Meewella | Critic

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QuickView: Studio 666 (2022)

“Did you just say ‘no’ to Dave Grohl?”

Dave Grohl

A ridiculous vanity project from consummate rock star Dave Grohl, Studio 666 is a campy horror comedy inspired by the likes of Sam Raimi, with a wafer thin plot about the Foo Fighters recording their tenth album in a haunted house. If it were not clear from the title, the audience should know what to expect from a brutal murder in the opening seconds and the fact that the opening credits include “make-up and animatronic effects” — it’s that sort of movie, punctuated with gory deaths to make up for schlocky writing. Grohl was clearly the driving force behind the project and he commits fully, relishing the opportunity to skewer his own image. The rest of the band seems to be along for the ride, gamely enough though these men are all performers rather than actors. There is less new music than one might hope, and Studio 666 features a heavier, more thrash metal sound than the Foo Fighters have ever produced. The spectre which hangs over Studio 666 is drummer Tayler Hawkins’ untimely death just a month after the film’s release, and fans may struggle to separate this death-filled story from the real life tragedy. The small cast and essentially a single location also make it painfully clear that this was a COVID production, but that constraint serves to keep proceedings focused. Ultimately Foo Fighters fans will be vicariously entertained by the band enjoying thesmelves, but Studio 666 is average fodder that will be swiftly forgotten.

5/10

QuickView: Paradise (2023)

“Those who make lifetime a commodity make people a commodity.”

Lilith

The first half of this German sci-fi thriller is an engaging examination of a future in which medical technology enables people to transfer years of their life, allowing the wealthy to rejuvenate themselves at the expense of the impoverished. Andew Niccol’s In Time (starring Justin Timberlake) was a flashier version of the same concept a decade ago, but Paradise makes its own interesting observations about capitalist society, meritocracy and class divisions, as well as the use of philanthropy to deflect criticism. There is an interesting lens on ageism as we notice our own reaction to elderly-looking individuals in groups of youths. Like In Time, the filmmakers do not trust the audience to find this sufficiently engaging and the second half of the film devolves into a formulaic and predictable action thriller after a woman has 40 years taken against her will. Throw in some poorly lit nighttime action involving a terrorist cell using Biblical imagery and it becomes more familiar Netflix fare — overcomplicated with uninspired execution. The score is a mixed bag, sometimes sounding like a budget Hans Zimmer homage, but elevating other scenes with a gentler blend of electronica and disquieting choral vocals. Paradise eventually returns to its more interesting moral questions by restoring agency to its main characters, though the ending feels rushed and incomplete. It is cogent enough to be thought-provoking in its commentary on society and mortality but Paradise squanders too much of its running time by underestimating its audience.

7/10

QuickView: May December (2023)

“I want to find a character who is difficult, on the surface, to understand.”

Elizabeth

With an actress visiting a once-infamous family to learn details that will help her portray the mother, there is an argument for going into May December blind to the story. I won’t spoil anything that is not apparent within the first 20 minutes of the film. Gracie and Jae Yoo’s infamy arises from the fact he was a child when their relationship began but they have stayed together and raised a family. By approaching their relationship from the back — as their children are about to leave for university — rather than from the start, the script has a broader canvas and an ability to wrong-foot the audience. Our perspective is largely Elizabeth’s as she investigates and gradually develops a fuller perspective by speaking to more family and locals, the score matching this mysterious tone with insistent strings and enquiring piano. The central performances from Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore and Charles Melton are nuanced and emotionally compelling, particularly in the parallels drawn between the leading women — both are manipulative, Gracie in her desire to control the narrative and Elizabeth in her search for acting inspiration. There are missteps, like the late “revelation” of a lie that ought to have been clear, but overall Todd Haynes weaves an excellent tapestry of ambiguity that leaves the audience uncomfortable as we evaluate the relationship before us.

8/10

QuickView: The Killer (2023)

“It’s amazing how physically exhausting it can be to do nothing.”

The Killer

Fincher crime movies are almost a sub-genre of their own — we know how they will feel (isolated and tense) and how they will look (heavy shadows with single colour lighting). Adapted from a French graphic novel, The Killer opens intriguingly with Fassbender’s assassin trying to keep his mind occupied as he waits for a target in Paris. The initial half hour is effectively an extended voiceover monologue, peppered with some interesting references — he quotes Aleister Crowley, though not by name, and refers to sniper assassinations as “Annie Oakley jobs”. Fassbender embodies the character gamely, measured movements and psychologically intense, but he cannot make the writing seem profound (“if I’m effective it’s for one simple fact: I don’t give a fuck”). The voiceover continues as the film shifts into a slow revenge story, and one can see the influence of the Dexter series, though it lacks any of Dexter’s disturbed charm or poetry. The film’s somber tone rarely changes although, in a brief appearance late in the film, Tilda Swinton manages to instill some suspense during a confrontation. Its production may be slick, but The Killer is retreading very well-trodden ground and its grand insight is that hitmen are patient, can’t afford empathy, and live by a code. Who knew? If you want to spend two hours being told this, perhaps you too have the patience to be an assassin.

5/10

QuickView: Saltburn (2023)

“Lots of people get lost in Saltburn.”

Duncan

In her sophomore picture, Emerald Fennell returns to the theme of privilege from Promising Young Woman, this time focusing on wealth, beauty and status. All of these things separate Oliver from his peers at Oxford until he befriends the popular Felix. Divided into three distinct acts, the first is Oliver’s struggle to fit in at university, the second is his invitation to stay at the intimidating estate at Saltburn, and the third is invariably where things begin to unravel, both for the characters and, unfortunately, the film. Barry Keoghan, who impressed in The Banshees of Inisherin, is intense and expressive as Oliver, with a strange voyeurism and impulsiveness reminiscent of The Talented Mr Ripley. It is easy to understand why he wishes to ingratiate himself with the Catton family, the supporting cast creating an atmosphere at once welcoming yet fickle. Following his work on Babylon, cinematographer Linus Sandgren captures the hedonistic parties exquisitely, switching between visual cacophony and calm. Fennell has suggested that the unusual 1.33:1 aspect ratio gives the impression of “peeping in”, though I found it most effective in allowing the historic architecture to loom over the characters, particularly when Oliver first arrives at Saltburn. The sharper satire of the wealthy is laugh-out-loud funny (particularly with the delivery of Richard E. Grant and Rosamund Pike) and could have supported a whole film, but Fennell has grander motivations, revelling in her imagery like a maze with a minotaur statue at its centre and Felix Icarus-like in costume wings. Subtlety is not Fennell’s style. There is rich and intoxicating cinema to experience here, and it is a shame she is not quite able to stick the landing — the last half hour feels like it might work in a novel but it is unsatisfying on screen, diluting the overall experience.

7/10

QuickView: How To Have Sex (2023)

“No one cares if you’re a virgin, it’s very chill.”

Skye

British cinematographer Molly Manning Walker (who shot this year’s Scrapper) makes her directorial debut with How To Have Sex, which follows three teenage girls on a holiday of self-discovery in Malia. Although it embarks from the teenage urgency to get laid, this is a far cry from 80s sex comedies — Walker’s script uses the subject to explore wider experiences of adolescence like inadequacy, jealousy and shame. Tara’s virginity is a parallel for her lack of experience and academic prowess compared to her friends, a barrier to honesty despite their closeness. Mia McKenna-Bruce’s performance is superb, taking Tara from grating in the opening moments to deeply sympathetic over the course of the film. The camera focuses on faces, capturing looks that reveal the purpose behind words spoken by the characters. The nights out jump between scenes like fragmented drunken memories, capturing familiar experiences like the isolation one can feel from friends and the panic of the noise and crowd when separated. Meanwhile, shots of the desolate, litter-strewn streets in the morning seem to be a quiet indictment of “Brits abroad”. Walker has created something accessible (and relevant) to any gender but the power of How To Have Sex lies in its female perspective.

8/10

QuickView: Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)

“I just don’t exhibit emotions like everyone else, on the inside, I’m vomiting.”

Phoebe

With Harold Ramis’ death in 2014, it seemed unlikely that a long-planned Ghostbusters follow-up would ever happen, moreso after the 2016 reboot, and yet it eventually arrived in Afterlife, which is dedicated to Ramis. The film hands the reins down to a new generation — literally in the case of Jason Reitman, who steps into his father’s director’s chair — as Egon’s family inherit his farm and learn about his work. Stylistically, Afterlife often feels like an 80s family movie with a glossier sheen (much like Super 8), its soundtrack peppered with welcome callbacks to the original score. Finn Wolfhard may be more recognisable but Mckenna Grace’s performance as Phoebe is the heart of the film, a 12 year old struggling with neurodivergence and every bit Egon’s granddaughter. The action is nonsensical as the children inexplicably know how to trap ghosts with 30-year-old equipment or use a tiny remote control car that outpaces a regular one, but Ghostbusters action was always more about a flashy lightshow than choreography. There is plenty of fan-service with Paul Rudd’s character fanboying over the the original Ghostbusters and a host of cameos, but Afterlife delivers more than just nostalgia. Its formula of running either toward or away from ghosts may become repetitive, but the character relationships have much of the warmth that made the original work. It may not be an unqualified success but, with another sequel in production, Afterlife has proved that the legacy of the Ghostbusters is far from dead.

7/10

QuickView: All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (2022)

“Even if you don’t unleash the memories, the effect is there in your body.”

Nan Goldin

There are two strands to Laura Poitras’s arresting documentary about artist Nan Goldin: the impact of her childhood on her artistic work, and her protest work against the Sackler family who exacerbated and profited from the opioid crisis. The former is the most compelling, exploring the impact of early trauma and how her focus on nonconformists (like the LGBT community and sex workers) arose from the safety she felt with those groups, followed by a drive to remove the social stigma from the lifestyles of her friends. Her most celebrated work, The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, featured intimate portraits of these friends, most of whom she lost to the AIDS epidemic. These sequences are narrated predominantly with Goldin’s own recollections from the present day. By interspersing her provocative body of work with her current protest activities, Poitras grounds the “pure” artistic expression with the urgency of practical activism. As the Sacklers laundered their name through the art world, Goldin used her own prominence to challenge galleries to refuse their patronage. This can begin to feel repetitive, with little insight into the planning behind the protests, yet it does provide some level of catharsis to Goldin’s story as the Sacklers are finally forced to listen to families of victims lost to opioid addicition. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed provides both a retrospective of Goldin’s work and an incisive personal lens through which to view it.

8/10

QuickView: Bigbug (2022)

“Please note the efficiency of our services.”

Yonyx 7389XAB2

French auteur Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s return to feature film making after a decade, Bigbug bears the bold colours and characterful mise-en-scène that one expects from his work but his vision here feels constrained and superficial. Playing on fears of an AI uprising that now feel somewhat dated (compared to the real impact of recent AI developments), the sci-fi Bigbug features an ensemble cast trapped inside a house, and we see little of the world beyond. The meticulous practical effects of Jeunet’s earlier work are largely shunted to post-production effects. The actors are the film’s biggest strength, all throwing themselves gamely into the farce, with particular credit to François Levantal’s gleefully scenery-chewing performance as the Yonyx robots. In truth, Bigbug has more to say about consumerism and complacency than AI. There are chuckles to be had at the messy human entanglements but Bigbug is disappointingly shallow for a topic which could have been so relevant.

5/10

QuickView: Fair Play (2023)

“I think expectations are way out of whack.”

Emily

Writer-director Chloe Domont’s feature debut is a strong old-school psychological thriller, freshened by the gender dynamics at play. Emily and Luke are analysts at a Wall Street trading firm with a prohibition on employee fraternisation, forcing them to hide a passionate relationship — Fair Play opens with one of the weirder proposals committed to film — that is destablised by the power imbalance when Emily is promoted. It is plain to the audience that we are watching a doomed relationship unravel even as the characters try to salvage it, but the process is gripping throughout the majority of its two hours, aided by committed performances from both leads. Aside from a supporting role from the ever-reliable Eddie Marsan, the film rests almost entirely on Phoebe Dynevor and Alden Ehrenreich. Their characters are travelling inverted arcs, Emily’s compliance gradually developing into assertiveness, whilst Luke begins brashly but is undermined by feelings of emasculation. Fair Play does not shy away from sex, which is an essential part of understanding this relationship, but Domont achieves this without excessive nudity. Domont finds a conclusion to the story but it feels forced in its suddeness, and somewhat trite. Nevertheless, the journey to arrive there is consistently engrossing.

8/10

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"A film is a petrified fountain of thought."

(CC) BY-NC 2003-2023 Priyan Meewella

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