner of alarming accents and Glen Miller on the soundtrack.

Julian Jarrold has form with quality period drama having previously directed Great Expectations (1999) Becoming Jane (2007) Brideshead Revisited (2008). With energy and an eye for detail he convincingly recreates the foggy demob-happy delirium of the sepia-tinged era.

Sipping champagne and slipping their chaperones, the girls head to the teeming Trafalgar Square and adopt the names ‘Lizzie’ and ‘Mags’  – perhaps not travelling as incognito as they imagine.

Soon separated by the throng of celebrants, Lizzie must locate Mags and return her to the palace before midnight and the king realises they are missing.

The stammering King George VI is played by Rupert Everett haunted at every turn by Colin Firth‘s Oscar-winning role as the same character in The King’s Speech (2010). Everett also appeared in the successful if lacklustre St Trinians remakes.

His screen wife Queen Elizabeth the Queen mother is played by Emily Watson.

Unsure of her way around and naturally not carrying any cash, Lizzie falls in with a hunky working class airman called Jack (Jack Reynor).

She coyly persuades him to help her in her mission and he reluctantly agrees – even though her cloistered worldview keeps landing her republican-leaning would-be saviour in trouble.

Among the characters they encounter in the gambling dens and knocking shops of Soho are royalist gangsters, Scottish henchmen and warm-hearted whores. The British officers are weak-chinned, drunk, philandering incompetents – which seems fair enough.

If I ever thought the royals were this much fun in real life I’d almost consider voting for them.

★★★☆☆

A Little Chaos

Director: Alan Rickman (2015)

When love is planted in Versailles, it takes blooming forever to flower in this wilting period drama.

As a pair of lovelorn gardeners work together to build the King an outdoor ballroom, the intrigues of the royal court and professional rivalries threaten their budding romance.

A far more serious impediment to happiness is his adherence to classicism in contrast to her embrace of modernism – but surely love will overcome these seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

It’s Paris in 1682 and King Louis XIV (Alan Rickman) has announced he will build a palace at Versailles. Andre Le Notre (Matthias Schoenaerts) is the gloomy landscape gardener commissioned to realise the King’s grandiose vision.

Despite being the son of France’s most famous gardener, Andre needs assistance to complete an outdoor ballroom before the King arrives for an inspection – so he tenders out the work.

Widowed gardener Sabine De Barra (Kate Winslet) applies but is brusquely dismissed for incorporating chaos in her designs. But after one fleeting glimpse at Sabine’s private garden, Andre’s creative sap rises and he is inspired to offer her a job.

As well as being knowledgeable in horticulture and engineering, Sabine is well up for getting down and filthy. But the weather is against her and before anyone can say ‘Titanic‘, she’s up to he knees in mud and up to her neck in water.

Sabine’s immersed in her work to compensate for a childless life. Andre has lank hair and is trapped in a Byron-esque baggy shirt and an unhappy marriage to his rampant pest of a spouse, Francoise (Helen McCrory).

Tasteful sincerity, a talented cast and handsome costumes get bogged down in mannered and misjudged direction, forcing an unsmiling cast go about their work with grim conviction and making it unnecessarily hard work for us to like or sympathise with the characters.

There’s a carriage-coach crash, some jealousy, a bit of plotting, off-hand affairs and plenty of digging. The orchestra is on over-time, ushering emotions on and off stage.

As French labourers saunter off-site for croissants and coffee, it’s difficult to distinguish between pre-arranged professional sabotage and the natural French proclivity against hard work.

When women gather they compete with tales of child-rearing woe like a female version of Monty Python’s four Yorkshireman sketch.

The script assumes some knowledge of France geography – such as the distance between Paris and Versailles – then abandons it’s use allowing characters pop up at a moments notice with news and plots from afar. Or maybe a-near. Who knows?

Steven Waddington appears as a rough-voiced groundsman called Duras. He offers moral and practical support like a chaste Mellors from Lady Chatterly’s Lover.

McCory is full of anger, jealousy and brittle self-loathing but her character seems to have wandered in from Dangerous Liaisons by mistake. Stanley Tucci prances in on turbo-camp for a couple of scenes bringing much needed humour but little drama.

Schoenaerts performance is extraordinarily dull and Winslet – amazingly – isn’t much better. The fleeting moments of quality are in the rare scenes where she and Rickman appear together.

It is in these stagey moments Rickman the director is on confident ground, allowing Rickman the actor to demonstrate his consummate ability and stagecraft. Though it’s reflects poorly on Rickman that he makes Winslet play straight-man to his sad clown of a King.

Rickman unashamedly crowbars his character into proceedings. The King hears confession, absolves guilt and hands out directives for future behaviour, creating an environment where love can blossom.

It’s similar to the role played by Queen Elizabeth I (Judi Dench) in Shakespeare in Love – though I doubt Rickman will win an Oscar for his work here.

★★☆☆☆

Serena

Director: Susanne Bier (2014)

Love, madness and corruption collide with catastrophic results in this compelling Depression-era drama.

Based on the novel by Ron Rash, it brings together Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper as on-screen lovers for the second time in an exquisite exploration of the pernicious power of passion.

George Pemberton (Cooper) is a logging company owner in North Carolina. In the wake of the Wall St. crash he’s struggling to finance an ambitious business project in Brazil.

Meanwhile as he tries to fend off central government plans for a National Park on his land, the local sheriff McDowell (Toby Jones) is investigating his firm for corruption.

At a society party George is smitten by the beautiful, strong-minded Serena (Lawrence). Following an impetuous romance, he whisks her off to the Smoky Mountains where she wins over a sceptical workforce with her knowledge and attitude.

With his leading man looks decked out in stubble, leather jacket and wide brimmed hat, Cooper is solidly convincing as the panther-hunting entrepreneur. Lawrence has yet to deliver a poor performance and doesn’t disappoint here. There is an easy comparison to be made between the characters of Serena and Lady McBeth – but Cleopatra may be a better fit.

Talented and handsome, the leading couple share a resonant chemistry. They nicely underplay a ripe script which helps to navigate some unsteady plotting littered with symbolism and told at a measured pace.

The Swedish director is fascinated with cultural context, mixing superstition and religion with labour disputes and a keenly observed social hierarchy. It’s a shame the many interesting minor characters are too often pushed into the background.

Electricity, the railroads and mechanisation are changing a landscape filled with bears, eagles, snakes and horses; the impressive attention to period detail and epic landscapes are captured by the rich cinematography of Morten Søborg.

Gradually George’s devotion to his bride begins to cloud his judgement and she exploits every opportunity to encourage his independence away from his business partner Buchanan (David Dencik). An accident sees a hunting guide called Galloway (Rhys Ifans) declare his loyalty to her.

When Serena is unable to provide George with the healthy heir they crave; deceit, jealousy and murder follow.

★★★★☆

Amour Fou

Director: Jessica Hausner (2014)

Slow paced and painterly, this suicide drama is so still and composed it could be lying in state.

Set in Berlin in 1810, bourgeoisie life revolves embroidery, flower arranging, letter writing and music and poetry recitals, but there’s an alarming lack of laughter, fun, anger or any other emotion, though there are some quiet jokes.

Barking mad romantic poet Heinrich von Kleist (Christian Friedel) craves death and proposes a double suicide to married mother Henriette Vogel (Birte Schnöink).

Being a sensible if unadventurous soul she demurs, remaining loyal to her husband Vogel (Stephan Grossmann) a tax collector.

When she collapses at the dinner table, a tumour is discovered. Her family stoically receive the news and a succession of doctors and quacks recommend a series of cures. The least mad include fresh air, bed-rest, blood-letting and camomile tea.

When the highest medical authority Charite Medical in Berlin say it is terminal and she has a short time to live, Henriette reconsiders Heinrich’s offer. Such is the lack of engagement with any of the characters, we care little if the couple carry out their plan or not.

Taking inspiration from the works of Vermeer, cinematographer Martin Gschlacht use of light is terrific, adhering with patient dedication to the geometry of formal composition.

It consists of a series of tableaux where everyone acts from the neck up and every shot is arranged with immaculate formal precision. This serves to reinforce the rigid social etiquette.

With sound editing and mixing successfully evoking a wider world outside the home, it’s a shame Amour Fou has no compelling drama to support its impressive technical achievements.

★★☆☆☆