You love her, but she loves him, and he loves somebody else…
J. Geils may have rocked it up, but Russian playwright Anton Chekov was singing that tune in 1895 with The Seagull. Darker shades pepper the comedic take on unrequited love, and director Michael Mayer is the latest to bring that balancing act to the big screen.
He’s blessed with a wonderful cast. Saoirse Ronan shines again as Nina, a starry-eyed young woman who longs for a life on the stage. Nina’s boyfriend Konstantin (Billy Howle) dreams of writing plays for her, but things get complicated when the couple meets up with family, friends and servants at a country estate in the early 20th century.
Annette Bening, Elisabeth Moss, Corey Stoll, Brain Dennehy and Mare Winngham are customarily wonderful. There’s no denying everyone here is committed, but Mayer and writer Stephen Karam (adapting Chekov) can’t find the balance between comedy and drama, or stage and screen.
The setting is perfectly lush, and the material has certainly lost little of its relevance over the many years, but all the worthy parts are never assembled into anything more than serviceable.
The comedic barbs early on seem too restrained, and the later tragedies too melodramatic. Some staging seems lifted straight from a stage production, while other set pieces breath with more freedom.
Give the relatively inexperienced writer/director team credit for taking on The Seagull. Getting the competing themes to work in unison is no easy feat, and this latest film version is a well-intentioned testament to that very challenge.
Here’s the thing about Feral. It’s a decent movie: well-paced, competently directed, solidly performed. And there is not a single interesting, novel, surprising or inspired moment in it.
Maybe one, but it’s not reason enough to make this movie.
Three handsome couples head into the woods. They get a little lost, decide to pitch tents and find the lake in the morning.
They hear a noise.
One of them goes out to pee.
There’s something dangerous in the woods.
Duh.
Co-writer/director Mark Young follows up half a dozen low budget, middling-to-poor horror and action films with this adequate take on a monster-in-the-woods tale.
The sole reason the film stands out in any way is that Young’s hero, Alice (Scout Taylor-Compton) is a lesbian. Equally refreshing, males are as likely as females to fall prey to the hungry forest beast.
Bravo the nonchalance with which this is depicted, as the film does not strain to call attention to the novelty of this final girl and hero twist.
Yes, it’s about time. And yet, maybe Feral needed at least one other thing to set it apart? Because as it is, it’s simply a checklist of cabin-in-the-woods horror tropes, faithfully rendered, right up to the waning moments of its running time.
Taylor-Compton offers a perfectly serviceable performance, as do most of the actors around her. Olivia Luccardi, Renee Olstead and Landry Allbright all work to provide something close to a second dimension to underwritten, throwaway characters.
Lew Temple is an always welcome sight as the—wait for it—hermit whose assistance in this situation is suspect.
Together, cast and director generate scares by relying less on imagination and more on your familiarity with the genre itself. Therefore, assuming you have ever seen a horror movie in your life, you will not be scared.
You’ll just be reminded for the thousandth time that camping is an undeniably stupid thing to do. That’s what I got out of it, anyway.
Movies, movies and more movies out this week for those of us too lazy to leave the damn house. You can watch a movie that will tear your heart out, or watch an about-effing-time teen romance. Middling horror and action also await your loungy ass, so dig right in!
H&G talk through their most anticipated film of the summer, Hereditary, along with Ocean’s 8, Hotel Artemis, First Reformed, Mary Shelley, On Chesil Beach and what’s what this week in home entertainment.
In a world where the U.S. government stops supplying bottled water to Flint, Michigan residents while international asshats Nestle are allowed to increase their pumping of clean water from just 100 miles away…
Well, that may not have been the inspiration for Hotel Artemis—the inspiration was probably that cool hotel in John Wick—but it is the kind of social disaster that will lead to the Mad-Max-like rebellion that backdrops writer/director Drew Pearce’s crime thriller.
Los Angeles, 2028, and the bloodiest riots the city has ever known have broken out over the privatization of water. With the police very, very busy, it’s a perfect time for a bank heist. But timing isn’t everything—skill helps—and soon a trio of wounded nogoodnicks are headed to the one place they can safely receive emergency care: the exclusive, subscription-based, criminal-only hospital, Hotel Artemis.
It may have a staff of only two—the nurse (Jodie Foster) and the orderly (Dave Bautista)—but it is chock full of high tech medical equipment, old-school security and strict rules. It may also be the best place to ride out these riots. Unless the tensions inside the hotel reach the same height as those outside.
It’s an intriguing premise, one rife with tense and bloody opportunity. A collection of bad people is trapped in an enclosed, retro-seedy space hoping to survive the storm.
If the story intrigues, the cast convinces. Jodie Foster nails the wearied, accepting, down-to-business Nurse. Though the dialog throughout is not as savvy as Pearce thinks it is, Foster delivers it beautifully and her physical mannerisms are even more convincing.
Bautista charms as her tender strongarm. Sterling K. Brown does no wrong ever, here again radiating an intensity that mingles sadness, obligation and moral authority.
Luckily for the entire ensemble, Pearce is more invested in character development than action. He creates a moody tension inside the walls, exacerbated by the explosion of rage and violence outside.
All of which hits fever pitch when LA crime boss the Wolf King (Jeff Goldblum as Jeff Goldblum) shows up wanting to break the rules.
Pearce and his top-to-bottom impressive cast deserve credit for sidestepping expectations and instead crafting a contained, absurd-yet-believable drama. Things get away from the filmmaker when he tries to complicate the plot with backstory, and there are two minor side plots that serve as little more than a distraction.
It’s also an awful lot of tension-building with little in the way of a final release. But Pearce and team have done something remarkable in the summer months: delivered a fresh, imaginative, original film.
Grief and guilt color every somber, shadowy frame of writer/director Ari Aster’s unbelievably assured feature film debut, Hereditary.
The Graham family is maybe less grief-stricken over the loss of Grandma than you might expect. Daughter Annie (Toni Collette) delivers a eulogy that admits her mother was difficult, secretive. Her oldest son Peter (Alex Wolff) seems nonplussed by it all. He’s probably stoned, though.
Supportive but exhausted husband Steve (Gabriel Byrne) is almost relieved, but the loss does bother the Graham’s socially isolated younger daughter, Charlie (Millie Shapiro, in one of the more chilling performances this year).
With just a handful of mannerisms, one melodic clucking noise, and a few seemingly throwaway lines, Aster and his magnificent cast quickly establish what will become nuanced, layered human characters, all of them scarred and battered by family.
The eulogy caps a striking film opening, where serpentine camera movement intertwines the Graham family with the intricate miniatures Annie creates inside their grand, secluded house. What we see suggests a scaled-down world of its own, lifelike but lifeless.
Art and life imitate each other to macabre degrees while family members strain to behave in the manner that feels human, seems connected, or might be normal. What is said and what stays hidden, what’s festering in the attic and in the unspoken tensions within the family, it’s all part of a horrific atmosphere meticulously crafted to unnerve you.
If horror fare such as The VVitch or It Comes at Night is not your bag, then you probably don’t care for the slow, detailed burn that A24 studio regularly serves. For those that do, hooray! Here’s another “adult” horror film, one that invests more in character development than in jump scares (though there are a few, including one so jarring it awakens the potential of the device).
Aster takes advantage of a remarkably committed cast to explore family dysfunction of the most insidious type. Whether his supernatural twisting and turning amount to metaphor or fact hardly matters with performances this unnerving and visual storytelling this hypnotic.
Applause to cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski for turning this intricately designed home into a foreboding character all its own. Like Rosemary’s Baby, The Shining, The Haunting, The Others and any number of brilliant genre hauntings, Hereditary uses its surroundings to create a space where the most mundane moments take on a diabolical chill.
The family dynamic at work here is gut-punch authentic. Collette anchors the film with a performance full of grief, insecurity, bitterness and terror. It’s another in a string of award-worthy turns, and the support she gets from the ensemble, including a game Ann Dowd, elevates the tension in every intricately detailed frame.
You will have been quietly unnerved, startled from your seat, and then unsettled by the time the supernatural elements overtake the story. The peppering of hardline genre tropes in act 3 may feel like a cop out, but Aster’s interplay with the differing family members is too careful for such an easy summation.
The web of mental states, understandable suspicions and direct bloodlines layer the brutally effective fable, and Aster wields these weapons with stealthy precision. His work here is so smartly embedded that Hereditary continually tempts potential non-believers to dismiss where it leads as something you’ve seen before.
Reminiscent of both Andrei Tarkovsky and Robert Bresson, writer/director Paul Schrader delivers a nearly flawless meditation on faith and despair with First Reformed.
Schrader’s film centers around Reverend Toller (Ethan Hawke), overseer of the small church, First Reformed. Reverend Toller lives a simple life. He delivers a Sunday sermon to a very small congregation, gives tours of the 250-year-old church, and occasionally ministers to a youth group. It’s a simple, but seemingly pleasant existence.
His life changes drastically when he’s approached by a young, pregnant woman named Mary (Amanda Seyfried). Mary seeks counsel for her despondent husband, Michael, and Toller agrees to meet with him. It’s a decision that will open the door to the question: Will God forgive us?
Much of the film’s success rests on Hawke. In what is possibly his best performance, he perfectly portrays the inner turmoil and anguish that seizes Reverend Toller. It’s a slow slide from a pleasant façade to destructive rage, and Hawke perfectly captures every emotion, every nuance of Toller’s internal crisis and its external manifestations.
The majority of the supporting cast is able to meet Hawke’s intensity with equal verve. Seyfried’s Mary is the dynamic foil to Toller, and she mostly manages to stay on Hawke’s level. At times, however, she seems out of place, unable to convey the depths of Mary’s feelings.
Schrader’s commentary on the state of the world is bleak, and there’s not much hope to be found in First Reformed. However, it can be seen in simple moments Toller spends with Mary. It provides a few moments of balance, and light, as Toller questions the right way forward.
As the tension builds, the understated score plays a phenomenal role in pulling the audience into Toller’s world. As he contemplates his future, there is a sense of dread that stays just beneath the surface, waiting to be released. There are many moments in which the stress is palpable.
Schrader’s film is a masterful character study that asks thoughtful questions about how our choices will be viewed in the eyes of God.
Saoirse Ronan is a treasure. The fact that she follows up one raucous, very American coming of age film (Lady Bird) with a delicate, very British coming of age film (On Chesil Beach) without hitting a false note is hardly a surprise. She is maybe the most versatile talent of her generation.
On Chesil Beach reunites the performer with novelist Ian McEwan, whose Atonement garnered Ronan her first Oscar nomination back at the tender age of 13.
Adapting his own novella this time around, McEwan deliberates on the romantic struggle of two young lovers, Florence Ponting (Ronan) and Edward Mayhew (Billy Howle, who also co-stars with Ronan in an upcoming adaptation of Chekhov’s The Seagull).
Florence is a highly-strung classical musician from money. Edward comes from less, hopes to write history books and sometimes behaves rashly. Regardless of their differences, they are endearingly in love.
They are also identifiably at an age where a person may see this very moment in time as the only moment, the only way it will ever be, the only way they will ever feel. This terrifying, ignorant, innocent moment is something Howle, Ronan, McEwan and director Dominic Cooke capture effectively.
Elsewhere, they falter.
The film and its story revolve around one night on Chesil Beach where the two newlyweds contemplate their present and future while we’re given a glimpse of their past. For a number of different reasons (some explained, some just suggested) Florence has an abiding revulsion of sex.
Edward does not.
Expectations, yearnings and dread come to a boil on their wedding night, when a lack of wisdom and an abundance of insecurity convince the two (one of them quite rashly) to make a questionable decision.
Though Ronan’s performance perfectly captures both Florence’s love and her reticence, Howle struggles to convince as an impetuous, even volatile young lover. He seems nervous and sweet, and every sudden outburst feels out of place.
Director Dominic Cooke, known primarily for stage work, has trouble creating a welcoming atmosphere. Cooke keeps you at arm’s length from the lovers, less likely to empathize with them than to judge.
The gravity of one rash decision weighs heavily on both, and though McEwan’s beloved pages may make that felt, Dominic’s film does not, so when we revisit Edward years after that pivotal moment at the beach, it’s tough to buy his situation or feel much for him.
On Chesil Beach is a pretty film and a nice story, but never finds the depth to break your heart.
More than 15 years ago, Steven Soderbergh recast the Rat Pack, pointing out a set of Hollywood A-listers led by George Clooney who were as stylish and cool as Sinatra and the fellas.
Three films later (four, if you count Soderbergh’s hillbilly version Logan Lucky, and you should) and the Ocean family is drawn once again to the big payoff.
This time it’s Danny Ocean’s sister Deb (Sandra Bullock). A life of crime runs in the family, it seems. Fresh from incarceration, Deb is looking to execute the con she’s been fine tuning over the last 5 years in lockdown.
What Debbie needs is a team, and she knows what kind.
“A ‘him’ gets noticed. A ‘her’ gets ignored.”
That’s a line well-placed and well-played, and though the film seems awfully familiar from the jump, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The music bumpers, throwback scene segues, strategy meetings and comfortable pacing set the cool vibe, and Ocean’s 8 is cheeky enough in its outright impersonation of the previous installments to shrug off feeling derivative. Instead, it comes off as second class, which may be more disappointing.
Though director Gary Ross (The Hunger Games) can crib the style—his cast (including Cate Blanchett, Sarah Paulson, Helena Bonham Carter, Mindy Kaling, Rihanna and a spunky Awkwafina) can’t generate the same chemistry. No one does a bad job, far from it, but Ocean’s 8 lacks the overlapping dialogue and easy rapport of earlier efforts. They have the talent, they just don’t have the material.
Anne Hathaway is the real thief in this caper, stealing every scene with a fun and funny send-up of the Hollywood diva persona (including her own). James Corden, popping in as a fraud expert investigating the theft of a multi-million dollar Cartier necklace during the Met Gala, brightens up the third act as well with his fresh perspective and savvy delivery.
Otherwise, the side characters are neither as meaty or as interesting as in previous franchise efforts. Surprisingly it’s Blanchett who disappoints most. Too dialed down, her Lou lacks the color and definition to be effective as Debbie’s second banana, and Blanchett’s casual greatness feels wasted.
The best of the Ocean’s films rely on sharp characterizations and sharper sleight of hand. You believe you’re watching the con unfold only to find that …whaat?….the real heist was somewhere you weren’t looking. It is you who’s been conned.
While 8 follows that formula it succeeds only to a degree, its script simply not crisp enough to charm you into buying all in. The con itself is not believably intricate and Ross, who co-wrote the screenplay with Olivia Milch, cops out in act three with heavy exposition.
But hey, heist movies are fun, and movies with this much star power are fun. Ergo, Ocean’s 8 is a fun time at the movies.
Mary Shelley was a fascinating person. She was the offspring of a radical feminist, sure. Still, what fire it must have taken to abandon societal pressures at the time in favor of a scandalous relationship with the married Percy Bysshe Shelley.
Of course, she was 16 and 16-year-olds make poor decisions.
Mary famously went on to outdo both her poet/philosopher husband and his poet/lover Lord Byron when, during a rainy spell in their summer together, they took part in a challenge to write a ghost story.
What then, did Byron or Percy Shelley write? Who can recall? But we do remember Mary’s.
Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin penned Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus when she was 18 years old.
Such a life story would seem like fertile ground for a stirring biopic.
We’ll have to settle for Haiffa Al-Monsour’s stiff and middling effort, Mary Shelley.
Elle Fanning portrays Mary, a melancholy rebel who has yet to find her literary inspiration or her voice. She does become muse to Shelley (Douglas Booth), a handsome scoundrel more opportunistic than idealistic.
The film hopes to encapsulate the abandonment, longing and loneliness that fueled the creation of Mary Shelley’s novel, and more directly, her creature. But there is no life in these scenes—none of the gumption that must have fueled Mary’s early decisions.
Fanning’s listless performance casts an awfully prim shadow. She’s surrounded by perfectly reasonable if somewhat anemic turns by her supporting cast. All this subdued hush only makes Tom Sturridge’s bluster that much more, easily stealing scenes as the lothario, Byron.
Al-Monsour seems unsure of her intent. She struggles to illustrate the power struggle between male and female inside this free-loving environment. But more than anything, she fails to find any kind of spark or passion to propel her central character or her film.
