Review: The Babadook (2014)

Posted on March 26, 2015 by Sam S-P

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It’s true what you’ve heard, THE BABADOOK is very good. But is it really all that scary? I’m not so sure.

Set in suburban Australia, The Babadook follows working mother Amelia (Essie Davis) who is left caring for her child on her own after her husband dies in a car crash whilst driving her to hospital. Her son Samuel (Noah Wiseman) is a troubled and imaginative boy whose behaviour makes it difficult for the pair of them to fit in with “normal” society, and Amelia becomes steadily worn down in both body and spirit. Then, when a sinister pop-up story book appears in their house, something comes with it…

Bizarrely, Mister Babadook is the least frightening thing in the film. Yes, he has a striking design, and he’s done a great service by never being revealed in his entirety, but he’s more an excuse to evoke a consistently sinister mood and to make creepy noises from impenetrable shadows than he is a monster who will invade your dreams. The most frightening he ever is is on the pages of his book, complete with nightmare-inducing rhyming verse (and if the book itself is ever released for purchase, I imagine it’ll be a very popular item of geek merch). Far scarier is what Babadook represents: the failure of parenthood; the inability to control your child’s behaviour or protect them from harm. These themes fill you with dread, and this is the atmosphere conveyed throughout. But after all that, after the reviews, after William Friedkin, director of THE EXORCIST called it one of the scariest films he’d ever watched, I was expecting something more horrifying and more lasting.

It’s a film built around two hypnotic performances from Essie Davis and the young Noah Wiseman. If you didn’t care about, if you weren’t compelled by, this core relationship between Amelia and Samuel, then the film would have imploded. The decision to keep the pair disconnected behind the scenes appears to have contributed greatly to the palpable tension and discomfort in their relationship evident on camera. Davis makes you experience her character’s utter exhaustion and paranoia as a single working mother with issues of her own and a challenging child in her care, and she takes her to some incredibly dark places later in the film. Said challenging child, in the hands of Wiseman is a force of nature, and as an actor he’s a real find for the future.

Daniel Henshall is also in it, and I found it incredibly difficult to believe he was playing a decent human being here following his chilling turn in the psychologically scarring SNOWTOWN. Hayley McElhinney also leaves her mark as Claire, Amelia’s sister and Samuel’s aunt, giving as she does one of the most painful and cruel excuses for not spending more time with her family I think I’ve ever heard.

First-time feature director Jennifer Kent makes the most of her modest budget through original and economical set and creature designs all veiled in German Expressionist shadows. Low-key creativity can’t hide everything, however, and occasionally frayed edges in the visuals show through, and the sound mixing could probably have done with another pass in post-production for clarity.

Minor gripes aside there really isn’t all that much to complain about. For me, The Babadook tripped up as a horror film for not being all that scary for me, but that doesn’t mean you will have the same experience, and it might just hit the right buttons to chill you to your core. It works well as a traumatic family psych-drama, and what anyone can appreciate is the shear talent on show, both from debut or breakthrough turns from actors, and from the artists working behind the scenes who have been quietly grafting away for years. Now they’ve proven themselves by contributing to this striking project any or all of their careers could prove to be very interesting indeed. SSP

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Review: We Are the Best! (2013)

Posted on March 24, 2015 by Sam S-P

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WE ARE THE BEST! should really be compulsory viewing for pre-teen girls worried about their self-image or “fitting in”. It probably won’t be encouraged by many parents though, considering our three thirteen-year old protagonists get called, and call others the C-word. But despite the pre-teens’ sailor’s vocabulary and their rebellious antics (they gatecrash and get drunk at a party, trash a canteen and hang out in abandoned buildings and on rooftops) I think all the groovier parents out there should still let their kids watch the film. The morals tirelessly promoted throughout – friendship, fortitude, determination and just being yourself – are all values that would benefit any child’s worldview and enjoyment of life.

It’s suburban Sweden in the 1980s, and best friends Bobo (Mira Barkhammar) and Klara (Mira Grosin) love punk. They love the music, the image and what it stands for, and when an opportunity presents itself to not only to have fun forming a band, but to stick a middle finger up to the man, they just can’t resist. The only problem is that Bobo and Klara can’t play music, and need help from religious good girl Hedvig (Liv LeMoyne) if anyone is going to take them even a little bit seriously.

The central friendship of Bobo, Klara, and later Hedvig is captivating, and the young actors’ effortlessly natural performances (frequently resulting in them visibly cracking each other up, scripted or not) brings the story to vividly true life. I think the shy and troubled Bobo may be one of my favourite film characters in recent years. Her home life is miserable, with her single mother frequently at work or seeing her latest man, and even when hanging out with her BFF Klara, it’s never her show, she’s never the centre of attention. The girls decide to form a band as much to cause disruption at their youth club as to create music. They write a protest song about how much they hate PE, and Bobo moans “why do I have to play the drums?” while Klara gets the much cooler bass guitar. Eventually they recruit quiet and Christian Hedvig to inject a little much-needed talent, maturity and motherly affection into their ensemble, but even at this stage they seem to be in a band as an excuse to hang out more than any genuine musical aspirations.

You don’t need a lot of help to make snowy Sweden look pretty, but We Are the Best! is a very good looking film regardless, with careful framing and pleasing attention to detail without ever being showy or overshadowing the actors’ performances. Lukas Moodysson, as well as having an awesome name, proves to be a confident actor’s director with a real style and rhythm to his work.

It’s a great film about a very specific age group, girls who are beyond children but still not quite teenagers. They contemplate which of the cute boys from a teen punk band they’d like to be an item with in a giggly girly fashion, but when a jealous argument erupts later in the film between Bobo and Klara, their commitment to their crushes doesn’t last all that long, and they decide pretty quickly their friendship isn’t worth losing over a stupid boy neither are that bothered about hanging on to.

Much like the girls’ attitude to punk and life in general, Moodysson’s film exhibits a pleasingly unfussed attitude towards what the world thinks of it. It can be as deep or as simple as you like. Is it a commentary on loyalty, growing up and art as a way to smash the system, or is it just a pleasant little tale of three friends goofing around? Personally I think it’s a little of both, but others might commit to one side or the other. Either way, there’s a lot enjoy.

If this unassuming treasure of a film passed you by on its release, then it’s time to rectify that. We Are the Best! really is the best, a fantastically feelgood films about growing up at your own pace and having fun every step of the way. An absolute pleasure. SSP

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“Stories of Imagination Tend to Upset Those Without One” (RIP Sir Terry Pratchett)

Posted on March 18, 2015 by Sam S-P

AT LAST, SIR TERRY, WE MUST WALK TOGETHER.

Terry took Death’s arm and followed him through the doors and on to the black desert under the endless night.

The End.

The above was posted last Thursday on Terry Pratchett’s Twitter account. Sir Terry had finally been taken by the Alzheimer’s disease he had so tirelessly campaigned to raise awareness of in his last years despite his steady decline. His final interaction in life imagined to be with the most iconic character of his Discworld Series, an anthropomorphic personification of Death, was a fitting and touching sendoff.

I don’t usually write about popular figures not directly involved in the film industry, but I had to make an exception for Pratchett as he was without doubt my favourite author of all time. Few, if any people in this world have gifted me with as much joy with their work. The long-running Discworld series has been an important part of over half my life, and has fed my imagination, my love of reading, of the fantasy genre, and of satire. The Discworld novels might not be epic, “high” fantasty like THE LORD OF THE RINGS or GAME OF THRONES complete with imposing family trees and dense appendices, but they’re a very perceptive, affectionate and playful deconstruction of such works and their ilk. Anyone who dismisses the fantasy genre as irrelevant, for kids who never grew up, has clearly never read one of Pratchett’s novels. His books might be set in Ankh-Morpork or elsewhere on the Disc (which sits on the back of four elephants which in turn stand on the shell of a giant turtle), but they are always about the here and now, whether discussing new technologies, society and culture or life itself in Pratchett’s wry and witty manner.

Pratchett was always a talented writer, but what I loved about him was that he wasn’t afraid to change his style, even completely re-write some of his characters as his body of work grew. He certainly became a better writer as his career progressed, and never did he retread old ground. You can jump into Discworld at any point as the stories tend to be pretty self-contained, but there’s in-jokes and character development aplenty if you want to work your way through the complete narrative arcs of groups of characters like the Witches, or the City Watch, or Death & Family.

Pratchett’s work has yet to make it to the big screen, but given his prolific production of novels (even in his later years) and the variety of genres he’s dipped into, I don’t really understand the reason for this. We’ve had three OK TV adaptations (the best of which was probably GOING POSTAL) and while they all looked good enough, I’m not convinced that Pratchett’s humour translated all that well into live-action, and nothing more notable has been produced since. Terry Gilliam and Sam Raimi have expressed interest in directing projects based on Pratchett’s books, but they never seemed to gain much traction, which is probably for the best because their distinctive styles might have eclipsed Pratchett’s own. You’d have thought at least Disney or DreamWorks would see the potential in the Tiffany Aching/Nac Mac Feegle stories as a series of family animated movies in the vein of HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON?

If a filmed Discworld ever emerged, I have my dream casting in mind for my favourite characters (Mark Rylance for Vimes, Eileen Atkins for Granny Weatherwax, Maisie Williams for Tiffany Aching and David Tennant for Rincewind, if you’re asking) but perhaps my ideal Discworld should remain in my mind and on Pratchett’s page to enjoy forever. SSP

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Running (and Dancing) with Scissors

Posted on March 15, 2015 by Sam S-P

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The following contains spoilers for the film and stage versions of EDWARD SCISSORHANDS.

A couple of Saturdays ago I indulged in a night of culture when I finally got to see Matthew Bourne’s impeccable dance adaptation of Edward Scissorhands. I found it a completely magical experience, and though it made some notable changes to Tim Burton/Caroline Thompson’s original story from 1990, I understand why these changes were necessary for a successful transition to the stage. The stage is, after all, a very revealing space, a space which requires bigger emotional expression and creative conveyance of your story’s themes.

The film and stage versions may be different, but both are great interpretations of this particular modern fairy tale of an unnatural outsider’s struggle to fit in. Bourne and original screenplay writer Thompson tweak Edward’s origins for the dance – here he’s a real boy killed in a tragic accident and later revived with his unusual appendages, whereas he’s closer to a cookie than a corpse in Burton’s film. For the dance, Bourne makes the PINOCCHIO “real boy” references even more blatant, overshadowing the FRANKENSTEIN “it’s alive!” take of Burton’s film and arguably this does make Edward more relatable and human, even though he’s also implied to be somewhat supernatural here as well.

Unlike in the film, Edward is not a product of an unfortunate but unavoidable incident (the Inventor, played by Vincent Price in his final screen appearance dies of old age before completing him) but of a gang of rowdy teens terrorising his creator and driving him to an early grave. Here, Edward is a product of societal flaws, the pure malice of kids with nothing better to do, rather than tragic circumstance, and this could conceivably give him motivation for revenge. Bourne and Thompson smartly instead make Jim kill himself accidentally rather than making Edward responsible, which he is in the Burton film for flat-out murdering him (defending Kim, but still…).

Not everything has been altered in Edwards transition to stage, and it’s still recognisably the same story being told. The characters’ relationships and themes of the story remain pretty much identical, and only difference in Edward’s portrayal is a little less naivety, more confidence and arguably more character development in the stage version (good as Johnny Depp was in the film).

Both dance and film appear to be set in a very 80s take on the 50s (influenced primarily by Tim Burton’s upbringing) and while you could poke holes in some of the iconography not fitting in its allotted decade, both takes on Edward Scissorhands get American Suburbian satire just right. There’s a lot of fun to be had in the dance with the OTT choreography of the nuclear families beginning their days, Edward’s awkward tip-toe shuffle in contrast to everyone else’s big movements. It’s a shallow, cruel pastel world Edward is dropped into, and the craftsmen working on stage and screen help engage you in his journey from freakish outsider to curiosity and back again through clever, graphically distinctive designs and effective use of available space.

Which version of Edward Scissorhands do I prefer? That’s a difficult one to answer, given that film and dance for the stage are completely different mediums with different requirements. The performances are understandably bigger on stage to covey the range of emotions needed, the key beats choreographed to within an inch of their lives to make up for the lack of dialogue. Both Bourne and Burton treat Thompson’s story well, and even without Burton’s direct input on Bourne’s stage adaptation, it had his blessing and still feels like a slightly different take on the same story by borrowing much of Danny Elfman’s score (with tonally fitting expansion from Terry Davies) and Burton’s aesthetic. Really, which version will connect the strongest with you will be entirely down to what you want from your art and entertainment and how you choose to experience it. Me? I’ll have a little bit of both please. SSP

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Review: Chappie (2015)

Posted on March 9, 2015 by Sam S-P

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In a world where we already have ROBOCOP, then why do we need actually need a CHAPPIE? Not only was the morality of robotic law enforcement already explored in fine fashion in Paul Verhoeven’s classic (and somewhat undermined in the remake), but it didn’t leave much more to discuss if the concept was re-visited further down the line. Neill Blomkamp is good director with a clear vision, but his latest doesn’t even outsmart the overblown ELYSIUM, and shouldn’t be mentioned in the same breath as the near-perfect DISTRICT 9.

Not far into the future, Johannesburg is patrolled by armed artificially intelligent police robots in an attempt to cut the crime rate in one of the most dangerous cities in the world. When one of the robots is damaged beyond repair, his creator Deon Wilson (Dev Patel) gives him an experimental chip that allows him to learn, and “Chappie” (Sharlto Copley) is born. Together with a gang of crooks with plans of their own for Chappie, Deon attempts to teach his creation to be human, while a jealous and violent rival ( Hugh Jackman) hunts them down.

Something seems to have happened in the edit of this film. Blomkamp isn’t an incoherent filmmaker by habit, so surely he must have noticed the vast bounds in logic he asks his audience to make? You can suspend your disbelief for a time, but with so little explanation it feels like we’re being left adrift by Blomkamp and co-writer Terri Tatchell’s plotting. As it is, there’s no setup, and a major plot point in the third act just arrives and we’re supposed to accept it.

I also have to report the presence of one of my pet peeves: unnecessary subtitling. This again is probably a last-minute addition after a test screening as I seriously doubt Blomkamp wanted to patronise the accents of his home nation. Unnecessary subtitling is annoying enough, but inconsistent unnecessary subtitling is even worse – some characters are captioned, others (with equivalently strong accents) are not. This just ends up being distracting.

Being a Sony picture, need I mention the obscene levels of self-advertising? I know all studios do it, but Sony seem particularly egregious proponents of late. Did I really just witness our robo-protagonist using PS4s to save the day? Cape Town Rap duo Die Antwoort also got a really good deal, not only starring in the film but providing music for it whenever Hans Zimmer needed a rest.

Chappie himself is admittedly a very well-realised character in both his visual execution and in the complex behaviour and dog/toddler mannerisms given to him by the flawless-as-usual Sharlto Copley’s performance capture. The scenes of him learning how the world works are excellent, but his action scenes, while competently constructed, aren’t as exciting or original as they should be (the finale is literally Chappie fighting an ED-209 rip-off).

As for the rest of the cast, Die Antwoord (Yolandi Visser and Ninja) are both really good as small-time gangsters who have very different views on how best to treat Chappie and Dev Patel does the inventor with a heart of gold bit well. While it’s nice to see Hugh Jackman not doing Wolverine for a change, he’s a bit of a nothing villain, and the scariest aspect of his character are his mullet and his preference for really short shorts. Anyone expecting a significant Sigourney Weaver role will leave disappointed – she’s in about three scenes as the CEO of a weapons manufacturer, and none of them are particularly significant to the film as a whole.

Blomkamp clearly still has something to say in his ongoing dissertation on South African injustice, and having such a prominent voice from outside Hollywood working within it and offering a different perspective on the world is as it should be. He does need to careful to hold on to what makes him distinctive, as he’s just starting to show hints of industry homogenisation creeping into his work. With a tighter script and a few more original ideas, Chappie might have been something special. As it is, it’s good-looking and well performed, but mostly forgettable. Still, Blomkamp’s ALIEN movie sounds all kinds of fun! SSP

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Review: Mr. Turner (2014)

Posted on March 7, 2015 by Sam S-P

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Not for a single moment was I in any doubt that I was in another time, observing these real people going about their real lives. That’s Mike Leigh’s greatest strength as a filmmaker, the convincing portrayal of the world we know, warts and all. It’s one thing to recreate a version of the lives we live every day, it’s a whole other level of achievement to make the viewer believe they are actually witnessing a moment from 150 years ago. MR. TURNER exhibits a very particular kind of truth despite the story being mostly made up.

JMW Turner (Timothy Spall) was the greatest painter of his age. Appreciated during his life by high society, but never quite part of it, he travels far and wide for inspiration and pushes those closest to him ever further away as he is consumed by his art. Following a bereavement that rocks him to the core, Turner’s artistic style becomes more experimental, and his public image becomes one of a man losing his grip on reality. With the world changing rapidly around him, the only one to stay loyally by his side is a lonely widow he finds a connection with (Marion Bailey).

Spall’s performance as Turner is certainly not a handsome one. He makes the eponymous artist a gouty bag of guttural noises with next-to-no human feeling at all beyond passion for his art and a deep affection for his father William (Paul Jesson). It may not be pleasant to witness his deplorable treatment of everyone he meets, from exploiting his besotted housekeeper (Dorothy Atkinson) for occasional sexual release, to guffawing at the idea of a happy meeting with his illegitimate daughters and their mother (Ruth Sheen), to throwing his weight around at the Royal Academy and dismissing any promising artist who might compete for his limelight. It’s unpleasant, but it’s mesmerising stuff. I’ve never been of the opinion that characters have to be likeable, or even empathetic; characters just have to be interesting, and Leigh and Spall have crafted someone detestable, grotesque, yet compelling, and surrounded him with a formidable ensemble.

Fittingly, for a film about such a great visualist, Mr. Turner looks utterly divine. Every shot is striking and painterly, from the carefully arranged interiors to the staggeringly vivid tableaus we see as Turner strolls purposefully towards his next inspiration. A prominent match cut between canvas and rock face is particularly lovely. Turner’s last words were supposed to be “the sun is God”, and this theme is used to great affect by Leigh and his regular cinematographer Dick Pope in bathing drawing rooms, hillsides, coastlines and our questionable protagonist in glorious, revealing light.

The film explores a number of sociocultural concepts distinct to its period setting. For one, the idea that you could be a celebrity, one of the most famous men in the county, and yet could live anonymously because unless they moved in the right circles (and few did) people would have no idea what you looked like. The deep shame attached to illegitimacy is shown to still dominate in the 19th Century, with Turner resenting any visit by his flesh-and-blood, and denying their existence in public. One of Turner’s only redeeming qualities is shown to be fighting the tide of class-dominated society at large. He might move in intellectual circles, attend lavish events and rub shoulders with lords and ladies, but he is still a working-class kid at heart, elevated to a respectable status by talent alone. This surfaces in a scene at John Ruskin’s (Joshua McGuire) house, where Turner loses patience with the critic’s obnoxious intellectual ramblings and brings the conversation crashing back to grass roots topics with a question of pie preference.

Turner is rightly acknowledged to be far ahead of his time. While his contemporaries might have assumed he was losing his gift and/or his sight, he was arguably laying the foundations for the imminent arrival of the Impressionists and even the Surrealists a century later. Leigh manages to get his own views on art in there too; his disdain for art as a business is shown with an elderly Turner refusing to sell his body of work for a generous sum; the tragedy of the loss of true craftsmanship caused by new technologies is demonstrated by Turner’s uneasiness around one of the first cameras (he scoffs”long may it continue” to fail to produce anything in colour). These strong opinions are particularly prominent in the film’s final act, where Leigh is taking stock on Turner the man, and the life he lead.

Mr. Turner is a masterful and absorbing biopic, a challenging character piece that is both funny and tragic, and a sharp critique of the narrow-mindedness and fickle nature of the art world. Leigh brings little moments in 19th Century English high society to life, and Spall and the supporting players inject humanity and flaws into real lives, lives that are far away in time, but brought closer, made more real, by their unrivaled skill in their craft. It didn’t get much awards recognition outside Cannes, not even from BAFTA (for shame) but perhaps that’s appropriate for Leigh’s status as a dogged independent, the forever outsider. SSP

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Review: The Guest (2014)

Posted on February 26, 2015 by Sam S-P

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Adam Wingard is a filmmaker to watch. He clearly adores lowbrow genre flicks, and his career aim seems to be to be to produce some very polished examples of his own. His films are recognisable, but always with a little deconstruction and self-awareness to make them feel fresh. Like he did with slick home-invasion horror YOUR NEXT, he’s equally elevated and aped the horror-thriller with THE GUEST.

When David (Dan Stevens) appears on the Peterson family doorstep and claims to be the squadmate of their recently killed in action son, they are compelled to invite him into their home to hear affectionate stories of their son’s bravery and to embrace this seemingly nice young man as one of the family. But it becomes increasingly clear that something is amiss, and as David worms his way further into their lives, it becomes clear he has no intention of leaving.

The first half of The Guest is a tense, nuanced, slow-burner of a character piece. We’re given time to get to know the members of the Peterson family and their woes, we are equally compelled and creeped out by David and the way he affects the family unit. The second half is an all-out unashamedly trashy horror-tinged actioner. These disparate tones shouldn’t work together, and one should derail the other, but somehow Wingard makes this combination of extremes not only work, but excel. He’s a good all-rounder filmmaker really, in addition to executing a remarkable tonal balancing act, he has a distinctive, confident aesthetic style and the ability to encourage the best possible performances from his actors. He also really loves blood and carnage, but always stops short of becoming unpleasant.

You’ve never seen Dan Stevens like this before. He oozes charm and visibly simmers with menace all at once, making for a chill-inducing horror antagonist (particularly when Stevens switches on his uncanny valley smile). It’s not just Stevens’ show though, and the supporting players all bring something a little extra to their performances. Sheila Kelley excels as Laura, a mother ruined by grief, Leland Orser bring a very human bitterness to Spencer the father, and Maika Monroe and Brendan Meyer give star-making turns as Anna and Luke the increasingly suspicious Peterson children. It’s fascinating to see the different tactics David uses to deceive each of them based on their personality types – he charms Laura, drinks with Spencer, flirts with Anna and protects Liam.

Everyone has been talking about the lean, mean, barroom brawl sequence where David demonstrates just how lethal he can be using furniture and hot sauce, and the editing and choreography here is indeed excellent, but the scene that sticks with me the most comes later and is much lower key. It takes place on a school corridor with the camera tight on David’s face. David has just saved Luke from being expelled from school by manipulating his Principal, and in gratitude Luke reveals he knows a little too much about what David is up to, but pledges to keep his secret. Here, Stevens goes through seemingly every human emotion possible in one unbroken 20-second shot. It’s a wonderfully versatile performance in microcosm.

The biggest action scene in the film is arguably its weakest element. Not only have we seen heavily armed black ops types trying and failing to hit their target through the walls of a brittle building countless times before, but here Wingard unfortunately can’t hide his film’s modest budget. It’s not badly done, it just doesn’t look or sound as sturdy as it should. The finale in contrast revels in being a little cheap-looking, intentionally appearing like the sickly neon-lit final showdown in a teen slasher.

Watching The Guest provides an equal rush of adrenaline and endorphins. It’s a thrill from beginning to end and it’s just so much honest-to-goodness fun throughout. One moment you’ll be almost in pain from the tension, the next you have the wonderful release of  a gentle (or not so gentle) gag, then you’re back on the edge of your seat again within moments. It’s all very carefully calculated by Wingard and regular writer Simon Barrett, but it’s executed in a manner that almost looks casual. The Guest is an effective and high quality thriller with an antagonist all the scarier because he’s not supernatural, he’s just a guy in your house you can’t get to leave. SSP

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Review: Big Hero 6 (2014)

Posted on February 23, 2015 by Sam S-P

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The latest from Disney is a colourful and undemanding superhero romp. Much like the film’s main draw Baymax, BIG HERO 6 is bouncy, endearing and funny, but perhaps doesn’t offer much extra once its fairly limited aims have been satisfied.

Hiro (Ryan Potter) is a bona fide robotics genius who has world-changing ideas but lacks the motivation to apply them, until his brother Tadashi (Daniel Henney) convinces him to enroll at the same prestigious university in order to develop his already considerable talents. Following an apparent tragic accident, Hiro is left alone and aimless once more, until the simultaneous discovery of Baymax (Scott Adsit), one of his brother’s inventions, and the arrival of a masked supervillain inspires him to form a team composed of his brother’s tech-savvy friends to protect their city of San Fransokyo.

Baymax is an instantly iconic creation. This big loveable Flump steals every scene, will undoubtedly inspire a mountain of licensed merchandise and memes, and is more interesting than pretty much every character who is given more dialogue. He’s beautifully animated with an original design and cute physical quirks (apparently inspired in part by baby penguins) and thanks to 30 ROCK’s Scott Adsit, he is given the most warm and appealing not-quite-human voice since I, ROBOT’s Sonny. They even manage to get an IRON GIANT-esque wobbly-lip moment in there towards the end.

Ultimately it’s a pretty standard superhero origin story crossed with every kids anime series from the late 90s/early 2000s (plus a random FRANKENSTEIN reference that doesn’t really make sense with this story). Elements of a really good film are there; it looks good, it demonstrates immense imagination and the heart and humour are more-or-less in the right places. What’s a little off is the split between action and quieter character moments (it’s weighted heavily in favour of the former) and the pacing of the thing, with some elements seeming  rushed (perhaps to limit the film to a family-friendly 100 minutes) while others drag, and the film just seems to abruptly end.

The over-abundance of action wouldn’t be a bad thing if it was memorable, but the set pieces here are sadly very conventional with some interesting animated effects thrown in, and you never feel the heroes are in jeopardy. The only moment of tension which comes from a tweak of Asimov’s ideas is over all too quickly, and the characters, Hiro in particular, move on all too quickly. You might be tempted to say that since it’s a children’s film (debatable), why bother making it emotionally or intellectually complex? Then you remember what Pixar and more recently DreamWorks have produced over the last decade and that particular argument falls flat.

There’s a generous number of decent jokes, most of which come from Baymax’s well-meaning nature and non-lethal physique (“I fail to see how [latest weapons/armour upgrade] makes me a better care provider”). The gag that made me laugh the most of all was Wasabi (Damon Wayans Jr.) making a bit of a mess of cutting his way through a door with his arm-mounted energy blade, something which anyone who’s ever tried to saw through something without the know-how will relate to.

The central mystery, that of the identity of the masked villain, is entry-level stuff – there are only three real suspects and one of them is discredited pretty quickly. Kids might still be surprised if they haven’t seen much like this before, but most adults will be looking for another dimension. Still, viewers of all ages can become invested in the tale of a lonely boy-genius and his squidgy robot pal.

I won’t say don’t see Big Hero 6, because there’s a lot to like about it. What I will say is my expectations of Disney are a little higher at this stage, particularly after their reinvention in recent years, and I’m not sure if I’ll remember any part of the film that didn’t involve Baymax six months from now. As I write this, I now hear it’s an Oscar winner. This confuses me. It’s not really Oscar quality, but the Academy were clearly too confused by braver animated efforts last year (HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2, THE BOXTROLLS), so perhaps they just gave it to Disney out of habit. SSP

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Oscar Review: Boyhood (2014)

Posted on February 22, 2015 by Sam S-P

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BOYHOOD is not a masterpiece. And yet it’s probably still worthy of an Oscar in 2014, a pretty patchy year in film overall. Judging by the pattern awards shows so far seem to be following it’s all-but a shoe-in for the top prizes, with only BIRDMAN as an outside favourite. For me, Birdman, THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING and FOXCATCHER are better films, but at least Boyhood is interesting, a feelgood movie, and at least it stands out from the competition, and that might just be enough this year.

The story, as you might expect, follows a boy. Mason (Ellar Coltrane) from age five to eighteen, along with his older sister Samantha (Lorelei Linklater), his occasionally present dad (Ethan Hawke) and his loving mother (Patricia Arquette) and her succession of boyfriends of inconsistent quality. We sit in on, and become part of, this family’s life for over a decade, and we witness the impact your upbringing can have on the person you become in adulthood.

The story behind the making of Boyhood has been well documented. It almost became a go-to opening question for interviewers to put to writer-director Richard Linklater – “will your secret passion project ever be finished?” What was Linklater thinking when he decided to cast a young actor and follow his development within a loosely scripted structure for the the next twelve years? It’s one of the most risky and awkward ways possible to make a coherent film. His team even had a contingency plan in place in case Linklater died, now that’s dedication to your art! Amazingly, the end result hasn’t collapsed under its own weight, and works pretty well.

By the project’s very nature, it’s a mass editing process of a mountain of footage, and it becomes a film of moments. We have unexpected moments, moments of beauty, moments of heartbreak, moments of innocence and moments of pathos, all presented organically without any distracting time-stamps beyond passing references to iconic moments of popular culture in the 2000s. All the moments you expect – Mason’s first kiss, his first drugs, an awkward sex talk with Dad – are there. Others you don’t expect – the family uprooting and re-starting life in a new town, Mom’s abusive boyfriends kicking off, Grandpa’s gift to Mason for his 16th birthday of a double-barrelled shotgun – are also there. Everything is well-judged, fluid and totally believable. Well, perhaps not the very Hollywood romantic ending where Mason is literally looking off into the sunset, that was a little on-the-nose.

Much like the British family sitcom OUTNUMBERED, the film is far better when it focuses on Mason as a child, when he’s just behaving like a kid would off-camera and there’s not much structure to the scenes. As Mason grows, the script seems to kick in, Coltrane as Mason begins to make decisions and more obviously to “act” and it all feels much more choreographed, less naturalistic and less effective at drawing you in. Coltrane seems to be a good actor, but I don’t know whether this project alone (he did the odd small part in addition to this, but this is still his breakthrough) gives us enough of a sense of the kind of performer he will become. Thankfully, he has a great supporting cast around him, with Hawke and Arquette providing layer upon layer to their characters, separated parents struggling with very different aspects of parental responsibility. Lorelei Linklater might have got the role of Samantha for reasons of nepotism, but she proves to be a gifted and likable presence, and her love-hate relationship with Mason as the bossy older sister always feels genuine.

You have to ask what Boyhood is actually receiving all these awards statuettes for. Is it being recognised because it’s considered a genuinely superior example of filmmaking than everything else released in 2014? Is the act of revisiting and filming a boy’s life over a decade and constructing a story that flows at the end of it all what is impressing everyone? Is it the achievement, both the artistically singular one for Linklater, and a collective effort from the ensemble that is receiving praise? Has it just struck an emotional chord with enough people? Is it just very lucky to be released in hit-and-miss 2014? We may never know for sure, though if it wins the big prize tonight then I’m sure everyone and their dog will be discussing it. SSP

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Review: Gone Girl (2014)

Posted on February 18, 2015 by Sam S-P

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GONE GIRL is a solid mystery, a satisfying examination on the ins and outs (mostly outs) of relationships, but it’s a truly great film about the power of the media image and its complete and utter dominance in contemporary society.

On the surface of it, Nick and Amy Dunne (Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike) are the perfect couple. They’re successful, attractive and seemingly happy; they are the envy of everyone they know. When Amy suddenly goes missing in suspicious circumstances, a media campaign sparks country-wide search, and Nick becomes the prime suspect for disposing of his wife.

We have classic David Fincher here. Gone Girl is cold, calculated and immaculately formed (Fincher is such a perfectionist in everything he does that I’m sure he was really annoyed  that he couldn’t re-shoot the scenes where Affleck had gained Batman bulk). It’s also, next to FIGHT CLUB, the funniest film he’s ever made. It’s almost never comfortable comedy – Nick automatically reverting to full scumbag mode at the worst possible time, one of the cops muttering that describing the missing Amy’s personality as “complicated” is “code for bitch” – but funny is funny, black comedy is still comedy.

Like most good mysteries, the devil really is in the details. There are clues aplenty to be spot and mull over (in addition to those in envelopes literally marked “clue”) and once everything slots into place you’ll be kicking yourself for not appreciating the significance of some telling moments. I’ll admit I was expecting a more surprising final twist in the tale, but having said that the one we’re given works well enough, and keeps you involved in the plot even after you know who did what to whom (which was crucial considering at this point you’re still only about two thirds of your way through the film).

The casting for the film is very canny indeed. Affleck won the role of Nick because of the distinctive smile vapid he reserves for the media, Pike is Amy for her ageless, ethereal quality. Together they become equally one of the best and worst on-screen couples in history. Their scenes crackle with sexual chemistry, with lust, but also seethe with the purest rage. Film characters almost never have to be likeable to be compelling, and Amy and Nick are both pretty detestable in their way, but are nevertheless completely captivating. Nick is an insensitive, gullible moron who can’t help but look guilty, Amy is a ruthless, manipulative siren. At least Nick’s sister Margo (Carrie Coon) seems like a good person, because they’re in short supply in this story. As great as Pike and Affleck are, their show is almost stolen by Coon and Kim Dickens as the investigation’s lead detective, who both play the story’s two sharpest and most perceptive characters, and the only ones who could really claim to function as human beings. Neil Patrick Harris and Tyler Perry both turn in solid performances as Amy’s ex and Nick’s lawyer respectively, but neither get enough screentime to make a lasting impression.

Fincher and screenwriter Gillian Flynn (adapting her own novel) wittily deconstruct contemporary society’s infatuation with gruesome stories in the media. Amy doesn’t have to be missing for very long at all before the nationwide search has a catchy tag “Find Amy” and her face and life story is plastered across newspapers, websites and press conference walls. Those following the story want Amy found, but equally they want to see the culprit humiliated and punished, their suspicions and their gut instincts to be proven correct. You can practically see onlookers circle like wolves when Nick makes a major gaffe of inappropriate behaviour not long after his wife goes missing. It represents human nature uncomfortably accurately, particularly the essential part schadenfreude plays in our existence.

On a moral level, this is a story that pushes you, that is designed to make you feel deeply uncomfortable. Just when you think events have taken their darkest turn, we get yet another gut-punch and by the end you feel deeply uneasy. Despite this feeling, miraculously it’s not a film in the “I admired it but couldn’t enjoy it” camp. On the contrary, it’s a really satisfying, dare I say it, fun, film in spite of all the depraved horribleness. Fincher might have cornered the market in terms of making entertaining films that he judges you for finding entertaining, and he’s certainly not softening as his career progresses. On the contrary, I think he might be becoming more removed from the rest of humanity with every film he makes. He remains a formidable, reliable and fascinating creative force on the film stage. SSP

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