MARCUS BERKMANN
PADDINGTON 2 (PG) MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS (PG-13)
Drama is easy; comedy is hard. The self-evident truth of this maxim is consistently ignored by awards committees, who continue to reward the makers of gritty, gloomy films about nothing over any film that dares to make you laugh. Will Paddington 2 be nominated for anything, anything at all, next spring? My guess is not, but you’ll do well to see a more thoroughly satisfying film this year.
For it turns out that Paddington, despite being excellent, was a mere preparation for the glory of its sequel. Once again voiced by Ben Whishaw with wide-eyed innocence, Michael Bond’s ursine hero has been animated by several hundred compositors, artists and odd bods around the world, their vast expertise combining with such felicity that, when Paddington sheds a tear, we believe that a real bear is shedding a real tear, and we shed a small, manly tear ourselves. But the essence of this film, and the reason why we abandon ourselves to its charm and storytelling prowess, is its commitment. The film embraces utterly the Paddington world-view. If there had been a single false note, the whole edifice would have come crashing down around us. There isn’t a single false note.
It’s all in the script, of course. Two writers are credited but, at the end of the final credits, a further 15 or so are thanked for ‘help with the screenplay’, and the attention to detail is often astounding. Paul King (who also directed) and Simon Farnaby have created a heightened, fantastic 1970s Notting Hill in leafy 2017 Chalk Farm, oddly enough in the same road where my mother used to live. No one has a mobile phone; indeed, the only two working phoneboxes in the whole of London are called into use. No one ever comments on the strangeness of a small bear with a red hat wandering around town carrying a suitcase, but then we quickly realise that Paddington’s benevolence and mildness are contagious. His positivity makes life better for everyone. When he vanishes, about a third of the way into the film, the world assumes a greyer cast.
Talking of the cast, it’s magnificent. Wonderful TV actors, such as Peter Capaldi and Jessica Hynes, take small roles because every one is so wellwritten. And in the role of lead villain is the irrepressible Hugh Grant whose vanity, comic timing and genuine threat are a joy to behold. His last scene, during the final credits, is close to genius.
Murder On The Orient Express isn’t bad, either. Why see a film based on a film you have seen on TV so many times that you know the story backwards? I can’t answer that but it turns out that it’s a much better film than the original: less star-powered, possibly, but with far more emotional heft. Above all, Kenneth Branagh is quite superb as Hercule Poirot. Most, if not all, actors are defeated by the detective’s prissiness and silly accent. Branagh uses his natural authority and decades of experience to make him a genuinely strong and sympathetic character. The film becomes not about solving the problem, because we all know the solution, but about Poirot’s emotional path as he solves it. He is undoubtedly assisted in this by the silliest moustache ever sported in the cinema’s long history.
Branagh may well be nominated for something next spring, but his facial hair is a shoo-in for Best Supporting Moustache at the next Oscars. As Terry Wogan might once have said, it’s a masterpiece of the moustache-maker’s art.