Three Monkeys.

The Hunger Games

Dir. Gary Ross. Starring Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Elizabeth Banks & Woody Harrelson

It’s hard to review a film surrounded by as much hype and expectation as The Hunger Games. How do you separate the anticlimax borne of anticipation from a critical evaluation of the freestanding film? Bundle that in with the tenuous grounds of book to screen adaptations and there’s more than a few elements at play in assessing the success and or failures of a project this large. All that anyone can do is strip it back to its most basic elements and consider the basic critical question; is it any good? Having answered this question repeatedly today after seeing the midnight release of the film I’m still unable to say categorically one way or the other. Which I guess is the most glowing recommendation of the film I can give. Films that divide are often the better of the field and maintaining some kind of balanced grey area between fan-girl fawning and bitter nay-saying alludes somewhat to the tricky line the film walks.

I had hoped a screen adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ novels would iron out my main problem with the books – the clunky writing – and in this instance I was pleasantly surprised. Yes, a good film adaptation sometime means losing erroneous and extraneous details from the novel whose absence purists will undoubtedly lament, but the great thing about this stripping back is it focuses the narrative, something that a sprawling sci-fi such as this is in dire need of. As is necessary in this kind of action drama support characters are diminished and the leads enhanced; becoming attached to our protagonists and antagonists are essential to bring the emotion into the brutality of Collins’ story.

In this dystopian world, a vengeful Capitol enacts their control over their reoppressed Districts after an ill-fated revolution attempt by holding annual tournaments. In these events, known as Hunger Games, Tributes between 12 and 24 are involuntarily drafted to fight to the death in arenas controlled by the government and broadcasted to their homes. It’s a swift and tyrannical exercise in giving the public something to believe in whilst simultaneously proving how easily it can be destroyed. The star of this particular Games is Katniss Everdeen (Lawrence) District 12’s first ever volunteer, moved by love and guilt to take the place of her younger sister. Lawrence shows for the first time since Winter’s Bone her considerable ability to make us hear her internal monologue without having a scripted voice over do the work for her. Without her work to show the layers of Katniss’ sense of duty and strength the character would fall dangerously flat, but her ability to strategically let Katniss’ defences fall illicits the emotional response the narrative’s begging for.

 Lawrence is supported ably by her second tier cast, veterans Banks & Harrelson combining charm and a weary resignation as puppets of the Capitol whose strings are only just beginning to itch. Her fellow love triangle points – Hutcherson as her fellow 12 Tribute Peeta and Hemsworth as the will-they-won’t-they love she leaves behind – fare a little worse, but one can only hope they’ll grow as their characters are fleshed out. The action of the Games itself suffers from direction concerned with ratings and anti-violence family groups; the sharp, shaky editing provides the feeling of violence without explicitly showing it, which while understandable somewhat diminishes the impact of the story. The emotional relationships that grow between the characters in the novels becomes epic simply because of its context, take away the calculated brutality of their environment and the triumph of the little love and friendship they create falls short.

Pragmatically, this is the source of the vague disappointment I felt with the film. It hit so many right notes; a faithful adaptation in terms of themes rather than content, a fantastic and varied cast, tight direction choices and a strong narrative flow, and yet somehow I still felt it could have been so much more. I wanted it to shake off the inclusion of a romantic subplot entirely – to show more obviously how Katniss sees loving Peeta for as much of a survival skill as hunting – and to amp up the baffling but subtle foreshadowing of a world that considers a fatal reality TV show an appropriate and accepted way of manipulating the public. When you sift through the triangle and the melodrama these are the things that stay with you most from Collins’ novels and the things that must take forefront in the sequels to lift the films out of young adult easy watching. Hopefully with such a devoted fan base and so much critical discussion and interest, the films will increase in complexity as the series go on, but it’s important that the audience demand it - too often great ideas are congratulated for simply being good when realised. If we’re to be saddled with another fandom-fuelled franchise let’s demand it be better than the efforts we’ve seen thus far.

John Carter

Dir. Andrew Stanton. Starring Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins, Mark Strong

Sci-fi is in my makeup, guys. My Dad will tell you I’m named after a Doctor Who character and it’s a story I like to believe, so intrinsically is science fiction tied in with my childhood. So naturally I went into this fantastical tale with a strongly groomed soft spot. A simple Earth man magically transported to a Mars far more able to support life than we’ve ever hoped and given a second chance to be a hero? Colour me intrigued. Throw in a brooding male lead whose already won me over with previous roles (Tim Riggins, what?) and a little Disney magic and John Carter was ticking a lot of boxes.

My cautious optimism was mostly rewarded with this family-friendly mini epic. It’s a sprawling narrative is kept reasonably on track by good direction, as Carter is catapulted into a foreign environment and throw into a war he has no part in trying to find a way home. Kitsch makes a pretty perfect Disney sci-fi prince. He’s tall and able, carrying the physicality of the part with a weary ease. He’s playing to type in John Carter as the titular man of few words and fewer convictions, but even if he is a dog who can only pull one trick, it’s a decent one to make a living and movie off. He’s surrounded by serious actors who know not to take the source material too seriously, and lesser experienced ones who haven’t quite cottoned on yet. Collins falls into the latter group and is saved – as is so often the case in this genre – by some amazing make-up and costuming, doing a lot of the character work for her. On the contrary, the voice talents of Willem Dafoe and Samantha Morton push through the CGI to give their characters substance.

The story itself plays out a little like Star Wars-lite. Lots of alien species, two majorly at war with each other with a kind of native, more animalistic, race caught in between. The war is handled well, the battles are easier to follow than a lot of the 3D action fare in the past, and you can understand the ambition driving all those involved. Even the bad guys here are given somewhat noble flaws. There’s surely some not-so-subtle civil war allusions tied into everything but social or political commentary is not the name of the game here.

What Disney are playing at with a franchise like John Carter, which at first could seem like somewhat of a departure from their usual fare, is actually just more of what we love from the studio. It’s imbued with courage and adventure, a sense of learning, morals and being supported by your friends while you follow your heart. It’s a well-dressed message that’s easy to swallow, and can be forgiven for not breaking new fields in film-making or even pushing its own envelope. Just like Kitsch himself I fear, it’s sweet and simple, but if it’s what you’re into you won’t be complaining.

Carnage

Dir. Roman Polanski. Starring Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz, Jodie Foster & John C. Reilly

It’s not often that I spend the car ride home from a film quoting and replaying the scenes in my head and out loud with my friends. It’s even rarer that such a quotable and hilarious film is by a critically acclaimed director and features an award-winning cast. Carnage has the appeal and feeling of a much more base-level film whilst also showcasing the heights that situational comedy can reach when placed in the right hands.

When their sons are involved in a scuffle that leaves one of them in need of medical care, the Longstreets (Foster & Reilly) and Cowans (Winslet & Waltz) get together to sort out the particulars. It soon becomes clear that their thinly veiled contempt for each other means that, despite their best intentions, things are about to become less than civil. Adapted from a French play, Carnage has a mischievous farcical element to it, and is adapted ably by Polanski so that none of the obstructed stage exits seem forced or off form. In less experienced hands the contained action and limited cast might play out as dull and foreign to a cinema audience, but Polanski takes advantage of the concentrated focus, allowing the close camera work to pick up on the masterful nuances his cast bring to this fascinating character study.

These guys are really the star players of what the wanky commentators would call ‘the craft’. Each plays their respective character sketches as constructed and complex, carefully peeling back layer after layer of society induced decorum. Foster in particular is genius. We hate her from the first scene, such is her clipped PC frigidity, and she somehow manipulates us to be somewhat rooting for her by the end. Each of the characters becomes our favourite and then disgraces themselves spectacularly a scene later. Every actor lets their own physicality – Waltz’s slightly creepy smile, Reilly’s man child chubbiness – inform their characters but also are never lazy, letting small gestures and subtle inflections to speak even louder than the writing and direction.

This is a great film that does a lot with very little. It’s a social commentary on the ludicrous nature of political correctness, and the baseless societal rules we live by. These parents get together to give adult meaning to adolescent action and end up acting more like children than their offspring. Maybe we never quite figure out what it means to grow up, and maybe it’s that realisation that defines being an adult. Polanski has created a small comical masterpiece in Carnage that’s the perfect combination of laughs and food for thought; the sort of film you find yourself wanting to watch again as soon as the credits start rolling.

Martha Marcy May Marlene

Dir. Sean Durkin. Starring Elizabeth Olsen, John Hawke, Sarah Paulson

It seems with so many movies being made, and with these starring a pretty even split between old reliable and new gambles, it’s unsurprising actors are slipping through the cracks. Time and time again young new talent is being passed over by Hollywood favourites so I can’t help but feel it’s the duty of critics everywhere to make sure legitimately incredible performances get the attention they deserve. Elizabeth Olsen’s debut performance as Martha Marcy May Marlene is the epitome of this and is completely devastating.

She plays a character as disconnected with herself as she is with the people around her when she mysteriously reappears after two years of no contact with her family. Despite her sister’s polite enquiries as to her previous whereabouts Martha is unwilling to talk about the clearly damaging and threatening environment she’s either run away or potentially escaped from. Olsen plays this multi-layered ball of tension, fear and defiance with a deft handed subtlety. She is by turns vulnerable and dominating, completely at ease with running a gamut of emotions with a distance and apathy to the people around her. And this is her debut performance, people. Durkin was determined to cast an unknown in the role and completely lucked out with Olsen, fresh from an acting dynasty but with her own fresh perspective, and clearly, enthusiasm for the industry.

She anchors what could have been a far too dreamlike and distancing screenplay. Durkin creates the cult-like community Martha becomes immersed in as a separate and yet overlapping universe to the one in which we all live in. When you enter it – at first by choice and then quiet compulsion – you are renamed and reformed. It seems extreme. It makes everyone in the audience question whether, despite the undeniable charisma of community leader Patrick (the always incredible John Hawke) and the appeal of a simpler and more united way of life, they would so easily be sucked into such a warped and damaging way of life. Durkin and Olsen’s collective merit is their ability to make us doubt our own pragmatic approach and to wonder just how many of the ennui-filled lost youth produced as a by product of our increasingly alienating society would be similarly entangled. 

Ultimately Durkin’s able direction and Olsen’s higher level performance elevate Martha Marcy May Marlene. We’ve seen cult films before, whether documentary or fiction, but few as able as this one to humanise everyone involved, or the show the psychological after-effects of the experience. There are a few missteps; Paulson is beautiful in her confusion at Olsen’s fractured psyche, but Dancy as her husband escalates his anger and frustration too quickly to be empathised with.  And some may find the ending disappointing, the audience tutted and sighed their way out of the screening I attended, but in truth it so perfectly fits the mood of the film I can’t fault it.

It’s a movie about the missteps we make and the prices we pay for them when we look for comfort and meaning in all the wrong places. Martha Marcy May Marlene asks us whether we’d be strong enough to remember ourselves when we’re consistently told by others who we really are. It’s a must see for Olsen alone, but the disturbed atmosphere and lingering threat make it an ambitious and beautiful film.

Gone

Dir. Heitor Dahlia. Starring Amanda Seyfried, Jennifer Carpenter and Wes Bentley

I’ve gotten into the habit of reviewing now to the point that usually not long after the credits role I’m already arranging my thoughts into sentences in my head. Seeing Gone last week with a group of young girls from my workplace was entirely different experience. I found myself not only with a lack of things to say, but with a total lack of thoughts about the movie.

It’s basic premise is this; Jill is still recovering from the trauma of not only being abducted from her home and almost killed, but also from being institutionalised for and accused of fabricating the story. She’s finally getting her life and dignity back together when her sister Molly disappears in the middle of the night. Jill is positive she has been abducted by her assaulter, and tries to convince the authorities as such, but is left to find her sister and her abductor on her own. There’s a lot in this basic sketch of a plot that if done right could yield an interesting psychological thriller.

…none of it was done right. Absolutely none of it. Seyfried was a horrible casting choice, her wide doe-eyed Miss America beauty does nothing to give Jill any of the backbone or strength she’d need on this little whodunit, and she fails to add any depth to the victim-turned-vigilante caricature she’s dealt with. You don’t believe her five-foot-nothing frame could ever physically fight off an attacker (pre-obligatory self-defence classes) or outrun a police chase. Perhaps clever writing could have saved it. If we had thought for any minute that maybe she had made it all up, that she was simply chasing inner demons, there would have at least been some intrigue. Instead, it plays out like an amateurish scavenger hunt, each tenuous clue followed leading to another sign post, by form of set piece or character, sending her in the direction to go next.

We spend the film apathetically following a by turns panicked and psychopathically calm Jill around by foot and by car, while creepy side character after creepy side character are thrown at us as potential suspects until we feel like we’re being slapped in the face by red herrings. The ultimate climactic and denouement scenes are disappointing and deflated, unable to rise above the empty action that’s come before them. Potential serious actors Bentley and Carpenter should apply to have this one scrubbed from their resumes and hopefully if we don’t talk about it and wait out the DVD release we can pretend it didn’t happen.

Young Adult

(Dir. Jason Reitman. Starring Charlize Theron, Patrick Wilson)

The villains always seem to have more fun, don’t they? I can remember back in my short-lived thespian days that I’d always hoped to get to be the bad guy, because even if the audience didn’t like you very much they loved you for being there. Theron lucks out in Young Adult  by hitting the villainous jackpot; getting to be completely unredeemable.

Clearly Diablo Cody learnt from her previous missteps; her writing shines in the film walking that fine line between ‘honest to blog’ and razor sharp reality. In Theron’s seasoned hands the material comes to guilty pleasure levels of fading glory; she is the fallen prom queen, all alcoholism fuelled nostalgia and misplaced self-pity. The narrative simply acts as a vehicle for this fascinating character study into a self-deprecating downward spiral.

Supporting players do their small caricatures admirably, but they’re simply chess pieces for the wider mental attack at hand as Theron’s sly Mavis makes one laughably horrid decision after another, all the while channelling it into an insipid young adult book series she takes all the credit for whilst only ghost-writing.

This is the thinking bitch’s chick flick, and it wears the niche market look well. It’s the cringe worthy but giggle-inducing  awkward all the rage in independent film these days but manages to escape looking hackneyed thanks to a good combination of writer/director/actress. This isn’t revolutionary film-making, but it’s a step in the right direction for all the talent involved.

My Week With Marilyn

(Dir. Simon Curtis. Starring Michelle Williams, Eddie Redmayne)

I spent far too much of this movie cowered behind my hands practically weeping at how beautiful everyone on the screen was. Williams, in particular, is luminescent as Miss Monroe. Based on the journals of film-assistant Colin Clark (Redmayne) this is a personal look behind the mask of Monroe’s public persona to the scared, underprepared young women beneath struggling in a bright light world full of expectations.

Williams hands this double role with a world-weary maturity. Monroe’s fear of flashbulbs and feminine vulnerability feels all too familiar on this particular actress considering her fraught couple of years after her partner’s sudden death. This is world’s away from Lindsay Lohan playing vintage dress-ups in FHM ; this is an actress who truly understands the peril of being beautiful as well as ambitious.

It’s a sweet if predictable story signposted for the audience broadly by every character. But just like young Colin Clark, we never really mind having our hearts broken by Marilyn because when she gets it right, you just can’t look away.

Shame

Dir. Steve McQueen. Starring Michael Fassbender, Carey Mulligan

Fassbender got completely snubbed by the Oscar nominations in this slow-burning look at the importance and impact of addicting routines in our lives and our psyches. Even his shoulders emote in beautifully framed McQueen shots with sweet negative space and some stunning long-track scenes. Mulligan is broken and needy but does it in such a way that her character’s desperate peak of action is still as shocking at the writing and direction intended.

Perhaps the audience’s discomfort at viewing this film meant McQueen and Co. missed out on the awards season debut they’d been hoping for (and richly deserve), but it is that very lingering, unsettled feeling left in the wake of the film that is McQueen & Fassbender’s joint triumph. The transformation of a lurid three way into a mechanical and dull experience highlights not only the ennui felt by all of us when our passions turn into inescapable routine and drudgery, but the self-righteous indignation we feel when – and if – anyone dares to point out we’re just going through the motions.

Echoes of Shame follow you home from the cinema and settle in the creases of your bed sheets. With popcorn fodder unashamedly filling the theatres, I’ll happily endure a little unpleasantry in the name of interesting and ambitious film-making.

Like Crazy

(Dir. Drake Doremus. Starring Felicity Jones, Anton Yelchin)

A beautiful trailer can be as much a weakness as it is a promotional strength. Like Crazy’s sun-drenched, nostalgia-heavy trailer has a way of getting under your skin and into your sentimental memory banks. The fast-pasted flickers of time spent in bed seem more suited to a photography exhibition than as a film vignette. It’s a sweet peek into an intimacy rarely shared, but it’s an audience position that gets old, and quickly.

Unlikable leads are often the fault of actors, however in this case Jones and Yelchin were faced with a near-impossible task. Anna and Jacob are selfish, inane people who make stupid decisions in the name of love and then blame the universe for fucking them over. We’re not given enough of the good stuff – the meet cute, the falling in love – to care that these two implode in their bad times. And even the large majority of those bad time moments fall emotionally flat just because you sort of feel like a) they deserve it and b) they’re much happier apart.

Wooden supporting cast and an ill-used and persistent documentary style suck the last moments of life out of this otherwise promising idea. Ultimately, Like Crazy  comes off like a teenage Blue Valentine with all of the melodrama and none of the gravity.