The Herald - The Herald Magazine
PICK OF THIS WEEK’S FILMS
LITTLE WOMEN (U)
For her handsomely mounted film adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s 1868 novel, writerdirector Greta Gerwig remains faithful to the source text and abides by literary tropes.
She also indulges in post-feminist revisionism to set her Little Women apart from previous incarnations and strike a chord in the postMeToo era. The fractured chronology isn’t entirely successful. By reframing the death of a pivotal figure, Gerwig dampens the emotional impact and the juxtaposition of scenes eight years apart can be confusing. “People want to be amused, not preached at. Morals don’t sell nowadays,” a publisher (Tracy Letts) counsels Jo March (Saoirse Ronan) in the opening scene. Gerwig’s splendid film disagrees and sells Alcott’s morality largely word for word through pithy observational humour and boundless affection for the characters.
SPIES IN DISGUISE (PG)
A debonair James Bond-esque secret agent goes deep underfeather to outwit his nefarious nemesis in the madcap computeranimated comedy Spies In Disguise. Co-directed by Troy Quane and Nick Bruno, both making their feature debuts, this hi-tech body-swap caper gleefully subverts the 007 playbook by proposing non-violent, compassionate methods to neutralise terrorists and minimise the potential for collateral damage. As the film’s diminutive hero sweetly puts it: “A good way to stop the bad.” Pyrotechnic-laden action set pieces are executed with assurance and Will Smith and Tom Holland deliver energetic vocal performances as the impossibly lithe spy and dorky dreamer, who team up in unusual circumstances. Ben Mendelsohn is shortchanged as the film’s deranged arch-villain he’s all bark and no bite - so the stakes never feel unsettlingly high, even when the script borrows a move out of the How To Train Your Dragon handbook in search of a tear-jerking emotional crescendo.
PLAYING WITH FIRE (PG)
Tackling California wildfires is child’s play compared with responsible parenting in director Andy Fickman’s brash family-oriented comedy. Wilfully ignoring the safety warning in the title, Playing With Fire demonstrates a reckless disregard for the wellbeing of parents, who might expect a smattering of laughs from the film’s convoluted daddy day care set-up. Screenwriters Dan Ewen and
Matt Lieberman hose down every clunky frame with syrupy sentiment and contrive scenes that slosh from crass and puerile (diarrhoea projecting into one character’s face) to genuinely weird (a grown man staring into a young girl’s eyes as he attempts to relieve himself). Presumably, these disjointed interludes were funnier on the page and explain why a fine ensemble cast inhabits thinly written supporting roles. Judy Greer is shamefully squandered. Her inert on-screen romance with muscular and sporadically shirtless John Cena wouldn’t spark to life if Fickman poured petrol on it.
STAR WARS EPISODE IX: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER (12A)
Director JJ Abrams preached to the converted in 2015 with The Force Awakens and, in this ninth and final chapter of the saga, he provides generations of expectant Padawans and Sith apprentices with the nostalgia-saturated swansong they desperately crave. Loose plot threads are tied neatly and heartstrings plucked as friendships and gently simmering romances threaten to become collateral damage of a bloodthirsty war against the First Order. It’s not always the most elegant film-making. The opening 20 minutes are extremely clunky, plot gears grinding furiously with a dewy-eyed denouement in mind. However, when planets align, Abrams delivers rousing action sequences, including one of the series’ most visually stunning lightsaber duels, and he engineers a fitting farewell to the late Carrie Fisher using unreleased footage.
CATS (U)
Tom Hooper’s ambitious film version of Cats employs digital trickery to add coats of soft, wind-tousled fur to a starry human cast including Dame Judi Dench, who was supposed to originate Grizabella in 1981 until injury forced Elaine Paige to replace her.
The character’s belting ballad, Memory, is the show’s standout number and Jennifer Hudson sinks her claws into each tremulous word on screen, tears streaming as she confides, “I remember the time I knew what happiness was,” before the inevitable key change tips her over the edge into fullblooded caterwaul of the broken-hearted. Hooper’s strangely sensual extravaganza revels in the sight of cast members rubbing themselves up against each other in purring rhapsody or arching backs to the choreography of Andy Blankenbuehler, who won a Tony Award for Hamilton. Computer-generated tails uncoil like whips as venerable figures from stage and screen meow and greedily lap milk with flicking tongues. Seldom has a certificate U film been full of such strange, sensory delights.
JUMANJI: THE NEXT LEVEL (12A)
During a rare heartfelt exchange in director Jake Kasdan’s action-packed sequel to his fitfully entertaining 2017 rumble in the jungle, a teenage protagonist asks chums to forget about the digital realm of Jumanji. “Can we agree, let’s never go back there,” he urges. Regrettably, his cautionary words are ignored by Kasdan and co-writers Jeff Pinkner and Scott Rosenberg, who contrive a return to the booby-trap laden wilderness where digitally rendered creatures can quickly deplete the characters’ three lives. Jumanji: The Next Level searches forlornly for a spot where lightning might strike twice but the plot and pacing are haphazard and the agreeably fractious double-act of Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart loses its comic lustre on a second viewing. Contrary to the title, Kasdan’s second chapter is a disappointing step backwards.
ORDINARY LOVE (12A)
Lesley Manville and Liam Neeson deliver compelling performances as a married couple in turmoil in Lisa Barros D’Sa and Glenn Leyburn’s intimate drama based on a script by Northern Irish playwright Owen McCafferty. Tracing a familiar narrative arc, Ordinary Love elegantly captures the minutiae of daily life for a wife and husband, who fondly accept each other’s foibles and find comfort in the easy silences that punctuate their domestic routine. Lasting affection resonates in moments of the mundane – her saucy addition to a soup recipe, a seemingly benign conversation about his fruit and vegetable intake during a weekly visit to the supermarket. The opening 15 minutes encourages us to cosy up to the lead characters in their suburban bubble before giant ripples from a cancer diagnosis test the strength of marital bonds.
MOTHERLESS BROOKLYN (15)
Identity, corruption and politics are themes at the heart of a slow-burning thriller written, directed, produced by and starring Edward
Norton. It has taken the Fight Club star 20 years to bring his project, based on Jonathan Lethem’s landmark 1999 novel of the same name, to our screens. Interestingly, he’s made the decision to scrap the original late 1990s setting in favour of the 1950s. Norton’s striking, meticulous performance is the film’s greatest strength. There’s no denying that Motherless Brooklyn is starkly different to anything else I’ve seen lately but, tellingly, it isn’t particularly memorable.
LUCY IN THE SKY (15)
“Look for the girl with the sun in her eyes,” implores John Lennon in the lyrics to Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds. Director Noah Hawley respectfully follows orders and opens his earthbound drama with the arresting image of Oscar winner Natalie Portman staring into the star at the centre of our solar system from the dreamy tranquillity of space. Regrettably, when Portman returns to the third rock from the sun, Hawley’s picture crashlands with her and staunchly refuses to regain altitude, unable or unwilling to clearly communicate the inner turmoil of a cheating wife, who concocts a hare-brained kidnapping scheme when her lover dares to spurn her for another woman. The Oscar-winning actress doesn’t connect the dots between starbursts of her adventurer’s erratic behaviour, robbing us of the opportunity to feel a discomfiting sympathy for her she-devil.
KNIVES OUT (12A)
Writer-director Rian Johnson pays loving tribute to Agatha Christie with a tongue-incheek country house whodunit. Knives Out assembles a starry cast of prime suspects including Chris Evans, Jamie Lee Curtis, Toni Collette and Michael Shannon and cleverly conceals the murderer’s identity until a classic final act reveal. Johnson’s script lovingly embraces the tropes of a murder mystery while fishing for red herrings, assembling the accused in a wood-panelled drawing room for a private detective’s pithy summation replete with overlapping flashbacks. Curiously, the film’s weakest link is the brilliant mind in charge of the case: a sleuth played by Daniel Craig with a hammy accent fried in the Deep South. Pieces of Johnson’s elaborate puzzle slot satisfyingly into place as the ensemble cast have fun with their colourful roles.
FROZEN II (U)
According to lovable snowman Olaf (voiced by Josh Gad), who is a permafrosted font of wisdom about the natural world, water has memory. Considering that audiences who flocked to the original Frozen are largely made of water, it’s safe to assume that their memories of Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee’s Oscar-winning adventure will ebb and flow throughout this visually stunning sequel to the highest-grossing animated film of all time. Disney’s platoons of digital wizards repeatedly quench our thirst with jawdropping set pieces, including a thrilling gallop over crashing waves of an angry sea astride an untamed water horse.