The petticoats may be more pronounced and the dialogue right out of Jane Austen, but make no mistake, “Mr. Malcolm’s List,” a new romance now playing in theatres, is the kind of rom com that kept Drew Barrymore and Kathryn Heigl busy for years. The only thing missing is the traditional rom com run through the airport and into the arms of the beloved, an omission brought on by time period, not for lack of trying.
Based on a best-selling novel of the same name written by Suzanne Allain, the movie begins with a bad date between London’s most eligible bachelor, Mr. Jeremiah Malcolm (Sope Dirisu) and the eager but dim-witted (“Thinking too deeply causes forehead furrows,” she says.) Julia Thistlewaite (Zawe Ashton). She has her hopes set on a marriage proposal, but he seems more inclined to talk politics, a subject she knows little about.
Despite her best efforts, the night ends with them going their separate ways. The next day, to Julia’s horror, the newspaper carries a caricature of Mr. Malcolm waving her off with a curt, “Next!”
Turns out, Mr. Malcolm has a list of requirements for his potential new bride. Candidates must be able to converse in a sensible fashion, exude an elegance of mind, have a forgiving nature and genteel relations from good society, among other prerequisites. Julia’s sin? Not knowing about the newly enacted Corn Laws and fluttering her eyelashes too much.
Julia is horrified by the publicity. “I would love for Mr. Malcolm to receive the comeuppance he deserves,” she says. To that end she enlists Selina Dalton (Freida Pinto), a country mouse from out of town, gives her a crash course in high society, and sets her off to seduce Malcolm. When he falls for her charms, she will produce a list of her own and he will be “judged and found wanting in front of the whole of good society” just as she was.
You know the rest and if you don’t, you’ve never seen a rom com before. This is a gussied-up Kathryn Heigl movie with high-brow accents and the promise of a ripped bodice or two. Mix in jealousy, trickery, a handsome alternate love interest in the form of Captain Henry Ossory (Theo James) and comedic relief from giggly Mrs. Covington, wonderfully played by Broadway star Ashley Park, and you have a diverting but rather predictable movie.
“Mr. Malcolm’s List” succeeds mostly because an engaging, diverse cast who breathe life and loads of personality into a well-worn genre.
The name “Backstabbing for Beginners” sounds like a nasty teen drama, a high school how to on how to survive in the mean hallways of twelfth grade. “Mean Girls” with an edge. Instead, it’s a political drama, the kind of thriller that relies more on the cerebral inner workings of backroom manoeuvrings than the kind of things the newspapers write about. Proving the old adage that everything is high school, however, it turns out the two milieus are not dissimilar.
Based on the memoirs of Michael Soussan, the film details the corruption within the United Nations Oil-for-Food program during the early years of the Iraq War. Theo James is Michael, a principled but naive aide to an influential U.N. undersecretary Pasha (Ben Kingsley). A greenhorn, he is soon schooled in the crafty way Pasha does business. “The first rule of diplomacy,” says the older man, “is that the truth is not a matter of fact but a matter of consensus.” As the United Nations Iraq War-era Oil-for-Food program goes south Michael begins to poke around into the suspicious death of his predecessor. Coming into the orbit of Nashim (Belcim Bilgin) Michael struggles with where his loyalties should lie.
“Backstabbing for Beginners” isn’t a thrill ride. Deliberately paced, it covers a lot of ground. To guide the viewer through the story’s socio-political unpredictability Danish director Per Fly layers exposition throughout, in the form of explanatory dialogue and narration. He limits the detail to the ins and outs of what turns out to be a global conspiracy, but it slows down the action, sucking away much of the tale’s inherent tension.
The conspiracy and whistleblowing does not provide the rollercoaster ride it could have been but it provides Kingsley with the opportunity to chew the scenery. It’s a plum role for the 74 year-old actor who unleashes a controlled but spirited performance as the morally compromised, foul mouthed Pasha. It’s also a pleasure to see Jacqueline Bisset as his nemesis, a stern enemy who isn’t afraid to get under the skin of the undiplomatic diplomat.
“Backstabbing for Beginners’s” story of corruption from our recent past, complete with Pasha’s self-serving doublespeak about the “the growing pains of a new democracy,” is timely, if not exciting.
Where have all the movie stars gone? Once upon a time big names on even bigger marquees were as close to a guarantee of good box office as one gets in the movie biz, but no more.
This weekend The Divergent Series: Allegiant, the third part of the young adult series, hit theatres. Based on a series of successful books, it stars Shailene Woodley and Theo James in a teen epic about dystopia, guilt and artfully tossed pixie haircuts. In the new film the pair risk it all to go beyond the walls of their shattered city to discover the truth about their troubled world.
Woodley and James are appealing performers and despite having chiselled cheekbones, a Golden Globe nomination and a Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie: Liplock between them no one is going to see Allegiant because they’re in it. Why? Because they’re not movie stars, they’re brand ambassadors. The movie’s brand is bigger than they are and that’s the draw.
Young adult movies like Twilight made Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart famous and superhero films reignited Robert Downey Jr.’s career and turned Chris Hemsworth into a sex symbol, but none of these actors have scored recent hits outside of their best-known brands.
These days the marketing is more important than the movie star.
It’s almost a throwback to the very early days of cinema when actors weren’t given billing or publicized for the films they made. Fearing performers would demand larger paycheques if they became popular the studios gave them nicknames instead. Hamilton, Ontario born Florence Lawrence was known as the Biograph Girl, named after the studio that produced her films, but with the release of The Broken Oath in 1910 became the first entertainer to have her name appear in the credits of a film.
Floodgates opened, soon names like Mary Pickford (another Biograph Girl), Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin festooned not only movie credits but posters as well, usually above the title. The studios seized the marketing value of their actors and for years the star system was a money-spinner.
These stars were so powerful they not only sold tickets by the fistful but also influenced contemporary trends. For instance, it’s rumoured that sales of men’s undershirts plummeted in 1934 when The King of Hollywood, Clark Gable, was seen without one in It Happened One Night. As the legend goes, sales took such a hit several underwear manufacturers tried, unsuccessfully, to sue Columbia Pictures for damages.
For decades stars ruled supreme at the box office, but the business has changed. I’m guessing the movie studios love it because no film brand ever asked for more money or a bigger trailer.
Certainly Tom Cruise can still sell a ticket or three, but only if his movie has the words Mission Impossible in the title and Matt Damon was brought back in to add star sparkle to the new Jason Bourne movie after a lackluster reboot with Jeremy Renner. Jennifer Lawrence is a movie star. Her latest film Joy, the empowering story of a woman and her mop, wasn’t a big hit but without her star power would likely never have been made at all.
It’s not just the movie business’s attitude toward fame that has changed, it’s also ours. Today a proliferation of YouTube superstars and social media has democratized fame and in a world and business where everyone is famous, no one truly is, not even the stars of a blockbuster like The Divergent Series: Allegiant.
“The Divergent Series,” the film franchise birthed from the Veronica Roth’s teen dystopian novels, have always seemed like “Hunger Games” wannabes but the new one, “Allegiant,” will leave no one hungry for more.
The backstory: In “Divergent” a Big Brother style government has divided the post-apocalyptic Chicago into five factions: the altruistic Abnegation sect, the peace loving Amity, the “I cannot tell a lie” Candor group, the militaristic arm Dauntless and the smarty-pants Erudites.
At age sixteen all citizens must submit to a personality test that will help them decide which faction they will join. Beatrice Prior (Shailene Woodley) is from an Abnegation family, but chooses to join Dauntless, the warrior faction charged with protecting the city. During her training it’s discovered she is divergent, a person who cannot be pigeonholed into just one designation.
The second film “Insurgent” saw Tris, her brother Caleb (Ansel Elgort) and boyfriend Four (Theo James) escape the world of factions and live off the grid. They are fugitives from Jeanine Matthews (Kate Winslet), the head of the Erudite faction and an evil brainiac who desperately wants to get her hands on Tris. As a 100% divergent Tris is one of the few who can unlock the secrets of a mysterious box that holds the key to the future of humanity. As revolution brews against Janine, and the fascism of the factions, Tris does the only thing she can do to stop the bloodshed.
That’s the story so far. If you’re still interested and with us, you’re up to speed.
The new film continues Tris’s quest to find out what the heck’s going on. For the first time the core players—Tris, Four, Caleb and a handful of others—go beyond the wall that separates Chicago from the rest of the world. “It’s time to break from the past,” they say in their quest to find a peaceful resolution to the chaos that has characterized their young lives. What they discover is a barren, red-stained place where it rains crimson—“Great! The sky is bleeding!”—and the ground is toxic. Luckily folks who welcome them to the future rescue them. (On a side note, isn’t the future their own present? When does the future become the present and vice versa?) The Chicagoans are detoxified and taken to an oasis built in the former O’Hare Airport to meet a new leader, the charismatic David (Jeff Daniels). Soon, however, they must ask themselves if this new, seemingly utopian society is that much different from the one they left behind? Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
“The Divergent Series: Allegiant” is as interesting as you would imagine a movie largely set in an airport would be. Opening up the story to include the world beyond the walls should have presented opportunities to expand the story in interesting ways, but in this case more is less. The story limps along, ripe with dialogue exchanges that wouldn’t be other place in a 1980s Jean-Claude Van Damme flick—“ It’s impossible.” “So?” “So… I’ll make it happen.”—talk of genetic tampering and social commentary about how building walls to separate people won’t work (Are you listening Mr. Trump?). Instead of deepening the story the extra stuff muddles whatever point the movie was trying to make in the first place. Like an overcrowded freeway, the amount of traffic, story wise in the film, slows everything down to a stop.
Perhaps it’s because “The Divergent Series: Allegiant – Part 1” is one book cleaved into two movies or maybe it’s because director Robert Schwentke treats this film as a long set up to a finale but none of the new material makes much of an impact. Add to that generic special effects and you’re left with a story that isn’t as divergent from the rest of the YA pack as it would like to be.
Years before Mekhi Phifer played the stern-faced “Dauntless” enforcement officer Max in this weekend’s The Divergent Series: Insurgent, he displayed a dauntless attitude that got him his first acting job.
The year was 1994, the movie was Spike Lee’s Clockers and over 1000 people showed up for an open casting call.
“I went with my cousin,” he says, “not knowing anything about the audition or open casting call process. Spike Lee auditioned me about seven or eight different times. I had to read with Harvey Keitel and Isaiah Washington and do improvisations. I had never done that type of stuff before so to have gotten that was a whirlwind; I just thought that was the norm. That’s how you cast movies—a thousand people come in.”
He won the lead role and parlayed that success into a string of memorable characters in movies like 8 Mile and TV shows like ER, where he played Dr. Greg Pratt for six seasons and the Dr. Who spin-off, the sci-fi series Torchwood: Miracle Day.
“I am a big fan of sci-fi,” he says. “and that was part of the allure [to signing on for the Divergent series], but the other part was that it was good. I’m not looking for one particular genre or one particular type of film I usually just gravitate towards what’s good.”
He plays Max, leader of Dauntless, the warrior bloc of a Big Brother style government that has divided the post-apocalyptic Chicago into five factions. In the new film his job is to hunt down and capture fugitives Tris (Shailene Woodley) and boyfriend Four (Theo James) because she is she is divergent, a person who cannot be pigeonholed into just one designation.
“He’s not a villain at all in any way shape or form,” he says. “He’s tasked with protecting the society and I really feel that he believes in expunging the divergents and the rebel factions. He’s not doing it in a malicious way. He’s not getting pleasure from other people’s pain. He looks at it as a necessary evil.”
Phifer hasn’t read the Veronica Roth books that make up the source material for the films—“For me it seemed like more fun to do the series and then read the books and compare.”—so he’s not sure what’s going to happen with his character, but he hopes Max comes back for next year’s instalment Allegiant – Part 1.
“I don’t know what’s happening next so I’m on the journey with the audience,” he says. “I would love to see some of who he is come full circle.”
“Insurgent,” the second in the “Divergent” trilogy, takes one of the oldest dramatic tropes—the fear of the “other”—and blows it up into a teen epic about dystopia, guilt and artfully tossed pixie haircuts.
The backstory: In “Divergent” a Big Brother style government has divided the post-apocalyptic Chicago into five factions: the altruistic Abnegation sect, the peace loving Amity, the “I cannot tell a lie” Candor group, the militaristic arm Dauntless and the smarty-pants Erudites.
At age sixteen all citizens must submit to a personality test that will help them decide which faction they will join. Beatrice Prior (Shailene Woodley) is from an Abnegation family, but chooses to join Dauntless, the warrior faction charged with protecting the city. During her training it’s discovered she is divergent, a person who cannot be pigeonholed into just one designation.
At the beginning of the new film Tris, her brother Caleb (Ansel Elgort) and boyfriend Four (Theo James) have escaped the world of factions and are living off the grid. They are fugitives from Jeanine Matthews (Kate Winslet), the head of the Erudite faction and an evil brainiac who desperately wants to get her hands on Tris. As a 100% divergent Tris is one of the few who can unlock the secrets of a mysterious box that holds the key to the future of humanity. As revolution brews against Janine, and the fascism of the factions, Tris does the only thing she can do to stop the bloodshed.
“Insurgent” takes place against a broad backdrop but that large canvas is painted with one very simple free-to-be-you-and-me-message. There is talk of class warfare and revolution but its bottom line tutorial on acceptance and “just because you may be different doesn’t mean you’re bad” is a potent lesson for teens.
The framework the solid message hangs on is a bit creaky, however. When characters aren’t explaining plot lines—whether it is by way of truth serums or Janine’s monologue to herself—they do inexplicable things, excusing them by saying, “I know it doesn’t make any sense, but I have to do it.”
Woodley’s expressive face and eyes (not to mention the perfect Vidal Sassoon haircut) bring humanity to the story and Miles Teller’s smarmy villain character is a fun mix of Alex Delarge and Courage the Cowardly Dog, but much of “Insurgent” feels too generic to really be of interest. The action packed finale, for instance, puts Tris through her paces but none of the stunts feel real enough—thanks to the CGI—for there to be any real sense of jeopardy.
“Insurgent” is a curious thing. It’s a movie that sings the praises of being different and yet presents the story in as generic a way as possible. If it truly believed in its main thesis it would take more chances.
A new young adult film based on a best selling series of books is set in a world where diversity is frowned upon; sort of like Arizona without the dry heat.
In “Divergent” a Big Brother style government has divided the post-apocalyptic Chicago into five factions: the altruistic Abnegation sect, the peace loving Amity, the “I cannot tell a lie” Candor group, the militaristic arm Dauntless and the smarty-pants Erudites.
At age sixteen all citizens must submit to a personality test that will help them decide which faction they will join. “The future belongs to those who know where they belong,” is the Orwellian motto.
Beatrice Prior (Shailene Woodley) is from an Abnegation family, but chooses to join Dauntless, the warrior faction charged with protecting the city. During the grueling training “Tris” meets future love interest Four (Theo James) who helps her disguise the fact that she is “divergent,” a person who cannot be pigeonholed into just one designation. “If you don’t fit into a category they can’t control you,” she is told.
“Divergent” feels like a greatest hits version of recent young adult stories. Mixing and matching “Hunger Games” with a taste of “Harry Potter” and a splash of “Twilight,” results in a new story that feels familiar, like a sequel to a movie that doesn’t exist.
The film does take pains in the first hour to establish a world, with a unique set of rules—like once you choose a faction you can’t go back—and then promptly proceeds to break their own guidelines. The disregard for the rubrics blunts the power of the story, changing it from a high concept sci fi idea to simply a shifting situation for the characters to exist in. It’s a state of affairs passing itself off as an idea.
That won’t matter to the film’s core audience, teens, who will be more interested in Tris’s grrrl power, the dynamic of the Dauntless recruits and Four, the movie’s heart throb. Director Neil Burger aptly juggles all these elements well, and despite the plot lapses and some bloodless action—a zip line aerial scene that should be visually spectacular doesn’t make the eyeballs dance like it could—but the film is a little darker and grittier than you’d expect from a blockbuster-to-be. It would have been interesting to see what a director with true futuristic vision, like Terry Gilliam, could have done with the material, but ultimately it’s not about dystopia.
The young adult story thrives off subtext and in this case it is more about family, being yourself and facing fears, all subjects that will resonate with the target audience louder than any sci fi premise.
“Divergent” is “Hunger Games” light, but Woodley and James bring some heat to the leads and it’s fun watching Kate Winslet sneering her way through a villainous role.
The new young adult movie Divergent declares, “The future belongs to those who know where they belong.”
In the film a Big Brother style government has divided the post-apocalyptic Chicago into five factions: the altruistic Abnegation sect, the peace loving Amity, the “I cannot tell a lie” Candor group, the militaristic arm Dauntless and the smarty-pants Erudites.
In the middle of this muddle is Four, played by Theo James, a Dauntless warrior with a sensitive side. He’s a mentor of sorts and love interest to Tris (Shailene Woodley), a sixteen year old who has recently pledged to Dauntless. During her grueling training Four helps her disguise the fact that she is “divergent,” a person who cannot be pigeonholed into just one designation.
James, the English-born star, beat out half of young Hollywood for the role, which was made popular in the wildly successful Divergent series of books. Sales of over five million copies puts the novels into Hunger Games territory, but why are they so popular with teens?
“I think there are two things to summarize it,” says James, a philosophy graduate from the University of Nottingham. “One, on a generalist level, it’s a good story to be able to be involved in in the same way as some others in the genre are. The faction system is a good thing for young people to grab hold of because they can question themselves. They can say, ‘Which one would I be in?’ There are cliques in high school, and it has those kinds of ramifications.
“There are other high school parallels; it’s a big assembly hall, there is a kind of teacher, there is a kind of ceremony which is almost like graduating from high school.
“Then there is the college era, being in Dauntless and then choosing what kind of job you’re going to go into. It has those fun things to be able to latch on to.
“On top of that there is the fantasy level of being in a world which is relatable because it is Chicago. You can see these landmarks, so it makes sense, but then it is the future so there is something more fantastic about it. As a result of that, there is also a deeper world you can step into.
“Then, you wonder about the generation now. Growing up they are constantly hearing the conversation about depleting resources and all these kind of environmental things. Not to say that everyone is partaking in it, but you can’t get away from it so they’re hearing, ‘Oh, the population is massive. China is two billion; we’re not going to have enough resources by this time. Look at India.’ As a result they are questioning the future and are questioning how they will be in the future and how they’re kids will be, so maybe it is kind of a relatable fantasy.”
