SYNOPSIS: In the unconventional “Cuckoo,” a bonkers new horror film now playing in theatres, “Euphoria’s” Hunter Schafer plays the rebellious 17-year-old Gretchen, a traumatized young woman living with her father Luis (Marton Csokas) and his new family in the German Alps. When her father’s business partner Herr König (“Downton Abbey’s” Dan Stevens) offers her a job on the front desk of his rural mountain resort, she jumps at the chance, despite some red flags. On site, she notices women mysteriously falling ill and when her step-sister becomes sick, Gretchen aims to discover the resort and König’s secrets.
CAST: Hunter Schafer, Jan Bluthardt, Marton Csokas, Jessica Henwick, Dan Stevens. Written and directed by Tilman Singer.
REVIEW: It’s not the end of the year yet, but I’m willing to bet the aptly named “Cuckoo” will be the strangest arthouse horror film of the year. A mix-and-match of body horror, otherworldly influences and slasher violence, it’s an unpredictable ride courtesy of director’s Tilman Singer’s unbridled imagination.
The off-kilter vibe is supported by the performances. Schafer is the guide, the most earthbound of all the characters, but even she seems engulfed by the film’s sensory overload.
Even more extreme is Stevens, who leaves “Downton Abbey” in the rear-view mirror with a performance so over-the-top it’s like a Bond villain on Adderall. His ever-changing pronunciation of Gretchen’s name is so bizarre, and so entertaining, it’s like it has been filtered through Google translate every time out.
After several mind-bending episodes, “Cuckoo” pays off in the third act as most of the story threads knit themselves up, and plot holes are filled. It will still likely polarize audiences looking for easy answers, but its sheer willingness to embrace its incomprehensibility is part of its eccentric charm.
“Chevalier,” a new biopic of composer and violin virtuoso Joseph Bolonge Chevalier de Saint-Georges (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), now playing in theatres, begins with the 18th century version of a dance-off. The title character, the son of a wealthy, white Slave owner and a Senegalese slave, bounds onstage, yelling, “Play violin concerto #5!” challenging Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Joseph Prowen) to a violin duel.
The two go at it, the devil came down to Georgia style, until it becomes clear that Bologne is the superior talent, setting up the movie’s main premise, that he is the most talented musician of the Classical period you’ve never heard of.
Brought from the French colony of Guadeloupe by his father, the young musical prodigy is placed at a boarding school, where he excels at the violin and fencing. His competitive side sees him move through French society, despite the limitations placed on him by a racist society who appreciate his talent but, because of his skin colour, will never fully embrace him socially.
A performance for King Louis and Marie Antionette (Lucy Boynton) earns him some royal respect and the title Chevalier, the French equivalent of an English knight. The Queen also challenges him and another composer to write an opera. Whoever does the best job will have the honor of, not only, performing their work at the Paris Opera, but will also be named director of the company.
In order to win the competition and the esteem of the French elite, Bologne becomes involved with singer Marquise Marie-Josephine (Samara Weaving), despite the warnings of her violent aristocratic husband Marquis de Montalembert’s (Marton Csokas) to keep her off the stage.
As the French Revolution looms, Bologne’s ego and desires threaten his future.
“Chevalier” is melodramatic—imagine a soap opera about an opera—and takes considerable liberties with Bologne’s life story, but the character is so compelling, the movie overcomes its shortcomings.
Harrison, last seen playing B.B. King in “Elvis,” brings heaps of charisma and some very credible violin miming to the role. It’s a performance that buoys the underwritten script, and helps the audience understand why Bologne cut such a path through French society. His bravado would ultimately be his downfall, but Harrison’s beautiful rendered portrait creates empathy for a man who was afforded little in his real life.
Top-notch production design and more corsets than you can shake a violin bow at, decorate the screen, bringing the time period to vivid life.
“Chevalier” is a period piece, but the story’s exploration of the effects of racism feels very current.
Imagine falling in love with someone, getting married and having a baby or two. For many people that is the dream but for Richard and Mildred Loving it was a nightmare of racism and injustice.
Based on a true story, “Loving” begins with Mildred Jeter (Ruth Negga), an African-American woman, telling her white boyfriend Richard Loving that she is pregnant. The place is a small county in Virginia, the year is 1958 and because the state’s anti-miscegenation laws made interracial marriage illegal, the pair skipped to neighbouring Washington, DC to tie the knot. “There’s less red tape there,” Richard says.
Soon word spreads and the pair are arrested in the middle of the night, rousted from a deep sleep for the crime of being married. “You know better, don’t you?” asks the Sheriff (Marton Csokas). “Maybe you don’t.” In exchange for a one year suspended sentence they either must divorce or leave the state and not return, together, for 25 years. “All we got to do is keep to ourselves for a while and this will blow over,” says Richard.
Reluctantly they leave for DC but when they return home to have their baby in secret they are arrested a second time. Told, “Cohabitating as man and wife is against the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth,” the pair leave Virginia permanently. Years later Mildred, inspired by the civil rights march on TV, writes a letter to Robert Kennedy, then the Attorney general, asking if he can have a look at their case. Kennedy forwards the letter to Bernie Cohen (Nick Kroll), a young American Civil Liberties Union lawyer, who formulates a risky plan to move the fight from a racist Virginia country court to the Supreme Court in a case that would alter the constitution of the United States. Richard eloquently and potently sums up the defense in one simple sentence: “Tell the judge I love my wife.”
“Loving” is an important slice of American history told in a quiet, heartfelt way. Director Jeff Nicholls doesn’t clog up the story with dialogue. Instead he follows the first rule of filmmaking, show me, don’t tell me. For instance, when Mildred and Richard leave Virginia for the less-than-bucolic DC, the looks on the actor’s faces tell the tale, no words required. He allows the performances to underscore the potency of the story. Watch the way Mildred and Richard respond to one another physically after the arrests. Their tentative public displays of affection shows the fear that comes along with being told your relationship is illegal and wrong. It’s subtle, beautiful acting.
In private they can be themselves. A recreation of a Life Magazine photo of the real couple sitting together, laughing, watching TV is charmingly realized. It’s warm and intimate, the very picture of a happy couple who have put their hardships aside for a fleeting moment.
“Loving” is a understated movie. Some have suggested it may have benefitted from a bit more anger, but that, for me, would feel like a betrayal to the characters who fight the good fight with dignity and love.
The movie is simultaneously a powerful look at a different time and, when it asks, “What is the danger to the state of Virginia from interracial marriage?” a timely and universal reminder that Loving v. Virginia was just one of many steps humanity has to take before everyone is afforded fundamental rights.
