“The High Note,” coming out this week digitally via video on demand, mixes ambition, romance and music in a movie that tries to hit a high C but actually works better when it plays the minor chords.
Set against a backdrop of the Los Angeles music industry, the new film from Nisha Ganatra, now on VOD, sees Dakota Johnson play Maggie, a music obsessed wannabe producer, currently working as a personal assistant to superstar singer Grace Davis (Tracee Ellis Ross). Between running errands and running Grace’s life, Maggie finds time to oversee production on a live album of her boss singing the old hits and discover a new talent, singer-songwriter David Cliff (Kelvin Harrison Jr.). Passing herself off as an experienced producer with loads of industry hook-ups, she inspires him to write great new songs that could launch him into the big leagues. When a plan to position David as the opening act for Grace’s upcoming tour backfires, it threatens to torpedo all of Maggie’s hopes and dreams.
Following up on Ganatra’s last film “Late Night,” which starred Emma Thompson a late-night talk show host whose career is revamped by the influence of a younger, ambitious woman (Mindy Kaling), comes a story that sounds like an echo of the first. There’s more flash here and fewer laughs, but the essential story of a showbiz icon given a new lease on popularity by a newcomer with fresh ideas has a sense of déjà vu to it.
Originally scheduled for a big screen release “The High Note” moved to a digital release in the wake of the pandemic, which may have been a good thing. Its movie-of-the-week plotting and familiar premise feels suited, in a good way, to the smaller screen.
It’s a story about ambition, empowerment and music geekery given charm by Johnson and Ross. Johnson brings her trademarked steely-yet-vulnerable charm to the role of Maggie, while Ross—the daughter of iconic superstar Diana Ross—is a diva with flamboyant clothes and a temperament to match.
Despite the charismatic performers, both characters feel like caricatures. Maggie is a “High Fidelity” reject, a music junkie who speaks as though she’s reciting the liner notes of her favorite album. Ross does some powerful singing but plays Grace in broad diva-esque notes.
“The High Note” is a pleasant enough diversion as a story of empowerment but doesn’t have enough range to make it memorable.
“The Song of Names,” based on Norman Lebrecht’s award-winning novel, is a story of two people sent off in different directions searching for lost family members.
The action begins in 1951. On the eve of his debut concert performance, for a packed house, including kings and queens, Polish musical prodigy Dovidl Rapoport (Jonah Hauer-King) disappears. His adopted English family, including brother Martin (Gerran Howell) is distraught. They first met Dovidl as a nine-year-old who, when he moved in with them to study violin, declared, “If I snore I snore in tune. I am a musician!” The family kept him safe from the Nazi threat and groomed him for greatness.
Cut to 1986. Martin, now played by Tim Roth, is adjudicating a music competition in Northern England when a contestant uses a technique that seems very familiar. Thoughts of his erstwhile brother have consumed Martin and this simple but unique method of rosining the bow sets Martin on a journey that will take him to Poland and finally New York City. His quest has one simple purpose, to find out why Dovidl (played as an adult by Clive Owen) left.
As a celebration of music “The Song of Names” is terrific. Legendary composer Howard Shore has written new music, including the “Song of Names,” a moving recitation of the names of all the Jewish people killed at Treblinka. It’s a powerful moment, solemn and heartrending, that is the film’s absolute high point. More playful is a violin duel in a London air raid shelter between the nine-year-old Dovidl and a teenage rival. Both scenes display the power of music to move us, whether it is to tears or to applause.
It’s the detective story that falls short. Clues that have eluded Martin for decades suddenly become obvious and the journey, such that it is, seems less like a mystery and more like a game of “Where’s Waldo.” More intrigue may have brought with it more emotional weight.
“The Song of Names” is a handsome, if somewhat dreary historical drama that does hit the emotional notes it needs to succeed.
Mythical creatures pining for home is quickly becoming a sub-genre in animated kid’s films. Earlier this year “Missing Link” gave us a homesick 8-foot-tall Sasquatch who longed for his homeland, the Himalayan mountains. “Abominable,” a new film starring the voice of Marvel’s “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” star Chloe Bennet, sees a Yeti and some newfound friends on a journey to Mount Everest, the highest place on Earth.
Bennet voices Shanghai teenager Yi, a student on summer holiday. Much to the consternation of her single mother and grandmother Yi is never home. What they don’t know is that she’s out doing odd jobs, dog walking, babysitting, working in the garbage pit of a restaurant, to make money to take the trip across China planned by her late father.
Meanwhile, a Yeti (Joseph Izzo) escapes from a research facility into the city. Finding a safe haven on the roof of Yi’s apartment building, he sees a tourism billboard for Mount Everest and becomes wistful for home. Yi, seeking solace on the roof, soon discovers him. Her initial fear is replaced by concern when she finds he’s not nearly as fierce as he looks. “I don’t know where you came from,” she says as a team of Yeti hunters search the city for him, “but you sure don’t belong here.” The two, along with Yi’s cousins, the selfie-obsessed Jin (Tenzing Norgay Trainor) and playful Peng (Albert Tsai), begin a journey to the Yeti’s homeland while staying one step ahead of megalomaniac exotic animal collector Burnish (Eddie Izzard) and his zoologist Dr. Zara (Sarah Paulson), who wants to chop the creature up in little pieces for experiments.
“Abominable” is not plot heavy. It’s an action-adventure for kids that sees a plucky group of kids bond together to help someone (or something) in need. Simple messages on grief, loss and perseverance (“When things get tough you just keep going,” Yi says helpfully.) provide an emotional subtext but it’s the film’s light touch and visuals that pack the biggest punch.
Director Jill Culton splashes the screen with colour, staging action scenes with giant blueberries and a wave of vivid yellow canola flowers. Even if it starts to feel drawn out as the Yeti uses his magical powers to escape a series of close scrapes with the villains, it’s use of eye-catching animation—check out the koi fish clouds—is very entertaining. Culton learned her craft at Pixar and it shows. She is a clever and compelling visual stylist.
The Yeti, who they nickname Everest, doesn’t speak, unless you count his king-sized burps, but manages to be endearing. He’s an overgrown puppy with the kind of goofy face that is all but guaranteed to see boatloads of stuffed animals. The story may ride the line between cliché and the overly familiar but the well-defined characters, including the lovable creature and the sharp-tongued grandmother Nai Nai (Tsai Chin)—”You need to eat,” she says. “You don’t want to be so short like your mother.”—provide enough of an emotional spine to make up for the story’s shortcomings.
The opening title card of “Victoria & Abdul,” a new historical dramedy starring Judi Dench and Ali Fazal, states that the movie is “Based on real events… mostly” sets the tone for what is to come. What follows is a true-life tale that doesn’t let the facts get in the way of telling a good story.
Dench returns to her Oscar nominated role of Queen Victoria. She is a frail older woman, ill of health and scheduled at society functions at a pace that would tire someone a third her age. It is her Golden Jubilee in 1887, an endless round of meetings and dinners. At one of these dinners she, as the Empress of India, is gifted with a special coin presented by Abdul Karim (Ali Fazal) and Mohammed (Adeel Akhtar), two young men brought in from the North Indian city of Agra for the occasion.
Both are given strict instructions. “The key to good service is standing still, moving backwards,” they’re told, “and don’t ever look at her.” Of course Abdul catches her eye, otherwise there’d be no story.
“I thought the tall one was terribly handsome,” says the Queen as she requests they become for personal footman. It’s a move that causes consternation at the palace. Racism and jealousy rear their ugly heads as Abdul is given more and more responsibility, soon becoming her Munshi, a tutor who teaches her how to write and speak Urdu.
She sees him as a breath of fresh air from the “aristocratic fools” who jockey for position around her. She’s lonely—”Everyone I’ve ever loved has died,” she says, “and I just go on and on.”— and his a chatty, amiable manner comforts her.
The staff and Victoria’s son Bertie (Eddie Izzard), next in line to be King, want Abdul gone and look to get dirt on him. When the monarch gets wind of the palace skulduggery she makes it clear her confidant is not going anywhere.
“Victoria & Abdul” is based on a recently uncovered story. In the days following Victoria’s death Bertie ordered all traces of her relationship with Abdul destroyed and he and his family deported back to India. It wasn’t until a hundred years later when journalist Shrabani Basu dug deep and discovered previously unseen information that the story became public.
What could have been a fascinating look at Victoria at the height of her colonial power—she is 81 years old, 62 of which have been spent ruling over almost 1,000,000,000 citizens—is instead shaped into a light weight crowd pleaser and virtual remake of 1997’s “Mrs. Brown.” In that film Billy Connolly played John Brown, a servant who provided comfort to Victoria (played again by Dench) creating a scandal that almost lead to monarchy crisis. “He’s the brown John Brown,” sneers Lady Churchill (Olivia Williams) in a nod to the sense of déjà vu that hangs over the proceedings.
The big difference between the two films is the underling role. Brown was clearly defined. The Scottish servant is strong-willed, a rebel with little respect for the propriety that surrounded Victoria’s every move. Abdul is less defined. He is unquestionably devoted to the Queen, but we don’t ever really learn why. Was he a social climber, a Rasputin or a truly dedicated acolyte? We’re led to believe the latter but that doesn’t give Fazal much to work with other than his easy going on-screen charm.
Not that “Victoria & Abdul” doesn’t have enjoyable elements. It mines humour from the ridiculous royal protocol. Queen Victoria eats quickly and everyone else at an elaborate state dinner must keep pace because when she’s done, they’re all done. It’s a funny scene, made more amusing by Dench’s skilful handling of the situation.
She is by times comedic, by times touching, often in the same scene. She is masterful as Victoria, a lioness in winter grasping for a last stab at happiness in a life filled with decorum and responsibility.
If the recent film “mother!” was an attempt, as one writer suggested, “to shock its audiences out of complacency,” “Victoria & Abdul” is an attempt to lull its audience into complacency.
