The Herald - The Herald Magazine
PICK OF THIS WEEK’S FILMS
21 BRIDGES (15)
Opportunistic thieves are in the wrong place at the wrong time, sparking a night-time police manhunt through the streets of Manhattan, in Brian Kirk’s propulsive action thriller. Screenwriters Adam Mervis and Matthew Michael Carnahan milk droplets of dramatic tension from their simple and efficient set-up, running a stopwatch on the frenetic gun fights and car chases from the moment the lead investigating officer reminds colleagues, “If we don’t catch these guys in the next three to four hours, they vanish.” Chadwick Boseman trades Black Panther’s figure-hugging Vibranium weave mesh suit for more simple, functional attire as a morally incorruptible NYPD detective, who has been raised to never shy away from doing the right thing. With a sleek 99-minute running time, there’s no time for us to slumber.
HARRIET (12A)
The biggest surprise about writerdirector Kasi Lemmons’s biopic of crusading abolitionist Harriet Tubman is that it has taken Hollywood so long to immortalise the 19th-century African-American trailblazer.
Born into slavery in Maryland as Araminta Ross, Tubman personally shepherded fellow slaves across the border to safety, served as a spy for the Union Army and remains one of the only women to lead an armed expedition on American soil. Scripted by Lemmons and co-writer Gregory Allen Howard, Harriet romanticises the lead character on a pristine surface level, relying on a barnstorming lead performance from London-born Cynthia Erivo to atone for a sinful lack of character development. Supporting players are reduced to historical footnotes, portrayed vividly by an esteemed ensemble cast including Tony Award-winning Hamilton star Leslie Odom Jr, Janelle Monae and Clarke Peters.
THE IRISHMAN (15)
Martin Scorsese’s exhaustive and exhausting return to the criminal underworld with GoodFellas leading men Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci transplants the toxic masculinity from New York to the mean streets of Philadelphia. Writer Steven Zaillian confidently plunders Charles Brandt’s true-crime book I Heard You Paint Houses to recount an epic tale of brotherhood, which culminates in the disappearance of labour union leader Jimmy Hoffa in July 1975. Scorsese’s long-time editor Thelma Schoonmaker overcharges our patience with a running time – three-and-a-half hours – that feels almost as bloated as some of the titular heavy’s lifeless victims.
1917 (15)
Sam Mendes set about the demanding task of doing justice to conveying the horrors and sacrifices of war. The result is magnificent. This is the First World War as depicted elsewhere, but bolstered by strange, original, unforgettable images. Heaven and hell are in the details. Everywhere lies death, and rats the size of dogs. It is a measure of the riches on show that the cast boasts actors of the calibre of Benedict Cumberbatch, Mark Strong, Colin Firth and Andrew Scott, all playing small parts. The screenplay, co-written by Glasgow’s own Krysty Wilson-Cairns, was deservingly nominated this week for an Oscar.
SEBERG (15)
Kristen Stewart is well cast physically as Seberg, whom we first meet in Paris in 1968 as she heads for Los Angeles, leaving behind her young son and philandering husband. It’s an era of political turmoil, from student protests in France to the Black Panthers in the US, and on the flight to LA, Jean encounters Black Power activist Hakim Jamal (Anthony Mackie) and, as well as making financial contributions to his cause, becomes involved with him. Meanwhile, we meet FBI agent Jack Solomon (Jack O’Connell), who is assigned to begin a surveillance operation on Jean and her associations. To the FBI, these movements are akin to terrorist outfits. It scores a little with its ongoing relevance regarding racial tensions and female empowerment and how little we’ve evolved in 50 years, but that can’t compensate for the lack of compelling drama in a film that is more than a little dreary.
AMANDA (15)
Young love is cruelly corrupted by tragedy in director Mikhael Hers’s heart-rending drama, co-written with Maud Ameline. David (Vincent Lacoste) lives in Paris, where he juggles two jobs without any clear sense of the direction his life is heading. He is an affectionate uncle to a young niece, Amanda (Isaure Multrier), whose single mother Sandrine (Ophelia Kolb) is an English teacher in the French capital. A terrorist attack in a Parisian park robs little Amanda of her sole protector and clueless David is compelled to become the girl’s guardian, with perfunctory support from his aunt (Marianne Basler). As he struggles to come to terms with the death of his sister and Amanda’s needs, David adds to his heavy emotional burden by falling in love with Lena (Stacy Martin), one of the survivors of the atrocity.
LITTLE WOMEN (U)
For her handsomely mounted film adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s 1868 novel, writer-director 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 post-#MeToo 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.
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’s most visually stunning lightsaber duels, and he engineers a fitting farewell to the late Carrie Fisher using unreleased footage.
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 crash-lands with her and staunchly refuses to regain altitude, unable or unwilling to clearly communicate the inner turmoil of a cheating wife, who concocts a harebrained 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.