Tag: Alex Garland

Warfare (2025) Review

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Quick synopsis: A surveillance mission goes wrong for a platoon of American Navy SEALs in insurgent territory in Iraq.

I’m still not entirely sure how I felt about Warfare (the movie, not the general concept). On the one hand, it is a superbly crafted experience, one that puts you in the shoes of those who were there, a real treat for those who are interested in modern warfare. On the other hand, it’s incredibly dull at times, and is so focused on being realistic and well-researched, it seems to forget that not everybody knows military terms.

I will praise Warfare (again, the movie, not the general concept, I’m not about to “big up” genocide, I’m not a politician) for how research permeates through the screen. People react realistically, and I will praise it for showing how even well-trained professionals still find it difficult to cope. This is the kind of masculinity that should be taught; the strength to know when you’re too fucked up and broken to be at your best, and how during those times you should relinquish leadership roles. They also have no qualms about screaming in agony and crying. Yes, this is natural when you’ve lost your legs. But think of how many films have shown people suffer severe physical damage, and don’t seem to emotionally respond to it. Warfare shows fear, and it shows pain. It’s disappointing that something so simple should be praised, but it should.

Sadly, that realism also means it can be difficult for people to “buy in” to the narrative. Army speak is kind of a code at times, people are referred to almost entirely by what type of soldier they are, and those names sometimes don’t give you a lot of clues as to what they actually do. Because everybody knows what they’re doing, they don’t explain it. So you often have someone say something like “okay, meet the Yorkshire Puddings at 06 to coordinate a Flipped Fletcher, and don’t forget your oily shepherd, you never know when you might meet a sleeping zebra”, but not give any clues what those terms mean (obviously not those ones, I invented them).

One of the most frustrating aspects is that it’s a war film without purpose. There are no moral quandaries or discussions. Which is odd considering they break into someone’s house and force the families who live there to let them stay there, pointing guns at their faces if they even look like objecting. Near the end, once the soldiers leave, the families are traumatised, and you know that there’s no chance the US army will compensate them for destroying their house, and they’re now targets for the Iraqis because they may be seen as helping the invasion. Despite this, we’re still supposed to support the main characters, because they’re the main characters. But outside of that, it’s difficult to feel more for them. They’re not given enough chance to show any personality, and most are interchangeable. Movies like this depend on personal connection to the characters, but Warfare is so insistent on telling its truth, it forgets to adhere to basic storytelling devices, which would allow us to care.

As a concept? This is fascinating. As an art project? Worthwhile. As a narrative feature-length movie to sit in a cinema and watch? Unfortunately, it’s difficult to recommend. Yes, it’s real, but there’s a reason most films don’t feature scenes highlighting a character pissing in a bottle.

2024 Film Awards: Day Three (The Individual)

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Best Performer

Marisa Abela – Back To Black

I wasn’t a fan of the film itself, I found it was a biography that seemed to absolutely detest its lead character. Abela handles the role well, to the point where you sometimes forget you’re not watching Winehouse. The character goes through a lot, but Abela’s performance is consistent throughout.

Demi Moore – The Substance

It’s hard to think of what hasn’t already been said about Demi Moore in The Substance. Margaret Qualley is good, but Moore is the lynchpin. Qualley’s character is more an idea than a fully formed person, so she doesn’t really need to stretch her skills that much. Moore, however, has to go through so much emotional turmoil. The scene where she has a breakdown and smears her make-up is a masterclass in performance.

Nell Tiger Free – The First Omen

Considering the talent in TFO, it would be easy for Nell Tiger Free to be overshadowed. The knives were going to be out, they always are for lead performers in horror prequels. Those knives will have to be resheathed, Tiger Free does a phenomenal job. She has incredibly expressive eyes, reminds me of Daniel Daluuya in Get Out.

George Mackay – The Beast

Based almost entirely on the incel speech he delivers. I estimate that in roughly 10 years he will be known as one of the great actors of this generation. He’s not always in good films (Marrowbone), but he’s always good. He does have “Fighter in a world war” face, so parts of The Beast are very different from him, really showing his range.

Emma Stone – Poor Things

Emma Stone has a history of traditional leading role parts, but in the last few years she’s got fucking weird, and I’m all for that, because she’s good at it. Her physicality, in particular, is tremendous in this. There’s no point where she seems like a normal human adult. She carries herself in a very unique way that’s mesmerising.

Anne Hathaway – Mothers Instinct

Mothers Instinct would fall apart without Hathaway. Because the audience is never sure whether she’s actually a bitch, or whether she’s just haunted by trauma, she needs to find a way to play it both ways at the same time. If she leans too much in one direction it would give the game away (or seem disingenuous). Most performers would not be able to do what she did as effectively as she did it, and it just adds to the reasons I love her.

Daisy Ridley – Sometimes I Think About Dying

As I said in the year round-up “If your lead character doesn’t say something for 20 minutes and you’re not frustrated, she’s doing a good job.” She’s been unfairly maligned by internet fans for having the temerity, the absolute gall, to be a woman in a modern Star Wars movie. But times like this remind you that she’s actually a FANTASTIC performer. Her subtle expressions and change of vocal performances to every line means she does so much with so little, and I love her for it.

Kate Winslet – Lee

Kate Winslet is one of those performers I’ve never really “got”, primarily because she tends to be in the kind of films I don’t particularly like. But it’s when you see her in something like Lee that you realise “ohhhhh, she’s actually really good at this whole acting thing”. She’s let down by acting alongside performers who aren’t quite on her level. But I absolutely love her performance in this, it’s pain, in a good way.

McKenna Grace – Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire

If she’s in a film I watch, she gets nominated, thems the rules. Plus I nominated her for the same role in the other film, so it would be weird if I didn’t do so here.

Zac Efron – The Iron Claw

Efron looks nothing like who he’s supposed to portray, truth is, almost nobody in this film does. But he carries himself with such presence that it doesn’t matter. People who know the real-life family have complimented him on his performance. Efron seems to be doing everything he can to step out of the shadows of his famous role, and The Iron Claw is another step towards doing that. He shows just how damn good he can be when he’s given the chance. You can see it in his face how his character gets gradually broken down as his family unit continues to disappear. What really nails it, is the final scene when he’s talking to his sons. That moment was one of the most heartbreaking things I’ve ever seen, and I once had my biscuit fall into my cup of tea.

Winner

Cailee Spaeny – Alien: Romulus/Civil War

Both of those performances are award-worthy on their own. She went from “I have no idea who she is” to one of my favourite performers in just two films. I’m genuinely excited to see what she will do in the next Knives Out movie. She has a lot on her shoulders in both these films; in one she’s working alongside much more experienced performers, and in the other? Well it’s a fucking Alien movie and she’s a female lead, she’s going to get attention, and has to be strong enough to not buckle under it. Alien has a tendency to have incredibly strong female leads, and manage to find incredibly talented performers to play them. I was more impressed with Spaeny in Civil War though. Kirsten Dunst is kind of war-weary and cynical, so a character like Spaeny is needed to really sell how horrific everything is. She provides the human viewpoint to an inhuman world, and if Spaeny wasn’t talented, it wouldn’t work. Her character could easily be too tough, which would make it hard to buy into the horror. Alternatively, she could appear too weak, and then you wouldn’t root for her. She has to find a fine balance between “innocent” and “not naive”. She plays it perfectly.

Worst Performance

I should point out, there was a genuinely TERRIBLE performance that I haven’t nominated here. It’s a low-budget movie and it’s the first notable role for the performer who has only ever been credited as “unnamed maid” in things before. Essentially, I felt it would be bullying to name them, and if they googled themselves and stumbled upon me lambasting them and comparing their performance to low-budget porn, I would genuinely feel mortified. Big-name actors, or actors in multi-million dollar films? Yeah, they’re fair game, fuck ’em.

Aaron Dean Eisenberg – The Iron Claw

I often call out fans for disliking a casting because “they’re not exactly like the person they’re supposed to be. The character is 6 foot, and this person is only 5 foot 11. Ruined!”. And I appreciate when castings look nothing like the person, but embody the character. But my word, Eisenberg could not have been less like Ric Flair if he blacked up and spoke with an Australian accent. There is nothing in the real-life Flair in his performance. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, well this is an insult.

Jerry Seinfeld – Unfrosted

It reminded me of that episode of Seinfeld where Jerry kept corpsing. Oh wait, that doesn’t narrow it down.

Andy Samberg – Lee

It’s not that his performance is bad in a vacuum, but he’s acting alongside Kate Winslet, so had to be on the top of his game, and it feels like he’s not.

Jack Kesy – Hellboy: The Crooked Man

Think of the performers who have taken the mantle of Hellboy; Ron Perlman, David Habour; two genuine heavyweights who can add gravitas, humour, and physical intimidation to the role. And now? It’s some guy. I’m not saying the character needs to be played by a big-name actor. But it needs someone with presence, someone who you can look at and KNOW “That? That’s a star. Or at the very least, that’s someone I know will beat the shit out of me and make jokes while doing so”. It feels unfair to criticise someone for not having something unreachable. And I’m not saying Kesy is a bad actor, far from it, but he was without a doubt the wrong choice for this role. It would be like casting Christopher Reeves as Superman, in 2024.

Chris Evans – Red One

Much like Kesy in H: TCM, the main issue here was of being miscast. It’s not quite as bad as it was in Hellboy, because we hadn’t already seen Chris Evan’s character in 3 other films being played much better. But it is still an issue, and one I can’t ignore.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson – Kraven The Hunter

Mainly because of his accent. Sorry “accents”, plural, because he couldn’t decide on just one.

Winner

Dakota Johnson – Madame Web

I have issues with the Razzies. I don’t believe they recognise the difference between “this performance was bad” and “this was a performance in a bad movie”. For example; Joker: Folie A Deux had MANY problems, but the performances of Phoenix and Gaga were not among them. So it came as a shock to me that we actually agree on this. Dakota Johnson gave a performance that was so flat that even if you saw it in 3D she’d be 2 dimensional. She looks like she can’t be bothered to show emotion. I recently had incredibly bad toothache which required me to be shot full of painkillers in my jaw. The bottom right of my face was unable to move for half a day, it still did more work than she did in this

Best Character

Nominees

Andy – Alien: Romulus

Yes, I gave Cailee Spaeny the best performer, but Andy’s character was better. Incredibly awkward, disliked by most people, and fond of making terrible puns. Still not entirely sure why I related to him so much.

Monk – American Fiction

Yes, this character has been done before. The “I created this as a joke and now people are taking it seriously” trope is not exactly completely original, especially in regards to black stories, where it has been done before (I’m thinking primarily of 2000’s Bamboozled). But there’s something about the way Monk is written (and performed, that has to be pointed out) that is utterly captivating. You feel his frustration, his anger, and eventually his acceptance. You can tell how beaten down he is by the world, and how (white) people are reacting to his words. He’s also INCREDIBLY funny.

Lee Smith – Civil War

Everything about this character can be summed up in a single line of dialogue: “”Every time I survived a war zone, I thought I was sending a warning home – “Don’t do this”. But here we are.””. Named in tribute to WW2 journalist Lee Miller (who JUST missed out on this list), her tenacity and character earn the honour of her namesake. More than anything else, her character shows the importance of war journalism. It’s difficult to distance yourself and realise you can’t help. But it’s essential to document how everything has gone to shit. I feel that’s an important message for the next four years.

Paddington – Paddington In Peru

It would be so easy for this character to be awful. If miswritten, it would be a very annoying bear, overly optimistic to the point of being naive, and just coming off as kind of annoying. I mean, he is overly optimistic to the point of being naive, but for some reason, it works. He is such a lovable character, incredibly endearing and sweet. It helps that he is pure. He isn’t kind because he wants something out of it, he doesn’t help people so they help him back, he has absolutely zero cynical motivations for his behaviour. In a cold world of greys and dark browns, Paddington is a kaleidoscopic rainbow of warmth

Kevin Von Erich – The Iron Claw

I feel conflicted about this because he’s based on a real person, the only one on this list (sorry to break it to you Paddington fans, he’s not real). But so was Amy Winehouse in Back To Black, and her character was terrible (It’s difficult to find a biography that hates its main character as much as that one does). So I decided to put him in this category, mainly because it highlights how well the script handled him. Watching The Iron Claw is watching a human slowly get broken, and when you think it’s over, things get worse. If this was fiction, you’d think it over the top. So the fact its real makes it more impressive. In fact, it’s actually toned down from reality. He had another brother who passed away, and the film skips the moment where his drunken dad tells him “The only reason you’re alive is that you don’t have the guts to kill yourself like your brothers”. It’s heartbreaking to see what he goes through, and it’s weird to have a film where the “happy” ending is “he cries”.

D-16 – Transformers One

This is pretty much entirely due to my ignorance. I had no idea that character would later turn out to be Megatron. So watching his descent into heeldom was a genuine shock. But it made sense. The building blocks of the evilness were there, and the way he arrived towards the switch made more sense than most films that attempt the same thing. There’s a definitive moment where the change occurs. Before that, he’s a “hmm, that’s not great”, but after it, you can tell he’s heading down a dark path, with nobody to turn the light on (probably due to the high cost of electric bills). It’s heartbreaking to see so many moments where he can be saved, and see those moments pass by again and again.

Winner

Fran – Sometimes I Think About Dying

You will either be bored by this character, or you will GET this character. If you get her, you will emphasise with this character, understand her motivations and meaning, and you will like her. You will see a little bit of yourself in her, and you will be annoyed at what she does and how she self-sabotages her personal relationships, but that annoyance will be because you recognise that you have done the exact same shit in the past, and you KNOW you will do it again in the future because of who you are.

No, just me? Doubt that.

Worst Character

Nominees

Lady Raven – Trap

The character is clearly just a way for M.Night to get his daughter in the movie. Not only is she presented as the most talented and beautiful musician in the world, she’s also smart, integral to the plot and helps defeat the villain. If it wasn’t his daughter, it would still be badly written tripe, but with the caveat of it being his daughter? Fuck that.

Garfield – The Garfield Movie

Who is Garfield? He is a cat. He is snarky. He eats lasagne. But most of all; he is lazy. Who is Garfield in this movie? He’s an action hero with daddy issues. Essentially, he’s just another Chris Pratt character.

Liam – Dear Santa

Only due to the inconsistencies in his character. The writers seem to forget what age he is so he switches between a helpless child and a teen, depending on the joke. It sums up my issues with the whole film; nobody knows what age this film is aimed at, so they try to hit all of them.

Amy Winehouse – Back To Black

I feel weird putting this in here, as she is a real person. But that’s part of the reason I disliked her character in this, it doesn’t feel honest. It’s not “here is who Amy was, she was flawed”, it’s “Here’s who Amy was, and why everyone who says her dad and partner were abusive are wrong, it was all her, they were completely innocent and never did anything wrong”. She isn’t an independent character, she’s a way for two mediocre (at best) men to justify themselves and why they deserve any money she earned.

Winner

Charles Deetz – Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Jeffrey Jones is a paedophile. Tim Burton decided to get around this by not having him in the film. Instead, they just have the character he played be lionised by everybody, and have a claymation representation of him. Nope. You find out an actor is a paedophile, you don’t have his character in the film at all. Just say the mother divorced and remarried, then kill THAT dad off.

2024 In Film: Day 10 (The Amazeballs)

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Alien: Romulus
Ups: Tense.
Great performances.
Perfectly ties into the original.
Downs: Some obvious fanservice.
Not enough focus on background characters.
Some of the CGI is a little “off”.
The third act stalls too much.
Best Performer: Cailee Spaeny
Best Moment: The spacewalk through acid blood.
Worst Moment: Not for me, but the “Stay away from her. You bitch” moment has caused a lot of outrage from people.
Opening: A space probe investigates the wreckage of the ship from the first movie. They decide to bring in a large cocooned alien that’s floating nearby. Stupid, but believable.
Closing: Rain enters stasis, with no idea what will happen next. Smart, because it closes the story, but also leaves it open to a sequel if needed.
Best Line: You don’t help her. You run. Get out, however you got in
Original review here

American Fiction
Ups: Incredibly important.
Very funny.
Incredibly intricate plot work.
Downs: Divisive subject matter.
Issa Rae’s character feels slightly underwritten.
Best Performer: Tough, Jeffrey Wright I guess, but Sterling K. Brown is close.
Best Moment: The initial phone call with the publishers.
Worst Moment: The rug pool near the end feels a little unearned.
Opening: A college student complains to her (black) teacher that she’s not comfortable with the N-word, he notes if he can get used to it, she can. Sums up this film; funny, smart, and sets a fire of fury that it is determined to stoke.
Closing: A film based on Monk’s book is being made, and it’s clear that nobody understands the point of his work, leaving him famous but frustrated.
Best Line: “I just think it’s essential to listen to Black voices right now” said by three characters who discount the opinions of the only black people in the room.
Original review here

Boy Kills World
Ups: Batshit insane.
Funny.
Creative action scenes.
Downs: One of the “twists” is a bit obvious.
Music choices don’t stand out.
Best Performer: Jessica Rothe
Best Moment: The first warehouse fight.
Worst Moment: The “twist” is a little underwhelming
Opening: Boys family are executed. Kind of (it’s explained later). Really well done. Doesn’t quite show the batshit insanity the film later perfects, so tonally doesn’t QUITE match.
Closing: The family are reunited. Sweet, but something about it just doesn’t match the rest of the film.
Best Line: When something’s special enough, you can always go back to it. So let’s make this special. Are you with me?
Original review here

Civil War
Ups: Emotional.
Brutal.
Important.
Downs: More backstory would be nice.
A bit too brutal at times, I felt I needed a break.
Best Performer: Cailee Spaeny
Best Moment: The body pit. Harrowing.
Worst Moment: The death of Lee feels slightly unearned.
Opening: Lee meets Jessie after saving her from an explosion. Quite sweet, and helps explain WHY the characters react to each other as they do. Jessie feels admiration towards Lee, and Lee feels Jessie isn’t careful enough.
Closing: The president gets killed. No idea what will happen next.
Best Line: Every time I survived a war zone, I thought I was sending a warning home – “Don’t do this”. But here we are.
Original review here

Inside Out 2
Ups: Emotional AF.
New cast members and characters blend in perfectly.
“Sometimes you’re the asshole” is an important lesson to learn.
Downs: Very similar to the first one.
Best Performer: Amy Poehler
Best Moment: The panic attack. Seems pretty accurate.
Worst Moment: Joy getting rid of the negative memories makes it seem like she didn’t learn from the first movie.
Opening: A standard “here’s what’s new” showing Riley’s friendships. IO2 does focus more on Riley than the first one, but still not enough.
Closing: Riley finds out if she got on the hockey team. She finds out, we don’t. I get why they went with that, but it is a slightly underwhelming ending.
Best Line: I don’t know how to stop Anxiety. Maybe we can’t. Maybe this is what happens when you grow up. You feel less joy.
Original review here

Paddington In Peru
Ups: Exactly what is needed right now.
Utterly charming.
Funny and weird.
A worthy addition to the franchise.
Downs: Do kind of miss Sally Hawkins.
Kind of predictable at times.
Best Performer: Ben Whishaw. I know other performers are better, but this movie lives and dies on his vocal performance. Carla Tous deserves a special mention though.
Best Moment: Paddington surrounded by other bears. Is very sweet and does make you wonder if he’s staying.
Worst Moment: The Paddington In Peru song. Goes on too long.
Opening: Paddington gets a letter. I will say this, PIP does not take long to get to the actual story.
Closing: Hugh Grant’s back!
Best Line: The Lord works in suspicious circumstances.
Original review here

The Iron Claw
Ups: So damn sad!
Good performances.
Good music.
Does a good job of bringing non-fans into the weird world of professional wrestling.
Downs: Skips over quite a lot, including a whole person.
Chronology is all over the place.
Best Performer: Efron.
Best Moment: The afterlife scene, would have been overly schmaltzy and stupid in something else, but it REALLY works here.
Worst Moment: Ric Flair. A diabolically bad performance.
Opening: Fritz buys an expensive vehicle without telling his wife. Not necessary in terms of narrative, but does a good job of setting up his personality of being overly domineering and hiding it under a veneer of love.
Closing: Kevin cries. It’s actually a huge deal as he’s been suppressing his emotions. His kids promise to always be there for him. Genuinely made me tear up remembering it.
Best Line: “I used to be a brother, now I don’t have any brothers”. Based on a true line. It will BREAK you.
Original review here

Transformers One
Ups: Much more mature than you’d expect it to be.
Looks slick.
Good performances.
Downs: Slight ending fatigue.
Best Performer: Brian Tyree Henry
Best Moment: The start of darkness for Megatron. Damn near perfect. The performance, the emotion, it all makes SOO much sense.
Worst Moment: The race, because as good as it is, it could be better.
Opening: Explains the lore, which I’m very glad of because I’m not that familiar with it.
Closing: The battle lines are drawn. I really hope this gets a sequel.
Best Line: “No, I want to kill him”. The moment everything changes and it becomes brilliant.
Original review here

Lee (2023) Review

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Quick Synopsis: The tale of Lee Miller, acclaimed war photojournalist

This review was going to be so simple. It was just going to be a lot of jokes about how the name character has the same name as me. Lots of “I don’t remember doing any of this” stuff. It was going to be SOOOOO dumb but funny. Now I can’t do that. And I can’t do that because this film is too good for that. It’s deeply emotional and important, and making stupid jokes about it feels like it would cheapen it a lot. Stupid Lee, being too good for me to make jokes about, as all my friends say: Lee ruins everything.

Lee is not perfect, at times it feels like it assumes you know the importance of certain images, so you’re sitting there and being amazed at the recreations and new insight into how they were constructed etc. As it is, you spend a few moments with no idea what is happening. My other issue, and it hurts me to say this, Andy Samberg is not as good a dramatic actor as the other performers. In a lot of films, that would be okay, but here, he’s opposite Kate Winslet who is at the top of her game. Despite my prediction towards small weird stuff, and my avoidance of the obvious big-budget films (by which I mean, I haven’t seen Titanic), I’ve always been a fan of Winslet, mainly because she’s in the supremely underrated Heavenly Creatures. This is off-topic, but she also seems like a hugely brilliant human being.

The other downside of Lee is going to make me sound a bit weird. There’s been a lot of Nazi films lately. Not films about Nazi leadership, or even the soldiers. But a focus on the ideology, about how it penetrates everyday society and needs to be snuffed out before it poisons. This concerns me. Not because I think “but free speech! people should be free to be racist idiots!” or “WOKE!” etc. But because writers, even those writing about the past, are ALL writing about the current world. So I’m slightly uncomfortable that so many writers in 2020’s feel the need to point out how nazi’s are bad, we don’t have that many “don’t eat lava” films, because we all know that’s obvious. So I’m worried that there is a resurgence in Nazi viewpoints being accepted in polite society, and astute writers are noticing that.

Otherwise, this is damn fine. There is so much to like about this. It’s shot beautifully for a start, done in such a way that it really makes you feel like you’re in a different time. The story is what’s key though. It’s incredibly engaging throughout. It’s the closest I’ve seen to Civil War in terms of how it details the importance of war photographers (incidentally, the lead character in that film was named after Lee Miller). It does so much right. Importantly, it starts off pre-war. But in a time where, in hindsight, war was inevitable. It’s fascinating to see how dismissive they are of the looming threat. It also provides a huge contrast when war does break out, even when you don’t see them, you are aware of what has happened to some of the characters we were introduced to in the opening (although it could do a better job of reminding you they are when they’re mentioned near the end).

In summary; there is A LOT to like about Lee. It’s harrowing, beautiful, and absolutely essential. I’ve seen some movies where the audience stands up and leaves the very second the closing credits start. Sometimes people sit there, but from the general hubbub, you can tell they’re just waiting for a credits scene. With this, there was silence, not of shock, not of exhaustion, but one of appreciation, almost reverance.

Civil War (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: In a dystopian future America, a team of military-embedded journalists races against time to reach Washington, D.C., before rebel factions descend upon the White House.

I have watched lots of terrible films, some at home, some at the cinema. Some, I’ve slowly realised are bad as the film went on (Lucky, or ironically Alex Garland’s previous film Men), and some I knew were going to be shit from the opening moments (Wolf, Hellboy), and a few I knew would be shit before they even started but I knew I’d get a decent review out of them (Thunder Force). But no matter how bad a film is, or how torturous the experience is, I have one rule; stay until the end. There have been a few cases where I have got up IMMEDIATELY at the fade-out, but I made sure I stayed until then. Civil War is the closest I’ve ever come to walking out of a screening.

Not because it was bad, or I objected to anything in it (and in a film about an American Civil War there was potential for it to be very problematic in terms of themes), or even because I didn’t like what I was watching. It was just so unbearably brutal and bleak that I felt I needed a break, just for a few minutes so that I could compose myself and face what was unfolding. Civil War is one of those films which seems horrific and terrifying until you sit down and think about it and realise it’s actually somehow more horrific than you first thought.

That’s the point of it though. People have come out against the film for “not picking sides”. In a way, they have a point. It’s difficult to know how to feel about certain factions because you don’t know their motivations. All we know is that the president has done some awful things. But we don’t know why. The war itself isn’t given any background, and the main opposing faction is comprised of both a red and blue state, so it’s difficult to assign any political leanings to it. We do see one group who are torturing and massacring any foreigners or people they see as “un-American”, but they’re shown as being unaffiliated with any of the main rebel factions. Similarly, it mentions an “Antifa massacre”, now is this a massacre committed by anti-fascists, or one committed upon them? The film doesn’t say.

It’s easy to see why this would annoy people. They need a side that is right and wrong, and they need to feel like they’re on the right side. I don’t think it matters though. If someone is threatening to shoot you it doesn’t matter what side they’re on. Unless they’re Israeli in which case, you’re obviously Hamas and deserve to be killed, even if you’re an unarmed child laying sick in a hospital bed. The point of this movie isn’t that you’re right, or even that you’re wrong and need to change your ways. The point is; war is fucking shit. It’s not fun. It’s not glorious, it’s not inspiring. It’s fucking shit and brutal and people will be killed unnecessarily. It won’t be “driving through the city playing CCR and shooting evil-doers whilst fireworks go off”. It will be “Family members and people you love are going to be tortured and you won’t be able to stop it, so stop wishing for it to happen you fucking idiots”.

It’s a lot more effective because of how well the story is crafted. Some characters are only in one scene yet are so well defined that you can fill in the gaps and create a believable back-story for them. All cast really well too, Jesse Plemons is perfect in his small role, as are the other one-sceners. But it all hinges on the core cast: Dunst, Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny and Stephen McKinley Henderson. They work brilliantly together. Truth be told; Wagner Moura is given less to do than the others, but he does have some great stand-out moments, particularly at the end. Dunst is fantastic and is a reminder of why she is highly regarded in acting circles. I haven’t seen that much of Cailee Spaeny before (mainly because I never got around to watching Priscilla), but she is damn near perfect. I want to see what she does next because she is fucking phenomenal in this.

In summary; a fantastic watch. Possibly the best film I’ve seen this year. Very much not an easy watch though. The scene with the mass graves, in particular, was difficult to stomach. It is something I feel most people NEED to see though. And you should see it in theatres whilst you can before you end up seeing it in the streets.

Men (2022)

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick synopsis: Harper Marlowe is a recently widowed woman who wants to escape for a short holiday in the country. Folk horror misogyny happens.

I went into this expecting to be creeped out, but to still enjoy it. Out the gate I’m going to say that I love the performances, Rory Kinnear has a difficult job playing so many characters, but giving them all a distinct personality. Jessie Buckley continues to be one of the best hidden talents of the UK acting scene. It’s also directed beautifully, with some stunning shots. I was just let down by the narrative, which is a big deal because to me, narrative is king. I’m more likely to forgive a badly made film with a great story, than a wonderfully made film with a bad story.

I get what the director was going for. The “women are surrounded by toxic masculinity” is a valid theme for a horror movie, but this somehow manages to be both too obvious, and too confusing. The behaviour by all of Kinnear’s characters is shocking, but the reason for it is not. The fact that every male in the village is played by the same actor is never referenced. I’m guessing it’s to do with the impersonality of the attacks. But at one point Buckley’s character asks “who are you?”, this was when I gave up with the film. If they were going to make the film make sense, this is when it would have happened, but it didn’t. They ignored the question and then carried on being possibly metaphorical, possibly real. I’m still not sure what it actually was that was attacking her. Was it a shapeshifter that couldn’t change his face? Something that can teleport? Her psychosis? It’s very surreal, and not very satisfying as a viewer. The whole thing reminded me of Lucky, that had similar issues. It’s a story worth telling, and it sets up a compelling mystery, it just has no idea how to solve it so dissolves into batshit insanity.

The ending of this is true insanity. It’s a LOOOOONG sequence of the male characters giving birth to each other, finally ending with the abusive husband. It’s horrific (but beautifully made), and goes on longer than necessary and doesn’t really explain it. Really it sums up the film in general; too focused on the themes and the shock, rather than a compelling story.

I’m disappointed to have to rate this so low, as it does have a lot of really cool ideas. Her defending herself against the attackers causing them to have the exact same injuries her ex husband did, is REALLY smart writing. Plus the use of echoes and ripples is very smart and themetically perfect. The idea that the past actions echo back to us in a different form is one that’s prevalent throughout the film, and is a neat idea.

Outside of those themes, and outside of the technical brilliance, there’s really nothing to it. And that’s a shame.

Still, great music.