Taking a sledgehammer to the uber rich

Triangle of Sadness many not exactly be up there with Brecht in terms of being a subtle approach to class, but Swedish film maker Ruben Östlund’s English-language debut – a satirical black comedy about the excesses of the uber, uber rich – premiered at this year’s Cannes Film Festival in May, winning an eight-minute standing ovation and the Palme d’Or.

But then again, this is an unsubtle age (was there ever anything else?). There is nothing nuanced about the likes of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Russian oligarchs or Instragram ‘influencers’, so perhaps a sledgehammer approach is the only possible one.

 

Set in three distinct ‘acts’, the film opens as group of young male models are being put through their paces at an audition. One of them, Carl, had been at the centre of a major, successful campaign a few years earlier, but has had nothing much since.

 

After watching his more successful girlfriend Yaya on the catwalk at a fashion show – she’s also a big Instagram influencer – the two dine in a posh restaurant, where a row breaks out over gender roles and equality, and who pays for the dinner.

 

Fast forward to act two, which takes place on a luxury yacht – the sort that needs armed guards on patrol and where a helicopter drops off a special delivery of Nutella to meet the whim of one of the guests. Carl and Yaya are there because of the latter’s status as an influencer.

 

The upper deck crew (mostly white) are preparing for their next cruise, being drilled by chief of staff Paula, who tells them that they must obey every demand of their guests, however cracked these might seem.

 

Below stairs (so to speak), the (mostly black) cleaners, engineers and kitchen staff are also prepping.

 

Then we meet some of the guests, including Dimitry, a Russian who has made a fortune “selling shit” (manure) and his wife Vera; elderly English couple Clementine and Winston (I said it wasn’t subtle) who made their dosh by selling arms to protect “democracies” and bemoan UN bans on landmines; Jarmo, a lonely tech millionaire; and Therese (and husband), who can only speak a single sentence in German – “in den Wolken” (“in the clouds”) – following a stroke.

 

The captain, meanwhile – American Marxist Thomas Smith – is nowhere to be seen, locked in his cabin with a shed load of booze. After a few days at sea, he is finally coaxed out to attend the captain’s dinner.

 

Unfortunately, this coincides with a very bad storm.

 

Act three takes us to a deserted island, where a small number of survivors have washed up. Several of the guests have made it, together with ship’s mechanic Nelson and toilet manager Abigail.

 

At which point, the question arises of just who among them knows how to ensure that they can survive, to build a fire or find food? And, therefore, who should be the leader among them?

 

At a whopping 149 minutes, it’s overlong. It doesn’t particularly lag, but it’s impossible not to feel that it couldn’t have been pruned some more. The storm section alone, which provides some brutally funny moments – yes, the rich really do vomit and shit like we mere mortals – lasts 15 minutes.

 

And while also funny, a scene where, in the middle of that storm, the captain and Dimitry sit locked in the former’s cabin, drunkenly trading quotes about capitalism versus Marxism/communism over the ship’s public address system, probably over-eggs the pudding.

 

The opening fashion industry sequences are very funny in their mocking of the ridiculousness of that world. The island scenes have some good takes on masculinity, power relationships, class, race and more.

 

By and large Östlund’s script and direction work. None of the characters are wholly ‘bad’, although all the privileged lack a self-awareness of their relationships with the rest of the world.

 

And the ending is smart, effectively forcing the viewer to make their own moral decisions.

 

It’s a really good ensemble cast, including Harris Dickinson as the comically naïve Carl and Charlbi Dean as Yaya – tragically her last role, before she died suddenly in August.

 

Woody Harrelson gives a fine short turn as the captain, while Zlatko Burić as Dimitry, Iris Berben as Therese, Viki Berlin as Paula, Oliver Ford Davis as Winston and Henrik Dorsin as Jarmo also provide in good performances.

 

But arguably the best of the lot comes from Dolly de Leon as Abigail. We don’t see her until the third act – unless we simply not been aware of her presence, given her lowly position? How apt a point that would be. But from then on, so much turns and rests on her.

 

All in all, Triangle of Sadness is an enjoyable exercise in punching up at extreme privilege. And it doesn’t lose anything in taking such a Rottweiler approach to its theme either.

 

• Triangle of Sadness opens in the UK tomorrow, 28 October, and is screening largely at independent cinemas.

The Banshees of Inisherin is a McDonagh masterpiece

There’s something a tad Father Ted about The Banshees of Inisherin, the new film from Martin McDonagh, where the older of two long-term friends – both of whom live on a small, rural island off the coast of Ireland – finds the rather naïve behaviour of the younger one to be exasperating.

It's evokes John Huston's The Quiet Man too, in some of the more comedic and 'blarney' moments.

There’s much humour, certainly, in McDonagh's piece, but that’s where simplistic similarities end, because there’s also something much darker and much more philosophical here – a story that can be viewed as allegory of many things. 

It’s 1923 and the Irish Civil War is raging – a point the viewer is reminded of throughout, as canon fire and gunshots interrupt events from across the sea on the mainland.

 

Folk musician Colm Doherty has decided that he no longer wishes to talk to his long-time friend and drinking buddy Pádraic Súilleabháin – a nice man, but too dull for Colm.

 

The younger man is distressed and appeals to his erstwhile friend. But Colm wants to spend his time thinking and composing music. He doesn’t ‘hate’ Pádraic, but equally, he doesn’t care if brushing him aside is not “nice” – because “nice” doesn’t get you remembered after death and time is passing.

 

When Pádraic persists in trying to change Colm’s mind – helped by troubled young boy Dominic ­– the older man threatens to chop off a finger with shears if he ever does so again.

 

McDonagh has created an extraordinary work about realising one’s own mortality and the existential angst that goes with that. Colm is desperate to create a legacy for himself – and sitting for two hours listening to Pádraic relate what he’s found in his beloved miniature donkey’s faeces isn’t going to do that.

 

Pádraic's sister Siobhán attempts to stop the escalating events, but she herself is herself increasingly desperate to escape this remote community, where the local postmistress is an uber gossip who openly reads people’s mail and challenges people to tell her any news they’ve received.

 

It's a stunning film. Beautiful to look at, including in all its bleakness (I come from Cumbria’s Eden Valley, so know what bleak beauty means).

 

Beautifully filmed by Ben Davis and beautifully paced, with a superb score from Carter Burwell, this is a stunning picture that will stay with you for a very, very long time. It even references, among other things, Ingmar Bergman’s 1957 classic, The Seventh Seal.

 

The cast is superb. As Pádraic, this is without doubt Colin Farrell’s finest screen performance thus far. Brendan Gleesan, as Colm, is not far behind. Kerry Condon as Siobhán is excellent and massive plaudits too, to Barry Keoghan as Dominic – a seriously complex role.

 

See this. Revel in it. And set your mind free to think about all that it could be saying.

 

 

Amsterdam – a movie for anti-fascists with humour

Amsterdam has tanked at the box office thus far, but that’s a massive shame, because it’s actually a very good film – and a very timely one.

With a story based around the Business Plot – a 1933 pro-fascist conspiracy in the US – it follows three friends who find themselves accidentally caught up in those events, with two of them accused of the murder of a young woman who had hired them to investigate the death of her father, a respected American general.

The three are Burt, a half Catholic/half Jewish doctor, effectively ordered to WWI France by his bigoted in-laws who rather hope he’ll just conveniently die there; African-American soldier Harold, who has been at the forefront of fighting back against the racist abuse of white officers leading the regiment; and Valerie, a nurse who makes art out of the shrapnel that she digs out of the bodies of soldiers while saving them.

Burt and Harold are both seriously injured and nursed back to health by Valerie, before the trio decamps to Amsterdam with the war over, where Valerie knows people who can help fund their further recuperation and relevant help (Burt needs a false eye, for instance).

The group finds an energising sense of life in the Dutch city, but Burt decides to return to the States to help other returning veterans there. Back in New York and finding ways to deal with his own trauma, he’s imprisoned for being drunk – medication, in effect, for his physical and mental pain. On hearing the news back in the Dutch city, Valerie says she can get him out of prison – but it means her leaving Harold in Amsterdam, with no real explanation.

When they eventually unite, it is when Burt and Harold are accused of murder.

Can they find a way to clear themselves against dark forces?

My main criticism is that Amsterdam is, at 134 minutes, very long. Yet counterintuitively, it’s also difficult to see what one would cut – it never really feels likes there’s any obvious lag. So, good pacing.

What the time taken does allow is serious character and relationship building. We get to know a lot about this central trio – enough to make us care about them. That’s a compliment to David O Russell, both for his script and his direction.

It’s also a compliment to the cast.

Christian Bale (Bert), John David Washington (Harold) and Margot Robie (Valerie) are excellent as the central trio. There is also outstanding ensemble support from Chris Rock, Anya Taylor-Joy, Zoe Saldña, Mike Myers, Taylor Swift, Timothy Olyphant, Rami Malek, Michael Shannon and Robert de Niro.

Looking back at this – and having just watched the trailer again to check – I wonder if the lack of a suggestion in the trailer of what this is about is why this film hasn’t performed well thus far? The trailer gives no indication of the political nature of the film – The Other Half and I had both assumed the trouble was around gangs, prohibition etc.

Yet the reality is that this is political enough that it almost makes me think of Brecht. I can think of no other recent films that have highlighted Eisenhower’s “military industrial complex”, for instance.

In many ways, it also feels like a far more like a 'European' movie than a US one.

But coming in the wake of the storming of the Capitol and what we see right now in GB politics – the unaccountable, unelected forces (Tufton Street) fighting to be the rulers of the UK – and elsewhere, where the ‘populist’ rule or where dictators such as Putin wage war, this is a warning from the past, for the future.

 

When will we ever learn?

 

Amsterdam is quietly funny – in a very, very delicate human way. It’s not a LOL experience, but it is a very humane film. With very good politics. 

 

All in all – a bleedin’ good watch. 

 

 

 

 

Viloa Davis is momentous in The Woman King

It’s 1823 in Dahomey (now Benin), Africa. Having just usurped his brother, King Ghezo is king. He is protected by the Agojie – a regiment of ‘amazon’ women – but all is not well, as the neighbouring Oyo empire threatens everything.

Both rely on the slave trade with Europeans to gain arms and wealth, which sees the Oyo raiding villages in Dahomey to capture people in order to trade them with white slavers.

In the patriarchal society of Dahomey, Nawi (Thuso Mbedu) refuses to be abused by the prospective husband her father wants for her, and the marriage plans fail. As a result, she is taken to the palace and handed as a ‘gift’ to the king, for the Agojie.

In such a context, the Agojie offers a life where, though members are supposed to remain as virgins, they have many freedoms that other women in the kingdom do not.

Nawi accepts this, but also rebels against the strict discipline required of the regiment – and finds herself rubbing up against its general, Nanisca (Viola Davis) and her immediate commander, Izogie (Lashana Lynch).

However, the situation facing Dahomey from the larger and stronger Oyo becomes worse and the women warriors need to work together.

Director Gina Prince-Bythwood’s film is based on fact. Some of the characters here (the king, for instance) are real, as are the Agojie.

Some commentators are comparing this film to Gladiator. In my opinion, this film is vastly superior.

The script by Maria Bello and Dana Stevens is acutely aware of African involvement in slavery and doesn’t avoid it. Indeed, it’s a central part of the story.

Polly Morgan’s cinematography is beautiful without ever getting in the way of the story.

The performances are universally better than ‘good’. It is a superbly acted film. But, oh my … Viola Davis …

If she doesn’t have, at the very least, an Oscar nom come next year, I’ll be raging. It is an astonishing performance of massive depth, massive emotion and massive intellectual heft.

And frankly, if that isn’t enough of a recommendation, then I’m sorry, you’re lost to me!

                              

 

Mrs Harris charms Paris – and us

In 1957 London, cleaning lady Ada Harris becomes obsessed by a client’s haute couture Dior dress and decides to start saving to visit Paris and buy one for herself.

Her efforts receive a major setback, but when an RAF officer turns up to tell her that it is now known that her missing husband actually died when an RAF plane came down in Poland in the lates stages of WW2, she receives enough backdated widow’s pension to make the trip.

 

However, it turns out that buying a Dior dress isn’t really quite as simple as Ada had expected.

 

This is the fourth screen adaptation of Paul Gallico’s 1957 novella. The first was for US TV in 1958 and starred Gracie Fields.

The second saw Inge Meysel in a German TV version, while Angela Lansbury played the titular character in another small-screen version in 1992.

 

Here, then, in the story’s first big-screen outing, with Lesley Manville centre stage.

 

Written by director Anthony Fabian, together with Carroll Cartwright, Keith Thompson and Olivia Hetreed, Mrs Harris Goes to Paris is a film of total charm that avoids being overly sentimental and is careful to avoid obvious stereotypes in its portrayal of London working-class life (hence changing the title from the Mrs ’Arris of the original) or of romantic Paris.

It does, however touch – quite neatly – on aspects of class and sexism.

 

But there are other things to think about if you want to – not least, as The Other Half pointed out, how much of it is akin to a 20^th century take on a fairy tale. That started me on a trip.

There is the evil character who gets their comeuppance; a king who only needs the right advice to make the right decisions; a princess and a lovelorn, would-be suitor and, of course, a fairy godmother.

Perhaps I'm just a geek, but thinking about these things increases my personal pleasure – and  indeed, at the time of posting, I'm reading Stephen King's new novel, FairyTale, which tips into the same idea.

 

The cast is universally a delight. Manville is superb, but she has sterling support – not least from Isabelle Huppert as Dior’s director, Jason Isaacs as a London bookie, Ellen Thomas as Ada’s neighbour and fellow cleaner Vi, Alba Baptista as the face of Dior who prefers Sartre and Lambert Wilson as a French marquis.

 

Rael Jones’s original score manages the feat of being delightful and utterly apt for the period – and still sounding fresh and light.

 

The research on Dior dresses must have been something else – a fashion show for an elite audience is an extraordinary scene. 

 

Over on Twitter, where Universal has been promoting the film, someone complained that, given the state of the world, it was somehow ‘wrong’ to be making a film about a dress.

 

Aside from saying that the film is not ‘about’ a dress – but about dreams and stepping out of your own personal box – given the times we are living through, I personally don’t want misery porn when I’m not working.

 

I want to be entertained. And Mrs Harris Goes to Paris does that by the bucketload.