Maestro (2023)
Director: Bradley Cooper
Screenwriter: Bradley Cooper, Josh Singer
Starring: Bradley Cooper, Carey Mulligan, Matt Bomer, Maya Hawke, Sarah Silverman, Sam Nivola

When On the Waterfront opened in 1954, its score gained just as much critical praise as any other element of the film – which isn’t a light feat considering it won eight Oscars. Amazingly, it would remain Leonard Bernstein’s only contribution to cinema. At least, his only contribution that was intended to be part of a film – the music he composed for West Side Story is probably some of his most iconic work, but it was composed for the stage rather than for the screen. For a character as big as Bernstein with a mark on American culture of similar stature, it’s amazing to think that it has taken this long for his second mark on cinema to be made.

Bradley Cooper writes, directs, and stars in Maestro as the man himself. Cooper’s belief in his own ability to multitask is clearly quite strong, and its strength is only matched by his ambition to make a film that spans a life as long and as rich as Bernstein’s. We meet him as an old man who has already done it all, and then we take a step back into his mid-twenties in the early 1940s.

Maestro is a rare case in which style becomes substance. Bradley Cooper’s performance as Bernstein changes to fit each historical era that the film visits – he is more stagey and theatrical in the 40s, and looser and, seemingly, more improvisational in the 70s. It’s not only Cooper’s performance that changes – the cinematography changes to suit the era it’s portraying in more ways than just the use of black and white footage for the older sequences.

As Bernstein himself ages with constantly shifting makeup and facial prosthetics, the look and feel of the world around him informs us as to when it is all taking place by becoming a part of the era it’s portraying. When it’s showing us something from the 40s, it could easily be dropped into a Charlie Chaplin film, whereas the shots that take place in the 70s could be mistaken for Deliverance. In the few glimpses we get into the 80s, it has the atmosphere of a cheesy Miami-set disposable action movie.

The only aspect that isn’t changing and reinventing itself throughout is Felicia, Bernstein’s wife portrayed by Carey Mulligan. Mulligan’s performance is in such stark contrast to Cooper’s that it accentuates both of their characters – Felicia is caring and stable while Leonard is passionate and erratic. They aren’t compatible as lovers, but they share a warmth towards each other that neither takes for granted.

Bernstein is such a flawed character that, if it wasn’t for Felicia’s stability beside him, it would be hard to empathise with why he makes such chaotic life choices at every available opportunity. Maestro never advocates for those choices or attempts to put Bernstein in a light that he isn’t worthy of – it’s as critical of him as it needs to be – but seeing how quickly his personality and his life can change does go some way to creating some relatability for how he could become so self-destructive. A kind light is encouraged by the wealth of context that we’re afforded.

Of course, Maestro isn’t breaking new ground in telling quite a personal story in contrast to an otherwise well-crafted public image. Tár even beat it to be the first one about a conductor to be released in the 2020s. The best comparison for Maestro, however, is probably in something it’s the opposite of, The Greatest Showman. They’re both films about Americans who broke new ground in their respective eras – the former as the first American to lead a symphony orchestra and the latter as the American (P. T. Barnum) who popularised the circus. What makes Maestro and The Greatest Showman so different, though, is that Maestro never attempts to glorify its subject under the pretence that his achievements should outweigh his character. It celebrates his art while retaining the integrity of his flaws.

What it all amounts to is a biopic that is long overdue but served well by its existence now that it is finally here. Bradley Cooper has managed to make Maestro a thoughtful depiction of Leonard Bernstein’s life and character, but also of the world that shaped him and the people who were around him for it all.

Score: 17/24

Written by Rob Jones

You can support Rob Jones on his website: rbrtjones.com
Twitter: @rbrtjones

Saltburn (2023)
Director: Emerald Fennell
Screenwriter: Emerald Fennell
Starring: Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi, Rosamund Pike, Richard E. Grant, Alison Oliver, Archie Madekwe, Carey Mulligan

With the release of her debut feature film Promising Young Woman in 2020, Emerald Fennell established herself as one of the most exciting directors working today. Her candy-pop infused, #MeToo-inspired revenge thriller provoked challenging discussions and introduced the world to Fennell’s fresh voice and unique talents. With her sophomore effort Saltburn, can lightning strike twice?

The film opens at the beginning of the 2006/07 academic year as Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) enrols at Oxford University. Though Ollie struggles to make friends at first – hilariously summed up in the trailer by Ewan Mitchell’s great line “Did you know there was a college Christmas party tonight? NFI, me and you. Not fucking invited” – he quickly finds himself under the wing of charming and aristocratic Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi). Before long, Catton invites Ollie to stay with him over the summer at his eccentric family’s sprawling estate, Saltburn.

The title card of the picture finds itself scribbled across the film’s 4:3 frame, like the graffiti you’d find sprawled over an old school textbook. Immediately, with this simple design choice, Fennell sums up the schoolboy immaturity of many of the characters; they think the world revolves around them but really their problems are the sort of issues you’d find on the playground, and they hold onto their grudges forever. What makes it so terrifying, as their placement as the elite in society shows, is that these are the people who hold power. The ones that make the rules for everyone else yet don’t abide by them (a very funny karaoke scene in the film seems to poke fun at a very real example of this in recent British politics), the kind of people who don’t need to worry financially. There is maybe even something to be said about the latter point with regard to the film’s setting in 2007, right before the climax of the 2007–2008 financial crisis. 

Making up this abhorrent and aberrant family are an unforgettable cast of characters made up of the airhead family patriarch Sir James (Richard E. Grant), the oblivious family matriarch Elsbeth (Rosamund Pike), Felix, his siren-like sister Venetia (Alison Oliver) and their cousin Farleigh (Archie Madekwe), a particularly mischievous jester-like character that entertains the whole family. Oh, and let’s not forget the ludicrously melancholic “Poor Dear” Pamela (Carey Mulligan). All of whom are portrayed wonderfully by each respective actor, often delivering hilarious comedic performances with such an immense depth to them that not only do they make us laugh but they offer a scarily accurate portrayal of the type of people we allow to control our world.

The loathsome behaviour and elitist thinking of each character is introduced very early on. This is perhaps best exemplified by Oliver’s first meeting with his tutor, in which he is essentially mocked for having completed the summer reading, rather than celebrated for his hard work. All the while Farleigh, who is twenty minutes late, gains the respect of the tutor due to his family name and the power that it holds. In this world, status beats out hard work every time. Equally so, the first time Oliver and Felix officially meet, Felix’s bike has a puncture and Oliver offers him his bike so that he can make it to class even though it is clear that Felix really wasn’t doing much to even attempt to fix his bike. Felix was raised to believe that all of life’s problems would be solved for him. 

In spite of all this, Oliver can’t help but to find himself seduced by their lavish lifestyles, just as we can’t help but to be tempted by the Catton family, leading to both us and Oliver finding ourselves entangled in their web. It is in the way that the film is shot that allows Fennell to seduce us so easily. Shooting the stately home as though it were a fetish object, Fennell captures the alluring nature of such a home in the most perfect way that it becomes clear why anybody who enters would never wish to leave again. 

Saltburn doesn’t produce a product that simply delivers a message of the evils of privileged high society, but instead delivers them as fully fleshed out humans of both good and bad doing. Just as Felix may be a spoilt brat he is also by far the most understanding of the family and the one who is constantly generous to Oliver for little reason other than genuine kindness. Jacob Elordi captures this in his layered performance as Felix, bringing a charm and charisma to the character as well as a childish nature.

Instead, Saltburn shows the evils of desire and the lengths that many will go to in order to get what they want. In the game that is Saltburn, everybody wants something and they are all playing against each other to get it. It’s like ‘Succession‘ for the ‘Skins’ generation.

Though it is certainly an ensemble piece and one in which each performer must be nothing short of brilliant in order to make the world of the movie work, the story really rests on the shoulders of lead actor Barry Keoghan. He, along with Fennell’s wonderful direction, brings Saltburn to life. As the film progresses and it is Oliver who becomes the desirable object, things begin to get interesting and Keoghan’s portrayal of this journey is nothing short of spectacular. Not only does he capture the growth and progression of his character with precision, but with each new scene he brings something a little different, making Oliver’s evolution all that more interesting. Come the end of the film, once Oliver has transformed into his final form, it is clear that what we have just witnessed is a special performance that will linger in the mind for years to come.

Deciding which of Fennell’s two feature films is better will inevitably come down to a matter of taste. For some, one message will hit harder than the other, but for others the pacing and structure will leave a lasting impact. It all comes down to the individual. What is clear, however, is that Emerald Fennell is one of the most exciting directors working today and Saltburn marks the second successive masterpiece in her short but impactful career.

Saltburn is a seductive odyssey of lust, desire and betrayal that plays out like a Shakespearean episode of ‘Skins’, with a slight dash of ‘Succession’. Perhaps just as importantly, it does for Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s “Murder on the Dancefloor” what Promising Young Woman did for Paris Hilton’s “Stars Are Blind”. Emerald Fennell has done it again.

Score: 23/24

She Said (2022)
Director: Maria Schrader
Screenwriter: Rebecca Lenkiewicz
Starring: Carey Mulligan, Zoe Kazan, Patricia Clarkson, Andre Braugher, Samantha Morton, Jennifer Ehle, Angela Yeoh, Maren Heary, Tom Pelphrey, Adam Shapiro, Mike Houston

Based on the 2019 book of the same name, Maria Schrader’s She Said chronicles the two women who exposed the sexual abuse allegations against powerful movie executive Harvey Weinstein. Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan play New York Times journalists Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor, whose 2017 article helped to shatter the silence on decades of sexual abuse in Hollywood and launch the #MeToo movement.

The film begins with Twohey working on an article about sexual assault allegations against the then Presidential candidate Donald Trump. Following Trump’s election, Twohey is understandably initially reluctant to take on the Weinstein case, fearing that people “won’t care” – why would they in a world in which they would elect Donald Trump as President after #pussygate? What does that say about the value and impact of women’s voices?

For the duration of the film, we see Twohey and Kantor tirelessly track down former Miramax employees, determined to get women to share their stories. The duo speak with Hollywood actresses, including Ashley Judd, who was one of the first women to speak out against Weinstein (and plays herself in the film). We also hear a phone conversation with Rose McGowan, who accused Weinstein of rape, but was initially not taken seriously.

At the beginning of the film, we briefly see former Miramax intern Laura Madden (Jennifer Ehle), fleeing from a film set in tears. Decades later, she tells the journalists how “he took [her] voice just as [she] was about to start finding it.” We also hear from Weinstein’s former employee Zelda Perkins (Samantha Morton), who bravely confronted Weinstein after he raped her colleague in the 1990s. Perkins was bound by a contract which she later discovered forbid her from discussing it with anyone, including friends, family, or a therapist.

But it is one thing to get Weinstein’s survivors to talk about the abuse they endured, and another for them to go on the record. Weinstein could destroy entire careers with a single phone call, and many women had been pressured into payoffs and NDAs. We later hear that Weinstein reached settlements with 8-12 women in an attempt to buy their silence.

The film is sensitive in its portrayal of the women and their testimonies. We never explicitly witness their attacks, we just hear their accounts. One of the most chilling moments in the film is a voice recording of the conversation between model Ambra Battilana Gutierrez and Harvey Weinstein outside his hotel room. All we see is a haunting shot of an empty hotel corridor as we hear the then 22-year-old confront Weinstein about groping her in a business meeting the previous day. Weinstein tells her that he “won’t do it again” and frantically pleads with her to go into his hotel room as she is “embarrassing [him]”, which she repeatedly refuses.

This effectively minimalist approach is akin to Kitty Green’s The Assistant; a powerful commentary on the culture of silence and complicity in the entertainment industry. While Green’s film never directly references Weinstein, the monstrous weight of his presence is palpable. Similarly with Schrader’s film, we do not need to see what happened behind those closed hotel doors – it is what is not seen which is most sinister. In She Said, we merely hear Weinstein’s voice on the phone and see the back of his head (played by Mike Houston), but the focus is crucially on the women who survived and exposed him. It is their story. Afterall, the film, as the title suggests, is about the impact (and previous lack thereof) of the female voice.

Zoe Kazan and Carey Mulligan are brilliantly compelling as Kantor and Twohey, and effectively convey the women’s frustrations, sadness and unrelenting determination to discover and present the truth. The look on Kazan’s face when a Weinstein survivor agrees to speak on the record encapsulates the simultaneously heart-breaking yet monumentally triumphant milestone they are about to achieve. Mulligan follows in the footsteps of her leading role in Emerald Fennell’s explosive rape revenge drama, Promising Young Woman, in her quest to avenge sexual predators. In the same vein, Twohey and Kantor are heroic avenging angels for women who were deprived of a voice.

“The number of people who shared information with us was relatively small, and yet their impact was so large,” Kantor said in a New York Film Festival Q&A. “We hope this film helps people remember that these personal stories really can make an enormous difference.”

Twohey and Kantor’s work is testament to the power of female solidarity. As Kantor and Twohey acknowledge in the film, “the only way these women are going to go on the record is if they all jump together.” After the article was published, approximately 100 women came forward with sexual misconduct allegations against Weinstein, sparking a global #MeToo movement (by activist Tarana Burke).

Weinstein faces a 23-year imprisonment for rape and sexual assault, and five years on from #MeToo more women are being listened to when they speak out about sexual assault. Recent events, such as the Roe v Wade case, have shown that the battle for women’s rights is far from over, but there is nevertheless a sense of female empowerment emerging from the patriarchal struggle. She Said is testament to the impact of female solidarity and the power of individual voices to inspire global change.

Score: 22/24

Written by Gala Woolley

You can support Gala Woolley in the following places:

Twitter – @GalaWoolley
Blog – screenqueens.co.uk

In 2021, no less than 4 of the 8 films nominated for the year’s biggest film award are directed by debut directors, indicating not only a shift within the industry, but hope that the artistry of prior years and decades can be maintained moving forward, and proving that filmmakers with strong ideas are always worth producers risking their money and reputations on.

The Academy’s selection of best feature films this year is an eclectic mix of the phenomenally written, movingly performed and surgically directed, and in this edition of Ranked we here at The Film Magazine are looking at each to judge the order in which these films excel, analysing each in terms of overall quality and cultural relevance.

Follow The Film Magazine on Twitter to never miss another list like this one.

8. The Trial of the Chicago 7

The Trial of the Chicago 7 Review

The Trial of the Chicago 7 is a timely and arguably powerful court room drama released during an era in which films of its type are few and far between, and those with high budget ensemble casts seem to have been absent from our screens for over 20 years.

It’s a film with tremendous upside, bringing attention to a historical US issue that can be applied to the nation’s struggles today, and it features effortless transitions from comedy to drama in easy to digest but moving sequences, the likes of which have become typical of writer-director Aaron Sorkin’s politically fused but Hollywood-leaning sensibilities.

Sorkin has long been considered a master of American drama, his work hugely respected and certainly recognisable. His characters quip, they talk over one another, tensions escalate through words alone, and then like the crescendo of his own orchestra they come to a boil, producing thought-provoking and often powerful moments. In The Trial of the Chicago 7 this is precisely what is offered, Sorkin making the real-life trials of the Chicago 7 (a group accused of conspiracy, riot and more for attending the 1968 Democratic Party Convention in Chicago) one of his most authorial works to date.

Like many of Sorkin’s previous pieces, The Trial of the Chicago 7 is filled with statements but equally palatable, it is political but wholly agreeable and very much reinforcing of American exceptionalism and faith in the nation’s guiding principles and the ways in which they are enforced through law. Unlike some of his award winning work of years past, his writing isn’t directed by an expressionistic filmmaker but by himself, The Trial of the Chicago 7 thus lacking the touches of perspective-shifting cinematography, set design and blocking that are present in many of the other 2021 Best Picture Oscar nominees.

7. Sound of Metal

Sound of Metal Review

Sound of Metal is being correctly lauded as a technical triumph. Its sound design takes you inside the head of its punk rock drummer protagonist who suddenly begins to lose his hearing, loud crashes of drums and cheers from crowds replaced with dead silence, the ringing of his eardrum, muffled thuds and indistinguishable speech. For 2 hours, you experience what you believe to be an actuality of deafness, and you grow attached to the protagonist suffering to accept it.

Riz Ahmed is magnetic as the addict who feels his life is being ripped away from him, his character design from the ripped t-shirts and heavy boots of his wardrobe to the antagonistic designs and slogans of his tattoos and stand out bleach blond hair, and further still to the nuances of Ahmed’s own soft boil anger and inherent insecurity, make for a wholly believable character, an interesting and identifiable protagonist.

Away from the technical triumphs of sound design, costume design, hair and performance, Sound of Metal follows the fairly basic narrative structure of the nomad reacquainting himself with the world, albeit in a way that is forced by a disconnection from it, Ahmed’s Ruben substituting living in isolation with his partner in an RV to living around others in a commune, his hair being shaved into its natural colour, Ruben literally selling the products of his dream (and deafness) to try and find a new normal in a space closer to the “real world”, and thus finding himself in the process. It’s a structure that has little time for tackling issues of finance, and as such glosses over some of the biggest hurdles newly deaf people face, specifically in the United States. Here, Ruben conveniently passes over the obstacles of finding emotional support, finding financial help to access that support, and finding tens of thousands of dollars for surgery, and as such there is little by way of wider contextualisation of Ruben’s journey as a newly deaf man, Sound of Metal squarely focused on the played out formula of the on-screen addict, its text concluding with the apropos yet emblematic message of self-acceptance healing all wounds, physical and otherwise.

Some of Sound of Metal’s parts are the best around, and there’s no doubt that as a feature drama debut for Darius Marder it excels beyond all expectations and proves the first glimpse of a potentially prominent screen artist, but it’s not the nuanced, different and/or surprising offering that some of 2021’s other Oscars Best Picture nominees are.

Recommended for you: 21st Century Best Picture Oscar Winners Ranked

Promising Young Woman (2021)
Director: Emerald Fennell
Screenwriter: Emerald Fennell
Starring: Carey Mulligan, Bo Burnham, Alison Brie, Adam Brody, Jennifer Coolidge, Laverne Cox, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Molly Shannon, Max Greenfield, Chris Lowell

Statistics vary depending on location, but, on average, one in every five women will experience some form of sexual assault in their lifetime. It’s a staggeringly high percentage, but one many people will not find surprising. Sexual assault is a pandemic in its own right. Yet, instead of reporting the daily figures on prime time news each day, or orchestrating a worldwide effort to bring it to an end, we allow women to walk home with keys clenched between their knuckles as we redundantly remind them not to invite unwarranted sexual attention through their personal fashion preferences – as if this will be enough to keep them safe. 

When it happens to you, it doesn’t happen how you thought it might, and the world doesn’t react how you assumed it would. Just look at somebody like Brock Turner, who, after committing a violent sexual assault on an intoxicated fellow student – a crime ordinarily punishable with a fourteen-year sentence – served only three months in prison: the lenient verdict a product of white privilege and the judge’s own feeling that Brock, a swimming champion, would be negatively impacted by lengthy imprisonment. We live in a world where an accusation or conviction of assault is now deemed just as brutal and life-altering as assault itself; a dynamic Emerald Fennell explores the hypocrisies of in her debut feature, Promising Young Woman. In one scene, a so-called ‘nice guy’ suggests to Cassie, our promising young woman in question, that it’s a guy’s worst nightmare to be accused ‘like that’. To this, Cassie replies: ‘Can you guess what every woman’s worst nightmare is?’.

Cassandra Thomas (Carey Mulligan), a thirty-year-old barista and med-school dropout, comes to a stalemate with life. Consumed by a seven-year-old ‘incident’ involving her childhood friend Nina, Cassie isolates herself from the possibility of functioning like a regular person. We never hear the specifics of this incident; what exactly happened to Nina is left vague in an attempt to mimic the experience of disregard felt by actual victims of assault. Do you remember the name of Brock Turner’s victim? Instead, Cassie, like Frances McDormand’s Mildred in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, dedicates her time to tactically seeking out a form of, not revenge, but justice – a way to do something material with the pain of her trauma. To highlight that people capable of assault can look like anyone, be of any age and from any background, Fennell has Cassie loiter inside nightclubs, using herself as inebriated bait, to which predatory men, in all of their forms, gravitate. Cassie frightens the boys when she reveals herself to be sober – a fact many of them find to be a turn-off anyway. However, no matter how many deviant men she teaches a lesson (a notebook she keeps as record speaks to a high volume of them), the catharsis she yearns for never arrives. That is until a chance meeting with a former classmate, Ryan (Bo Burnham), provides Cassie with an access route to a more exact and tenacious form of vengeance. 

We follow Cassie as she comes up against the guilty faces of her past. She confronts them with manipulation, fear and threat, forcing them to acknowledge their roles not only within the sexual assault of her friend but within the system of rape culture as a whole; a system that fails to hold men accountable for their crimes. Promising Young Woman does this with tact, slowly dismantling the layers of shame-culture and victim-blaming that normalise sexual violence. Cassie’s plot for justice highlights all those responsible: from the perpetrators themselves to disbelieving classmates, and education professionals who choose to turn a blind eye and disregard their duty of care. Cassie comes for all genders and ages; anyone whose silence, prejudice or failure to act has long enabled the cycle to continue. The film encourages self-introspection, too, forcing us, with its nuanced exploration of these themes, to ask ourselves if our own actions and opinions have a place in the ruling toxicity of normalised sexual violence.

Fennell and costume designer Nancy Steiner – who received acclaim for her work on Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides – use style and fashion to subvert the typical expectation of a woman on a mission such as Cassie’s: blood, gore and practical dress, the classic symbology of the ‘revenge’ narrative, is actively lacking. Instead, Steiner dresses Cassie in bubble-gum pinks and pretty florals, her hair neat, her make-up done, her nails painted, her outfits beautifully executed with details and accessories to match. Fennell weaponises Cassie’s femininity and the effeminate connotations of the colour pink; the aesthetically pleasing stylisation of Cassie’s wardrobe serving as armour against the weaponry and semantics of rape culture.

The effort to subvert genre continues through savvy casting decisions. Men we usually associate as loveable and, more importantly, harmless, crop up throughout the film: millennial treasure and stand-up comic, Bo Burnham; silly and eccentric Max Greenfield of ‘New Girl’; Superbad’s McLovin aka Christopher Mintz-Plasse; the puppy-eyed Chris Lowell of ‘GLOW’, and teen heartthrob of ‘The O.C.’, Adam Brody. With the presence of these much-loved, lusted after men, Fennell toys with our preconceptions of what we expect males in (and surrounding) sexual violence narratives to look like – they can be anyone, any age, or people we know and even admire. Other supporting actors feel complimentary of the film’s aesthetic in a variety of ways. The decision to cast Jennifer Coolidge as Cassie’s Mother feels like a particular stroke of genius: her comedic, chick-flick legacy gifts the film a glamorous and nostalgic tone. Laverne Cox, Alison Brie and Connie Britton bring a concoction of talent; they are the mixer to a perfect, pink cocktail, respectively adding sweet, sour, and bitter flavours into the mix. 

However, by far the most crucial player is Carey Mulligan. Known for her exquisite character work in independent film (Paul Dano’s Wildlife, Lone Scherfig’s An Education), Mulligan often gravitates toward complex female characters. As Cassie, Mulligan makes moves to untangle the knots of Hollywood’s perception of femininity. Her characterisation work isn’t as black and white as a hero looking for revenge upon a villain. Instead, Cassie is messy; she pushes the boundaries; she steps out of the acceptable space female characters usually operate within. Mulligan explores these shades of grey expertly, dark and threatening when she needs to be but comical enough to keep up with Burnham’s effortless wit. Mulligan’s work here highlights just how much a woman must sacrifice in order to bring rapists to justice.

Fennell filters every detail through a highly exceptional and boldly cinematic narrative, exposing the very real-world double standards and gross judgemental attitudes surrounding rape. Even the film’s soundtrack, which includes Paris Hilton’s “Stars Are Blind’ and a sinister string version of Britney Spears’ ‘‘Toxic’’, works to exacerbate Fennell’s vision. Hilton and Spears have their sexuality and mental health discussed like cheap gossip on a global scale; the stories behind their music further highlights all women’s struggle for control over their agency. Fennell uses these details to rewrite the script and confront dismissive, ingrained attitudes to all things considered ‘girly’. 

Given the extent to which Promising Young Woman asks its audience to confront their beliefs and behaviour, the film will be a complicated watch for many. Yet, like it or not, it’s time we bring this conversation into the mainstream. Sexual assault doesn’t just happen to women as conventionally attractive as Margot Robbie; it’s an issue anyone can come into contact with. Let this film act as a means to silence dismissive voices and teach the importance of believing women.

24/24

The Dig (2021)
Director: Simon Stone
Screenwriters: Moira Buffini, John Preston
Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Carey Mulligan, Lily James, Johnny Flynn, Ken Stott, Ben Chaplin, Monica Dolan

In recent months we have all had time for more introspection than usual, and we have each been faced with a seemingly endless barrage of moral conundrums and existential threats. Many of us have been forced to deeply reconsider our behaviours, and others to simply appreciate our loved ones a little more, but it seems like all of us have taken some time to analyse the effect we have on the world and re-assess the legacies we will leave should life be taken from each of us as suddenly as it has been taken from so many others. In 2021 Netflix Original The Dig, from The Daughter director Simon Stone, such existential questions are the themes around which every aspect of the film revolves, this British period drama mining a “based on true events” story for the universal qualities and fears of the human race, offering a timely existential experience set at the cusp of the world’s largest ever existential threat, World War II.

Ralph Fiennes (In Bruges; Harry Potter) and Carey Mulligan (Drive; Wildlife) star at the head of an ensemble cast that includes critically acclaimed young stars Lily James (Yesterday) and Johnny Flynn (Emma), Fiennes and Mulligan combining effectively as an excavator local to the British county of Suffolk and the woman who employs him to excavate some unusual mounds found on her land. The duo offer a distinct and believable friendship, the type of bond that is mostly unspoken but clearly of great importance, their mutual respect and appreciation central to this narrative’s purpose as an expression of how our individual actions can leave lasting communal legacies, the likes of which shape our collective future.

Fiennes is reliably transformed. Physically, his arched neck, hunched shoulders and stiff-legged walk (that has him tilt like a pendulum between steps) create the image of a man with decades of experience in his field and perhaps longer still as a person bonded with the land, while his Suffolk accent is spoken with a softness that speaks of the real Basil Brown’s apparently respectful and humble demeanour. Rarely do we see Fiennes’ Brown angry, but when we do it is manifested through a tightening of the jaw, the lighting of a pipe, and through spitting onto the ground – the latter serving as a means for the character to return to the earth that which he has taken.

The real-life Basil Brown is a barely referenced figure of the early 20th century, a point the film makes in The Dig’s traditional “based on true events” closing title cards, but Fiennes grounds this imagined version of the man in a truly believable space, the actor’s work alongside Mulligan in particular ensuring a tangible feeling of truth, albeit one closer to the human experience than the events of the time.

The Dig is a film that inherently explores the idea of death, from the excavations to the looming war, from the growing illness of Mulligan’s Edith Pretty to the existential questions it poses, yet while director Simon Stone never loses touch of the fears and anxieties that these bring to each of us, this film is not an anxiety-inducing thriller or a dark drama, it is a celebration of life.

Shot in wide lenses and making use of natural lighting where possible – the sunlight directly reflecting in the lens somewhat frequently, especially in the film’s many Golden hour shots – Stone’s work alongside Director of Photography Mike Eley evokes the work of famed existential philosopher Terrence Malick. It’s an approach that invites you to see beauty in the seemingly ordinary parts of everyday life, whether it be a cycle up an old gravel path, a walk through a grassy field or the setting of the sun, and while The Dig doesn’t feature the same existential voiceover of Malick’s work – instead grounding itself in the British tradition of meaningful and well articulated dialogue exchanges – it is edited around dialogue in such a way that words are spoken into the next shot or scene, thus illustrating how each of our words and actions can be lasting beyond our presence, and thus highlighting this drama’s Malickian analysis (and confrontation) of legacy, as well as the film’s generally positive outlook that our lives are each important in some way, and that what we leave behind will be remembered.

In The Dig, the most major finds of the excavation are produced by women (either through direction or discovery), the metaphor being that the legacies of women are only just being uncovered, their actions (large, life-changing and small) only recently coming into view, being dug up out of the archives of silenced history. It’s an important inclusion, but one that highlights the film’s larger failure to confront this historical silence and the effects this has on our understanding of our collective legacy. Legacy has forever been centred around men through their leadership of religions and countries, the ownership and inheritance of land, the writing of public records, the rights to vote, to build, and so on, yet through all of its existential thought, The Dig rarely expresses this, instead offering small moments of shallow enlightenment or reward for its women. In a film that is bookended by the shots of its male protagonist, and has a narrative centred upon how his underheard voice is now finally establishing the legacy it deserves – and uses this to express to us how our legacies might do the same – the top billing of star Carey Mulligan seems tokenistic, the real-life Edith Pretty who was originally credited with the excavation’s discoveries set aside for this more male-centred approach just as other women have been throughout our history.

In one scene, The Dig quite literally asks “if a thousand years was to be lost in an instant, what would be left of us?”. If this film were to be the only thing that still existed, then a collective of existential people appreciative of the little everyday things and the love of one another would be the answer. The Dig isn’t as deep as the holes its characters dig into the ground, nor its discoveries as monumental, and in many ways it fails to stray beyond the tight confines of a safe but respectable “based on true events” period drama, but with a softness in its presentation and a timely philosophical undertaking at its heart, there is something here to be enjoyed on a rainy afternoon and an arrangement of ideals that some may identify with.

15/24

The film starts by introducing the audience to Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) as he seems to be describing the story of Jay Gatsby to a doctor. We are immediately given an idea of the dissolute lifestyles of the 1920s in the U.S, especially in New York and we find out that Nick had moved there to work on Wall Street, thus seemingly giving up his dream of becoming a writer. The story gets more interesting when we are introduced to the enigmatic and magnetic character of Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan) and her womanising former college football star husband Tom (Joel Edgerton), as Nick – who is her cousin – goes to her house to have dinner. She’s interesting because unlike many of the other characters she is presented to us as a angel from the outside, and yet is equally corrupted deep down. I was fascinated by the use of white and bright light to introduce her character to the audience because it gave us the idea of something beautiful and out of reach; a beautiful case of foreshadowing from the crew of the film. It was a very good start.

The moments following it were focused on a dinner party sequence cleverly constructed to convey the characters’ shallow approaches to life and their preoccupation with partying, luxury and fun, primarily through rotating camera movements focused on their faces that worked to remove focus from the characters’ words and thus prove them to be irrelevant, but also through how their conversation was interrupted almost immediately after the start of a serious discussion about racial equality. Generally, the movie stuck to this confrontation of outlandish wealth and privilege, and remained attached to telling its story through the flashbacks motivated by Nick’s decision to write a novel about his friend the great Gatsby. A particularly fine technique of presenting this information was the alternation between Nick’s recollection of the events – the words appearing on screen being the words he’s writing down on his manuscript – and the thoughts of Nick as he is at the time he tells the story. In short, the past and present intertwine, creating a sometimes contradictory presentation of events that echoes the reality of memory and hindsight.

What I found most interesting about the structure of the film was that Gatsby himself wasn’t introduced until half an hour into the movie, which I think is a good way of creating suspense given Nick’s pre-existing explanations of the character. Much like Nick’s life, the story moves much faster from the moment Gatsby is introduced to it, and the famously melancholic tone of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous novel.

A particularly standout moment from the presentation of the picture was the interesting choice from the director of photography to present the flashback of when Daisy and Gatsby first meet through the eyes of another character, Daisy’s friend Jordan. It was a brave choice as by this point in the movie people could have easily gotten tired of waiting for that moment, but it paid off because the build-up and presentation created a tangible chemistry that brought out the performance of the film from Carey Mulligan who conveyed Daisy’s shallow nature and conflicted feeling towards Gatsby with truly admirable craftsmanship.

Mulligan’s character seems ultimately incapable of love, just like her husband, and it’s presented as if a result of their social status and way of life, something Gatsby’s more sentimental and honest nature does not fit into despite his best intentions. As Nick explains: Tom and Daisy don’t care about other people, they just manipulate them for their own fun and amusement. Mulligan’s performance as an angelic yet negative figure that drives Gatsby to his end seems to convey a misogynistic message, reinforced by her actions and words as a shallow rich girl who doesn’t know what she wants and hurts everyone in the process of finding out. In contrast, the film’s narrator Nick, played by Tobey Maguire, was incredibly unlikable.

I was never a fan of Maguire’s work and his performance here did little to change that. At no point did his delivery make me feel involved in the journey his character was explaining and this lack of connection left a bitter taste in the mouth upon the discovery of his character being the only one in the movie to achieve any real success: becoming a writer. Similarly, I wasn’t impressed by Leonardo Di Caprio’s performance as he always seemed too melodramatic in his acting, thus giving the impression of his actions being contrived and simply unnatural. I must admit I enjoyed his performance more than Maguire’s and that it is much easier to sympathise with Gatsby’s character for his troubled life and past, though he does have violent outbursts and seems to consider Daisy his property – just like her husband Tom does.

Generally, as a woman of the 21st century, I fount the portrayal of women to be bordering on sexism and misogyny. Additionally, I felt that the decisions to dose the film with CGI and other special effects despite the loyally period costuming of the characters seemed out of place despite the otherwise impressive cinematography. The soundtrack also suffered from a similar fate whereby the works of classical composers were mixed with modern pop songs by the likes of Lana Del Ray, a general choice that took me out of the picture on several occasions. It seemed like Luhrmann was attempting to recreate the successful hybrid of techniques that made Romeo + Juliet (1996) such a success, but he ultimately failed in capturing the same essences of the original story as he had managed to find in his Shakespeare adaptation.

Overall, The Great Gatsby was a disappointing affair lifted by the work of its cinematographer and particularly Carey Mulligan. For these reasons, I give this film a…

10/24

UK, 2015

Director: Sarah Gavron
Producers: Faye Ward, Alison Owen
Screenwriter: Abi Morgan
Starring: Carey Mulligan, Helena Bonham-Carter, Anne-Marie Duff, Natalie Press and Meryl Streep

The time is now!

The 59^th London Film Festival begins today, and with festival director Clare Stewart promising to address the massive difference in the number of male and female directors whose work is screened, championing the cause for female directors, producers and screenwriters, it seems only fitting that this year’s Opening Night Gala is the European premiere of Suffragette, taking place tonight in Leicester Square.

Directed by BAFTA nominated filmmaker The Honourable Sarah Gavron (Village at the End of the World, 2013), Suffragette is the first ever feature film to document the story of the ordinary British women who at the turn of the twentieth century fought for equality and the right for all women to vote, risking everything in the process. And, with the kind permission of British MPs, Suffragette achieved another film first in that it is the first film in history to be filmed inside the Houses of Parliament.

In keeping with this year’s festival being declared by the programme team as the ‘year of strong women’, both cast and crew is led by woman. Sarah Gavron has once again teamed up with screenwriter Abi Morgan (The Iron Lady, 2011) and producer Alison Owen, (The Other Boyeln Girl, 2008) the trio previously worked together on the BAFTA and BIFA nominated Brick Lane (2007).

The stellar cast is lead by Carey Mulligan as Maud, an everyday woman who works long, hard hours at the same factory job she has had since she was just a girl, her only comforts are her husband and young son. Maud’s friendship with fellow worker and activist Violet (Anne-Marie Duff) fuels her sense of injustice and spurs her on to join the suffrage cause, under the leadership Emmeline Pankhurst, brought back to life by the legendary Meryl Streep, who unites these women as they face rejection, isolation and all kinds of risks in the fight for equality.

Gavron and Morgan pay a spectacular, compelling tribute to the women that history remembers as part of the suffrage movement, such as Pankhurst, Edith New (Helena Bonham-Carter) and Emily Davison (Natalie Press). While at the same time focusing on women like Maud and Violet, the everyday women who fought and suffered for the rights of women, the women whose names have been forgotten but whose actions and achievements never will be.

Suffragette is a must see film about British women, made by British women, for everyone, everywhere, because what is equality, if not for everyone, everywhere?

The film is based on Thomas Hardy’s novel of the same name, and while I know it has been adapted into a film before, I haven’t watched the other adaptations, so I’ll stick with this one.

First of all, the film was very carefully shot. The director Thomas Vinterberg always made clear his intentions behind the camera and I think that’s one of the best qualities in a director and has also become very rare in the contemporary marketplace. The story is set in 19^th century Dorset which helps Vinterberg place his personal stamp on the movie that is compelling and gripping.

The story revolves around the 20 (ish) young girl Bathsheba Everdene (Carey Mulligan) and her free state of mind and free spirit that eventually bring her to feel great pain and distress. Bathsheba likes to play with men’s feelings and soon finds herself three suitable men who all wish to marry her. Her strong-minded personality doesn’t fit the locals’ point of view, but she thinks she can deal with her problems alone and considers marriage as a social commitment rather than an act of love. The way Carey Mulligan portrays her is excellent; she’s a young and talented actress who makes Bathsheba seem a bit harsh and even heartless towards everyone – she seems to care for people at some point but I guess it’s way too late to show interest then. She’s witty, intelligent, independent, capable but also selfish, careless and cold. I think all these latter peculiarities made me hate her a bit or at list despise her as a character even if she does develop some more likable character traits in the end. Nevertheless, I profoundly admire Mulligan’s work not only in this film but also her career.

Then there’s Gabriel Oak (Matthias Schoenaerts) who is actually the opposite of Bathsheba and clearly has feelings for her. I must say that he was my favourite among all of the characters quite from the beginning: he’s loyal, honest, strong, and does or at least tries to always do the right thing. He stands by Bathsheba through everything and doesn’t take advantage of the situation that will soon develop in the story. Matthias Schoenaerts’ performance is one that proves him to be a capable and suitable actor for this role. He’s starred in a lot of films recently and his performances are never disappointing. If I had to choose among them right now I’d probably pick Bruno of Suite Française but that’s probably only because I enjoy war dramas more than periods.

Frank Troy (Tom Sturridge) on the other hand, is an immature young man whose heart has been hurt in the past and now he doesn’t seem to feel anything at all, but I won’t say more otherwise I might spoil the story for you. Sturridge is another talented actor, and he perfectly conveyed Troy’s feelings during the film, making you feel real sympathy for the character, and as a viewer who hasn’t read the book, I found this to be an unexpected but lovely surprise.

Maybe the most intriguing character was William Boldwood (Micheal Sheen). He’s is presented as an honest, wealthy and reliable man, but his loneliness eventually leads him to commit extreme acts. Boldwood was particularly interesting because he’s besotted with Bathsheba so much that all his life seems to revolve around her and he seems to depend on her approval. I think Micheal Sheen is one of the best talents in British cinema and we are always reminded of this in every role he plays.

As you may have recognised, the cast was fabulous and so was the director. The last thing but certainly not the least, was the music which was so beautiful and uplifting in every sense of the word. Celtic and Swiss traditions collide perfectly and choosing a different range of traditional music was a smart choice for this kind of film. On this note, Carey Mulligan and Michael Sheen’s duet of the traditional song ‘The Sprig of Thyme’ is not to be missed.

One thing that could be unlikable is that the film was a bit slow, maybe too much so. Second of all, the flashbacks weren’t as carefully handled as they should’ve been, since it’s never really clear as the story unfolds what happens to the characters, meaning that if you don’t know the novel it’s really hard to follow how the story unfolds and the seasons change. All seems to happen in a shorter time than it actually did, I know that films can’t possibly convey all the book in just an hour and a half but it wasn’t something pleasant for a viewer.

All in all, the film was really enjoyable. Like all Thomas Hardy novels it is twisted and difficult to completely grasp, but I think that’s the beauty of literature and of film-making too, of course, especially if the film is based on such an eventful story.

Vinterberg continues the long tradition of Danish cinema, and even though I haven’t watched his other films – so I’m basing my appreciation of his work on this film only – I still think he’s one you may want to keep an eye on.

I would certainly re-watch this film or recommend it because even though the plot is a bit complicated, it is still lovely and enjoyable in a various different ways.

18/24