Laura Linney

Sully

Director: (2016) BBFC cert: 12A

Tom Hanks plays a pilot in a courtroom tailspin in this arresting real life drama. The two time oscar winner is cannily cast as Captain ‘Sully’ Sullenberger who astonishingly landed his passenger jet on New York’s Hudson river.

On January 15th 2009, Sully’s inspired flying saved all 155 souls on board. It’s immediately dubbed the Miracle on the Hudson by a media who can’t get enough of the self effacing former US Navy pilot.

Hank’s innate likability and dependable screen presence acts as a shorthand for everyday decency, honesty and courage. There’s an enjoyable chemistry between Sully and his co-pilot Jeff Skiles. Aaron Eckhart competes in the cockpit to sport the most luxurious moustache.

Following their tremendous piece of aviation skill, the pair are forced to appear on chat shows and are uncomfortable at becoming instant celebrities.

Under Clint Eastwood’s iron directorial grip, the story of heroism is spun into a battle between the individual and a conspiracy of big business and government. The veteran director clearly sides with fly by the seat of your pants intuition against stifling procedure and rules.

The airline’s insurers are unhappy and encourage know-nothing bureaucrats to find a scapegoat. During the investigation into the incident, computer simulations suggest Sully could have flown to a nearby airport to land safely. Facing the loss of their careers, pensions and reputations, the pilots must fight to save themselves.

Airplanes crashing in New York have a recent historical resonance. Rather than shy away from the horror of 9/11, the film embraces it and uses the terrifying imagery of a single crashing plane to express the collective paranoid nightmares of the US.

This is tremendous filmmaking and it’s worth pausing to consider how mass urban destruction was used unthinkingly in Zack Snyder’s Man Of Steel (2013). That film is nearly twice as long but has less than half the brains. Its extended scenes of CGI carnage failed to entertain, never mind pass comment of the nation’s psyche.

It’s at this point Sully resonates with Eastwood’s previous film, American Sniper (2015). The pair are are very much a companion piece for each other. This is a another celebration of the pioneer spirit and can-do blue collar heroism, a tribute to the emergency services, of ordinary Americans guys such as ferrymen and cops doing their jobs with selfless bravery.

Considering we know the outcome of the forced water landing – not a crash – the action is surprisingly tense and is shown from the viewpoints of individuals on board and on shore. The accomplished CGI blends seamlessly with the New York skyline, the plane is a  fragile tin can bobbing on the majestic sweep of the vast Hudson river.

The film flies past in a quick 90 minutes with Eastwood directing with his typical no frills style. But far from flying economy, this is first class storytelling all the way.

★★★★☆

@ChrisHunneysett

 

 

Nocturnal Animals

Director: Tom Ford (2016) BBFC cert: 15

Tom Ford’s career diversion from fashion designer to film director goes from strength to sumptuous strength in this superbly confident psychological thriller.

Ford has tailored a smart and stylish affair of seamless precision, one you must luxuriate in it to appreciate the finesse of the cut and the fit. It provides aesthetic, intellectual and emotional thrills you will struggle to shrug off.

Five times Oscar nominee Amy Adams gives another flawless performance as immaculate gallery owner, Susan. While her husband is away, Susan receives a soon-to-be-published manuscript titled Nocturnal Animals, from her ex, Edward. As Susan reads the book, she is reminded of long hidden terrible behaviour.

Edward is played by Jake Gyllenhaal and though I’m occasionally underwhelmed by his presence in a movie, there’s no questioning the strength of this performance. Gyllenhaal also plays the role of the lead character in his novel, Tony. We see his dark, sad and violent story as a film within the film.

Tony’s family are brutalised while on a road trip through West Texas. He teams up with a local sheriff to hunt down the good old boys responsible. As Detective Bobby Andes, Michael Shannon is hard smoking, slow talking and always amusing.

Colin Firth was Oscar nominated for his turn in Ford’s debut A Single Man (2009) and many of the performances could follow suit. Laura Linney is sublimely sharp as Anne Sutton, Susan’s mother, nearly stealing the film in her only scene. Brits Michael Sheen, Andrea Riseborough and Aaron Taylor-Johnson provide strength in depth.

The score by Abel Korzeniowski is swooningly bleak and there is an extraordinarily bold and considered use of colour. The cool blues and glossy enclosed spaces of the Los Angeles art world are contrasted with the scorching rocky ochre of the vast expanse of Texas. Oscar nominations should surely arrive for production design and cinematography, respectively Shane Valentino and Seamus McGarvey.

An opening images of naked dancers begin a dialogue within the film of the nature of the artistic process. This conversation is based on the themes of exposure, vulnerability, pain and truth. They are central to the plot and are reinforced by the frequent mirroring of images and actors play dual roles. There is a pointed comment regarding critics who possess the power to destroy creativity, at no risk to themselves.

Careless viewers may scratch their heads at the final scene, but this is because Ford respects his audience and demands you pay attention to his beautifully bespoke tale of revenge.

★★★★★

@ChrisHunneysett

Mr Holmes

Director: Bill Condon (2015)

The game is afoot for the last time in this elegiac postscript to the magisterial career of retired detective Sherlock Holmes.

As the Baker Street sleuth, Ian McKellen delivers a beautifully honest performance. It’s full of humour and sadness without ever lurching into sentiment or self-pity.

We see Holmes at two points in his life: first as a semi-invalid retiree who is all too aware of his fast diminishing mental faculties. Secondly as the arrogant Victorian investigator at the height of his fame and intellectual power.

Beginning in 1947, the 93 year old former detective spends his time beekeeping on the Sussex coast

He has returned from a trip to Japan where he was the guest of Matsuda Umezaki (Hiroyuki Sanada) on a mission to secure a herb called Prickly Ash.

Holmes hopes to use it as a remedy to halt the decline of his once brilliant mind, an idea looked upon with scorn by housekeeper Mrs. Munro (Laura Linney).

Together with her 10 year old son Roger (Milo Parker) the three form a surrogate family whose combustible chemistry threatens the uneasy equilibrium of their existence.

We expect and receive great performances from the McKellen and Linney but young Parker is also at times exceptional.

In order to understand his present a frustrated Holmes is trying to remember the details of his last case.

He knows it’s unsatisfactory conclusion lead to his retirement but he can’t fathom why.

Several mysteries run in parallel as through flashback we see the Case of the Grey Glove which occurred 30 years earlier.

Holmes is commissioned by Thomas Kelmot (Patrick Kennedy) to investigate the behaviour of his grief-stricken wife Ann (Hattie Morahan).

With a story involving vials of poison, exotic musical instruments and forged cheques, Holmes is lead to the mysterious music teacher Madame Schirmer, played by a show-stopping Frances de la Tour.

Discussions of the afterlife are filtered through his failing memory, adding to a layering of fictions.

There are frequent references to the gap between the image of Holmes and his reality. He is not the infallible scientist of public and private perception.

He struggles to engage his emotions or accept leaning on his lifelong crutch of logic will not protect him from regret, loneliness, or guilt.

We see Holmes reading Dr Watson’s novelisations of their adventures and in the cinema watching his fictionalised life portrayed by actors. (Nicholas Rowe is credited as ‘Matinee Sherlock’.)

Presenting versions of Holmes draws the sting of familiarity from previous incarnations and makes McKellen’s Holmes all the more real, boosting the emotional power of the gripping final scenes.

Mr Holmes is adapted from Mitch Cullin’s 2005 book ‘A Slight Trick of the Mind‘ with a screenplay by playwright Jeffrey Hatcher.

The dignified score by Carter Burwell strikes a sombre tone from the off is combined with the graceful cinematography by Tobias A. Schliessler.

They create a richly sympathetic and melancholy tone similar to the tone of the excellent The Madness of King George (1994).

From Basil Rathbone to Roger Moore and Robert Downey Jnr, Arthur Conan Doyle‘s enigmatic detective has been portrayed by more than 70 different actors in over 200 films.

He’s also been portrayed on radio, on stage and of course extremely successfully in the slick TV series starring Benedict Cumberbatch.

This intelligent and moving version is produced with admirable care and is always true to the spirit of Conan Doyle‘s brilliant novels.

It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to deduce this will be an award-winning movie.

★★★★☆