Made in Dagenham – Review

December 3, 2010 Leave a comment

Made in Dagenham (2010) 

Directed by Nigel Cole. Starring Sally Hawkins, Bob Hoskins, Andrea Riseborough, Rosamund Pike

I’ve finally managed to catch up with this film after hearing only good reviews from esteemed journalists and friends. So let’s say my expectation were fairly high (which is always pretty dangerous). On the whole I was a bit disappointed by how average it all was.

To be fair, the story itself is the best thing: how a group of female workers at  the Ford Dagenham car plant decided to go on strike protesting against sexual discrimination and asking for equal pay. It’s not just interesting and quite gripping but it’s also unbelievably true… Even more unbelievable to think that all this was just 40 years ago. Unfortunately, the story itself, as you can see, can be told in about a sentence or two. So after a while the film actually drags a bit and plays out pretty much as expected, by numbers.

It is a typical British film in a way: its pace, its gritty locations, its gray colours, even weather itself is very British. Nothing wrong with that, of course, expect this is all really superficial. The direction is pretty nonexistent and misses all the right moments. So much so that the supposedly funny scenes are without laughter and the moments where you should feel something (maybe even cry) are so cold and contrived that you’ll end up feeling absolutely nothing.

The script pretty basic and actually quite weak in places. There are scenes in which characters reveal their true motives to each other, in the lamest and laziest way, with dialogue that  rings so annoyingly  untrue, even though it’s all supposed to be a real story: for example the scene where Bob Hoskins tells, out of the blue, that the reason why he wants to help out is because his difficult childhood, is really contrived! And then later on in the film, there’s a very similar moment in which Rosamund Pike (who at least is good with the little she’s been given) tells Sally Hawkins how she feels. My God, do people really talk like that?

It’s funny how they managed to make a true story seem to un-real!

Even Miranda Richardson‘s depiction as  the Secretary of State is so over the top that you almost wonder whether she’s even realized she’s not on a Harry Potter set anymore.

Almost every single character in this film is a two-dimensional caricature, purely functional to the story: they can all be described with one adjective each. Most of the men act as the baddies, as if they were performing to 5 years old children, in the most ludicrous way. Was that really the only way to make the women appear stronger in the film?

The only one who attempts to do something a little bit more interesting is Richard Schiff, but unfortunately there isn’t enough of him to make him an interesting character anyway.

Once again, the Bob Hoskins‘s character (A union shop steward) is a one-dimensional one too. The moment where he quotes Carl Marx, is just one of the several contrived moments in the script, aiming for an easy punch-line, but actually contributing to make it even more un-real . Are we really supposed to believe that a character like him, really knows Carl Marx by heart?

Not to mention all the silly subplot which, on paper should really make the characters more real, but in practice end up being “so what?” moments. For example, what’s all the business with that woman with the sick husband (and the suicide too!!)? How is that meant to fit into the story? Are we meant to feel something for her? Because if that’s the case, I didn’t really feel anything about it.

And what about all the stuff with the bullied son at the beginning? Why is that subplot even there at all?

But the most awkward element of them all is Sally Hawkins‘s performance as Rita O’Grady. She’s supposed to be the strong woman who says “enough is enough” (in fact you can even see the real person in some real footage used during the end credits) and yet for most first half of the film she’s constantly acting as an incredibly shy  woman. Her mannerism is just wrong for the type of person she’s supposed to be. How she lowers her eyes every time she needs to talk so someone, or her stuttering and feeble tone of voice whilst she should actually be the strong one. wasn’t Rita O’Grady the woman who managed to rally all the others and convince them to join her in a strike for the right of equal pay. Well, in this film I get no sense at all that she could be a leader…

It’s a real pity, because a story like that really deserved something a lot better than this film.

6/10

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Blue Valentine – Review

November 24, 2010 6 Comments

BLUE VALENTINE 8/10

Directed by Derek Cianfrance. Starring Ryan Gosling, Michelle Williams, Mike Vogel.

This film is possibly one of the most realistic depiction of the “falling in and out of love” story I’ve seen in a very long time (possibly ever). It’s certainly not an easy watch: its raw and honest quality makes it almost palpable and you truly believe these two characters have been living as a couple for years, had a child together and are now going through their toughest time yet.

The film follows two timelines and inter-cuts them to perfection: The present day, in which things are not going to well and the past (you’re never quite sure how long it’s been between the two times, but the make up on the actors and the age of the child, makes you deduct that it must be at least 5 or 6 years).The audience is left putting the pieces together and wondering “how did they get there?”. And yet the film doesn’t really answer many questions, mainly because sometimes there isn’t a straight answer.

Derek Cianfrance films this story as a documentary (it’s interesting to notice that’s what his background has been so far). The camera seems to capture little looks, gestures, lines of dialogue almost by mistake, as if it happened to be there by mistake. Crucial lines are sometimes delivered as the leads turn their back to camera and sometimes even off-screen. There are a couple of intimate moments in the film too, and why they too are raw as they can be, they’re also never distasteful or gratuitous. I was shocked to learn how this film got a NC17 rating in America, treating it as if this was some sort of pornographic flick (which it really is not!), or as if it was worse than any of those explicitly graphically violent movies like Machete for example, which is out at the same time.

I mean… really!? You barely see a couple of breasts from a few seconds and that’s about it.  I seem to remember much stronger images in Basic Instict years and years ago…

(SPOILER ALERT) I must confess there’s a scene in the film which is so intense that for a moment I thought I wasn’t going to take it. It’s when Michelle Williams decides to go to the hospital to have an abortion. Once again the true raw atmosphere of the film makes this scene almost unbearable. A woman sitting next to me was covering her eyes all the way through… and yet, you don’t really see anything at all. The whole scene is played on Michelle Williams face as you hear the doctor explaining to her what he’ll do, step by step. Mercifully, she changes her mind before it’s too late.

Which brings me to talk about the acting in this film. This is certainly Michelle Williams’s best performance yet (though she has already been pretty good in the last few years) but what really stood out for me was Ryan Gosling who managed to portray a character full of imperfections and faults and yet made him so likeable that it’s impossible to blame.

(SPOILER ALERT) The scene towards the end when Michelle’s character confronts her husband and tells him she has no love for him anymore is truly heartbreaking and made even more powerful by intercutting of the scene wedding day. The dialogue is minimal, the music almost non-existent and yet the actors bring it alive like nothing I’ve seen this year.

Sadly the film might be a bit too low-key to get any Oscar recognition, but it surely deserves some!!

08 DECEMBER 2010 –
The MPAA has overturned the insane NC-17 rating. Now the film will be rated.

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Rabbit Hole – Review

November 13, 2010 3 Comments

RABBIT HOLE  (6.5/10)

Directed by John Cameron Mitchell. Starring Nicole Kidman, Aaron Eckhart, Sandra Oh, Dianne Wiest

Let me just start by saying that this is not a bad film. It is very well handled, both in terms of direction and the general tone (A surprising change from Shortbus director John Cameron Mitchell). The acting is absolutely impeccable, the photography simple and understated, yet perfectly controlled an absolutely right for a film like this. Even the music, by TV composer Anton Sanko,in its gentle form is carefully used and never falls into the cheap emotion stirring mode.
So why did I just give it a 6.5 then, when everything about it seems ever so perfect?

I supposed my argument against it comes down to not the subject matter itself but the way the story is handled. I am probably alone on this one, since the play from which the film has been adapted has won the  Tony Award in 2007. Obviously somebody must have seen a lot more in it than I did. Somebody must have liked it a lot!

It is essentially a film about grieving: a couple has lost their 4 years old boy in an accident and 8 months later they are struggling to cope with it. This is essentially the film. This is how much I knew about it before going into the theatre and this is exactly how much I still know about it after the screening.

Despite the fact that the film is an incredible emotional experience (I pretty much cried non-stop from half way though right till the end), to me the film just went nowhere. I knew exactly what was going to happen before it happened… and probably because nothing really happened. It’s all played by numbers and there was really nothing surprising about it.

Of course it’ll make you cry. If I tell you a story for 2 hours about my 4 years old boy who died run over by a car, I’m sure I can make you cry too. You certainly can’t judge a film on whether it’ll make you cry or not. Of course, this film will stay with me for a while, but once again, this isn’t certainly a mark of a good film either (I remember a lot of very bad films too).

I can probably understand that this is exactly the point of the movie: when something like this happens, it’s as if you fall in a state of trance and nothing really seems to happen anymore. Life stops and it doesn’t matter how much you try to shake off the emptiness, life will never be the same again. I get it. And yet I hated it. Maybe I just resented it for being put in a condition where I had to watch people having to live this tragedy for 2 hours.

This is one of the most depressing film I’ve seen in quite a while. In a way it reminded me a lot of “Revolutionary Road“. But where that film had some sort of character development and skillfully managed to balance moments of comedy (however dark) to moments of high drama (thus elevating them and giving them more impact), “Rabbit Hole” is constantly depressing. It only seems to have one gear, travelling at constant speed to a place which is pretty obvious right from the start. It’s a film with the same level of voice all the way through and after 2 hours of being told something pretty obvious, it does get all a bit tiring.

Aaron Eckhart is really good, of course he is. This the typical Oscar worthy part, but I have to say, it’s so much easier to play a character like this. I am not an actor and yet if somebody put me on a stage and told me “your 4 years old boy has died” I would be able to cry and shout and look the same way Aaron Eckhart did. The same goes for Nicole Kidman. I am not trying to take anything away from them, I am not saying they were not absolutely perfect in this film, I am just saying that the part of a grieving parent has got Oscar bait written all over it. Also, I must confess I was a little distracted by Nicole’s lips too. All the way though the film I kept on asking myself ” What the hell has she done to those lips…”. Please Nicole, leave them alone! Have the courage to grow old, like any other human being. You are so good, even without Botox and surgery!!

6.5/10

OTHER RELATED REVIEWS:

The way Back

The King’s Speech

The Kids are All Right

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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: part 1 – Review

November 12, 2010 8 Comments

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1   ()

Directed by David Yates. Starring Bill Nighy, Emma Watson, Richard Griffiths,Daniel Radcliffe, Julie Walters, Bonnie Wright, Rupert Grint, Alan Rickman, Ralph Fiennes, Helena Bonham Carter, Jason Isaacs (hello), Tom Felton, Timothy Spall, Michael Gambon, Robbie Coltrane, Brendan Gleeson, James Phelps, Oliver Phelps, Mark Williams, Domhnall Gleeson, Clémence Poésy, John Hurt, David Thewlis, Rhys Ifans, Imelda Staunton

(SOME SPOILERS AHEAD)

Right from the very start, when the Warner Bros logo appears, this film feels different. The colours are gray and muted, the sound is a low rumble and even the famous theme from John Williams seems to have given way to a much darker drone. It doesn’t even feel like a Harry Potter movie anymore. It makes the first Chris Columbus movies feel like they are from a whole different universe. And this feeling stayed with me right until the end…

For the last few instalments of the series (possibly from number 3 onwards) we’ve been hearing a lot of “this one is darker” type of lines being bantered about, whether from the critics, the fans or even the film-makers themselves. But it’s never been more true than in this final chapter.

And yet, this is not just a darker and scarier film, it is also a much more mature one too. It’s as if the film-makers have grown together with thier viewers (who are now 10 years older than they were when the first movie got released)

A few years ago, when we first heard about the fact that the seventh and final book was going to be divided into two films, we all cynically thought straight away: “They really want to squeeze every single penny out of this last one, those greedy people”.  And I am sure that must have been one of the reasons, however director David Yates has been able to take advantage of this extra time to give the story a certain amount of depth, sophistication and gravitas that was missing from all the previous instalments.

The pace is a lot slower, for a start. Of course, you get some cracking action scenes too (a particular good one through the Dartfor Tunnel), some great visuals, whether just the perfect vistas and landscapes, the inventive special effects (the scene, in the trailer too,  where there are about 8 different Potters, is all done in one perfect 360 degree shot) and there’s even a beautiful short animation sequence (where “The Tale of the Three Brothers”, is shown as a shadow-play and that by itself should almost be nominated for an Oscar for BEST animated short), but the real core of the movie this time are actually the 3 main characters. Their dialogue scenes take centre stage and are played in the most realistic possible way, with long silences, pauses and meaningful looks.

Even the music is a lot more subtle and understated, aside from being of course a lot darker. There’s a particular chase scene in a forest towards the second half of the movie, where unexpectedly, they decided not to play any music at all, just letting the sound effects play through: that is very very unusual for a blockbuster of this calibre.

The film bravely takes a lot of risks, on one hand, by veering away from what kids are probably expecting, but at the same time it’ll give fans a real treat (and it might even change the minds of some of those Harry Potter haters)! It is a film about emotions, about characters, about friendship first and foremost and it all happens to take place in a magical world. It’s what every single avid Harry Potter reader has been waiting for years.

In a way, the mood of the film is much closer to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, not just in the muted colors of the landscape, or in the grittier looks of the characters (even Harry Potter looks dirtier this time and has even got a bit of a beard!), but in the way it’s paced and constructed.

It’s essentially a road movie (it’s also the first film to be Hogward-free. We only get one quick glimpse of the train going to the school, but that’s about it). There are much fewer laughs throughout and most of them come from Ron (Rupert Grint), but somehow when they do come, they seem to work a lot better than they ever did. Maybe because the whole film is so tense that you are  just craving for a moment to relax let the tension fade. And this is by no means a criticism, in fact, quite the opposite.

The film starts with a perfectly pitched montage scene where we see all the various characters leaving their homes and getting ready to meet. The soundtrack at this point seems to be straight our of one of the Bourne movies, or the recent Batman films by Christopher Nolan. There’s an uneasy tension running all the way through, which just makes you very uncomfortable (and I mean that as a compliment). That feeling somehow permeates the rest of the movie too.

We then cut to a scene where Voldemort, his Death Eaters & Co are all sitting around a table. Floating above them, the body of one of their young victim. Blood dripping from her face, her head bent backwards… This feels almost like the exorcist more than Harry  Potter!

Don’t take me wrong. Kids will be terrified, but will most likely love it too (after all, kids love to get scared… Or at least I used to!).

By all means, this isn’t a masterpiece. For all the tension, the great atmosphere and all the brave intentions, there are some slightly clunky moments here and there too. For example the scene where Ron comes back and rejoins the group, feels a bit “out of the blue” and could have been handled in a better way. Also some of the dialogue doesn’t quite ring true and too many characters come in and out like bell-boys in a hotel. But it’s interesting to notice how most of the stuff that doesn’t quite work in the film, has actually been lifted straight from the books. I think once again the film exposes the weaknesses of the book (which c’mon let’s face it, however gripping, it wasn’t really a great piece of writing. I loved it, in fact I loved the whole series, but I recognize its limits).

The acting from the three main characters still feels a bit dodgy from time to time. They all really try their best: Emma Watson is the best she’s ever been (sadly that doesn’t really mean a lot) and though she even manages to shed a tear at some point, most of her lines fall pretty flat. Daniel Radcliffe does his usual thing where he seems to act with all his body, except his eyes (he seems to like to show tension by stretching his whole body forward) and finally Rupert Grint, who seems to have gained a bit too much weight, but he’s still the best of the three and also he has the best lines. However there’s a good chemistry between all of them. Clearly having worked together for so many films has created a bond between them: some of that shows in the film too.

It is also a real joy to see so many of the other old characters back, even if most of them are around for just for one scene. This series has now officially become the “who’s who” of British Cinema (I was a bit sad that Maggie Smith was not around for this one, but as all the people who have read the book know, she’ll be back in the next one, in style!)

So on the whole, the film deserves a lot of respect for taking brave decisions which are probably going against your typical Hollywood blockbuster, let alone a Harry Potter movie. Mind you, it’s easier to be brave when you have something like this in your hands, this was always going to be a winner with the public! Now it might probably get some new fans from those picky critics out there.

Anyway, it’s good to see them trying something different. It’s good to see them slowing down a bit and taking good care of their characters. It’s good to see them trying to be more mature and stir away from cheesy cliches. I can see why this is JK Rowling’s favorite movie.

I was happy with it too… but then again, I love Harry Potter, so I am probably biased.

Summer 2011 cannot be here soon enough. And after that? Oh dear, I am already so sad that it’s all going to be over…

7.5/10

PS. If you liked this review, leave us a message.

My letter published on the Evening Standard

Check out my little email that got published on the Evening Standard about the BAFTA Awards

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The King’s Speech – Review

November 9, 2010 6 Comments

The King’s Speech (6.5/10)

Directed by Tom Hooper. Starring Helena Bonham Carter, Michael Gambon, Colin Firth

C’mon let’s face it. This film has already been nominated with all sorts of Oscars, even 3 months before the ceremony (and it’s going to win quite a few as well, including the best film). It’s one of those crowd pleaser that somehow manages to score really high, despite the fact that’s it’s actually a fairly average film. What elevates “The King’s Speech” is its cast, there’s no doubt about that.

Colin Firth will be laughing all the way to the Oscars and most likely will win what he actually deserved in 2009 for A Single Man, and Geoffrey Rush, will somehow manage once again to get his name up there with the other nominees at least. In fact, each scene with the two actors together is worth the price of your tickets, even if you have to sit the rest of the movie which , to be honest has some pretty clunky bits.

On the whole it feels a little bit like the “TV movie of the week” or a theatre play, in the same way “The Queen” did a few years ago (a film which I loved by the way and which I still think was highly superior, much more clever, wittier and a lot more subtle that this). The fact that it looks like a play is by no means a criticism. Some of my favorite movies (One flew over the cuckoo’s nest, rear window just to mention a few) are very much confined films which could very well be made on a stage (in fact most of them have). Unfortunately this film, in my view, doesn’t really have a good director at its helm like “the Queen” had. In fact it seems like every single decision Tom Hooper has made is wrong: the cartoony staging of certain scenes for example (the one where the wife sits on the king diaphram as he practices his speeches is really idiotic for example). The choices of camera angles or camera movements are just too showy and they only seem to enhance the silly side of the film: those tracking shots forward and backward within the same room used as time-lapse are really very artificial and they actually draw attention on themselves instead of serving the film and its story. And those shots of the king being framed in a corner or the screen are anything but subtle. Clearly “Subtle” is not a word that’s in mr Hooper’s dictionary: every single time the King is about to give an important speech, on cue, the music starts, just to warn the audience “Oh watch out… this is going to be emotional”…  Well, it seems to work. Audiences all over the world are loving this film.

“The King’s Speech” is clearly aimed at an American audience, possibly even more that the Queen was. Every historical information is spoon-fed to the audience in a pretty clichés way to the point of becoming a little bit annoying and taking you away from the real good part of the story which is the relationship between Firth and Rush. Thankfully  their performances are so much fun, that they manage to elevate the film and making it OK, despite of everything else.

Best film of the year?  Well, it has costumes, good performances, big names, it mixes drama with comedy, somebody with a disability… It must be then.

I’m afraid not. It’s just an average film, well made and well acted and  looking for attention. Sadly it might get it.

6.5/10

Time out has a nice piece on this film, which doesn’t make me feel too guilty aboutgiving a mere 6.5 to the film

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