Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to tie a bowtie! Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the family drama “The Piano Lesson,” the creeptastic “Heretic” and the Cillian Murphy in “Small Things Like These.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I sit in with hosts Jim Richards and Deb Hutton on NewsTalk 1010 to play the game “Did Richard Crouse Like This?” This week we talk about the family drama “The Piano Lesson,” the creeptastic “Heretic” and the Cillian Murphy in “Small Things Like These.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 27:29)
I sit in with CKTB morning show host Steph Vivier to have a look at movies in theatres and streaming including the family drama “The Piano Lesson,” the creeptastic “Heretic” and the Cillian Murphy in “Small Things Like These.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: The morality play “Small Things like These” is Cillian Murphy’s follow-up to his Oscar winning work in “Oppenheimer.” Lowkey though it may be, this study of religious morality and individual responsibility allows him space to hand in a quietly powerful performance that speaks volumes.
CAST: Cillian Murphy, Eileen Walsh, Michelle Fairley, Emily Watson, Clare Dunne, and Helen Behan. Directed by Tim Mielants.
REVIEW: Adapted from the novella by Claire Keegan, “Small Things Like These” is a story of courage in an era of complicity.
Set in 1985, Murphy plays Bill Furlong, a taciturn coalman in a small, conservative Irish town, where he lives with wife Eileen (Eileen Walsh) and five daughters. As Christmas, his busiest season, approaches he has a chilling encounter with Sarah (Zara Devlin), a young, unmarried and pregnant woman, cold and afraid, in the coal shed of the local Catholic run Magdalene Laundry.
As she begs for help, Bill is haunted by memories of his youth as an orphan, the son of an unmarried mother who passed when he was a child. In a community held in sway by the church, Bill is torn between offering aid and the potential blowback from Mother Mary (Emily Watson), head of the convent and a powerful figure in the town. “You better watch what you say about what’s there,” he’s told. “People can make things difficult for you.”
Poetically paced, “Small Things Like These” is a serious film that showcases not only the abuses of the Magdalene institutions, but the moral complicity of those who knew about it and did nothing. “If you want to get on in this life,” says Eileen, “there are things you have to ignore.”
As Bill, Murphy is quietly restrained, observant and empathetic but it is the inner torrent of torment that bubbles just beneath the surface that makes him so compelling. There are long stretches spent in silent close-up of Murphy’s face that speak volumes about Bill’s
moral conundrum and feelings of indecisiveness in the face of injustice. The film’s real action happens inside his head and Murphy’s gift is the ability to externalize the character’s interior mechanisms.
“Small Things like These” is a powerful study of quiet heroism in the face of self-interest, buoyed by Murphy, and his committed cast’s, deeply felt, rich performances.
Adapted by Ian McEwan from his novel of the same name, “On Chesil Beach,” spends some up-close-and-personal time with an awkward young couple on their wedding night.
It’s the summer of 1962 and Saoirse Ronan is Florence Ponting, a straight-laced,
upper class musician with dreams of playing with an orchestra. University College of London history student Edward Mayhew (Billy Howle) is working class, but despite their different stations in life, woos her and soon the pair is married.
We meet them on their honeymoon in a hotel on Chesil Beach, Dorset. Their obvious affection for one another aside, they are inexperienced and anxious. Edward is eager but Florence is torn between her distaste of personal intimacy and her fear of disappointing her new husband. “You’re always advancing and I am always backing away,” she says, “and we can never talk about it.”
Through flashbacks from their lives, both separately and together, we learn of Edward’s difficult home life with a mentally ill mother (Anne-Marie Duff) and what makes them both tick.
“On Chesil Beach” is essentially a chamber piece, built around the two lead performances. Director Dominic Cooke takes full advantage of them, luxuriating over their faces, letting their eyes, rather than the dialogue tell the story. Once again, Ronan is remarkable, authentic in every way. Howle contrasts Florence’s calm presence with a more volatile presence. From flashbacks to happier times and their their eventful honeymoon to a flashforward, we see a couple slowly crushed by the emotional weight of their circumstances.
Despite the emotional heaviness the film is light on its feet, only becoming bogged down in an overly sentimental—and tacked on feeling—coda.
By Richard Crouse – Metro Canada
For many of us Queen Elizabeth is a face on a stamp, someone we see every day on our money. For Sarah Gadon, the Canadian actress who plays H.R.H. in A Royal Night Out, the figurehead is “an icon and it is really always kind of difficult to humanize someone who is embalmed in icon status.”
The Dracula Untold star plays the Queen before she took the throne, when she was a 20-year-old headstrong woman known to friends as Lillibet. It’s May 8, 1945, VE Day in England, the biggest party London has ever seen and Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret (Bel Powley), or P1 and P2 as the princess sisters are called, want in on the action.
“For six years we’ve been cloistered,” says Princess Elizabeth. “Like nuns,” adds Princess Margaret.
“I fell in love so much with this script,” says Gadon. “I was charmed by the story and its portrayal of her at that point in her life. It was this beautiful coming of age story about this woman faced with her future. That is something I really related to. That feeling of when you are growing up and you have all these ideas about the world, all these ideologies you are associated with and then you are confronted with reality and you have to decide for yourself what you want. I thought that was an interesting entry point.”
The slick talking Liz manages to convince Mom (Emily Watson as the Queen Mum) and Dad (Rupert Everett as King George) to let them mingle with the real people, listen to the King’s victory speech and report back.
Royal Night Out is part royal romcom, part urban adventure, and only loosely based on real events. In truth the princesses went out, accompanied by an entourage of 16 people and were home by curfew.
“Julian Jarrold, the director, was so conscious of what he wanted the tone of this film to be,” says Gadon. “We all knew it wasn’t a biopic, and none of us wanted to make that film. It is very much a fantasy, very much an adventure chase film. Being more North American in my approach to the part, my tendencies were to indulge the humour and indulge in the slapstick moments. Julian held the reins tight and really captured the reserve of Elizabeth. He really walked that line between going off too far in either direction. The film has very real feelings but a lot of tongue-in-cheek.”
To capture Queen Elizabeth’s posh accent Gadon studied footage of the princess at that age, the movies Roman Holiday and Brief Encounter and worked with dialect coach Brett Tyne. “Brett worked with all of us,” she says. “It wasn’t just me. She worked with Bel, Emily and Rupert because even though they’re British they certainly don’t walk around talking like that.”
The dialogue coaching worked. A Royal Night Out is already open in England and Gadon notes, “The reviews were great, very generous. And most people had no idea I was Canadian! It was exciting for me.
“I was really, really nervous. To have it received so warmly was such a relief. Now, with the North American release, I’m like, ‘I’m good! I got the stamp of approval from the Brits!’”
“For six years we’ve been cloistered,” says Princess Elizabeth (Sarah Gadon).
“Like nuns,” adds Princess Margaret (Bel Powley).
Its May 8, 1945, VE Day in England, the biggest party London has ever seen and P1 and P2, as the princess sisters are called, want in on the action.
The slick talking Liz manages to convince Mom (Emily Watson as the Queen Mum) and Dad (Rupert Everett as King George) to let them mingle with the real people, listen to the King’s victory speech and report back. Early on they manager to dodge their chaperones, embarking on what Lizzie would later call “the most extraordinary night of my life.” The princesses get separated early on with the naïve Margaret on the prowl for fun, stumbling through an east London boozecan, a wild celebration in Trafalgar Square and a fistfight on a dance floor. “It’s all getting a bit fraught,” she says. Elizabeth, the responsible sister, spends her night trying to catch up with Margaret, aided by Jack (Jack Reynor), a cockney airman who has no idea he’s escorting royalty.
In this case truth is duller than fiction. “A Royal Night Out” is VERY loosely based on real events. In truth the princesses went out, accompanied by an entourage of 16 people and were home by curfew. The movie livens things up with a healthy dose of slapstick and gentle humour. It’s part royal rom com, part urban adventure. Imagine an English “After Hours” without the suicide, murder or treachery. Instead it’s a good-natured romp with some laughs and a splash of romantic tension. There’s no real drama—I was always quite sure Mags and Liz would be OK by the time the end credits rolled—in this slight story but Powley’s hilariously deadpan take on the clueless Margaret coupled with the charisma that pokes through Gadon’s posh demeanour makes for an enjoyable footnote of a movie about a historical footnote.
Opening in 1938 Germany, “The Book Thief” begins with a child’s journey.
Liesel Meminger (French-Canadian actress Sophie Nélisse) is sent to live with foster parents, the kind-hearted World War I veteran who has refused to join the Nazi Party Hans Hubermann (Geoffrey Rush) and his stern wife Rosa (Emily Watson). The little girl can’t read or write, but carries with her The Gravedigger’s Handbook, a book she “borrowed” after finding it on the ground at her brother’s funeral.
The unintelligible words in that book set Liesel on her path. Hans, who calls the girl “Your Majesty,” teaches her to read, igniting a love of words and storytelling that ultimately changes the life of a young Jewish man named Max and helps Liesel make sense of life in Nazi Germany.
Closer in tone to “A Beautiful Life” than “Schindler’s List,” “The Book Thief” is a touching, if somewhat melodramatic look at Liesel’s life. Jam-packed full of big moments, with kids forced to grow up too fast and confront the harsh realities of life, it’s a tearjerker that earns most of its schmaltzy, salty drops, but not all.
Based on the international best-selling novel by Markus Zusak and directed by Brian Percival of “Downton Abbey,” the film finds its main strength in the web of relationships that intertwine around Liesel. From tow headed neighbor Rudy (Nico Liersch), who loves Liesel at first sight, to the instant connection between Hans and his new daughter, to the bond that forms between Max and the girl as she reads to him, these links (and performances) bring humanity to the story, preventing it from being overwhelmed by the film’s dramatic tendencies. I’m mean, the movie is narrated by Death (Roger Allam) and set, primarily on a street called Heaven. You just know this isn’t going to be subtle.
Some moments work very well.
Kristallnacht, set to a soundtrack of young, angelic voices singing anti-Semitic Hitler Youth songs while the soldiers attack Jewish citizens and destroy their homes and shops, is chilling.
Others feel over-the-top, no matter how deeply the camera focuses on Nélisse’s soulful blue saucer eyes. (MAJOR SPOILER!!!!!!!!) Rudy’s final moments almost play like a “Monty Python” sketch, regardless of how attached you have become to the character.
Luckily Rush is a lovely and touching presence. He’s terrific as Hans, a compassionate, light-hearted man who understands the gravity of the situation. Watson, as his wife, is a tough nut, but compassionate one, but it is Nélisse who is at the core of the film.
She hands in a delicate, natural performance that rarely succumbs to the film’s melodrama.
“The Book Thief” doesn’t always trust the story to work on its own, so it wedges in a few too many big moments—and one egregious bit of product placement—but when it relies on the performances, it works.
