Tag: It’s Your Money

Review: Venom: The Last Dance

Venom, born from the gloriously over-the-top comic book boom of ’80s and ’90s, has always felt like a wild throwback to that era on screen—with more irreverence and attitude than today’s sleek, formula-driven Marvel output. But as superhero movies start to groan under their own weight, VENOM: THE LAST DANCE leans into the chaos, letting the cracks in the series become its defining feature.

Picking up right after the events of Venom: Let There Be Carnage, with a nod to Spider-Man: No Way Home, Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) and his alien symbiote, Venom, are now on the run after being falsely accused of a crime. Meanwhile, in a distant realm, Knull—the creator of the symbiotes—unleashes giant insect-like creatures to hunt them down. It turns out Eddie and Venom hold the key to Knull’s return to power, setting the film’s MacGuffin in motion.

Despite an early declaration that they’re done with “Multiverse shit,” writer/director Kelly Marcel leans heavily on the Marvel Cinematic Universe formula—but not the good parts. The film’s fatal flaw lies in trying to cram too many elements onto the flimsy buddy movie framework, leaving this third and supposedly final outing feeling overstuffed.

Chief among these issues is Knull being framed as a Thanos-like figure. Allegedly played by Andy Serkis, though only ever seen in half-shadow, the King in Black’s threat feels more existential than real. To compensate, we get soldier Rex Strickland (Chiwetel Ejiofor) as the on-the-ground antagonist, determined to hunt down and destroy Venom, despite the objections of the partially paralysed scientist Dr. Teddy Payne (Juno Temple).

Swinging wildly between tones and styles—including a random dance sequence in Las Vegas with the returning Mrs. Chen (Peggy Lu)—the film’s climax devolves into a mess of CG blobs tearing each other apart, reforming, and repeating until it’s mercifully over. Fan-favourite comic book characters pop in for seconds, just long enough to elicit a cheer, before vanishing without contributing anything meaningful. The mid-film introduction of alien-obsessed Martin (Rhys Ifan) and his hippie family feels equally random, existing solely to add some semblance of human stakes to the explosive finale.

VENOM: THE LAST DANCE, meant to close the chapter on Eddie and Venom, ultimately stumbles to a lacklustre non-ending, leaving little satisfaction to be had. While a mid-credits tease hints at a future for Sony’s Spider-Man Universe, it’s a setup that only the most dedicated comic book readers might find intriguing, but by then, everyone else has already punched their dance cards and left the floor.

2024 | USA | DIRECTOR: Kelly Marcel | WRITERS: Kelly Marcel | CAST: Tom Hardy, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Juno Temple, Rhys Ifans, Peggy Lu, Alanna Ubach, Stephen Graham, Andy Serkis | DISTRIBUTOR: Sony Pictures Releasing | RUNNING TIME: 110 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 24 October 2024 (Australia), 25 October 2024 (USA)

October 24, 2024
Review: Joker: Folie à Deux

Stop me if you’ve heard this one. A clown and his obsessive love walk into a toxic pit. Manipulation. Cruelty. Exploitation. Fans eat it up, blind to the abuse. They call it love. Good joke. Everybody laugh. Roll snare. Curtains.

Todd Phillips’ award-winning Joker walked a dangerous line. While technically impressive and anchored by Joaquin Phoenix’s powerful performance as Arthur Fleck, the film’s portrayal of women as mere objects or barriers, coupled with its muddled political stance and exploration of mental health, left it morally ambiguous and unsettling in today’s post-#MeToo landscape.

Now, in the sequel, we get a brief glimmer of hope that the film will address those consequences. Imprisoned after his public execution of a celebrity on live TV, Fleck is a hollow version of himself, sedated by a mix of drugs and the cruelty of an abusive guard (Brendan Gleeson).

When he meets Lee (Lady Gaga) in a group singing therapy class, they instantly connect. Lee “gets” him, and in a typical male fantasy, she doesn’t believe he needs to change. Thus begins a romance, blending magic musical realism and impotent sexual encounters.

As with the first film, we quickly learn not to trust what we see. Fleck/Joker frequently slips into elaborate song-filled fantasy mid-sentence, though Phillips and co-writer Scott Silver never fully commit to this device. Lee is portrayed as both fanatical and duplicitous, reinforcing the misogyny from the first film. I’m starting to wonder if that misogyny is in front of the camera or behind it.

The film’s highlight is Fleck’s highly publicised murder trial—a classic stage for dramatic revelations. Here we get to the core of the film, albeit through a disjointed mix of commentary on media, personality cults, the prison system, and maybe even reality TV. Phoenix excels in these moments, especially during his ‘small town lawyer’ routine in full makeup, sharing a heartbreaking exchange with Gary (Leigh Gill). But it’s also where the cracks show, revealing that the musical element is more afterthought than centrepiece.

It’s all incredibly frustrating, as there are moments of brilliance in there. With its nods to Warner animation, classical musicals and strong central cast, it looks like a winning formula on paper. Phoenix, for his part, still works wonders with the material, though there’s a sense that both he and the character are weary of Joker. Gaga, meanwhile, is stuck in a limiting role, but her costumes will no doubt be the ships that launch a thousand cosplays.

Taken at face value, for very little lurks beneath the surface of this set of first-draft ideas, JOKER: FOLIE À DEUX is either a skewering of toxic fandom at best, or a middle finger to the fans themselves at worst. The latter tracks with Phillips’s clear disdain for the source material, even if the little Easter eggs and references continue to try chew their cake and spit them out too.

As with the original Joker, the final laugh comes in an explosive finale that subverts expectations as much as it embraces them. In the film, Fleck defies his followers and pays the price and is literally chased down by his own creations. In reality, we see this dynamic in fandom and politics. What’s unclear is whether the monster was right all along or if it’s all just a cosmic joke. That’s all, folks.

2024 | USA | DIRECTOR: Todd Phillips | WRITERS: Scott Silver, Todd Phillips | CAST: Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Brendan Gleeson, Catherine Keener | DISTRIBUTOR: Warner Bros. (US), Universal Pictures (Australia) | RUNNING TIME: 138 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 3 October 2024 (Australia), 4 October 2024 (USA)

October 3, 2024
Review: Halloween Ends

When writing about any long-running horror franchise, it’s almost obligatory that you talk about its many deaths and resurrections. You might make a reference to the franchise being as ‘unkillable’ as its villain – in this case Michael Myers – and the many ups and downs so far. With HALLOWEEN ENDS, requel series director David Gordon Green ponders the very nature of life and death. Sort of.

Set several years after the events of the critically reviled Halloween Kills, the story opens on a hitherto unseen moment from Halloween night in 2019. Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell) is babysitting, but when tragedy strikes the town blames him in perpetuity. Several years later, he meets Allyson Nelson (Andi Matichak) through her grandmother Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and the pair immediately fall for each other. Yet Laurie begins to suspect something is rotten in the state of Corey. If we’ve learned anything from the Halloween films, it’s to always listen to Laurie.

In Halloween Kills, the people of Haddonfield thought they could stop Michael by committee, and David Gordon Green seemed to think they could make a Halloween film in the same fashion. To his credit, he is consciously trying for something different here, this time focusing on the journey of a different killer. In some ways this makes it more akin to the non-canonical Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982), although Green keeps his ties to the main series.

It’s a curious mix of styles though. Mostly eschewing a reliance on the traditional villain, Green takes his time in a leisurely first hour. Swinging from 80s teen romance to Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, often in the same montage, one has to admit that we’ve never quite seen Halloween attempt something on this level. Through Laurie’s memoirs, the film asks some pretty big questions about the nature of evil, the notion of collective trauma, and how the absence of a villain can lead people to look for one. (You could probably read this as a commentary on the last few years of divisive US politics, but that would give it too much credit).

Yet Green – along with co-writers Paul Brad Logan, Chris Bernier and Danny McBride – fail to satisfactorily answer any of these puzzles. Caught between the old and the new, it becomes clear that in the attempt to make something new, the film almost forgets that it is part of a franchise. Scrambling to restore Michael Myers to the foreground, the film slides into a needlessly violent denouement. Yes, this is par for the course (and aimed at servicing the fans who whoop and cheer and every dismemberment), but it only exacerbates the feeling that the last hour of the film is an afterthought.

So, as HALLOWEEN ENDS literally carries the battered corpse of itself to a disposal unit, one wonders if there’s any life left in the old guard yet. For a franchise that has proven to be remarkably resilient over the last 44 years, Green’s latest finale perhaps proves that it’s time for Michael to go to the grave. At least for a while anyway. Halloween ends – and not a moment too soon.

2022 | USA | DIRECTOR: David Gordon Green | WRITERS: Paul Brad Logan, Chris Bernier, Danny McBride, David Gordon Green | CAST: Jamie Lee Curtis, Andi Matichak, James Jude Courtney, Will Patton, Rohan Campbell, Kyle Richards | DISTRIBUTOR: Universal Pictures | RUNNING TIME: 111 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 13 October 2022 (AUS), 14 October 2022 (US)

October 13, 2022
Review: Angel of Mine

There’s a lot of promise behind ANGEL OF MINE. Director Kim Farrant’s previous film Strangerland was a gripping film from start to finish. Screenwriter Luke Davies won awards across the board for Lion. Yet in this awkward thriller, the sum of those parts doesn’t add up to anything heavenly.

Following the death of their daughter, Lizzie (Noomi Rapace) and Mike (Luke Evans) are divorced. Lizzie simply isn’t coping with life, and Mike sues for custody of their other child. Yet a chance encounter with a little girl causes Lizzie to lose grip on reality, believing it is really her daughter returned. As she begins to ingratiate herself into the lives of the girl’s parents (Yvonne Strahovski and Richard Roxburgh), their relationship takes a darker turn.

Davies’ screenplay, co-written with David Regal, is like a cross between The Hand That Rocks The Cradle and a Law & Order episode for the most part. It starts innocuously enough, with Lizzie stalking a toddler and freaking out in public. By the time she is wandering off with someone else’s child and comically popping up from behind bushes – or “officially in restraining order territory” as the films puts it – the script becomes the stuff of high fantasy rather than anything based in reality.

Rapace and Strahovski give this their all, although the material is not the best either have had to work with. Rapace, for example, has some interesting character turns, including a sex scene showing intimacy issues and a brief visit to a psychologist. Yet these threads are left dangling, undermining any chance that this film had of dealing with grief and mental health issues in any meaningful way. Evans and Roxburgh are given virtually nothing to do, with their roles easily interchangeable and fillable by any actor with a pulse.

Backed by a heavy-handed soundtrack from Gabe Noel, what is most surprising about ANGEL OF MINE is just how plainly shot the film looks. When compared with the rich work of P.J. Dillon on Strangerland, here Farrant and cinematographer Andrew Commis take a point-and-shoot approach that appears to go out of its way to divorce this thriller from any style.

As the film goes for the inevitable climactic ending, complete with a girl-fight face-off, the twists and turns that lead to the conclusion will only shock if you have been invested in this vanilla thriller. The bizarre denouement feels completely incongruous with the rest of the film, making us wonder if they were intentionally going for being a camp classic.

2018 | Australia | DIRECTOR: Kim Farrant | WRITERS: Luke Davies, David Regal | CAST: Noomi Rapace, Luke Evans, Yvonne Strahovski, Richard Roxburgh | DISTRIBUTOR: R&R Films (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 97 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 5 September 2019 (AUS), 1-18 August 2019 (MIFF)

August 18, 2019
Review: Girls2 – Girls Vs Gangsters

Barbara Wong Chun-chun’s 2014 film Girls took some odd turns. Lurching from broad comedy to melodrama, it even went to some darker places in a grisly third act turn. Despite this, it was an disarmingly charming romantic dramedy with engaging lead actors. None of this would logically lead us to long-delayed GIRLS 2: GIRLS VS GANGSTERS (闺蜜2：无二不作), which may take the sharpest left turn in a franchise since The Brady Bunch in the White House.

The frequently emotionally messy Xiwen (Ivy Chen) announces that she’s getting married to Qiao Li, her romantic interest from the first film. Her BFF Kimmy (Fiona Sit) convinces her to go on a bachelorette trip to Vietnam, but is chagrined to learn that Xiwen has also invited Kimmy’s mortal enemy, the well-to-do Jialan (Ning Chang Chun-ning), as well as Qiao Li’s sister, Jingjing (Wang Shuilin). After a hard night of drinking, Xiwen, Kimmy, and Jialan wake up naked on a Cambodian beach with no memory of what happened the night before. Chained to a mysterious box, and not sure where Jingjing has gotten to, they are soon on the run from the titular gangsters.

If any of that sounds familiar, it’s because you saw it in The Hangover. Then other parts of it in Bridesmaids. Then again in The Hangover Part II. Xiwen even has a mysterious tattoo she can’t remember getting. Much like the films it imitates poorly, the movie spends most of its time unpicking the events of the night before. Yet where The Hangover followed clues from one location to the next, GIRLS 2 pings from place to place with no real sense of continuity. There’s busty assassins, a series of beaten-up male strippers, and frequent vocal performances of torch song ‘Wordless Ending’ that get lost in translation.

Things get especially strange when Mike Tyson turns up. Completing The Hangover connection, Tyson plays a half-Korean version of himself who spends part of his time in South-East Asia. In Barbara Wong’s infinite wisdom, she has cast a convicted rapist as the object of affection for Jialan. Rather than being a brief cameo, Tyson’s lengthy second act appearance sees the boxer/registered sex offender don a military uniform, spasmodically run through the streets, and fend off gangsters with faux martial arts. If you thought Tyson’s performances were stilted in other films, wait until you see him speaking in slow, subtitled English.

Zishan Yang wisely chose not to return for this second film, and her character Xiamei’s absence is never fully explained (save for her being ‘on set’ somewhere). Similarly, fiancé Qiao Li (played by Shawn Yue in the first Girls) is only ever heard over the phone. It’s amazing that they manage to stage an entire wedding sequence without showing the groom once, although it makes about as much sense as anything else in this movie.

The conclusion to the story is literally dependent on a running poop joke, one in which Jialan slowly becomes comfortable with Kimmy taking a dump in her presence. If ever there was a perfect in-film metaphor for GIRLS 2, this is it. Derivative, confusing, and needlessly convoluted, this is the type of film that gets made by throwing darts at a board. So bring on Girls 3, basically.

[stextbox id=”grey” bgcolor=”F2F2F2″ mleft=”5″ mright=”5″ image=”null”]2018 | China | DIRECTOR: Barbara Wong | WRITERS: Daryl Doo, Yigyan Hou, Barbara Wong, Shanyu Zheng | CAST: Fiona Sit, Ivy Chen, Ning Chang Chun-ning, Mike Tyson, Wang Shuilin, Fan Tiantian | DISTRIBUTOR: Magnum Films/ChopFlix (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 114 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 8 March 2018 (AUS) [/stextbox]

March 9, 2018
Review: Once Upon a Time

The directorial debut of Zhao Xiaoding, co-directing with Anthony LaMolinara, was something to get excited about. As Zhang Yimou’s Academy Award nominated cinematographer, Zhao’s work on House of Flying Daggers defined the look of a genre. Unfortunately for romantic fantasy flick ONCE UPON A TIME (三生三世十里桃花), even his involvement isn’t enough to save this mess.

Based on the fantasy novel Three Lives Three Worlds, Ten Miles Peach Blossoms by TangQi Gongzi, it tells the story of immortal royal Bai Qian (Liu Yifei) and the love she shares across the ages with Ye Hua (Yang Yang).

If nothing else, ONCE UPON A TIME sure is pretty to look at. What seems like an endless supply of production company logos at the start of the film are indicative of the CN¥150 million budget that went into the tale, although one gets the impression that the lushly illustrated aesthetics were about the only concern here. The fact that there doesn’t seem to be a writing credit beyond the novel that inspired it is indicative of this approach.

Like an extended scene set where the Venn Diagram intersects on Rivendell in Lord of the Rings and James Cameron’s Avatar, the CG behind some of the sequences is impressive – until it spectacularly isn’t. For every glorious Eastern Sea garden, there’s the shoddy work behind Bai Qian’s constant companion MiGu, a cross between Dobby the House Elf and a Boobah. By the same token, while some of the action is blockbuster in nature, other scenes may have been choreographed by the original Power Rangers series (complete with their own Rita Repulsa).

There’s so much going on at times, it is difficult to know exactly which bit of digital window-dressing to fix your eyeballs on. Never lacking in ambition or imagination, there’s multi-tailed foxes, giant organic monsters, and armies of flying critters pouring out of every corner of the picture. The problem is that it is all sort of throw into a giant melting pop, shaken about, and handed back to the audience in an episodic potpourri.

This is all to mask that ONCE UPON A TIME appears to be building to a “twist” of sorts, but that too is telegraphed from the opening scenes. Nevertheless, the story that inspired the film was also the basis of the Chinese TV show Eternal Love, so if it still intrigues you then this might be the version to seek out. It’s more than likely less confusing and more linear than this shambolic outing.

[stextbox id=”grey” bgcolor=”F2F2F2″ mleft=”5″ mright=”5″ image=”null”]2017 | China | DIR: Zhao Xiaoding, Anthony LaMolinara | WRITER: Tang Qi (novel)| CAST: Park Seo-Joon, Kang Ha-Neul | RUNNING TIME: 109 minutes | DISTRIBUTOR: Magnum Films/ChopFlix (AUS) | RELEASE DATE: 31 August 2017[/stextbox]

September 5, 2017
MIFF 2012 Review: Mine Games

A predictable mish-mash of familiar horror movie characters and devices, you won’t want to go back into the mine.

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Director: Richard Gray

Writer(s): Ross McQueen, Richard Gray, Michele Davis-Gray

Runtime: 91 minutes

Starring: Briana Evigan, Julianna Guill, Ethan Peck, Alex Meraz, Joseph Cross, Rafi Gavron, Rebecca Da Costa

Festival: Melbourne International Film Festival 2012

Country: US

Rating (?): It’s Your Money (★½)

More info

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Australian filmmaker Richard Gray made his break onto the local scene with his Project Greenlight runner-up Summer Coda (2010), a film the distributors billed as a being in the vein of Bernardo Bertolucci’s Stealing Beauty. With his follow-up Mine Games, Gray plunges into the depths of a well-worn genre, and fails to come up with anything new. This completely unremarkable spin on the ‘spam in a cabin’ genre fails to learn anything from the countless imitators and cookie-cutter films that have come before, outright borrowing from a number of them, making this sophomore effort feel more like an awkward debut.

Seven young friends head out to a remote cabin in the woods (stop us if you’ve heard this one before), but a car accident forces them to abandon their car and walk the rest of the way. Arriving at what they assume is the correct house, they await the owners with a growing sense of dread that something is not quite right. Repeatedly reminded that Michael (Joseph Cross) hasn’t taken his ‘pills’, things take a turn for the completely expected upon the discovery of an old mine in the middle of the woods.

In the wake of this year’s superb The Cabin in the Woods, the bar for all horror films was raised by several notches. While it would be unfair to criticise Mine Games purely for its unoriginality, a finger that can surely be levelled at virtually any genre pic, if you are going to make a vanilla cupcake, then it has to be a superb one. Taking itself far too seriously, the set-up follows the rules to the letter, burdening every character with explanatory speech and exposition, so much so that there is an expectation that there will be a ‘twist’ coming at any moment. This too is built into the narrative with the discovery of the mine, yet all it manages to do is add another layer of convolution to this paper-thin outing. In using the symbol of the ouroboros as a recurring motif, a serpent that eats its own tail, Gray has also graphically demonstrated what this film is fundamentally doing to itself.

The cast of young actors have all seen their share of screen time over the last few years, including actual Friday the 13th (2009) star Juiliana Guill, and their failure to elevate the film is scarcely their fault. Gray’s script, co-written with Michele Davis-Gray and Ross McQueen, gives them little to do beyond running around and looking scared, and while the looping nature of the story might be ostensibly a clever idea, it also lacks a clear antagonist. Devoid of an immediate threat, the decision of the characters to repeatedly return to the mine becomes increasingly ponderous and unlikely, with an unseen force acting as more of a catch-all god-machine. It certainly eschews having to adhere to that pesky notion of a story arc or character development. Particularly insidious is the fall-back ‘Latino mystical chick’ (Rebecca Da Costa), the only one who can see some of the strings behind the scenes, and the seemingly mandatory inclusion of the ‘annoying British guy’ in Rafi Gavron.

While Mine Games uses the rather interesting location of a mine to stage its terror, the flat photography shines too much of a light on the dark corners, electing for a ‘show it all’ approach and thus sapping any of the remaining suspense. Indeed, Mine Games feels like a bad student film, and not the work of a group of internationally recognised filmmakers who have been working together for several productions. As the film repeatedly reminds us, we need to break the cycle, and this is where audiences can take control and demand a better class of horror. Filled with thoughts that never play out, this is one film that should remain buried.

Mine Games played at the Melbourne International Film Festival in August 2012. At the time of screening, it did not have a distributor.

August 20, 2012
80s Bits: Zapped!

Welcome back to 80s Bits, the weekly column in which we explore the best and worst of the Decade of Shame. With guest writers, hidden gems and more, it’s truly, truly, truly outrageous.

[stextbox id=”grey” caption=”Zapped! (1982)” float=”true” align=”right” width=”200″]

Director: Robert J. Rosenthal

Writers(s): Robert J. Rosenthal, Bruce Rubin

Runtime: 98 minutes

Starring: Scott Baio, Willie Aames, Felice Schachter, Robert Mandan, Scatman Crothers, Heather Thomas

Distributor: Embassy Pictures

Country: US

Rating: It’s Your Money (★½) (?)

More 80s Bits

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What would you do if you had the ability to move objects with your mind? Combine that concept with the 80s teen T&A genre, and a touch of Grease, and you get Zapped! Writer/Director Robert J. Rosenthal captured in this 1982 quirky comedy the essence of a teenage boys mind and what you could do with an overactive imagination if you had special powers.

Barney is scientific genius with uptight parents that are convinced that he is a possessed junkie. Through experimenting with chemical mixtures and alcohol, a powerful concoction is created that first gives extraordinary visual strength to Edgar the lab mouse, then leading to an explosion. Barney slowly realises his newly found talent through extreme adolescent emotions, both good and bad. This leads to pranking the teaching to get out of a sticky situation, and gaining the higher ground over his parents through the use of a dummy acting as a possessed vessel. After using his newly found skills to take out the Baseball Game, win thousands in a poker match, and take out revenge on enemies he can’t seem to secure the most important thing to him: a date to the Prom.

The school is full of stereotypes which are perfectly played by the cast. Scott Baio (TV’s Charles in Charge) is Barney, someone who seems to have the nerd-jock crossover down pat. Even without his power, he is cool in his own way having access to his own chemistry lab in which he has created a weed plantation. Barney’s love interest Bernadette (Felice Schachter) is the naturally pretty and smart newspaper writer and school presenter who takes a keen interest in conducting research on Barney’s telekinetic powers. Together they experience all the intense new emotions of a physical romance, only to be challenge by antics of the best friend Peyton.

Peyton (Willie Aames) is the overly confident and somewhat annoying womanising bestie who adds much comedy to the flick as he seduces femme fatale’s from the principal’s secretary to the school beauty Jane: “I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to. I have too much respect for you”. Jane (Heather Thomas) is a blonde bucksome bombshell that is in the dreams of all boys in school, and of course dating college jock Robert Wolcott. And high school wouldn’t be the same without a torrid affair between the unauthoritative principal who takes more interest in the classifieds than running the school and his mousey slightly desperate English teaching. To top it all off, the standard of the school is set by a punk rebel who’s repeated senior year 3 times, putting his hopes for graduation into classy poems about chicks.

Memorable moments in the film include drunken scuba diving lab rats being used for a school report on driving under the influence, harvesting fast growing dope with the principal’s orchids, and the marijuana scheme where cool dude coach Dexter hallucinates about riding bikes with Einstein only to be chased down by his wife shooting salami sticks at him. The telekinetic power is also creatively used in a Star Trek like montage starring Barney’s sheepdog and Starfleet clad men inside a toy model of The Enterprise, and a Carrie like chaotic Prom climax.

To reminisce over what high school wasn’t get Zapped!

August 18, 2012
Review: The Door

A muddled effort from even the most talented of its cast members, The Door remains firmly shut in this consciously mannered adaptation of Magda Szabó’s novel.

[stextbox id=”grey” caption=”The Door (2012)” float=”true” align=”right” width=”200″]

Director: István Szabó

Writers: István Szabó, Andrea Vészits, Magda Szabó

Runtime: 97 minutes

Starring: Helen Mirren, Martina Gedeck, Károly Eperjes

Distributor: Rialto

Country: Hungary

Rating (?): It’s Your Money (★½)

More info

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In constructing his adaptation of Magda Szabó’s prize-winning Hungarian novel The Door, veteran filmmaker István Szabó has given into the temptation of relying too heavily on the performance of a central actor. Set in 1960s Hungary, the film touches briefly on some of the subjects of state control that has intrigued the director in the past, yet the focus here is on an unlikely bond between two women, and the equally unbelievable set of events that unfolds around them.

Magda (Martina Gedeck) and her husband, Tibor (Károly Eperjes), have come to live in a remote manor, largely so that Magda can concentrate on her writing. They invite elderly washerwoman Emerenc (Helen Mirren) to do their housework, and Magda is initially put off by Emerenc’s gruff attitude. Despite this, and a seemingly endless series of mood-swings and eccentricities on Emerenc’s part, not to mention the secrets she keeps behind the door to her apartment, the pair form a kind of friendship.

Yet film struggles to explain why Magda and Emerenc develop a relationship at all, perpetually feeling as though every other scene has been removed to keep us in a state of confusion. Emerenc’s wild mood swings, from gruffness to turning up at early hours with breakfast in bed and poetry, are difficult enough to tolerate, but a completely unlikely bond forms between the two women regardless. It’s a battle of wits between two unarmed opponents. Magda is painted as an otherwise cultured writer, so it is difficult to comprehend why she would even tolerate Emerenc let alone form a strong friendship with her. It is a gap that Szabó never bridges, leaving a empty space in the middle of the barest shell of this drama of manners.

Any dramatic tension in the film lies around the titular door to Emerenc’s small apartment, and what lies behind it remains a mystery for much of the film. Drowning all activity in an overbearing score, the ultimate dramatic reveal is predictably underwhelming, and leads to an incredibly rushed dénouement. Crafting itself as an artificial stage play, there is nothing in The Door for audiences to hold onto. Some obvious dubbing of the local cast into English gives the film another intangible distance to bridge, diminishing the flow of dialogue and forcing the principal cast to emphasise every word in an unnaturalistic way. In many ways Mirren’s is a brave performance, shedding her “still sexy at 66” image in favour of someone nearing the end of their life. Yet she also seems to be most guilty of the same strategic mannerisms, stiffly and conscious delivering every line, perhaps to remind us that she is acting. The Door is an intriguing premise poorly executed, and any chance of connection remains locked away.

The Door is released in Australia on 19 July 2012 from Rialto Distribution.

July 16, 2012
Review: What to Expect When You’re Expecting

If you’re not expecting much, then you may have set your expectations too high.

[stextbox id=”grey” caption=”What to Expect When You’re Expecting (2012)” float=”true” align=”right” width=”200″]

Director: Kirk Jones

Writer(s): Shauna Cross, Heather Hach

Runtime: 110 minutes

Starring: Elizabeth Banks, Chace Crawford, Brooklyn Decker, Cameron Diaz, Ben Falcone, Anna Kendrick, Jennifer Lopez, Matthew Morrison, Chris Rock, Dennis Quaid, Rodrigo Santoro

Distributor: Roadshow Films

Country: US

Rating (?): It’s Your Money

More info

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Hyperlinked, star mash-up romantic comedies have now become a staple of the cinematic calendar, taking us from Valentine’s Day through to New Year’s Eve. With studios rapidly running out of holidays to catapult willing Hollywoodians at, director Kirk Jones has turned to Heidi Murkoff and Sharon Mazel’s seminal field guide for for expectant mothers hoping to survive pregnancy. In the grand tradition of He’s Just Not That Into You, the non-fiction origins are transformed into a film that is operating without a medical licence.

What To Expect When You’re Expecting follows five couples in Atlanta who are on their way to becoming parents. Jules (Cameron Diaz), a television weight-loss host and Evan (Matthew Morrison) are a celebrity couple who hooked up on a dance show, only to find Jules is pregnant. Wendy (Elizabeth Banks) and Gary (Ben Falcone) are a long-term married couple who suddenly become pregnant after years of trying. Gary competes with his race-car driving father Ramsey (Dennis Quaid), who is married to the much younger, and also pregnant, Skyler (Brooklyn Decker). Then there’s cheese-truck operator Rosie (Anna Kendrick), who hooks up with former flame and fellow food-truckie Marco (Chace Crawford). Their brief encounter leaves Rosie craving more than cheddar. Meanwhile, Holly (Jennifer Lopez) and Alex (Rodrigo Santoro) prepare to adopt an Ethiopian child, although Alex isn’t ready.

The sense of urgency created by What To Expect When You’re Expecting has nothing to do with pending childbirth, but rather the sheer number of narratives flying about. Most films would struggle with making a compelling story out of a single pregnancy let alone five, but here we have at least three stories too many. Case in point is the Anna Kendrick and Chace Crawford’s storyline, which actually wraps up less than halfway through the film. The pair have very little to do except meander through familiar plot points, adrift without a central spiel to hang onto. Worse still is the suggestion that without the titular expectation, there is no corresponding happiness for this pair of hipsters.

Other fragments fare slightly better, with at least one amusing scene from Elizabeth Banks breaking down at a motherhood expo. Similarly, the rivalry between Quaid and Falcone should have served as the basis for its own film, and would have been much funnier as a result. Yet it is the “Dude’s group”, a collection of fathers who live by their own code, who have the only chuckles. Chris Rock spins his take on daddyhood in familiar tones, and Rob Huebel and Thomas Lennon compliment him nicely. Yet this too suffers from the rest of the film’s inconsequential staging, with True Blood‘s Joe Manganiello only cast to run through shirtless from time to time. At least when Jennifer Lopez infrequenly shows up, we get to go to Africa.

Ultimately meaningless, the film borders on the offensive at the suggestion happiness for women is only achieved through a union and a baby. Automated writing at best, it is unlikely writers Shauna Cross and Heather Hach had to do much beyond come up with scenarios, and a random sample bag was chosen. Original author Heidi Murkoff has been criticised for writing a guidebook without any medical training, where the film can be more simply reprimanded for running without a responsible adult present.

What to Expect When You’re Expecting is released in Australia on 31 May 2012 from Roadshow Films.

May 25, 2012