Posts Tagged ‘romantic drama’

EMPIRE OF LIGHT: 3 STARS. “a love letter to film and grand old movie palaces.”

“Empire of Light,” a new drama from director Sam Mendes, takes almost two hours to deliver the same magic-of-the-movies message Nicole Kidman’s AMC advertisement drove home in just one minute and one second.

Set in 1981, Olivia Colman plays Hilary Small, a lonely duty manager at a Margate cinema called The Empire. She is fastidious, detail oriented and on top of every little thing, even if she doesn’t really care for the movies she shows in their beautiful Art Deco auditoriums. “They’re for the customers,” she says.

Her personal life is as messy as her work life is ordered. An illicit affair with her boss, Mr. Ellis (Colin Firth), the theatre’s general manager, is a study in power imbalance and an unnamed mental illness leaves her unable to sleep and reliant on lithium to maintain equilibrium.

Stephen (Micheal Ward), a new theatre employee, fits in perfectly with the others, Neil (Tom Brooke), punk rocker Janine (Hannah Onslow) and projectionist Norman (Toby Jones) but really sparks with Hilary, even though she is many years his senior.

At the theatre romance blossoms between them, but in the outside world the rise of the National Front troubles Stephen, and he is regularly harassed by skinheads simply because he is a Black man living in Britain.

As Mr. Ellis prepares to host the regional gala premier of “Chariots of Fire,” events conspire to change the nature of Hilary and Stephen’s relationship, and perhaps the rest of their lives.

“Empire of Light” takes on a lot but does not seamlessly blend its many ideas into a whole. A study of racism, mental illness, power structures and the transformative power of the movies, it is splintered into too many pieces to work as a cohesive story. When Mendes focusses his camera on Hilary and Stephen the movie finds its power, when he does not, it drifts.

Colman, in the film’s most demanding role, once again proves her remarkable ability to inhabit a character. Hilary is a complex person, and as her depression grips, she boards an emotional rollercoaster. Colman carefully and sensitively portrays that aspect of Hilary’s life in a terrific performance, filled with humanity and sympathy.

Opposite Colman in the film’s best scenes is Ward. As Stephen, in a career making performance, he brings empathy to the film. In one of his early moments, he helps a pigeon with a broken wing. That action could have served as an overworked metaphor, given his budding relationship with the damaged Hilary, but instead establishes Stephen’s innate decency in a world that does not always return the favor. Conversely, Ward’s steeliness comes through in several scenes of outrageous racism.

At its heart “Empire of Light” is a love letter to film and grand old movie palaces like The Empire. But once again, Mendes uses the metaphors like a jackhammer on concrete. In an impassioned speech, Toby Jones, who calls the theatre’s projectors his “babies,” explains the magic of the movies to Stephen. “Still images with darkness in between,” he says. “If I run them at 24 frames a second, you don’t see the darkness.” Jones delivers the line with breathless reverence, as if the idea that film as a panacea for all that ails us was something new instead of a clunky metaphor. The “Cinema Paradiso-esque” veneration is well intended, but, given the film’s essaying of racism and mental illness, feels overstated and trite.

MY POLICEMAN: 3 STARS. “melodramatic romantic tragedy.”

Told on a broken timeline with dual storylines, “My Policeman,” starring Harry Styles, and now streaming on Prime Video, is the story of friendship, interwoven relationships and secrecy.

Based on the novel of the same name by Bethan Roberts, the film revolves around three characters, visited in 1998 Britain with flashbacks to 1957.

When we first meet Tom, Marion and Patrick, played in latter day by Linus Roache, Gina McKee and Rupert Everett, it is Tony Blair-era England. Former museum curator Patrick has suffered a severe stroke and retired teacher Marion is caring for him in his recovery even though her husband Tom wants nothing to do with their ailing guest. “He was always in your life,” Marion reminds Tom, “in our lives.”

Flash back in time 40 years. Tom and Marion, now played by Styles and Emma Corrin as a fresh-faced young police officer and school teacher, are falling in love. “He’s just perfect,” she says. “He’s Tom.”

In an effort to impress Marion, Tom introduces her to high-minded museum curator Patrick, now played by David Dawson. As their friendship blossoms, Marion suspects the connection between the two men is something more than platonic.

Sure enough, before you can say “throuple,” Tom and Patrick have formed a romantic bond and have become clandestine lovers. The true depth of their love, however, doesn’t become clear to Marion until she reads Patrick’s diary, as he convalesces in her home forty years later.

“My Policeman” is a beautiful looking but somewhat dull exercise in melancholy. Every frame is touched with a certain kind of wistfulness, which, over time, gives way to a sort of solemn melodrama. A fiery heat should ignite in this story of complicated emotions and prejudice, but here it is barely a glowing ember, scarcely enough to illuminate the film’s underlying themes.

In the performances, restraint is the name of the game. The English reserve on display is palpable, which befits a story set in a time when homosexuality was illegal in Britain, but it does hold much of the drama at arm’s length.

As young Patrick, Dawson introduces passion to the film, effectively portraying the character’s nuanced wit, fervor, pain and charm.

Of Marion’s portrayers, McKee takes the edge, giving the elderly woman a weathered view on life as a person with regrets who attempts to atone (NO SPOILERS HERE) for the actions of her younger self.

Styles, the over-the-title star, earns kudos for applying his talents to challenging roles like this and his work in “Don’t Worry Darling,” but stacked up against his co-stars here, the sense of longing and emotion necessary to form a believable character, is missing from his take on Tom.

“My Policeman” is an elegant, but dry, movie that should be a fierce hymn against prejudice and the erosion of personal freedoms but settles for melodramatic romantic tragedy.

WORDS ON BATHROOM WALLS: 3 ½ STARS. “coming-of-age story with a difference.”

Based on Julia Walton’s 2017 young adult novel of the same name, “Words on Bathroom Walls,” now on EST, VOD, DVD and Blu-ray, follows a teenager, diagnosed with schizophrenia, navigating mental illness and life in a new school. “How hard could it be to hide my burgeoning insanity from the unforgiving ecosystem that is high school?” says Adam Petrazelli (Charlie Plummer) in the film’s opening moments.

Adam is a foodie with dreams of being a chef but when he accidentally injures a classmate during a psychotic break in lab class his future is jeopardized. A diagnosis of treatment resistant schizophrenia leaves him ostracized from his former friends. They taunt him in the halls—“Where’s the straightjacket?” and call him “freak” as he confronts the voices in his head, the new-agey Rebecca (AnnaSophia Robb), the Bodyguard (Lobo Sebastian) and troublemaker Joaquin (Devon Bostick), a varied group he calls “my inescapable roommates.”

A new drug trial offers hope, as does a switch to a new Catholic school. For the first time in ages he feels like he has autonomy over his life. “I woke up to complete silence. No whispers. No banter. No visions. Just pure, unfiltered, beautiful quiet.” His friendship with valedictorian Maya (Taylor Russell) blossoms, but as the medication slowly affects his ability to cook he struggles to hide the side effects from mother (Molly Parker) and step dad (Walton Goggins).

“Words on a Bathroom Wall” is a coming-of-age story with a difference. Adam’s journey with schizophrenia is sensitively handled, with director Thor Freudenthal finding inventive ways to put the viewer into the main character’s shoes. The voices and hallucinations are brought to life without sensationalism or exploitation. Instead, they show us what is happening in Adam’s mind as he navigates the minefield of high school and first love. Far from demonizing his disease, as has been the case in other less humane cinematic depictions of schizophrenia, they add dimension to the story.

Plummer hands in a break out performance as Adam. He’s an awkward teen, a dutiful son who learns how to cook to comfort his mother and a teen struggling with an illness. His subtle performance goes a long way to creating a character in three-dimensions who is both strong and vulnerable. He shares good chemistry with Russell who brings depth to an underwritten Maya.

“Words on a Bathroom Wall” hits hard before settling into more familiar, optimistic territory but the respectful tone established early on makes up for the sappiness that bogs down the film’s final moments.

ALL MY LIFE: 3 STARS. “a romantic drama sugary enough to give you a cavity.”

If “All My Life,” a new tearjerker starring Jessica Rothe and now playing in theatres, wasn’t based on the real life story of a Toronto couple, it would be the kind of story Nicholas Sparks would write.

Jennifer (Rothe) and Solomon (Harry Shum Jr.) are a cute couple who meet-cute in a bar and seem destined to live a cute happily ever after. They like the same kind of cheesy 80s rock, they laugh and giggle while jumping into water fountains and say things like, “I didn’t know how much I could actually love before I met you,” to one another.

But keep in mind, this isn’t a rom com. It’s a romantic drama in à la Sparks, so I’ll stop using the word cute now.

There’s nothing cute (whoops) about Sol’s diagnoses of terminal liver cancer. Their plans for a December wedding on hold, their friends raise money and give them the day of their dreams as Sol’s health worsens.

“All My Life” is a three or four hanky movie where everything you think will happen, happens. But what it lacks in innovation, it makes up for with a certain kind of comfortable predictability. You’ve heard the dialogue before—”You make me feel Like I can do anything. Like we can do anything.”—and the group of BFFs are the usual kind of misfits who could have wandered in from any number of other teen dramas but when the movie focusses on the leads, Rothe and Shum Jr., it becomes less about cliches and more about the heart of the story.

The pair share a number of scenes that drive home the direness of the situation. Strongest is a heartfelt discussion about their future plans that closes with, “I am not your widow, I am your bride,” a message of true love that makes up for the manipulation of the earlier scenes.

“All My Life” is sugary enough to give you a cavity, but in its better moments it is a reminder to embrace life and roll with the punches, no matter what happens.

AMMONITE: 3 ½ STARS. “wonderfully austere, quiet performances.”

The plot of “Ammonite,” a new romantic drama starring Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan now playing in theatres, is simple but the film is not. A complex study of love, what it lacks in plot it makes up for in masterful performances.

Set in the 1840s, Winslet plays self-taught paleontologist Mary Anning. Her scientific glory days behind her, she now supports her ailing mother (Gemma Jones) selling fossils found on a nearby beach in the barren Southern English coastline of Lyme Regis. Still feeling the sting of the breakup of her last relationship with fossil-hunter Elizabeth Philpot (Fiona Shaw), she has developed a an exterior as hard as the rocks she cracks open to find fossils.

When wealthy Scottish geologist Roderick Murchison (James McArdle), whose wife Charlotte (Saoirse Ronan) suffers from “mild melancholia,” passes through Lyme Regis, he hires Mary to look after his wife while he travels.

It’s not an easy fit. Mary is all work and no play, but needs Murchison’s money. Charlotte is used to being coddled and of getting her own way from the hired help. Soon, it becomes apparent that Charlotte’s melancholia is caused by a lack of passion in her marriage, a excitement she rediscovers with Mary.

Director Francis Lee begins the picture in a shroud of grey. Dull matte hangs over every frame of the film, echoing the icy relationship between… well, almost everyone on screen. As Mary and Charlotte’s relationship heats up, so does the movie’s visual sense. Colours are introduced and flowers, once mere stems, bloom. It’s a lovely backdrop for the blossoming of love, or at the very least, infatuation.

“Ammonite” is, first and foremost, a vehicle for two wonderful performances. Ronan and Winslet deliver austere, quiet performance but share electrifying chemistry. Their initial disdain of one another is palatable, and later, their attraction is fervid. Even when they aren’t reciting pages of dialogue, their inner most thoughts are clear and unmistakable. Every gesture and glance fills in a blank and helps move the story forward.

Despite the passion from the leads “Ammonite” feels listless for much of its running time. It’s a   serious story—although apparently not based on the actual facts of the real-life Mary Anning’s life—that feels as though it is trying to exerting a sense of gravitas through spare dialogue, depiction of grief and the use fossils as a metaphor for what was once alive and vital.

 

DIRT MUSIC: 1 ½ STARS. “a story of longing that turns out to be over-long.”

It may be possible to gauge your interest in “Dirt Music,” a new film on VOD starring Garrett Hedlund and Kelly Macdonald, by its advertising tagline. “Lose Yourself… Find Yourself… In Love.” That inspirational, Nicholas Sparks-style slogan tells you all you need to know about this movie. Much like the story itself, it’s vague, involves love but what does it really mean?

Stretched over two hours the film sees Macdonald play Georgie Jutland, a former nurse now playing step mother to the two sons of her new boyfriend, crayfish magnate, Jim Buckridge (David Wenham). Life in the tiny Australian fishing port of White Point is uneventful and unhappy until Georgie slips out for a midnight swim. While splashing around in the cleansing waters she meets Luther Fox (Garret Hedlund), a fish poacher plying his illegal trade. It is love at first sight and soon the two begin a passionate affair.

Luther is an enigma, a man with a tragic past. His family gone, he drifts though the world, mourning their loss. He’s a damaged guy who abruptly leaves White Point when it appears Buckridge has discovered the affair with Georgie. He heads north to the remote Coronation Island, looking for solitude and safety. Unable and unwilling to let him go, Georgie, with Buckridge‘s unlikely assistance, embarks on an epic search to find her love.

“Dirt Music” is a story of longing that turns out to be over-long. At a hair over two hours it is a feast for the eyes—the Australian landscape is breathtaking—but the story is as under developed as the film’s terse tagline. Considering the epic nature of Georgie’s search for Luther, these star-crossed lovers spend very little on-screen time together. Certainly not enough for the depth of the connection to be made clear. The result is a bit of a head-scratching exercise in lust and longing. Despite the soaring Australian temperature the pair barely have time to generate the heat needed to make us care when they are torn apart.

The story telling in “Dirt Music” trades in melodrama while Macdonald and Hedlund are playing it straight. She’s an open book, he’s broody whose hobby seems to be staring blankly into the ether. Both are bound by grief but the very thing that connects them feels at odds with the film’s over dramatic edge.

EVERY DAY: 2 STARS. “plays up the teen dream ‘instalove’ aspects of the tale.”

Based on David Levithan’s New York Times bestseller “Every Day,” the new teenage romance starring Angourie Rice, asks what would it be like to really get inside the head of the person you love?

Rice plays Rhiannon, a 16-year old high school student dating a popular jock named Justin (Justice Smith). He’s a bit oblivious, the kind of guy who thinks a great date involves hanging around his bedroom, eating McDonalds and playing “Legend of Zelda.” One morning, feeling playful, Rhi suggests they skip class and spend the day together. “Is that something we do?“ he asks, before hightailing out of school and into an afternoon of romantic adventure. It is, Rhiannon says, the greatest day of her life.

Unfortunately, the next day, Justin doesn’t remember any of it. He has a vague memory of the fun, like he’s seeing it through a mist, but soon he’s back up to his old tricks, reverting back to the guy he was before their magical date. What’s going on? It seems Justin was simply “inhabited” for twenty-four hours by A, a wandering spirit who invades random bodies, always of the same age and only for 24 hours. It’s “Quantum Leap with a big helping of teenage ennui.

As Rhiannon slowly comes to grips with what’s going on she meets A’s newest incarnation, a teenage girl. “Where is A?” she asks. “He’s here, he’s not here, here.”

Confused yet? It gets foggier when Rhiannon and A, the amorphous spirit, become romantically involved. “Not everyone’s body aligns with their mind,” A says. “I am asking you to give me a chance.” The love is real, regardless of the meat suit the spirit has jumped into. When A lands in the form of Alexander (Owen Teague), a strapping young man, it seems the perfect blend of metaphysical and physical. Enter the melodramatic teen dilemma: How can you love someone whose life is not their own?

“Every Day” takes the long way around to drive home the point that making a spiritual connection with someone is just as important as clicking physically. After a deadly first thirty minutes that could have been from any generic indie teen drama the story picks up once Rhiannon rebounds from Justin to the spirit world but it never fully engages. Director Michael Sucsy embraces the supernatural afterschool special feel of the material, adding in a few playful touches—A spends some time in Rhiannon, modestly being careful not to look down while she’s in the shower—but he also muddies the already murky waters with a subplot about Rhiannon’s troubled father (Michael Cram) and harried mother (an underused Maria Bello). Their story provides more relationship advice—cultivate the ability to except the change in others—but adds little to the overall story.

“Every Day” feels like it skirts around the interesting stuff—the exploration of what it means to be rootless, cut free of gender and family—in favour of playing up the teen dream “instalove” aspects of the tale.

TORONTO STAR: ‘FOREVER MY GIRL’S” JESSICA ROTHE STRIVES TO PUSH BOUNDARIES.

Check out Richard’s conversation with “Forever My Girl” star Jessica Rothe in today’s Toronto Star!

“Jessica Rothe is what used to be called a ‘starlet.’ The thirty-year-old actor appeared with Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling in the Oscar-winning La La Land, and last year was the best thing about the time-loop murder mystery Happy Death Day.

“She’s landing lead roles but still building her career, trying out various film genres and characters.

“One thing that feels very important to me as an artist is to continually challenge myself and push myself to do all kinds of different things,” she says. “If it is good storytelling, it is good storytelling. I just want to do it all…” READ THE WHOLE THING HERE!

 

Metro: Jessica Rothe, rising star of Forever My Girl, looking to branch out.

By Richard Crouse – Metro Canada

Jessica Rothe is what used to be called a ‘starlet.’ The thirty-year-old actor appeared with Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling in the Oscar-winning La La Land, and last year was the best thing about the time loop murder mystery Happy Death Day.

She’s landing lead roles but still building her career, trying out various film genres and characters.

“One thing that feels very important to me as an artist is to continually challenge myself and push myself to do all kinds of different things,” she says. “If it is good storytelling, it is good storytelling. I just want to do it all.”

Her latest is Forever My Girl, a romance in the mould of Nicholas Sparks. She plays Josie, a young woman left at the altar by boyfriend Liam, a musician who ran off to find fame as a country music star. When he returns to their small Southern town years later his presence reignites old feelings but there is a difference in the form of Billy, played by Abby Ryder Fortson, the daughter Liam never knew about.

Rothe says working with her precocious eight-year-old co-star helped her make Josie a fully rounded character.

“I met with Abby and her mom at a juice bar so she would feel comfortable with me,” Rothe says, “but we didn’t get a lot of prep time because she was still in school.

“In some way the fact that I was her mother in the film really benefitted our relationship because every time I didn’t know what I should be doing in the scene, or what Josie would be thinking about, it was always, ‘Where is Abby? Is Abby safe? Is she hungry?’ Having that be the backbone of Josie and her thought process was incredibly helpful. As somebody who is not a parent I can only imagine that is how you would function. It helped that our relationship on set and off set was very similar. I came to feel protective of her. Film sets can be crazy but I think it worked to our benefit.”

The actress, who will next be seen in an all-singing-all-dancing version of the 1983 romantic comedy Valley Girl, relates to her young co-star’s acting ambitions as well.

“If I, as an eight year old, could have been that worldly and on top of my game I would have been amazed with me,” she laughs. “I always knew I wanted to do this but I didn’t think it could be my real job. I’m lucky my parents are incredibly supportive and generous people who have put so much faith in me as I jump into this crazy business. It really is so far outside their comfort zone in terms of what a profession can be.”

Speaking of straying outside of comfort zones, Rothe already knows who she wants to work with next: horror master Guillermo del Toro.

“I just watched The Shape of Water the other night and thought that was absolutely stunning. It is almost the perfect movie. I could talk about it a lot but I won’t because I’ll get in trouble. Everyone reads the Forever My Girl interview and it is just me raving about The Shape of Water and trying to get a job on his next film. That would not go over really well!”