RAW

Stars: Garance Marillier, Ella Rumpf, Rabah Nait Oufella, Laurent Lucas, Marion Verneux, Jean-Louis Sbille and Joana Preis.
Writer/Director: Julia Ducournau

Screened in Semaine de la Critique selection at 69^th Festival de Cannes; reviewed at Olympia Cinemas 2, Cannes.

Rating: 4/5

While filmmakers and audiences tend to gag at the thought of ‘the other C-word’ onscreen, writer/director Julia Ducournau and her fearless leading lady Garance Marillier launch themselves teeth first into their bloody and occasionally brilliant cannibal horror pic, Raw (aka Grave, to its homeland Euro auds).

Blood ties and the inflamed passion of a woman’s blossoming are central to the French director’s strikingly accomplished first feature, one of the most invigorating debuts in recent memory. A coming-of-age tale conveyed with deftly handled emotional complexity and chilling thematic subtext, Raw is above all else a gut twisting work of classic body horror. On one occasion, your seasoned scribe averted his eyes in anticipation of what was about to unfold; there were a couple of other times when he wished he had.

In almost every frame is teen actress Garance Marillier as Justine, a committed vegetarian(!) who we meet as she is being delivered by her parents (Laurent Lucas, Joana Preis) to veterinary college. From the first night, senior students haze and harass the newbies; Justine is cut no slack by her big sister Alexia (Ella Rumpf), who so fervently adheres to university tradition she makes Justine eat raw rabbit kidney instead of being shamed before her peers.

Justine’s despair at eating flesh manifests in scaly, itchy skin; in one excrutiating but brilliantly sound-designed sequence, she works her nails deep into the red patches that have formed. Worse is yet to come, however, as the hunger for raw meat becomes an all-consuming need for Justine, her ravenous desires of every kind escalating to predatory proportions.

Such developments would be sufficient for many lesser works, but Ducornau taps a rich vein of sibling rivalry drama and familial intrigue that elevates the stakes and pits Marillier against the ferocity of Ella Rumpf’s Alexia. There are corpulent detours and the odd surreal touch along the way, but nothing derails the foreboding menace and driving dramatic pulse of the story; the denouement, a shocking sequence that plays like a real-world nightmare, and icky coda will induce a goosepimply bout of the cold sweats.

Raw is a film that both embraces and defies cinematic traditions. The sublime camerawork of DOP Ruben Impens (The Broken Circle Breakdown, 2013; The Sky Above Us, 2015) enhances the narrative while also subverting the genre; coming-of-age loveliness can turn to animalistic rage from one frame to the next. Other major assets include co-star Rabah Nait Oufella as coarse but caring gay roommate Adrien; the dizzying music score by Jim Williams (Sightseers, 2012; Kill List, 2011); and, of course, the precise and often sickening work done by the make-up effects units led by Olivier Alfonso and Laura Ozier. Julia Ducournau’s command of the production and assured guidance in the pursuit of her harrowing, unforgettable vision signifies the director as a new major talent. 

THE BFG

Stars: Ruby Barnhill, Mark Rylance, Rebecca Hall, Bill Hader, Jemaine Clement, Matt Frewer, Rafe Spall and Penelope Wilton.
Writer: Melissa Mathison; based upon the children’s novel by Roald Dahl.
Director: Steven Spielberg

Premiered Out of Competition at 69^th Festival du Cannes; screened at the Grand Lumiere Theatre.

Rating: 2/5

Steven Spielberg has been open about his adoration for the classic Roald Dahl children’s novel The BFG, of how the 1982 book was standard bedtime reading in his household and how an adaptation has been in development for close to 20 years. He is not alone; the book is a publishing phenomenon that impacted a generation of young readers, just as Spielberg’s body of work is arguably the most fondly favoured American film output of the last half century.

Reteaming with the late writer Melissa Mathison (E.T. The Extra-terrestrial) and long time producing partners Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall, Spielberg at least delivers on his promise to get it made. Unfortunately, the only element of the entire production that inspires any kind of wonder is just how far from a satisfying adaptation the film proves to be, given the potential held by the pairing of these two great storytellers.

The heroine is Sophie (Ruby Barnhill), a little girl with big dreams who wanders the halls of her 80’s era London orphanage (looking very Harry Potter-ish, as does much of the film) well into the witching hour. Barely 10 words have been spoken in the film when we meet Oscar-winner Mark Rylance’s not-yet-friendly giant, who abducts Sophie from her bed and takes her to a faraway land. The trauma of the abduction barely registers on Sophie and soon a type of accelerated ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ kicks in. The pair chatter away interminably in the giant’s home at the expense of plot establishment, the now friendly giant instead introducing her to such wonders as The Tree of Dreams and a workshop where he mixes the tree’s pickings to create happy night time visions.

The BFG is the runt of a large band of horribly ill-tempered, one-dimensional giants (just like the ones in Bryan Singer’s dud Jack The Giant Slayer), many times larger and with a cruel hunger for human flesh. Sophie convinces The BFG to come with her to Buckingham Palace, resulting in the film’s liveliest, funniest sequence, and advise The Queen (Penelope Wilton, the film’s best asset) and her offsider Mary (an entirely ill-fitting Rebecca Hall) that the giants are a real threat and a military first strike against them is the best option. Nocturnal kidnapping, the threat of cannibalism and the upside of a tactical airborne offensive all make for a modern family movie, apparently.

The absence of any discernible narrative for a great swathe of the film may not bother the real littlies; colour and movement abound and Barnhill is cutey-pie enough to connect with the tots. On the other hand, parents (in fact, anyone over 10) will be driven to distraction by the sweetness-over-substance approach. The BFG and his clan also speak in a broken ‘pigeon English’-like dialect called ‘gobblefunk’ that is often impossible to understand, ensuring a ponderous 115 minutes of young ones pulling at your shirt sleeve and asking, “What did he say?”

Steven Spielberg has rarely ever let the technology at his disposal do the work for him. Jaws, Close Encounters of The Third Kind, Jurassic Park, A.I. and Minority Report broke new ground in almost every frame, but Spielberg steadfastly put story first.  The BFG more readily recalls his lumbering over-produced misfires 1941, Hook and Always. It also bares witness to just how fallible the director is in this late-career stage; for every great work (Munich; Lincoln; Bridge of Spies), he persists at shoehorning storylines into experiments with CGI and performance capture tech, resulting in stinkers like Kingdom of The Crystal Skull, The Adventures of Tintin and War Horse.

The occasionally pretty images captured by DOP Janusz Kaminski and omnipresent orchestral work of John Williams keep demanding that we feel for Sophie and her gargantuan friend, but Spielberg’s erratic tonality, overly-familiar technique and heavy-handed graphics renders what should have been a soaring adaptation of Dahl just plain dull.

THE STUDENT

Stars: Pyotr Skvortsov, Viktoriya Isakova, Yuliya Aug, Aleksandra Revenko, Nikolai Roshin, Svetlana Bragarnik and Aleksandr Gorchilin.
Writer: Kirill Serebrennikov; based upon the play Martyr by Marius von Mayenburg.
Director: Kirill Serebrennikov

Screening in Un Certain Regard at 69^th Festival du Cannes; reviewed at the Salles Debussy.

Rating: 4/5

Fervent creationism faces off against wide-eyed Darwinism amidst the already volatile environment of high school life in Kirill Serebrennikov’s chilling psychological drama, The Student. The Russian auteur’s journey into the dark recesses of a fanatical mindset provides religious extremism with a truly terrifying façade – the unbridled and fearless arrogance of a disenfranchised teenage boy.

Serebrennikov (Yuri’s Day, 2008; Betrayal, 2012) offers up a compelling microcosm of the faith-vs-fact debate that has grown in intensity and ferocity around the world in recent decades. That he also bolsters his narrative with themes such as teenage sexuality, institutional bias and agenda, free speech and Oedipal issues proves both ambitious and intellectually engrossing. The melding of the director’s storytelling skill and playwright Marius von Mayenburg’s stageplay proves a match made in…well, it’s a good match.

The titular protagonist is Veniamin Yuzhin (the remarkable Pyotr Skvortsov), a lean, surly teenage boy living with his struggling single-mom (Yuliya Aug). In a pre-credit sequence, he seems to be remarking with typical teenage disengagement that he wants out of his school’s mandatory swimming lessons on “religious grounds.” Only after he is taunted by the bikini-clad mean girl Lidiya (Aleksandra Revenko) and ends up submerged beneath the bodies of his classmates do we learn of his spiritual will; the young man lives an existence devoted to the Bible scriptures, each memorised and instantly recalled, often with a cruel bitterness capable of levelling any counterpoint.

Soon, the school body is energised and enraged by Veniamin’s outbursts, none more so than biology teacher Elena (Viktoriya Isakova) who finds both her devotion to scientific study and faith-free middle-class life the target of the teenage evangelist’s wrath. In one ferocious sequence, Veniamin’s reacts to a carrot-and-condom sex education lesson by stripping bare and leaping from table to table, citing verse after verse of the scripture’s stance on love, sex and marriage. The passages cited begin to take on deeply anti-social views, be they homophobic, anti-semitic or just plain hypocritical; the foreboding sense that Veniamin’s crusade is about to turn irreparably destructive mounts with tangible tension.

With the school administration towing both the Kremlin’s line on religious education (in 2013, President Putin made the teaching of faith-based culture compulsory in secondary schools) and allowing for their own beliefs to affect their handling of Veniamin’s and Elena’s conflict, the scourge of religious extremism leads to an inevitably chaotic and tragic conclusion. The filmmaker leaves no doubt as to the role that unwavering and literal devotion to the written word of God plays in his narrative; Serebrennikov is not the type of director to create this vivid, scorched landscape of complex morality and biblical scale and then not take a stand.

As rich in allegorical intent as the very best of Russian cinema, The Student will ignite post-screening debate as it traverses the global festival circuit. Religious devotion at the expense of the very humanity it purports to enrich is endemic to every faith-based society; the existence of Kirill Serebrennikov’s frantic, frightening film will help to generate crucial discussion on the true nature of dogmatic fundamentalism the world over.

MONEY MONSTER

Stars: George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Jack O’Connell, Caitriona Balfe, Dominic West, Giancarlo Esposito, Christopher Denham, Lenny Venito, Dennis Boutsikaris and Emily Meade.
Writer: Jamie Linden, Jim Kouf and Alan DiFiore
Director: Jodie Foster

Screening Out-of-Competition at 69^th Festival du Cannes; reviewed at the Grand Theatre Lumiere.

Rating: 4/5

When the elite directing talent decide to splash about in the B-movie genre pool, the best of them bring their serious film smarts along for a dip as well. Such was the case when Spike Lee made his heist thriller Inside Man, and when Martin Scorsese made his corrupt cop actioner The Departed, and when Michael Mann made the hitman thriller, Collateral.

And so it is with Jodie Foster and her high-concept hostage drama, Money Monster. A slick and satisfying vehicle for the capital-M/capital-S charisma of two of Hollywood’s most reliable Movie Stars, Foster’s fourth directorial effort also sufficiently ponders the hot-button topic of America’s financial/social divide to the extent that it feels just smart enough.

Having a ball as Lee Gates, the clownish ringleader of his own financial infotainment show Money Monster, is George Clooney (channelling with no filter at all CNBC’s ‘Mad Money’ host loudmouth Jim Cramer). The actor bounds around his ‘TV set’ set with a freewheeling physicality and ‘Master of the Universe’ brashness that is pure bravado. The only one with the cojones to rein him in is his director and long-time friend, Patty Fenn, played with a commanding sturdiness by Julia Roberts. The actress atones for the embarrassing dud Mother’s Day with one of her best performances, sidestepping the inherent clichés of the ‘TV director’ stereotype and favouring maturity and sturdy integrity over flustered and shrill.

Worlds are turned upside down when the desperate gun-toting, bomb-carrying everyman Kyle Budwell (Jack O’Connell) sneaks onto the studio floor and takes Lee hostage, the whole terrifying episode playing out on live television. Budwell’s life savings went down the toilet when a ‘glitch’ wiped $800million of Ibis Capital’s stock worth; he wants answers from CEO Walt Camby (Dominic West) and not spin from an increasingly sympathetic PR maven, Diane (Caitriona Balfe).

It is the angry and desperate pleading of Kyle that will resonate with mainstream audiences, especially in a year when the most ruthless overlord of western corporate domination is challenging for the top job (Foster and her cast were called upon to address the film’s election year relevance in the post-screening press conference). Embodied with fierce gusto by O’Connell, Kyle is the angry, blue-collar guy whose betrayal by a broken ‘American Dream’ is changing the very fabric of the good ol’ US of A. That he identifies both the problem and the solution as being the fault of the media landscape allows Foster to attack both the irresponsibility of the faux-news network landscape and the corporate blight that the abuse of capitalism has left.

Her lensing to date has been on character-driven small-scale dramas (Little Man Tate, 1991; Home For The Holidays, 2005; The Beaver, 2001), but Foster excels at the thriller beats and action set-ups here. With her writing team of Jamie Linden, Jim Kouf and Alan DiFiore, she even offers subversive, stabs at the ‘hostage drama’ familiarity; one of the film’s biggest laughs comes when the cops convince Kyle’s pregnant girlfriend Molly (the scene-stealing Emily Meade) to talk sense to him, only to have her erupt in a tirade of horrible insults that merely drive him closer to the unthinkable.

The narrative starts to strain in the films mid-section, notably when some trope-y contrivances are required to push the plot forward (important personal documents are found way too easily; dubious hacker tech is awkwardly relied upon). It is full credit to Foster and her towering leads that pacing and packaging are strong enough to let such developments slide.

Although Money Monster (awkward title, but fitting on different levels) takes place in a busted contemporary world of rampant greed and ego, the production feels very much of a time when studios made stirring dramatic thrillers on mid-level budgets that addressed social and personal ills. Comparisons to Sydney Lumet’s classics Network and especially Dog Day Afternoon are inevitable, with elements of Broadcast News to boot. Ultimately, the tummy-tightening thrills and movie-star moxie on display echo louder than any social commentary or thematic depth. But that a flashy hostage thriller should dabble in such issues at all in this age of bland and safe studio slates is a welcome and wonderful surprise.

CAFÉ SOCIETY

Stars: Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Blake Lively, Steve Carell, Corey Stoll, Parker Posey, Judy Davis, Paul Schneider and Anna Camp.
Writer/Director: Woody Allen

Opening Night Film, 69th Festival du Cannes; reviewed at the Salle Debussy Theatre.

Rating: 4/5

Given the richness of Vittorio Storaro’s breathtaking cinematography and the rose-coloured hint of melancholy it invokes, the urge is to posit Café Society in with Woody Allen’s ‘Americana’ period of the 1980s. Just as The Purple Rose of Cairo and Radio Days reminisced on bygone days, his latest is an often giddy, always gorgeous love-letter to both the Los Angeles of Hollywood’s golden era and New York’s swinging jazz club scene of the 1930s.

Yet for all the declarations of passion and sun-bathed joie de vivre of lovers encircling each other, Allen’s characters are an immoral, shallow, even shady bunch. They are descendants of comic creations that the auteur has crafted superbly in past works, that much is true, just not the films that Cafe Society aesthetically recalls. These self-absorbed philanderers and shallow socialites are the miscreants of Crimes and Misdemeanors, Manhattan Murder Mystery and Match Point.

To his own narration, Allen opens his film poolside in LA, as a Hollywood party is in full swing. Uber-agent Phil Dorfman (Steve Carell) is holding court, name-dropping with sleazy Hollywood abandon (“I’m expecting a call from Ginger Rogers”), when he hears from his East Coast sister, Rose (Jeanne Berlin, stealing most scenes she is in); his nephew Bobby (Jesse Eisenberg) is heading his way and needs work. The young man’s arrival leads to some neat fish-out-of-water bits that don’t particularly further the plot (notably an extended gag about Bobby’s first visit from a professional girl), before he is given a menial job at the agency and assigned to Phil’s PA Vonnie (Kristen Stewart) on weekends to be shown around town.

Eisenberg, riffing on Allen as has become de rigueur for the director’s leading men, and Stewart, whose lightness of touch proves a revelation and classically photogenic charms are adored by Storaro’s lens, have developed a sweet rapport after past efforts together (Adventureland, 2009; American Ultra, 2015). Their courtship scenes are the best moments in Café Society, especially a sequence that has them tour Beverly Hills, taking in the star’s palatial digs while wonderfully revealing character and chemistry. Another glorious set-up, during which the electricity in Bobby’s apartment blacks out and he tends to Vonnie’s broken heart by the glow of candlelight and streetlamp, all but guarantees DOP Storaro mention come Oscar time.

Soon, the machinations of plot take over and we learn that the love that keeps Vonnie from Bobby is very close to home. The west coast scenes skip along at a lively pace, endearing each character and milking the most from a storyline that is not very ambitious (and, to Allen’s fans, a tad familiar) but which engages thanks to Allen’s ensemble and masterful sense of timing.

The story shifts to New York and characters that were peripheral comedy relief become the centre of an ever-expanding narrative. Bobby returns home and begins to walk in the shadow of thuggish big brother Ben (Corey Stoll), robbing the film of Carell’s and Stewart’s presence and the ‘zing’ they share with Eisenberg. As Bobby’s east coast love interest Veronica, Blake Lively is every bit as captivating as Stewart but is afforded far less character development; an underworld subplot that involves murder and corruption feels unconvincing and perfunctory (and often overtly bloody). The Woody Allen who once perfectly captured the alienation of a New Yorker in Los Angeles is nowhere to be found here; Allen’s LA story is sublime, while his NYC-set narrative stutters.

Allen last filled the Cannes opening slot with arguably his best film in recent memory, Midnight in Paris. If Café Society does not match the sheer delight of that period piece gem, nor attains the caustic and captivating immorality of, say, Crimes and Misdemeanours, it fits with a body of work from a director still determined to explore the shading between the themes of love and deceit, truth and pretension, desire and commitment. Though not the sum of its many wonderful parts, Café Society still represents a captivating melding of the light-and-dark complexity of Allen’s best work. 

YOU AND ME

With: David ‘Barney’ Miller, Katherine Southwell, Mick Fanning, Drew Derriman, Ella Chowdhurry, Lara Sonntag, Tania Brown, Sharron Southwell, Jason Southwell, Ken Ware and Jan Carton.
Writers: Shaylee Gomes, Taylor Montemarano and Lorenzo DeCampos
Directors: Lorenzo DeCampos, Michael Lawrence and Taylor Montemarano.

Rating: 4/5

The bonding of two broken souls and the combined strength to survive that they inspire in each other makes for a heartfelt, deeply moving character study in You and Me. This stirring, superbly crafted feature deserves breakout success for its backers, Garage Productions, the Sydney-based action-sports distributor whose principal, co-director Michael Lawrence, oversaw the four year shooting commitment.

As the title suggests, You and Me is an ‘everyman’ narrative; the fate that befell David ‘Barney’ Miller, a larrikin Aussie surfing protégé struck down in his prime and Kate Southwell, the country girl who finds her own resurrection while sharing his struggles represents the type of interpersonal journey that will be familiar to many. To the great credit of Lawrence and his team of co-directors, You and Me finds the extraordinary in the everyday; the warm familiarity of the lives touched by the hardships faced by David and Kate ensures resonance and empathy.

Archive footage and first-person recollections paint a picture of the young Miller as a charming, blokish, decent teenager, well known and well liked in the New South Wales north coast surfing enclave of Sawtell. In 1999, a speeding car in which he was a passenger left the road and struck a tree, leaving him a C6 Quadriplegic with no chance of independent movement for the rest of his life. Home video of Miller’s rehabilitation and subsequent descent into self-medicated depression is gruelling to watch, rendered starkly real via the heartbreak conveyed straight-to-camera by the man himself.

At Miller’s lowest point, the film shifts focus to the inland township of Cowra where we meet the Southwell family and their vibrant little girl, Kate. A mixed heritage has made her the target of bullies and the teenager is soon sliding into her own alcohol haze and misguided life path. To save their daughter, her parents send her to family in Coffs Harbour, the largest regional centre nearest to Sawtell.

After a fateful meet-cute (Lawrence utilises his ‘stars’ to recreate sweet moments from their blossoming romance), the extraordinary details of their journey are pieced together with slick filmmaking clarity. The storytelling brio and passion for surfing culture that Lawrence oversaw as producer on the doco hits Bra Boys (2007) and First Love (2010) are keenly evident in You and Me, nowhere more so than in sequences featuring world champion Mick Fanning, whose mateship with Barney is conveyed in some of the film’s most endearing moments.

One cannot begrudge the production for laying on the inspirational music and sweeping coastline photography a little thick at times; at it's core, it is the true story of a deeply enriching, achingly sentimental journey. That it also serves to highlight the endeavours of such institutions as Project Walk, Wings for Life World Run and Aussie Ken Ware’s neurophysics functional performance initiative is to the film’s credit. The ‘advocacy documentary’ has become an overworked genre in recent years but when skilled filmmakers keep the focus on the human struggle, any inherent call-to-action is earned, even welcome.

The mending of Barney and Kate’s lives and the shared spirit they embody pulses through You and Me. As one of the family friends predicts early in the story, the feel-good crescendo to which the film truthfully soars will not leave a dry eye in the house.

FATHERS AND DAUGHTERS

Stars: Russell Crowe, Amanda Seyfried, Kylie Rogers, Aaron Paul, Diane Kruger, Bruce Greenwood, Jane Fonda, Quvenzhane Wallis, Octavia Spencer and Janet McTeer.
Writer: Brad Desch.
Director: Gabriele Muccino

Screening at the 2016 Young at Heart Film Festival.

Rating: 3/5

Despite a title that implies a broad ‘everyman’ perspective, Fathers and Daughters offers little resembling the ‘real world’. From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author prone to public seizures to the social worker sex addict reconnecting to the world through the mute orphan, Gabrielle Muccino’s overripe melodrama positively overflows with a giddy commitment to its own ‘only in the movies’ excess. Audiences who well-up at the first sound of a single violin note will find enough to moisten a hankie or two in this lushly packaged, star-heavy soap opera; cynics, stop reading now.

Thematically tackling in sweeping brushstrokes the connect between childhood trauma and adult dysfunction, Muccino ultimately relies very heavily on editor Alex Rodriguez (Y Tu Mamá También, 2001; Children of Men, 2006), whose skill is tested to the limit in his handling of first time scribe Brad Desch’s back-and-forth narrative timeline. In 1989, a car crash leaves upwardly mobile writer Jake Davis (Russell Crowe) a widow and his cutie-pie daughter Katie (Kylie Rogers) without a mom; when mental health issues dictate Jake needs time in a sanitarium, Katie is put in the care of Aunt Elizabeth (Diane Kruger, gnawing on the set mercilessly) and Uncle William (Bruce Greenwood). When Jake’s latest book bombs despite the best efforts of lit-agent friend Teddy (Jane Fonda), Bill and Liz make their move on the tyke, seeking full time custody.

As all this high drama unfolds in the distant past, we become entangled in the present-day life of adult Katie (Amanda Seyfried), now a caseworker at an inner-city clinic. One minute, a hollow commitment-phobe who partakes in binge-boozing and public bathroom sex to feel any kind of connection, the next an empathetic human connection for recently orphaned Lucy (Quvenzhane Wallis), Seyfried’s doe-eyed performance runs the gamut from passion-free blankness to public histrionics. By her side in her exploration of daddy issues is writer Cameron (Aaron Paul), who brings his own obsession with Jake’s writing.

Gabrielle Muccino’s embrace of shamelessly saccharine sentimentality has found favour with international audiences previously. After scoring big beyond his homeland with the arthouse hit Remember Me, My Love (2003), Hollywood beckoned; he obliged, delivering the Will Smith double The Pursuit of Happyness (2006) and Seven Pounds (2008). Returning to grand family drama after the dire rom-com Playing For Keeps (2012), the Italian stages Jake and Katie’s journey with an unyielding commitment to gorgeousness; in line with the florid dramatics on show are DOP Shane Hurlbut’s rich visuals, production designer Daniel Clancy’s lavish sets and composer Paolo Buonvino orchestral score. When the time-hopping plot starts to strain, there is always something cinematically compelling in Fathers and Daughters.

However, Muccino’s greatest assets prove to be more personal, in the form of leading man Russell Crowe and co-star, Kylie Rogers (a seasoned pro despite her tender years after roles in Space Station 76 and the current release, Miracles From Heaven). The pair’s genuine warmth and chemistry is energising, even when the film is running off the rails in every other regard. In addition to conveying the horrible physical stresses of a grand-mal seizure on several occasions, Crowe gives a performance that invests Jake with a grounded dignity; the effortless nature of his scenes with a quivery-lipped Rogers recall the father/child dynamic between Dustin Hoffman and Justin Henry in Kramer vs Kramer (yet, in all fairness, comparisons with that or any Best Picture winner must end there).

10 CLOVERFIELD LANE

Stars: Mary Elizabeth Winstead, John Goodman, John Gallagher Jr and Suzanne Cryer.
Writers: Josh Campbell, Matthew Stuecken and Damien Chazelle.
Director: Dan Trachtenberg.

Rating: 4.5/5

Twisting a tightly wound, detail-rich narrative into a superbly crafted, white-knuckle chamber piece, 10 Cloverfield Lane defies all genre expectations, including the generalisation that long overdue 'sequels' are inherently inferior to their source material.

Invoking both Hitchcock’s grasp of psychological drama and Spielberg’s genre storytelling precision, producer JJ Abrams and first-time director Dan Trachtenberg don’t so much forge a followup to but rather adopt as a reference point the 2008 found-footage monster movie Cloverfield. But by whatever measure, 10 Cloverfield Lane proves an entirely different and vastly superior vision; if Cloverfield was a product of its time, employing first person shaky-cam when it still felt fresh, Trachtenberg’s taut, slow-burn thriller is a glorious throwback to the days of 'serious' genre cinema.

The first of many decisions that Abrams’ production outfit Bad Robot gets right is the casting of Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Michelle, a young woman fleeing a failing engagement (the fiancé, revealed only via phone messages, is voiced by Bradley Cooper). Following an expertly-staged car crash, Michelle awakens in a bare concrete room, manacled and disoriented; Winstead conveys both the terror of this development while also exhibiting the survival instinct cunning that serves her so well as the plot progresses. After false starts in troubled productions (The Thing; Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter; A Good Day to Die Hard) and great work in little-seen pics (Death Proof; Smashed; Alex of Venice), the wait is over for patient fans that have known her A-list status was inevitable.

The room is part of an extensive bunker constructed by doomsday enthusiast Howard, a troubling, complex personality who purports to have rescued Michelle, both from her wrecked vehicle and some kind of extinction-level event that has made life above-ground impossible. As Howard, the great John Goodman creates one of the most chilling screen personalities in recent memory; having spent the last decade energising support parts in Argo, The Artist, Flight and Inside Llewellyn Davis, the actor gets to dominate a film with subtle, multi-tiered character work. Rounding out the claustrophobic dynamic is the terrific John Gallagher Jr as decent good ol’ boy Emmet, his fully fleshed-out performance elevating what could have been a mere ‘plot device’.

The confines of the underground world are slightly more elaborate than the four-wall environs in Lenny Abrahamson’s Oscar-winner Room, yet the challenge to give the space a dramatic vastness is conquered with a similar mastery of craft. Cinematographer Jeff Cutter and production designer Ramsey Avery work wonders with space, maximising the dramatic and artistic potential of every bare wall, dark corner or glimpse of sunlight. Equally evocative is the film’s rich soundscape, including the pitch-perfect score by Bear McReary. By the time Trachtenberg’s remarkably assured direction draws a clear line between the sequel and its predecessor, all contributors have ensured audience involvement is peaking.

Many purists have refused to bestow the ‘new Spielberg’ tag onto J.J. Abrams, no matter how determined the multi-hyphenate is to wear the moniker. The mini-mogul cites ‘classic Spielberg’ - Jaws, Close Encounters of The Third Kind, Raiders of The Lost Ark, ET The Extra-terrestrial – as the defining creative influence on his career. But for too many, Abrams has mirrored the style yet failed to grasped the essence of Spielberg’s oeuvre; it is the reason a lot of people liked Super 8, his 2011 ode to Spielberg-ian wonder, but no one really loves it.

With 10 Cloverfield Lane, Abrams finally graduates from Spielberg wannabe to Spielberg protégé; it is an evocative reworking of B-movie beats that could have emerged from the darker-hued period that included A.I., War of The Worlds and Minority Report. Abrams and his team have delivered a thrilling tale of human endurance within the science-fiction milieu that would not be out of place amongst the legendary director’s filmography.

THE CRITIC'S CAPSULE: MARDI GRAS FILM FESTIVAL 2016

As this year’s edition of the Mardi Gras Film Festival wraps its inner city run and prepares for regional screenings, one key programme strategy became clear. In the words of festival director Paul Struthers, “It’s important to choose films that cater for all aspects of the LGBTQI story, but also…cater for all cinema fans as well.” The vast range of narratives and themes that emerged over the 14 day celebration of diversity and inclusivity all shared a common human experience, contextualised by gay community issues. SCREEN-SPACE looks at five films from the 2016 festival line-up that challenged, engaged and entertained audiences…

A GAY GIRL IN DAMASCUS: THE AMINA PROFILE (Dir: Sophie Deraspe / US; 84 mins. Pictured, above)
Of all the repressed voices heard across the globe in the wake of the Arab Spring uprising, few found the immense audience that Syrian lesbian Amina Arraf did via her blog site, “A Gay Girl in Damascus.’ The deeply personal, regime defying content became cause celebre for the gay activist community, human rights advocates and global media giants. But when the site was revealed to be an elaborate fake, no one was as shattered as Canadian Sandra Bagaria, who had become intimate with the ‘Amina’ online presence. From its bare-skin opening shots and text-message grabs that allude to the frank honesty that lays ahead, Sophie Deraspe’s elegant, angry work is part doomed relationship saga, part searing insight into the identity manipulation inherent to the faceless impersonality of the www. A warm and empathic presence, Bagaria bravely steps before the cameras to face the man who perpetrated the hoax and broke her heart. “Am I a sociopath? A schizophrenic?” he poses. Deraspe’s film gives you a wealth of insight then lets you decide.
Rating: 4/5

BARE (Dir: Natalie Leite / US; 88 mins)
The restless small-town girl with a vague but compulsive yearning for more from love and life is a well-trodden path (notably, Donna Deitch’s 1985 arthouse hit, Desert Hearts). Yet writer/director Natalie Leite and her luminous leading lady Dianna Agron explore a fresh, captivating perspective in Bare, a bittersweet, low-key drama of a young woman grasping at any new life experience with an often reckless regard for the consequences. Graduating from the perky camp of TV’s Glee, Agron compels as Sarah, the Nevada dreamer coping with family loss and directionless friends. When drifter Pepper (Paz de la Huerta, enigmatic as ever) befriends Sarah’s kindred lost spirit, an enriching if dangerous new life of drugs, homosexual experimentation and strip-club melodrama takes hold. Leite’s direction is artful and insightful, her dialogue sparse and real; her debut feature signifies she is a talent to watch. The project’s greatest asset is Agron, the next-big-thing starlet exhibiting qualities that suggest a Michelle Williams and/or Sharon Stone trajectory.
Rating: 4/5

GAME FACE (Dir: Michiel Thomas / US; 95 mins)
Embracing one’s own sexuality or transgender nature can be challenging enough, but those hurdles prove nearly insurmountable when they emerge within the rigidly defined traditions of elite sport. The moving and even-handed doco Game Face presents two athletes struggling with their identities while striving to compete in their chosen fields: Fallon Fox is a transgender MMA fighter, while Terrence Clemens is a basketball protégé and gay African-American. Director Michiel Thomas, making his feature documentary debut, gamely balances ‘big picture’ issues (corporate backlash; community acceptance; team mate and competitor tolerance) with the personal cost to his protagonists; the resulting account of the acceptance of diversity in the sporting community, not too surprisingly, plays out as a microcosm of society at large. Both Fox and Clemens are not immediately easy to warm to (a result of a lifetime spent guarding their true selves, perhaps), but Thomas’ embedded camerawork and the hope his subjects inspire ultimately reveal their true nature, making for rousing factual filmmaking.
Rating: 3.5/5

NAZ & MAALIK (Dir: Jay Dockendorf / US; 86 mins)
Two gay teenage African-American Muslims struggle with their faith, feelings and New York’s post 9-11 prejudices in Jay Dockendorf’s debut feature. When not shilling perfume vials and lottery tickets to passersby, the chilled Maalik (Curtis Cook Jr) and the more orthodox, Kufi-adorned Naz (Kerwin Johnson Jr) meander from corner to corner, acutely aware of the familial and societal consequences should their affection for each other be revealed. The passionate highs and tension-filled lows of their dynamic provide the essence of Dockendorf’s self-penned narrative, the spirit of Spike Lee’s NYC oeuvre in every frame. Other machinations utilised to structure a traditional three-acts (Anne Grier’s FBI agent’s surveillance of the pair; misbegotten plans to halal-kill a chicken) provide a change of tempo but little dramatic value. As the title suggests, the film is at its best when the focus is the existential struggles of the two leads. Bolstering the pic’s mood are the rich rhythms of Adam Gunther’s pulsating soundtrack.
Rating: 3.5/5

4^TH MAN OUT (Dir: Andrew Nackman / US; 86 mins)
Smalltown USA is recoloured red-white-&-pink in 4^th Man Out, a blokey coming-out comedy that proves to be both slyly insightful and broadly funny in equal measure. Buds since junior high, a quartet of mid twenty-somethings are confronted with an unexpected development when one of their own opens up about his homosexuality. As gay dude Adam, Evan Todd is likable and sweet; the real personalities in Andrew Nackman’s dramedy are his bros, led by Parker Young as Chris, the bestie who struggles with Adam’s secret and how it might redefine their dynamic. Social and religious prejudice are explored in a succinct comedic manner that doesn’t overstate the issues; ‘young guy’ problems, like sex and partying and parental hassles, are dealt with in a mirthful and perceptive mix of hetero/homo attitudes. Although a bit ‘sitcom-y’ at times, Aaron Dancik’s loose and free-spirited script never looses sight of its feel-good intentions and nails key moments with disarming charm. Despite appearing to be determinedly non-confrontational in its soft-hearted approach, the easy warmth of 4^th Man Out ultimately challenges short-sighted bias with a potent effectiveness.
Rating: 4/5

Read our review of festival highlight CHEMSEX here.

The Mardi Gras Film Festival will screen a selection of its 2016 lineup at Parramatta's Riverside Theatre and and the Carrington Hotel in The Blue Mountains in the weeks ahead. Ticketing and venue information can be found at the official website. 

RISEN

Stars: Joseph Fiennes, Peter Firth, Tom Felton, Cliff Curtis, Maria Botto, Luis Callejo, Antonio Gil, Stephen Hagan, Stewart Scudamore and Joe Manjon.
Writers: Kevin Reynolds and Paul Aiello.
Director: Kevin Reynolds.

Rating: 3/5

For those already imbued with the spirit, Risen will have you praising the heavens…or, at the very least, Sony Pictures, who have jumped on the profitable faith-based film resurgence via their new worldwide acquisitions division, Life Affirm. For secular types, director Kevin Reynolds’s modestly mounted take on the mythology of Easter will play as two distinct halves; an old-Hollywood ‘Roman scandal’ spin on the threat of the prophet to the Empire’s might, that morphs into a dramatically inert ‘greatest hits’ package of the newly reborn Saviour’s miracles.

The central figure is Roman tribune Clavius, a career soldier introduced slaying anti-Roman zealots with a soulless indifference to life. Joseph Fiennes, his eyebrow ridge and leathery visage recalling a young Roy Scheider, delivers a performance that spans ‘brooding intensity’ and ‘distracted nonchalance’; it is one of the lesser Fiennes' better roles, though entirely in line with the production’s mid-level ambitions.

Clavius’ God-of-choice is Mars, so when called upon by Pontius Pilate (a typically theatrical Peter Firth) to see off the latest would-be messiah down in the crucifixion district, he begrudgingly saddles up and heads for the ceremony, his green 2IC Lucius (Tom Felton) by his side. Upon arrival a passionate crowd of followers, wailing for their slain oracle, greets him; Clavius’ interaction with the disciples and encounter with the martyred prophet, Yeshua of Nazareth, are some of the film’s most affecting scenes (though, thankfully, come up well short of the physical horrors depicted in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of The Christ).

Pilate, pressured by Rome to rid the landscape of dissenting voices before a Jerusalem uprising gathers strength, entrusts Clavius with the cave burial of Yeshua. The gravesite entrance is sealed with a boulder wrapped in rope and wax (!) and left in the care of two surly guards (whose broad Brit accents and constant whining veer dangerously close to Monty Python territory). When the tomb is disturbed and Yeshua’s body vanishes, the pressure is on Clavius to hunt down the corpse and bring to justice those responsible. A real-world explanation for the image on The Shroud of Turin represents a key moment of objectivity and brings a degree of balance, at least to this passage of the plot.

Reynolds handles the ‘manhunt’ narrative with a pro’s touch, the journeyman director hoping for his own resurrection after a wilderness period following notorious debacles (Rapa Nui; Waterworld) and box office duds (Tristan & Isolde; Red Dawn). The first half of Risen benefits immeasurably under the experienced filmmaker’s assured touch, the lean drama clipping along at an engaging pace. 

But Reynolds’s best efforts can’t provide Risen with much forward momentum after the apparent resurrection of Yeshua. Clavius becomes fixated upon the reborn man, his hardened non-believer status melting away as he witnesses miracles for which Reynolds and neophyte co-scripter Paul Aiello provide no reasonable context or explanation; they just happen, sending Yeshua’s unquestioning, doe-eyed disciples (both on-screen and, one assumes, amongst the target audience) into joyous rapture.

To borrow a line from comedian Greg Proops’ podcast, these scenes constitute the boring, preachy part; the Roman soldier’s transformation from heathen killing machine to breathy advocate of Yeshua’s journey may be the film’s reason for being, but it never rings true. Events told of in Sunday schools the world over are well staged (the bounty of fish provided for his starving followers; the laying of healing hands upon a leper), but they serve no dramatic purpose and exist only to bolster the ‘message’.

Of particular interest is the casting as Yeshua of Cliff Curtis, a respected character actor after a series of ethnically diverse portrayals (African American in Bringing Out the Dead; Iraqi in Three Kings; Latino in Training Day; Colombian in Blow; Indian in A Thousand Words; his native Maori in Whale Rider and breakthrough film, Once Were Warriors). Recent theorising by scholars opines that the alleged time and place in which the scriptures took place suggest Yeshua was likely of ‘middle Eastern’ appearance. Given that the film’s demographic resides in the middle-American bible belt, the portrayal of Christ as anything other than the blonde, bearded archetype favoured for centuries in western art and literature (as will be seen when Ewan McGregor’s take on Jesus in The Last Days in The Desert emerges late in 2016) must be considered risky. Curtis' dark-skinned incarnation represents a welcome gamble-of-sorts in an otherwise conventional, if mostly effective, biblical retelling.