Rewriting history
GARY OLDMAN’S STAR TURN AS THE MAN WHO HELPED PEN CITIZEN KANE HAS THE OSCAR WORLD BUZZING
This exquisite history lesson about what many consider to be the greatest movie ever made has already been fasttracked to the front of Oscars calculations.
And rightly so. In a year largely bereft of top-notch cinema, it is impossible to think of a 2020 movie featuring better directing, writing and acting than this.
Working from a screenplay left behind by his late father, acclaimed filmmaker David Fincher (The Social Network, Se7en) takes us time-travelling to the genesis of the movie masterpiece Citizen Kane.
Many people assume this still-astonishing 1941 drama was the sole work of its 24year-old whiz-kid star (and director … and producer) Orson Welles.
What Mank makes clear in no uncertain terms is that it was Welles’ co-writer Herman Mankiewicz (played by Gary Oldman) who was really responsible for Citizen Kane’s game-changing tale of a mysterious media baron and the secret he took to his grave.
A man with a gift for words both written and spoken, Mankiewicz had seemingly burnt all of his bridges in Hollywood when Welles offered him a way back into the business in 1940.
Unfortunately there were strings attached to the deal. As he owed money all over town for wagers gone wrong, Mank (as he was referred to by all) was in no position to bargain with his brash young counterpart.
Welles demanded that Mank relinquish any screen credit for Citizen Kane. However, once he began labouring in earnest on the Kane script, Mank realised his thinly veiled portrait of controversial American newspaper magnate W.R. Hearst was going to be the greatest work of his career.
So began a struggle between Mankiewicz and Welles for a correct acknowledgment of who exactly did what behind the scenes of Citizen Kane.
Gary Oldman’s virtuoso performance as Mank — a drinker, a thinker and one of the most amusing raconteurs that ever lived — is something to behold.
Now that Daniel DayLewis has retired, there is a case to be made that Oldman is now the finest actor in the movie game. On the flawless evidence presented here — particular when it comes to pinpoint vocal delivery and pure physical presence — it is hard to argue otherwise.
Clearly lifted by Oldman’s dynamic display are an inspired Amanda Seyfried as the fading Hollywood starlet Marion Davies, Charles Dance as the fascinating figure of Hearst, and last but not least,
Tom Burke as the firebrand Welles.
Filmed strikingly in an evocatively composed black and white — just like Citizen Kane itself — Mank is undoubtedly one of the best movies of this year. And one of the best movies about movies of any other year.
Mank is now showing at selected cinemas for a strictly limited season before moving to Netflix, where it opens on Friday, Dec 4
FREAKY (MA15+)
Director: Christopher Landon (Happy Death Day)
Starring: Kathryn Newton, Vince Vaughn, Celeste O’connor
Rating:
A who’s who of who-are-you?
The title accorded to this highly enjoyable and consistently clever horror flick falls ever so slightly short of perfection.
Had it been called Freaky Friday the 13th, everybody would have sensed immediately where the filmmakers were coming from with their deceptively inventive premise.
For what transpires here is unashamedly concocted from a winning blend of a bodyswapping Freaky Friday and a body-chopping Friday the
13th.
Not a dull minute is clocked as we work through the strange case of a suburban serial killer famous for eluding capture for decades, a beastly gentleman known as the Blissfield Butcher (Vince Vaughn).
Fresh from dispatching a new b batch of high schoolers to an early grave, this lanky streak of pure evil accidentally falls victim to a spell that sees him switching bodies with a meek, mild young lady named Millie (Kathryn Newton).
Once the changeover is in play, each actor has a field day stepping inside the other’s traits, tics and quirks.
Just like Nicolas Cage and John Travolta in Face/off, both stars face considerable challenges in making the leap out of their own comfort zone and into someone else’s. That they make it look so effortless — and yet, make it feel so effective — is to their everlasting credit.
Newton must be almost a metre shorter than Vaughn. Nevertheless, her complete transformation from winsome wallflower to loathsome psychopath is both chillingly convincing and archly amusing.
The same goes for
Vaughn’s highly skilled work heading in the opposite direction.
Normally a blokey, jokey and often aggressive actor, watching Vaughn rein in all of those natural impulses — while embracing a feminine and diminutive side few would imagine — is a gift that keeps on giving throughout Freaky.