SPENCER

Kristen Stewart     Timothy Spall     Sally Hawkins     Jack Nielen     Freddy Spry

Jack Farthing     Sean Harris     Stella Gomet     Richard Sommel

 

            The film begins by noting that it is “a fable”, and that does describe it as what I take to be a diatribe against the tradition of royalty.  It is not a bio-pic about Diana;  many/most scenes are made up by writer Steven Knight and presumably Director Larrain.  Not only does Spencer portray Diana as a spoiled, pouty diva-like person, it doesn’t show royal family members in a much better light.  (They’re shown as unempathetic.)  Diana’s costumes are beautiful (one of her marks in real life), but go over the top, seemingly to show the ridiculousness of royal dress in general.  The same goes for highlighting the elegant dining—I think it’s meant to be a criticism of a lavish lifestyle.

            Setting the film in the Christmas weekend Diana is deciding to part with Prince Charles is known as a stressful time, and one can imagine a very difficult one for Diana.  It’s hard for me to believe, though, that Diana’s behavior was so off-kilter that she was hallucinating.  It’s plausible that she was suspicious of the family’s motives toward her, but I find it hard to believe that she was as paranoid as shown.  One chilly scene that is supposed to capture the mood of the family and that weekend is Christmas dinner with almost no conversation and family members eyeing one another.  I find that hard to believe as well.

            Spencer implies that Diana was obsessed with her childhood home which, incidentally, is where she was born, but she only lived there a short time.  Much is made of her attachment to a scarecrow on the property and her taking its jacket and instructing her maid to clean it.  In the end, the scarecrow is dressed in a brilliant yellow outfit that Diana is shown to have worn at one time, a caricature of a royal family’s indulgences, I assume.

            The only part of Spencer I really enjoyed is the acting, particularly that of Kristen Stewart and Sally Hawkins, Diana’s waiting maid and confidante.  Stewart, who apparently has a positive attitude toward Diana researched the woman’s life and stated that her intention was to portray her as realistically and sympathetically as she could.  She achieves that, and the viewer can easily see her as Diana.  I haven’t been able to discern exactly what she thought of the script, but I wonder what she really thought about it, given its portrayal of a narcissistic, oppositional wounded woman.  Hawkins comes across as a servant devoted to her charge, always with kind and sensible responses to Diana’s upsets.  And their conversations are the only ones that seem to have a ring of truth to them.

            I adored Pablo Larrain’s portrait of Jackie (Kennedy), but this portrait of Diana simply doesn’t ring true—not that I knew her personally, as I’m going by my reading of news reports.  It must be that Larrain’s liberal political beliefs as in No, along with perhaps those of his writer Steven Wright (Dirty Pretty Things, Eastern Promises) brought out sentiments against a privileged class, which I appreciate, and can say spoke truth to me.  But I’m at a loss to understand the presentation of Diana Spencer as such a losing kind of woman.

            In sum, it seems unfair to concoct such a picture as this one of one weekend in a well-known, complex, multi-layered person’s life.

 

A princess new to royalty and deceived by her prince is portrayed as an oppositional, resentful woman, despite her being generally known as a real, caring person.

 

Grade:  C                              By Donna R. Copeland

EMA

 Mariana Di Girolamo     Gael Garcia Bernal     Santiago Cabrera     Paola Giannini     Christian Saurez

            This is a completely different movie from Chilean Director Pablo Larrain as compared to his earlier success most Americans are familiar with—Jackie—about Jacqueline Kennedy.  But he is an award-nominated/winning filmmaker for films with wide-ranging subjects, most with a Chilean political subject (No, El Club, Neruda).  He is even directing eight episodes of the current running TV series of “Lisey’s Story”, a thriller based on Stephen King’s work.  I have always admired his work, but do not know quite what to make of this his latest film.

            Ema is primarily a story about a dancer (captivatingly played by De Girolamo) who is married to the choreographer of her company, Gaston (Bernal).  They adopt a child after finding that Gaston is infertile.  Although it’s not shown to any great extent in the movie, the child does something horrible that makes the couple decide to send him back to the adoption agency.  

            Thereafter, come the typical recriminations and accusations of the would-be parents toward each other.  It looks like they are going to split up because of it, and Ema proceeds to make her own way in the world, although she still dances in the company.  The story shows the varying ways people cope with tragedy, using others to guide and help them adjust.  The two characters sleep around—he a little—she, a lot.  She has a mesmerizing quality that attracts both men and women.  

            How she decides ultimately to resolve her problems will likely be a shocker to most.  Larrain and the other writers make her solution seem plausible by virtue of her appeal and her consistently kind actions toward others, which is directly the opposite of how she is initially portrayed—and hated—as a rejecting mother. 

            My conclusion about what the film is attempting—very artistically—to get across is an observation about the sense of “ownership” people develop toward those close to them, especially their children and spouses.  Ema presents another point of view, that we all belong to one another, and much peace and harmony could result if we could readjust the nature of our attachments.

            Mariana Di Girolamo delightfully holds her own in being the main attraction of the film.  She has a mystique about her that captures your attention, and her dances intensify the enchantment.  Gael Garcia Bernal is a perfect somewhat older mate for Ema, one whose ego is strong enough to tolerate the jabs about his fertility but still vital enough to stay in command of his work.

It’s unusual when behaviors that initially seem risky and foolhardy turn out to be caring and loving, as is shown here.  That is, if you buy the story; I’m sure there are many who would be vociferously offended by the film’s premises.  I found it to be intriguing, although must admit that I doubt most people, as I, are not yet ready to embrace its principles.  It is likely only someone as attractive as Di Girolamo as she is portrayed could “sell” the idea, but we’ll see in future years.  Time will tell.

 

Take a look at a different way of looking at human connections where, maybe, everyone is a winner.

 

Grade:  B                              By Donna R. Copeland

NERUDA

Gael Garcia Bernal     Luis Gnecco     Mercedes Moran     Michael Silva     Alfredo Castro

          Neruda is not a bio-pic, but a satire that is inspired by his life in the mid-1940s when a warrant was issued for his arrest for being a Communist by Chilean President Gonzalez Videla, who had outlawed the political party.  To avoid arrest, Neruda and his wife went underground.  Director Pablo Larrain and his screenwriter Guillermo Calderon are most interested in Neruda’s impact on his country and its art and politics.  The opening scenes of the picture with Neruda and government officials arguing about politics in a men’s restroom (lavishly decorated with works of art) introduces the absurdities to follow.

       Pablo Neruda was a Nobel Prize winning poet and diplomat in Chile during the early part of the twentieth century.  He also served as senator for the Chilean Communist Party.  With the government on his tail, Neruda went into hiding and finally escaped to Argentina.  He later returned to Chile at the request of socialist President Salvadore Allende to be his policy advisor. 

       In the film, Neruda (Luis Gnecco) is portrayed as an overweight, temperamental poet beloved by the people.   He has grown up well cared for, and when he goes on the run, he and his well-to-do wife Delia (Moran) are forced to confront how ordinary people live, which is stressful for them.  The fact that they are Communists gives this an ironic twist. 

      In an extraordinary sleight of filmmaking, the writer made Neruda’s pursuer to be a “vainglorious” police detective who desperately wants it to be true that he is the descendant of the locally famous chief of police, Oscar Peluchonneau.  His mother was a prostitute, but Oscar thinks he looks like the statue of the older man, ergo…  He (played hilariously by gifted Bernal) is a fan of detective stories, so creates his image from storybook characters, full of swagger, insouciance, and a keen nose for clues.  The narration calls him “a phantom in a uniform.”  In his love of risk and penchant for thumbing his nose at authority, Neruda periodically leaves behind a detective book for Oscar to discover, one that Oscar just cannot resist reading.  But he remains confident that he will not be a supporting figure in this drama; he will be the hero.  It galls him to think that it is actually Neruda creating him.

       Political references and caricatures abound in this highly entertaining story, such as “[the government and police] want to hunt for Neruda, but not to catch him”, for that would spark rebellion in the people.  Reality and fiction, art and politics combine to get across the essence of Neruda’s contribution and what he was about, as opposed to a collection of facts about him.  Right up through the concluding scenes marked by the hunter and his prey slogging through waist-deep snow in the Andes, intrigue, humor, and political commentary keep us engaged and thoughtful, just as we are upon reading a brilliant, insightful poem.

Larrain’s stunning film may prompt repeated viewings to grasp its import.

Grade:  A                                                By Donna R. Copeland

JACKIE

Natalie Portman   Peter Sarsgaard   Greta Gerwig   Billy Crudup   John Hurt   Richard E. Grant

          The opening scene:  A black screen and loud, dirge-like music with sound winding down like someone stopping an old phonograph player clues you in for the mournful tragedy that is to follow.  In Jackie, director Pablo Larrain has created an artistically rendered film that pays homage to Jacqueline Kennedy, wife of slain President John F. Kennedy, and the aftermath of his assassination.  We get a behind-the-scenes view of her efforts in planning his funeral, the many resistances she encounters, the conflicts she has with some, and the intrusive advice she receives, regarding funeral planning and her children for instance, from so many.  Above all, we see an intelligent woman whom many considered shallow and pretentious take the helm and manage to honor her husband in the way she wanted, which was based partly on her keen knowledge of history but as well on her own deeply felt, genuine emotions.

           Larrain jumps around in time perhaps to help convey an impressionist “painting” of the woman and give the viewer a sense of the turbulence experienced by the country after the assassination.  Scenes are interspersed with an interview conducted by “A Journalist” (Crudup)—presumably Theodore H. White, a family friend—whom Jackie had asked soon after his death to write about John Kennedy’s legacy for Life Magazine.  This is apparently where the comparison was made with their years in the White House as “Camelot”, the subject of a Broadway Play, the last song of which was Kennedy’s favorite.  Jackie wanted the article to convey the import of the song:  “Don’t let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot.” 

        Other scenes portray Jackie’s interactions with Bobby Kennedy (Sarsgaard); her efforts, assisted by William Walton (Grant), in restoring the White House; poignant moments of intense grief and loss; and conversations with a priest (Hurt) during a stroll in Arlington Cemetery.

          The film is a tour de force for actress Natalie Portman as Jackie.  She is in virtually every scene, and gives us a convincing picture of a beautiful, intelligent, accomplished woman of great complexity who could dismiss the most presumptuous adversary with a terse, incisive comment.  At the same time, Portman needed to show the Southern and Catholic influences in Jackie’s background, along with that of privileged wealth.  

        Peter Sarsgaard doesn’t look much like Robert Kennedy, but it is easy to see the resemblance in his actions and tone, whether he is grieving for his brother, supporting the widow, or voicing his anger and disappointment about the curtailment of what he hoped would be a brilliant and lasting legacy.  Billy Crudup as the sometimes cheeky journalist challenging and complimenting his interviewee shows us the awkwardness of the situation, his attempts to maintain objectivity, and finally succumbing to her charm.  Greta Gerwig's performance as Jackie's lifelong friend and White House Secretary is nuanced and appropriately low key.

           Mica Levi’s music and Stephane Fontaine’s cinematography support and enhance the excruciating drama played out on the screen, and Noah Oppenheim’s screenplay is an even-handed, historically accurate commentary on the “Camelot” years of John and Jacqueline Kennedy.  Pablo Larrain’s synthesis of all the components into a captivating whole should earn him praise and justifiable award consideration.

An insightful, artistic portrayal of a sometimes controversial American legend.

Grade:  A                                 By Donna R. Copeland