What the new remake of Daphne du Maurier’s “Rebecca,” starring Lily James, Armie Hammer and Kristin Scott Thomas and now streaming on Netflix, lacks in gothic thrills it makes up for in eye candy.
Taking over as handsome widower Maxim de Winter, the role Laurence Olivier made famous in Alfred Hitchcock’s Oscar winning 1940 film, is Armie Hammer. Max is a charmer, a trust fund aristocrat with a beautiful estate, called Manderley, and a dead wife, named Rebecca.
On vacation in Monte Carlo a young woman (Lily James) catches his eye when she is refused service on the balcony of a fancy hotel restaurant. She is not a guest, she’s told, but an employee of a guest and therefore must eat elsewhere, anywhere but among the wealthy tourists enjoying their canapes and champagne. He invites her to join him and a whirlwind romance ensues. When her boss decides it’s time to travel to New York for debutant season, Max asks her to stay with a marriage proposal.
They move to Manderley, his family home on the windswept English coast. The sprawling home has been in his family for generations and is so grandly appointed it makes Downton Abbey look like an outhouse. At Manderlay the romance, which blossomed quickly, fades as the specter of Rebecca, the late lady of the estate, hangs heavy over the house and on Max’s mind.
Keeping Rebecca alive in heart and in mind is Mrs. Danvers (Kristin Scott Thomas), Manderley’s baleful housekeeper. She is not impressed by Max’s naïve new bride who she thinks is trying to take Rebecca’s place.
Cue the dirty tricks, withering glances and gothic tomfoolery.
“Rebecca,” directed by Ben Wheatley, is undeniably beautiful looking. From its good-looking stars to the sumptuous production design is by Sarah Greenwood, it will make your eyeballs dance. The set decoration at Manderley alone is “Architectural Digest: Baroque Edition” worthy, but this is a movie that wants to appeal to more than just your eye and that’s where it disappoints.
The bones of the story seem perfect for a 2020 revisit. du Maurier’s exploration of the power imbalance between a wealthy man and a woman who must fight to find her own sovereignty is timely but undone by a story that never takes hold.
Hammer’s take on Max misses the essential coldness of the character. He’s short tempered, snippy and brusque but the icy core necessary to freeze out the new Mrs. de Winter is missing. Without that character element his reactions to events don’t bring the friction needed to engage the audience. At the pivotal ballroom scene, where the new bride is (MILD SPOILER ALERT) tricked into making a serious error in judgement, Max seems irked, pouty but the wound that is unintentionally opened doesn’t seem particularly deep. If Max doesn’t care that much, why should we?
From that moment on Wheatley drifts through the story with none of his patented risk taking—think his daring adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s “High-Rise” or his edge-of-your-seat “Kill List”—relying Clint Mansell’s score to provide the emotional highs and lows.
Like the story’s female protagonist the new version of “Rebecca” is haunted, this time by the ghosts of the story’s previous incarnations.
There is a certain kind of British feel-good movie that, while predictable, still packs an emotional punch. Movies like “The Full Monty” and “Calendar Girls” are underdog tales, filled with colorful characters and improbable situations, yet, somehow, they rate a fist pump in the air by the time the end credits roll.
“Military Wives,” starring Kristin Scott Thomas and coming this week to VOD, is cut from that same cloth. A story of resilience tempered with large dollops of sentimentality, it’s a heartwarming drama about the healing powers of friendship and music.
Based on the BBC docu-series “The Choir,” the film is set at a small military base outside London. The year is 2011 and Kate (Thomas) has just said goodbye to her husband (Greg Wise) as he left for Afghanistan for the fifth time. It’s more poignant goodbye than usual as it is the first deployment since the death of their son, a soldier who perished while in service.
Meanwhile, Lisa (Sharon Horgan) the base’s welfare officer, in charge of coming up with ways to keep the wives and partners of the soldiers occupied and entertained. At one meeting, however, Kate takes over. “Let’s come up with some exciting activities to do while our service people are away.” The idea of forming a choir is raised and implemented, which only amplifies the differences between the laidback Lisa and hard-driving Kate. “This reminds me of when my parents got divorced,” says one choir member as Lisa and Kate passive-aggressively jab at one another in rehearsal.
The early practices do not yield musical result. They sound “like the incantations of a bunch of witches,” says Lisa, but with time a bond forms between the members, both personally and musically. These women, who live in fear of a bad-news phone call or knock at the door, find strength together and when tragedy strikes the choir becomes more important than ever. “You may not need the choir Lisa,” Kate says, “but those women do.”
Nothing in “Military Wives” will come as a surprise. Beat for beat it echoes the ups-and-downs of “The Full Monty’s” moments of triumph and tragedy. Peter Cattaneo directed both, and while it feels a bit been there, done that, I’d add, if it ain’t broke, why fix it?
Predictability is “Military Wives’” biggest sin. But the familiarity is blunted by the performances—Thomas expertly portrays the bubbling anger and heartbreak hidden behind Kate’s smiling façade—inspirational messages of comradery and the way it portrays the women’s strength in the face of grief and loss.
The busy actor — Goggins soon be seen in the TV remake of L.A. Confidential and the Marvel blockbuster Ant-Man and the Wasp — drew on personal experience to create a backstory for his character. Like the villainous Vogel, Goggins’s job frequently takes him away from his son Augustus and wife, filmmaker Nadia Connors.
“My in for this experience was thinking about the day (Vogel) said goodbye to his family,” he says. “He’s a father and has two daughters. I just kind of meditated on saying goodbye to them, kissing his wife, walking out the door for what Mathias Vogel thought would be a year of his life and culminate in some great discovery.
“One year turned into two years, which turned into four years, and hopelessness set in. You meet this guy seven years into this experience and he has a real opportunity to get off this island. People will do whatever it takes to get back home and see the ones they love.”
The last time we saw archeologist-adventurer Lara Croft on the big screen she looked like Angelina Jolie and saved the world by dunking a bad guy into a pool of acid.
The new Tomb Raider takes us back — back to a time when Lara Croft was an emo 21-year-old whose biggest adventure was navigating London’s busy streets as a bicycle courier. This time around she bears a striking resemblance to Swedish Oscar winner Alicia Vikander.
The reboot also comes with a new villain. Mathias Vogel, played by Hateful Eight star Walton Goggins, is a member of evil organization Trinity and an all-around bad dude. He’s been stranded for years on a remote island searching for the tomb of an ancient entity whose touch caused instant death.
His job is to uncover her resting place, discover the secret of her deadly power and unleash it on the world. Like I said, he’s a bad guy, but Goggins says, “I can’t judge him.”
Not even if he ruthlessly shoots people point blank?
“If I sat back in judgement of him then what am I doing for the audience?” Goggins asks. “I am just an impartial interpreter and that’s what I should be even if I am playing a good guy.
“I don’t think you want to pat yourself on the back every time you read a line. ‘Oh my God! I’m such a great guy. I just saved this girl.’ No, you are just in the process of telling the story so that the audience can feel what they want to feel.”
The busy actor — he’ll soon be seen in the TV remake of L.A. Confidential and the Marvel blockbuster Ant-Man and the Wasp — drew on personal experience to create a backstory for his character. Like Vogel, Goggins’s job frequently takes him away from his son Augustus and wife, filmmaker Nadia Connors.
“My in for this experience was thinking about the day (Vogel) said goodbye to his family,” he says. “He’s a father and has two daughters. I just kind of meditated on saying goodbye to them, kissing his wife, walking out the door for what Mathias Vogel thought would be a year of his life and culminate in some great discovery.
“One year turned into two years, which turned into four years, and hopelessness set in. You meet this guy seven years into this experience and he has a real opportunity to get off this island. People will do whatever it takes to get back home and see the ones they love.”
For Goggins, coming home is the best way to leave a character in the rearview mirror. “I have a seven-year-old waiting at home for me,” he says. “There is no room for anything other than him…. I used to really revel in that experience of bringing the character home and living and stewing in it. You romanticize being alone, having a glass of wine and thinking about it, but it is not necessary.”
The last time we saw archaeologist-adventurer Lara Croft on the big screen she looked like Angelina Jolie and was seen dunking a bad guy into a pool of acid, dissolving him and saving the world in the process. A new film, simply titled “Tomb Raider,” takes us back. Back before the leather bodysuits and twin Heckler & Koch USP Match pistols, back to a time when Lara Croft was an emo twenty-one-year-old whose biggest adventure was navigating London’s busy streets as a bicycle courier. This time around she bears a striking resemblance to Swedish Oscar winner Alicia Vikander.
Although born and raised at the swanky Croft Manor, when we first meet Lara she is scraping by, studying MMA fighting, when she can afford the gym fees, and delivering food via bicycle. A fortune, courtesy of her late father Lord Richard Croft (Dominic West), awaits but for seven years she has steadfastly refused to sign for her inheritance, fearing that if she does she will have to accept that papa, who disappeared without a trace somewhere in the Sea of Japan, is truly dead and gone.
“Your father is gone but you can pick up where he left off,” says Croft family executive Ana Miller (Kristin Scott Thomas). “It’s in your blood.” “I’m sorry I’m not that kind of Croft,” replies Lara.
And yet, when she discovers a, “If you’re watching this tape I must be dead…” tape from dear old dad detailing his plan to find a remote Japanese island, home to a deadly ancient witch, the dutiful daughter sets off on a dangerous mission—to find the island and her father.
To do that she travels to Japan and recruits Lu Ren (Daniel Wu) who warns her of the danger ahead. “That’s right in the middle of the Devil’s Sea,” he says. “You may as well tie a rock to your leg and jump overboard.”
Armed with nothing more than a backpack and one of her father’s notebooks the pair find the island only to be met by a suspicious character named Mathias Vogel (Walton Goggins). “You shouldn’t have come here,” he says. “But I’m glad that you did.”
“Tomb Raider” contains lots of backstory, mumbo jumbo about global genocide, Queen Himiko Witch of Death and supernatural organization that controls much of the world, but this is Lara’s journey from bike courier to international woman of mystery. At the beginning of the film she is nothing like the polished Croft of the Jolie films. She’s scrappier, undisciplined. Her two greatest powers are loyalty to her father and fearlessness. And jumping. Lots of jumping. As played by Vikander, Croft never met a chasm she couldn’t leap across and that skill sure comes in handy.
Unlike Jolie’s iconic, stylized take on the character, Vikander plays her as self assured and independent but directionless. A young person trying to make her way in the world, thirsty for life experience. It’s a nice reinvention of the character, although a post credit scene suggests she is headed toward Jolie territory should there be a “Tomb Raider 2: A Career in Ruins” next year. Still, she’s a spirited female action hero in a male dominated field.
There are big action sequences, but as the stunts get bigger they don’t necessarily get better. Vikander, flying through the streets of London, cutting through traffic while being chased by her courier friends, is as exciting as any of the CGI exploits that come later.
“Tomb Raider’s” story and action are fairly generic but Vikander carries the day, reshaping a character we already thought we knew.
At the end of the chamber dramedy “The Party,” you’ll be glad you were able to be a voyeur and not actually attend the get-together in person. It’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” with more characters and twice the vitriol.
Kristin Scott Thomas is Janet, the newly appointed U.K. Health Minister and host of the party. When we first see her she’s holding a gun on a guest. It’s that kind of party.
Cue the flashback.
Gathered together are Janet’s nearest and dearest. There’s sharp-tongued best friend April (Patricia Clarkson), her almost ex and professional life coach Gottfried (Bruno Ganz), Martha (Cherry Jones) and her pregnant partner Jinny (Emily Mortimer), jumpy financial whiz Tom (Cillian Murphy), whose cocaine and aforementioned gun add some spice to an already edgy situation. On the periphery, for a time anyway, is Bill (Timothy Spall), a ticking time bomb with a glass of champagne.
Director Sally Potter wastes no time in presenting her sophisticated but sour soiree. The verbal—and text—fireworks begin almost immediately. Sparkling dialogue drips from the mouths of these actors like liquid gold. When Jinny announces she’s have more than baby Martha says, “Triplets. People. Small people.” It doesn’t sound like much on paper, but the magic is in the delivery. The best lines are reserved for Clarkson, whose blunt, plainspoken words add fuel to the already hot state of affairs. “Although it may have a deleterious effect on your career I think you could consider murder,” she purrs at one point.
Canapés smoulder, truths are revealed—there will be no spoilers here—and lives are shattered, all in just 71 minutes. “The Party” is a delightfully nasty piece of work, artfully realized by Potter and delivered with just the right amount of venom by a dedicated cast.
Baby Driver: Although it contains more music than most tuneful of movies “Baby Driver,” the new film from director Edgar Wright, isn’t a musical in the “West Side Story,” “Sound of Music” sense. Wallpapered with 35 rock ‘n roll songs on the soundtrack it’s a hard driving heist flick that can best be called an action musical.
The Big Sick: Even when “The Big Sick” is making jokes about terrorism and the “X-Files” it is all heart, a crowd-pleaser that still feels personal and intimate.
Call Me By Your Name: This is a movie of small details that speak to larger truths. Director Luca Guadagnino keeps the story simple relying on the minutiae to add depth and beauty to the story. The idyllic countryside, the quaint town, the music of the Psychedelic Furs and the languid pace of a long Italian summer combine to create the sensual backdrop against which the romance between the two blossoms. Guadagnino’s camera captures it all, avoiding the pitfalls of melodrama to present a story that is pure emotion. It feels real and raw, haunted by the ghosts of loves gone by.
Darkest Hour: This is a historical drama with all the trappings of “Masterpiece Theatre.” You can expect photography, costumes and period details are sumptuous. What you may not expect is the light-hearted tone of much of the goings on. While this isn’t “Carry On Churchill,” it has a lighter touch that might be expected. Gary Oldman, not an actor known for his comedic flourishes, embraces the sly humour. When Churchill becomes Prime Minister his wife, Clementine (Kristin Scott Thomas) makes an impassioned speech about the importance of the work he is about to take on. He raises a glass and, cutting through the emotion of the moment, says, “Here’s to not buggering it up!” It shows a side of Churchill not often revealed in wartime biopics.
The Disaster Artist: The key to pulling off “The Disaster Artist” is not recreating “The Room” beat for beat, although they do that, it’s actually about treating Wiseau as a person and not an object of fun. He’s an outrageous character and Franco commits to it 100%. From the marble-mouthed speech pattern that’s part Valley Girl and part Beaker from The Muppets to the wild clothes and stringy hair, he’s equal parts creepy and lovable but underneath his bravado are real human frailties. Depending on your point of view he’s either delusional or aspirational but in Franco’s hands he’s never also never less than memorable. It’s a broad, strange performance but it may also be one of the actor’s best.
Dunkirk: This is an intense movie but it is not an overly emotional one. The cumulative effect of the vivid images and sounds will stir the soul but despite great performances the movie doesn’t necessarily make you feel for one character or another. Instead its strength is in how it displays the overwhelming sense of scope of the Dunkirk mission. With 400,000 men on the ground with more in the air and at sea, the sheer scope of the operation overpowers individuality, turning the focus on the collective. Director Christopher Nolan’s sweeping camera takes it all in, epic and intimate moments alike.
The Florida Project: This is, hands down, one of the best films of the year. Low-budget and naturalistic, it packs more punch than any superhero. Director Sean Baker defies expectations. He’s made a film about kids for adults that finds joy in rocky places. What could have been a bleak experience or an earnest message movie is brought to vivid life by characters that feel real. It’s a story about poverty that neither celebrates or condemns its characters. Mooney’s exploits are entertaining and yet an air of jeopardy hangs heavy over every minute of the movie. Baker knows that Halley and Moonie’s well being hangs by a thread but he also understands they exist in the real world and never allows their story to fall into cliché.
Get Out: This is the weirdest and most original mainstream psychodrama to come along since “The Babadook.” The basic premise harkens back to the Sidney Poitier’s classic “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.” In that film parents, played by Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, have their attitudes challenged when their daughter introduces them to her African American fiancé. The uncomfortable situation of meeting in-laws for the first time is universal. It’s the added layers of paranoia and skewered white liberalism that propels the main character’s (Daniel Kaluuya) situation into full-fledged horror. In this setting he is the other, the stranger and as his anxiety grows the social commentary regarding attitudes about race in America grows sharper and more focussed.
Lady Bird: Greta Gerwig’s skilful handling of the story of Lady Bird’s busy senior year works not just because it’s unvarnished and honest in its look at becoming an adult but also, in a large degree, to Saoirse Ronan’s performance. I have long called her ‘Lil Meryl. She’s an actor of unusual depth, a young person (born in 1994) with an old soul. Lady Bird is almost crushed by the weight of uncertainty that greets her with every turn—will her parents divorce, will there be money for school, will Kyle be the boy of her dreams, will she ever make enough cash to repay her parents for her upbringing?—but Ronan keeps her nimble, sidestepping teen ennui with a complicated mix of snappy one liners, hard earned wisdom and a well of emotion. It’s tremendous, Academy Award worthy work.
The Post: Steven Spielberg film is a fist-pump-in-the-air look at the integrity and importance of a free press. It’s a little heavy-handed but these are heavy-handed times. Director Spielberg and stars Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep are entertainers first and foremost, and they do entertain here, but they also shine a light on a historical era whose reverberations are being felt today stronger than ever.
The Shape of Water: A dreamy slice of pure cinema. Director Guillermo del Toro uses the stark Cold War as a canvas to draw warm and vivid portraits of his characters. It’s a beautiful creature feature ripe with romance, thrills and, above all, empathy for everyone. This is the kind of movie that reminds us of why we fell in love with movies in the first place.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri: The story of a mother’s unconventional war with the world is simple enough, it’s the complexity of the characters that elevates the it to the level of great art.
Wonder Woman: Equal parts Amazon sword and sandal epic, mad scientist flick, war movie and rom com, it’s a crowd pleaser that places the popular character front and centre. As played by Gal Gadot, Diana is charismatic and kick ass, a superhero who is both truly super and heroic. Like Superman she is firmly on the side of good, not a tortured soul à la Batman. Naïve to the ways of the world, she runs headfirst into trouble. Whether she’s throwing a German tank across a battlefield, defying gravity to leap to the top of a bell tower, tolerating Trevor’s occasional mansplaining or deflecting bullets with her indestructible Bracelets of Submission, she proves in scene after scene to be both a formidable warrior and a genuine, profoundly empathic character.
Winston Churchill, born 143 years ago, is suddenly hot again.
“When I started work on this movie in 2016 the only Churchill I had in mind was Albert Finney’s A Gathering Storm which was brilliant,” says Darkest Hour director Joe Wright. “It had been made more than a decade ago. We weren’t aware of the Brian Cox movie, we weren’t aware of Dunkirk, The Crown hadn’t come on yet. It didn’t feel topical at all. Then suddenly the events of 2016 happened and this wave of topicality came and overcame the film.”
The fireworks in Darkest Hour begin in May 1940. It’s less than a year into the Second World War and Winston Churchill, played by Gary Oldman, is made prime minister after Neville Chamberlain lost the confidence of parliament.
He’s an unconventional choice. His own party thinks of him as a drunkard — it is said that between 1908 and 1965, he partook in 42,000 bottles of his favourite champagne Pol Roget — and members of his war cabinet favour negotiation with the Nazis over resistance and war. The so-called English Bulldog battles them and nagging self-doubt as he stays steadfast in his determination to fight the Nazis while finding an exit strategy for 300,000 British troops stranded at Dunkirk.
Wright likens Churchill’s crusade against Hitler to the resistance that has sprung up around the world in reaction to various far-right groups.
“Churchill got a lot of things wrong in his life,” Wright says, “but in this particular instance, in this context, with this enemy, he understood the perils totalitarianism and Nazism and bigotry and hate and he resisted. I think we are living in a society now that would not be the same if not for his resistance. I think that is really important to remember to fight back. To look outside of our important domestic concerns and look at our global domestic concerns.”
Darkest Hour is a historical drama with all the trappings of Masterpiece Theatre. Expect sumptuous photography, costumes and period details. What you may not expect is the light-hearted tone of much of the goings on. When Churchill becomes prime minister, his wife makes an impassioned speech about the importance of his work. He raises a glass and, cutting through the emotion of the moment, says, “Here’s to not buggering it up!” It shows a side of Churchill not often revealed in wartime biopics.
When I tell Wright I found the movie funnier than expected, he laughs. “Especially when it is called Darkest Hour.”
“I think Churchill was a very funny individual. Anyone you read who was with him, from his secretaries to his bodyguards to the politicians who were working with him, all talk about his humour. It was one of his overriding characteristics. We wanted to make sure it didn’t turn into Carry on Churchill so there were gags in there we cut.
“I think, like all of us, it was kind of a coping mechanism. The reason sex and death seem to be the main sources of humour is that they help us deal with things that might otherwise cause us anxiety. “
Wright adds that as the battle against totalitarianism unfolds the film becomes more serious. “His foe was probably the most terrifying adversary we had ever encountered, so the stakes were very high.”
”Atonement” director Joe Wright’s new film is a spirited—and funnier than you’d imagine—retelling of the machinations behind World War II’s Operation Dynamo. In a tour de force performance, “Darkest Hours” stars Gary Oldman as Winston Churchill in a movie that would make a great double bill with Christopher Nolan’s “Dunkirk.”
The fireworks begin on May 9, 1940. It’s less than a year into the war and Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain (Ronald Pickup) has lost the confidence of parliament. His handling of the Nazi threat brought Britain into the war and, as a result, in poor health, he is forced to resign. On May 10 Winston Churchill is made Prime Minister.
He’s not exactly a man of the people. “I’ve never been on a bus,” he wheezes. “I’ve never cute for bread. I believe I can boil and egg but only because I’ve seen it done.”
He’s an unconventional choice. His own party thinks of him as a drunkard—it is said that between 1908 and 1965, he partook in 42,000 bottles of his favourite champagne Pol Roget—and members of his War Cabinet, who favour negotiation with the Nazis over resistance and war, begin plotting to remove him almost as soon as he takes power. “I’m getting a job because the ship is sinking,” he says. “It’s not a job. It’s revenge.”
In the coming days he battles politicians and nagging self-doubt as he stays steadfast in his determination to fight the Nazis while finding an exit strategy for 300,000 British troops at Dunkirk. “Nations that go down fighting rise again,” he says.
“Darkest Hours” is a historical drama with all the trappings of “Masterpiece Theatre.” You can expect photography, costumes and period details are sumptuous. What you may not expect is the light-hearted tone of much of the goings on. While this isn’t “Carry On Churchill,” it has a lighter touch that might be expected. Oldman, not an actor known for his comedic flourishes, embraces the sly humour. When Churchill becomes Prime Minister his wife, Clementine (Kristin Scott Thomas) makes an impassioned speech about the importance of the work he is about to take on. He raises a glass and, cutting through the emotion of the moment, says, “Here’s to not buggering it up!” It shows a side of Churchill not often revealed in wartime biopics.
We also see the great man in quiet moments with Clementine, the source of much of his strength. The way he is a cowed by his wife when she’s called him out for not being kind to his new secretary (Lily James)—”I want others to love and respect you the way I do.”—reveal his vulnerabilities and tenderness.
Of course the film also showcases Churchill as a tactician, an orator—“He mobilized the English language and sent it into battle,” says Lord Halifax (Stephen Dillane) after one fiery speech—and a single-minded leader who came to embody the very spirit of English defiance in the face of threats from Germany.
At the heart of the movie, and on almost every frame of film, is Oldman who hits a career high. Underneath layers of makeup and with a cigar wedged in his face, he brings history to life in a performance that goes far past impersonation. The role is a study in resistance and leadership and is sure to earn Oldman an Oscar nomination.
“Darkest Hour” director Wright brings his trademarked visual flair. During Churchill’s first BBC speech to the nation, for instance, an overhead shot of the bombing in France turns into the face of one of Hitler’s nameless victims but the movie succeeds because Oldman breathes new life into a historical figure we thought we already knew.