Tag Archives: Daisy Ridley

New In Theaters

Hey, Barbie

Leave a comment

Sometimes I Think About Dying

by Hope Madden

Sometimes I Think About Dying feels like the farthest from Star Wars an actor can go. And I like Star Wars, but still, I mean that as a good thing.

Rather than taking place in a galaxy far, far away, director Rachel Lambert’s film takes place in a set of cubicles inside an office near the ocean of a small Washington town. Daisy Ridley (who also produces) plays Fran. Fran likes spreadsheets, almost never talks, and sometimes she thinks about dying.

That is, until Robert (Dave Merheje) takes the cubicle recently vacated by Carol (Marcia DeBonis), who retired and went on a cruise. Robert’s outgoing, as all of Fran’s office mates seem to be, but there is one difference. Robert realizes Fran exists. And now suddenly, as she sits alone in her very modest apartment after eating a microwaved meal of meat patty covered in cottage cheese, Fran no longer thinks about dying. She thinks about Robert.

Lambert’s film benefits immeasurably from an incredibly lived-in, authentic environment. Though each character has its charm, each one also feels apiece of this world. Sometimes I Think About Dying doesn’t satirize the world of the cubicle as The Office or Office Space. It just understands it–recognizes the banality and camaraderie and sparks of humanity and humor.

What Lambert and Ridley mine beautifully is the difficulty people face when they’re trying desperately to be normal, and the only way they can manage is to be utterly invisible. The longing that comes to life in Fran’s face, her slow thaw to tenderness, vulnerability, brittleness, and panic testifies to Ridley’s versatility.

The full ensemble is a delight, but Merheje is particularly perfect in this role. His own insecurity and loneliness bubble to the surface as he tries and fails to figure Fran out and just have a normal relationship.

Working from a script by Stefanie Abel Horowitz (which she adapts from her acclaimed short), Kevin Armento, and Katy Wright-Mead, Lambert shies away from the morbid or fantastical that exists in the tale. It exists, but it’s accepted lightly in a film that is quiet. It sneaks up on you, like death or like love. And it shows an impressive, introspective side of Ridley.

New In Theaters

God Save the Queen

Leave a comment

The Marsh King’s Daughter

by Hope Madden

From its opening moments, Neil Burger’s The Marsh King’s Daughter establishes a meditative, even spooky mood. And though tensions rise fairly steadily over the following 108 minutes, he never entirely loses that atmosphere.

It’s a mood that suits a film about a young woman (Daisy Ridley) brought up in the most remote part of Michigan’s upper peninsula. Her father (Ben Mendelsohn) raises her to track, hunt, and recognize her place in the natural world.

Young Helena (played in youth by Brooklynn Prince, solid as ever) disapproves of her mother’s dour ways and prefers the company of her doting if strict father. This is why she’s so unhappy to be separated from him when her mother – who’d been kidnapped years earlier and forced to live in isolation – is finally rescued, and takes Helena with her to freedom.

And though Act 2 devolves into a fairly predictable if well shot and well-acted thriller, the effort put into the first act establishes Helena’s central conflict. She loved her dad more than anything in the world and he loved her back, in his way. His way was deeply, criminally wrong. But with Mendelsohn in the driver’s seat, the villainy is more than subtle and sinister enough to amplify an often-missed opportunity. We know why Helena loves and misses her father, regardless of the monster she logically realizes he is.

Mendelsohn is masterful, as is routinely the case. He brings an unnerving calm, a low key but committed sense that his way is the right way, the only way. His quietly impatient performance matches the films slow but deepening sense of unease.

Ridley – wiry, alert but never showy – convinces. Helena is what’s left of the kid whose idyllic childhood turned out to be more nightmare than dream.

None of the other characters have enough richness to feel like more than vehicles for the father/daughter story. Garrett Hedlund is particularly hamstrung by the underwritten “supportive spouse” role, and Gil Birmingham feels especially manhandled as the tragedy waiting to happen.

The most disappointing aspect of The Marsh King’s Daughter is the way the second act bends to predictability. But Burger remembers the strength of his opening when father and daughter return to the woods in the last third, and it’s worth the wait.

New In Theaters

Vitruvian Man

Leave a comment

The Inventor

by Hope Madden

The Inventor, a beautifully animated lesson on the life and times of Leonardo da Vinci (voiced by Stephen Fry), offers a lot to digest, and I’m not sure who they think is eating.

Writer/co-director Jim Capobianco (directing here with Pierre-Luc Granjon) draws inspiration from his 2009 hand-drawn short, Leonardo. A delightful sketch about trying to fly, the film ran just 9 minutes and celebrated Da Vinci’s genius in the most charming way possible.

The feature looks into da Vinci’s curiosity about the existence of the human soul. This gets him into trouble with Pope Leo X (Matt Berry), so da Vinci moves from Rome to France, where he thinks he can follow his curiosity in peace.

He cannot.

Capobianco and Granjon land on a lovely mixture media. The tale is told primarily using a stop motion Claymation style that recalls the old Rankin/Bass Christmas specials of the Sixties and Seventies. (This is especially true of the pope, who’s the spitting image of Burgermeister Meisterburger.)

Scenes are often punctuated with the same hand-drawn sketch style used in Leonardo, and together the result is lovely. But that doesn’t help the storytelling as much as it should.

Even with a great cast – Daisy Ridley and Marion Cotillard co-star alongside Fry and Berry – Capobianco can’t maintain interest. He delivers so much information so superficially that it’s equally hard to keep up and care what happens.

The story takes too big a bite. Is our focus the soul? The perfect city? Weapons? Flying machines? Because each of those has its own background, implications, experiments and host of characters. Skimming over all of it gives us too much and too little at the same time.

It’s hard to determine the intended audience for The Inventor. The humor and political intrigue are a little sophisticated for children, and the history lesson is far too long and involves far too many characters to keep a child’s attention.

And though the animation is reason enough for an adult to give The Inventor a go, the simplistic storytelling and characterization will likely leave them cold.    

New In Theaters, Slider

The End

Leave a comment

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

by George Wolf and Hope Madden

Not that long ago in a galaxy near and dear to us, J.J. Abrams brilliantly re-packaged our Star Wars memories as The Force Awakens. Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi took an opposite approach two years later, bringing a challenging and welcome nerve that sent a clear signal it would soon be time to move on.

Abrams is back as director and co-writer to close the saga with The Rise of Skywalker, which ends up feeling less like a course correction (which wasn’t needed) and more like a sly meeting of both minds. The fan service is strong with this one, indeed, though it never quite smacks of panicked fanboy appeasement.

In fact, the echoes of Johnson’s vision only make Abrams’s franchise love letter more emotionally resonant. We were told this goodbye was coming, and now here it is, so grab hold of something.

And that doesn’t mean just tissues (though you may need them), as Abrams delivers action that comes early and more than often. From deep space shootouts to light saber duals amid monstrous ocean waves, the heart-racing set pieces are damn near non stop and seldom less than spectacular.

But let’s be real, this is the Rey and (Kylo) Ren show.

We knew their fates would collide, we wanted that collision, and here we get it, propelled by two actors in Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver who are able to fully embrace the weight of their respective arcs. As all our questions are eventually answered, Driver and Ridley never let us forget what drives their characters: the closure of identity.

And from a new hope to the last hope, it is precisely those bloodlines and destinies that have always driven this entire franchise. Abrams makes sure he honors that legacy with a satisfying sendoff bursting with fandom in nearly every frame.

Yes, you’ll find some awkward dialogue and underused characters, but that’s not a bad scorecard considering all that The Rise of Skywalker throws at us. From welcome hellos (Lando!), to sad goodbyes (Carrie Fisher’s is handled with heroic grace), political relevance (“there’s more of us” in the resistance) to stand up and cheer moments, this is a one helluva farewell party.

New In Theaters, Slider

No Shoes, No Pants, No Problem

Leave a comment

Peter Rabbit

by Christie Robb

Once upon a time there were four little rabbits, some gatecrashing, a tense dude named McGregor, and a pervasive lack of pants. But Will Gluck’s Peter Rabbit is a bit of a departure from Beatrix Potter’s twee kids’ books.

And you might think, ugh, not another attempt to lengthen and embellish a piece of classic literature beyond all reason (looking at you, Peter Jackson). But hold on. This (cotton) tale takes place somewhat after the events in Ms. Potter’s books. Both Peter’s (James Corden) parents are dead and there’s a new McGregor in town, Domhnall Gleeson (perhaps most familiarly known now as the strident General Hux from the Star Wars saga).

Gleeson’s McGregor is an acutely type A city slicker who longs to immediately sell his recently inherited country estate in order to reinvest the profits in a business venture back in London. Until he meets the animal lover/bunny portraitist Bea (Rose Byrne) who lives in the Pinterest-worthy cottage next door.

This gets Peter’s invisible knickers in a twist for two reasons: 1) restricted access to the tantalizing McGregor garden, and 2) a rival for the affections of Bea who, in the absence of his own rodent parents, has become personage he invests with a significant amount of maternal affection.

The conflicts escalate in cartoon violence that’s kinda Home Alone by way of the Odd Couple. And, as you might expect, it is an absolute delight to see Gleeson rant in nearly Shakespearean cadences about the antics of an anthropomorphized rabbit.

(To be honest, I’d probably pay the price of a movie ticket to see Gleeson take exception to piece of burnt toast.)

Like Gleeson, the supporting cast is also a delight. Margot Robbie, Elizabeth Debicki, and Daisy Ridley stand out as Peter’s siblings Flopsy, Mopsy, and the devil-may-care Cotton-tail.

If you want to get all highbrow about it, the entire movie can be read as a metaphor for a kid’s struggle to accept a new romance in the life of a primary caregiver. And if you want to be honest, it bears as much resemblance to its source material as my 4-year-old’s picture of me does to the Mona Lisa.

But there’s enough beautiful animation, fun 90s and early 00s songs, and Easter-egg jokes for parents in case the kids decide they really like this movie and you have to watch it 400 times.





New In Theaters, Slider

Day for Knight

1 Comment

Star Wars: The Last Jedi

by Hope Madden and George Wolf

Did The Force Awakens simply recycle our Star Wars memories and sell them back to us? It did, but not simply, damn near brilliantly.

Then we got the sneak attack from the surprisingly deep Rogue One, a highly effective prequel that only strengthened our bond with the original Star Wars trilogy, and our confidence in the filmmakers now at the helm of this historic franchise.

The Last Jedi makes any letdowns seem light years away. With a deft mix of character-driven emotion, high stakes action and mischievous fun, it waves a proud flag for the legacy of this cinematic universe while confidently taking big strides toward crafting a new one.

Visionary talent Rian Johnson (Looper, Brick) now has the con as both director and sole screenwriter. His affection for the franchise, coupled with an innovative sense of character arc and storyline, combine for a freshness that respects nostalgia even while priming you to move beyond it.

Like J.J. Abrams, Johnson revisits iconic images and bits from the predecessors, but even with much more screen time for Mark Hamill’s Luke, Last Jedi feels less indebted to the original trilogy than did Force Awakens. You’ll find more humor (an opening “on hold” bit is a riot), more action and more Kylo Ren.

As Rey, Leia (Carrie Fisher in a bittersweet appearance), Poe (Oscar Isaac) and Finn (John Bodega) gather their scrappy troops to resist the First Order’s plan for pasty-faced, black-clad tyranny, the yin and yang of the film pits Adam Driver’s dark Ren against the spunky light of Daisy Ridley’s Rey.

Force Awakens gave Ridley plenty of opportunity to claim her spot at the center of the franchise, but Last Jedi allows Driver the chance to fully expand into the role of series villain. A true talent, Driver delivers a Ren who is emotionally manipulative and yet sincere (so emo!), needy and conflicted as he struggles to prove himself more than the “child in a mask” derided by Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis – aided by improved CGI).

Last Jedi also completes the transition of Poe into the courageous, never-tell-me-the-odds “flyboy” we knew was his destiny since the fist moments of Force Awakens. Isaac never disappoints, and it’s a joy to see him buckle this swash so Han-dily (sorry).

While we meet some great new characters, too, there is little exposition and a near constant barrage of action which renders the extended running time meaningless. It might get a little too cute once or twice, but there’s enough social commentary here to be relevant, enough visual glory to look wondrous, and more than enough spirit to be confident in its vision.

Things happen to characters we care about and to others we just met, and nearly all of those things carry the emotional heft of torches being passed.

And The Last Jedi makes it feel not only right but necessary, and all the more satisfying.





New In Theaters, Slider

Terror Train

Leave a comment

Murder on the Orient Express

by Hope Madden

Kenneth Branagh likes a big room.

The thespian and Shakespearean master often feels ill-suited to film, as if he cannot help but play to the back row. Whether Branagh is in front of or behind the camera, subtlety and subtext don’t appear to come easily.

How about Agatha Christie? Branagh gambles that a 20th-century crime novelist whose prose created the architecture for a genre of books, movies, stage and television will still thrill modern audience.

A stacked ensemble for Murder on the Orient Express makes the same wager.

Branagh plays Christie’s brusque genius, Belgian Inspector Hercule Poirot.

Branagh the director is so preoccupied with Branagh the actor that his talent-laden cast is offered little more to do than to quickly hash out one-dimension. The waste of talent is the real crime afoot.

Those underused? A wide array of A-listers, from immediate hot properties Daisy Ridley (The Last Jedi) and Marwan Kenzari (Aladdin) to cinematic icons (Judi Dench, Willem Dafoe, Derek Jacobi) to true movie stars (Michelle Pfeiffer, Johnny Depp)—and that’s not even half the cast.

Josh Gad appears in his second period-piece of the season (after last month’s Marshall), here playing a shady, drunken lawyer-turned-secretary who just might have killed a man.

Leslie Odom Jr. (Broadway’s Hamilton) plays a problem-solving doctor and former sharpshooter who just might have killed a man.

Penelope Cruz is a missionary nurse who won’t touch a drink, but she just might have…

You get the point. It’s an Agatha Christie story. At its best, campy, stagey fun. At its worst, stale.

The movie is a bit of both.

In keeping with Branagh’s love of spectacle, Murder on the Orient Express is a gorgeous, larger-than-life adventure. He shot on 65mm, and whether 20th Century Fox decides to release a 70mm print or not, the result is a glorious display, particularly in Act 1.

By the second act, we’re trapped in the train with a murderer. At that point, Branagh’s film starts to smell musty, and no quirky fun performances (Pfeiffer is particularly memorable) or delicately framed dining car treats can freshen things up.

When not doting on his star, Branagh’s camera showcases dazzling locations before luxuriating in the sumptuous appointments of the elegant train cars. It’s big. Very big. Grandiose, you might even say.

Which makes no sense at all for Christie’s close-quarters sleuthing of clues, faces, motives and sleight of hand.