Doctor Strange – Film Review

The uniquely named Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) is an all star neurosurgeon worthy of working with House MD. After a horrific car crash involving the vertical part of a cliff edge he loses use of his hands and his career is seemingly over. As he seeks to regain his digital dexterity Strange hears of a unique therapy in Nepal and spends the last of his wealth to travel there. After an initial rebuttal Strange is enrolled on a magical journey as he learns from the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton), Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor), and Wong (Benedict Wong) about the art of sorcery and the multi-dimensional universe. Acupuncture eat your heart out! Naturally there is a big bad threatening the establishment Strange has only just discovered and so he must fight the evil Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen and his cheekbones) and a being of a much more threatening and less tangible nature. Space and time are bent to the sorcerers’ wills as they fight for what each thinks is right.

The huge success of this particular Marvel film is how free of the usual Marvel trappings it is. We are spared the overarching Avengers narrative, there are no CGI behemoths punching other CGI behemoths, and the story is compact enough to fit in one film. The Marvel Cinematic Universe can feel needlessly complicated and bloated so in comparison Doctor Strange is pleasantly lean. While there are nods to the wider franchise, and the obligatory mid-credits sequence, by and large Doctor Strange stands on its own two feet. There is nothing you need to know going in other than that you are going to have to try and dissociate Cumberbatch from the aloof, arrogant genius of Sherlock as he tackles the aloof, arrogant genius of Doctor Strange.

With its plot of multiple universes, time meddling, and magic Doctor Strange handles the fantasy well by simultaneously taking it absolutely seriously and being able to joke about it. The jokes are not as strong as they could be but the film is refreshingly lighthearted in amongst exposition about ancient texts and mirror worlds. That said the contractual Stan Lee cameo comes in the midst of an action set piece and his appearance completely took me out of the scene. Interrupting action for a quip by a random bystander isn’t always a wise move.

Another niggle with the film is its limited female roles. Tilda Swinton’s part as the Ancient One puts her in a prominent role and easily adds an extra star to any review of the film. That she was cast in as a character originally destined for a man almost makes up for the whitewashing her casting brings. Swinton is the ultimate chameleon and manages to deliver wild exposition with calm certainty that allows you to almost believe it. Sadly Rachel McAdams as nurse and occasional love interest takes up the only other female position and is given little to do other than pine after Strange and clean his wounds when he deigns to drop through a portal and back into her life.

Where Strange really triumphs is in the visuals afforded by a plot filled with magicians who can bend space and time. The film takes Inception as a leaping off point and continues to meld the world beyond what we have seen before. Strange is without a doubt smarter than your average superhero adventure as it chooses a battle of logic for its final showdown and a totally unique fight scene in Hong Kong in which time flies every which way. Doctor Strange is a feast for the eyes and offers plenty of visual firsts.

With its cast Strange also excels. Cumberbatch may be the main draw but his Strange is relatively anonymous; it is the characters surrounding him that really stand out. Among the goodies we have the aforementioned Swinton who is ably flanked by indie British comedy legend Benedict Wong and Chiwetel Ejiofor, and actor with an inbuilt reserve of gravitas. Everybody’s favourite Scandinavian Mads Mikkelsen provides the slight accent needed to be the bad guy as he no doubt will in Rogue One later in the year. Mikkelsen is a class act able to bring depth to the typical role of bad guy out to destroy the world. With McAdams rounding out the cast in the smallest role Doctor Strange really does have the most overqualified cast.

Doctor Strange  is not going to be anybody’s favourite film, nor is it going to trouble any awards. What is is it a refreshingly different superhero film in a franchise where the films have started to blur. An enjoyable flight of fancy all the more enjoyable for its lack of ties to the wider Marvel universe. Sadly we know that will change before too long.

Doctor Strange is the best Marvel film for a long time as it allows us to forget what we have come to expect and shows us something new.

Free Fire – LFF Review

It is 1978 and in a Boston warehouse four members of the IRA are meeting a flamboyant South African arms dealer to buy cases full of automatic weapons. Americans there to facilitate the deal and keep the two parties under control fail at their jobs when a previous fight between minor players in each team flares up and the warehouse becomes the setting for a full on shoot out. As the cast scramble on the dusty and dirty ground bullets fly around striking concrete, ricocheting off metal, and thudding into flesh. For the next ninety minutes Free Fire is relentless fun.

Writer/director Ben Wheatley, again teaming up with writer Amy Jump, has made a film wildly different from his existing excellent oeuvre and yet distinctively his own. There have been comparisons made between Free Fire and Tarantino but I would argue that Wheatley and Jump’s film is a purer film than the likes of Reservoir Dogs. A Tarantino film feels as though it is trying to impress you while Wheatley’s are honest cinematic expressions. The violence in Free Fire is brutally authentic; each bullet wound suitably incapacitating its recipient and nobody leaving the warehouse either unscathed or with impeccable attire. Jump and Wheatley’s dialogue is similarly authentic, if more hilarious that your average trade negotiation, but the laughs come from incongruity and character beats rather than clever pop culture references.

The warehouse in question is filled with an eclectic bunch of actors clearly chosen for their skill and suitability rather than their box office appeal. From the sole female actor in the form of Oscar darling Brie Larson we have the mainstream talents of Cillian Murphy and Armie Hammer through Sharlto Copley to the less known but equally talent likes of Noah Taylor and Michael Smiley. The entire cast gives it their all; nobody giving into vanity or shying away from an unlikeable character. As they sweat and bleed the characters all end up filthy and caked in a cocktail of dirt and bodily fluids and nobody is allowed the opportunity to play the noble hero. It is also a true ensemble cast as there is no lead role or hero to root for; we have a rag tag bunch of criminals all out to screw over one another.

Wheatley directs a film of nearly endless action with aplomb despite it being a departure from his previous work. You always know where each character each and who is aligned with who; at least as much as Wheatley wants you to. The sound design too deserves praise as the gunshots are given the deafening burst of sound they deserve hammering home the film’s dedication to authenticity. A gun fight is never going to be a pretty sight and not everyone will walk away unharmed or at all. The audience feels every shot fired and, while some shots miss, when a bullet finds a human home you can really feel it.

Free Fire is a simple and precise film; it does not exist to deliver a message or make a political statement but is here to entertain and delight, something it does with ease. Free Fire is 90 minutes of pure joy and I cannot wait to watch it again in March when it hits cinemas.

Arrival – LFF Review

Aliens have landed! But in emotional indie style rather than in exploding world domination fashion. Think Monsters rather than Independance Day and then forget I mentioned Monsters as Arrival is completely different. Where was I? Aliens have landed! And it is up to linguist Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams) to figure out how to communicate with them, with physicist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner) at her side. Hurrying her along is the US army who desperately want to know if the aliens come in peace or war and want the answers before anyone else. Twelve alien crafts have arrived and Louise is tasked with communicating with the one ship hovering just above US soil. I can’t wait for the spin-off film around the ship that landed in Devon…

As Louise starts to learn the aliens’ unique form of communication she feels the pressure from military representative Colonel Weber (Forest Whitaker) as the army loses trust in her, the alien visitors, and the rest of the world. Interspersed with beautifully shot visits with the aliens and complicated exposition about sentence structures are flashbacks to Louise’s daughter. The flashbacks did not sit well with me initially; I was enjoying a sciency scene of a linguistic nature then suddenly we’re back with a little girl talking about something tangentally related. I thought the filmmakers were awkwardly crowbarring in some depth to the character but could not have been more wrong.

The film’s use of flashbacks is so ingenious that I cannot really talk about them without ruining the film’s biggest treats. Let’s just say that the flashbacks come good in the end and I probably won’t appreciate them fully until I watch Arrival for a second time. Arrival is very deceptive that way. On first watch the film is a solid and beautifully shot science fiction that falls under the banner of good rather than great but in the days since I saw it my mind has been percolating and reflecting on what I saw. Maybe Arrival is great after all?

I definitely need to see it for a second time.

Director Denis Villeneuve has tackled a variety of genres from the surrealist Enemy, thrilling Prisoners, and recently hit the mainstream with Sicario. With Arrival he maintains a beautiful aesthetic alongside a structure that cleverly hides from the viewer what is happening even as they watch it happen. This is science fiction that doesn’t treat weaponry and creature effects as the be all and end all but prioritises the human element and the all important fictional science; the big idea. Science fiction should be about ideas; about a big “what if” and should explore that idea to its natural conclusion. Arrival does this wonderfully.

I did not immediately love Arrival on first viewing. With time and reflection it has really grown on me and a second watch is definitely needed.

And then surely soon:

Sully – LFF Review

On the 15th of January 2009 Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger was flying an Airbus out of New York’s LaGuardia airport. Following a massive bird strike Sully lost both engines and was forced to make an emergency landing in the Hudson River for fear of crashing into New York city. The whole event took less than four minutes and Sully is widely regarded as a modern day hero. Seven years later Clint Eastwood has stretched and padded those four minutes to make them into feature film and thrown in a bad guy for good measure.

In Sully we get Hollywood’s favourite everyman Tom Hanks stepping into the lead role and bringing with him his reliable air of humble gravitas. Sully doesn’t see himself as a hero but the film forces him to defend his status as one as it shows the pivotal four minutes intercut with an investigation into whether or not Sully actually had to land in the Hudson; the alternative theory being that he could have safely made a return trip back to the airport. The bulk of the film is Sully wringing his hands about this disagreement and the wildly exaggerated depiction of the aggressive investigation into the crash landing. It seems than in making Sully a hero Eastwood decided he needed to make someone the villain. Clearly Eastwood is a fan of Unbreakable.

Further padding out the film are flashbacks showing Sully’s past flying planes and scenes of his wife fretting at home. Feel sorry for Laura Linney who is reduced to looking concerned while talking into the phone and peering out of the window at photographers. Hanks’ Sully seems almost cold towards his wife so any emotional weight intended to be brought by their relationship is non existent. The flashbacks also add nothing to the film beyond showing us that Sully has always enjoyed flying and that flying isn’t always easy. Nothing revelatory there. These are mere distractions from the flight investigation which is itself a distraction from the crash which we get to see numerous times over from moderately different viewpoints.

It doesn’t feel nice to say that the story of Sully is too bland to make a decent film. There is no doubt that the real Sully did something brave and heroic but this very lack of doubt is why there is no drama in the rest of the film. Outside of the thrilling minutes of the crash the film is nothing but filler. Tom Hanks does his best but Sully, a wonderful man I’m sure, isn’t particularly interesting to spend time with. The resultant film is a completely non-cynical patriotic celebration of Sully and is just missing him standing in front of a slowly waving American flag to complete the canonisation.

Sully’s actions deserve celebrating but they do not deserve this lightweight drama. Never has a film based on true events suffered so much from a lack of material.

Christine – LFF Review

The life and death of Christine Chubbuck has become a modern myth; the story of the newsreader who shot herself live on air at the age of just 29. Sadly this particular myth is not fiction and has now been brought to the big screen by director Antonio Campos with Rebecca Hall in a career best performance as the titular Christine.

Refreshingly Christine does not linger on the act itself but explores the character of Christine and what might have led her to take such a drastic action on live television. Christine is living with her mother (J. Smith-Cameron), lusting after her coworker and lead anchor (Michael C. Hall), and struggling to get taken seriously by her boss (Tracy Letts). None of Christine’s problems are insurmountable but the film subtly shows how numerous issues can culminate in a drastic act. Without obliquely explaining why she took her life the film simply shows us the circumstances of her existence and leaves us to make our own conclusions.

Despite the morbid subject matter Christine is not a bleak film. While it might have been easier to make a dour drama about a woman on the brink of depression, Campos has decided instead to celebrate the life of Christine Chubbuck. We get to see what drives her and are shown the passion she had for the local news. Christine took herself and her job seriously and thankfully the film mirrors this and does not turn her legacy into a freakshow. The delicate way the film balances humour and human insight is admirable. By the end of the film Chubbuck is no longer an enigma but a relatable person who just went one fatal step too far. Christine may be about a tragedy but the film itself is not tragic.

Responsible for portraying this complex character is Rebecca Hall; an actor not placed in the foreground often enough. Hall gives Chubbuck a heart and provides the soul behind the eyes of a reserved and seemingly uptight persona. The performance she delivers here should be seen as as a real achievement that will hopefully make her a firmer fixture in the cinematic landscape. Hall has come a long way since her part in Starter for 10 a decade ago.

Roughly 20 minutes too long Christine is otherwise flawless. What we have here is not just a tribute to a woman who died far too young but a showcase for an underrated British talent.

As enjoyable a film about suicide as there is likely to be.

The Autopsy of Jane Doe – LFF Review

After a brutal mass murder in suburban America police uncover a corpse half-buried in a basement. Unlike other bodies littered throughout the house this corpse has no identification and no obvious signs of trauma. Baffled, and with half a dozen murders to solve, they take the mystery corpse to Tommy (Brian Cox [not that one]) and his son Austin (Emile Hirsch) who work as coroners in a basement beneath their funeral home. Tommy and Austin are tasked with finding a cause of death that night so set to work immediately. As they dig deeper (sorry) the more they reveal the more the mystery thickens. With a wry dark humour The Autopsy of Jane Doe gradually reveals itself to be the most terrifying film I have seen all year.

The beauty of The Autopsy of Jane Doe is that it is a film that evolves. Despite a consistently sinister tone to the score the beginning of the film is disarmingly chipper. We spend time with the father and son team, enjoy their interactions with one another and allow the combined acting power of Cox and Hirsch to create a convincing familial relationship that disarms and distracts from impending events. The comfort of the film’s beginning is undercut by the impressive prosthetics as the pair dissect a badly burned corpse. Little did I know that worse was to come.

From these humble beginnings the film really does evolve. In imperceptible increments director André Øvredal nudges the film from dark comedy into full-on horror with real scares, endless tension, and a pervading feeling of claustrophobia. It has been a long time since a single film has had me squinting my eyes as I brace for the scare I know is coming, jumping out of my seat in terror, and chuckling to myself for how petrified I am. With effects as simple as the sound of a bell or a shadow where it shouldn’t be, The Autopsy of Jane Doe had me on edge throughout. For all the blood and gore in the tamer moments the film nicely holds back when it really wants to give you a chill. The suggestion of something sinister is frequently more nerve shredding than the sight of it ever is and Øvredal knows when to hold back and when to fill your eyes with horror.

Having such a strong pair of actors in Brian Cox and Emile Hirsch no doubt helps to elevate the film. It forces you to take the film seriously and they really help to sell the more outlandish moments. I don’t know what else to say without spoiling the film’s many delights/surprises/horrors but just know that it is an efficient, enjoyable, and devilishly humourous horror that rarely puts a step wrong.

I laughed, I screamed, I loved it.

La La Land – LFF Review

Writer and director Damien Chazelle must really love jazz. His second feature Whiplash had jazz by the trumpet-load and his latest is a musical romance about a jazz musician and an aspiring actress. A musical in this day and age? What will they think of next?

The film opens on a big sweeping musical number. The camera floats around rows of cars in a traffic jam as their occupants burst out and join one another in song. There are bright colours, tightly choreographed dance moves, and even a band hidden in the back of a lorry. This is one big love song to old school musicals and a statement of intent for what is to follow. The opening number misleads in some ways as it raises expectations for a traditional musical plot that La La Land isn’t happy to settle for.

From that opening we meet our two protagonists: Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) is that very same jazz musician; a man so in love with the genre he dreams of opening his own jazz joint one day. His love interest is Mia (Emma Stone), a desperately auditioning actress and part time barista who sleeps at night under a giant portrait of Katharine Hepburn. They both have big dreams that nobody else believes in and from the moment they meet the only people who can deny their chemistry is themselves. What follows is an incredibly charming romance replete with songs and dance numbers. Neither Stone nor Gosling are singers but work with what they have and sing gently rather than belting out showstoppers. Their dance moves are impeccable and my mind kept wandering back to memories of Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon Levitt dancing in a bank. The role of the well-rounded movie star is alive and well with this pairing.

Like all romance it isn’t all song and dance. As their relationship progresses Mia and Sebastian find themselves compromising on their dreams in order to be with each other. As the fairy tale starts to fade so do the songs and La La Land evolves from being a mere musical into something deeper. It it here that the film takes a risk as the razzmatazz is replaced with mundanity and doubt. For a period we are not in the colourful wonderland that opening song promised us but somewhere a lot less fun to be. I started to doubt the film at this point and thought it had gone off course; a valid try but not a triumph.

But then… Wow! That final section! The film pulls the rug from under you and throws all your emotions at you at once. In his last masterstroke Chazelle brings the whole film together with a flourish. What seemed to be a mistake became a necessity and La La Land, while not the film I thought it was, cemented itself as a modern musical classic. I’m still humming along now as I type.

For someone brought up on The Sound of Music and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers this was just what I needed.

The Handmaiden – LFF Review

Park Chan-wook is back! End of review.

For his next trick the South Korean cinematic force of nature is tackling source material closer to these British shores. The acclaimed director of the Vengeance trilogy, and more recently Thirst and Stoker, has adapted Sarah Waters’ Fingersmith for the big screen and in doing so moved the narrative from Victorian England to 1930s Korea under Japanese colonial rule. A con man (Ha Jung-woo) recruits a young pickpocket (Kim Tae-ri) to work as the handmaiden to a young heiress (Kim Min-hee) in the hopes of convincing her to marry the con artist rather than her own uncle (Cho Jin-woong) to whom she is betrothed. Once wed the heiress will be confined to an insane asylum and the two criminal elements will split the spoils. That’s the plan at least…

As anyone familiar with Fingersmith will know there is more than one twist in this tale and Chan-wook stays true to the twisting nature of the original if not the entire plot. Where the two diverge is yours to discover. With his adaptation Chan-wook has created a dark fable of lust, betrayal, and a dark humour that flows beneath everything else. Whether creating a scene of extreme torture or sapphic indulgence to rival Blue is the Warmest Colour, Chan-wook never loses a charming sense of fun and as such the sex and violence never feels exploitative. As to whether the erotic scenes suffer from the male gaze is something for someone with different eyes to mine to judge.

That said the film is undeniably on the side of the female characters as it takes its point of view of events from the heiress and pickpocket, while all the male characters are varying degrees of vile and misogynistic. Twisty plot aside The Handmaiden is about two women finding solace in one another as they struggle to fight the oppression of the men in their lives; men who value their penises above all else. I don’t know if I would go so far as to call The Handmaiden a feminist film but it villianises men as much as it objectifies the women. Two wrongs make a right. Right guys? Excuse me while I wring my hands for loving this film.

Kim Min-hee, last seen in Hong Sang-soo’s Right Now, Wrong Then, brings complex layers to an elegant woman with a myriad of secrets bubbling underneath, and dares us to judge a character based on first impressions alone. As for Kim Tae-ri; what a debut! Having never done a feature before she tackles a joint lead role which is challenging not just emotionally but physically. “Brave” performance tropes aside the role of the pickpocket/handmaiden requires physical comedy chops alongside the dramatic demands. The whole film rests on these two woman and they are what makes the film work so well.

Overall Chan-wook has made a gorgeous film that is a real treat to watch. Everything from the cast, to the production design, to the subtitles in two colours to help you discern what language is being spoken, everything has been meticulously put together. Some might say that the film is too long at almost two and a half hours but when you’re loving a film this much why would you want it to end?

Beautiful, funny, sexy, and dark. Perfect.

A United Kingdom – LFF Review

In a beige-tinted past familiar to viewers of the classic British period drama, Prince Seretse Khama of Botswana (David Oyelowo) falls in love with white Londoner Ruth Williams (Rosamund Pike) causing unrest in England, Botswana and everywhere in-between. Amma Asante follows up Belle with another period drama about love, racism, and the power of one to conquer the other. Sadly this film is not as successful as her previous.

David Oyelowo gives a convincing performance as the king-in-waiting torn between the woman he loves and the country he was born to rule. It is easy to see what drew him to the role as the film provides numerous grandstanding speeches as the music swells and the camera pulls into his face. Oyelowo carefully balances the monologues and the more tender moments to create a character I could sympathise with despite his alien predicament.

On the other side of the romantic pairing is Rosamund Pike playing the overlooked sister of the overlooked sister from Downton Abbey (Laura Carmichael) and the daughter of Nicholas Lyndhurst’s character from Goodnight Sweetheart. I kid you not. Pike has a character I find harder to like; wearing an unwavering expression of worry and an air of white privilege. Knowing the strength that Pike can bring to a role it was hard to watch her play a more simpering part, though she does rally by the end.

Sadly when Pike and Oyelowo were together on-screen I felt no love between them. Their initial romance in London is rushed, and jarringly edited, so reason they are willing to cause so much political unrest never comes across. In fact the whole London segment at the start of the film, despite featuring my beloved Greenwich, is televisual and unconvincing. It is only on reaching Botswana that the film finally gets its cinematic legs. Some moments near the start of the film teeter close to parody as emotional proclamations are made in landmark locations between two characters we barely know, and who hardly know each other, and with two great actors performing below par. I breathed a sigh of relief when the film escaped the confines of London to the vistas of Botswana. Finally the camera could move.

For whatever the reason the film falters at the start and then struggles to catch up for the rest of its running time. The true story at its core might be worth telling but without a well-developed romance to justify it there’s a limit to how engaged an audience can get.

I was expecting a love story but the result was a dispassionate film with some decent performances but no real spark.