Tag: Sally Hawkins

Bring Her Back (2025) Review

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Quick synopsis: A brother and sister are placed with a new foster mother; she’s a bit weird.

Sally Hawkins can do anything, can’t she? At no point during Bring Her Back do you think she’s English; she slips into her performance perfectly. The supporting cast also gives performances beyond their years, especially Billy Barratt, who gives a near-perfect performance of someone haunted by trauma but trying to stay strong. It’s also clear that the Philippou brothers are tremendous directors, with a real flair for understanding what makes certain visuals work.

I thought I’d start with that so I could move onto the negatives, as I really didn’t like this film. It’s not that I actively hated it; I just wasn’t impressed with it, at all. It tries so hard to matter, to be important, to deal with themes of grief and guilt, but does so far too unsubtly to the point of repetitiveness. It makes its points, then a few minutes later says the exact same thing again (a bit like I just did with the previous two sentences).

It is possible I just don’t like their stories, as I also wasn’t fond of their previous film, Talk To Me. Reading that review again (posted here), I have many of the same issues; it didn’t live up to its potential, a lot of scenes were needless, and it was a few tweaks away from being great.

BHB (pronounced Bah-haaab) isn’t sure whether its audience is comprised of geniuses or idiots. So it veers between “now to just make sure, we’re going to have this character explain this again” and “because f*ck you! that’s why that happened”. So watching it is akin to trying to do a kids crossword and a cryptic crossword on the same board.

As much as I love how the brothers create horror, I think BHB may have been better if it weren’t a horror movie. If they instead focused on the themes of grief and loss. Keep the possession angles, just dial down the “scares” back a bit. The cult interludes feel forced, and like they are just there to get creepy moments in. That’s a shame, as if we didn’t see those moments, then when we see her attempt to do it later, it would have more of an impact. At the moment, the cult videos are more disturbing than the main product. To put it in wrestling terms, it would be like starting a card with a match full of barbed wire baseball bats to the face, and then having the main event end with a single baseball bat to the back, and the person is knocked out for 10 minutes and taken to the hospital. If you’ve already seen something more devastating, it dilutes the payoff you’re looking for.

Cutting down on the horror would mean leaving out some of the deaths, but that’s no great loss, as the moment where two characters die has all the impact of a single raindrop on a swimming pool. They feel particularly mean-spirited and pointless. If you cut them from the script entirely, it would only require a 20-second scene to fix the hole that’s left. The deaths don’t cause any lasting trauma to the characters, don’t drive the story forward, and are pretty inconsequential. So either delete them, or make them have a purpose.

In summary, I’m going to end this with the exact quote I ended my review of Talk To Me.

It’s a shame as with a few tweaks this could have been among my favourite films of the year. But I sense that everything could have been better. 

Paddington In Peru (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A bear goes to a certain South American country to go meet with his adoptive mother. I can’t remember which country though, or the name of the bear.

Paddington In Peru (Or PIP, which is pronounced the only way you can pronounce it, but in a lilting tone) was a special occasion for me. I didn’t catch the first two at the cinema because I assumed they were standard kids’ films. I, of course, now know better and can appreciate their genius. So PIP was the first one I caught at the cinema, and I’m very glad I did. There was concern that the team would be different. Paul King wasn’t directing due to his Wonka commitments, Sally Hawkins would not be returning (but her character would), and neither would Peter Capaldi or Michael Gambon, the latter due to being a bit busy with that whole “no longer being alive” trend that’s so popular among the favourite celebrities of my youth.

I’ll assuage those fears now; PIP is very good. It’s not quite as good as the first two movies, but very few films are. If you weren’t aware there was a change behind the scenes, it wouldn’t be noticeable. The film is still charming, still very funny with few joke opportunities missed, and still weird. The Paddington movies exist in their own universe. They have a definite FEEL to them. They feel like musicals where everybody is too busy to sing. There’s a sense of playfulness and visual music which a new director would need to stick to. Dougal Wilson continues the tradition set down by Paul King. The universe of PIP is the same one established in the first two. Essentially, it’s a universe that you’d find in a cliche terrible 1970s sitcom, where every “I’m glad nobody saw that” is followed by a bus driving by. That doesn’t happen in real life, mainly because our bus services are practically useless. So you have to go in expecting silliness. But it would also seem very out of place if characters started levitating and time-travelling to solve their problems. It’s a tricky balancing act between realism and silliness, which these films manage perfectly.

The replacement of Mary Brown is much more noticeable. Sally Hawkins is deeply missed in these films. Well, she would be if Emily Mortimer wasn’t so damn good. Both performers play the character similarly, but each brings something unique to the part. Eventually, you do get used to the differences, but it does take a few minutes to adjust.

I do wish more of the neighbours returned, although I’m not sure how that would have happened. Some of them are there in the opening, but it feels more like an obligation to fans than genuine. As it is, I can’t really see a way they could be in it without it seeming jarring, but still. That might be because there are not quite as many notable replacements. There’s Olivia Colman, who people keep forgetting is REALLY good at comedy. Antonio Banderas is a lot of fun, but I do kind of wish he was Pedro Pascal. Banderas does handle the emotional moments PERFECTLY though, so props to him for that. Rachel Zegler was originally cast in PIP, and I have been impressed in the few films I’ve seen her in so far (Shazam! Fury Of The Gods as reviewed here, and the Hunger Games prequel as reviewed here), so I have no doubt that she would have fit perfectly into the Paddington universe. She was replaced (due to Zegler’s participation in the 2023 SAG-AFRTA strike, on the side of the strikers, because Zegler is awesome) by Carla Tous. Carla Tous doesn’t have a Wikipedia page, and I haven’t even heard of anything she’s been in, let alone watched it. That doesn’t matter, as I LOVE her performance in this. I think she’s better than Zegler would have been, mainly because Zegler would feel too confident. Tous’s performance is full of worry and sadness, and that’s forever etched on her face and in her vocal performance. It’s strange that in a film starring Olivia Colman (one of THE best performers in the world), I was most impressed with a performer who is a complete stranger to me. I really hope to see her in more stuff in the future, very impressive.

In summary, I loved this movie. Is it the best movie of the year? Nope. But it is probably the one I want to go back to most. It’s just so damn charming. I’m a cynical and miserable person most of the time, and I like it when films manage to break through that.

The Lost King (2022)

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Quick Synopsis: Philippa Langley (Sally Hawkins) thinks she knows where the lost body of Richard III is buried, and is determined to prove it to an establishment that doesn’t believe her.

If I wrote this review the minute I left the cinema, it would have been more favourable. But now that time has passed, it’s soured my opinion on it. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing bad about it. You don’t walk out thinking you’ve wasted your time, but it doesn’t stay with you.

The cast is all good: Steve Coogan provides enough character without overshadowing the lead, and Mark Addy seems weirdly Reece Shearsmith. Sally Hawkins continues to be one of the best performers around. She is starting to run the risk of playing similar characters though. A lot of her biggest roles are now “slightly downtrodden mother who stands up to people”. There’s a reason for that though, she is so good at it. Her characters naturally have a slight fragility to them, and she has haunting eyes which make it easy to sympathise with her when things go against her. Plus she does a great “shakey scared voice”. But there’s not much in her performance that you haven’t seen before, as good as it is (and it is very good), it doesn’t feel unique to this film.

She’s not helped by some weird script choices, the “ghost” of Richard III has the usual Television Dream Ghost qualities, pointing out stuff she already knew. But then there are moments where it feels like he’s leading her places, and so that he does have sentience and independent thought. If they dialled down on that it would improve it somewhat, and make it feel like her character has more agency rather than “a ghost told me”.

Another misstep in the script is it plays out like we don’t know what happened. That may work overseas, but the discovery of his body was a big deal in the UK, so when the film does try to have the tension of “will they find it?”, it doesn’t feel true. We know he was found in a car park in Leicester, so there’s zero drama to the story. I know it’s in bad form to add things which weren’t there for dramatic purpose, but I feel this needed it. It needed a B-story that it could use for drama and suspense. At the very least it can stop pretending that we don’t know what happens.

I should point out that there is some controversy surrounding the other archeologists involved in the dig. They say they’re being labelled the villains in the story unfairly, and that in reality they were helpful. Which, considering the crux of the movie was “Richard III was unfairly made a villain by Shakespeare”, is kind of ironic.

In summary, this is fine. It’s a pleasant enough watch but I’m not sure I need to watch it again. It’s a standard British movie, for better and for worse. It will make you feel things while watching it, but you’ll be hard-pushed to remember that much about it a month down the line. That’s its biggest weakness: how disposable it is. It’s based on a true story, but they changed so much of it that it doesn’t really matter that much. They change so much of the true story that it doesn’t work as a “learn about what happened” piece. Films are supposed to change you, make you feel, and importantly, make you ask questions. But really the only feeling this gives you, is that you should watch a documentary about it instead. It also made me think of this song. Which is a plus, I suppose.

The Phantom Of The Open (2021)

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Quick Synopsis: Amateur golfer Maurice Flitcroft achieves his late-in-life goal of participating in the British Open Golf Championship, much to the ire of the staid golfing community.

Expected this to be either a standard sports underdog movie, or standard British Working Class, so either Cool Runnings, or The Duke. Either way, I knew what would happen, he’d be mocked by people, but then use his conventional skill set to win, or not win, but he’ll leave with his head held high and his nemesis slowly applauding him.

Yeah, it’s safe to say I lucked out by not knowing the true story about this, if I did then I would have known my preconceptions were complete bollocks. He doesn’t win, he doesn’t really do well, he isn’t respected by the world, and he isn’t rich and famous. To see how hard he tries, and what it leads to, will hurt you. Not as much as it should though. Don’t get me wrong, it does get VERY emotional towards the end, but it feels like it could have hit harder. His wife’s defence of him feels like it originally went on much longer and then was heavily cut down, it feels like it’s build-up, like she’s starting a wonderful speech, but then the film cuts her off, but still has the same result. It’s the emotional equivalent of if you did a film about Churchill, distilled his entire speech down to “We shall fight them at the beaches”, and then still having everybody applaud.

It’s a shame as that section of the film has some truly emotional moments, just a few sentences away from being better. The emotion is helped by the performances, Mark Rylance is his usual brilliant self, as is Sally Hawkins. Rhys Ifans seems a bit too similar to Michael Smiley and I felt for sure it actually was him until I saw the credits.

There are a few things that annoyed me though. There are a few characters who are introduced and then seemingly forgotten about. What annoyed me most though was the dream sequences. I don’t know whether they were the choice of the screenwriter or the director but tonally it does not work and they feel like they belong in a different movie. There are some character moments that feel a bit out of place, like they’re just happening to move the plot forward. It also doesn’t do too great a job of making you FEEL like you’re back in that time.

Overall, a film you probably will enjoy, but it won’t be among your favourites.

Godzilla: King Of The Monsters (2019)

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The best way to describe this film: effective. It did what it needed to. You go to it to see giant monsters hit each other, and that’s what you get. And those parts are good. The monsters themselves look fantastic, mostly. There’s a few where they look a bit too much like they belong in a PS2 video game. Also one of them looks like it’s kinda sexualised, which for a giant monster is kind of weird. Now, the humans. A complaint of the first Godzilla film was that the people weren’t that interesting (outside of Bryan Cranston who died early on), and this film definitely improves on that. Millie Bobby Brown’s character, in particular, is a delight and will make you feel all the emotions, the rest? Not so much. That’s probably because there’s so many of them so you don’t really get to connect with many of them. And the ones you do connect with are, well there’s no kind way of saying this, kind of dumb. Not only do the characters doing shitty things do them for stupid reasons, but the people opposed to them miss out on giving them a really obvious armour-piercing response (partly because if they did I don’t think the writers could have given them a good response). But yeah, a lot of the characters aren’t needed. Sally Hawkin’s character, in particular, seems like a complete waste of her talents. Did they not see Shape Of Water? She’s really really good, guys, and you have her in for about 2 minutes. And it’s not even done in a way like Psycho where it’s shocking to kill of an established actor to set off an “anything can happen” tone because her death is incredibly underwhelming to the point where I can’t actually remember it happening.

It’s not all bad though, the action scenes are actually well-defined so you can tell what’s happening, it doesn’t just look like an incomprehensible mess. That’s always the hard part, Transformers is a great example of really incomprehensible action scenes. To be honest, though I think part of that is because it’s live action and I feel the new version of The Lion King could have similar problems. In animation, each character (well the main ones anyway) are visually unique in terms of colour schemes and stylised looks. Yet when it becomes live-action you kind of lose that in the name of “realism”. There was a concern that could happen here, that it would all just look like blobs and fur randomly hitting each other. Thankfully that’s not the case, the monsters are all visually unique, and amazingly they all have personalities too. They’re not mindless things with an appetite for destruction, slashing through cities in a November rain.

This film is A LOT bigger than the previous one, everything is amped up. Which brings me up to the big downside; what happens next. The next film is Godzilla Vs. Kong. But in this film, Godzilla is a fire-breathing giant. There’s no contest, Godzilla is too overpowered by comparison. I can’t see how they’re going to make it seem like a fair fight, it’s like having Mike Tyson vs. Stephen Hawking in a boxing match, after Hawking died.

The Shape Of Water (2017)

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Don’t watch this film! I mean it, do not watch this film. It’s one of those films that’s actually impossible to sit down and watch. You do not watch this, you absorb it. You sit back and let it take over every single ounce of your being. You sit there and marvel at the beauty you see before you, this is cinema as art, and is one of the most awe-inspiring things you’ll see all year. Guillermo Del Toro should now be given free reign to make whatever film he wants. Actually, I’d love to see him do an episode of Doctor Who or Black Mirror. Every shot looks like a watercolour painting, full of the majesty of colours and wonder. The music too is superb, you won’t leave the cinema humming the melodies or anything, but it enhances every single scene it’s in, it really compliments the images to the point where it almost seems like the scenes were made to match up with the music, as opposed to the scene coming first and music being decided later.

It’s not just behind the scenes though, the people in front of camera help make this brilliant. Sally Hawkins and Doug Jones deserve every accolade thrown their way. They’re mute characters who have to lead the film, that’s not easy. It could be argued that it’s slightly easier for Sally Hawkins as she at least gets sign language to utilise, but that’s like saying it’s easier to run a marathon with one leg than no legs. It still takes remarkable skill from her. Ordinarily this would be the best performance I see all year, but unfortunately for her, Three Billboards also exists. It’s a shame that both existed in the same year as it meant one had to lose out on deserved awards. Doug Jones is also pretty darn great in this, doing sooooo much with body language that you kind of don’t realise he’s not speaking, he doesn’t need to.

The supporting cast also pulls their weight, obviously since Richard Jenkins got nominated for best supporting actor. Michael Shannon also deserves praise. His character is utterly reprehensible, partly due to the writing, but also due to how he plays it. He completely loses himself in the character, holding absolutely nothing back.

My main issue with this film? It’s really hard to criticise. It’s all so beautiful, everyone is so great, and the story is so heart-warming and emotional, it ties all the loose ends up but also leaves room for different interpretations and questions about the characters. That’s why this review has been so hard to write, it’s difficult to make “this film is amazing!” into a compelling piece of writing. That’s my opinion though, others think differently. Not many others though, mainly Rex Reed from the New York Observer. Who wrote (and I won’t link to it, I don’t want to increase his views):

“This horror film masquerading as a fairy tale is about a mute woman who cleans toilets, scrubs floors and falls in love with a monster from beneath the sea. The pathetic girl is played by the wonderful British actress Sally Hawkins, who specializes in defective creatures herself.”

A few points: 1) it’s not a horror film. At all, it’s a fantasy film. It may use a few horror tropes and conventions, but it’s still at its heart a fantasy film, albeit one aimed at adults.

2) “pathetic girl”. Fuck you. Fuck you in the ear. She’s not pathetic, and if you think that then I worry for you.

3) “defective creatures”. Ok, this is just a horribly offensive comment. Just because someone is mute does not make them a defective creature you ableist asswipe.

The review only goes downhill from there, referring to Get Out as “overrated piece of junk” and getting the director’s name wrong. Look, I know Benicio Del Toro is a good actor, but he’s not a director. Yes, they have similar names, but you can’t call yourself a film reviewer if you can’t distinguish between the two. It would be like getting Billie Joe Armstrong and Billie Jean King confused. I find negative reviews fascinating when they’ve clearly not actually watched the film. The best example of this was Toy Story 3 where the reviewer seemed to only watch the opening 5 minutes, getting the villain wrong, the story wrong, and his final mark wrong. Don’t be like that guy, don’t be wrong. Buy a ticket to Shape Of Water and revel in its greatness, you’ll thank me.