Rebel Hearts
October 19, 2015
Suffragette (2015).
D: Sarah Gavron. DP: Eduard Grau. W: Abi Morgan. Starring: Carey Mulligan/Helena Bonham-Carter/Anne-Marie Duff/Meryl Streep/Ben Wishaw/Brendan Gleeson/Romola Garai/Natalie Press/Adam Michael Dodd.
As award season looms the first of many strong contenders hits theaters. Suffragette bowed at the London Film Festival and enticed domestic violence protesters to lay down on the red carpet and call for greater funding. The cast donning shirts with ‘I’d rather be a rebel, than a slave’ caused outrage back in the US. But here in the UK, as the quote is part of Emmeline Pankhurst famous speech to the British suffragettes, the promotion went unfazed. Perhaps context these days is even more important than ever.
Suffragette follows Maud Watts (Carey Mulligan) whose dingy East London life in a launderette has little solace but parenting her young son George. Maud is so down she doesn’t even get an ‘e’ in her name, deprived from her very birth. As her fellow laundress Violet (Anne-Marie Duff) recruits her to join the movement Maud’s home and work lives are threatened as she takes on the cause of women’s right to vote and equal pay. She eventually joins action master Edith (Helena Bonham-Carter) who takes Pankhurst’s (played in one sequence by Meryl Streep) call to rebellion seriously.
Screenwriter Abi Morgan, who wrote the fabulous BBC series, The Hour, along with The Iron Lady and Shame, keeps a tight pace in her work. The film clips along not leaving time to over sentimentalize too much. Domestic violence and work injuries are part of the landscape here, Maud’s upper arms covered with burns never explained or referenced to. This subtle hand from director Sarah Gavron helps Mulligan carry the film with tenderness and restraint. Mulligan’s Maud is fragile, but her clear eyes let the practicality of her world shine through. A nice turn especially when help up to last years Far From the Madding Crowd.
Mulligan is surrounded by the best with Streep swooping in much like Judi Dench did in Shakespeare in Love. Bonham-Carter provides the group determination that helps balance a nice performance by Duff as beaten and baby tired Violet. Natalie Press is no newcomer, but her part here is pivotal. You should see Andrea Arnold’s Oscar winning short Wasp to see what she’s capable of. The men are few here, but Ben Wishaw and Brendan Gleeson provide a cadence of reactions needed against Maud’s cause.
Suffragette is in the middle of a current heated debate about the white washing of feminism in cinema. The lack of any non-white representation in the film is clearly apparent, but yet can every film represent everything or everyone? I am not defending the film’s choices, but nevertheless Suffragette ultimately takes on Maud’s story as someone so close to Emily Wilding Davidson. Surely there were class and racial distinctions within the suffragette movement, but what is to be celebrated is the message. In this scenario I do not think there is a right choice that would appease everyone. Nonetheless the discussion is a fruitful one, no one was talking about this ten years ago. Let’s hope the film’s success is a call to arms.
Love in the Country
May 22, 2015
Far From the Madding Crowd (2015).
D: Thomas Vinterberg. DP: Charlotte Bruus Christensen. W: David Nicholls. Starring: Carey Mulligan/Matthias Schoenaerts/Michael Sheen/Tom Sturridge/Juno Temple/Jessica Barden/Bradley Hall. (Based on Thomas Hardy’s novel of the same name)
Heading into summer we are hit with a barrage of huge films, from budget to scope to locale. Thankfully smaller gems can pop up between these colossal projects and hit you right where you need it to. Far From the Madding Crowd does just that, flaws and all.
David Nicholls adapts Thomas Hardy’s monthly serialized novel that was then published in novel form in 1874. A novelist and screenwriter himself, Nicholls has adapted two of his own novels into films, Starter for Ten and One Day. I do not know which is more stressful, adapting your own work or that of a great writer like Hardy. Nonetheless, Nicholls is deft here at condensing the novel’s time and cutting out smaller tangents that the film logistically cannot tackle. Following the rise of Bathsheba Everdene (Carey Mulligan) as she comes to fortune in her own right in 1870 rural England. A small voice over in the beginning of the film lends voice to Bathsheba’s acknowledgement of her independence despite her time, a moment she is never given in the third person written novel.
As I write this review I am listening to Craig Armstrong’s score, is there higher praise for a film composer? A frequent Baz Luhrman collaborator, Armstrong’s score is just the right augmentation for what is on screen. His use of violins is exquisite while its solos matching the tumultuous heroine of the film. Juggling three suitors while asserting her own responsibilities as mistress, Bathsheba has no easy task. Mulligan is the right amount of rural beauty here, a beauty routinely mentioned and harped in the novel. The faults of the film don’t lie with her or two of her suitors.
Michael Sheen’s neighbor farm master Boldwood is the most stirring performance in the film. Tasked with the most layered of men, his balance of desperation and practicality brings Boldwood out into the forefront of the film. Not to be outmatched is Belgian actor Matthias Schoenaerts whose quite physicality as farmer Gabriel Oak does the novel and the heroine justice. Not much can be said for Tom Sturridge who gets the sillier lover part, but he does manage to bring compassion to his love for little Fanny Robbin played by Juno Temple. Temple is long overdue for a massive film lead.
Janet Patterson, an Australian costume designer who has been Oscar nominated four times, brings tremendous skill in her expertise of the 19th century. Responsible for films such as 1996’s The Portrait of a Lady, Patterson clearly illustrates the connection between garments and a ladies’ status. In this rural life Bathsheba stands out, but not too far and the farm itself appears effortlessly dressed as it should.
Unfortunately, the film is shot rather inconsistently. Brilliant stretches of farmland are captured with amazing sequences of Bathsheba riding. However the rhythm of the film is lost many times, maybe through miscommunications between cinematographer and director. Specifically, a pivotal forest sequence although at times beautiful is shot so strangely and edited so similarly to the meadow sequence of Twilight (yes I am gasping too) it nearly ruins the mood. Other persnickety flaws exists to do with accents and story changes, but overall Far From the Madding Crowd is a worthy adaptation.
Get in and go…TO THE MOVIES
September 23, 2011
Drive (2011).
D: Nicolas Winding Refn. DP: Newton Thomas Sigel. W: Hossein Amini (based on the book by James Sallis). Starring: Ryan Gosling/Carey Mulligan/Bryan Cranston/Christina Hendricks/Albert Brooks/Oscar Isaac/Ron Pearlman/Kaden Leos.
This fall film season has now seen its first big independent hit with Drive. It’s star, Ryan Gosling, has already been seen this year in the summer comedy, Crazy Stupid Love and has another film, Ides of March, out later this fall. Can you handle the Gosling fever?
Drive rests nearly entirely on Gosling’s shoulders as his turn as the Driver (he’s so mysterious he doesn’t have a name) carries the whole project. Luckily for audiences Gosling’s usual slicked hair, sexy bravado, and goofy grin are coupled with a weighted performance that never reveals all that there is to his character. Rather as the film reaches its crescendo, Gosling pulls back layers and gives the film the strong thread it needs to succeed.
The weight in Gosling also forces the story of Drive to never feel too simple or its construct over stylized. His Driver soon meets Irene (Carey Mulligan) whose literally the girl in the apartment down the hall and befriends her and her son Benicio (Kaden Leos). It only gets complicated when Mulligan’s spouse played by Oscar Isaac turns up later on while Gosling’s stunt driving career (moonlighting as a getaway driver) might lead to a race car driving one. Yet none of these other actors can really pull focus from Gosling, whose bigger picture motivations are never actually revealed or relevant. However, Bryan Cranston makes a nice turn as Gosling’s boss/fellow car junkie.
Stylistically, Drive is the most memorable film of the year so far. It commits to its Los Angeles location and the image of the western lone ranger, now late night driver doing his best to get by and disappear. Even better is the contrasting use of music and silence. This allows the music to be delivered so deliberately that it enhances the visuals its coupled with. And therefore also allows the minutes and sequences without background noise to feel raw and stripped, allowing Gosling’s glove squeaking or the clock of a gun to contribute to a scene rather than be lost in it. This clear visual choices for the film are also in a nice balance with Gosling and the other actors’ performances. Whereas normally scenes might feel underplayed and a bit slow, you instantly forgive that since it is in such stark contrast to the music, the editing, and eventually, the distinct and unforgiving uses of violence.
Ultimately, the most impressive thing about Drive is its clarity of vision and use of style to tell a specific story. Although the scenes of violence might not be for all audiences, they are necessary and integral to the story. And who does not expect a bit of violence in a story about a man who crashes cars for a living? Yes, maybe not this level, but is exactly what Drive is. Nothing you expect and everything you want at the same time. All set to a soundtrack that will be played in cars all fall.