Tag: Harry Enfield

One Life (2023) Review

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

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….

Rocketman (2019)

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

“this year’s Bohemian Rhapsody”. No, let me nip that in the bud right now; this is not Bohemian Rhapsody. In terms of tone, structure, and style, this is completely different from Bohemian Rhapsody. They’re similar in the fact that they’re both biographies of musicians, but by that logic, Fawlty Towers is the same as Psycho. In terms of how it treats the subject, this is more like Get On Up than Bohemian Rhapsody. Whilst Bohemian Rhapsody builds the subject up, telling the audience about their greatness, this film almost delights in exposing their flaws. It’s brutally honest about the problems he has gone through and is so harsh towards them that if it wasn’t made with Elton Johns approval it would feel like a character assassination.

I felt that Bohemian Rhapsody’s biggest flaw is that it felt too restrained by the confines of the rating, it’s hard to tell that story under a 12 rating. Rocketman is a 15, and to be honest, it needs to be; if they toned down the drugs and sex this would be less of a story. The good thing though is that it never feels gratuitous, you don’t feel like they’re swearing for the sake of swearing, or showing sex solely for the purposes of titillation (although it did make me realise how rarely we see male gay sex in film).

I like how they told this story, it was almost a jukebox musical, the characters would randomly burst into Elton John songs in a way that could have been annoying. For me it really worked for two reasons:

  1. The story is being told via flashback, it’s Elton telling the story to people, so of course, he would express his history through songs he knows.
  2. It’s an Elton John movie. It has to be fantastical, it has to be out there, it has to be more extravagant than a movie.

That last point is very important. Bohemian Rhapsody was a good film, but it wasn’t a Queen film, there was nothing about the way they told that story that was Queen-like, it was a good film, but it was also quite standard in terms of the way the story was told (although the editing was ATROCIOUS for some of it, cutting way too quickly in conversations). The way they tell this story is very Elton John, it breaks the bounds of normality and does something unique and fantastic. And yes, it is fantastic in the way it looks. The set-pieces are unique and brilliant, it turns out Dexter Fletcher is REALLY good. The only film I’ve seen of his before was Eddie The Eagle and that was a different beast entirely. He did a part of the Queen movie (what was that called again?) but I can’t really tell which moments. He really should get plaudits for this, this had a budget of £40million yet looks larger. I genuinely believe if you gave him a Bond film he would knock it out the park (I mean, I still wouldn’t watch it, because ewww Bond). It’s not just Fletcher who deserves praise (but, and I cannot say this enough, he REALLY does), Taron Egerton does too. He gives a career-best performance here, him and Fletcher really seem to bring out the best in each other. It’s weird, he doesn’t look like Elton John at all at any time in this film, yet he plays him perfectly. It’s a bit like Michael Sheen in The Damned United (which you should all watch by the way), he doesn’t look like Brian Clough at all, but he behaves like him and captures the person’s essence so well that you cannot hope for someone to play them better. Actually, the best example would probably be Harry Enfield when he was on Spitting Image. He sounded nothing like the people he was doing impressions of, but he captured their personalities so well that it worked. It’s the same here, Egerton really captures Elton Johns personality in his performance (and his vocals are really impressive too).

So in summary: go see this film. Godzilla may be out now too, but this is true spectacle cinema.