Male critics’ reviews are ‘skewed’, say Ocean’s 8 stars
Ocean’s Eight 12A cert, 110 min
FILMS with female leads are badly reviewed because Hollywood’s critics are mostly male, the stars of Ocean’s 8 have suggested.
Sandra Bullock, who stars in the spin-off of the Ocean’s trilogy, in which all eight leads are played by women, said male opinions could be “skewed” and called for more reviewers to match the demographics of the target audience.
Cate Blanchett, also among the cast, said male reviewers may see it through a “prism of misunderstanding”.
The film has gathered mixed reviews so far, with some noting its “lifeless direction” and others saying the series “doesn’t summon the rush of delighted surprise it once did”. A recent study suggested nearly 80 per cent of film critics were male.
Bullock, who plays titular character Debbie Ocean, told reporters she would prefer to have people of similar demographics to the target audience review a film. “It would be nice if reviewers reflected who the film is for, like children should review children’s films, not a 60-year-old man,” she said.
She added that she would like there to be “balancing out the pool of critics so that it reflects the world we are in, like we are trying to reflect the world that I live in and my friends live in”.
Blanchett, discussing whether Hollywood is getting better at telling stories about women, said: “It’s Hollywood but it’s also the media, because a studio can support a film and it’s the invisible faces on the internet, and often male reviewers, who can view it through a prism of misunderstanding.”
The other six key roles are played by Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway, Mindy Kaling, Sarah Paulson, Rihanna, the Barbadian singer, and Awkwafina, the US rapper.
Dir Gary Ross Starring Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Mindy Kaling, Sarah Paulson, Awkwafina, Rihanna, Helena Bonham Carter, Richard Armitage, Elliott Gould
Time’s up on all-male heist shenanigans in Ocean’s Eight, proving that Y chromosomes in a glitzy, star-led ensemble caper are thoroughly surplus to requirements. What else does the film prove? That Sandra Bullock is just as fit to front an Ocean’s film as George Clooney, if not more so? That Anne Hathaway’s comic skills and game self-parody are well worth showcasing in bitchy roles? That Cate Blanchett rocks in cheetah-print coats and biker leathers? All of this.
It doesn’t prove that Clooney’s Danny Ocean is dead, but it pretends he is, in circumstances unexplained, when his sister Debbie (Bullock) sob-stories her way out of prison at the start. The point is: she’s our substitute. And her attitude to small- and medium-scale larceny is not quite the same as Danny’s watchful waiting game. Hours after waltzing through the gate of that jail, where she’s spent five years paying a seething penance for art fraud, she’s back in business with some high-end shoplifting.
Speaking of which, how does a $150million diamond necklace sound? Getting this up from Cartier’s vaults requires a toolkit far more special than just your usual bag of explosives and drills. It needs Hathaway’s neck. She’s an entitled Hollywood diva, Daphne Kluger, whose headline appearance at New York’s Met Gala is the opportunity for which Debbie has been waiting. The key partner in this crime, though, is not the oblivious Daphne, but Debbie’s old associate Lou (Blanchett), a bad-ass club fixer who’s reluctant to get her hands dirty.
And so the gang, in customary fashion, comes together, adding bespoke pieces of the jigsaw one at a time. First they need a once-reputable fashion designer (Helena Bonham Carter, all tragic frizz and Dublin accent) to bag the commission and incorporate the necklace into Daphne’s ensemble. A diamond expert (Mindy Kaling), pickpocket (the rapper Awkwafina), and hacker extraordinaire (Rihanna, not looking energised) are next on the list, and a social planner (Sarah Paulson) has to ensure Daphne’s seated right where they need her.
The fun of this plan, which is at least as promising in the set-up phase as any of its franchise bedfellows, is how alarmingly public it is. They have to get the necklace from Daphne while she’s sitting at a table near Katie Holmes (the real one) and every camera in New York is trained their way. There’s no getting around the fact that the movie peaks in this fleet and enjoyable section, which ought to be a climax but somehow isn’t. After that, a lot of the sure-footed development is undone.
Listing plot holes would only be spoiling the elements that do work. Blanchett gets one delightfully neat and tidy job to perform in a kitchen, partly because there’s no one who wouldn’t believe her as a jet-set nutritionist. Your growing concern, though, is whether writer-director Gary Ross (Seabiscuit, Pleasantville), not quite as wily as Steven Soderbergh, was really the man for this job – and not just on a gender basis.
It goes without saying that he’s getting an awful lot of assistance from his cast. Bullock’s impressive bond with an audience, giving us dry asides that feel like meta-commentaries, is as much of a boon as ever. Plus, there’s brassy music, by a never-better Daniel Pemberton, which beefs up the David Holmes grooves from the first trilogy, putting a lot of wind in the film’s sails. More of a minus is James Corden, whose overeager turn as a wisecracking insurance adjuster could have been a great chance for a more seasoned cameo player.
The whole aftermath is a little duff, a lazy clean-up operation that leaves more loose ends flapping than it ties. Top-tier heist films – from this batch, Ocean’s Eleven is the only one – manage to build and build. Ocean’s Eight dresses its cast to kill, jumps off the trapeze with all the usual moves, and then forgets about its encore.