THE FAVOURITE

Olivia Colman     Rachel Weisz     Emma Stone

James Smith     Mark Gatiss     Nicholas Hoult     Joe Alwyn

     I must confess, I did not love The Favourite.  It is easy to discern why others are entertained, but I tired of the portrayal of a moody, whimsical queen so easily led on by her ladies in waiting.  Most refreshing in the story are her sudden flashes of insight on occasion that take her subjects—particularly these very ladies—by surprise.  But I tired of their duplicitous fawning while concealing their own driving ambitions for power. It reminds me too much of the typical perception of women in power being easily duped, often by close [female] associates.

     The production, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos based on a screenplay by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara, is a farce about the royal court in 18^thCentury British aristocracy when Queen Anne (Colman) reigned, at first with the private counsel of her “lady of the bedchamber”, Sarah Churchill (Weisz), Duchess of Marlborough.  In this story, the Duchess wields considerable political power, along with her husband, the Duke of Marlborough charged with directing the army. 

     Enter a relative of the Duchess, Abigail (Stone), who has fallen upon hard times, and being intelligent, educated, and ambitious, she begins to maneuver her way into court.  Sarah is well schooled in handling intruders, and immediately puts her in her place. What she doesn’t anticipate is an equal capable of challenging her and winning over the queen.  What follows is a battle of wits between the two women and the unpredictability of the Queen’s favor.  

     Right off the bat, the three actresses, Colman, Weisz, and Stone, prove their considerable talents and carry the film.  Colman perfectly captures a person in charge who only sporadically wields her power, while being susceptible to flattery, attention, and physical comfort.  She can whine with the best of them and then turn on a dime and exert autocratic power.  Weisz plays the most interesting character in her blending of political knowledge, skill in the art of manipulation, and an apparent genuine caring.  Stone does a great portrayal of an interloper who knowingly scans the territory, assesses where different powers lie, and can convey sincerity without warmth.  These actresses are already being slated for nominations and have actually received awards for their performances.

     Clearly The Favourite will be a 2018 favorite, maybe even more so than Lanthimos’ previous films that were hits, The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer, both of which I loved. My problem with this film is as I stated above, is that it is a little too pat in portraying women’s records of power and their relationships with one another.  It turns out that whereas earlier accounts of Queen Mary’s reign emphasized her illnesses and other weaknesses, subsequent historians have given her more credibility.  She attended more cabinet meetings than those who came before or after her; more artistic literary, economic, and political advancements were made during her reign; and she supported the union of England and Scotland, which became Europe’s largest free trade area at the time.  No weak willed Nellie she.  It’s something of a pity that she is portrayed so weak in a 20^thCentury film.

For a romp in an 18^th Century royal court where intrigue is rampant and women compete for power, go see The Favourite.

Grade:  B                                    By Donna R. Copeland

DISOBEDIENCE

Rachel Weisz     Rachel McAdams     Alessandro Nivola

            Disobedience versus free will is the issue in this production of Chilean filmmaker Sebastian Lelio, following upon his hit last year, A Fantastic Woman(Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards).  Ronit Krushka (Weisz) is returning to Israel after the death of her father, but with a significant back-story.  We see her interactions with the hometown people rather awkward, beginning with her adoptive brother, David Kuperman (Nivola), who is in line to take the place of her father as the Rabbi.  She apparently left town abruptly years before, never to be heard from again, until she learns of her father’s death.  She seems to have had the reputation of a “wild child”, but the origin of this story is never explicated.

            Her visit creates consternation in the town, and it’s clear no one seems to know what to make of her.  They know she has made a life for herself in New York as a photographer, and all kinds of fantasies stem from that slight piece. We learn that she, David, and a woman named Esti (McAdams) were very close friends in their youth, and then she is surprised when she is told that David and Esti were married.

            As in A Fantastic Woman, director Sebastian Lilio is skillful in doling out little pieces of information along the way that help make sense of what is happening in the drama.  That is, we learn more about the relationships among the three main characters, the role the esteemed Rabbi Kuperman played, and the source of the ambivalence Ronit has for him.

            What plays out is a kind of feminine rebellion against patriarchy, and Lilio knows just how to notch up the tension in the viewer so that fundamental principles come to the fore.  And he throws in a little confusion for good measure. The esteemed rabbi went to great lengths to emphasize how humans are free to choose between angels and the desires of the beasts.  In that light, two characters have to weigh their options in leaving or staying.  Says one, “It’s easier to leave, isn’t it”, and the reply is, “No, it isn’t.”  

            The rewarding part in all this is that a main character develops understanding based on what he hears and observes and is able to alter behavior accordingly.  No easy job, considering the stakes.

            The actors are superb.  Rachel Weisz is able to conjure up all the mysteriousness of a character while keeping her genuine and real.  McAdams is a perfect foil in her limited but keen perception, and the ability to show her character’s increasing realizations. As the male in this drama, Alessandro Nivola exemplifies the male in such a conflict who is able to glean the truth and comport himself accordingly.

            Lilio’s account is very slow in building up to the essential elements and excitement of the story, and although the reward is well worth waiting for, perhaps too much time is spent on introducing the Ronit character and the explosive potential she embodies.

An intriguing kind of rebellion against the patriarchy in a traditional Jewish culture.

Grade:  B+                                    By Donna R. Copeland

MY COUSIN RACHEL

Rachel Weisz     Sam Claflin     Holliday Grainger     Iain Glen     Pierfrancesco Favino

      The film begins on an intriguing note, with the character Philip (Claflin) asking questions of himself:  “Did she?”  “Didn’t she?” “Who’s to blame?”  Then the setting moves to the country estate in Cornwall, where Philip manages his guardian’s landed property.  He supervises the help competently, and seems to be beloved.  But social skills are at a minimum, as he was orphaned at a young age and now lives and works primarily with men.  He is close in a male-male kind of way with his godfather Nick Randall (Glen), who frequently brings his daughter, Philip’s cousin Louise (Grainger), along.  It’s Randall’s hope that there will be a match between Louise and Philip.  But there is little chemistry between the two; Louise is supportive of Philip, giving him subtle hints, and attempts to playfully tease him, but he is oblivious.

     Intrigue sets in when Philip receives messages from his guardian Ambrose [who has moved to Italy and married a woman named Rachel (Weisz)] who thinks he is being poisoned…by Rachel].  Philip instantly flies to Italy, only to find that Ambrose has died and Rachel has departed.  The only person he meets is an oily character named Rainaldi (Favino) who seems to be taking care of Ambrose’s affairs.

     Intrigue is heightened when Philip gets word that Rachel—whom he has never met—is coming to visit.  Clever storytelling reveals more of Philip’s personality in his naïveté about women and his jumping to conclusions about Rachel, based on little information.  He’s ready to read her the riot act…and then he meets her.  She is beautiful, first of all, but kind, thoughtful, and attentive as well.  He is clearly not equipped to see her in an objective light.  He welcomes her and begs her to continue living on the estate.

     Up to this point, I was taken in by the film (based on Daphne du Maurier’s novel, with a screenplay by Director Roger Michell) with its suspense and sumptuous cinematography (Mike Eley).  Unfortunately, at this point, the characterization goes into the absurd, especially in regard to the character Philip.  Granted, infatuation with a beautiful person can make both men and women seem fools at times, but the ensuing turn of events stretches plausibility.  The film tries to “explain” Philip’s obsession (orphan, lack of experience with women) and leave the ending scenes ambiguous but still plausible, but it didn’t carry me along.  One clue was that the screening audience laughed at scenes that were supposed to be serious. 

     The set-up of this film was wonderful, it’s just too bad it couldn’t follow through with clever intrigue and turns of events.  And we were in no way prepared for the ending, not in the sense that it threw us for a loop, but that it had a hint of a deux ex machina quality to it (i.e., we’ll just throw this in to make you scratch your heads).  I haven’t had the privilege to read du Maurier’s novels, but I would guess she managed to end her stories better than this one did. 

      On the other hand, Rachel Weisz is a supreme actress who is able to convey beauty, sincerity, mysteriousness, and depth of character in all her roles, and keeps us captivated.  Sam Claflin (Me Before You, Hunger Games) is well cast and shows his ability in portraying a flawed character with the best of intentions.  Holliday Grainger, Iain Glen, and Pierfrancesco Favino provide fine supporting work.

A beautifully filmed, mostly engaging story of an ill-fated character.

Grade:  C+                                    By Donna R. Copeland

DENIAL

Rachel Weisz     Timothy Spall     Tom Wilkinson     Andrew Scott

          Picture an intelligent, attractive young woman who is a professor of history at Emory University in Atlanta.  Deborah Lipstadt’s (Weisz) area of expertise is the Holocaust, and she has written a book about it.  She is gutsy, organized and articulate, and it’s obvious that her students respect her.  Suddenly, an odd looking gentleman begins lurking at the top of the theater style auditorium where she is lecturing, and during the Q&A intrudes on her class.  As a Hitler apologist, he starts arguing that she is wrong about the Jews being persecuted.  She knows who David Irving (Spall) is, a “pretend” historian she has previously criticized by drawing a distinction between the facts and his opinion.  He won’t shut up, so security is called.  Unbeknownst to her, he has an accomplice film her making critical statements about him, and two years later she receives notice that he is suing her for defamation and ruining his reputation. 

          The interesting part of the film is that he is suing her in a British court, where, unlike in the U.S., where a defendant is innocent until proven guilty; in London, it is upon her to prove her innocence.  I say this is interesting because an aspect of this film is showing legal procedurals, some distinctly British, but some I take it are common to both countries.  But the director (Mick Jackson) has made a very intelligent film based on Deborah Lipstadt’s novel (David Hare, screenplay) in which the legal strategies are entertaining and instructive, but in addition, we see how they affect an independent, outspoken, learned woman who is emotionally/culturally sensitive.  So in all, there is conflict in legal approach as well as conflict between Lipstadt and Irving, with social sensitivities and concerns mixed in.  Not only does Deborah want to testify, she wants Holocaust survivors to appear on the stand as well.

        Her team of lawyers, Anthony Julius (Scott), Richard Rampton (Wilkinson), and their assistants have a different plan, one based on logic in which emotion is minimized.  She is incredulous that they don’t want her on the stand, or talking to reporters, or bringing in survivors.  Moreover, they want to go before a judge rather than a jury.  “What?!”, says Deborah, “the truth of the Holocaust is to be decided by one man?”  She wrestles with the team every step of the way, and the naïve (to law) viewer will feel sympathy for her.  This provides the tension in the film; is the legal team’s strategy hair-brained or is it brilliant? Her attorneys explain the difference between putting the Holocaust on trial vs. keeping the focus on Irving, his veracity, and his motivations.

          I am impressed with Rachel Weisz’s acting range through the years, and notably this year, she plays an aggrieved mother in The Light between Oceans, a chameleon figure in Complete Unknown, and now a university professor in Denial.  In all three, she lights up the stage with immersion in her character.  Tom Wilkinson is his usual expert actor here, showing his character’s unassuming manner, dedication to his work, occasional self-doubts, and warm compassion.  Andrew Scott lends flash and charisma to a complicated character who can be playful as well as deadly serious.  The music by Howard Shore and cinematography by Hares Zumbarloukas contribute greatly to the mood, beauty, and drama in Denial.

      Denial falters a bit at the end when closing scenes are dragged out beyond a reasonable length, as if audience suspense needed to be hyped up.

An intelligent picture with legal strategy, personality, and social conscience all interacting.

Grade:  A-                  By Donna R. Copeland

THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS

Alicia Vikander     Michael Fassbender     Rachel Weisz

            Beautifully filmed in Australia and New Zealand, with rich musical accompaniment, artfully framed cinematography, and superior actors, The Light between Oceans promised to be an outstanding film.  Unfortunately, it falls short in its story line, such that I began to think of it as “Light (truth) between oceans of bad decisions.”  It was good in its premise of presenting a Solomon’s dilemma about mothers and a baby.  The problem here is that half of the dilemma was the result of a poor decision when truth should have been the primary consideration.  Yes, people do make bad decisions based on emotional concerns, but once insight comes to bear, and errors are compounded by guilt, we can expect all hell to break loose.

            Tom (Fassbender) has fought in the Western Front of WWI for four years, and when he returns home to Australia, he decides he would like the isolation he would be afforded if he becomes the keeper of the Janus Rock Lighthouse.  He meets with the locals and is quickly offered the job (the previous caretaker left under troubled circumstances, which the townspeople attribute to the long periods of isolation his job entailed.)  Tom, who is unassuming and seeming to carry a load of survivor’s guilt, is untroubled by this, and looks forward to it.

            Much to his surprise, a local beauty named Isabel (Vikander) has an immediate crush on him, and after an afternoon picnic asks to see the lighthouse.  But, he says, the only other person allowed there is the wife of the caretaker.  Well, then, “Marry me”, she says.  After brief correspondences, they do decide to wed, and spend blissful months in an idyllic setting, until tragedy strikes in the form of miscarriages. 

            They seem to be coping reasonably well with their grief when a surprise washes ashore.  It’s a boat with a baby inside—and a dead body.  Tom is prepared to go with protocol, report the death and apply to adopt the child, but Isabel sees this as a gift from God and pleads so earnestly, Tom doesn’t have the heart to deny her, and thus begins a heartbreaking series of fateful decisions, the consequences of which begin when, after two years of being away, they go to town and discover a hard truth.

            It’s likely that most people who see The Light between Oceans will thoroughly enjoy it.  Fassbender, Vikander, and Weisz are gifted actors who mesmerize when they’re on screen, and the cinematography by Adam Arkapaw is worth going to see just for his artistic renditions.  The same for Alexandre Desplat’s music; he never seems to fall short.  The movie is based on the highly successful novel by M. L. Stedman. 

A Soloman-like dilemma with an unnecessarily dissatisfying resolution.

Grade:  B                        By Donna R. Copeland

COMPLETE UNKNOWN

Rachel Weisz   Michael Shannon   Azita Ghanizada   Kathy Bates   Danny Glover

             This is one of the most interesting, intriguing studies of identity and attachment issues that I’ve seen.  There are movies about “split personalities” and multiple personality disorder based on the unconscious, but this is different in that Alice/Jenny (Weisz) is consciously changing her name, who she is, and her history, seemingly on a whim.  Or perhaps it’s when she starts feeling trapped (an attachment issue).  She describes an experience of getting to a “blank space” in her identity that feels like a high just before she decides who she’ll be next. 

            Transforming identities becomes a theme throughout Complete Unknown (a title that may refer to a Bob Dylan song, “Like a Rolling Stone”*).  For instance, when Tom (Shannon) meets Alice for the first time, she appears to be someone else; the name on a birthday cake is misspelled; and there is a sequence in which two people misidentify who they are completely in a game-like way.  At a party, some have fun altering biographical details, whereas others see it simply as lying and become incensed at the notion of doing so.  For myself, I find some humor in it, but admit that I found it unsettling in the beginning of the film when we see the Weisz character in shifting locations, appearances, and surroundings.  Someone’s identity is so central, we get disoriented when they become something like the shape changers in mythology.

            Tom is in business with his brother and is married to Ramina (Ghanizada), a talented jewelry designer who has been accepted into a designing school in California.  Tom is clearly feeling torn about venturing out of his comfort zone (home and profession) and launching a different life in California.  He’s having a hard time even discussing it with his wife, and is clearly hoping the dilemma will magically disappear. 

            When Alice appears unexpectedly at a party and he discovers that she blithely changes her identity at will, he is impatient and judgmental (with some justification, as we see), even horrified.  But he is also intrigued, and keeps pressing her for more details.  Then, when an unexpected situation arises, and she playfully pulls him into a game of pretend, he begins to see a possibility that never occurred to his practical mind before, which will prompt an important transformational change in himself.

            Complete Unknown could be seen as a light, entertaining movie that is just for fun.  But writer with Julian Sheppard and director Joshua Marston have something in mind that is more substantive, having to do with taking risks to fulfill one’s potential, or to escape untenable circumstances, or to explore the concepts of identity and personality, and, finally, to address the ethical questions and controversy that arise when people “mess” with something that some regard as God-given, e.g., taking different personas at will, or—more topical—changing gender. 

Don’t miss the humor and substance of this absorbing film.

Grade:  A                                    By Donna R. Copeland

*How does it feel

To be on your own

With no direction home

Like a complete unknown

Like a rolling stone

Dylan, B. (2004). Bob Dylan Lyrics 1962–2001. Simon & Schuster. pp. 167–168. ISBN 0-7432-2827-8.

YOUTH

Michael Caine   Harvey Keitel   Rachel Weisz   Paul Dano   Jane Fonda   Alex Macqueen

          Youth is an artistic production by the poetic writer/director Paolo Sorrentino (The Great Beauty), who reminds of fellow Italian Federico Fellini in his imagery and talent for making what normally seems ugly into something of beauty and interest.  In this film, aged as well as young bodies are presented; wrinkles, potbellies, sagging breasts, gorgeous shapely figures, crippled, handsome—all are dished out liberally without photographic judgment. 

           But the film has points to make, lots of them.  Points about physical and mental aging, fathers and mothers—especially fathers—cinema vs. television, how we come to understand the world and people, desire vs. apathy, regret, fidelity, and decisions to make about endings.  All the characters seem to be in turmoil (except perhaps the meditating monk), captured eloquently by the cacophony in a cuckoo shop where a character has gone around and turned them all on at once.

          The setting is an elegant old-world hotel in Switzerland where many of its guests have been coming annually for years.  Fred (Caine), a famed orchestra leader, and Mick (Keitel), a well-known movie director, are old friends who voice much of the film’s sentiments about aging and perspectives on their own lives.  They trust each other up to a point; that is, “We only talk about the good things.”  Yet, they do explore certain regrets and disappointments and Fred desperately wants to know if Mick ever slept with a girl they both loved.  Fred’s daughter Lena (Weisz) is married to Mick’s son Julian (Ed Stoppard), which makes another bond between them.  Each is subject to pressures coming from the outside.  The Queen of England wants the reluctant and apathetic Fred to conduct his famous “Simple Songs” for Prince Philip’s birthday celebration.  Mick, ever the optimist, is trying to get his movie Testament off the ground and is waiting for its star Brenda (Fonda) to arrive and producers’  go-ahead to start filming.  He and the screenwriter still have to come up with an ending, though.

          Youth is made in the European style of slower pacing, philosophical discussions, and subtle humor, metaphors, and allusions, which make it a film well worth seeing multiple times.  It’s full of surprises as characters behave in unexpected ways, yet remains firmly grounded in reflecting real dramas. 

          Caine and Keitel are masters at what they do and keep us thoroughly captivated as they talk about their lives.  Weisz as the daughter of Caine’s character has the greatest emotionality to convey, and it’s engaging to hear her perspective of her family life growing up contrasted with her father’s.  Fonda has a wonderful cameo as an aging actress turning the tables on her director in years of films.  Since the actress is known for her smooth skin and physical fitness, it’s fascinating to see her in this role. 

          Sorrentino’s colleagues in music (David Lang) and cinematography (Luca Bigazzi) measure up to his creativity and excellence in their own specialties.  All three have produced a comprehensive production that merges the disciplines seamlessly into a work of visual and auditory art.

Go on vacation to an opulent hotel in Switzerland where you will be entertained with intelligent conversation, fascinating stories, and spectacular landscapes, all accompanied by delightful and entrancing music.

Grade:  A                        By Donna R. Copeland