A Golden Time For Love
November 27, 2015
Carol (2015).
D: Todd Haynes DP: Edward Lochman. W: Phyllis Nagy. Starring: Cate Blanchett/Rooney Mara/Sarah Paulson/Kyle Chandler/Jake Lacy/John Magaro. (NOTE: Based on the Patricia Highsmith novel originally titled The Price of Salt)
Every now and then a movie lives up to its hype. The buzz around Todd Haynes new film, Carol, has been strong since its debut at the Cannes Film Festival back in May. To most it is certainly, arguably, the film of the year. I would quite agree with my heart also still with Brooklyn.
Set in 1952/1953 New York the film follows Therese (Rooney Mara) who works in a department store as the Christmas holiday approaches. After an encounter at her shop counter with Carol (Cate Blanchett) the two women begin a slow mounting love affair that is set against the dissolution of Carol’s marriage to Harge (Kyle Chandler) and a custody battle over their daughter.
Mara’s Therese is all short bangs and blossoming independent womanhood, taking pictures of a world she’s still deciding if she’d like to blend into. Her chemistry with the elegant enchantress that is Blanchett’s Carol is subtle and sustains the film. She, and the audience with her, is caught in the glow of Blanchett’s mesmerizing turn. Blanchett balances the mother and the woman in her performance giving the struggle between societal duty, motherhood, and personal happiness and sexuality such precise sophistication and desperation it will make your heart break. She is seen through Therese’s camera, aware of her own image as much as we are aware of the palpable feeling of falling in love we experience.
Much can be gushed about Carol, but Sandy Powell’s costumes must be mentioned. A three time Oscar winning designer for Shakespeare in Love, The Aviator, and The Young Victoria, Powell elevates the mood and look of the film. From Therese’s pompom striped hat of her youth to the jewelry that jangles from Carol’s wrists above heavily lacquered fingernails, the world is alive in every detail. The look of the early 1950s is given a grainy haze by veteran cinematographer Edward Lachman and Haynes decision to shoot on 16mm. The pair have worked together on all of Haynes’ projects including the Mildred Pierce series for HBO set in a similar time like his film Far From Heaven. Carol is all its own and is given warmth and depth by the 16mm decision and is heightened by a great score from Carter Burwell.
At the core of this film is a lesbian love story, but unsurprisingly its universality still rings true over fifty years after Highsmith’s novel was first published. Yet it is so important that a same sex couple story will get a wide release platform and hopefully awards attention. A flawless film, Carol drops a gauntlet for every other filmmaker to pick up. Go see it the minute you can.
Look Through The Window
November 25, 2015
Room (2015).
D: Lenny Abrahamson. DP: Danny Cohen. W: Emma Donoghue. Starring: Brie Larson/Jacob Tremblay/Joan Allen/William H. Macy/Tom McCamus/Sean Bridgers. (NOTE: based on Donoghue’s book of the same name)
This year’s Oscar race will be a dense one in the best actress category. Between Saoirse Ronan’s performance in Brooklyn, Cate Blanchett’s performance in Carol, and this performance from Brie Larson it will be a competitive year. This is frankly, exciting! With television becoming the hot place for pithy and complex female roles it is great to see cinema stepping up again. Of course, all the leads are white actresses, but the racial imbalances of Hollywood deserves its own post (or you can simply look at The Hollywood Reporter‘s recent ridiculous justifications for this).
Room is based on Emma Donoghue’s novel with her also penning the screenplay. The novel is told from the perspective of five year old Jack, played in the film by Jacob Tremblay, as he lives in a singular room with his Ma (Larson). Naming all the things around him, he’s nurtured to believe this trap is all that exists. After his birthday Ma decides Jack is old enough to be told about the outside that lies beyond Room and the basic details of her kidnapping by Old Nick (Sean Bridgers). This leads to Ma and Jack’s escape plan for getting out of Room.
Donoghue’s script partially replicates this point of view as Jack provides voice-over, lending the audience to understand his wonder at the world and ignorance of it. As he climbs into the wardrobe to sleep and hide from Old Nick during his visits you feel the breath of the novel in the film. The snips and changes to the story work and the second chapter of the pair’s new life allows for great exploration of Ma’s mental state and family chemistry. Larson is given more to work with than the novel, which helps balance her adult trauma with her son’s.
Larson has been steadily working since she played Toni Collette’s daughter on the Showtime series United States of Tara created by Diablo Cody. Her starring role in the indie hit Short Term 12 was memorable and she’s been popping up in supporting roles in films like Trainwreck, Don Jon, and The Spectacular Now. Here she can truly shine handling Ma’s frustrations with her seclusion and repeated violations while also creating a safe space for Jack. Her generic looks allow Ma to remind you of any girl at university you might have known. Larson is all things at once, but with the pure subtly that allows the devastating circumstances of the story to ring true. She is well supported by Joan Allen who does a heart wrenching turn as Ma’s own mother.
I cannot rave enough about Tremblay as Jack who captures your attention from start to finish. He performs little and lives it all. A tracking shot over a truck as he attempts his escape will have you barely breathing for minutes. The camera aligns itself with Jack, not showing things his Ma shields him from. This works to build palpable tension and menace that director Lenny Abrahamson skilfully paces. Known for Frank and What Richard Did, he and cinematographer Danny Cohen build a sense of space and intimacy without merely using intense close-ups on their actors. Their atmosphere allows pain to live no matter the space it is confined to. The film is not trauma as spectacle, but rather as experience of character. Credit must also be give to Stephen Rennicks for the score, its placement lacks sentimentality only amplifying not indulging the emotional register of scenes.
Room has been on the festival circuit and will only reach UK cinemas at the end of January, but releases today in the US. A sure contender this award season it is simply a beautifully made film that joins the ranks of recent superb film adaptations. Hopefully the success of these lower budget films continues and we will see more films like this and less of the typical three act studio trauma sprawls of late.
Everyone Prefers Good Movies
November 18, 2011
My Week with Marilyn (2011).
D: Simon Curtis. DP: Ben Smithard. W: Adrian Hodges (Based on Colin Clark’s memoirs, “My Week with Marilyn” and “The Prince, the Showgirl and Me.“) Starring: Michelle Williams/Eddie Redmayne/Kenneth Branagh/Julia Ormond/Judi Dench/Dougray Scott/Philip Jackson/Emma Watson/Dominic Cooper/Zoe Wanamaker/Derek Jacobi/Jim Carter.
As awards season begins we all start to pay attention to the movies once again. And if you are not, then you should. Go grab some Starbucks and get warm in the dark.
First up for me is Simon Curtis’ new film, My Week with Marilyn. Chronicling the film production of Sir Laurence Olivier’s The Prince and the Showgirl, the film focuses on Marilyn Monroe’s specific time in England shooting the movie and the young third assistant director, Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne) who works with her on and off set. Right from the first frame the movie is Michelle Williams’ Monroe, although she does not show up in the story for a beat or two. Rather her freshly pressed image is immediately consumed through the lens of the film and the show within the show Olivier (Kenneth Branagh) watches. The film is right on point in signifying how much Monroe was consumed, revered, and judged through the lens and her image. But it works as the audience is given time to fall for delicate darling Redmayne whose precociousness and genuine innocence never allows the story to seem trite. He is helped along through his journey by Branagh’s superb Olivier. Very suitable that the modern Shakespeare icon of our time should play the legend of the previous generation. He’s marvelous and every now and then lets Dame Judi Dench give glowing memory to another Dame, Sybil Thorndike.
Many (including myself) may have had a few trepidations about Michelle Williams tackling such a screen icon. Not even trepidations about her talents as an actress, but more worry in the vein of “how could anyone play her?” Popular culture is over saturated with her image, its like attempting to play Audrey Hepburn, Judy Garland, or Grace Kelly. Their star text (their meaning both visually and emotionally outside of their work) means more and has outlived some of their performances. That being said, Williams conquers the role. She wraps herself in Monroe’s vulnerability, sensuality, and unease in her own life and work. The role is so her own and audiences will feel, like I did, a moving memory of Monroe, yet a performance that has not a moment of mimicry in it.
Ultimately, what is even more memorable and fresh about My Week with Marilyn as a biopic is that it only tackles a specific moment of time in Monroe’s career. Rather than attempting to slog through the scope of her life, much of which is filled with vagueness and speculation, the film gives a specific structure to the Monroe experience. Clearly this structure is stolen from its original material, but nevertheless, stacked against so many other recent biopics it reads fresh. Some recent biopics have attempted to highlight specific chapters of icons lives, 2009’s Coco Before Chanel, 2009’s The Young Victoria, 2008’s Milk, and 2008’s Frost/Nixon are a few examples. However, none have felt as clean and compact as Curtis’ film. Even Ben Smithard’s camera work lends itself to the voyeurism of Monroe’s life at the time. Curtis and Smithard give certain scenes a wonderful sense of watchfulness as the camera mirrors character’s eyes or the feeling of an ever present entity stalking Monroe.
And thankfully what is able to be explored in this structure is Monroe’s star text itself. A film that tackles the life of a performer faces far different risks and trials than of other public figures. Monroe’s life, filled with ups and downs, was so public that attempting to address it all would surely never stand up to the memory of her or the meaning given to her image. Even tackling the basics of Monroe: the sexualization of her image (on and off camera), her clear and destructive need for love and approval, her very knowledge (and wink) of that image, and its voice within female work on screen, fills up one movie. But all that is allowed to be unpacked because Adrian Hodges’ script is so tenaciously precise, yet allows all its characters to breathe and take their own life within such famous faces. And that is its greatest success. Williams may put on a famous face, but not just because she can, but because there is a story to be told and it is human. Even through the lens of a camera.