Matthias Schoenaerts

Disorder

Director: Alice Winocour (2016)

Frequently cast for his solid, dependable and brooding demeanour, Matthias Schoenaerts is an impressive piece of timber.

He plays Vincent, a short tempered self medicating soldier on psychiatric leave, moonlighting as security for the spouse of wealthy Lebanese executive.

Diane Kruger looks the part of trophy wife Jessie but is no more successful at breathing life into her character.

Her husband is abroad on business and following some vague political shenanigans, Vincent, Jessie and her young son are besieged in a deserted mansion.

An impressive soundtrack strives to generate paranoia and tension but a lack of chemistry, humour, romance or anything else fails to make us care what happens when the violence belatedly begins.

★★☆☆☆

A Bigger Splash

Director: Luca Guadagnino (2016)

Dive into the shallow end of the celebrity gene pool in this sun kissed erotic thriller.

Intelligently written and beautifully photographed, it features the normally ultra serious Ralph Fiennes on liberated form as a hyper active hedonist music producer called Harry.

He arrives unexpectedly at the Italian villa of his ex love Marianne, a recuperating rock star.

Tilda Swinton gives a rasping performance as the singer protecting her voice, a symbol of the film’s grand themes of the inability to communicate with honesty and freedom.

Matthias Schoenaerts is in typically morose mode as her new partner Paul, their shared idyll threatened by Harry and his lithe daughter Penelope, played by Fifty Shades star Dakota Johnson.

It’s almost an anthropological examination of human behaviour, a shame the subjects aren’t more deserving of our study.

At first entertaining, the preening narcissism of the characters is wearying during the slow build up to an act of violence. It couldn’t have happened to a more deserving person.

★★★☆☆

 

 

 

Far From The Madding Crowd

Director: Thomas Vinterberg (2015)

Passion, obsession and betrayal burst from every frame of this compelling, fresh and faithful adaption of Thomas Hardy‘s classic Victorian novel.

His rustic romance of a headstrong heiress and her three wildly different suitors is powered by a first-rate cast on their best form. Carey Mulligan is captivating as Bathsheba Everdene, famously played by Julie Christie in the 1967 version.

The orchestral score swells over the green and pleasant land of a production rich in period detail. The handsome locations are shot on film  – not digitally – in the county of Dorset (Wessex) where the book was set. This beds the story deep in historical and local context.

In an economical piece of character sketching, we first meet the beautiful, intelligent and impulsive Bathsheba (Carey Mulligan) riding freely on horseback. She is seen by the good shephard Gabriel Oak (Matthias Schoenaerts) who is diligently watching his flock. She is sporting a sleek, red riding-jacket, he is dressed in practical working clothes.

Valuing her independence above all else, Bathsheba is saved from an uncertain future when she inherits her uncle’s farm and determines to restore it to it’s once prosperous profitability.

Bathsheba is a political beast who doles out praise and punishments to her workers in public, she not only helps on the farm but is careful to be seen to be helping out on the farm.

She’s aided and abetted by her servant Liddy (Jessica Barden) who’s a useful source of village gossip and accompanies Bathsheba in making merry mischief.

As circumstances turn darker so Liddy slips from the frame. This is a shame as they share a sweet and believable friendship and it offers Bathsheba an extra dimension, preventing her from being defined by her relationship with men.

Bathsheba recognises men are attracted to her but sees it as a trap with no value – until she struggles in the man’s world of business. At the local market she’s reduced using her charm to encourage the local merchants to at least try her merchandise.

Farming life is a wild meadow of activity. As well as harvests, sheep dips and recruitment fairs, there’s bare-knuckle boxing, swordplay, gambling, storms, fires, madness and the tragic death of an infant.

The plot revolves around the ill-considered sending of a valentines card. When she is kissed for the first time Bathsheba is shocked by the strength of her own reaction. It derails her social sure-footedness and leads to choices which shreds her independence and happiness.

Bathsheba receives three propose; from the honest shepherd Gabriel, swaggering soldier Sergeant Troy (Tom Sturridge) and the emotionally fragile landowner William Boldwood (Michael Sheen). She sings a duet with one, rides tandem with another and marries a third.

Though the script sensibly streamlines the novel, it remains emotionally articulate and frequently funny. The focus is so tight on Bathsheba, outside of her suitors and Liddy, there’s barely another character who has a speaking role of note.

This is the weakness of the film as we’d like to spend longer here, perhaps wander around the countryside and meet a few more of the interesting looking characters who populate the village.

As the tone grows darker and the story more violent, the assured pacing of Danish director Vinterberg delivers dramatic action which is always underpinned by strong character motivation.

At quieter moments he is able to capture the nuance of social status, such as when characters wordlessly shift seats around a dinner table to accommodate an unexpected, superior guest.

Vinterberg is assisted by the vivid cinematography of Charlotte Bruus Christensen and the briskly seductive editing of Claire Simpson.

Although unquestionably a fine and suitably physical actor with the requisite intelligence and stillness of purpose, it’s curious to cast the Belgian Matthias Schoenaerts in a role who embodies what Hardy saw as the great virtues of the English.

Michael Sheen demonstrates his tremendous ability to suggest torrents of inner turmoil with a bare twitch of the mouth. As Boldwood struggles for the correct words, his quiet pleading is magnificently crafted from tight smiles and difficult pauses.

It has echoes of Prince Charles questioning the meaning of love when announcing his engagement to the considerable younger Diana Spencer.

The remarkable Carey Mulligan gives a rich and nuanced performance of acute emotional resonance. Her doe eyes convey Bathsheba’s vulnerability, strength and desire as well as her growing self-awareness and changing values.

Mulligan may not win next year’s best actress Oscar or even make the final cut, but she’s the early high-score on the leader board.

It’s easy to fathom why the men fall for Bathsheba, it’s more of a wonder why more men don’t.

★★★★☆

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.

★★☆☆☆

Suite Francaise

Director: Saul Dibb (2015)

This World War II drama about star-crossed music lovers is handsomely orchestrated but suffers tone deaf storytelling,

When a married French woman falls for a German officer, she has to decide between the love of her life and the love of her country.

There’s some decent acting and a lovely period feel but it’s ruined by the unconvincing romance, unsympathetic characters, a pointless voice over and simplistic dialogue.

It is based on the novel written in secret during the war by Irène Némirovsky. Though she perished in Auschwitz the manuscript was recovered by her daughter and eventually published in 2004.

Filmed on location in Marville, the picturesque town is complemented by the richly authentic production design of Michael Carlin and captured by the graceful cinematography of Eduard Grau. Editor Chris Dickens brings welcome injections of energy.

Lucille (Michelle Williams) is an insipid soul who’s peeved at her sour-faced mother-in-law Madame Angellier (Kristin Scott Thomas) for locking shut her precious piano.

With Lucille’s husband Gaston missing in action, the women share a large house and occupy themselves collecting rent from tenant farmers.

Their privileged if unhappy rural existence is transformed when the German Wehrmacht roll into town.

They’re mostly a benign presence, lacking the SS Nazi zeal for shootings, beatings, floggings or rapes.

When not standing around the square flirting, the squaddies consign themselves to skinny dipping and getting drunk in a nearby chateau.

Meanwhile the locals are busy posting anonymous hate-mail about each other to the Germans in order to curry favour. The officer charged with investigating their contents is good Lieutenant Bruno von Falk (Matthias Schoenaerts).

Billeted with Lucille and Madame Angellier, not only is he a strapping young man but he plays piano beautifully. He even composes his own music. Swoon.

Bad Lieutenant Bonnet (Tom Schilling) fancies Lucille’s friend Madeleine (Ruth Wilson) and insults her husband Benoit (Sam Riley).

Bonnet quotes Nietzsche to underscore how nasty he is. It’s amazing he’s not goose-stepping to Wagner while he does it.

As soon as we see impoverished farmer’s daughter Celine (Margot Robbie) sporting silk stockings, we know how her storyline will unfold. Even before the German’s invade.

The rest of the French give cheese-eating surrender monkeys a bad name. They’re solicitous, duplicitous, hypocritical liars and collaborators; seeing the war as an opportunity to betray, cheat and exploit one another.

I was reminded of Walter Sobchak (John Goodman) in The Big Lebowski when he remarks: ‘say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it’s an ethos.’ The French portrayed here have barely a scruple between them.

Handing over an arsenal of weapons without a murmur, resistance amounts to throwing uniforms up a tree. It’s a wonder the Germans need to deploy quite so many troops.

As soon as Bruno unlocks the piano and tinkles the ivories, Lucille is all a quiver with barely concealed passion.

But other than being the nearest port in a storm it’s a wonder what he sees in her. She’s prettily vacant and is miffed by having calloused hands when forced to carry her own shopping. Doesn’t she know there’s a war on?

By the time Lucille and Bruno come to acknowledge their passion, half the town’s women have been at it with the invaders – so it doesn’t seem much of a transgression.

Plus Lucille absolves herself of guilt when an anonymous letter accuses her husband of infidelity; an accusation she’s astonishingly blase about accepting.

When they end up hiding in the hydrangeas from Madame Angellier, its too much effort not to snigger.

As townsfolk seek to exploit her blossoming relationship with the Lieutenant, half of them congratulate her for bravery, the other half condemn her as a collaborator.

Well one person does. We’re simply told by the persistent and annoying voice over what everyone thinks.

When Benoit is betrayed and goes on the run, Lucille has to decide where her loyalties lie.

Eventually the Germans start shooting but they’re so ineffectual it’s amazing they managed to blunder into Paris at all. Executing a door-to-door search they scare some nuns and frighten a few chickens.

While this is going on Bruno finds time to apologise to Lucille for breaking off their date. It’s Bridget Jones: The War Years – but without the laughs.

★★☆☆☆