REVIEW: Far From The Madding Crowd (2015)

Having seen Festen and The Hunt (I admit I haven’t yet got around to his other films), it came as a bit of a shock that Thomas Vinterberg was following up what was presumably his best film yet with a Thomas Hardy adaptation.

The film is essentially about Bathsheba Everdene (Carey Mulligan) trying to make her way in a world of men, a feminist tale adapted from a book that is reportedly less than feminist (here, again, I admit that I haven’t read the book or seen the 1967 version that a lot of critics couldn’t leave at the door of the screening). Variously, if not concurrently, pursued by three men, Gabriel Oak (Matthias Schoenaerts), William Boldwood (Michael Sheen) and Frank Troy (Tom Sturridge), Everdene has to try to define herself as a woman and yet also choose a man.

The above synopsis – like most of the synopses in this blog – may make the film sound a little silly or overwrought, and the story is, to an extent, exactly that. But the film’s real saving grace, after a possibly dodgy opening ten minutes intended presumably to acclimatize the audience, is its old-fashioned sincerity. The performances, the script and the direction conveys a belief in the film that goes beyond the typical ‘Let’s win Oscars’ mentality behind a good few recent adaptations of classic literature. The film isn’t a dry retelling either, but a contemporary, honest version of the story. The film is good, because the people who made it clearly felt that it was a film worth making.

The performances are excellent. Mulligan brings a depth to her character, which ensures that her thoughts and motivations, if humanly inconsistent, are always clear and understandable. Everdene is never a symbol in an argument about feminism but a character trying to live well. Schoenaerts plays Oak as a decent man and succeeds in being very likable, rather than just irritatingly sanctimonious as a character less well-written or well performed might appear. Similarly, Sheen’s Boldwood is vulnerable and pitiable but believably so - his character is never played for easy pity, but as a study of depressed, hopeless obsession. Sturridge has less to act with, since it is his character’s arc that is the most melodramatic and probably was the hardest to bring up-to-date, but he does bring a nice instability to his character, who is unpredictably nice and evil, vulnerable and frightening. Coupled with tender, unironic writing and direction, the performances are allowed to stand out and the film largely succeeds on the believability of its actors.

To say anything else about the film is to verge on the redundant. Vinterberg adds enough modern touches to keep the film feeling alive and vibrant, so that it very rarely feels like an adaptation of a slightly silly 141-year-old book. He also knows to keep the actors at the centre of the film, since it is their performances that keep the film truly interesting and likable. So…nice to look at and with a pleasing preference for people over plot or style, Far From The Madding Crowd is a film for which the term ‘costume drama’ feels utterly detrimental.

REVIEW: Inside Llewyn Davis (2014)

Inside Llewyn Davis feels like a step in a different direction for the Coen Brothers, it being probably their bleakest and most realistic character study to date. A story primarily about the outsider artist, in which an artist fails to make it big because of his refusal to tailor his art to the masses, it is an uneasy blend of clinical study and warm observation.

Not entirely unlike Blue Jasmine, Inside Llewyn Davis works as a drama of slow revelations. The film is easier to like as it plays out, as we slowly pick up scraps of information about Llewyn’s personality and past. He (Oscar Isaac) is a bit of a mess, bumming around 1961 New York, sleeping on a variety of couches and regularly making an ass out of himself. However, he performs beautifully, playing mournful folk songs solo in the only small venue that will take him. He is desperate to make it big but only on his own terms. Along the way, we met a series of characters he has wronged in some way or another: his ex-girlfriend Jean (Carey Mulligan) and her current boyfriend Jim (Justin Timberlake), the inexplicably supportive Gorfeins (Ethan Phillips and Robin Bartlett). We also learn more about Llewyn himself.

Initially, it is difficult to know what to think of Inside Llewyn Davis, which moves rather haphazardly between strange moments typical of the Coens and other scenes that lurch uncomfortably between shrill and quiet, all focussing on characters we don’t yet feel inclined to care about. A lot is said but little happens and less is revealed. We are left without any context, forced to take the little that we see at face value. Llewyn Davis is a blank slate, though we can figure out that he’s not a nicest man in the world. Carey Mulligan overplays hatred and is stuck with quite a lot of tin-eared dialogue – in fact, much of the dialogue is surprisingly off-key. The film is aiming for some kind of low-key, bleak drama but it appears overblown and wandering. There are a few scenes that try to be funny but they fail, with or without one’s goodwill. It begins to look as if the Coens’ may have really dropped the ball on this one. Then, finally, the film hits a balance between the oddball comedy and the grim drama and the characters become less annoying, more understandable. Nonetheless, the rest of the film plays like a tug of war between the Coens’ previous work and a new, more humane direction.

The Coens’ have made a career out of over-the-top films, usually more comic than dramatic. Many of their best films manage to be serious and darkly funny (Barton Fink, Fargo and No Country For Old Men) while others veer into sheer whimsy, sometimes successfully (Raising Arizona and The Big Lebowski), sometimes disastrously (The Hudsucker Proxy and the two films from that mid-career slump most fans try to forget about – Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers). Following True Grit, which aimed for drama but collapsed into whimsy, Inside Llewyn Davis is another strange mixture but one that is much closer to a clean break. As grim and serious as Inside Llewyn Davis is, it remains stuck with some bizarre moments that do little other than slow the film down, making it less relatable. The film is about the struggle of the artist and details how artistic integrity might hold someone back. It is ultimately a drama about disappointments and disillusionment and yet ends on a note of defiant acceptance that is somewhat heroic and moving – though only if you think about it, since the ending itself is somewhat bungled. As funny as they are, the diversions, such as John Goodman’s extended cameo, are unhelpful.

That said, there are many scenes that do work to the overall film’s advantage. There is a brilliant scene in which Llewyn plays a song as part of an audition, the music rousing us and giving us hope only to plummet us back down to earth when it is finished. There is also a very funny song ‘Please, Mr Kennedy”, written by Jim, who has clearly sold-out. Both scenes reveal a lot about Llewyn’s character and about the final point of the film – showing both his justifiable defiance against those who refer to ‘music’ as an industry and the limited options that result from such a choice. Llewyn is not a likable guy, but as an outsider and an artist, he is brave, principled and somewhat tragic. Where the film works best are the moments in which we are given an insight into this dilemma and, hence, this character.

Llewyn Davis is one of the Coen Brothers’ most realistic and human characters to date, but their showcase for him as a mixed bag. The film works best as a character study and fails as an attempt to present a version of 1961. The film wanders around introducing bizarre characters, forgetting that the real meat of the film is its protagonist and what he is going through. As funny and as moving as it sometimes is, Inside Llewyn Davis is too unfocused and ill disciplined to be truly great. 

REVIEW: Shame (2012)

  Shame is Steve McQueen and Michael Fassbender’s follow-up to Hunger. While their earlier film looked at political and/or religious fundamentalism, Shame looks at another form of obsession – sex addiction.

  Brandon (Michael Fassbender) is a sex addict, living in New York in a bland, minimalist apartment, with a high-powered though anonymous job. Fearful of emotional attachments of any kind, Brandon prefers one-night stands, porn and sex with prostitutes. When his troubled sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan) comes uninvited to stay in his apartment, Brandon finds that his solo, emotion-free lifestyle is becoming harder and harder to maintain.

  When The Long Weekend, Billy Wilder’s still-disturbing 1945 film about alcoholism, came out the figure of the helpless drunk was merely a figure of fun. The fact that alcoholism might be a disease was not considered. Shame looks set to do the same thing for sex addiction. McQueen and Fassbender’s main aim is to look at sex addiction seriously and expose it as the disease that it is, making Shame a film that is trying to raise awareness. Aside from that, McQueen maintains a level of subtlety throughout the film, refusing to judge Brandon or to make him entirely sympathetic. The film is also open to a number of interpretations. Is Brandon sex addiction a result of an earlier childhood trauma or is it merely a figment of a wider greed inside the current capitalist system. Shame is, by its very nature, an enigmatic film, but its refusal to adopt a stance, any stance, makes it a somewhat unrewarding film.

  The major problem with Shame is that it suffers from a very conventional storyline, one of entrapment and a bid for escape. Brandon is clearly trapped by his inability to communicate with people on an emotional level. Conversations with his work colleagues are nothing but macho bravura and when he tries to develop a relationship with a woman, he is almost hopelessly shy and awkward. The arrival of his sister marks the beginning of Brandon’s attempts to nurture relationships that are not based on sex, with the obstacles being his shyness, inexperience, his addiction and the shame and self-loathing that soon follows any hedonistic fulfilment. Ultimately, Brandon may learn and grow, though the film leaves it up to its audience to decide whether Brandon really has overcome his addiction or not.

  Due to the film’s conventionality, it is difficult to be surprised or swept up by anything that happens in the film. Scenes that should be moving can be seen coming from a mile away, while the more tabloid-baiting ‘shocking’ sequences are tamed somewhat by a narrative dedicated to explaining why they are so necessary. Other moments suffer from McQueen’s own artistic preoccupations, not unlike Hunger. McQueen employs several techniques, ones that were new in the 1960s, but which are quite transparent today, such as remaining focussed on Brandon’s tangled bed linen long after he has left the frame. The film is also full of slow-panning shots following Brandon, usually naked, as he wanders around his apartment. While they may do something for the film’s tone and pacing, they feel like rather mechanical shots put in only because of a pre-ordained aesthetic. In fact, McQueen is much more able during the more apparently spontaneous moments such as a beautiful and cinematic long take showing Brandon running down New York streets at night or a fixed shot of a restaurant date between Brandon and Marianne (Nicole Beharie), recalling a similar sixteen-minute take from Hunger, both of which work because they do not feel so controlled.

  Though the performances are undeniably very good with Fassbender obviously a standout, the film itself fails to cover any new ground or to be surprising, shocking or particularly moving. McQueen’s tendency towards clinical and enigmatic filmmaking seems a poor fit for both the subject matter and the storyline. Though it is well made and sometimes beautiful, Shame is a well-intentioned and convincing film that just doesn’t manage to be as memorable or thought provoking as it should have been.

REVIEW: Drive (2011)

  Drive is a gritty neo-noir based on a sparse James Sallis book, which successfully harks back not only to the film noir of the 1940s, but also the existential road movies of the 1970s, such as Walter Hill’s The Driver. But does it live up to either tradition?

  Ryan Gosling plays the unnamed Driver, a movie stuntman and occasional getaway driver. He lives a lonely and uncomplicated existence, until he meets Irene (Carey Mulligan), a woman who lives down the hall. Her husband is in jail, so Driver keeps her and her young son company. A romance seems to begin until Irene’s husband (Oscar Isaac) comes home and the two men become embroiled in an increasingly murderous heist.

  Drive is a slow, somewhat meditative film with a lot of time spent lingering on Driver’s impassive face. When the car chases come, the pace speeds up, delivering some reasonably exciting action sequences. Director Nicolas Winding Refn, of Pusher and Bronson fame, has adopted the high-speed camerawork of Quentin Tarantino’s turgid Death Proof, such that the camera always keeps up with the chases. There is never a steady shot of the cars flying by – we remain with them the whole time. As a result, Drive is breezy and undemanding entertainment, but unfortunately the film has several flaws.

  Most noticeable is the painfully trite and corny romance storyline, which aims at being subtly moving, but ends up being distractingly coy. It is the film’s main weak point and it isn’t helped by Mulligan’s rather servile performance. It seems as if Refn wants to delve more into her character, to make her appear to be more than just a plot device, but has absolutely no idea how to. As a result, the film has several scenes in which Mulligan sits around or looks in a mirror as if watching her doing nothing will somehow create instant understanding and empathy in the audience. Worse, her quiet scenes in front of mirrors haunt the rest of the film’s slow paced sequences. Gosling (not much better) does the same staring-outwards-with-a-brooding-expression stuff as well, and it comes to feel like character shorthand.

  The film gets much more violent in its second half as things become more complicated. But in every bloody murder scene, Refn allows the film’s cool veneer to slip and he goes into overdrive, shooting bleeding wounds from all sorts of angles and with several close-ups. Ultimately, the film starts to feel like a cartoon. It’s not that Drive is too violent, it is just that it gets too excited by it’s own violence and loses its cool. One scene involving a fork and another involving an exploding head in slow-motion are so overdone that it looks like a bad Hostel sequel, which is absolutely not the tone that Refn aimed for in the rest of the film. Eventually, it comes to feel that Refn was only being slow paced to begin with because he wasn’t interested about the non-violent scenes.

  Drive is a moody and believable film with an almost perfect modern day pulp feel, but it lets itself down by being very lazy with the romance subplot and by being too giddy during its many murder scenes.

REVIEW: Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010)

  Twenty-three years after Oliver Stone laid bare the excesses and everyday corruptions of the Eighties with "Wall Street", he is doing it again with a film that is as much a stand-alone film as it is a sequel. Michael Douglas is back as the slimy Gordon Gecko, whose catchphrase "Greed is good" inspired a generation of bankers. With his release from jail, he has aged and may have even turned over a new leaf.

  Gecko has released a book "Is Greed Good" and has taken young banker Jake (Shia LaBeouf) under his wing. Jake is getting married to Gecko's estranged daughter Winnie (Carey Mulligan). Together they avenge themselves against Bretton James (Josh Brolin) who may have brought about both Gecko's imprisonment and the collapse of Jake's bank.

  Like most of Oliver Stone's historical films, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps mixes fiction and non-fiction. The insight into the finagling of every businessman in the film highlights the inevitability of the coming economic downturn. When it arrives, the events of late September 2008 are evocatively portrayed with a mix of real and staged footage. These are easily the best parts of the film and act as a good reminder that Stone used to make really powerful films like "JFK". The problem is that, before this sequence and after, you could be forgiven for forgetting.

  The performances are mixed. Brolin stands out in a memorably slimy role and Douglas is given at least one good speech. Frank Langella is good but his world-weary managing director is a step down from his fantastic performance as Nixon in "Frost/ Nixon". LaBeouf and Mulligan are rather bland as a couple in over their heads.

  The film is oddly lackadaisical, with the good scenes almost alternating with the bad. Watching Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, you are not quite sure whether Stone is trying to be serious or is playing for laughs. Stone himself cameos, once in a comedy scene and once in a serious scene. The film is at its best when it takes on a pessimistic tone, detailing how these bankers and businessmen might just be bringing about the end of civilisation. However, in many sequences, it takes the cloudy-eyed perspective of the Hollywood Ending, where everything works out nicely and everyone bad gets their comeuppance. Then there's a motorcycle race or a Brian Eno music video thrown in. Stone doesn't seem sure if he wants to make a film that will call for reform or a stylish wallow in the corruption of the American economic system. It seems that Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps just can't take itself seriously. Even the title is silly.

  By turns powerful and laughable, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is the tame work of a director who used to be one of the most controversial filmmakers in American cinema. You leave the film, not wondering what can be done about this shameful situation, but wondering whether Stone has lost his touch or does he just not care anymore.