The kids are more than all right at Cannes
Critics are more conflicted than usual this year about which films deserve the Palme d’Or or other prizes at the Cannes Film Festival, to be handed out at Sunday’s closing ceremony.
But there’s one thing most agree on: young actors are stealing the show.
With nearly two-thirds of the 19 Palme competition films now viewed, there’s no runaway favourite yet for the Palme and many revered directors are getting mixed reviews. The current leader of the 11-critic straw poll conducted by Screen International is the missing-child drama Loveless, by Russia’s Andrey Zvyagintsev, who won the screenplay award here in 2014 with Leviathan. Both films are a devastating critique of life under the dispiriting rule of Vladimir Putin.
Loveless has an average score of 3.2 stars out of 4 on the Screen poll. It is followed by Todd Haynes’ timespanning fairy tale Wonderstruck and Ruben Ostlund’s art world satire The Square, each with an average 2.7 stars.
Near the bottom of the poll are Michael Haneke’s dysfunctional family drama Happy End, with 2.2 stars, and Yorgos Lanthimos’ payback horror The Killing of a Sacred Deer, with 1.9 stars.
I personally rate all of these films highly, with the exception of Wonderstruck, which I found to be choppy and left me less than awestruck — a similar reaction I had earlier in the fest to Bong Joon Ho’s sci-fi adventure Okja, which has 2.3 stars on the Screen poll.
Other critics I’ve talked to adored Wonderstruck and Okja, while panning Loveless as “too bleak” and Happy End and The Killing of a Sacred Deer as lesser works by great directors.
There is broad consensus, however, about the strength of the young talent on display.
Wonderstruck has Oscar winners Julianne Moore and Michelle Wil- liams in its cast, but the real star of the show is new face Millicent Simmonds, 14, a deaf actress from Utah.
Her character, Rose, is in the silent-movie portions of the film, set in the New Jersey of 1927, and her nimble facial expressions say more than any words could.
Okja’s preteen protagonist Mija is played by South Korean actress Ahn Seo-Hyun, 13, who does serious action hero while her adult co-stars Tilda Swinton, Jake Gyllenhaal and Paul Dano do variations of slapstick clowns.
Also outclassing the elders is Rus- sian actor Matvey Novikov, who is about the same age as the 12-yearold missing child Alyosha he plays in Loveless. The devastating moment where Alyosha suddenly discovers what his cruel parents think of him — they’re divorcing and he’s a burden — will remain with me long after this festival is over.
The kids of Cannes 2017 are models of control, sometimes terrifyingly so. Belgian actress Fantine Harduin, 12, plays unhappy daughter Ève in the affluent French family dissected by Haneke in Happy End.
Ève harbours the darkest of thoughts and commits shocking acts of cruelty, all while communicating with unseen friends via Snapchat. Who could guess the dark thoughts behind that sweet face?
In a similar vein is rising Irish actor Barry Keoghan, 24, soon to be in Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk.
He’s the catalyst for the slowly revealed horror of The Killing of a Sacred Deer, which has Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman as the marquee talent. Keoghan’s character Martin seems at first as just a shy and lonely young man who admires Farrell’s character Steven, a top cardiac surgeon. The scene where admirer turns predator as Martin calmly describes what he’s really about absolutely chills the blood.
I haven’t seen any adult performances here to rival these youthful ones, but the work of perennial man-child Adam Sandler in Noah Baumbach’s erstwhile comedy The Meyerowitz Stories has impressed many people. He’s the standout of an ensemble cast that also includes Dustin Hoffman, Ben Stiller, Emma Thompson and Candice Bergen, who play members of an extended New York family that forever squabbles over who deserves more credit and who needs more love.
Divorced and chronically unemployed, Sandler’s character Danny is a failure at most things in life, but he’s a great dad to his collegebound daughter Eliza (Grace Van Patten). We haven’t seen such a nuanced performance from Sandler since he starred in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch-Drunk Love in 2002, which also premiered in competition at Cannes.
Critical reactions to The Meyerowitz Stories range from my own “meh” to the “hey!” of others. But we all agree Sandler is great in it. Cannes also stands with Manchester: The still-unfolding tragedy of Monday’s terror attack at an Ariana Grande pop concert in Manchester, England, has prompted expressions of solidarity here, including a moment of silence and a cancelled Cars 3 promotional event.
“The Festival de Cannes would like to express its horror, anger and immense sadness following the attack on the public and the city of Manchester last night,” the festival said in a statement.
“This is yet another attack on culture, youth and joyfulness, on our freedom, generosity and tolerance, all things that the Festival and those who make it possible — the artists, professionals and spectators — hold dear. The Festival de Cannes invites all festivalgoers to show their solidarity with the victims, their families and the British people by observing a minute’s silence this Tuesday 23 May at 3 p.m.”
Meanwhile, a champagne event planned the same day at the Carlton Hotel to promote Disney-Pixar’s new animated kids movie Cars 3 was suddenly cancelled.
“In the wake of last night’s tragic attack, and out of respect for the casualties and all of those impacted, we are not moving forward with today’s promotional activities,” a company statement read. The Cannes Film Festival runs May 17-28. Follow Peter Howell on Twitter and Instagram: @peterhowellfilm.
Okja’s preteen protagonist, played by Ahn Seo-Hyun, 13, does serious action hero while adult co-stars do variations of slapstick clowns