“Women Talking,” directed by Sarah Polley and now playing in theatres, is a very specific portrayal of the aftermath of sexual abuse, with a universal message of standing up for one’s self, family and community.
Based on a 2018 Miriam Toews novel of the same name, in the film, the women of a tightly knit religious colony gather in the wake of terrible, on-going sexual abuse by the men. For years the commune’s husbands and sons have tranquilized the women with cow medication, raped them regardless of age, and then convinced the victims the abuse was the work of Satan or their “wild imaginations.”
“We know that we’ve not imagined these attacks,” says Salome (Claire Foy), the mother of an abused child. “We know that we are bruised, and infected, and pregnant, and terrified.”
In the wake of the allegations, the men, sequestered in the city for their safe keeping, have given the women two days to forgive them. If they don’t, they threaten to expel from the community women which means they will be denied entry into the Kingdom of Heaven.
“Surely,” says mother-to-be Ona (Rooney Mara), “there must be something worth living for in this life. Not only the next.”
Now, gathered in the hayloft of one of their barns, the women, including the rancorous Mariche (Jessie Buckley) and community matriarch Agata (Judith Ivey), debate their three options: do nothing in retaliation, stay and fight, or leave.
The spirited deliberations give way to a variety of points of view. “Is forgiveness that’s forced upon us true forgiveness?” wonders Mariche. “We have been preyed upon like animals,” says Greta (Sheila McCarthy). “Maybe we should respond like animals.” Others wonder what life would have been like if none of this ever happened.
Set in 2010, timely social issues of justice, autonomy and unanimity among victims collide in a movie that captures the extended conversations, highlighting their harrowing nature, while slyly mixing in some unexpected humour.
Polley, who wrote as well as directed, ensures that each of the characters bring dynamic notions to their performances, and aren’t just placeholders representing opposing ideas for the sake of drama. The set-up, based on true events in a religious community in Boliva, offers a fascinating window into a fight for survival and the opportunity to examine the situation from a variety of thoughtful viewpoints.
A film, largely set in one room, whose action is verbal, not physical, could have been dry or, at the least, feel stage bound but Polley’s deep dive into the human condition crackles with life. She has carefully calibrated every line, every pause, to create forward momentum as the life-changing deliberations move toward their conclusion.
“Women Talking” is elegant filmmaking buoyed by emotional intelligence and powerhouse performances and is sure to be Oscar bound.
You can’t spell “menacing” without the word “men.”
The new Jessie Buckley psychological thriller, now playing in theatres, takes a look at toxic relationships and gender politics through the lens of British folk horror and surreal body terror.
Buckley is Harper, a young widow smarting from the death of her husband James (Pappa Essiedu) by suicide. To heal her soul, she rents a 500-year-old house in the English countryside. Miles from anywhere—“The pub is ten minutes down the road,” says her socially awkward landlord Geoffrey (Rory Kinnear), “thirty minutes on the way back.”—the tranquil surroundings should be a balm, but she is haunted by visions of the last moments she spent with her controlling, abusive husband.
On the verge of a divorce he didn’t want, they argued. “I’ll kill myself,” he says, “and you’ll have to live with my death. That’s not a threat, it’s a warning.”
Minutes later, he plunges to his death, changing Harper’s life forever.
At the rental house Harper has a close call with a scarred, bloodied and naked man she thinks is stalking her. The local police assure her she is not in danger, and yet unsettling things continue to happen, including a run in with a rude boy in a Marilyn Monroe mask, microaggressions, stand-offish men in town and the world’s most unhelpful vicar, whose advice is not exactly welcome.
The trip to the country culminates in a hallucinogenic sequence that combines body horror (the kind that might make David Cronenberg envious), British folk horror, pagan imagery and even some stunt driving.
“Men” feels like two movies. The first half is a domestic drama, a divorce turned ugly, played out in flashbacks. The idyll of the country retreat, featuring long dialogue-free sequences, is briefly interrupted by memories and some rather creepy men. It is uncomfortable but earthbound.
The second part, which makes up the film’s last third, is a grotesque, surreal psychological thriller with images best seen after you’ve finished your popcorn and Twizzlers. Director and writer Alex Garland gruesomely and memorably (perhaps a little too memorably) illustrates a never-ending cycle of male rebirth into crisis and toxicity. It’s never clear where the metaphor starts or ends and the head trip begins, but the message of menacing toxic masculinity is made bloody clear (literally).
Both sides of the story have interesting moments, most courtesy of Buckley, the rare effortless performer whose face contains multitudes, but despite some memorable flourishes, they don’t feel like a whole. It’s like there is a puzzle piece missing in the storytelling. As a result, “Men” is interesting, but isn’t exactly an effective genre film or study of trauma.
Richard and CTV NewsChannel host Angie Seth have a look “The Tender Bar” (Amazon Prime), the Olivia Coleman drama “The Lost Daughter” (on Netflix) and the heartwarming “June Again” (VOD/Digital).
“The Courier,” a new Benedict Cumberbatch Cold War drama now on PVOD, is the mostly true tale of how an unassuming British businessman helped prevent World War III. “You must convince them you are an ordinary businessman,” he is told, “and nothing more than an ordinary businessman.”
Set in 1962, Cumberbatch is Greville Wynne, a buttoned-down Brit chosen by a joint task force, CIA agent Emily Donovan (Rachel Brosnahan) and MI6’s Bertrand (Anton Lesser), to go undercover and act as a courier between them and Soviet officer Oleg Penkovsky (Merab Ninidze). Wynne’s down-to-earth manner and the fact that he already was doing business in Eastern Europe made him a perfect undercover agent.
As presented, the job was simple. Travel to Moscow under the pretense of work, up a package from Penkovsky and return home. Of course, international intrigue is never that easy, particularly when the information they are passing back and forth is related to preventing a nuclear confrontation.
When the Americans learn that Russia has positioned nuclear warheads on Cuba it becomes a race to get Penkovsky to safety. Out of a sense of loyalty to his business partner-turned-friend, Wynne volunteers to make one more trip to Russia.
“The Courier” is an old-fashioned espionage drama that is more about relationships than it is about James Bond style antics. Loyalty, betrayal and forgiveness go hand-in-hand in the complicated game of making the world a safer place and it is in its portrayal of those qualities that “The Courier” shines.
Wynne has several important relationships in the film. There is his wife, Jessie Buckley bringing much to an underwritten role, and his handler Emily, but it is with Penkovsky that he truly bonds. Trust forms over dinners and even at the ballet, but it is their shared desire to prevent a war that binds them.
Cumberbatch brings much to the role, allowing true feelings to slip past Wynne’s stiff-upper-lip. It’s subtle yet commanding work that steers the film past its grey-ish, icy façade to a place where the cloak-and-dagger story becomes driven by feelings and not intrigue.
Cumberbatch‘s wouldn’t be nearly as effective if he didn’t have such a strong actor playing Penkovsky. Ninidze plays the Russian as an idealogue, a man convinced his country is playing a very dangerous game with the world, It’s a quietly powerful performance, one where what he doesn’t say is as important as what he does say. Ninidze nails it, playing a man whose every move could have massive consequences for him and his family.
“The Courier” is a welcome addition to the Cold War genre.
Fifty years after the 1970 Miss World pageant erupted into chaos a new film documents the events that sent host Bob Hope scurrying from the stage, bombarded by flour bombs and heckles. “Misbehaviour,” a new British film starring Keira Knightley and Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and now on VOD, sees members of the nascent British women’s liberation movement rebel against the show’s objectification of its contestants and Hope’s terrible jokes. “I consider the feelings of women,” he says, “I consider feeling women all the time.”
Knightley is Sally Alexander, a single mother and academic who believes the women’s liberation movement must address systemic sexism if there is to be meaningful change. Jo Robinson (Jessie Buckley) takes a more hands-on approach, defacing statues and sexist billboards. Despite differing approaches, they focus their efforts on the Miss World pageant, an annual event with a world-wide television audience of over 100 million people.
In a parallel story Gugu Mbatha-Raw is Jennifer Hosten, Grenada’s first competitor in Miss World. Intelligent, elegant and composed, she’s willing to endure the contest’s objectification for the chance to make history as the first woman of colour to win the pageant crown. “You are a very lucky person if you think this is being treated badly,” she tells Miss Sweden, Maj Johansson (Clara Rosager).
“Misbehaviour” is an ambitious movie disguised as a feel good Britcom. Issues are raised and the era is vividly portrayed trough fashion and the attitude of the pageant’s organizers, but the story’s main point, that feminism comes in many styles and can mean different things to different people, is broached in a superficially earnest way, but never explored. Alexander and Robinson see the absurdity of the beauty contest is liken to a “cattle market.” The farcicality of it all, the bathing suit competition, the numbers on the wrists, is not lost on Hosten but for her it is an opportunity to make a statement to other woman and girls who look like her that this, and anything else in life, is possible. That doors can be opened.
Knightley and Buckley are reliably good but it is Mbatha-Raw who brings the heart and soul to “Misbehaviour.” More than just a retelling of the flour-bombing of Bob Hope or a history lesson on the roots of the women’s liberation movement (at the end we actually meet the real-life counterparts of the film’s characters), it’s character study of Hosten. She may not be the focus of the story, that’s Alexander and Robinson, but Mbatha-Raw’s warmth tempered by inner unease makes her the movie’s most layered and interesting character.
Check out episode thirty-three of Richard’s web series, “In Isolation With…” It’s the talk show where we make a connection without actually making contact! Today, broadcasting directly from Isolation Studios (a.k.a. my home office) we meet Iain Reid the Canadian author of the bestselling novel “I’m Thinking of Ending Things.”
“I’m Thinking of Ending Things” has been described as a psychological thriller and horror fiction, and is about a young man who takes his girlfriend to see his parents on a remote farm and the disturbing aftermath that follows. It sounds simple, but this is anything but. It’s a story of predetermination and free will that bears up to reading and rereading.
It’s now also a Netflix film, directed by Charlie Kaufman, starring stars Jessie Buckley, Jesse Plemons and Toni Collette.
I started the interview by congratulating him on his recent success…
Watch the interview on YouTube HERE or on ctvnews.ca HERE!
Academy Award winner Charlie Kaufman scripted “Being John Malkovich,” “Adaptation” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” mind-bending movies that essay themes of identity crisis, mortality and the meaning of life through a metaphysical or parapsychological filter. His latest project, “I’m Thinking of Ending Things,” an adaptation of Iain Reid’s bestselling novel and now streaming on Netflix, fits on the shelf next to his best-known work. It’s a fascinating road trip—and head trip—that is equal parts unsettling atmosphere and tension.
Jessie Buckley and Jesse Plemons are a new couple on a road to trip to visit his parents at their rural farm. Although she has misgivings about the relationship, and is thinking about calling it quits, they seem well suited, playfully singing show tunes and talking as they stay just ahead of threatening snow squalls.
The storm intensifies after they reach the farm and the couple are snowed in with his welcoming but eccentric parents, mother (Toni Collette) and father (David Thewlis). As they get to know one another over an awkward dinner the young woman’s (she’s never identified by name) feelings of unease intensify as questions arise about her boyfriend’s mental health.
On the way home a detour to an empty high school sends her further down the rabbit hole of doubt.
“I’m Thinking of Ending Things” is a cerebral, slow burn story of suspense and menace anchored by four terrific performances. Collette and Thewlis are wonderfully weird, bringing these strange, somewhat inappropriate characters to vivid life without giving away spoilers as to what’s to come. Plemons is well cast as the All-American boy with a secret but it is Buckley who dominates. As written the role is internal, much of the interesting stuff happens in her head, but her work is never cold or clinical. She brings warmth to the character as the very fabric of her psyche is being challenged. It’s a long strange trip but Buckley’s exploration of the frailty of the human spirit is compelling.
As director and screenwriter Kaufman takes his time, allowing the characters to mix and mingle, physically and perhaps mentally, and the suspense to build. It’s a tricky dance. He dispenses just enough information to move the story forward while creating an atmosphere that grows until the film’s final twenty, trippy minutes. Kaufman artfully brings the movie’s themes of regret and longing into focus with a bizarre and beautiful climax.
“I’m Thinking of Ending Things” is a haunting film made human by terrific performances.
A powerhouse performer packed into a frail body and even frailer psyche Judy Garland left behind a legacy that is equal parts Hollywood history and cautionary tale. “Judy,” a new film directed by Rupert Goold, examines the declining days of “The Wizard Of Oz” star as she arrives in London to perform a series of concerts.
The year is 1968. Stateside Garland (Renée Zellweger) is at a low ebb. She lives in hotels she can’t afford, is fighting for custody of her children and playing in nightclubs for $150 a show, a fraction of her former superstar salary. She is an unemployable legend. “Unreliable and uninsurable,” she says. “And that’s what the ones who like me say.”
When she’s offered a five-week run at the ritzy Talk of The Town at the Palladium in London, England, she’s reticent. She doesn’t want to be separated from her kids for that long, but she’s broke. She decides to leave her children so that she can make enough money to return and put a roof over their head.
in London she is treated like royalty, packing the club night after night but her insecurities eat at her. “What if I can’t do it again,” she says after her wildly successful opening night. Drink, pills, self-doubt, on-stage meltdowns and a quickie marriage make for an eventful but uneven series of shows. In the press parlance of the time she is often “exhausted and emotional.”
Flashback to young Judy (Darci Shaw) on the MGM backlot set the stage for the tragedy that follows.
“Judy” often veers into sentimentality—the finale clumsily documents the moment when the singer finally got the kind of support she always needed from an audience—but doesn’t shy away from darker aspects of Garland’s life. Bringing the story to vivid life is Zellweger in a career best performance. She looks and sounds enough like Garland to be convincing, but this isn’t just mimicry. The actress digs deep, finding the humour and humanity in a person often regarded as a tragic figure. “I am Judy Garland for an hour a night,” she says. “I want what everybody else wants but I seem to have a harder time getting it.” Zellweger makes us understand how and why Garland spent a lifetime trying to please people who repaid her by always asking for more.
“Judy” is at its strongest when Zellweger is onscreen. Off stage she captures Garland’s complexity; on stage, in numbers like “I’ll Go My Way by Myself” or “The Trolley Song” she is a musical tour de force. The flashbacks, while nicely done, feel like information we already know and don’t add much to the overall movie. We learn just as much about Garland’s psychological unrest from Zellweger nuanced performance as we do from the broadly written flashbacks. This is, after all, a character study, not a history lesson.
Playing an aspiring country-and-western singer in “Wild Rose,” “Chernobyl’s” Jessie Buckley embodies the elements that lay at the core of the music. It’s a breakout performance that delivers sincerity, heartache and most of all authenticity.
Set in Glasgow, the coming-of-age story focusses on Rose-Lynn (Buckley), a young mom with dreams of going to Nashville to become a country singer. “There’s nothing for me here,” she says of her hometown. “There I can hone my craft. I want to use my talent.” She’s so devoted to country music she even has a “three chords and the truth” tattoo on her arm.
But her life contains as much struggle and bad luck as the country-and-western lyrics she loves so much. As an ex-con, she also has an electronic ankle bracelet and can’t leave her apartment after dark, making booking gigs next to impossible. Her two kids barely remember her and only speak to her when forced, They’re being raised by Rose-Lynn’s mother Marion (Julie Walters), who scolds her daughter, “You don’t stick at things.”
During the day Rose-Lynn works, cleaning the house of Susannah (Sophie Okonedo), a rich woman who is very taken with her employee’s spunky attitude and beautiful singing voice. With her help Rose-Lynn may finally see her dreams come true and begin a journey of true self-discovery.
Part “A Star is Born” and part family drama, “Wild Rose” is a low-key story of over-coming adversity. Rose-Lynn may be her own worst enemy, refusing to take responsibility for her lot in life, but ultimately, she aspires to improvement for herself and her family. Without that this kitchen sink drama of musical boot strapping would be too downbeat. Instead we meet someone, beautifully played by Buckley, taking the hard road to personal success.
The movie is a showcase for Buckley, who impresses both when she’s singing and when she’s not. First, the voice. She can belt it out with the best of them but it’s the moments where she brings it down, gracefully and emotionally delivering Wynonna’s “Peace in this House” ballad, that she reveals the depth of her talent. It’s a heartbreaker and she breathes life into it; no frills, just raw emotion.
She manages to make Rose-Lynn compelling, flaws and all. Impulsive, she puts her wants and musical ambition ahead of everyone, including her kids but in her self-aware moments Buckley allows us to understand that it’s not simply irresponsible behavior that landed Rose-Lynn in her current situation but her inability to balance her dreams with her reality, desire with duty. She’s messy and often gets in her own way but despite all that Buckley’s charisma makes us root for her.
“Wild Rose” is very specific in its Glasgow setting—the accents may be a bit daunting for the uninitiated—but like the songs Rose-Lynn loves so much, it deals with universal themes of regret, love, family and redemption. You don’t have to be a country fan to like the movie, it wouldn’t hurt, just a fan of raw, emotional storytelling.
