SYNOPSIS: In “Starve Acre,” a new British horror film starring Matt Smith, and now on VOD, a family’s idyllic, rural Yorkshire life is disrupted when their son starts acting strangely. Is there something wrong with the boy, or is his behavior tied to a demonic spirit called Dandelion Jack Grey, and the power of an ancient oak tree on the property?
CAST: Matt Smith, Morfydd Clark, Erin Richards, Robert Emms, Sean Gilder. Directed by Daniel Kokotajlo.
REVIEW: The folk horror in “Starve Acre” comes slowly, building gradually before director Daniel Kokotajlo ushers in a disturbing climax. Until then the film’s atmosphere of bleakness and dread hangs over the proceedings like a shroud.
The leads, Smith and Clark burrow in, mining emotional hurt as they work through deep seeded grief and the hidden horrors and ancient powers of their land. Their performances set the film’s retrained tone. There are no jump scares or moments of gore.
Instead, as the movie gets more perplexing (and a little sillier), their quiet desperation becomes suffocating. Even as the going gets weird, they stay chillingly earthbound. Until they don’t, and even then, those performances, combined with the film’s muted color palette, creates a subtle but strange effect.
“Starve Acre” is a mood piece with flavorings of “Don’t Look Now” and “The Wicker Man” woven throughout. Its most shocking image is its last one, a moment that will likely divide audiences into two camps, the WTF crowd and those who get the connection between nature and folk horror.
Either way, the cumulative effect of the images, performances and Matthew Herbert’s anxiety inducing score is a powerful depiction of grief and the manifestation of the uncanny.
Shia LaBeouf’s reputation serves him well in “Borg/McEnroe.” The story of one of the all-time great sports rivalries, this film from Swedish director Janus Metz turns the actor’s hotheaded persona into a terrific performance as John McEnroe, the “superbrat” of tennis.
A non-traditional sports movie, “Borg/McEnroe “ ends with the Wimbledon matches in the 1980 final but spends the vast amount of its running time as a behind-the-scenes character study of polar opposites. On the court their games were as much psychological as they were physical, and this movie delves into the backstories that fed their individual styles.
We learn of McEnroe father’s unrelenting push for perfection. Whether it was doing complicated math tricks for dad’s friends or on the court, young McEnroe developed a perfectionist streak that lead to extreme discipline and a hair trigger temper when his lofty standards weren’t met.
In public life Björn Borg (Sverrir Gudnason) was nicknamed the Iceborg, a play on his chilly demeanour but flashbacks to his early life with coach Lennart Bergelin (Stellan Skarsgård) reveal a similar upbringing to McEnroe. The difference between the two competitors came with Borg’s ability to suppress his anger, unlike the combustible McEnroe, who became famous for his on-court outbursts. “They say Borg is an iceberg, keeping it all in,” says one commentator, “until he becomes a volcano.”
The film digs deep, accentuating the similarities between the two players, not their differences. It’s an unusual take for a sports film. Typically sporting films play up the differences between competitors to amp up the conflict but this isn’t a standard sports story. It’s more an existential drama concerned with the why’s of their personalities not the how’s of their game. Many people will know how this story ends—and no, it doesn’t rewriter tennis history—so director Metz wisely focuses on the journey, not the destination.
Perhaps of his own history of public behaviour LaBeouf brings fire and empathy to his portrayal of McEnroe. A performance that could easily have drifted into caricature instead offers a nuanced look at the demons that fuelled the champion’s antics.
Gudnason is a dead ringer for Borg and does a nice job of hinting at the self-doubt that was always just under his icy exterior.
“Borg/McEnroe” gives insight into the lives of these two gold star athletes, revealing the men behind the game.
