Movie Review: The Nest (2020)

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The money is coming, Rory O'Hara (Jude Law) promises. All he needs is ten more days or one more deal, whichever comes first. 

A British commodities broker who, within minutes, we can tell has built his own unique, possibly transparent kingdom on his ability to bullshit, at the start of “Martha Marcy May Marlene” writer-director Sean Durkin's new film “The Nest," Rory uproots his blended family in the states and brings them all back to England. 

Living in the early 1980s but still nursing a hangover from what Tom Wolfe dubbed the "Me Decade," Rory is, we ascertain, an avid acquirer of stuff – perhaps more for what it says about him to have said stuff than the actual stuff itself. This includes his beloved wife Allison (Carrie Coon), a blonde American beauty whose hair color and nationality he proudly announces to others as if he purchased both at a shop like the real estate and designer goods he covets. When Rory tells Allison that he can't wait to show her off, in his case, we know he means it.

Happily back on his native soil, Rory rents a massive centuries-old country estate in Surrey that's as big and empty as the promises he will soon either have to make good on or find his loved ones coming after him to collect. Although he'll be commuting to London each day to turn numbers into dollars and dollars into pounds, he plans to build a stable on the property for his equestrian wife. 

Eager to return to boarding horses and giving riding lessons to others, Allison has concrete, realistic plans that she's excited to get off the ground, if only so that she can run as free as the horses that symbolize her American independence, since, as her husband has told her, he doesn't like the idea of her working for anyone else. 

The wife on his arm who's now merely as decorative as the fur coat he surprises her with after the move, independence is something that Allison's afraid she's left behind in the states. Even before her cherished horse arrives skittish in this foreign land, we see the resignation in her eyes when she sizes up her new home. In fact, it's front and center on Allison's face when, forgetting one of the lies he's told to prop himself up as the returning king who's conquered America, Rory's old mentor/new boss gives an extemporaneous speech that directly contradicts the reason he's given Allison for the family's fourth move in ten years.

A quiet study of behavior and the co-dependent roles we play in our relationships with others whose lies we either choose to confront or support out of love and fear at upsetting the status quo, even though it's set in the 1980s, "The Nest" plays like an Elizabeth Taylor-Richard Burton marital drama for the twenty-first century. 

More implosive than explosive, at least until the resentment that's been pushed down below the surface as far back as a decade ago rises up to the top, the film works as well as it does because of the sheer conviction of co-leads Coon and Law. A revelation, particularly for Carrie Coon who, as divine as she is with paragraphs of dialogue, can say so much with just one exhausted look, “The Nest” is also further proof that no one plays a handsome, two-faced liar quite like Jude Law, who's cornered the market on the kind of gorgeous, egotistical men your mother warned you about since 1999's “The Talented Mr. Ripley.” 

Cleverly using source music to build an overall mood, the way that hazily romantic '80s New Wave songs waft into the room on a boom box in their teenage daughter's bedroom or blast over speakers at a nightclub helps give these otherwise largely well-behaved and restrained individuals their inner scream. 

In "The Nest," Durkin's characters are overwhelmed by design, utterly trapped by the front that they put on for others – the one that WASPs and yuppies in the Reagan and Bush years turned into a chilly art form of faux success. And although we don't quite know precisely what year this is all taking place, the fact that the stock market crash of '87 is coming seems to fill the film with as much impending dread as the lyrics to a song by The Smiths or The Psychedelic Furs. 

An external crash that will completely alter the world, although it's always out there somewhere off in the distance, the immediate crash that Durkin's impressive film focuses on most is the one in Rory and Allison's lives where so much value has been placed on things that have none compared to the living things that should and do. But that's the thing about a crash. If, for years, you've insulated yourself with excess, you don't know it's coming until you're hit. Only then, however, the first person you need to confront isn't the one you've crashed into, it's yourself. 

Text ©2020, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. https://www.filmintuition.com  Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  Also, as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases made off my site through ad links. FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy or screener link of this title to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique. Cookies Notice: This site incorporates tools (including advertiser partners and widgets) that use cookies and may collect some personal information to display ads tailored to you etc. Please be advised that neither Film Intuition nor its site owner has any access to this data beyond general site statistics (geographical region etc.) as your privacy is our main concern.

Movie Review: A Call to Spy (2019)

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Tasked with recruiting female agents for Winston Churchill's secret army – the SOE or Special Operations Executive – during World War II, Vera Atkins (Stana Katic) is told to seek out women who'd lived in France, know the language inside and out, and are passionate about stopping Hitler. The last piece of criteria? “Make sure they're pretty,” she's advised.

Overwhelmed in the fight against the Nazis, both on the overt military front and the covert one where at least half of all spies that SOE leader Maurice Buckmaster (Linus Roache) sends out as part of Britain's “new ministry of ungentlemanly warfare” are caught and killed, it seems that attractive and accomplished women are the country's last resort. Deemed far less conspicuous to sexist Nazis who wouldn't think twice about a “French” beauty walking down the cobblestone streets of Paris, Vera Atkins casts her net out wide to locate two ladies who are even more likely to go undetected than your typical Frenchwoman.

An educated, intelligent American with movie star good looks, Virginia Hall (Sarah Megan Thomas) had dreams of becoming a diplomat. But after a hunting accident left her with gangrene and a leg amputated below the knee, she finds herself denied for the position just as Vera tracks her down. Finding another fascinating recruit in the fastest wireless operator they have on their side – the pacifist, half-American, half-Indian princess Noor Inayat Khan (Radhika Apte) – Vera tells the two that she would like them to try out for “a club unlike any other.”

Drawing upon actual files regarding the women's work as spies from SOE, OSS, and CIA records, actress, producer, and screenwriter Sarah Megan Thomas (who plays Virginia Hall) does an admirable job of bringing their heroism to life. Fortified by terrific performances across the board, unfortunately, once Noor (played by the film's scene-stealer Apte) lands in France, she isn't given nearly enough of an arc to pay off on just how much “Spy” endeared her to us in the first half of the movie. Worthy of an elegant John Le Carre style miniseries to track the true scope of their work as spies since the film feels rushed and the last act suffers in its attempt to resolve everything at once, “A Call to Spy” is eye-opening all the same. 

A solid – if workmanlike – effort, that perhaps feels more like a made-for-PBS movie than first-time solo filmmaker Lydia Dean Pilcher was hoping it would, “A Call to Spy” cleverly uses the greater Philadelphia area to double for a bulk of the UK and France set period film, as well as Budapest. Shot by Miles Goodall and “Midway” cinematographer Robby Baumgartner and nicely scored by Lillie Rebecca McDonough, it's a handsomely crafted but ultimately average production. 

Nonetheless, a rousing ode to resistance in the face of tyranny that plays especially well in this era of rising authoritarianism in the United States, even though the film doesn't make enough of an impression to stay with you very long after you've seen it, what does remain is the film's message. Thus, while Thomas and Pilcher struggle to cram everything they wanted to convey into its 123 running time, the movie works as an earnest tribute to these unsung, amazingly heroic, and yes, beautiful Baker Street Irregular female spies, that I for one, am now eager to learn much more about.

Text ©2020, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. https://www.filmintuition.com  Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  Also, as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases made off my site through ad links. FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy or screener link of this title to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique. Cookies Notice: This site incorporates tools (including advertiser partners and widgets) that use cookies and may collect some personal information to display ads tailored to you etc. Please be advised that neither Film Intuition nor its site owner has any access to this data beyond general site statistics (geographical region etc.) as your privacy is our main concern.

Blu-ray Review: Quartet (1981)

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When we hear the phrase "Merchant Ivory Productions," most of us picture handsomely photographed period costume dramas featuring ensemble casts of award-winning British actors. One thing we don't think of, however, is sex. But as director James Ivory explains in a fascinating interview included on the Blu-ray release of the newly restored 1981 feature film Quartet, adultery is a recurring obsession of Merchant Ivory's catalog, showing up as a major theme in at least seven different movies . . . and Quartet is no exception.

Embracing not only adultery but polyamory in the film's overt depiction of the seesaw like power dynamics that play out in a ménage à trois at the heart of its storyline, Quartet, based upon Jean Rhys' autobiographical novel, is set during the Golden Age of Paris in 1927.

With her Polish art dealer husband Stephan (Anthony Higgins) arrested for something that might relate as much to stolen artwork as to his tendency to talk about the Bolshevik Revolution — which made Parisian authorities nervous — the native "West Indian" Marya (played by Isabelle Adjani) is left penniless for a year, and with very few resources she can use to fend for herself.

"A decorative little person" used to being the subject of speculation wherever she goes, Marya makes the acquaintance of the wealthy, well-liked H.J. Heidler (Alan Bates) and his painter wife Lois (Maggie Smith) who offer Marya a place to stay in their home. A particular habit of theirs, unbeknownst to Marya when she accepts, it seems as though H.J. has an extensive history of seducing the young women or "crushed petals" whom he lets stay in his spare room.

Letting him indulge himself and sow his wild sexual oats, out of fear that otherwise the bored man might leave her, Lois puts on a good front to the world at the cafes and bars that she and her husband frequent with the young woman. In private, however, the passive aggressive artist sublimates her rage by playing mind games with Marya. And though the trio evolves into a quartet after Stephan's release, which —  coupled with feelings of love —  makes the dynamic even more complex, James Ivoy's film suffers by making the "open" relationship so closed off that the audience is never able to penetrate it.

Distant and icy, the film might take place during a hedonistic time where people sought to find themselves by ironically losing themselves in drugs, drink, or sex, but the unmistakably beautiful Quartet —shot by gifted cinematographer Pierre Lhomme — feels like a virtual museum piece, roped off and hung up in a temperature controlled room on a wall behind a thick pane of glass.

Bravely accepting what Ivory acknowledges is the undesirable role (of the wife who looks the other way but speaks her mind) that many actresses turned down, Maggie Smith is one of the film's saving graces, alongside Isabelle Adjani, who won the award for Best Actress for this film as well as Possession at the 1981 Cannes Film Festival where it premiered.

Championed by its strong performances that keep you watching when you might otherwise want to tune it out, Quartet is worth a look for Merchant Ivory completists but there's a good reason why Ruth Prawer Jhabvala knew instinctively that she didn't want to adapt the Rhys novel she had been reading when Ivory suggested the film.

Trying to make the characters much more dramatic than they were —  just drinking and sitting around — on the page, Prawer Jhabvala did her best to elevate what she felt was rather "downbeat" material. But even with the film's intriguing motif of mirrors, which beg the characters to take a real, hard look at themselves, in the words of 1920s Paris contemporary Gertrude Stein, "there is no there there."

A below average Merchant Ivory movie, although it resembles any one of their other productions on the surface, regrettably, just like Lois fears that her husband might get bored and leave, you're probably better off if you leave the dull Quartet behind. Then, after grabbing one of their other films that you prefer instead (like The Remains of the Day), you can pay homage to the production team's favorite theme, and — leaving Quartet aside to play something else  — go ahead and cheat.

Text ©2019, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. https://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  Also, as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases made off my site through ad links. FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy or screener link of this title in order to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique. Cookies Notice: This site incorporates tools (including advertiser partners and widgets) that use cookies and may collect some personal information in order to display ads tailored to you etc. Please be advised that neither Film Intuition nor its site owner has any access to this data beyond general site statistics (geographical region etc.) as your privacy is our main concern.

Blu-ray Review: The Aspern Papers (2018)

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With three generations of Redgraves linked to three productions of The Aspern Papers, by this point you could say that bringing the gothically romantic Henry James tale to life is officially a Redgrave thing.

Originally published in 1888 and in three parts no less, the novella — inspired by the letters that the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley penned for his wife Mary Shelley's step-sister, Claire Clairmont, which Claire kept until her death — was first brought to the stage by Michael Redgrave in 1959.

Later revived in 1984 in an award-winning production starring Michael's daughter Vanessa Redgrave (opposite Christopher Reeve who acted alongside her in a big-screen Merchant Ivory version of Henry James's The Bostonians also in ‘84), now more than thirty years later, Redgrave gets the chance to bring Papers to life once again.

Changing with the times by taking on a new role in this effort from first time feature filmmaker Julien Landais, which, produced by James Ivory is based on a French scenic adaptation by Jean Pavans, in 2018’s The Aspern Papers Vanessa Redgrave passes the torch to daughter Joely Richardson who slides into her old part.

A sudsy drama about an obsessive American editor, the film stars Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Morton Vint who — using whatever guise and lies are necessary — travels to Venice to track down the letters of his literary idol Jeffrey Aspern.

Posing as a man on holiday, he rents a room from Redgrave's Clairmont inspired Juliana Bordereau and sets out to win over the woman's sheltered, spinster niece Miss Tina (Richardson).

While ordinarily Rhys Meyers can play the role of a seducer in his sleep and make you believe it, he's visibly uncomfortable in Aspern, turning in a performance that's half Lestat from Interview With the Vampire and half Elvis Presley, whom he portrayed to well-deserved acclaim in a 2005 television miniseries. And although yes, I'm aware that he also played Dracula recently on the small screen perhaps, as with Aspern, the less said about that the better.

As disinterested as it is overly strong, Aspern's acting is a mess to say the least and indicative of a much bigger problem, which is the film itself. For in his uncertainty throughout, Rhys Meyers is far from alone.

All three of the film's performances feel like they belong in three entirely different James adaptations. While Redgrave easily dominates as a cross between Gloria Swanson's Norma Desmond and Film Noir era Joan Crawford, Richardson tiptoes quietly around the others, playing her part as though she'd just stepped onstage in The Glass Menagerie.

Filled with clunky, heavy-handed narration and odd moments of Eyes Wide Shut homage that belong in a fragrance ad (which makes sense considering the director's background helming fashion shorts, commercials, and music videos), although the Venetian backdrop is stunning and thespians will relish the opportunity to see the Redgrave family command a scene, this is easily the worst Henry James adaptation I have ever seen.

Unsure just what exactly it is that he wants to say, Landais seems much more interested in using the characters — namely Vint — as a jumping off point to explore his own ideas and identity.

And although it's apparent that Landais is a visual thinker with some kind of story to tell, it's easy to deduce within the first few monologues by the Redgraves who know it best that The Aspern Papers isn't it.


Text ©2019, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy or screener link of this title in order to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique. Cookies Notice: This site incorporates tools (including advertiser partners and widgets) that use cookies and may collect some personal information in order to display ads tailored to you etc. Please be advised that neither Film Intuition nor its site owner has any access to this data beyond general site statistics (geographical region etc.) as your privacy is our main concern.

Movie Review: The Chaperone (2018)

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Following up her effervescent turn as an unfailingly optimistic waitress in a dead-end job in Support the Girls with a high profile turn as cinema's original It Girl, Louise Brooks in The Chaperone, actress Haley Lu Richardson shines so brightly she nearly glows opposite Elizabeth McGovern in this delightful, feminist adaptation of Laura Moriarty's bestselling novel.

A buoyant ensemble picture, reminiscent of her experience with the great Regina Hall in Girls, once again, Richardson's innate warmth and generosity of spirit help springboard The Chaperone's McGovern from start to finish thanks to their terrific chemistry. And although it's Richardson who drives a majority of The Chaperone's narrative forward when fifteen-year-old Wichita native Louise Brooks is invited to New York for the summer to join the prestigious Denishawn dancers, it's her fictional chaperone Norma Carlisle’s story all the way.

To help bring the lovable Norma to life, veteran star and first time producer Elizabeth McGovern — who purchased the rights to Moriarty’s novel after initially being hired to perform it as an audiobook — teamed up with her Downton Abbey colleagues, screenwriter Julian Fellowes and director Michael Engler for a 1920s period picture set on this side of the pond.

Reeling from a betrayal in her twenty-five year marriage to her husband played by Campbell Scott — which Fellowes brilliantly teases out in a series of flashbacks cut into the film by editor Sofía Subercaseaux throughout the first three acts of its running time — Norma impulsively volunteers to chaperone Louise for the summer after seeing her dance.

Leaving her grown, supportive sons and hesitant husband behind for what we discover is the city of her birth, it's only after the flirtatious Louise and cautious housewife settle into New York that we deduce that Norma has another reason she wanted to head back east as she tries to solve a mystery that's haunted her for years.

Having been married at roughly Louise's age, while admittedly McGovern is a tad too old for the role since simple movie math tells us that Norma is supposed to be forty-one years old (in an error that could've been easily fixed in the script), she's marvelous as a woman whose own naivete with men, romance, and sexuality get put to the test over one memorable summer.

Yet still, much as the silent film star turned writer Louise Brooks did in her real life, it's scene-stealing Richardson's Louise who holds us most in thrall. Whether she's dancing up a storm or rationalizing her right to free ice cream, Richardson matches the highs and lows of a youthful Louise whose emotions change on a dime, subtly trading the role of mentor and mentee with Norma throughout.

A Masterpiece Films production, although at times, The Chaperone feels like an American set companion piece to the smash PBS series Downton Abbey or at the very least something to tide us over before the eponymous big screen feature will be released this fall — once again directed by Engel, written by Fellowes, and starting McGovern — it's a downright entertaining, feminist, refreshing morsel all the same.

Sure to attract fans of not only Abbey but also I Capture the Castle and Chocolat, while, most likely due to its rushed twenty-one day production schedule and lack of supporting character development, The Chaperone doesn't work quite as well as those films, its message of friendship and female empowerment make it particularly welcome in today's climate, as yet another reminder to Support the Girls indeed.

Text ©2019, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy or screener link of this title in order to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique. Cookies Notice: This site incorporates tools (including advertiser partners and widgets) that use cookies and may collect some personal information in order to display ads tailored to you etc. Please be advised that neither Film Intuition nor its site owner has any access to this data beyond general site statistics (geographical region etc.) as your privacy is our main concern.

Film Movement Movie Review: The Sower (2017)

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After a man claims he's so hungry that he feels like he hasn't eaten in three days, Violette (Pauline Burlet) waits a mere moment to respond.

"It's the altitude," she tells him and the unexpected response just hangs in the air, as if to imply that that's the reason why the occupants of the small French farming community in director Marine Francen's The Sower are so ravenous.

Discovering in a startling opening sequence that time and circumstance has also played an overwhelming role, with the men of the village rounded up and arrested after Napoleon dissolves the republic in December of 1851, the women and children are left behind to fend for themselves.

Watching as some of Violette's devastated neighbors retreat to their beds and her best friend burns her wedding dress in mourning for the event she fears will never come, gradually with time, the women come together in order to carry on, tending to the land in a way that gives them both purpose and a place to work out their pain.

Intriguingly, although they still miss men in a variety of ways from their help with the harvest to unbridled lust, the men's absence inspires the now more independently minded younger women to talk openly about sex and — perhaps heady from the altitude — grow increasingly amorous in the process. Yearning to not only make love but get pregnant and start a family, they decide to make a pact.

Viewing themselves as separate from the older women with children to raise and comfort, The Sower's younger set vows that if a man ever crosses their path and wants one of the women, he would get the rest as well in the hopes of bringing more babies into the world.

Not bothering to consider practical issues including the man or woman's feelings about all this or what would happen if the men of the village ever came back, knowing that their "daughters are talking nonsense," the older women stay quiet and let them have their fantasy regardless.

Their ardent desire somewhat abated by the fairy tale they've concocted, things go back to normal for the women until one day when — backlit by the colors of an altitude-enhanced clear blue sky — a handsome blacksmith (Alban Lenoir) wanders into the village and is instantly drawn to the virginal Violette.

The only literate female in the community at the time, although their relationship begins tentatively as she opens a home to the visitor, works with him in the fields, and brings him dinner every night, once the two bond over their love of literature, their relationship blossoms into a tender romance.

Based upon Violette Ailhaud's opus L'homme semence or The Seed Man which was written in 1919 and published in 2006, fittingly, given its themes, the thirty-eight page story that gave birth to The Sower was created explicitly for and willed to the author’s future female descendants.

Treating the source material less like a source of erotic titillation and more as a feminist minded work written ahead of its time, director Marine Francen (along with her co-writers Jacqueline Surchat and Jacques Fieschi) opt for a naturally romantic yet undeniably dramatic approach as Violette is pressured to hold up her end of the women's sexual bargain.

With minimal artificial light evident in its contrast between days spent in blindingly bright fields and the film's intimate, dusky nights, the gorgeously rendered visuals — reminiscent of paintings from the Napoleonic era — are brought exquisitely to life by cinematographer Alain Duplantier.

On the surface, a straightforward tale simply told, given the complexity of its female-centric themes and sensual nature, The Sower begs to be compared and contrasted with Like Water for Chocolate, Belle Epoque, and Raise the Red Lantern. Likewise, the allegorical references to the harvest and the double meaning therein strongly recalls the fellow female directed award-winner, Antonia's Line and the 1995 film from Marleen Gorris would make for a potent double feature with Francen's debut work.

Yet although The Sower doesn't have nearly as much character development as the other movies mentioned (particularly with regard to the supporting players), Francen feeds the ravenous film by sprinkling seeds of beauty, independence, feminism, and romance throughout.

Seduced by its sumptuous, sun-drenched beauty, the end result is an artful film that — like its intoxicating altitude — is sure to attract.

Text ©2019, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy or screener link of this title in order to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique. Cookies Notice: This site incorporates tools (including advertiser partners and widgets) that use cookies and may collect some personal information in order to display ads tailored to you etc. Please be advised that neither Film Intuition nor its site owner has any access to this data beyond general site statistics (geographical region etc.) as your privacy is our main concern.

Blu-ray Review: A Little Chaos (2014)

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For his sophomore feature as a director following his work on the acclaimed 1997 character-driven indie sleeper The Winter Guest (which starred his Sense and Sensibility screenwriter and costar Emma Thompson), Alan Rickman called upon another Sense collaborator in the form of Kate Winslet, with whom he hadn’t worked since they were cast as onscreen love interests in Ang Lee’s beloved ’95 classic.

Playing a poor but talented widow with a flair for architectural design, Winslet shines in Rickman's female-centric revisionist period picture that weaves a rich wish-fulfillment narrative about love, loss, gender, and gardening in the time of French King Louis XIV's court at Versailles.

A self-proclaimed "clay kicker" known for thinking outside-of-the-box – which we gather has been a constant requirement in her life as an intelligent woman of independent mind rather than independent means – after Winslet's gardening savant comes up with an ingenious way to conserve and incorporate water into the burgeoning garden design, she's invited to work alongside a master in the field, portrayed by Matthew Schoenaerts.

A victim of timing, while their natural chemistry is easily apparent, their love story takes awhile to bloom. And although she’s challenged by her own self-doubt as well as outside forces hoping to bring Winslet down professionally and personally, thanks to the film’s largely jovial tone and some amusing if half-baked supporting characters and subplots, we're never in doubt that our heroine will succeed by the film's end.

Infused with an intentionally modernist sensibility given its progressive treatment of gender roles and sexuality in all manner of male/female relationships, the lovingly crafted historical dramedy plays well to its target audience of Anglophiles whose DVRs are full of Masterpiece Theatre productions and female-centric series such as Call the Midwife.

And although the admittedly feminist fairy-tale arc makes an overt misstep as our intelligent widower finds herself finally able to let go of guilt only after a man tells her something isn't her fault, all in all, it's easy to forgive since overwhelmingly the film's heart is in the right place.

Overstuffed with talent – by trying to make room for all of its immensely talented cast of characters (including Rickman as the King and Stanley Tucci as his brother, the Marquus), Chaos loses us here and there with scenes that pull focus from the main journey undertaken by our heroine.

Augmented by the beautiful cinematography from Winslet's gifted Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind director of photography Ellen Kuras, while eventually it guides us back into Winslet's storyline thanks to the strong hand of Rickman, overall A Little Chaos may be best remembered as a lovely, decorative diversion much like the palace gardens themselves.

Lacking the roots and depth of a more sophisticated plotline, the nonetheless amiable, earnest effort from scripters Alison Deegan, Jeremy Brock, and Alan Rickman is like a lovely bouquet of wildflowers that quickly charms but loses its hold on us much too soon.

Featuring a standout score from Peter Gregson that matches the power of Kuras' hypnotic images, the newly released to Blu-ray feature ends on a high note for all in a showstopper of a finale that pulls back from a small garden party to gradually reveal the magnificent magnitude of the maze-like creation of interlocking gardens in one single breathtaking shot.

A welcome return to filmmaking for Rickman, although Little doesn't have as big of an impact as it might have with a sharper script, staggering moments like that closing sequence as well as his all-around skill with actors make us hope we won't have to wait another two decades for the talented actor to direct once again.

   

Text ©2015, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy of this title in order to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

Blu-ray Review: Amen. (2002)

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Alternate Titles: Der Stellvertreter; Amen

A well-intentioned, emotionally charged yet historically questionable passion project from Oscar winning filmmaker Costa-Gavras that’s been roughly forty years in the making, Amen. takes you on a behind-the-scenes journey of what should’ve been naturally engrossing terrain.

Hoping to investigate the question of who knew what, when and why more wasn’t done to stop the “Final Solution” that led to the mass execution of Jews during the Holocaust, Amen. initially resonates with viewers on a humanistic level.

Unfortunately, as the film continues the admirable motives of the piece get bungled by leisurely pacing, static editing and an overreliance on manipulatively manufactured melodrama to try and make points when understated simplicity would’ve been far more effective in driving the moral subtext home.

Based on Rolf Hochhuth’s divisive 1963 play The Deputy, a Christian Tragedy which was criticized by those from all nationalities and religious walks of life for the artistic liberties that were taken with real figures and events surrounding the horrific genocide that occurred during the second world war, Amen. confronts the controversies inherent in Hocchuth’s text head-on.

Adapted by Costa-Gavras as well as Jean-Claude Grumberg, the audacious script raises valid (if contrived) questions about the culpability of other leaders by daring to make the government officials of other countries and various organizations – most notably the Catholic Church and Pope Pius XII in particular – accessories to the crimes that occurred at the Nazi Death Camps.

Centered on a historical figure, the film revolves around the moral crisis faced by a hardworking German chemist named Kurt Gerstein (played by Ulrich Tukur) after he discovers that the vaccine that he’d created to provide a safe haven from typhus is instead being used in the form of a gas to murder men, women and children by the thousand.

Hoping to alert the Vatican in order to put a stop to the horrific actions of the SS officers he has no choice but to work alongside for fear they’d slaughter his wife and children, Gerstein’s pleas to reach the pope fall on deaf ears.

Finding an ally in a young Jesuit priest (played by Matthiew Kassovitz) who’s as passionate to stop the insanity as he is despite having no means or influence, the two men realize they cannot stand by while such atrocities are occurring nearby.

Needless to say, it’s easy to understand why the work riled up viewers for its shocking portrayal of the Catholic Church (and foreign governments) especially when you realize that portions of the plot in addition to the Jesuit priest character had been invented entirely out of thin air.

However after researching Gerstein out of curiosity in order to separate fact from fiction, I couldn’t understand why someone as drawn to political filmmaking as Costa-Gavras was had chosen to use the play as the basis of his film when the details available that chronicle Gerstein's real life are far more riveting on their own.

As debated as the facts are surrounding the man in question via Gerstein’s own handwritten accounts, rather than relying on fiction to formulate a clumsily crafted and overly contrived final payoff in the film’s meandering final act, Costa-Gavras could’ve instead crafted an intriguing, investigate thesis worthy of Oliver Stone.

The last film from the director to utilize an English language track to date, the rather heavily accented dialogue would’ve benefited from the inclusion of a subtitle option on this otherwise technically stellar high-definition Blu-ray that shows off the meticulous frame composition, production design and cinematographic quality for which a Costa-Gavras picture is known.

Likewise it’s the technical specs of Amen. as well as the moving performances by our two leads that serve as the saving graces of this otherwise uneven production.

Furthermore, just like subtitles would’ve heightened our understanding, another read-through of the onscreen text might’ve augmented the film overall.

In a mind-boggling juxtaposition of pictures and words, Amen. illustrates one fate for our character and then uses a decidedly contradictory word choice moments later that makes us wonder if we either missed something, misunderstood some vital detail, or if the screen cards had been given an unsupervised translation after being written in a different language altogether.

While any foreign film buff understands that typos are quite common, because Amen. had been so structurally all over-the-place (not even clarifying the years when time flies by), ultimately we’re left with one awkward final impression of a film that attempted to reveal the truth about the final solution without understanding the importance of the final act in doing just that.

Disappointingly underwhelming despite its original potential as a work so many decades in the making, Amen. will be of particular interest to devotees of Costa-Gavras, even if it’s a minor entry in an otherwise staggering career of major achievements (aside from the lukewarm reception of another WWII inspired effort via Music Box).

The rest of us will do better to opt for one of several finely crafted, emotionally riveting and historically sound films that brought the horrors of the Holocaust to life for the current generation – whether by way of The Pianist or Schindler’s List.   

Text ©2014, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

Blu-ray Review: Snake and Mongoose (2013)

Now Available to Own   

  
Photo Slideshow   

AKA: Snake & Mongoo$e

If it hadn't been for the popularity of Walt Disney’s The Jungle Book, the history of drag racing might look a whole lot less colorful because the film was still on the minds of many when a man named Tom McEwen began competing in regular races against Don “The Snake” Prudhomme.

And although they were infinitely well-matched on the racetrack, because they couldn’t have been more different in real life given Prudhomme’s serious, studious approach to the sport in contrast to that of laid back, smooth talking ladies man Tom McEwen, it didn’t take very long for people to start calling Tom “The Mongoose” who lived to chase "The Snake" around the track.

Admittedly as depicted in director Wayne Hollway’s fast-paced feature length biopic about the pair, the name took some getting used to for Tom, who wasn’t sure how to take it at first.

However, he soon latched onto in full force, cleverly taking the source material into consideration to become a walking PR campaign for the Tom McEwen brand, wearing Mongoose t-shirts and gradually talking his off-track friend Don Prudhomme into making a much more successful living as his two-decade spanning on-track rival.

Turning the formerly unpopular sport that only attracted gearheads and their girlfriends into a profitable family friendly industry that at last put them in the veritable driver’s seat of their prospective careers, Tom and Don went from barely scraping by to making a good living putting on exhibition races in hot-spots throughout the southwest.

Yet as in-demand as they were on the road, the demands of the road began taking their tolls on their loved ones back home  -- in Tom’s life in particular as his marriage began to lose momentum just as his career began picking up speed.

Inspired by his children’s love of toy cars, whether consciously or not Tom went back to the Disney well that had given him his name and image, teaming up with Don and Barbie manufacturer Mattel to dream up the idea of Hot Wheels with their animated logos painted on the side of the cars.

More psyched about the financial ability that Mattel’s corporate sponsorship would offer the brainy Don to build his ideal dream car than the children’s toys as he and his wife had put off having children temporarily due to the dangers of the sport, when Hot Wheels exploded in a big way, neither the Snake nor Mongoose had any idea what would happen.

Amping up their professional rivalry even more as the recurring champion Don’s Snake racer routinely outsold the Mongoose’s number two seller, when Mattel began to use their legalese to state when they needed to drive a car and which race type was in need of a commercial tie-in, tension began to build between Tom and funny car race weary Don.

Both driven to win but with vastly different approaches and personality types, while Don was in it for the love of engines, the PR savvy, fan-friendly Tom was often sidetracked by his love of the spotlight.

Yet as Holloway’s riveting film reveals, neither man is any one thing as the two learn from one another (whether they’re willing to admit it or not) over the course of their increasingly complicated dynamic when they’re hit with a few emotional roadblocks including one unexpected detour that forever affects both drivers on and off the track.

Well-acted by its talented ensemble led by the film’s remarkable duo of Jesse Williams and Richard Blake as Don and Tom respectively, Snake & Mongoo$e, which also features supporting work from Ian Ziering, Tim Blake Nelson, Kim Shaw, Ashley Hinshaw, Noah Wyle and Fred Dryer is a stunning achievement in independent filmmaking.

Passionately made with remarkable attention to detail from its colorful yet slightly over-saturated, warm ‘70s style cinematography to its mood-setting period soundtrack of deeper cuts than those traditionally served up in similar fare, Holloway’s film transcends its genre trappings as both a biopic and sports film right from its earliest moments when we hear Elvis Presley’s “Spinout” set to their first meet.

The very first film ever screened at 2014’s legendary Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale Auction in its 43 year history, Snake & Mongoo$e is sure to attract a larger word-of-mouth fanbase of viewers as more viewers discover the work outside racing events.

Beautifully transferred to high definition Blu-ray, Holloway’s film about two of drag racing’s most famous drivers continues to coincide historically with the Disney movie that gave their famous alter-ego’s life.

Arriving on disc shortly after the 50th anniversary of The Jungle Book, the amusing coincidence and great PR timing is an idea (almost) worthy of Tom McEwen himself and as such, it invites audiences to pick up both movies for an epic double feature as an animated snake and a mongoose move from the jungle to the racetrack.
   

Text ©2014, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.