Review: King Richard

Image courtesy of Warner Bros.

 

For years, Will Smith was one of Hollywood's biggest stars and his name at the top of a film most likely meant success. In recent years, the films to which he has been attached have seen less success, but his performance in "King Richard" should result in some awards attention as well as some juicier roles in the near future. As Richard Williams, the helicopter parent who wouldn't accept no as an answer and father to tennis superstars Venus (portrayed here by Saniyya Sidney) and Serena Williams (Demi Singleton), he gives one of his finest performances to date.

The film is partially a sports biopic - although Venus and Serena take a back seat to the antics of Richard's overbearing father - but also a story about a man so fixated on a plan for his family that he doesn't stop to consider what they want or whether they approve of his decisions. The first third of the film includes scenes involving the game of tennis, but focuses more on Richard's down-and-out luck in Compton, where he and his family live.

In these early scenes, Richard is tormented, beaten and nearly killed by some gang members who have their eyes on his daughter, Tunde (Mikayla Lashae Bartholomew), after he intervenes while they are catcalling her. A scene in which Richard's life almost takes a turn for the worse is interrupted by what can only be described as divine providence. While some might find the scene superfluous, a later sequence in which Richard describes how he was attacked as a boy by some white men and saw his father running away is instructive regarding Richard's interactions with the gang members and his need to feel that he is protecting his family.

Otherwise, the film is split between being an inspiring sports feature - Venus is much more focused on here, whereas Serena lives in her shadow for much of the movie, although we know she later on went on to become the better of the two sisters at tennis - and a drama about a man who never earned respect seeking to obtain complete control in a world where he doesn't feel he belongs. One talent scout even points out how the sport of tennis at that time had done little to interest the Black community.

Although Richard's intentions are often good - he has a point about wanting his daughters to have a childhood - his controlling behavior nearly drives all those around him insane, especially Venus, whom he gets through the door with numerous coaches and other tennis officials, only to refuse to allow her to play in juniors matches - the route taken by all tennis players - and try to call the shots about everything regarding her career.

Smith has a delicate balancing act here. On the one hand, the audience is meant to feel sympathy for Richard and recognize his drive for success coming from a lifetime of near misses. On the other, his personality and dictatorial behavior alienates nearly everyone around him. Smith does a great job of juggling these tasks.

As his wife, Brandy Williams, Aunjanue Ellis does a great job portraying a woman who is in lockstep with her spouse's goals for their daughters - she fiercely wants them to succeed - while also remaining constantly at her wit's end over Richard's tactics. Ellis is especially good in a scene in which she reprimands her husband for nearly making his daughters walk three miles home after they don't act as humble as he'd like after a tennis match, and even better when she goes through a list of all his faults during a squabble in their kitchen.

"King Richard" is a very well acted and compelling film - and it's not likely to be the movie you're expecting. The picture is not the Venus and Serena Williams Story so much as it is the Will Smith Show. As such, with his commanding performance, the actor ensures that this relatively unknown side character involved in the lives of two very well-known public figures never remains anything less than riveting. 

Review: Belfast

Image courtesy of Focus Features.

 

Obviously his most personal film to date, director Kenneth Branagh's "Belfast" is a lovingly rendered period piece that bears some resemblance to such films as "Roma" and "Hope and Glory." Seemingly based on incidents observed in his own childhood, the film details a period of great unrest in Northern Ireland during the late 1960s through the eyes of a 9-year-old boy named Buddy (the charming and expressive Jude Hill).

A dedication in the film's closing credits - "For the ones who stayed. For the ones who left. And for all the ones who were lost" - is a reasonable summary of Branagh's wistful work, which reimagines the titular city of his childhood as one providing the inspiration for great joy, but also posing grave danger. As the film opens, Buddy and his friends - in a mixed Protestant and Catholic neighborhood - are playing in the street to the sounds of Van Morrison, whose songs permeate the soundtrack.

Suddenly, an angry mob descends on the block, looting stores, breaking windows and pushing a burning car down the street that eventually explodes. Buddy's fiercely protective mother (Caitriona Balfe) grabs her two sons and makes them hide under the kitchen table until the melee has ceased. The group causing the disturbance is a number of local Protestants who are calling for other Protestants in mixed neighborhoods to put pressure on their Catholic neighbors to leave.

Buddy's father (Jaime Dornan) is away at the moment - as he usually is - because of his job that requires him to be in England much of the time. During his visits home, he becomes increasingly threatened by a group of young Protestant men who are angry he won't stand with them against the Catholics. At several points in the film, the concept of it taking a village to raise a child is hinted at, and in Buddy's case this is true. The young lad is raised not only by his mother, but also by his wise grandfather (a very good Ciaran Hinds), spunky grandmother (Judy Dench) and a teenage girl who initiates him into a gang by getting him to steal from a local candy store.

Although Northern Ireland's high unemployment rate and the seething tensions between Protestants and Catholics in 1969 are always specters hovering in the background of the film, the scenes obviously based on memory are given equal focus - for example, a family screening of "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang," young Buddy pining outside the window of a girl in his class with whom he is smitten, and Buddy's attempts at improving his grades in school, so that the teacher - who rewards her best students by seating them at the front of the class - will place him next to the girl.

Are there times when the film, perhaps, lays it on a little thick? Sure, there are a few of those, especially a wake that involves Dornan singing a 1960s chestnut and everyone dancing like they're being choreographed in a music video. But on the whole, this is no matter. "Belfast" is a highly enjoyable, nostalgic film about growing up, coming face to face with the horrors of the adult world and, eventually, moving on.

The world just outside Buddy's window may be teeming with hatred and prejudice, but what makes "Belfast" so infectious is the warmth of the characters in the family toward one another - Dench and Hinds have a teasing flirtation, despite having been married for many years, while Dornan and Balfe may argue frequently, mostly over Dornan's suggestion that they flee Belfast and move to Australia, but they live by the motto of not going to bed angry. 

Branagh's film displays a delicate balancing act - giving the very serious nature of Northern Ireland's atmosphere during this era the gravitas it requires, while also crafting a charming memory piece that looks back yearningly on the place where its creator grew up. And what makes "Belfast" so successful is that it is able to switch gears between such tones effortlessly, and because we care about the characters, even the most minor of whom are fully developed. There's already a fair amount of awards talk surrounding this movie, and it's not difficult to see why.

Review: Passing

Image courtesy of Netflix.

Bearing some resemblance to Brit Bennett's excellent 2020 novel, "The Vanishing Half," but also - of course - to the 1929 novel by Nella Larsen upon which it is based, Rebecca Hall's debut directorial effort, "Passing," is a compelling story that switches gears several times before arriving at a hauntingly ambiguous ending. The film shows a decent amount of confidence for a debut feature.

Shot in gorgeous black and white and clocking in at just under 100 minutes, "Passing" tells the story of Irene (Tessa Thompson), the wife of a successful Harlem doctor, Brian (Andre Holland), in the 1920s who also is heavily involved in high society, especially her friendship with a pompous white writer (Bill Camp),  and the Negro Welfare League. 

One day, while sitting in a high-end cafe in Manhattan, she runs into Clare (Ruth Negga), an old high school friend whom she hasn't seen in years. Irene is shocked to notice that Clare is with a white man named John (Alexander Skarsgard), and even more surprised to later learn that Clare has long been passing as white. During a visit to their home, Irene is unsettled at how easily Clare slips into her role around her husband, who is unambiguously racist.

Clare starts showing up unannounced at Irene's door, partly because she's glad to see her old friend, but also because, as she tells Irene, she misses spending time around Black folks. As time goes on, Irene becomes perturbed by Clare's presence, especially after it appears that Brian and Clare have taken up flirting with each other. While Clare formerly inspired pity in Irene, that quickly turns to jealousy and disgust.

There's a fair amount of tension in the film, most notably during a scene in which Irene first meets John and Clare sits there with a blank expression on her face as her husband tells their visitor about how he doesn't like Black people. There's also a series of scenes in which Irene, who believes that she and her family are far removed from white society in Harlem, asks Brian not to continually update the couple's young sons on stories about lynching that pop up in the morning newspaper.

It's an interesting juxtaposition. Irene is physically separated from white people based on where she lives and she doesn't want the horrific actions of white people against Blacks to reach her sons' ears - she tells her husband that they'll have plenty of time when they grow up to learn how awful the world can be. Meanwhile, Clare is now trapped in white society, but longs for an escape back to a world she once knew. Hence, her frequent arrivals on Irene's doorstep.

Much will be made about the film's ambiguous ending. An action takes place, and by the way the film is shot it's hard to tell who's responsible for the aftermath of that action. Three possibilities exist, and it's easy enough to see why any three of them could have occurred. It's a fitting ending to a story centering around an enigma - Clare - and the woman who gets sucked into her orbit. 

As a directorial debut, "Passing" shows a lot of promise for Hall as a director. Much like Bennett's novel, which I read earlier this year, it's an interesting take on a person who attempts to straddle two worlds - and the inevitable tragedies that result from such a thing.

Review: Spencer

Image courtesy of Neon.

Pablo Larrain's "Spencer" is another in a long line of movies in recent years that have observed part of the life of an iconic historical figure - in other words, the picture is set during a short window of time that is meant to give us some insight into their personality, psyche or a particular moment during which they achieved something or faced challenges. In other words, "Spencer," which spends a fraught weekend with Princess Diana (Kristen Stewart), is not meant to be a hagiography.

As such, it works pretty well, namely because of the film's gorgeous cinematography, which makes due with some spare locations, and Stewart's sympathetic portrayal of the princess of Wales. The film aims to give us a glimpse of Diana's state of mind at some point in the early 1990s as she battles the Royal Family's traditions and expectations of how they believe she should act as a royal.

The film begins with Diana making her way to a remote palace where the royals are about to celebrate Christmas. She is lost and pulls over to ask directions at a local pub, where the patrons seem shocked to find a princess in their midst. As she nears the palace, she observes a scarecrow that apparently was on the property of her childhood home, which has now been shuttered. This delays her even further, until the palace's chef (Sean Harris) notices her on the side of the road and intervenes.

Much of the picture is spent in the claustrophobic confines of the palace - which is absurd, considering how large the place is - as Diana intentionally shows up late for dinner, scoffs at the tradition of the Royal Family adding three pounds per person over the holidays to prove they had "fun" and being disagreeable with the former military officer (Timothy Spall, embodying the stiff upper lip here) who is the eyes and ears of the family, and constantly appears to be spying on Diana's comings and goings.

In between all of this, we get glimpses of her somewhat limited personal life - especially the times she spends with her sons, William (Jack Nielen) and Harry (Freddie Spry) as well as a woman and confidante who helps her "dress" named Maggie (Sally Hawkins). It's not difficult to see why she remains guarded throughout the picture - Spall's character always seems to be lurking, a replacement dresser is quick to spread gossip and report on anything Diana does and the royals are fairly cold to her, Charles (Jack Farthing), especially.

Outside of this general setup, "Spencer" doesn't stray too far. It's not like "The Queen," which portrayed how a royal attempted to adapt to the changing times, but rather acts almost like a chamber piece. When Diana becomes obsessed with reading about the life of Anne Boleyn (Amy Manson), the appearance of that woman's ghost gives the film an almost spectral quality. 

Much like Larrain's previous "Jackie," which chronicled the former first lady's days in the aftermath of her husband's assassination, the director's latest film is also interested in observing how a very famous woman handles the enormous expectations that she faces. "Jackie" was, perhaps, a little more to the point than this film, although this one works well enough too. It helps that Stewart pours so much into the role.

At times, the film makes her come off as petulant, which some may find objectionable, but as I'd mentioned before, the film isn't the type of biopic that one might typically expect in which the lead role is a flawless individual who rises above less-favorable behavior. 

The film ends on a note of release in which Diana and her boys take a ride in a convertible on a windy day singing along to a 1980s earworm. After watching her squirm in the gilded cage in which she has been trapped for much of the film, it's somewhat cathartic. "Spencer" may not tell us that much about the life of Princess Diana, but it does a good job of capturing how she must have felt like a prisoner in her own life. It's an engaging experience.

Review: The French Dispatch

Image courtesy of Searchlight Pictures.

Meticulous. That's the best word to describe the films of Wes Anderson, especially "The French Dispatch," which could very well be the most Wes Anderson movie that Anderson has ever made. There have been times when critics have complained over Anderson's fussy attention to detail - and make no mistake, literally every object in every shot appears to have been fussed over to great lengths - but in the case of his latest film, it works so well. With only "The Grand Budapest Hotel" as its rival, this new picture could be the director's best in 20 years.

There's not a plot, in the typical sense, in "The French Dispatch," but rather an extended opening sequence describing the creation of and goings-on of the fictional titular publication - a weekly addition to a Kansas newspaper operated by an ex-pat named Arthur Howitzer Jr. (Bill Murray, always an asset), who draws from a roster of - what else - eccentric writers abroad. Howitzer's two mottos are "no crying" and "just make sure it sounds like you wrote it that way on purpose."

After we run quickly through a slew of characters - Elisabeth Moss's strict grammarian is only in a brief scene or two, while Jason Schwartzman's cartoonist is barely present - on the staff, the film moves on to a prologue of sorts about the town in which much of the action is set. By the way, nobody but Wes Anderson could get away with a fictional French town called Ennui. The narrator is Owen Wilson, one of the magazine's writers, and his regaling of the ins-and-outs of Ennui are matched with a frenetic series of scenes about town, complete with a number of classic Anderson dioramas. 

The remainder of the film is split up into three chapters, all of which represent three stories that have run in various publications of The French Dispatch at some point during the 20th century. The lead characters in all three pieces are primarily the writers. In the first, Tilda Swinton narrates a story about a convict artist (Benicio del Toro in a growling performance) whose model (Lea Seydoux) is a female prison guard with whom he's fallen love. Adrien Brody, Bob Balaban and Henry Winkler plays the rich financiers who see the potential in the artist's work and want to bankroll a major show.

In the second scenario, Frances McDormand plays a writer who runs into the problem of not being able to distance herself from her subject matter after she becomes fascinated with - and a little smitten by - a young French wannabe revolutionary played by Timothy Chalamet, whose big showdown with the police and the town's mayor involves a tense game of chess.

In the final - and, in my opinion, best - story, Jeffrey Wright plays Roeback Wright, a writer with a self-described topographic memory who's on a talk show describing to the host - played by Liev Schreiber - how a piece on a chef (Steve Park) who works at a police station somehow led him to the story of the kidnapping of the police chief's (Mathieu Amalric) son by a group of anarchists (led by Edward Norton and Saoirse Ronan). 

Some of the year's biggest laugh-out-loud moments can be found in "The French Dispatch" - a fight during an art opening, a cartoon involving a man in spandex riding around on the hood of a car during a chase and, my personal favorite, a crack about the effects of communion wine on altar boys. 

Even more impressive is the insane attention to detail throughout the film. This is an immaculate film, from a visual standpoint. In nearly every shot, there's something interesting going on, and occasionally there are several things going on at the same time within the frame. The film is often bursting with energy, and every shot is just so.

While Anderson's previous films - especially "Rushmore," "The Royal Tenenbaums" and "The Grand Budapest Hotel" - often mix hilarity with pathos, and some occasional emotional gut punches, "The French Dispatch" mostly avoids that for much of the film. Its coda, however, involves a death at the magazine, its effect on the publication and a group memorial, of sorts. It's here that Anderson's film sneaks up on you. 

"The French Dispatch" is a labor of love and love letter that pays tribute to The New Yorker issues of yesteryear and the writers who filled their pages with fascinating stories. It seems obvious that Anderson reveres these journalists and the magic they can create by simply crafting what they've witnessed into great storytelling, just as a viewer might admire how deftly this film's director uses remarkable attention to detail, camerawork, humor, nostalgia and wit to make something magical like "The French Dispatch."

Review: Last Night In Soho

Image courtesy of Focus Features.

Edgar Wright's films typically subvert genre and, in previous efforts, drew laughs from the expectations one might ascribe to a certain genre - whether it's zombie movies, buddy action films or end-of-the-world scenarios. His 2017 film "Baby Driver" played more like a straightforward action movie - and a very good one it was - and his latest, "Last Night in Soho," is a stylish blending of the horror and Italian giallo genres. 

But while films like "Baby Driver" and "Hot Fuzz" were successful genre subversion exercises for Wright, "Last Night" doesn't quite work. It has a very stylish - and mostly compelling - first half, during which young Eloise (Thomasin McKenzie) moves to London - which is referred to as such a dangerous place so often during the film that it almost becomes a joke in itself - to attend fashion school, although her grandmother warns Eloise that her mother, seen only in occasional mirror images, attempted the same and lost her mind in the process before committing suicide.

A lot of the spaces and people in "Last Night in Soho" are haunted. But for a while, that's OK for Eloise, who loves to dream that she had been her age during London's Swinging 60s, rather than in the present. One night, she gets her wish after moving into an attic apartment in the home of an elderly woman named Mrs. Collins (Diana Rigg). Eloise's nocturnal adventures involve her making her way through the mid-60s, but in the dream Eloise is in the body - yet sees her own face in mirror reflections - of an aspiring singer named Sandie (Anya Taylor-Joy).

The film features one of those aspects that always makes me roll my eyes a little - college students behaving like high school students in movies. In this case, it's the mean girls who treat Eloise like crap, thereby convincing her to move into Mrs. Collins' attic. The only people who pay her any positive attention include a fashion school teacher, her worried grandmother via telephone and a young Black man (Michael Ajao) who takes a romantic interest in her.

There's a scene in which this suitor finds himself in a sticky situation in which a young woman appears to be having some sort of psychotic fit after he nearly sleeps with her, and we see the great level of discomfort he goes through by being a Black man in a screaming white girl's room, but while this scene might have worked well in a film that seriously intended to weigh the consequences of such a scenario, here it seems to exist and then disappear - which makes it sort of a crime to include it in the first place since the filmmakers appear to not seriously address it ever again. 

Even worse, the young man goes to great pains - and I mean literally - to later help the screaming girl, which just seems unrealistic considering all that came first. I'm a little off topic here, but the aforementioned scenario is only one of several in this film that appears to grapple with weighty subject matter, only to take the wrong approach after introducing it. 

Regardless, Eloise soon realizes that the woman in whose body she has been seeing Swinging London was, in fact, murdered, and she first believes the culprit to be an old man she sees in the present day played by Terence Stamp. Once the film begins to be taken over by the murder mystery, "Last Night" loses some steam - there's scene after scene of Eloise seeing a group of male ghosts literally everywhere, and numerous others of her running from various things and then snapping out of trances after she almost does something bad, such as stabbing her roommate with a pair of scissors.

Then, there's the plot twist near the film's end. I wouldn't dare ruin it, and I have to give credit that the concept behind it is fairly strong, but then it's as if the filmmakers don't know how to handle it. Up until this point, the film appeared to be on a somewhat feminist path for a movie of this sort - in which young women are sliced up by a madman - but the manner in which the big reveal is handled goes in a direction that comes off in a pretty bad way. Later, the filmmakers attempt to reconcile these problems, but it feels as if the film's pat ending doesn't quite fit.

There's a reasonable amount to recommend in "Last Night in Soho" - the two female leads are good, when given more to do than just run and scream, and the visuals are often stylish in the way that many giallo films of the 1970s were - strobing neon lights, splashes of red and camera angels reminiscent of that era. But the repetitiveness of some of the film's more ghostly elements, and the bungled manner in which the final scenes are handled detract from the picture overall. It's not a bad movie, but "Last Night in Soho" feels somewhat like a missed opportunity. 

Review: Bergman Island

Image courtesy of IFC Films.

Mia Hansen-Love's latest film is an engrossing drama that includes a film within a film and focuses on the creative process and how our surroundings influence us. Its two lead characters — at least, in one of its two stories — are filmmakers in the middle of creating new projects, but "Bergman Island" is not one of those films about movie-making that seem to appeal only to people in the film industry.

The title refers to Faro, an island in Sweden where the legendary filmmaker Ingmar Bergman became obsessed with its geography and eventually lived there, shooting several of his films — including "Shame" and "Through a Glass, Darkly" — on the island. At the film's beginning, a director named Tony (Tim Roth) and his girlfriend, Chris (Vicky Krieps), also a filmmaker, arrive on the island. He's there for inspiration, as Bergman is one of his favorite directors, but also to take part in a Bergman festival, where one of Tony's latest films will screen with a Q&A to follow.

Chris, on the other hand, has the bare bones of a story in mind, and seemingly a personal one. Oddly enough, little is made of this story until about halfway through the film when she decides to relay the story to Tony to get his feedback. 

It should be noted that as she tells her story — which may or may not have anything to do with Chris's own life, or her relationship with Tony — her beau is occasionally interrupted by phone calls, breaking off her story. Meanwhile, Chris stands Tony up when he attends the "Bergman Safari," a tour of the island's locations where Bergman shot his films that, apparently, is an actual thing. 

Anyway, Chris's film concept revolves around a young woman named Amy (Mia Wasikowska) who has had a longstanding on-again-off-again relationship with a man she's known since her youth named Joseph (Anders Danielsen Lie). The two of them bump into each other during a wedding being held by a mutual friend on Faro. At first they resist, but eventually rekindle their romance — at least the sex part — despite his having a girlfriend elsewhere and she having a child and, possibly, a significant other.

Among the more interesting aspects of "Bergman Island" are the sequences during which Tony and Chris explore the island, occasionally together, but just as often separately — he takes the Bergman Safari, while she finds a young man to show her around the island. These scenes also explore the creative process and how locations can inspire or mold our perceptions — for example, how Tony finds inspiration in visiting locales where one of his heroes made movies, while Chris tries to find an ending for her own story, using the island as a location where she envisions it taking place.

It's also interesting to note that conversations about Bergman films take place between Tony and Chris throughout the film, but it wasn't until after I watched it that I realized that, much like Bergman's "Persona," two women trade places during the course of the film — Chris's story becomes her telling of the film-within-a-film, which stars Amy. They may not swap places in the manner of the two women in Bergman's film, but one takes over for the other as the film's lead character, for a time at least.

The film ends a bit abruptly, but it's an otherwise deceptively simple, but engaging picture that ranks highly — for me, at least — among Hansen-Love's solid filmography. Roth's character may be more in a minor key, but Krieps is able to developer her character in an interesting way. With roles like this one and her stellar work in "Phantom Thread," she continues to prove to be an actress who's often fascinating to watch. "Bergman Island" is a showcase for her talents, but also those of Hansen-Love, who tells stories about human relationships with aplomb.