Category: Review

The Holdovers (2023) Review

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Quick Synopsis: It’s 1970 and a New England boarding school sends it’s students and staff home except for Christmas, with the exception of classics professor Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti), student Angus (Dominic Sessa), and greaving cafeteria worker Mary (Da’Vine Joy Randolph).

Normally, I start these reviews with an introduction, or sometimes just a weird wandering paragraph that’s very loosely tied into the themes (spoilers for my review of The Iron Claw, which is likely to start with a paragraph about Mulan). Today, I’m going to launch into it on the back of a single sentence:

I see in The Holdovers what everybody else sees in Wes Anderson. The time capsule nature approach to directing, the rapid-fire dialogue, and the general nostalgic feel to it. The main difference between this and Wes Anderson films is that I actually like The Holdovers. I like how it never breaks the 70’s immersion, even in the opening classification card. I’m sure there are a few anachronisms, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the songs are actually modern indie. I like how funny the dialogue is. I like the performances, Giamatti continues to remind the world just how brilliant he can be, Da’Vine Joy Randolph provides a good foil with her warmth and humanity providing a contrast to the sarcastic misanthropy of Giamatti. The real revelation is Dominic Sessa. This is his first acting role but you wouldn’t guess. He easily holds his own against acting heavyweights. Time will tell if this leads to Sessa developing further, if he continues on this path he could genuinely become one of the best actors of this generation. That’s not an exaggeration by the way, if this is his first EVER performance, then who knows how far he could go. The big downside is he does look distractingly like an American James Acaster.

The thing that will stick with me the most about The Holdovers is just how utterly charming it all is. The whole thing feels incredibly real and relatable. The script is one of the most effortless of the year. It flows from one moment to the next with ease. Heartbreaking tales of loss and mental illness sit aside quick scenes involving frozen prostitutes. At times it feels like nothing is happening, but then you realise that so much is developing inside the minds of the characters. I did mention how good the dialogue is, but there is so much that happens when people say nothing. The unspoken conversations, the unsaid realisations, they’re all so powerful.

There are moments where it does feel like the film is pottering about a bit too much. Annoyingly, there are moments where it feels like it’s doing the opposite and moving on too quickly. There are numerous moments where the scenes fade out and I was disappointed because it didn’t feel like the scene was over. I wanted to see where the conversation was going to carry on to, or how people would react to what had just happened. On the other hand, there are scenes that reach their natural ending point, then continue to the point where it’s tiresome.

Some people won’t like it, they’ll find it dull, maybe a bit too nostalgic for a time that a lot of people don’t belong to, that a film focused entirely on privileged people isn’t something the world needs right now. But then again, sometimes it’s nice to have a distraction, something that’s not ABOUT anything, something that’s not important or out to change the world, something that exists simply as observation and storytelling. On those days, there will be few better options to watch than this. That being said, it is absolutely baffling that the studio decided to release it in the UK in late January, it’s clearly made to be watched in December. There was nothing really Christmas-ey out at cinemas in December (nothing that was new anyway), and it would have been nice to have the option to watch a new potential Christmas classic.

Poor Things (2023) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Bella Baxter is a young woman with the brain of a child, who goes on a journey of self/sexual discovery before her impending marriage.

I’ve been looking forward to this for a while, specifically, May 30th 2022, when I posted my review of On The Count Of Three, and mentioned that the two leads (Jerrod Carmichael and Christopher Abbot) will be sharing the screen in this. They didn’t actually share the screen at any point, but they are both vitally important to the plot in how they affect the lead character of Bella. Abbots’ character of Alfie Blessington is incredibly vile, one of the most despicable characters in modern cinema. It’s not just him though, the world of Poor Things is full of cruelty, abuse, and manipulation. It’s so cruel that it’s kind of uncomfortable to watch. The whole film is uncomfortable really. Bella’s sexual awakening is treated as a feminist story about her escaping the trappings of man and discovering herself. But considering she’s treated by men as the Ultimate Sexual Fantasy it’s kind of unsettling once you realise the implications. I mean, she has the mind of a child, clearly not understanding consent. There’s a lot of that, characters show their true selves not by how they act in public, but by how they treat Bella. There’s a fascinating “you’re defined by who you are in the dark” message, but it seems underdeveloped and like it’s not given enough care.

Something which was given care and love is the world that Lanthimos has created. It’s a visual masterpiece with ancient architecture and bright colours creating a real treat for the eyes. The skies in particular are breathtaking to watch, full of true beauty and wonder. The beauty of the visuals is matched by the performances. The aforementioned Abbot and Carmichael are great. Ruffalo is suitably pathetic, Dafoe brings his usual creepy energy, and Ramy Youssef is innocent but with dated notions of gender equality. But the real star is obviously Emma Stone. Most of the other performers could be replaced by someone similar, but only a handful of performers could bring what Stone does. It helps that she brings a tremendous physicality to the role. If she brings anything less than 100% she’d risk coming off (weirdly) as overacting. But because she throws herself completely into it, she’s believable, she does so much that she kind of feels grounded because “well nobody who was TRYING to be weird would do that”.

Now onto the downside, some of the music makes it difficult to pay attention. At times it’s so abrasive it feels like it doesn’t want you to be comfortable. I’m used to that when it comes to visuals, but uncomfortable sounds are different, it’s not just uncomfortable, it’s painful. It backs up my theory that sometimes Lanthimos doesn’t want you to like the film, and is actively hoping you’ll dislike it. It’s sometimes so weird that you can see it being off-putting to a lot of people. I wasn’t put off by the weirdness, but I was put off by how the script sometimes seemed to be made up as it was going along. At times it feels like it’s forgotten that it already made a point, and so makes it again in a slightly less effective way. There are a few things which feel like Chekovs Guns, but when they are eventually fired feel like a damp squib, like the writers realised “Oh shit, we set this thing up earlier, we need to pay it off quickly” and just had a quick line (as in, a line of dialogue, not cocaine).

It may be weird at times, but it does raise a lot of questions. Is it, as Samira Ahmed described it “a heterosexual middle-aged man’s fantasy about nymphomania, with the flimsiest covering of “satire” and a tagged-on message about female genital mutilation being “bad””, or is it as Leslie Felperin puts forward, just a tale of a woman “unburdened by any of the inhibitions women of her time would usually be tethered by, limiting their interests and ambitions”? Is it feminist? Misandrist? Misogynist? Or is it none of those things? That’s always up to interpretation, and no matter what you say about this film, you can’t say it’s boring and doesn’t inspire discussion. And sometimes that’s what you want from a film.

One Life (2023) Review

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Quick synopsis: The story of British humanitarian Nicholas Winton, who helped save hundreds of predominantly Jewish children from the Nazis on the eve of World War II.

Something I don’t hide particularly well is that I am in general quite a cynical person (probably due to living in the UK in the 2020s teaching me that nothing good ever happens), I’m also not a fan of predictability in cinema, plus there have been so many films about the second world war that, to be honest, I’m kind of bored of them. We get it, it was the last time Britain was important on a global stage, plus it’s one of the few examples of war where there was one side that was undeniably evil and unjustified, so it makes good cinema. But my word, I’m bored of seeing it on screen.

So you’d think I would not really be a fan of this. But I have to admit, it got me. You know how it ends, there are no twists or surprises, and everything is incredibly obvious. But it’s so well made that it’s still effective. I’m glad I saw this at the cinema as it meant I could confirm that it wasn’t just me, the whole cinema felt emotionally affected by it. When the film ended and the credits started to roll, nobody moved. Normally you get people who stand up to go pee or beat the traffic, but when this ended, everybody in the screening stayed seated for a good minute. There were no angry mutterings, or even excited chatter, the only sound was the distinctive sound of everybody trying to hide the fact they were crying.

He seems to be doing a lot of schlock lately (Armageddon Time, Zero Contact, Transformers etc), but when you see a performance like this, it reminds you that Anthony Hopkins is a phenomenal actor. When I saw the trailer, I thought it would be a case of Hopkins just appearing at the beginning and the end, with the bulk of the narrative being flashback, and as such, the younger version of the character. I’m glad that’s not the case, we’re given enough of present-day Nicholas Winton that Hopkins is given a lot to work with. Johnny Flynn as the younger version of Winton? He’s okay. He mainly suffers from two things which he can’t control. One is that he’s playing the younger version of a character played by Anthony Hopkins, and it’s constantly switching between the two which means that comparisons between the two are inevitable. It’s difficult to give a good performance when you’re being compared to one of the best actors of all time. The other comparison is more in his control, but I don’t blame anybody for not making the comparison; Harry Enfield’s character Tim Nice-But-Dim. Once I noticed the similarities in vocal cadence, it became hard to take it seriously.

The other performers are all fine, but they obviously pale in comparison to Hopkins. Helena Bonham Carter does what she needs to, but could be replaced by a cheaper performer without affecting it too much. Samantha Spiro does an almost pitch-perfect imitation of Esther Rantzen, but is only seen for a few minutes. To see the similarities, you do need to watch the original clip online, which is weird as I thought they would have played it during the credits. It’s standard to show real-life photos of characters in biographies, and it doesn’t do that for this, which is a bit weird.

This isn’t a perfect movie though. I’m not sure the story has enough legs to justify a nearly two-hour movie, there was just enough for a one-hour television episode. The predictability also harms it, and it’s not that interesting from a visual or audio perspective. From a technical standpoint, it feels like there’s a lot of “well this will do”. The actual operation feels kind of underbaked as well, with the story focusing on the people in Britain who are in no danger.

To summarise; this a hugely emotional experience. It’s a good reminder that the people being helped aren’t soldiers, politicians, or anybody who had a choice in the war or where they live. They were just children who were at constant risk of being arrested and executed just for existing in their current location or as their current ethnicity/religion. It’s impossible to comprehend something similar in modern society.

Unless you’re Ukrainian

or Palestinian

or….

Good Burger 2 (2023) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Dexter Reed and cashier Ed reunite at fast-food restaurant Good Burger

Do people like Good Burger? I think it’s like Space Jam, where if you mention it then you will get positive response from people, but it’s not really brought up that much. It also is very limited in their fanbase, people who were kids in the 90s. There’s not really a large number of modern kids and teens being like “You should totally check out this 90s film I just found”. So the market for a sequel would be people who watched the original in the 90s, and now have both disposable income, and an impending sense of time passing which means they want to recapture their youth. So in that sense, a sequel does make sense, and would be a good way for a streaming service like Paramount+ to gain a foothold.

It doesn’t mean the film is good though. The director was asked about a potential sequel to this, and gave the world the following sentence:

“The character of Ed has not changed […] he now has a family, he’s got a bunch of kids and a wife, but he is still the same old Ed. As that doesn’t change, we can just do it again and again and put them in crazier and crazier situations.”

And that’s a problem. It worked when these characters were teenagers, but it’s 25 years later and Ed hasn’t changed, and seeing that level of naivity, stupidity and immaturity, is no longer charming or funny, it’s actually kind of annoying and makes you concerned. It doesn’t feel like a movie, it feels like a television show. A character like that is needed in a TV show because you need an excuse for them to not learn over the course of 25 episodes, but for a 90 minute movie? You’re allowed to have your characters seem human.

There’s also an issue with the way the film handles Kenan Thompson. He’s a TREMENDOUS comedic talent, but he’s forced into a straight man role that doesn’t really suit him. Most of his screen time is him watching crazy shit, and then explaining what he’s just seen in case the audience didn’t understand it.

The best showcase of Kenan Thompson has been his SNL stint, and people who have watched that will know he’s capable of much more than he’s been allowed to show here. Those who haven’t watched SNL? Best of luck with this, as that’s where a lot of the cameos come from.

With only 2 or 3 exceptions, most of them are relatively low-level outside of the US. I watched Wonka recently, and this feels like it’s aiming for similar, but not really doing it. It has a similar method of casting television comedy actors in small parts so that people who watch it can do the DiCaprio point. I felt it worked better in Wonka though, and not just because I actually knew who they were (although that helped). The cameos in Wonka felt like full characters, even if they were only on screen for one scene (thinking specifically of the couple played by Charlotte Richie and Phil Wang), so that they didn’t feel like cameos, they felt like characters who just happened to be played by comedy performers. Good Burger has the cameos be so obvious that it’s distracting. It puts them front and centre, over the lead actors. You can almost sense the “look, it’s [person]! Applause”. It’s like when I watched the Uncharted movie and the cameo of the original voice actor stood out like a sore thumb covered in fairy lights, begging for people to notice it. “I don’t know who that is, but I assume that’s somebody” is the general feeling.
It’s not all negative though, there is some tremendously funny dialogue with some genuine laugh out loud moments. The scene where Ed is introducing his family has some really randomly funny lines. “he’s allergic to hippos” was my personal favourite because it’s just so stupid and wonderful. Whilst I did say Thompson was miscast, he is still pretty good at what he has to do in this. Kamaia Fairburn is talented as hell and has great potential, as do the Hinkler sisters, who in their all-too-brief moments show enough that I feel casting directors need to focus on developing a vehicle for them.
There’s one area where this is a definite improvement over the first one: no creepy sex pest Dan Schneider, which as anybody who has read I’m Glad My Mom Died (or has heard anything said about him in the last few years), is a definite good thing. The ending reprise of “We’re All Dudes” is also pretty damn entertaining.

Quiz Lady (2023) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Anne and Jerry’s mother gets into debt with the mob. In order to pay off the debt (and get her pet dog back), Anne goes on a quiz show.

I fucking love Awkwafina. From the first time I saw her on-screen in Jumanji: The Next Level, through to Renfield, she has consistently been the highlight of almost every film she’s in. She’s carved a niche as a sarcastic brilliant mess. Conversely, Sandra Oh is best known for playing smart characters who are in control. So it’s weird that Quiz Lady has them do the opposite. It’s a nice subversion of audience expectations. Doing something like that does run the risk of coming off as an acting exercise, but it works in this. They’re both clearly having a blast, being surprisingly great at playing against type.

They have really great chemistry, to the point where it is easy to buy them as siblings. They’re helped by a script full of moments which showcase how much Jenny (Oh) really does care for her sister Anne (Awkwafina). There are so many moments where the script is damn near perfect. The story, however, not so much. It’s incredibly predictable, in a basic way. Just by watching the trailer you can probably pinpoint the three-act structure. But it’s what it does within those confines that make it interesting. Even though the moments are predictable, it still surprises you with how it does it. Even the traditional “what happened next” ending includes a random “Capitalism is broken” message in it.

It also uses the framework it’s in to create some genuinely heartfelt moments, mainly between the sisters. Weirdly (and never thought I’d say this), the most emotional scene comes from Will Ferrell, where he showcases his affection for previous guests on the show. He’s aided by his “rivalry” with Jason Schwartzman’s character, who feels like he’s just doing a Steve Carrell impression.

Now onto the bad; it has one of the worst uses of Eye Of The Tiger in cinematic history. Because of the Rocky movies (a touching tale of unrequited love between one man’s fist and another man’s face), that song has certain expectations attached to it. When you hear that, you expect something triumphant and epic, and that doesn’t really happen in this. It builds up to it, then neutered like a feral cat, only much quicker.

The rapid-fire nature of the jokes also means that some don’t work, there’s an entire character that clearly seemed hilarious on paper but just does not work on screen. I think it’s because it feels shoehorned in. It had the potential to affect the plot, all it would have needed was one conversation between that character and one of the sisters, one moment of meaning could have justified his inclusion. As it is, it just felt like “Okay, they’re staying in a hotel, add some jokes”, like they’re just jokes for joke’s sake, rather than having any thought between them, and they’re not even good jokes.

Overall, this is definitely worth a watch. It’s not going to change your life, but it’s not meant to. It’s escapism at its (almost) best. Sometimes that’s all you want in life. In the UK it’s available on Disney+, and you could do a lot worse.

Chicken Run: Dawn Of The Nugget (2023) Review

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Quick synopsis: Ginger and Rocky are now raising a child, one with ambitions of leaving the farm they raised her in.

The original Chicken Run has a weird place in people’s hearts. It doesn’t feel like it’s many people’s favourite film, there’s not exactly a rabid fanbase who do yearly showings and conventions about it and discuss its themes at left. That being said, it is a comfort film for many people. It’s a film which whilst people don’t LOVE, it does give them a place of warmth and security. That’s, you know, if you ignore the Mel Gibson of it all.

The recasting of Gibson made a lot of sense, his career has never really recovered from people discovering he’s a massive racist (by which I mean, “he uses racist words”, not “he sometimes criticises Israel when they kill children”). Whilst he’s not box office poison (the reaction to Hacksaw Ridge proves that), he is box office Evri, his involvement will drive more people away than it will bring them in. Zachary Levi is a good replacement though, providing enough emotion and vocal depth to the performance that you don’t really miss Gibson. I have a bigger issue with Thandiwe Newton being in this. Julia Sawalha was great in the first one, and her being recast for seemingly no reason genuinely annoys me. It’s claimed it’s because she sounded too old, but Newton is only 4 years younger, so maybe it was to get a bigger name? Either way, it’s bullshit, and did kind of sour the whole experience for me.

It kind of sums up my issues with the film. It doesn’t seem to have the same warmth and cosiness as the original. It feels more, well not cynical, but more business-like, as if they were focused on the reaction it was going to get rather than what they were making. It has a Paloma Faith song. That somehow feels wrong, she’s too cool for this. Especially since it seems to be recorded especially for the soundtrack. It just kind of feels like a tonal misfire, it would be like if Wallace and Gromit used a Stormzy track.

That’s a shame, if this was a stand-alone film, I would rate it relatively high. It’s funny, it looks good, and it’s f*cking weird at times. A joke involving an eye-scanner made me laugh so much that I spat out tea (such a sad waste of tea). It is also genuinely unsettling at times, more kids’ films should aim to occasionally scare the living shit out its intended audience. There’s one area where this is better than the original; it has much more emotion. It definitely has an air of “aiming at the parents as well as the kids” with how it’s got themes of parental worry and a need for independence.

I mentioned the cast briefly, this has quite a few new voices, and they work. Bella Ramsey sounds exactly how that character should sound; with the right mix of youthful enthusiasm and paranoia. My personal favourite was Josie Sedgwick-Davies, who (at the time of writing) doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page. Her character could be annoying if it was voiced wrong, but Sedgwick-Davies makes it work, with her character coming off as endearing rather than frustrating (it helps that her voice makes her sound like someone who goes on Bake Off and bakes rainbow cakes which look weird). She’s absolutely fantastic and I love her in this. Curious as to what she does next, but she’s on my radar for now so I’m hoping it’s something good.

So in summary; because this is on Netflix, I’d say you should watch it. It’s a great Netflix film, but only a good Aardman one. If you’re looking for a good family movie, you could do a lot worse than go with this. I mean, you could also do a lot better, but still.

Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom (2023) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Super scary villain fails to kill a baby.

It’s hard to give a shit about DC films at the moment. They’re clearly being written with the idea of building towards something, but the audience knows that with Gunn taking over and resetting everything, they’re not actually building towards anything. This is partly why The Flash was such a frustrating film, It was setting up questions that we knew would never be answered. Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom (AATLK, pronounced Arterlook) doesn’t set up anything like The Flash did, but it also doesn’t feel like the closure that it actually is.

Like a lot of superhero films, it is hard to not wonder where the other characters are. Even considering that they couldn’t withstand the water pressure, there’s still a lot of stuff that takes place on land that they could have been used for. Even just a quick scene of “contact your friends” “There’s no time/they’re busy” would be useful.

Those absences would be fine if the story itself was engrossing enough. This film is so pedestrian, it’s at risk of being hit by a car that mounts the pavement. The visuals aren’t that exciting either. Something like this should create magical-looking worlds that you want to live in. We should forget that these worlds don’t exist. You never get that, everything looks so fake that it resembles a mid-2000s video game more than real life.

At least the performers are having fun. Momoa is having a lot of fun, and the sad thing about him not being Aquaman in Gunns DCEU means that that character is effectively over now, because they can’t recast it without it seeming like a downgrade. It looks like they’re thinking of having him as Lobo, which would kind of make sense, but I think we all know that Joseph Anoa’i would be a better option. Momoa is helped by him and Patrick Wilson having tremendous chemistry, much more than they had in the first one. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II was good in the brief moments he’s seen as Black Manta, but isn’t really in it enough to be memorable. It doesn’t help that Black Manta doesn’t really do much. His whole thing is “I’m going to find this weapon and take over the world”, so the heroes need to stop him getting the weapon that will make him unbeatable, he finds the weapon and then is defeated almost instantly. It reminded me of something, but it’s so generic that I don’t know what it reminded me of. He also seems to know he’s a character in a film, so makes decisions based entirely on what the film needs him to do. The best example of this is when all he needs to do is kill Aquamans son, so he stands above him holding a knife, and pauses, raising it far too high, just so Aquaman can save the day. If he was actually bothered, he could/would/should have killed that baby immediately; would have been easy too, babies are shit at fighting, I reckon I could take like 10 of them on my own. Also, he knew he had to sacrifice the child, yet still did everything on his own. Logically he should have sent one of his henchman to fetch the child while he was off doing other shit. I’ve never said this sentence before and I’m not sure I’ll say it again, but if he was a good manager and effectively delegated his duties, he could have killed that baby instantly.

That’s how I’m ending it.

A Kind Of Kidnapping (2023) Review

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Quick synopsis: A young, broke couple kidnap a sleazy politician who decides he can spin the story to his advantage.

I wanted to like this, I really did. If you can, check out the absolutely SUBLIME television series How Not To Live Your Life. From that, it’s clear that Dan Clark has a lot of talent, not just for the absurd, but also for finding humanity, with an almost Seinfeldien level of talent for making you root for characters who by all rights you should dislike. Plus, I love a good political satire, and this looked like it might be that. Alas, it was not to be.

I’ll start with the positive, Dan Clark is a hell of a director. He could have gotten away with this being low-budget and grim, but it’s really slick and has a big-budget feel, albeit one of those big-budget films mainly played in theatres that cater to cinema snobs. The performances are all pretty solid too. Leila Hoffman isn’t in it for long but shines when she is in it. Patrick Baladi was born for this kind of role, he has Thick Of It face. He’s perfect to play a slimy opportunistic Tory wanker.

Now onto the bad; it just feels a bit too mean-spirited. We know politicians are shits, so if the sharpest your satire gets is showing us that, it will feel a little weak. Good satire should be an explosive firebomb of inspiration, this is more like a pathetic discharge of a mouse coughing. It’s not telling us anything we don’t already know, and it doesn’t offer any glimpse of an opportunity to change anything. If anything, all this has to say is “The ruling class are shit, deal with it”. The pacing is a bit odd too. The moment where Baladi’s character doesn’t want to go because he realises it’s good for his career possibly should have come earlier. It’s the main gimmick of the film and it doesn’t occur until a third of the way through the runtime.

This wouldn’t matter if the rest of the time was well spent, if a holiday is good enough, you don’t mind the queues to get there. But the other two-thirds of the runtime feels kind of wasted. There’s not enough in there that wasn’t in the trailer.

Don’t get me wrong, this does have some cracking dialogue; my personal favourites:

“Japs Eye is not very PC, in fact, it’s pretty racist”

And, this is the only film to have “if you do that again I’ll put a bullet in your dick” as a threat.

I like the dialogue, I like the concept, I like the performances, I like the direction, but the film didn’t really do it for me. I can tell they tried though. There’s a lot you can say about this, but you can’t say it’s low effort. I’ve given negative reviews to a lot of films, but this is one of the few I’ve felt genuinely guilty about writing. That’s probably because when I shit on something like Assassin Club or Wolf, I don’t see myself in those films. They’re not the kind of scripts I would write, or the mistakes they make are ones I would never make. But this? A sweary political satire that kind of lacks focus and passion? I could do that. This feels like something I would do, so I see any issues more easily, I take them more personally out of my own personal fear of failure.

Next Goal Wins (2023) Review

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Quick synopsis: Football (the foot-to-ball kind, not the hand kind) coach Thomas Rongen has been given the job of coach of the American Samoan national team with one task; to score a goal.

The best thing this film has going for it is it’s likeable. Next Goal Wins (or NGW, pronounced Noog-wah) has an inherent cosiness and warmth that makes it very easy for the audience to not want to turn away. It has the air of a comfortable end-of-year movie you watch with everybody; a bit like Cool Runnings, it all feels very Disney, in a good way. But much like a ska song about the holocaust, that lightness is hiding something very dark. Underneath the tale of the worst football team in the world lies a story about national pride, parental grief, transphobia, and personal belief. But those topics are woven so intricately that you don’t even realise they’re breaking your heart until they pile up. Mostly, the subplot about parental grief plays its hand too easily, it’s trying to give you a peak behind the curtain but instead pulls the curtain wide open, the hints just aren’t subtle enough to hide the reveal. I am very glad that that wasn’t invented for the movie though. His daughter genuinely did pass away in a car crash, and it was her hat he was wearing during American Samoa’s match against Tonga. That’s the kind of thing which if it was invented for the film, would have come off as weird and unrealistic. Related to that, there are quite a few moments which if they weren’t real (and if the film didn’t come from someone with ties to the area) would come off as incredibly condescending. Even the whole premise of the film, that these natives were hopeless until they were “saved” by a white man, comes off as a little strange in the current climate, by “current climate”, I mean “past the 1970s” (which didn’t reach some parts of the Midlands until 1998).

This isn’t an essential watch, but it is very good. It’s not going to change the world, but I’m not sure it’s supposed to. It’s supposed to just entertain you, and tell a really unique story. The American Samoan team’s loss to Australia was huge, literally, it was 31-0. NGW does do a great job of pointing out that the American Samoan goalkeeper actually had a fantastic game, and if it wasn’t for him the score would have been a lot worse. The rest of the players don’t come off with quite as much dignity. But even when the film portrays the players as not being that good, it never dehumanises them. The joke is purely on the observer, not the person being observed. This is the difference between something like Next Goal Wins, and The Gods Must Be Crazy. You don’t come out of this pitying the people you’ve just watched. But you also don’t come out with some condescending thoughts of “Ah, but they’re the real smart ones”, you come out realising that they’re just people with ambitions, hopes, dreams, and moments of stupidity.

It’s not perfect. We could stand to be given a bit more background into his coaching career. We don’t really get a sense of what level he was at in his career. So we’re not given any indication of how big his “fall from grace” is. Was it a huge scandal? Was he not known by anybody? We don’t know, and it kind of harms his character not knowing. Fassbender does do a great job portraying him, though. Due to the nationality and race of the cast, it’s not exactly going to be full of performers you’re familiar with. The only one I recognised was Talia’uli Latukefu from Young Rock, but there are so many performers from this who I want to see again. They’re helped by a really fun script that knows that it’s ridiculous. I mean, it’s a sports movie where the end result isn’t to win the tournament or beat their rival, it’s to score a single goal. Delightfully unique, and I look forward to watching it again.

Ferrari (2023) Review

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick synopsis: With the company in dire straits (not the band), Ferrari need to win their next race in order to survive. Will they? I mean, they still exist, so yeah.

Many people like this film, it’s got pretty decent reviews. I have to be honest; I don’t get it. The main issue I had with it was I had nothing to hang a positive thought on. It didn’t feel informative enough to be interesting, the characters (particularly the lead; Enzo Ferrari) were too unlikeable to root for, and you knew how the main conflict would end. Let’s go through all three.
The lack of information. You don’t come out of this with a better understanding of the person, or the company. It’s so heavily focused on one event that it neglects to give you any other information. It feels like the second part of a ten-part documentary series. I’m not asking for every single piece of the company history to be covered, but it would be nice to have at least one “oh, I didn’t know that!/that’s interesting” thought whilst watching it.
The predictability. This also affected the shoe-opic Air. We all know that Ferrari exists (spoilers?). So you can’t really watch this and think “OMG! I wonder if the company is going to survive this.” If you push that a company is dependent on doing well in a race, and the company is still around today, you know what’s going to happen.
Now onto the unlikeability. I thought the lead character was a complete prick. I didn’t care about anybody, especially the lead. “oh no, if this doesn’t work he might have to sell the house he purchased for his mistress and illegitimate child. Or stop drinking quite as much expensive wine.”
He’s not in a “I’m financially struggling and if I don’t turn it around I won’t have enough money to pay rent” situation. The film seems to really hate his wife, with his mother blaming her for his cheating “Well if you can’t give him an heir, it’s his right to look elsewhere”. The film ends with the wife saying “I’ll lend you money but only if you never acknowledge your illegitimate son as your heir”, then a few minutes later you get a piece of text onscreen saying “She died in [year], and now the son is the head of the company”. It seems to treat “but then his wife died so the son he had with his mistress was finally able to inherit the business” as a happy ending. Like his wife was being the bitch for not allowing that.
I like Shailene Woodley, she gave a fantastic performance in TFIOS, anchored the Divergent series, and rightfully puts herself forward for causes she believes in. I think she is a good person and a good performer, but she is a terrible Italian. A lot of the accents are bad, but hers is one step away from “It’s a me, a Mario! I make-a the pizza”. Out of the cast, only Penelope Cruz gives the impression of someone who can actually point out Italy on a map of Europe.
To the film’s credit, the racing scenes themselves are fantastic, injected with a sense of realism missing from similar films. They don’t feel like you’re watching a film about racing, it feels like you’re actually there experiencing it, being fully aware of just how f*cking fast these things can go.
Mann has also managed to recreate the period. I’m not aware of how accurate it is, but it feels right. It doesn’t even need to tell you when and where it’s set, as the set design does a good enough job of telling you. The aftermath of a crash at the end is much more brutal than I thought it would be, although that is somewhat ruined by the reaction of Enzo being one of nonchalance. That’s to be expected though, another character died in one of his cars early on, and there’s no mention of him for the rest of the film. There’s no sense of “but am I responsible?” guilt, it’s just “his mother caused him to crash” (that’s genuinely what he says by the way) and absolves himself. Again, he’s an asshole.
I wish I liked this film, I really do. But it’s the second Adam Driver film of the year with an exciting concept, rendered incredibly dull. Maybe if you like cars etc, this might mean more to you. But it left me colder than the weather is currently.