Directed by Denis Villeneuve, Starring Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Oscar Isaac…
Dune, the Movie
I first read Frank Herbert’s Dune as a teenager and that’s the right age to meet this hallucinogenic, intergalactic trip of a novel. It’s one of those books that almost literally transports you to another world, and I got lost there a couple of times (the sequels, not so much). So, I was one of the crowd eagerly awaiting this new adaptation by Canadian director Denis Villeneuve. His previous work (Arrival and Blade Runner 2049) showed a dedication to serious (even ponderous) science fiction and he seemed the sort of star director who could finally bring such an epic and original story to the screen (earlier attempts can most charitably be described as “eccentric”).
Two and a half hours later, I think I’ve outgrown Dune. Or, at least, I’m no longer interested in this particular sort of ponderous, pseudo-philosophical, humourless, mythic tale about a legendary “chosen one”. Which means I may not be qualified to write this review (please keep reading, though!).
Dune, the Novel
The novel’s utterly unique and deeply imagined world building accounts for a lot of the impact it had upon publication in 1965. It’s set in a far future where mankind has colonized the stars. A vast inter-galactic empire is divided between a number of noble houses, all owing fealty to the emperor, but all rivals for territory, wealth, and influence. Behind the scenes lurk the Bene Gesserit, a female order of nuns, spies, and theologians, manipulating events from the shadows in pursuit of their own mysterious and mystical goals. Warfare has become as archaic as the empire’s politics; personal shields (which stop fast moving bullets) have made projectile weapons obsolete. Since these, however, can be penetrated by a slow moving blade, combat has reverted to sword fighting, and skill with a blade is a prime attribute of soldiers and nobles. Finally, space travel depends on a substance called “spice”, which enables members of the Navigator’s Guild to see through space and time — essential for interstellar navigation. The only source of spice is the desert planet, Arrakis, making it the most valuable possession in the empire. But Arrakis is an incredibly hostile place, its extreme ecology made even more dangerous by giant, desert-dwelling sand worms and the native Fremen tribes.
– WARNING! Mild spoilers follow for a fifty-five year old novel. –
Herbert uses this setting for a classic hero’s journey. The novel opens with the emperor gifting Arrakis to House Atreides in place of the brutal Harkonnens, who have terrorized the planet for decades. The head of the house, Duke Leto, suspects this is merely a ploy to pit the two noble families against each other, weakening both as possible rivals to imperial authority. And so it proves; the Atreides are barely established on Arrakis before they’re betrayed. Aided by a spy in the Atreides household, the Harkonnens invade, reclaiming the planet and killing Duke Leto. Only the young heir, Paul Atreides, and his mother (a Bene Gesserit witch) escape into the hostile desert. There Paul must prove himself and gain the trust of the hostile and fiercely independent Fremen if they’re to survive.
The new movie is being released in two parts, so that’s where Dune (2021) ends. Part Two will cover the the rest of the novel: Paul’s adventures with the Fremen and his rise as the prophesied saviour who unites them and liberates Arrakis. It’s an epic tale, full of archetypal characters, mystic prophesies, and an elemental clash between good and evil.
For me, though, the heart of the novel is Paul Atreides’ personal journey from pampered heir to desert warrior. This is told in wonderfully specific detail: his complicated relationship with his mother (both caregiver and agent of the Bene Gesserit), the conflict between his personal desires and the call of duty, and the contrast between his wealthy upbringing and the harsh austerity of the desert. Paul begins as a callow youth, facing challenges he isn’t ready for; he makes mistakes, suffers setbacks and has to learn fast if he’s to survive. He’s older and wiser at the end, but has paid a fearful personal price to get there.
Paul is an appealing protagonist and his struggles to matures from child to adult are universal experiences anyone can identify with. As with any heroic tale, this inner journey both parallels greater events in the outer world, imbuing them with an emotional consequence. Our sympathy for Paul as an individual draws us into his story, hut his experience also resonates as a symbol of universal human experiences. He is both Paul, the uncertain heir, and an archetype of fundamental struggles that have always defined us: between brutal narcissism and self-control, between authoritarianism and individualism, exploitation of nature and living naturally, free will and destiny…
Story vs Legend
Villeneuve, however, seems only interested in this story only on the legendary, archetypal level; his Dune gives short shrift to almost everything personal. Notice how much of the talk about the film concerns its visual spectacle. Appropriately as an enormous amount of craft and effort have gone into making Dune 2021 look epic: the landscapes of both the Atreides home world of Caladan and Arrakis are gorgeously portrayed and seem like distinctive, real places. Grand vistas abound, not just sweeping pans of the landscapes, but vast military parades, mighty imperial delegations, giant spaceships in formation… Plus, lots of shots of our protagonists staring into the far distance, every moment accompanied by the Hans Zimmer score welling up in a mighty reminder that the fate of the universe is at stake.
Even with two and one half hours of run time to cover half the novel, all these long shots of landscapes and moody staring don’t leave much room for conversation or character motivation. What dialogue there is tends to be exposition-heavy, filling us in on the empire’s complicated politics and the situation on Arrakis. For dramatic effect these alternate with pseudo-profound proclamations from the book (“fear is the mind killer”). On the few occasions the characters actually talk to one another as people, the writing is excruciatingly clunky. When, for example, Paul expresses doubt about his future as heir of House Atreides during an intimate personal conversation, his father adopts a noble expression and declares: “If your answer is ‘no’ you’ll still be the only thing I’ve ever needed you to be — my son.”
Even the visuals, for all their grandeur, lack any sense of how people actually live in this universe. Both Caladan and Arrakis seem largely uninhabited (the only time we see civilians is when a delegation of locals welcomes the Atreides upon their arrival at Arrakis space port). Interiors are decorated to suggest the different cultures but, even in the bedrooms, we never see any personal possessions that might provide clues about their occupants. And there’s nary a bathroom in sight (not that you could imagine these noble warriors pooping).
A Sand Worm
Finally, far too much of the action is prophesied or foretold, rendering character action and motivation largely meaningless. Duke Leto repeatedly foretells the Harkonnen’s betrayal and yet, when it does happen, he can only sacrifice himself as another character’s instrument of vengeance. Meanwhile Paul’s identity as the Muad’Dib, the Fremen’s prophesied saviour, is hammered home by almost every one he meets. He is, in fact, doubly chosen since the Bene Gesserit also believe he might be their destined vessel who will fulfill their mystic goals (a task for which his mother has been secretly training him).
A less portentous movie would maintain some ambiguity about whether these prophecies are real or just superstitious beliefs. But here Zimmer’s score is always welling up to assure us that Paul’s destiny is A Very Big Deal Indeed. Much is also made of incidents that foreshadow his identity as the chosen one (he even knows, without any training at all, exactly how to wear a Fremen Still Suit in the proper desert style). The whiff of fascism implicit in a “chosen one” rising to lead his people by virtue of destiny and birthright is an issue the movie doesn’t address…
Characters vs Archetypes
Given that Dune 2021 treats its characters more as archetypes than distinct individuals, the casting choices are interesting. The wispy Timothée Chalamet seems an odd choice to play a warrior prince, but he’s twenty-five now and able to bring an adult’s gravity to the role. Combine this with his slight, boyish looks and it does suggest an adolescent on the cusp of adulthood. His exaggerated features also make for arresting visuals that play well on posters and in the trailers: all giant eyes, angular cheekbones, and floppy hair. Given how much the film relies on static shots of its characters staring into the distance, that’s not unimportant. In interviews Chalamet can be lively and charming, but in the movie he’s not called on to show much range; his Paul is all seriousness and huskily whispered dialogue; he might smile once in the whole film. In place of a personality his character has a list of virtues: he’s concerned for others, loyal to his friends, and serious about his studies.
Paul & Lady Jessica
Although the Fremen woman, Chani, is a major character in the novel, the film ends just as Paul joins up with the desert nomads. Zendaya (like Chani she she goes by one name) thus doesn’t have much opportunity to play an actual personality; she mostly appears as a vision in Paul’s dreams and spice induced hallucinations. All that can be said, then, is that her striking features and naturally solemn expression also look great in static shots and posters. And her rake-thin build means she won’t physically overwhelm her wispy co-star in Part Two, when they should have more scenes together.
The rest of the cast are reliable veterans who embody their roles perfectly (essential, given their limited screen time and dialogue). Oscar Isaac is suitably dignified as Paul’s beardy dad and Jason Momoa is rakish and energetic as the swashbuckling Duncan Idaho, the movie’s one colourful character. It’s Josh Brolin’s stern Gurney Halleck, though, who gets the movie’s only joke (“I am smiling” — replayed endlessly in the trailers as there’s so little other humour). Dave Bautista and Stellan Skarsgård are magnificently twisted as the evil Harkonnens (without falling into the campiness that marred the 1984 film). Only Rebecca Ferguson, who’s been excellent in other action-heavy roles, feels miscast here: too young and trembly for the Bene Gesserit witch that is Paul’s mother.
Sci Fi of Ideas?
Villeneuve’s oeuvre shows a penchant for big, slow moving spectacles. Despite their epic style, though, his previous Sci Fi films were centred on personal stories and human concerns. Arrival’s science fiction elements (aliens with no linear concept of time) were used to explore the nature of grief and recovery. And Blade Runner 2049 used its futuristic setting, in which replicants (and synthetic girlfriends) exist, to question what it means to be human.
Dune (2021) reaches for similarly grand themes: the contrast between the high technology and feudal politics of its space empire, the conflict between duty and personal desire, and the Harronen’s brutal effort to conquer and exploit Arrakis against the alternative of living in harmony with the desert, as the Firemen do. But I’m not sure it has much that’s anything interesting to say on any of these topics.
And worse, without a stronger or more distinctive personal journey to carry the legend of Muad’Dib, the movie feels narratively inert. It’s half a metaphor; a signifier without the signified. Dune (2021) may not be as convoluted and hard to follow as Arrival, nor quite so excruciatingly slow paced as Blade Runner 2049 but (flawed as they were) those films had a real emotional impact. Villeneuve has obviously poured similar levels of craft, dedication, and even love into Dune, but the result is more portentous than profound; a lot of sound and fury signifying little.
WOBBLY THUMB
Note: A problem I had with Dune, that kept getting bigger as the movie went along, is that as a story loses its credibility your attention starts to wander to questions the author would rather you didn’t ask:
Personal shields may stop bullets, but wouldn’t chemical or high explosive weapons then take over as the primary mode of combat rather than sword fighting? (the movie shows toxic gas penetrating a shield and when Duncan Idaho escapes in an Onithropter he devastates the chasing Harkonnens with a barrage of rockets);
Why would anyone trust, much less conspire with the obviously evil Baron Harkonnen when he keeps publicly murdering his henchmen as readily as his enemies?; and
If interstellar travel is impossible without spice, which is only found on Arrakis, how did humans get there in the first place?
With months of travel restrictions and social distancing still to get through, we could all use some entertainment. So, here are a few favourites from 2020. I didn’t watch nearly enough TV (cough) to claim these are the “Best of the Year”; they’re just personal recommendations based on what I enjoyed. I’m limiting the list to streaming movies and television series, both to keep the length reasonable and because 2020 was pretty dire for theatrical movies.
Netflix
Better Call Saul, Season 05
Season 05 of Better Call Saul was the best thing I watched in 2020. Like its predecessor, Saul is set within the Breaking Bad universe and charts the decline and fall of a flawed man. But it has steadily established itself as an original creation and more than a mere spin-off. Whereas the outwardly respectable Walter White was doomed by his arrogance and resentment, Jimmy McGill is, in many ways, a more sympathetic and interesting (certainly more fun) character. A charming rogue, he’s being brought down as much by the low expectations of his “respectable” peers as his own shortcomings.
This being a Vince Gilligan production, the story is propelled by meticulous attention to detail, clever plotting that never resorts to shortcuts or phoney leaps of logic, great directing, and a great cast. Comedian Bob Odenkirk has been a revelation as Jimmy McGill (Saul) and any one of the compelling secondary characters could lead their own show: Mike, the ultimate professional; “Nacho”, the conflicted dealer; “Lalo”, the deadly cartel enforcer; and, of course, Jimmy’s girlfriend, Kim Wexler.
Brilliant, tough, and a by the book champion for justice, Kim has long been Jimmy’s conscience. But one of the threads running through this season has been a deeper dive into her character and the problematical reasons for her attraction to the wrong man. Agonizing over Kim’s fate has long been a hobby among reviewers, and that question is now even more fraught.
Rhea Seehorn as Kim Wexler
Season 05’s other main thread is Jimmy’s involvement with the drug underworld. He has finally become, as Jesse Pinkman described him, a “criminal lawyer”. That is, a lawyer who is a criminal. Saul is now racing toward its end (it has been renewed for a 6th and final season) and the tension keeps ratcheting higher, even as the show’s character work becomes more complicated and subtle. I’m bending my own rules here as Netflix receives Saul on a delay; its library currently only reaches Season 04, but 05 should drop on the service shortly before the sixth season premiers.
Babylon Berlin, Season 03
The corruption and decadence of between the wars Berlin is a great setting for a dark detective thriller and Seasons 01 and 02 of Babylon Berlin (released together in 2017) might have been the noiriest noir since Bogart put on a fedora. They were a complex stew of murder, Trotskyite plotting, revanchist Army officer scheming, political intrigue, and strange psychology, all set in a Weimar Germany starting to fall apart as the street fighting between communists Nazis intensifies.
After the twists, turns, side plots, and just plain weirdness of the first two seasons, 03 tells a more straightforward story. Transplanted detective, Gereon Rath, is now a permanent member of the Berlin Police and occasional sex worker Charlotte Ritter has joined him as a detective in training. Together (professionally and – perhaps – personally) they investigate the murderer of a Berlin film actress. Complex as the case turns out to be, the pacing does lag occasionally as Berlin attempts to stretch a single murder investigation over twelve episodes.
As, always, though, there are side plots aplenty of political intrigue and corrupt cover-ups to test our heroes, as well as a terrific cast of vividly drawn secondary characters, any one of whom might be the culprit. The period recreation of 1920’s Berlin remains incredibly rich with its close-up view of glamour, depravity, and grinding poverty all living side by side. You almost have to take a shower after watching. But I would happily see Babylon Berlin continue indefinitely, with Gereon and Charlotte investigating a new crime every year or so.
Dead to Me, Season 02
Dead to Me begins as a simple odd-couple comedy when sensitive if flaky Judy Hale (Linda Cardellini) befriends alpha realtor Jen Harding (Christina Applegate) at a grief support group. Soon, though, the revelation of a dark secret turns the show into a twisting thriller with a cliff-hanger at the end of almost every episode. As each revelation uncovers more of the tortured backgrounds and mixed motivations of both women, Dead to Me also becomes a painfully realistic examination of the crippling effects of grief and guilt. This mix of conflicting ingredients should never have worked but, somehow, Season 01 blended them into one of the very best shows on Netflix.
I was dubious whether such a high concept could work a second time out (the example set by the likes of Killing Eve or Barry is not encouraging) but I should have had more faith. Launched by the revelation of yet another big secret, and buoyed by the amazing performances of both Applegate and Cardellini, Season 02 continues to dive deeper into both women’s complex psychology and even more complicated friendship, while also beginning to show what it might take for them to achieve some kind of peace or forgiveness. The season ends with yet another big reveal, but the show has been renewed for a third and also final season. That seems exactly right to deal with the new secret and finish telling this terrific story.
The Queen’s Gambit, Season 00
If you didn’t know beforehand that The Queen’s Gambit is based on a novel, the very literary subject matter would give the game away. It’s the fictional biography of a neglected orphan girl who becomes a chess prodigy in the 1970’s. Along the way Gambit deals with themes of abandonment, addiction to prescription drugs, and the struggle for independence and to find your own identity as an adult.
After an initial round of almost unqualified praise, the series has received some criticism for casting the beautiful Anya Taylor-Joy as the book’s homely protagonist and for making her progress a little too triumphant. Certainly, the series has an element of wish fulfillment, but it’s also compellingly told and an utterly bingeable watch. So, while it may not be one of the all-time greats (like Saul) it’s still a very good series, and a compellingly told tale. Taylor-Joy may be too pretty to match the book’s depiction of the protagonist, but her performance is a large part of what makes Gambit work – both the subtlety with which she conveys Beth’s pain and drive and the intensity of her gaze as those enormous eyes stare across a chess board.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Season 07
Since Parks and Recreation and The Good Place finished their runs, Brooklyn Nine-Nine has been my go-to sitcom. In 2020 its shortened 7th season wasn’t quite as consistent as the earlier outings but, when it’s hitting on all cylinders, it’s still the funniest and best workplace comedy on air. The beating heart of the show is, of course, its terrific ensemble of strange, funny, and yet sympathetic characters, led but not overwhelmed by Andy Samberg’s Jake Peralta. Over the years Brooklyn has developed a number of wacky traditions (such as the Halloween Heist) that shake up the formula and keep things fresh. In addition to delivering a terrific combination of heart and humour, it’s one of the cleverest and funniest sitcoms to come along in a long while. I just hope to be able to hang out with this crew for a few more seasons yet.
The Crown, Season 04
Compellingly directed, beautifully acted, and featuring incredible period recreations (including lots of “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” porn) The Crown continues to be one of the most watchable shows on TV. However, the closer it gets to the present, the more its liberties with history cause me to itch a little. With Season 04 centring on a fictionalized account of the Princess Diana / Margaret Thatcher years, that carbuncle reaches a particularly festered state.
The factual liberties are easy to spot, such as the portrayal of Elizabeth II as the driving force behind Commonwealth sanctions against apartheid South Africa. This completely writes out Canada’s key role in the campaign, especially Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s personal leadership at various international gatherings, including the Vancouver and Kuala Lumpur Commonwealth Conferences. (Canada, the largest and most populous member of the Commonwealth Realm doesn’t exist in The Crown; it prefers the scenery of Australia for any ventures outside the UK). It is well known that the Queen takes her role as Head of the Commonwealth seriously and was privately concerned about the harm South African membership could do the organization. But showing her taking such a strong public stand drastically misrepresents the function of a constitutional monarch.
In the Diana Spencer storyline factual errors – minor in themselves – also reveal questionable efforts to manipulate the story. She is shown as being left isolated and alone in a palace in the weeks before the marriage, for example, when there are actually photographs of her out and about with Charles during this time. However, the lie is used to reinforce a pattern of royal brutality toward Diana that the season is determined to prove.
Obviously, there are questions about Diana’s treatment by the royal family, but the extent to which there was a pattern of deliberate abuse is a complicated issue with no clear answer. The problem with The Crown isn’t so much that it bends facts to make a simpler, more dramatic story, but that it tends to bend them in a consistent direction to support a certain ideology. Most viewers would assume that anyone spending years of their life to tell the story of Elizabeth II would be sympathetic to her, which makes this bias all the more pernicious. In fact, the creator, Peter Morgan is a staunch republican (that is, someone who wants to replace the monarchy with an elected head of state).
Morgan has admitted to taking liberties with the facts more than once, always justifying this as necessary to suit the needs of the story, or to illuminate “deeper truths” about his subject. I suspect his deeper truths are often just his political bias misrepresenting itself. As with Mank (see below) the combination of authorial ideology and the simplifications required to turn history into a compelling drama often intertwine in cancerous ways.
Just as Morgan turns the royal family into monsters to punch up the Diana storyline, he exaggerates the Queen’s private disagreements with Margaret Thatcher to weave a tale of two strong women at odds – turning Thatcher into a cartoon villain in the process.
The core problem of The Crown is that, having chosen to present Elizabeth’s life as a saga, its lead character (a constitutional monarch) is actually just a spectator of many of its dramatic events. Attempting to turn her into the protagonist, and politically opposed to the monarchy anyway, Morgan consistently exaggerates the Queen’s involvement in politics while ignoring or misunderstanding the Crown’s actual constitutional role.
So, why have I included The Crown in this list and given it the longest review of all? Well, for all my quibbling, Morgan is a terrific storyteller. I may find his larger picture distorted and unconvincing, but individual scenes of The Crown just sing with sharply observed details and telling observations. From my limited experience I think he gets the zeitgeist of the British upper classes exactly right. This includes the studied casualness at home, the fetishization of the countryside, the use of manners as a weapon… So, it’s best to watch The Crown as pure fiction. Then the historical objections melt away, and it becomes a ripping yarn about the perils of privilege, the weight of duty, and the complicated obligations of family.
Schitt’s Creek, Season 06
Schitt’s Creek has long seemed to me the most over-rated series on television. And, regarding the early seasons, I stand by that. The deliberate obscurity of the North Generica location (so it can play as a Canadian show at home and as set in the US for that market) robs the comedy of any specificity or bite. And, early on, there was entirely too much dependence on idiot humour (isn’t it funny how rich people can’t do anything?), which gets stale awfully quickly.
A lot of seemingly important story lines were also introduced only to be dropped before they went anywhere. The only thing that kept me watching through the first three seasons was Annie Murphy’s brilliant performance as the oblivious and entitled Alexis – a loopy bundle of eccentric physical and verbal tics combined with massively unearned self-confidence, all made bearable by the genuinely good heart just detectable underneath.
Somewhere around Season 04, though, the show began to get better as the Rose family started working at real jobs in the eponymous town and developing deeper relationships with its inhabitants. As David made a success of his store, Johnny helped manage the hotel, Alexis stopped dabbling and found her calling in PR, and Moira joined the town council, the Roses became more than bumbling idiots and the townsfolk more than rubes. As its characters turned into real people, rather than cartoons, the show got funnier and sharper, its humour more character-based, about people whose foibles we had got to know well.
The show also became more serialized, with deeper stories as plot developments were allowed to run from episode to episode. Now, with 06, the entire season is focussed on the preparations for and wedding of David and Patrick. This detailed, sympathetic portrayal of a loving gay relationship has helped Schitt’s Creek become a critical hit in the US. Even viewed as a television show, rather than a social document, it’s a pretty good send-off for characters I grew to like a lot more than expected. (Note: also available in Canada on CBC Gem.)
The Baby-Sitters Club, Season 01
I am not at all a member of The Baby-Sitters Club demographic but some reviewers I follow recommended it, and the show proved a surprisingly good coming of age tale about a group of tween girls who – um – form a baby-sitter’s club. The wholesome look reflects the fact that it’s based on a reportedly beloved series of 1980s US children’s books (none of the Canadian women I asked knew of them…). However, it’s been deftly updated to include a more diverse cast and to deal with more contemporary issues – fortunately without turning into an “issues” show or a social justice lecture. For sure, the girls learn life lessons about stuff like taking responsibility and accepting people who are different, but these all emerge organically from believable, well-told stories.
The absolutely terrific young cast (plus Alicia Silverstone, now playing a mom – gawd, I feel old) really helps here; all the club members come alive as distinct and believable personalities. Baby-Sitters Club is good enough that, if you have a young daughter, recommending it will make you the cool parent for at least five minutes. Even if you’re not a tween girl, it still has something interesting to say about adolescence, that vital and terrifying time when you’re no longer a child, but not yet an adult – when you’re tackling new responsibilities and trying on identities in search of your own. (A stage of life that apparently arrives a couple years earlier for girls than it does for boys!)
Archer, Season 11
Archer is an animated spy spoof featuring a James Bond lookalike who, while a terrific spy, is also one of the most dysfunctional and psychologically damaged human beings on the planet. He works for an almost equally chaotic spy agency, staffed by a bizarre mixture of psychopaths, overgrown children, mad scientists and – his mother. Made by people who obviously love the genre (details of weapons, aircraft, etc are way more authentic than they need to be) and featuring a terrific voice cast, the early seasons of Archer ranked among the funniest shows on TV.
Now, at Season 11 and, having run through its entire bag of tricks at least twice over, Archer still shows a commendable willingness to shake up its formula. The last three seasons were based on the fever dreams of Sterling Archer as he lay bedridden in a coma. That gave Archer the freedom to turn itself into a spoof of Miami Vice, an Indiana Jones rip-off, and a space adventure. Season 11 seems to revert to formula with a freshly conscious Sterling returning to the agency.
The shake-up this time, though, is more psychological depth. The secondary characters have re-invented themselves (mostly for the better) during Archer’s prolonged absence. Add the fact that our super-spy’s injuries have left him with a gimpy leg, and he’ll have a hard time reverting to his old behaviours. A lot of the fun this season comes from its fresh take on a very familiar cast as they navigate new inter-personal dynamics. The show may no longer reach the heights it once scaled but, even at an abbreviated eight episodes, this is pretty good Archer. Which makes it better than most TV.
Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga
The spread between Eurovision’s dire critical rating and hugely positive audience rating is one of the widest I’ve ever seen. Which is fair, given that objectively it isn’t a very good film; it’s another half-baked Will Ferrell vehicle, full of lazy plotting, saggy pacing, and slapdash writing. And yet, and yet… The subject is so loopy, the cast commit so completely to the madness, the songs are so catchy, the affection for its Icelandic underdogs so genuine – somehow the thing grows a real heart and earns that audience response. Like the bumblebee, it shouldn’t fly and does. Bonus delights include Canada’s sweetheart, Rachel McAdams, showing real comic chops as the loopy Sigrit, and the revelation that those supposedly sophisticated Yuropeans put on Eurovision every year, the tackiest, schlockiest, weirdest reality show of them all.
Mank
The days when the arrival of each new Netflix Original was A Very Big Deal are long (long) past but Mank was one of the service’s higher profile efforts in 2020. Directed by David Fincher and featuring an A-List cast (Gary Oldman, Amanda Seyfried…), Mank is a fictionalized retelling of the month a bedridden (he had been in a car crash) Herman Mankiewicz spent writing the screenplay for Citizen Kane (often considered the greatest movie of all time). With its self-consciously artistic style, Mank provides a lot for literature majors to think about. Citizen Kane was filmed in B&W and featured a circular story structure; Mank likewise is filmed in B&W and told in a circular fashion – between Mankiewicz’ isolated present, and his past as a celebrated writer in the decadent, roaring days of 1920’s Hollywood.
This is clever, and an exploration into the nature of creativity, or the relationship between art and reality, or… something. At a more prosaic level, however, there are issues with the storytelling. The flashbacks are split between fun recollections of studio movie making in Hollywood’s golden age and a rather less interesting story (if you’re not into California politics) of Louis Mayer’s corrupt intervention in a state election. Mank also portrays our hero as the sole author of the Citizen Kane script, casting Orson Wells’ efforts to claim the writing credit in a very negative light.
In fact, forensic examination of the various Citizen Kane drafts makes a convincing case that Mankiewicz did write most of the scenes, but set them within an overly long, conventional story. Wells trimmed his version considerably and rewrote the film into its famously circular structure. That both justifies Wells’ co-writing credit and makes the circular structure of this Mankiewicz biography look more like a gimmick than an actual insight into his process. As for that creative process, the real story of Citizen Kane shows it to be much more collaborative (even when it includes conflict) than the solitary writer in his garret, that this movie celebrates. Ah well, Mank is still fun to watch, mainly for the terrifically witty and literate dialogue, brilliantly delivered by Oldman in classic old movie style.
Apple TV+
Ted Lasso, Season 01
Apple first step, after deciding to develop its own streaming service, was to drop a trainload of money on an opening round of prestige releases. Featuring eye-watering budgets, big name creators, and A-List stars, almost all of these ended up being what could most charitably be described as near misses. Turns out, money can’t buy creativity. For All Mankind had a great premise but also huge pacing and story structure issues; The Morning Show had a compelling cast but often hit soap opera when it was aiming for prestige drama. And so on…
How ironic, then, that Apple TV +’s first breakout hit is the modest and low-key Ted Lasso. I actually resisted watching for a while as the premise didn’t seem promising: a naïve, relentlessly positive, small town American football coach (the eponymous Lasso) finds himself managing a Premier League British soccer team. And that lead character was originally developed by star Jason Sudeikis for a series of NBC Sports promotions. However, just as a Disney theme park ride could spawn the excellent (original) Pirates of the Caribbean, those NBC ads gave birth to one of the best shows of 2020.
The surprisingly complex first season reveals unexpected nuances in Lasso’s personality as well as real wisdom in his approach to coaching. In addition, a deep roster of secondary characters all get their own interesting season arcs, including a football bunny with unseen depths, an aging and angry team captain facing the end of his career, and a villainous but surprisingly sympathetic team owner with a hidden agenda.
Of course, there’s a lot of laughs to be had in Ted’s American wholesomeness going up against a bunch of cynical, potty-mouthed Brits. And Lasso also finds fun in Ted’s fish out of water experience of living in the show’s accurate and well detailed depiction of contemporary England. It’s a good example of the sly observational humour you can sneak in just by having a detailed and specific setting (looking at you, Schitt’s Creek!). The result is one of the most bingeable shows of 2020, made all the more delightful because it was so unexpected.
Wolfwalkers
Wolfwalkers is an animated fairy-tale set in mediaeval Ireland. It follows Robyn Goodfellowe, the young daughter of an English hunter who has been hired to kill the local wolves. Determined to prove she can be a hunter too, Robyn follows her father into the woods and meets an Irish girl who seems to have a mysterious connection with the wolves. Adventures ensue, full of youthful high spirits, delightful performances, and a unique animation style – the whole made even better by the charming accents and lively dialogue. As a bonus, Sean Bean voices the hunter, so there’s that for anyone who has been missing him playing a dad since Game of Thrones.
Greyhound
A slight but intense WWII drama, Greyhound is made better by the presence of Tom Hanks. He plays the Captain of the destroyer USS Keeling (call sign Greyhound) as it protects an Atlantic supply convoy at the height of the U-boat menace. In the tradition of Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers, the action is authentically portrayed, close-up, and gripping. The focus is Hanks’ Captain fighting exhaustion and despair during several days of unremitting combat. And this is where he earns his pay, bringing a depth and humanity to the character despite an almost complete lack of character development or background.
Except for a brief (and almost pointless) flashback the entire movie focusses on the battle with the U-Boats. We learn a fair bit about WWII anti-submarine tactics but almost nothing about why such a relatively old Captain is commanding his first convey, how he has worked with or trained his crew, or how he has gained their loyalty and trust. This focus on the mechanics of battle, rather than the humans engaged in it is why I rate Greyhound as good, but slight.
Perhaps because it’s based on a British novel (The Good Shepherd by CS Forester), Greyhound does have the virtue of showing that other nations besides the US fought the Nazis. Keeling’s escort group is multi-national, with British and Polish destroyers and a Canadian corvette all figuring prominently in the action. (The latter is portrayed by an actual ship, HMCS Sackville, still on strength of the Royal Canadian Navy as a floating memorial.)
Crave
Letterkenny, Season 09
The filthy, coarse, fast-talking Letterkenny is back for a ninth season of small-town Ontario antics as the hicks take on the skids and the hockey players once again. The slimness of the story lines betrays the show’s origin as a web series, but over the seasons Letterkenny has treated its characters with so much sensitivity and respect that they’ve acquired some real depth, lending an unexpected weight to the slight plots. For Canadian viewers (even non-Ontarians), there are also delightful moments of recognition, as when the crew start challenging each other’s pronunciation of Québec (ranging from full-on Anglo to the correct French, “Kaybec!”). So many supposedly Canadian shows are really just foreign productions taking advantage of the tax laws that it’s kind of wonderful to see ourselves portrayed on screen for once. And the rapid-fire verbal jousting – my god; there’s nothing on TV to compare.
CBC Gem
Decoys, Season 01
A modest little web series about modest (if quirky) Canadians with modest goals, Decoys follows four contestants as they prepare for the (fictional) Northern Alberta Carving Competition. Filmed in Mockumentary style (like The Office or Best in Show) Decoys starts out poking fun at its small-town heroes and their strange obsession with carving duck decoys. But, as you get to know them (and their long-suffering families) the show develops a real heart. Unlike Schitt’s Creek this is Canadian content that isn’t afraid to be specific about its setting, and much of the fun comes from its gentle spoofing of places and behavioural ticks we’ll all recognize. It is slow moving, and slow to develop – but, at six short episodes, it has the virtue that it won’t take much or your time. And it will provide a fix of eccentric small-town Canadian comedy for anyone who misses Corner Gas. Decoys is streaming on CBC Gem in Canada and can be viewed for free (with ads) even if you don’t have an account.
Disney +
The Mandalorian, Season 02
Steve Jobs once commented that putting Apple’s iTunes on Windows computers was like giving a glass of water to a man in the desert. Well, for Star Wars fans, it’s been a long dry trek since the original movies (forty years!). The Mandalorian doesn’t reach their heights – the story structure is too simple and repetitive for that – but it is the first live action production in four decades to actually feel like Star Wars. It gets the frontier setting and pulpy, western in space vibe exactly right and, thankfully, it’s not about saving the whole frigging galaxy for once. Instead, it’s a focussed, personal story about a mercenary who turns against his employers in order to rescue a child (Baby Yoda) they’re trying to exploit.
Season 02 continues to feature the great (for TV) production values of the first, with lots of callouts to familiar Star Wars gewgaws in the weapons, locations, spacecraft, etc. It also features some terrific cameos, which will have the fans cheering. Unfortunately, Mandalorian also continues to include a lot of padding; without time-consuming side quests and a plot that requires our hero take a McGuffin from point A to B only to get directions to Point C (repeat and rinse) the season would be even shorter than its already compact eight episodes. Ultimately, though, by getting the heart of Star Wars right, Mandalorian provides a fun ride and a drink of water in the desert for fans who’ve waited far too long. (Note: The Mandalorian might be your only reason to get Disney +, so I’ll note that at 16 x ½ hour episodes it’s easy to binge both seasons during the free trial period.)
HBO Max
The Flight Attendant, Season 01
For any Big Bang Theory fans needing a Penny Hofstadter fix, here is Kaley Cuoco as you’ve never seen her before. She plays the eponymous flight attendant, an alcoholic party girl who wakes up in Bangkok after a one-night stand with a passenger, only to find his throat cut and blood everywhere. Making every wrong move possible, she inexpertly tries to cover up her involvement and is soon on the run: from the cops, who suspect her of the murder, and the gangsters who actually did the crime and are looking for their money.
A lot of exotic travel ensues, along with a fun, lively, and somewhat silly thriller. To survive, Cuoco’s flight attendant will not only have to beat the professionals at their own game but face down her own personal demons. Give full credit to Kaley Cuoco that this mix of pulp and psychological drama works as well as it does. Alternatively, silly, terrified, and grimly determined, she’s the centre of almost every scene. One critic compared her performance to the type of blonde energy Goldie Hawn used to bring. Certainly, Cuoco displays a similar mix of ditziness, humour, dynamism, and hidden intelligence. You’d call it a star-making performance, if she wasn’t one already
Ammonite (2020) | Happiest Season (2020) | Gentleman Jack S01
Ammonite: UK 2020 Directed by Francis Lee; starring Kate Winslet, Saoirse Ronan, Fiona Shaw…
Happiest Season: USA 2020 (Apple TV+) Directed by Clea DuVall; starring Kristen Stewart, Mackenzie Davis, Mary Steenburgen, Victor Garber, Dan Levy, Aubrey Plaza…
Gentleman Jack S01 Created by Sally Wainwright; starring Suranne Jones, Sophie Rundle…
T’is the season for big holiday movies and by coincidence, or because it’s 2020 and the industry’s only a decade behind, two of this year’s biggest are lesbian themed romances. Ammonite is a period biography and gloomy art film while Happiest Season is a frothy romcom. Unfortunately, neither is very good.
NOTE: MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD FOR AMMONITE AND SOME MILD ONES FOR HAPPIEST SEASON.
Ammonite (UK 2020)
Ammonite focusses on the relationship between two actual, 19th Century women. Mary Anning (Winslet) was a pioneering scientist who made ground-breaking discoveries of sea fossils, and Charlotte Murchison (Ronan) was a wealthy friend and supporter. There’s no evidence the two were ever more than friends, but the film weaves a fictional romance around the known details of their lives.
As the story opens, Winslet’s Mary is a gloomy drudge, driven by scientific fervour to scour the cold, wet, dangerous, and wind-swept beaches and cliffs of Dorset. Denied admittance to the Geological Society because of her gender, she lives with her mother (also seeming to labour under some unspecified tragedy) and makes a scant living selling fossil specimens in her shop.
Almost completely dialogue-free, these scenes rely on a portentous visual style — all cold colours and rough textures to set the mood. There are a lot of lingering close-ups of rough female hands scrubbing things, muddy boots scuffing on rough wood floors, dirty brushes scraping fossils clean, and heavily clothed female bodies bent over in back breaking labour. To make up for the lack of spoken language, the ambient sound is cranked up whenever anything gritty or scratchy is happening (that is, most of the time).
Everything the movie shows us of the 19th Century makes the point that it was a hard, depressing time, especially for women, who do all the hard work. And, befitting the subject, we’re clearly meant to understand that this is a Very Important Film.
Ronan’s Charlotte Murchison turns up when her gormless husband visits Mary. He’s an amateur palaeontologist seeking to study with the renowned lady scientist. He’s a rich idiot, but the gloomy Mary needs the money and so lets him tag along on a few beach walks. By the time he’s ready to leave for a scientific holiday on the continent, Charlotte is too sick to travel and gets left behind. In truth, she’s not so much ill as despairing in the wake of a miscarriage. When the prescribed medicine of sea air (on the stormy beach) and bathing in the (freezing) sea water almost kills her, she ends up in the care of the reluctant Mary.
At first the two brusque and silent women barely tolerate one another. As Charlotte recovers, though, she begins to walk the shore with Mary and help with the fossil hunting – either from boredom or because of some previously undetected scientific interest. Soon the two are working together to shift obstacles too big for one of them (metaphor alert!) and giving each other significant glances.
Still, it’s a surprise when this silent companionship erupts into a passionate physical affair. Perhaps the movie’s point is that forbidden love is the only way Mary and Charlotte can burst free of the personal tragedies and gender restrictions oppressing them. I might not be the best guy to judge here (the operative word being “guy”) but, given that their relationship has so far consisted of little more than soulful stares, this sudden transformation into lovers feels artificial and un-earned. Of course, hoity-toity “Art” films resort to unearned plot developments like this all the time, and routinely seem to get away with lazy storytelling that would be roundly (and rightly) criticized in a more commercial film.
Given Ammonite’s emphasis on the period’s sexual conformity and subordination of women, it’s also remarkable how quickly and without hesitation Mary and Charlotte jump into bed together. It would help if we knew something of their inner lives, but the slow unveiling of past tragedies has been the movie’s main form of character development. In consequence, they remain more feminine archetypes or symbolic representations than actual living, breathing individuals whose motivations we can understand (we never really hear a conversation between them, for example).
Charlotte’s husband eventually returns from his travels and summons her home, seeming to end the affair as abruptly as it began. Ammonite makes a time jump, though, for an epilogue’s worth of additional unearned plot developments that open the possibility for an ongoing connection. That this scene begins with a misunderstanding between Mary and Charlotte is a useful reminder of how little these supposed lovers know of each other (or us of them). Typically, Ammonite then abandons literal storytelling for a resolution that has our two leads sharing a lingering glance while the camera focusses on a display of fossils between them that seems highly symbolic of… something.
All this is great fodder for English Lit Majors who can research Ammonites and write tedious essays about how such and such a fossil (metaphor alert, again!) symbolically maps our characters’ inner worlds. I’m old-fashioned enough, though, to still think a story consists of believable characters taking actions based on inner motivations and external events, and that without such a realistic foundation it can’t bear the weight of a metaphorical layer. For all its pretensions, Ammonite is just a slog.
Happiest Season (USA 2020)
Although its tone and setting are very different, Happiest Season also craps out of the hard work of character building in favour of delivering A Very Important Message.
The scene opens on a date night between Kristen Stewart’s Abby and Mackenzie Davis’s Harper. It’s supposed to be our introduction to them as a happy couple, but all we get are a few cutesy quirks. Then the action kicks off with a road trip to visit Harper’s waspish family for the holidays.
En route Harper confesses that she hasn’t come out to them yet. Not good as the two have been living in a long-term relationship for some time. Worse, she asks Abby to pretend to be just her roommate during the visit, so as not to disrupt the festivities.
All this is treated as a set up for romcom hijinks (we’re told that Abby is famously bad at lying). And Stewart does play the hapless Abby’s awkwardness with a deft, comic lightness. She is, indeed, bad at keeping secrets.
But the comic tone is soon out of step with an increasingly toxic situation. The sweet Abby suffers a series of humiliations as the family leaves “the roommate” out of important events and teases Harper publicly about the availability of various male suitors. Again and again Harper is given a chance to do the right thing, only to respond with serial cowardice.
It’s soon evident that Harper’s family is more than just a little uptight and repressed. In support of the father’s political ambitions, they have all — for many dysfunctional years — been forced to present an impossibly perfect image of conformity and respectability to the world. Such relentless hypocrisy has not only made Harper a moral coward but left both her sisters badly damaged.
From romcom froth we’re suddenly in a deadly serious “issues” movie (that would have felt timely in the 1990’s). The setting is small town U.S.A., so I suppose it’s just possible that a sophisticated, well-educated, upper middle-class family could be as uptight and oblivious as this one. But there are problems beyond the jarring changes in tone.
We’ve seen so little of their relationship that it’s a mystery why Abby would stay loyal to the awful Harper. Aside from the fact that they’re mega-cute together (Stewart and Davis do have great chemistry), why are they a couple? What are their common interests? Are there temperaments or beliefs compatible? What do they talk about when they’re alone? We have no idea. In a reversal of the “show don’t tell” rule of moviemaking, we’re expected to believe they’re in love because they say it so often.
Worse, having got very serious about how cowardly and dysfunctional Harper’s upbringing has made her, the movie fails to deal in any serious way with the issues raised. Instead, after briefly descending into misery porn, Happiest Season switches back to romcom mode. Several characters experience sudden personality transplants that (literally overnight) produce the understanding and growth required to resolve all their conflicts. It’s the kind of magical character growth – driven by the requirements of the plot – that Roger Ebert used to rail against. (He’s right; it’s the laziest kind of writing.)
Unlike Ammonite, there are at least some sparks of wit and fun to be had here – usually at the hands of the secondary characters. Dan Levy is amusing as the clichéd gay best friend. And Aubrey Plaza is terrific — both funny and relatable — as Harper’s secret home-town ex, whom Abby is alternately threatened and charmed by.
The Art of Storytelling
The main impression left by these movies, though, is how lazy both are. They seem to think a progressive social message is merit enough to skip the hard work of crafting a real story or relatable characters. (Christmas music is dreadful for a similar reason.)
The problem being that positive messages, or good intentions, have nothing to do with artistic merit. Whether it’s a novel, painting, sculpture, a movie, a work of art is a view into our shared existence, captured by the artist and shaped into a manufactured object. When we experience that work we have the opportunity to become participants in the creative act. The more actively we engage with it, the more fully we bring our own thoughts and experiences to bear, and the richer the combination of our perceptions and the artist’s vision becomes. This shared creation then reflects back on our own lives – a fresh perspective on who we are ourselves. The relevance, honesty, and urgency of this experience is the real measure of art (how “good” it is).
For narrative art, the manufactured object is a story, and stories draw us in by creating sympathetic, believable characters. These may be perky millennials, noir detectives, space bounty hunters, or… Victorian ladies. It matters not; if they’re psychologically realistic and interesting – if they’re believable people — they’ll stir a twitch of recognition within us, an empathetic response to their plight. When our fictional heroes navigate their experiences with recognizable emotions and dialogue, when they overcome obstacles through believable, organic growth, and when they confront their nemesis with only their own wits and resources, then their experiences resonate with the arcs of our own life. By imaginatively participating in their story, we find fellow travellers on our own journey.
The plots of real stories are moved by characters taking action based on believable motivations. No matter how outlandish the setting (space cowboys or kitchen sink drama) we relate to such organic story development because the people in it are believable and relatable. A well-told story is an utterly immersive visit to an invented world that lives in our imagination as an actual place populated by real people.
When these characters overcome burdens like to our own, we feel less alone. When they show the common humanity we share, they remind us that the human condition is universal. And when, through imaginative participation in the story, we meet people, see places, and have experiences beyond our everyday existence, our lives grow larger.
Stories don’t gain this power through well-reasoned arguments. And their insights into the human condition don’t come from logical analysis. Any power they have — any truth they tell — comes from their verisimilitude to living reality and the immersion that creates. The spell is broken as soon as a story gives its characters magical personality changes or using unearned and unbelievable plot developments to demonstrate the author’s political point of view. As soon as that happens, we know the tale is fake, that it has no connection to life as it’s actually lived. And why would we care about a fake story?
Politics is, indeed, the enemy of art.
Gentleman Jack
Rather than head into Christmas on a negative note, or imply that a romcon can’t be both progressive and good, I’ll end with a mention of Gentleman Jack. This is an HBO series from 2019 that also features an historical figure.
Anne Lister was a wealthy 19th Century gentlewoman who owned and managed a farming estate in Yorkshire. Unlike Mary Anning she actually was a lesbian in a time when this had to be kept very secret. This aspect of her life was only uncovered recently when the encoded pages of her voluminous diaries were decrypted.
The series picks up in 1832 with Lister (as everyone calls her) returning from travels abroad, determined to revive the fortunes of the family estate after a series of “scrapes” — failed affairs with various women who lacked the courage join her in an unconventional life. Soon, she’s collecting rents, firing tenants, and looking to sink a coal pit (it’s a rare treat to see what 19th Century aristocrats actually did all day!). If that wasn’t enough, she becomes distracted by meeting Ann Walker, a wealthy but retiring young neighbour (also an actual person).
When Lister decides to pursue Ann, we’re treated to an intimate, fly-on-the-wall view of the two getting to know and like one another. Unlike so many screen depictions of love, this one doesn’t cut away when the talking starts. Lister is an intelligent, lively polymath who has used her privileged status to get away with a metric tonne of eccentric behaviour (travelling, pursuing a scientific education, dressing in masculine clothing…) It’s easy to see why Miss Walker is captivated by her energy and charisma. And we also see that it is Miss Walker’s very decency and kindness that has made her a virtual prisoner of her avaricious family. She has lived a life of quiet desperation, but in Lister’s company she comes alive, showing a heretofore hidden wit and spirit. When Lister’s intended casual affair turns into something more for both of them, it’s easy to see why.
Gentleman Jack’s eight episodes (each an hour) provide plenty of room for this relationship to breathe and grow. But the series’ other great virtue is its full and sympathetic portrait of life in 19th Century Yorkshire. Lister’s servants, tenant farmers, and professional associates are all as vividly drawn as the main characters. Many of them have ambitions and story arcs of their own — in utter contrast to Ammonite’s cramped view of the period, which leaves out anything not in accord with its social agenda.
Even the repressive sexual mores of the time are shown with nuance and complexity. Some society doyens are all too ready to spread malicious gossip about what Lister and Miss Walker might be getting up to. But our couple also have friends, relatives, and acquaintances who genuinely like them and are loyal enough to look the other way (even some who may guess at more than they let on).
The darker side of the 19th Century isn’t sugar-coated, and provides plenty of obstacles, both personal and professional, for our lovers. This being Gentleman Jack, you can be sure there’ll be no magic personality transplants or unearned plot twists to smooth their way. They will have to struggle, learn from their mistakes, grow, and be brave if they are to find happiness together — just like real life! No spoilers as to how that turns out; it’s a story you should watch for yourself.
And that’s my recommendation. Unlike Ammonite or Happiest Season, which mostly waste their A-List casts, Gentleman Jack makes excellent use of a talented collection of British TV veterans. Suranne Jones (of Coronation Street and Scott & Bailey) is terrific as the energetic and charismatic Lister, while Sophie Rundle (of Peaky Blinders) more than holds her own in the quieter role. The whole series is directed with great verve, moving briskly to a rousing soundtrack. Even if you’re not interested in period or “relationship” dramas, Gentleman Jack is worth a look; it’s a lively, fun watch for anyone who enjoys a good story.
Ammonite: THUMB DOWN Happiest Christmas: THUMB DOWN Gentleman Jack: THUMB UP
Directed by Sam Raimi; starring Toby Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, Alfred Molina…
Okay, I was taken in too. Blech.
After Michael Keaton’s quirky but human performance in Batman (1989), and the character driven drama at the heart of the first Spider-Man (2002), I was ready to believe that comic book movies could be taken seriously as films. That is, they didn’t have to be confined to a genre ghetto, but — as human dramas — could be discussed in the same terms as any other piece of literature.
Certainly, the original Spider-Man earned its praise for putting character and storytelling before stunts and special effects (though, there were plenty of those too). Toby Maguire made Peter Parker’s journey a compelling one as he grew from nerdy kid to an adult who has to deal responsibly with new and unasked for powers. Throw in some real chemistry with Kirsten Dunst as the girl next door he had always thought was too good for him (but maybe not too good for a super-hero…) and you had a story that could be enjoyed by any audience, not just the usual crowd of teenagers and basement-dwellers. It might be set in a comic book world of spandex-wearing super-heroes, but these were real people we could recognize and identify with.
If anything, the praise for this sequel has been greater. The few creaky joints in the original have been well oiled: the villain is more interesting and complex, the special effects more seamless, and the plot more elaborate.
And yet, this bigger and better follow-up doesn’t work for me. A big chunk of the problem is the depressive performance of Toby Maguire (who was such an asset in the first film). He seems to be aiming for angst-ridden-and-interesting but hits flat-and-droopy. Even a loser has to have the odd up moment to contrast his downs, but Maguire is uniformly depressive from beginning to end.
As Parker mopes about, unable to manage his time well enough to be either a good student or a good superhero (an interrupted delivery to prevent a crime loses him his loser job as a pizza delivery boy), it’s difficult to see what Mary-Jane Watson (Dunst, in another fine performance) could see in him. This relationship, which should be the heart of the film, just isn’t credible. Fortunately, there’s a giant boss battle at the end to resolve Peter’s doubts and relationship problems.
In other words, we’re back to the world of more and better stunts. Emotional depth proves too hard for the writers this time, so teenage angst has to do. And that’s easily sorted by a few really big explosions. This isn’t so much a film made for teenage boys as one made by teenage boys.
Directed by Peter Jackson; starring Naomi Watts, Jack Black, Adrian Brody…
Just as Wile E Coyote and the Roadrunner are natural enemies so, we’re told, movie directors must fight against evil studio bosses in their eternal struggle to make Great Art despite corporate interference. Lately, though, I’ve been noticing that some of the best movies have actually been made under the thumb if heavy-handed studio oversight. Hmm… Perhaps discipline and financial control can actually be good for the creative process.
Star Wars is an interesting example. George Lucas was a young, independent filmmaker with one hit (American Graffiti) when he started shooting the first movie. He was dependent upon the goodwill of his studio, which provided a modest budget and adult supervision in the form of producer Alan Ladd Jr. The result is still the definition of movie magic. In 1999, when Lucas started on the three prequels, he was a super-star mogul with his own studio. He had total creative control and an unlimited budget for Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Return of the Sith, even shooting them in-house at his Skywalker ranch. Having got through all of these once I, for one, cannot watch them again; they are objectively dreadful to the point that they taint my enjoyment of the original films.
Which brings us to Peter Jackson — a little-known New Zealander, with a couple of modest hits, when he started work on The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Rings was a labour of love and, though the films look like blockbusters, they were actually made on quite modest budgets (as such things are measured). Despite epic themes, the special effects never overwhelm the heart of the story, and Jackson finally brought a literary classic to full-blooded life on the screen.
The phenomenal success of the Ring movies, however, gave Jackson the keys to the kingdom for his big studio re-make of King Kong. The result shows how damaging it can for for a director to have too much money and too much independence.
King Kong starts promisingly enough with Jack Black quite effective as an ethically challenged filmmaker… The repartee is quick and the action lively as he entices struggling starlet Ann Darrow (Watts) and a writer (Brody) aboard a decrepit tramp freighter bound for Skull Island. Then we reach land and, after a bit of 1950’s National Geographic hoo-haw with the local natives, the action starts. And never stops.
The first set-piece lands our heroes in the middle of a rampaging dinosaur stampede that goes on long enough I thought it would be the centrepiece of the film. But it’s followed by another (very) extended chase sequence, then another as Ann is kidnapped by Kong and Brody’s newsman drags the rest of the crew along on a rescue mission. Soon it’s way too much of a good thing. The extended stunt sequences slow the pace of the story to a crawl as each plot point is held up for what seems hours until the set-piece ends. Trifles, such as dialogue and character, go flying out the window. Jackson would have been much better served by a much smaller budget that wouldn’t have had room for such follies.
With so much emphasis on the effects, his storytelling has also become uncharacteristically sloppy. Unfortunately these long sequences give us plenty of time to ask questions: what do the hundreds of enormous creatures eat on this tiny island?; how does some kid who’s never touched a firearm before Tommy Gun giant insects off the back of the hero without hitting him at least once?; how did the dozens of ship’s crew (brought along to be slaughtered by the monsters) all fit on that tiny boat?
The Lord of the Rings films were long, but I sat entranced through every minute. Here, when Kong starts to climb the skyscraper, I just wanted him to die already – so I could go outside and give my aching bum a break.
Directed by JJ Abrams; starring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Leonard Nimoy, Eric Bana, Bruce Greenwood, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg…
JJ Abrams’ reboot of the Star Trek franchise begins with a brilliant idea. It travels all the way back to the original series for a new adventure with Kirk, Spock, Bones, and the rest — still the best (and best loved) crew of any Trek franchise. Yet, by focusing on their previously unseen early lives and first voyage it is able to tell its own, original story (and find a way to finally retire the old stagers for a hot new cast).
The film opens with a prequel sequence in which a Federation starship encounters a vast, mysterious, and hostile alien craft. Battle ensues and the good guys are promptly blown to bits (cue massive hull ruptures and bodies blown picturesquely into space). The Captain decides the only option left is to ram the enemy with his crippled ship. Of course the autopilot is out of action, so he has to sacrifice himself to steer the collision course. Jaw heroically clenched, he gives the order to abandon ship.
Cut to the medical shuttle, where his pregnant wife is being evacuated. Despite the massive destruction she’s been carrying on a running conversation with our hero on the magic radio all Star Trek characters carry in one of their ears. Realizing he is staying behind, she is able — in the half-minute remaining — to give birth, tell him the child is a boy, and fight about its name. The successful christening of the tyke cues the collision of the two warships. More huge explosions follow, covering the escape of the crew in their shuttles.
After this giant hairball of gobstopping sentimentality and huge improbability you have no excuse for not knowing what you’re in for; the rest of the movie, as the British say, “does what it says on the tin.” In fact, the remaining ninety or so minutes — filled as they are with melodramatic confrontations, unlikely coincidences, and the convenient development of “impossible” technologies seconds before they’re needed — seem almost plausible in comparison.
But, if thisStar Trek is pure hokum, at least it’s well-done hokum. The new crew, who looked like a casting call for Star Trek 90210 in the early publicity, are superbly cast. At times they seem to be channelling the spirits of the original crew (Chris Pine, as the young Kirk, has Shatner’s swagger down pat) and the writers give all of them at least one good character moment to get the fans chortling.
The new visual aesthetic is also a real treat. Past Treks tended to look as though Apple computer had taken over the universe; everything was clean and bare and made of shiny white plastic. But this film is built from gritty metallic textures; spaces are cluttered and real looking.
If the last decades’ spate of comic-book movies have shown us anything, it is that origin stories are the best (I know I’m in the minority on that one). And this is a good origin story, with plenty of action but also moments of genuine emotion as our crew define themselves. These are fun characters and, as in the best episodes from the series, there is a terrific \ story here. We see the origins of Kirk and Spock’s friendship and learn why Kirk cannot accept that there is such a thing as a no-win situation.
And yet, and yet, it bothers me that this new Trek is so melodramatic, so over the top — so stupid. I’ve never thought the original series was as cerebral as the fan boys claim, but it wasn’t a brain-dead action franchise; it focussed on human stories and dabbled, at least with ideas. What we have here is pure space opera, where black holes are tossed about like hand grenades and blowing up your ejected nuclear engine is the space equivalent of a turbo boost. Of course, the preceding trailers for the new Transformers and GI Joe films looked even more infantile.
Directed by David Yates; starring Daniel Radcliff, Rupert Gint, Emma Watson, Michael Gambon, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman…
Critics of books or movies tend to focus on plot; this is what “the story” is about, after all. And yet, the Harry Potter series stands as evidence of how unimportant plot really is to narrative art. Because the plotting of these incredibly successful books is just awful). The formula, set in the first book, is that each volume starts with Harry in the real world, followed by a magical journey to Hogwarts where we will follow him through the school year. Early in the new term he discovers some deadly threat to the Wizard world — and then promptly does nothing about it for increasingly lame reasons. There are still months and months to fill with peripheral action, after all, before graduation and the end of the school year/book.
And yet, the Potter series still works as stories because JK Rowling is so skilled at the other elements of narrative: especially setting and character. She creates a marvellously real, if fantastical, world of wizards and magic that is full of terrific, incidental detail (right down to the notices on the school bulletin boards). And all the adventures are rooted in a great set of characters. Through the seven books you see Harry wrestling with issues of identity (he’s an orphan whose closest living tie seems to be to the evil Voldemort) as he grows from child to awkward adolescent (as presently) to a fully realized adult. His friendship with the studious Hermione and the gawky Ron is not just terrific fun but provides a moral counterpoint to the evil characters who are incapable of such genuine loyalty and affection.
And the movies — thanks to a terrific cast, a strong focus on the characters, and a budget to do the stories justice — have succeeded beyond expectation. Often the films have improved upon the source material thanks to the discipline necessary to squeeze the action into a couple of hours (or less) running time. A two-hour movie is equivalent to a short novel or novella, not the sprawling monsters the later Harry Potters have become, and the movies have benefited from the pruning.
That said, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (the movie) finally seems to have been overwhelmed by the task of cutting 652 pages into a (still too long) two and a half hours. Skipping too quickly over too many incidents the movie feels rushed despite its length. Visits to a magic joke shop and the Weasley’s home just distract from the main story, which is about Harry helping Dumbledore collect bottled memories of Voldemort’s past as they search for a weakness in their foe. But here the movie cuts too much, omitting many of the memories described in the book. The result, plot-wise, is as sprawling and unfocused in its own way as the book.
Even more importantly, the setting and characters also lack the brilliance of the previous films. Half-Blood Prince is a sombre story as the wizard world prepares for its final showdown with Voldemort, but I wonder if the film had to be quite this dark and dreary. The trip to Hogwarts — usually a joyous occasion — is a brown journey through a burnt Autumn countryside, and the place itself is in serious need of new lightbulbs And the only real action sequence has Harry and Dumbledore flying alone to a remote cave to retrieve a Voldemort relic. This leaves the companionable team of Harry, Ron, and Hermione — who provide so much of the fun in the previous films — little to do but be angsty teens. Their dialogue consists of strangled utterances, Hermione (for some unfathomable reason) is mooning over Ron (who is basking in the attentions of a Quidditch groupy), and Harry is brooding about being “the chosen one.”
As the penultimate entry in the series, the purpose of Half-Blood Prince’s is to act as The Empire Strikes Back to the Deathly Hallows’ Return of the Jedi. So, even if it isn’t a strong outing in its own right, we can take heart that the final scene sets up a solid quest for the two-part finale still to come. After this misfire, let’s hope our heroes get the conclusion they deserve.
Directed and written by Zach Braff; starring Zach Braff, Natalie Portman, Ian Holm…
Artsy without being fartsy, quirky without being clueless, Garden State is one of the few good original movies this summer. It is also the perfect answer to those crashing bores who go on and on about how the US is only good at making big, hollow, special effects movies whilst Europe (and perhaps Canada…) produce artistic character-driven films.
Admittedly Garden State’s plot is pure formula. Andrew Largeman (Braff) is living a zombie existence in Los Angeles (he is a struggling actor who spends more time waiting tables than reading scripts) until a phone call informs him of his Mother’s sudden death and sends him back to his working-class hometown in New Jersey (the “Garden State” of the title). Soon “Large” is re-connecting with his old buddies, meeting a quirky girl named Sam (Portman), and tentatively re-engaging with his estranged Father (Holm). Will Sam re-awaken his dead emotions? Will we discover the cause of the split between him and his Father? Will the loser friends he left behind provide him with some sort of closure? Do Ducks quack?
This is all pretty familiar territory, but Garden Sate stands out in the return-to-your-roots-and-rediscover-life genre thanks to the sharpness of Braff’s eye as writer and director. (Previously known mainly as the dorky lead on TV’s Scrubs he is a triple threat here.) There is a realism and a sharpness to the scenes with his friends and father that make this old material seem fresh. And, while Natalie Portman is of the most beautiful women in the world in real life, her Sam is dressed down and damaged enough that you believe she might just be interested in Large. This is helped again by believable dialogue and quirky writing that manages to be both funny and touching. (Writing a believable relationship, like this, where the characters actually talk to one another is one of the most difficult task in the movies — if the rarity of it is anything to go by).
Finally, just watch as Braff’s camera roams around the contents of his doctor’s walls. I dare you not to laugh. This is just one of many brilliantly moments in this small but precisely observed film.
