Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to make your bed. Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the hellish hallmark “Obsession,” the rowdy revenge of “Is God Is” and the secrets of “The Wizard of the Kremlin.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: In “The Wizard of the Kremlin,” a new political drama now playing in theatres, Paul Dano plays a television producer who rises through the ranks to become the spin doctor and master of manipulation for KGB agent Vladimir Putin.
CAST: Paul Dano, Alicia Vikander, Tom Sturridge, Will Keen, Jeffrey Wright, Jude Law. Directed by Olivier Assayas.
REVIEW: Adapted from Giuliano da Empoli’s novel, “The Wizard of the Kremlin,” this is not a reliable history lesson. Instead, we’re told by the film’s opening title card that it is “an original work of fiction with artistic intent.” Names and situations have been changed but this fictionalized story is no stranger than the real story of television producer and strategist Vladislav Surkov, architect of the post-USSR Kremlin.
Beginning in 2019, years after Vladimir Putin’s enigmatic advisor Vadim Baranov (Paul Dano) retired from public life, the film is framed as a conversation between “the Wizard of the Kremlin” and American writer Lawrence Rowland (Jeffrey Wright), whose article “Vadim Baranov and the Invention of Fake Democracy” caught Baranov’s eye.
Baranov’s episodic story begins with a “When I was growing up…” and winds along his journey through the new world of the early 1990s Russia. From life under Communism and a particularly hedonistic theatre school, where he learned how to stage eye catching spectacles, to reality television (“First rule,” he says, “don’t be boring.”) to the world of banking oligarchs and the upper echelons of a new world order, it’s a tale of nationalism, chaos, autocracy and the power behind the power. “I don’t know much about politics,” he says, “but I do know about communications.”
The conversational framing device is an efficient way to drop big chunks of exposition and keep the story moving forward, but it also means an over reliance on voice over. In a show me don’t tell me medium, it feels more like a lecture and a low energy one at that.
Dano’s monotone, I suppose, is befitting a man of mystery, someone who spent a career as the unknowable person behind the throne, but it is too one-note to be compelling. It’s a shame because the machinations of creating a new political brand could be a fascinating and timely topic.
Bringing more energy is Law whose Putin is charismatic and chilling as he calmly speaks (in an English accent) of the advantages of Stalin’s rule and eliminating rivals. “We need to inspire fear and fury,” he says. It’s all surface, no real introspection here, but it’s a pretty good surface.
“The Wizard of the Kremlin” is ambitious but despite revealing Baranov’s secrets, ultimately doesn’t have that much to say.
SYNOPSIS: Set in France during the Napoleonic Wars, “Widow Clicquot,” now playing in theatres, stars Haley Bennett, as Madame Clicquot, a fiercely independent vintner who spurned convention by continuing to run the fledgling wine business she and her husband nurtured before his death. Steering the company, which still bears her name, through hard times, personally and professionally, she defies critics and revolutionizes the champagne industry. “When they struggle to survive, they become more reliant on their own strength,” says the Widow Clicquot of her grapevines. “They become more of what they were meant to be.”
CAST: Haley Bennett, Tom Sturridge, Sam Riley, Anson Boom, Leo Suter, Ben Miles, Natasha O’Keeffe. Directed by Thomas Napper, from a screenplay by Erin Dignam and Christopher Monger based on the book “The Widow Clicquot” by Tilar J. Mazzeo.
REVIEW: Like the vines she so lovingly cares for, Madame Clicquot’s struggles—against weather, the patriarchy and restrictive Napoleonic trade embargoes—make her stronger. It’s a bit of an overworked metaphor, but screenwriters Dignam and Monger make it work in context to this very specific story.
At the heart of it all is Bennett, who not only highlights Clicquot’s determination and talent, but also the passion it took to stay firm, in the face of adversity, to become a successful female entrepreneur in a male dominated industry. What could have been a one-note performance, all determination, or all grief, is instead, a powerhouse mix of emotion. Passion, for her late husband, their dream and their grapes, drives her, but Bennett plays all the notes on the scale. Her Clicquot contains multitudes, beginning with heartbreak that bubbles up to become triumph by the time the end credits roll.
Handsomely photographed, with fine period details, excepting the English accents favored by the actors playing French roles, “Widow Clicquot” spends a bit too much time on the ins-and-outs of wine making, but, at an economical ninety minutes, it’s a toast-worthy testament to the Grand Dame and her indomitable spirit.
“Far From the Madding Crowd” isn’t a Masterpiece Theatre style remounting of the 1874 Thomas Hardy novel. Instead it’s vibrant soap opera, complete with love triangles, pregnancy, suicide, love sick neighbours, crimes of passion, more marriage proposals than you can shake a chaff fork at, missed opportunities, bad decisions, broken hearts and petticoats.
Carey Mulligan is Bathsheba Everdene, the headstrong and beautiful mistress of a sprawling farm inherited from her uncle. She’s independent—“I have no need for a husband,” she says.—but also an irresistible man magnet, beating off marriage proposals like Neo in a roomful of Agent Smiths. Suitors include manly sheep farmer (and aptly named) Gabriel Oak (Matthias Schoenaerts), high-strung middle-aged landowner William Boldwood (Michael Sheen) and a dandy in a Scarlet uniform, Sergeant Frank Troy (Tom Sturridge) who uses swordplay as foreplay.
Through reversals of fortune and chance encounters Bathsheba perseveres, making her way through the world, the very embodiment of resilience and grace.
Director Thomas Vinterberg breathes new life into the story by preserving the classic themes of the novel on marriage, class and gender while not being precious about it. The film’s pacing is as bucolic as the rural English countryside setting, but the movie feels very contemporary in its approach. It’s a rom com, without much com. There’s even the 19th century equivalent of the romantic movie staple, the Run to the Airport to Declare Undying Love.
Vinterberg takes advantage of the setting, using nature to guide the lives of the farmers—each changing season brings new developments in Bathsheba’s life—and human nature to explore the relationships that make up the tale’s love triangle. It’s mannered but clever, lively direction that values the location—it was shot on location in Dorset, the novel’s setting—and text while focussing on the themes that make a one-hundred-and-forty year old story seem fresh and universal in appeal.
Mulligan and Schoenaerts generate heat in their chaste scenes, slowly building their relationship through mutual respect. He is stoic, she is grounded but wistful.
“It is my intention to astonish you all,” Bathsheba says to her collected staff, and once again Mulligan does impress with a performance that digs deep to deliver a nuanced but soulful take on the shrewd character.
“Far From the Madding Crowd” is an abbreviated retelling of the story. The last version, from director John Schlesinger and star Julie Christie, was one hour longer but Vinterberg brings a luminous energy and modern feel to an old tale.
