A cracking mini hit of Wes Anderson

Wes Anderson’s latest film is a short – just 39 minutes – version of Roald Dahl’s short story, and it is a joy.

The titular character is the pseudonym of a wealthy bachelor gambler, who comes across a book of a doctor's report of a man who claimed he could see and interact without using his eyes.

By practising the meditations involved, Henry Strange manages to see through the backs of playing cards. He uses this ability to make millions, establishing a network of successful hospitals and orphanages.

All the usual identifiers of Anderson’s work are present, from the highly stylised look of the piece to the mannered performances.

And there is a typically wonderful ensemble cast – not least Ralph Fiennes, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ben Kingsley, Dev Patel and Richard Ayoade.

 

It is now streaming on Netflix.

Poor Things: Bonkers genius film targets the patriarchy

Yorgos Lanthimos – he of the postmodern film movement known as Greek Weird Wave – has done it again. The creative force of nature behind The Lobster and The Favourite has now given us Poor Things, based on the 1992 novel by Alasdair Gray, and it’s pretty much off the scale in terms of weirdness.

A science fantasy black comedy, it tells the story of Bella Baxter, a well-to-do pregnant suicide in Victorian London, who is brought back to life – à la Frankenstein – by surgeon Dr Godwin ‘God’ Baxter, who replaces her damaged brain with that of her unborn child before rebooting her electronically.

Bella begins a new life with no memories of her previous one, in a fully formed adult body, but with a child’s mind that is developing at an extraordinary rate. However, she is completely unpolluted by social and patriarchal conditioning. So when she discovers female sexual pleasure, for instance, there is no shame whatsoever attached and she has an absolute openness to that – and other new experiences.

Godwin has attempted to keep her hidden, but his new assistant, medical student Max McCandles, becomes besotted with her, even as her rapid mental development makes her ever harder to control. So Godwin eventually consents to let her run off with a cad, lawyer Duncan Wedderburn, to find adventure.

This is stunning to look at, with a strong steampunk aesthetic, and all about how men do/try to police women’s bodies, sexual behaviour and agency. Every male character (and one female one) try to control Bella. It’s not always about control from a deliberately cruel perspective – it can be motivated by a need to feel protective, by genuine romantic feelings or a wish to educate philosophically – but some of the relationships are based entirely on controlling the “territory” of a woman.

Lanthimos’s film is one heck of a way to explore this. Do not watch if you are bothered by a lot of nudity (and yes, that includes male nudity) and a lot of explicit sex scenes, though these are absolutely not pornographic.

It was my longest watch for some time, but held me gripped throughout. Tony McNamara’s screenplay is excellent. Robbie Ryan’s cinematography is incredibly inventive, helping creating a real sense of a world turned upside down.

As I write this, I’m streaming Jerskin Fendrix’s fascinating, astringent soundtrack to the film.

Holly Waddington's costume design is brilliant, capturing a sense of Bella's development and liberation in a way that still feels Victorian/steampunk, while production designers James Price and Shona Heath deserve massive plaudits too.

And then we come to the cast. First – and because I don’t like to do spoilers, you’ll just have to go and see the film to find out who these actors play – praise for supporting cast members Christopher Abbott, Jerrod Carmichael, Hanna Schygulla and Suzy Bemba. Kathryn Hunter is stunning in her small role here – as you would expect, given her CV.

On to the leads. Willem Dafoe as Godwin brings real nuance to a role that, in lessor hands would – could – be very clunky and unsympathetic. Ramy Youssef as Max is charmingly naive, yet his performance always feels genuine. 

Mark Ruffalo is a (surprising) delight as Wedderburn, finding his own libertine morals turned utterly on their head by – say it quietly – a woman.

And then we come to Bella herself, played by Emma Stone. Wow. And wow again. What an extraordinary, utterly fearless performance. Just extraordinary. Simply sensational. Bella Baxter is my new household god(dess). We all knew Stone is a class act, but this is taking it to stratospheric levels.

It’s absolutely bonkers – and it’s absolute genius. I saw it today at a Curzon members’ preview. It opens in the UK on 12 January. With the provisos I laid out above – see it.

One Life: Remembering the 'British Schindler'

How do you make a film about rescuing children from the Nazis in 1939, without succumbing to clichés or sentimentality, yet ensuring that it also makes a deeply important statement about refugees and war in 2024?

Well, director James Hawes, together with screenwriters Lucinda Coxon and Nick Drake, have done a pretty good job with One Life, a film about Sir Nicholas Winton and his central involvement in organising the evacuation of – predominantly, but not only – Jewish children from Prague in 1939.

I’ve seen the film condemned as “workmanlike”. And that it doesn’t engage enough with what happened to those who were rescued – or remember those involved in the rescues besides Winton.

But having now watched it, this is nonsense. Yes, it is a very straightforward take on the story. Nothing wrong with that – and it is very clear that Winton himself was not the only one involved in rescuing over 660 children. Yet he played an absolutely crucial role in that.

In terms of the later stories of the children rescued from the Prague refugee camps and those told, via That’s Life in 1988, we start to learn of these.

It’s important history and utterly relevant today – but what elevates this as a film are the performances. Johnny Flynn is superb as the young Winton. Helena Bonham Carter, as Winton’s mother, is in absolutely stonking form.

And then there are the recreations of the That's Life! episodes. As Winton's wife, Grete, observes, it's a 'silly' TV show. Yet it created an iconic British TV moment when bringing Winton's story to the wider public – and reuniting him with some of those he had been involved in saving, without any silliness and with all seriousness. Which itself helped propel the story.

Samantha Spiro, as the show's host Esther Rantzen, does an extraordinary job here, portraying a major media figure, who is still very much with us.

And then there is Anthony Hopkins as the older Winton. His performance really gives the film the gravitas and power it needs. He can say so much more in a silence than most actors can, and captures Winton’s sense of guilt at those who couldn’t be saved in a way that is quietly explosive.

Go see it. And, as I did, weep. For the past, for the present and for the future.

May December is uncomfortable viewing – rightly so

It would be all too easy to get the tone wrong in a film about grooming and child sex abuse, but Todd Haynes’s May December makes for uncomfortable viewing in just the right way.

Gracie Atherton-Yoo is a notorious woman after having groomed and seduced a 13-year-old boy, Joe, when she was 36. Discovered in flagrante delicto in the storeroom of the pet shop where they both worked, she was sent to prison, where she gave birth to a girl.

Fast forward 23 years. She and Joe are married and have three children. Honor is at college, while twins Mary and Charlie are set to graduate from school.

And Gracie’s story, which scandalised the nation, is set to be retold in an independent film, where she will be played by Julliard-educated Elizabeth, who is famous for a light TV role and is looking to push her career further.

Elizabeth is visiting Gracie and the family in preparation for the role, with the latter hoping that this movie will ‘set the record straight’, unlike the tacky tabloidesque TV film that we see in the background of one shot, and all the sensationalistic, gossipy magazine stories that the former has gathered as part of her research

Based on the real-life case of Mary Kay Letourneau, Samy Burch’s screenplay is at once high camp, in the fashion of All About Eve, for instance, but also deeply serious.

By the end, there is no obvious resolution to the story; when is Gracie lying/gaslighting and when not, for instance? How much can we trust her word? What will happen to her and Joe now that all their children are leaving the nest – and he is still only 36?

Yet we see, throughout the film, her microaggressions of bullying and control on all her family – including Joe. There’s a scene where she and Elizabeth are in a shop, as Mary is selecting a dress for her graduation, Gracie ‘compliments’ her daughter for having the ‘bravery’ to select a dress that shows off her upper arms. Result? Mary backs down and selects a different dress.

Late on, we learn that Gracie had been abused by her elder brothers – a classic path to becoming an abuser oneself and it is important that the film acknowledges this. Yet she denies it to Elizabeth – suggesting she is gaslighting her own son from her first marriage who gave Elizabeth this information in the first place.

Who – and what – do you believe? It’s a superb look at gaslighting and at personality disorder, and at the effects of abuse on all those around whom it happens.

Julienne Moore is superb as Gracie; brittle and vulnerable and threatening all at the same time.

Natalie Portman is equally good as Elizabeth. The theme here of performing roles – not least, our socially expected ones – are important throughout the film.

Charles Melton, as Joe, has already won a number of awards and it is no surprise why – he manages a poignant subtlety that acts as a stark and important contrast to the campness mentioned earlier. This is a painful performance for him.

And the ending should harrow, in terms of what it suggests – well, what you as the viewer decide to read into it.

It is a really very fine film.

The Boy and The Heron is an utter joy

A “big fantastical film” written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, legendary co-founder of the legendary Japanese Studio Ghibli, The Boy and the Heron is yet another stonkingly good release at the end of the year.

It’s 1943 and 12-year-old Mahito Maki’s mother Hisako is killed in a hospital fire in Tokyo, as he sees the building collapse in flames.

Mahito’s father Shoichi, an air munitions factory owner, marries his late wife’s younger sister, Natsuko, and a year later, the pair move to her estate in the countryside, where she is attended by several old women. But Mahito is indifferent to the affectionate overtures of his pregnant new mother.

A grey heron, behaving in a way never seen before, leads Mahito to a derelict tower on the estate, which was sealed after its architect – Natsuko’s eccentric granduncle – disappeared inside.

Meanwhile, Mahito finds a copy of How Do You Live?, dedicated to him by his mother. There's big meaning stuff here – the novel was by Genzaburō Yoshino, published in 1937, and is the Japanese title of this film.

When Natsuko goes missing – Mahito had seen her walking toward the tower – he realises that, for all his indifference toward her, he has to find and save her.

Entering the tower, he moves into a series of alternate worlds. In one, he encounters bubble-like spirits called Warawara – reminiscent of the Adipose in the Doctor Who 2008 episode, Partners in Crime – but all of these worlds have levels of threat and complexity.

Ultimately, he is faced with the choice of – in effect – becoming a god (and would he be a good god or a bad god?) or returning to his own world, even though he hates the state of where that is (WWII).

It’s a brilliant, beautiful, complex film. The animation completely recalls for me that ‘golden age’ of Disney – glorious watercolour backgrounds and simpler characters/foregrounds.

I saw the dubbed version and voice talents include Mark Hamill as the granduncle, and Dave Bautista as the king of vastly overgrown – and monstrous – parakeets (no, I’m not having you on).

The music by Joe Hisaishi is well worth noting – a beautiful soundtrack.

Having lost my husband in September – and with so much of what I’ve seen since seeming to involve grief and how people deal with it – I found it immensely moving, but also invigorating.

It’s an absolute joy to watch – the look is sensational – and it has an ultimately positive message about how we have to move forward from loss.

Bradley Cooper is a maestro with this Leonard Bernstein biopic, but Carey Mulligan is outstanding

If you’re not careful, “you’ll die a lonely old queen”. That’s a warning from Felicia Montealegre to her husband, iconic American , composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein, in the second half of Bradley Cooper’s extraordinary new film, Maestro.

And sexuality is a hugely important part of this latest feature from Cooper.

I haven’t seen his take on A Star is Born – I am only really familiar with him as Rocket Raccoon – forgive me! But on the basis of this, he is a seriously creative director and writer, and a very fine actor too.

It’s less about Leonard Bernstein as a composer/conductor, and more about his relationship with his wife, Felicia.

That was complicated, because although he very clearly and genuinely loved her, he was also bisexual and not monogamous. She accepted this – and in way that was not passive. In terms of that quote at the top of this review, what struck me so forcefully is that it’s only in relatively recent years that ‘bisexual’ has been more regularly used (though the word was coined in the 19th century).

For many, if attracted to the same sex, it was assumed that, even on spectrums, they were still ultimately and essentially ‘gay’.

A bit like the phrase ‘non-binary’. And if you don’t have the words to describe yourself, how do you understand yourself?

And in the case of Lenny and Felicia, how do they navigate both the sexuality issues and those of non-monogamy?

Though the politics of the times they lived through are also dealt with. Early on, it’s suggested to Bernstein that he drops the ‘stein’ from his name in order to ‘get’ an orchestra.

The cinematography is superb, with filing in both black and white and colour, and in different proportions dependent on when the scenes are set. It’s a joy to look at and Cooper ensures that we get the time to linger – including on faces as they register emotion (which means subtle acting is required). This is not some cinematic equivalent of fast food.

The music is great – and not just Bernstein’s own. There’s Mahler and Beethoven too. And Broadway, since Bernstein transcended genres. Watch for the stunning On the Town rehearsal/fantasy sequence.

Cooper is simply superb as Bernstein, but Carey Mulligan steals it from under his feet. She is outstanding as Felicia – and must be a favourite for the Oscars. I couldn’t recommend it more.

 

Barbie – so much better than expected

A Sindy child myself – albeit more on the basis of my mother’s choice rather than mine – Barbie was not a film I expected to want to see. And then I viewed the trailer and read the early reviews.

My actually seeing it, though, was to be jinxed. Twice, I booked for myself and The Other Half to go and see it, but then on both occasions, he didn’t feel well enough to go. He urged me to go on my own, but it wouldn’t have felt right to do that.

 

Before my first Christmas on my own, I looked for where to stream it, but couldn’t find anywhere (Sky Cinema was overwhelmed with seasonal films), so ordered a 4k ultra HD disc of it.

 

And here, a brief diversion. At the end of 2022, The OH and I decided to pull our metaphorical fingers out and get a new DVD/BluRay player, since the old one was coughing and spluttering to the point of extinction.

 

He sorted one via Richer Sounds – all 4K ready etc – and we went down to Borough to collect. So far, so good. Oops. But it didn’t go with our telly. At that point I started looking up compatible TVs, because that would probably be less angst than returning the disc player. First, we were astonished at how affordable they were and second, we started considering size.

 

We got the tape measure out and played around with it. In the end, we concluded that we could go from 32 inches to 42 inches – without overwhelming our small living room.

 

Reader, we did it. And that 10-inch difference, with the 4K resolution etc, transformed our viewing. Suddenly, the idea of ‘home cinema’ was more than a mere idea. To add, we also invested in a soundbar. So, some pretty serious kit, which makes watching film (and sport) at home a seriously different proposition that previously.

 

Since the OH passed away in September, I have found that this is helping to transform my film watching. I’m not a big TV programme viewer in general, but the set-up makes it so much more enjoyable to watch the footy and stream films or watch them on disc. On Christmas Day, for instance, I made the centrepiece of my time watching Maestro on Netflix. For me, 42 inches seems to be the size of screen at which home viewing is where you can feel a sense of the cinematic scale of a movie.

 

Anyhow, back to Barbie.

 

Just before Christmas, feeling glum with a brutal cough and cold, the disc landed on the doormat. Perfect ‘cheer-up’ material.

 

And it is.

 

You’ll all be ahead in terms of the plot. Barbie lives in Barbieworld, where Barbies rule the roost and Kens are pretty much decoration. But then Barbie starts having negative thoughts because there's a rift in the space-time continuum (or something like that) and she has to travel to The Real World to sort it out.

 

Greta Gerwig has done such a good take with this, in terms of examining patriarchal attitudes, but also the counter to that – in effectively asking, ‘what is it to be a man?’

 

And it also makes quite clear that women can be bitches to other women, often in enforcing/trying to enforce patriarchal ideas of how women should look. 

 

The bubble gum look works so well to help this – and of course, harks back to the doll itself and all the accessories you could buy (and it was the same for Sindy).

Very funny, very clever. Beautifully filmed and directed by Gerwig, who co-wrote the screenplay with Noah Baumbach.

As for the cast, Ryan Gosling is excellent as ‘Ken’ and Margot Robie is is just so good as Barbie.

Absolutely loved it. And I suspect that, if you haven’t seen it yet, you will love it too when you get around to it.