BLANCHETT’S POWERFUL PERFORMANCE
WHERE’D YOU GO, BERNADETTE
Director Richard Linklater Starring Cate Blanchett, Billy Crudup, Kristen Wiig
Rating M
Running time 109 minutes Verdict Blanchett’s Golden Globenominated performance carries this mystery/comedy
The title of this inspirational family comedy is somewhat misleading, since for most of the film, Bernadette doesn’t actually go anywhere.
She’s a larger-than-life presence in a humdrum suburban world.
Together with her husband and daughter, the fabulously flawed former architect inhabits a crumbling, Addams Family-style mansion, which she is in the process of renovating.
Within its protective walls, Bernadette manages to keep things together.
But the mere prospect of a family trip to Antarctica is enough to send her over the edge.
And that, paradoxically, is where she finds herself.
Where’d You Go, Bernadette, then, is not so much a geographical mystery as a metaphysical one – spectacular icy backdrop notwithstanding.
It’s easy to see why Cate Blanchett was drawn to such a project — especially with Richard Linklater, the director of such nuanced films as Boyhood and the Before
Sunrise trilogy, at the helm.
But his film adaptation of Maria Semple’s satirical novel about motherhood and ambition is uncharacteristically ham-fisted.
And while Blanchett’s powerhouse performance (for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe) holds moviegoers’ attention, it also throws the film’s shortcomings into sharp relief.
The suspension on this particular star vehicle is shot.
Bernadette Fox is a brilliant but brittle genius whose meteoric rise was ended, prematurely and abruptly, by the brutal actions of a filthy rich philistine.
Relocating to Seattle with her Microsoft millionaire husband, Elgie (Billy Crudup), Bernadette redirected her energy into raising their daughter Bee (Emma Nelson), now 15 and headed for boarding school.
Bee’s imminent departure is the catalyst for a once-in-a-lifetime family trip to the South Pole (or as close as a tourist can get).
And it’s at that point that Bernadette’s anxiety starts to escalate.
The eccentric genius’s thwarted creativity has turned toxic during her time in the West Coast seaport she loves to hate.
Bitter, resentful, misanthropic, Bernadette has virtually become a recluse — venturing out of the house only to support her daughter, to whom she is extremely close.
She outsources her practical, organisational responsibilities to a highly capable virtual assistant.
The untenable situation comes to a head when an irritating neighbour (Kristen Wiig) demands the removal of an invasive clump of blackberries.
Bernadette agrees, knowing full well that it will compromise the retaining wall between their properties.
All of which leads, rather circuitously, to a simultaneously staged intervention and an FBI investigation. Where’d You Go, Bernadette might have been a sharply observed feminist black comedy in the tradition of, say, Election or I, Tonya, but Linklater isn’t clear who he’s making the film for. And neither are we. This “airbrushed” version falls somewhere between the cracks.
Now showing in selected cinemas
THE BURNT ORANGE HERESY
Director Giuseppe Capotondi Starring Elizabeth Debicki, Donald Sutherland, Mick Jagger Rating MA15+ Running time 94 minutes Verdict A stylish, seductive “reproduction”
AN AVARICIOUS collector makes an amoral art critic an offer he simply can’t refuse in this Faustian neo-Noir thriller, set on the shores of Lake Como.
But not even James Cassidy (Mick Jagger, in his first non-cameo feature role in almost 20 years) can anticipate how far James Figueras (Claes Bang) will go to salvage his tarnished reputation.
Directed by Giuseppe Capotondi, The
Burnt Orange Heresy is a creditable reproduction in the Patricia Highsmith tradition.
There’s a similarly disturbing tension between surface appearances and the characters’ interior worlds.
Here, the devil really is in the detail. When the film opens, Figueras is giving a lecture to a group of well-heeled American tourists in which he masterfully illustrates just how easy it is to be hoodwinked by a seductive narrative.
Enigmatic beauty Berenice Hollis (Elizabeth Debicki) lingers afterwards.
At this point, it’s unclear who is spinning who.
Figueras, who pops prescription drugs like tic tacs, is barely on first-name terms with Hollis when he invites her to join him for a weekend at Cassidy’s lavish Lombardy estate.
He’s looking for an interesting and aesthetically appealing travel accessory. She’s looking for a bit of an adventure. It’s a loosely defined relationship of mutual benefit.
Cassidy’s motivations are unusually clearcut.
Due to his obligations as a high-profile patron of the arts, Cassidy is hosting reclusive art legend Jerome Debney (Donald Sutherland) in a cottage on his property.
He offers to set up an exclusive, careermaking interview for Figueras — on the proviso that the critic secure one of Debney’s priceless new works for him in return.
Being a canny businessman, Cassidy has come up with a watertight “no backout” clause. Thus, the scene is set for a tangled tale of deceit, manipulation and much, much worse.
Sutherland is artfully opaque as the worldweary painter.
Jagger’s one-note performance works well enough for a character so singularly obsessed by material gain.
Bang portrays his character’s corrupt charisma in a way that somehow implicates moviegoers.
And it’s great to see Debicki, who is so often cast in roles that are beautifully aloof, given an opportunity to let off a bit of steam.
Based on Charles Willeford’s novel of the same name, The Burnt Orange Heresy doesn’t even attempt to tie up the narrative’s loose ends — and so they entangle us even after the credits start rolling.
Now screening at select cinemas