“The Green Knight,” a new medieval fantasy film now playing in theatres, reaches back to Arthurian legend and a fourteenth century poem for its hero’s journey.
Based on the poem “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” the movie stars Dev Patel as King Arthur’s nephew and Knight of the Round Table, Sir Gawain. The young man is headstrong and rash but, despite his bravado, he says, “I fear I am not meant for greatness.”
The young knight sees a chance to prove his mettle when the Green Knight (Ralph Ineson), a larger-than-life, green skinned “tester of men,” throws down a challenge to King Arthur. “O greatest of kings, let one of your knights try and land a blow against me,” he says. “Indulge me in this game.”
Gawain impulsively accepts, charging at the stranger, removing his head with one blow.
But the challenge isn’t over.
Picking his own head up off the floor, the Green Knight mocks Gawain, commanding him to meet again in one year’s time at a cursed place, the Green Chapel, to finish their duel. As the headless adversary gallops off, Gawain’s quest to test his prowess begins. The journey to the Green Chapel is a dangerous adventure, fraught with supernatural forces, betrayal and challengers who will test the strength of his character.
“What do you hope to gain from all of this?” he is asked. “Honour,” Gawain replies. “That is why a knight does what he does.”
Calling “The Green Knight” an adventure implies that it is also exciting. It has all the earmarks of an old school “Lord of the Rings” style adventure story—there are trippy giants, a talking fox, a headless woman and more—but exciting it is not.
Director David Lowery has made a cerebral movie about finding one’s true path in life through trials and temptations. His retelling of the classic poem is dense, deliberate and often beautiful. But just as often it is willfully obtuse as it gets lost in the surreal deconstruction of Gawain’s journey. As a result, the film is oft times more interesting than actually entertaining.
Near the end of the film Gawain asks, “Is this all there is?” Oddly enough, life imitated art in that moment as I found myself wondering the same thing.
Low key and amiable, “The Old Man and the Gun” is a crime drama about the nicest bank robber ever. Robert Redford, age 82, plays a stick-up man whose victims gush about how polite and well-mannered he was as he relieved them of their cash.
Forest Tucker (Redford), career criminal and all round nice guy, is part of a gang the press would later name the Over-The-Hill-Gang. All north of seventy the thieves (Danny Glover and Tom Waits) rob rural banks, usually making off with hundreds, not thousands of dollars. Calm and collected, they get in and out quickly. “Don’t do anything stupid,” Tucker says to the tellers. “I wouldn’t want to have to hurt you ‘cuz I like you. Don’t break my heart.” For Tucker it’s not about the cash, it’s about the rush.
Driving the get-a-way car after one bank job Tucker stops to assist a stranded motorist. As the police whiz by he gives Jewel (Sissy Spacek) a line of chat that charms her enough to agree to go for a cup of coffee. The pair hit it off and begin a friendship that borders on the romantic.
Meanwhile Tucker and crew are robbing banks, sometimes more than one a day, a streak that draws the attention of detective John Hunt (Casey Affleck) and the FBI.
The mostly true story of Tucker and his life of crime and passion is a low-key affair anchored by the easy charms of Redford and Spacek.
Redford made a career playing rascally anti-heroes like the leads in “The Sting” and “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” Here there is a wistfulness in the character that comes with age and the realization that the end of the road is just around the bend.
Spacek plays Jewel as a woman of strength; a person who has seen it all but is still open to finding something new. Together the pair bring life experiences that create a lived-in chemistry that is never less than watchable.
Add to that a scene-stealing performance from Tom Waits—every line of his dialogue sounds like a line from one of his songs—and you have a new take on an American staple, the charismatic scoundrel.
Less a story than a conceptual art piece, “A Ghost Story” delivers on its promise of a ghost but, by design, does not deliver any thrills or chills. Instead it’s a ponderous look at love, loss and legacy.
Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara star as characters simply identified as C and M. Married, they are planning to move from their country bungalow when tragedy strikes. C is killed in a car accident on the road next to their home. In the morgue M identifies the body, seen in a sterile white tile room, covered in a starched white sheet. When she leaves the room he rises from the slab, covered head-to-toe à la a children’s Halloween ghost costume, complete with two holes cut for eyes.
The ghost returns home and, unbeknownst to M, watches her as she grief eats an entire pie, drunkenly kisses a man on the stoop and packs up the house for her eventual relocation. M leaves and he turns increasingly violent when a new family moves in becoming Casper-The-Not-So-Friendly-Ghost, breaking plates and scaring the kids. Tenants come and go. He communicates with another sheet-wearing spirit a few houses down. Time passes; days, weeks, months, years even centuries. When the house is torn down, replaced with a skyscraper, he pads around the offices, haunting meetings until entering a meta time cycle that sees him thrust into the distant past.
Shot in a boxy 1:33 aspect ratio, director David Lowery presents “A Ghost Story” with rounded corners like an old photograph. It’s just one of the many sentimental touches in this strange story. At its heart it’s a rumination on the melancholy of feeling helpless as the spirit of C is actually the one being haunted by the living. The inversion of the usual ghost tale deepens the film’s surreal mood, which is both romantic and discomforting.
It won’t be for everyone. The aforementioned five-minute pie-eating scene and a shot where we literally watch paint dry may test the patience of the restless viewer but if you can get on board with the conceit of a ghost dressed in a child’s costume there is much to mull on. What is legacy? How do you move on in the face of great loss? What is the true meaning of love? These are big questions and the movie occasionally gets lost in its philosophical enormity but as audacious, experimental looks at love and life go, it’s unafraid and unapologetic.
“Pete’s Dragon” is a reboot of a much-loved 1977 Disney musical starring Helen Reddy as the kind-hearted daughter of a lighthouse keeper who adopts Pete, a young boy whose best friend is a dragon named Elliot. Pete and the dragon are back but the songs and Helen Reddy are gone, replaced by Bryce Dallas Howard and an updated look at the story.
Wood carver Mr. Meacham (Robert Redford) likes to tell tale tales about a dragon who lives nearby in the woods of the Pacific Northwest. But are they really tall tales? His daughter, forest ranger Grace (Howard), thinks they are until she meets Pete (Oakes Fegley), a feral 10-year-old mystery boy who says he has survived, solo, in the woods for six years. “Nobody can survive in a forest for six years,” says Mr. Meacham, “at least not alone.” “He says he wasn’t alone,” replies Grace.
Seems Pete’s story echoes the tales Mr. Meacham has been telling about a giant, furry green dragon. The boy says the beast’s name is Elliott (voice of John Kassir). “I need to get back to him,” says Pete. “He gets scared when he’s alone.”
Rather then turn the boy over to Social Services Grace decides to discover if Elliot is real or figment of her father and Pete’s imaginations. “I know these words like I know the back of my hand,” she says. “I couldn’t have missed a dragon.” “Well, you missed Pete,” says her dad.
She enlists the help of her father and Natalie (Oona Laurence), the daughter of Jack (Wes Bentley), the local lumber mill owner. Complicating her search is Jack’s aggressive brother Gavin (Karl Urban) who thinks the dragon is dangerous and plans on capturing it. “Going to go catch a dragon,” he says in a note to his brother.
There be dragons in “Pete’s Dragons,” but “Game of Thrones” this ain’t. As subtle and underplayed as a movie about a dragon can be, the movie is so gentle even the death of Pete’s parents is handled with kid gloves. Instead of wowing the audience with action director David Lowery aims for the heart and hits a bull’s-eye.
The touching story of a boy and his dragon is actually about family and where you find it. The snaggletooth dragon is Pete’s adopted father, a playful gentle giant—he large enough to cover the entire flatbed of an 18 wheeler—who purrs like a kitten and chases his own tail but is fiercely protective of the young boy. It’s a familiar theme in Disney films but Lowery knows that sometimes clichés are clichés because they’re true. He establishes the relationship between Pete and Elliott early on and it is at the heart of the story.
“Pete’s Dragon” feels somewhat old fashioned, harkening back to a time when kid’s movies didn’t contain an ounce of cynicism. This is a simply told story that succeeds because it boils the fanciful tale down to its basics, the power of belief, relationships and friendship… and tops it all off with a cool dragon.
