Tag: Universal Pictures

Review: The Hustle

To hustle someone usually involves pretending to be something or someone that you are not in order to gain advantage. THE HUSTLE has set itself up as a remake of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988), itself a reworking of the 1964 film Bedtime Story. Yet some old tricks get tired in the retelling, and like the best cons, a hustle is only as strong as its weakest player.

Con artist Josephine Chesterfield (Anne Hathaway) has been living a life of luxury in Beaumont-sur-Mer on the proceeds of her ill-gotten gains. When wannabe hustler Penny Rust (Rebel Wilson) comes stumbling into her town, Josephine sees an opportunity to coach a protégé. However, they soon become bitter rivals, challenging each other to take down a mark in order to win territorial rights.

A straight update of Stanley Shapiro, Paul Henning, and Dale Launer’s 1988 script, Jac Schaeffer (Captain Marvel) never strays too far from the source material. Indeed, there’s several moments where the dialogue is virtually verbatim. Director Chris Addison, best known for the sophisticated comedy of The Thick of It and Veep, relies instead on the two lead personalities.

This also means that Wilson’s broad comedic stylings dominate much of film. As the embodiment of an obnoxious Australian tourist, she totally nails the role. The rest of the time is spend playing up her physicality as a comic, literally barrelling through scenery in the absence of witty dialogue. In one chaotically bad sequence, Wilson fakes being blind for what feels like the entire second act. That said, if you do like her particular brand of comedy, and there’s definitely a solid fanbase out there, you’ll probably love THE HUSTLE.

Hathaway, now adept at playing high class thieves, manages to rise above the meet food the script feeds her. The rest of the supporting cast – who include Doctor Who‘s Ingrid Oliver and relative newcomer Alex Sharp – is uninspiring, disappearing into the background behind montages of physical awkwardness.

People familiar with any of the previous versions of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, or even the stage musical of the same name, will find few surprises in THE HUSTLE‘s final act. Director Addison’s sharp comedy resume evaporates in a pratfall, as any emotion the script find is immediately undercut by slapstick. Which is why it is difficult to be too hard on the film: it’s a less accomplished copy, but if you enjoyed the original then this is much of the same.

2019 | US | DIRECTOR: Chris Addison | WRITERS: Stanley Shapiro, Paul Henning, Dale Launer, Jac Schaeffer | CAST: Anne Hathaway, Rebel Wilson, Alex Sharp, Dean Norris | DISTRIBUTOR: Universal Pictures | RUNNING TIME: 94 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 9 May 2018 (AUS)

May 9, 2019
Review: Happy Death Day 2U

A sequel to Happy Death Day might be the one thing that makes sense in this crazy workaday world. The subversively clever 2017 film was the lovechild of Groundhog Day and Scream, cognisant of its own influences while sharply aware that younger audiences could care less about the 1990s. HAPPY DEATH DAY 2U is simply here to have fun. Party.

Picking up right after the events of the first film, we learn that ‘dickhead’ roommate Ryan (Phi Vu) is now caught in his own time loop and being hunted by a killer. Yet instead of simply repeating the formula with a different set of players, writer and director Christopher Landon (who directed Scott Lobdell’s script last time) subverts expectations by introducing quantum mechanics, multiverses, and other twisty stories within stories.

Any fear that an over-explanation of the time travel elements is swiftly forgotten with the reintroduction of Tree (Jessica Rothe) and her fledgling boyfriend Carter (Israel Broussard). Landon deftly steers the film from straight-up horror to sci-fi comedy caper as Tree once again gets caught in a familiar loop but with a very different series of encounters to the last lot of times that she went through.

The focus is less on the whodunnit than it is on boldly having fun with the multiversal direction Landon has steered the franchise into. Just like Tree’s investigative montage in the first film, she repeatedly dies (again) in increasingly bizarre ways so she can memorise a formula needed to get back to her normal life. Some of these deaths make no literal sense, but Tree skydiving without a parachute (and wearing a bikini) is part of the anarchic silliness Landon embraces.

Each of the characters are given a little more depth this time around as well. From the get-go, the one-joke Ryan is revealed to be a student of quantum physics and is surrounded by intelligent characters. The surprisingly emotional core comes from Tree’s chance to reconnect with her deceased mother (Miss Yager) and gives the lead’s choices a deeper sense of urgency.

With almost double the budget of the first film – from a mere US$4.8 million to a modest $9 million – Landon allows himself a few more special effects this time around. Most of these are on the device Ryan and his team are working on, but it also allows for a little bit more scope in the various death montages the series is rapidly becoming known for.

Which is where this sequel really succeeds: it expands the Happy Death Day world, giving it the potential to be another big franchise series for the Blumhouse gang. Make sure you sit through the credits for a little stinger that indicates where it will go next. It’s not strictly horror, comedy, or sci-fi, but it is straight-up fun.

2019 | US | DIR: Christopher Landon | WRITERS: Christopher Landon | CAST: Jessica Rothe, Israel Broussard, Phi Vu, Suraj Sharma, Sarah Yarkin, Ruby Modine | RUNNING TIME: 100 minutes | DISTRIBUTOR: Universal Pictures (AUS) | RELEASE DATE: 14 February 2019 (AUS)

February 16, 2019
Review: Mortal Engines

Peter Jackson may not have directed MORTAL ENGINES but his fingerprints are all over it. It has been on the cards at his WingNut Films since 2009, but the planned production of The Dambusters and The Hobbit trilogy pushed it back on the agenda. Having worked with Jackson since 1992’s Braindead, director Christian Rivers steps out of the second unit to deliver something that’s on par with the scale of his mentor’s work.

Based on the first novel by Philip Reeve, the Lord of the Rings screenwriting team of Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and Peter Jackson do their thing by taking the solid bones of its structure expanding the world and placing it all in context. Eons after the 60-Minute War, the Earth is a wasteland. Massive traction cities roam the globe, literally ingesting smaller cities for survival in a philosophy called ‘Municipal Darwinism.’

Young Tom (Robert Sheehan) is low-class apprentice historian who has only ever lived in the travelling city of London. A burgeoning friendship with elite citizen Katherine Valentine (Lila George) is cut short when an assassination attempt is made on her father Thaddeus Valentine (Hugo Weaving). Tom and assassin Hester Shaw (Hera Hilmar) soon find themselves on the run in the remnants of the Earth searching for a McGuffin.

Fans of Reeve’s original quartet and prequel series will find a fair bit of joy in seeing the author’s creative vision come to life in such an impressive way, and there will be times when you’re swept away with the spectacle of it all. It’s just that it’s also such a mish-mash of ideas and references to other films and tropes that you are always conscious that you are watching a movie. An early appearance of Universal’s ubiquitous Minions leaves a taste in our mouths as bad as the millennia-old Twinkies that show up sometime later.

Which isn’t to say there’s no fun to be had: it’s visually stunning, and Rivers/Jackson know how to stage a film in a grand arena. An early chase through a town as it’s being dissected by London is as inventive as it is thrilling. The bright-red resistance airship flown by fan-favourite Anna Fang (Jihae) is the Millennium Falcon of the picture, and becomes a character in itself. It all builds to a massive battle sequence that looks like a high-tech version of something out of The Two Towers or The Battle of the Five Armies.

It’s a shame then that the principal leads of Hilmar and Sheehan have virtually no chemistry. It would have been far more interesting to follow the sub-plot about Katherine and the completely undeveloped Bevis Pod (Ronan Raftery), who were the true stars of this vehicle. The appearance of Shrike (Stephen Lang), an undead cyborg hunting Hester, feels like one plot line too many, although the writing team at least manage to imbue him with a modicum of empathy. Hugo Weaving doesn’t encounter a piece of scenery he doesn’t find delicious, and even gets his own Darth Vader moment in the climax.

So if Municipal Darwinism is the act of cities eating other cities, then MORTAL ENGINES has swallowed other films whole and recycled them for parts. At the same time, it also feels like a final package: and if there are to be sequels, the film doesn’t necessarily point the way there. There’s a solid adventure story at the centre of this adaptation, but it spends so much time swirling around its own gutsy innards that it’s sometimes hard to digest.

[stextbox id=”grey” bgcolor=”F2F2F2″ mleft=”5″ mright=”5″ image=”null”]2018 | US | DIR: Christian Rivers | WRITERS: Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson | CAST: Hugo Weaving, Hera Hilmar, Robert Sheehan, Jihae, Ronan Raftery, Leila George, Patrick Malahide, Stephen Lang | RUNNING TIME: 128 minutes | DISTRIBUTOR: Universal Pictures (AUS) | RELEASE DATE: 6 December 2018 (AUS), 14 December 2018 (US)[/stextbox]

December 8, 2018
Review: Halloween

In the forty years since the original Halloween, the tropes and tricks of the horror classic have become staples of the genre. So writers Jeff Fradley, Danny McBride, and director David Gordon Green’s reverential take doesn’t feel like a sequel so much as a natural continuation of John Carpenter’s work. This, as it turns out, is a double-edged kitchen knife.

Tapping into the zeitgeist of the true crime podcast fad, an intrepid duo of journalists travel to Haddonfield, Illinois to interview Michael Myers on the 40th anniversary of ‘The Babysitter Murders.’ It sets the scene with an incredibly tense, if somewhat nonsensical, sequence set in a stylish and (almost otherworldly) prison yard. Meanwhile, a traumatised Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) now lives in an isolated and secure bunker, transformed into the horror film equivalent of Terminator 2‘s Sarah Connor.

The slickly contemporary setup only works by fudging the end of the 1978 original, and ignores the often contradictory chronology of the 11 films to date. In fact, it’s worthwhile looking at this as at least the third branch of the Halloween Multiverse. Gone is Jamie Lloyd, Laurie’s daughter from the fourth, fifth, and sixth films. Indeed, Laurie being Michael’s sister is written off as an urban ‘myth’ in a cheeky bit of meta-commentary. Instead, Laurie’s estranged daughter Karen (the wonderful Judy Greer) suffers her own PTSD from growing up with a survivalist mother. Laurie’s granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) is more sympathetic.

Unsurprisingly, a series of events leads Michael Myers/The Shape back to Haddonfield, and we are back on more familiar territory. The 2018 version of The Shape is less discriminating than his 1978 counterpart, just murdering folks who happen to be in his path. In one scene, Michael slays a random Haddonfieldian seemingly for no other reason than to exchange his whacking hammer for a kitchen knife. This reckless abandon when it comes to violence on screen is par for the course in modern horror, although constant escalation still manages to make the murders in the back half of the film comparatively gruesome.

So it’s with some relief that the vast majority of these slayings avoid the violence against women that genre has become known for, whether rightly or wrongly. David Gordon Green carefully hands out the deaths with at least some justification based on a character’s jerkiness, although boneheaded decisions still seem to be the leading cause of injury in Haddonfield.

Having said that, Will Patton as an aging cop (known to some as the voice of Stephen King’s Bill Hodges) is a star player here. Haluk Bilginer as Dr. Ranbir “The New Loomis” Sartain is a bit one-note, although it’s unlikely anybody would ever match up to Donald Pleasance, who made a heroic effort by appearing in no less than four series sequels.

Filled with visual and audio cues to the original – including a phenomenal soundtrack by John Carpenter, Cody Carpenter, and Daniel Davies – what HALLOWEEN does more than anything is take the ‘final girl’ tropes that Halloween helped create and flip them on their head. While spoiling the ending would be a crime, it’s safe to say it is one of the most appropriate and satisfying conclusions to the series so far. But does anyone believe that Blumhouse will leave this alone? How about a Loomis prequel? The Purge V: Michael vs Glass! This stuff sells itself.

[stextbox id=”grey” bgcolor=”F2F2F2″ mleft=”5″ mright=”5″ image=”null”]2018 | US | DIR: David Gordon Green | WRITERS: Jeff Fradley, Danny McBride, David Gordon Green | CAST: Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer, Andi Matichak, Will Patton, Virginia Gardner | RUNNING TIME: 106 minutes | DISTRIBUTOR: Universal Pictures (AUS) | RELEASE DATE: 25 October 2018[/stextbox]

October 29, 2018
Review: BlacKkKlansman

Spike Lee’s BLACKKKLANSMAN opens with an extended scene from Gone with the Wind, often held up as an essential film in the American canon. Immediately juxtaposed with a blooper real of an actor (played by Alec Baldwin) spouting bigoted rhetoric, here it begins Lee’s conversation about cinema’s complicity in the institutionalised racism in the United States.

“Dis joint is based on some fo’ real, fo’ real shit,” an opening title reminds us, based as it is on the memoirs of Ron Stalworth (portrayed in the film by John David Washington). After joining the police in Colorado Springs as the first black cop in town, he soon gets undercover work investigating the local Civil Rights movement, and the student president Patrice (Laura Harrier). His career escalates when he infiltrates the local Ku Klux Klan chapter, using fellow cop Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver) as his public face. His work soon connects him all the way to the top of the KKK and David Duke (Topher Grace).

BLACKKKLANSMAN can be viewed on a number of levels. To start with, it’s incredibly funny. Lee and his writing team instinctively recognise that the power of so-called ‘white power’ movements lies in their ceremony and artifice, not to mention the backing of hundreds of years of cultural racism. He immediately sets about tearing those sacred cows down. Some of it is cheap shots at ‘rednecks,’ but more wryly through the portrayal of David Duke as an out of touch politico.

Contrasting this is the strong message of black unity. Civil Rights leader Kwame Ture (played here by Corey Hawkins) warns of the ‘coming war’, but also of the importance of recognising beauty in the African American duality. A powerful moment comes with Lee rapidly cutting back and forth between a Klan initiation ceremony, and an Civil Rights elder recounting the brutal mutilation and death of a falsely accused rapist within his living memory. The point is clear enough: these institutions are our institutions, and we are all responsible for the history that comes with it.

Washington is a charismatic lead. Known mostly for his work as a pro footballer, he actually started his acting career at the age of 9 as a student in Lee’s Malcolm X. Harrier’s strength as a performer opens up a dialogue opens about the “war going on inside ourselves,” as posters of Blaxploitation films Shaft, Cleopatra Jones, and Superfly fill the screen. Through Driver, there’s an unexpected conversation about the dual identity of being Jewish and American as well.

As with most of Lee’s work, BLACKKKLANSMAN is fiercely political. What’s perhaps surprising, for a film set in the 1970s, is how sharply topical it is as well. There are frequent winking nods to “someone in the White House who embodies [hate]” and “America First” as a justification for that hatred. From Birth of a Nation, scenes of which are screened in the film, cinema has perpetuated those power structures, even allowing a reality TV star to rise to power on a platform based on division.

Lee uses the trappings of the Blaxploitation classics he name-checks, right down to the explosive finale. Yet the closing moments of the film segue into footage of the Nazis of Charlottesville in 2017, and the tragic death of Heather Heyer, Lee wants to remind us that life is not like the movies. A hero cop is one thing, but it’s our collective responsibility to hold leaders such as Donald Trump, who refused to call out the Nazis initially, to task at every turn.

The final shot of the film is a chilling vision of the American flag place upside-down, morphing into a black and white version before the credits roll. For some this might be interpreted as a display of disrespect, but most will tell you it is a universal symbol of distress. BLACKKKLANSMAN is a response to a country in crisis, and may be Lee’s most powerful commentary in years.

[stextbox id=”grey” bgcolor=”F2F2F2″ mleft=”5″ mright=”5″ image=”null”]2018 | US | DIR: Spike Lee | WRITER: Spike Lee, David Rabinowitz, Charlie Wachtel, Kevin Willmott | CAST: John David Washington, Adam Driver, Laura Harrier, Topher Grace | DISTRIBUTOR: Universal Pictures, Sydney Film Festival (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 148 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 16 June 2018 (SFF), 9 August 2018 [/stextbox]

June 17, 2018
Review: Jurassic World – Fallen Kingdom

Let’s face it: none of the sequels to the original Jurassic Park have made a massive amount of sense. The continual attempts to harness dino-power have been perpetually fueled by the misguided avarice of corporate and military interests. Do they not have the Alien franchise as guidebooks in this universe? Even so, this sequel pushes the boundaries of logic beyond the specified parameters on the back of the box.

Director J.A. Bayona’s (A Monster Calls) follow-up to Colin Trevorrow’s Jurassic World sees the remaining prehistoric beasts facing annihilation at the hands of a now active volcano on Isla Nubla. Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) fights for their salvation, and is given a lifeline when the ambitious Eli Mills (Rafe Spall) offers them a sanctuary. She convinces her estranged ex Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) to join her on a rescure, but they are betrayed: the dinosaurs are only wanted for money and militarisation.

JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM is an often baffling collage of influences. At times it a little bit Raiders of the Lost Ark, with characters chasing the Nazi-esque mercenary Ken Wheatley (Ted Levine) leaping onto trucks headed for a ship. At others, it’s a locked-house horror film, with humans hunting other humans. During these moments, dinosaurs are virtually forgotten for scene-specific thrills.

Yet there’s a lot about Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly’s follow-the-dots script that doesn’t make sense. Dinosaur abilities and sizes morph to fit the given scenario. Characters and dinosaurs can stand next to lava without consequence. The entire child character of Maisie Lockwood (newcomer Isabella Sermon), dressed in Elliot’s outfit from E.T., serves no purpose beyond bearing witness to exposition. Her ultimate payoff is so out of left field as to wonder if we’re still watching the same film.

Pratt is the one saving grace of the film. His natural charisma is always a welcome screen presence. There’s one sequence where a semi-paralysed Owen is rolling away from some lava: the physics of the scene notwithstanding, it’s physical comedy gold. Howard doesn’t fare as well, often sidelined by injury when she’s not deemed necessary. The ragtag gang of helpers are mostly perfunctory. Jeff Goldblum and an angry B.D. Wong both have brief cameos, but deserve better.

On a technical level, the film is a top notch experience. Following the opening moments, inspired by James Cameron’s underwater marvels, we get to see both a T-Rex and a giant sea-bound Mosasaurus attack a helicopter. Sweet. The entire first act, which is one long action chase, is actually a white-knuckle ride of pure fun. Even amidst this chaos, the vision of a lone dinosaur left behind in a maelstrom of fire and fury might just elicit a tear or two. Michael Giacchino’s score channels both John Williams, and occasionally Bernard Hermann, in its scale.

JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM is a missed opportunity. Covering much of the same ground we already saw in The Lost World: Jurassic Park. It might leave us with an incredibly cool setup for future instalments, but it just means this was ultimately a long and messy walk-up to another film entirely.

[stextbox id=”grey” bgcolor=”F2F2F2″ mleft=”5″ mright=”5″ image=”null”]2018 | US | DIR: J.A. Bayona | WRITERS: Colin Trevorrow, Derek Connolly | CAST: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Rafe Spall, Justice Smith, Daniella Pineda, James Cromwell, Toby Jones, Ted Levine | DISTRIBUTOR: Universal Pictures (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 128 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 21 June 2018 (AUS)[/stextbox]

June 14, 2018
Review: Pacific Rim Uprising

It turns out that the apocalypse was not so much cancelled as postponed. Following 2013’s Pacific Rim, the apocalypse was shifted to Boardroom B, a new invite list of attendees was sent out, and catering was informed of the changes. So to quote this sequel, “we’re going with giant robots again,” and there isn’t a damn thing wrong with that.

Set 10 years after the war between humans and the kaiju, Jake Pentecost (John Boyega) lives a life of crime far removed from his hero father Stacker, who died in the Battle of the Breach. After he and young jaeger engineer Amara Namani (Cailee Spaeny) fall foul of the law, the duo is drawn back into the world of giant robot piloting by Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi), Jake’s adopted sister. However, when a rogue jaeger attacks Sydney during a ceremony, Jake and fellow jeager ranger Nate Lambert (Scott Eastwood) attempt to save the world.

You have to admire a movie that delivers exactly what it promises on the back of the box. While Guillermo del Toro’s film had a certain panache, and a self-awareness of the history of the genre, it was essentially about giant robots fighting monsters. Incoming director Steven S. DeKnight (TV’s Spartacus, Daredevil) wastes little time in bringing us back to this basic concept, even if we have to be a little bit patient before we see any actual kaiju.

In fact, it’s jaeger versus jaeger for the first two acts of the film. For us natives of Sydney, the destruction of Circular Quay and the surrounding harbourside suburbs was as disturbing as it is kind of cool. By the time we get up to the monumental mega-kaiju fight, a seriously spectacular clash of the CG titans on the streets of Tokyo, the script doesn’t even pretend it isn’t blatantly riffing on its Japanese influences.

PACIFIC RIM UPRISING is one of those sequels that is ultimately perfunctory. The giant fights are spectacular and technically proficient, but they don’t really come from any kind of underlying drama. Indeed, in the words of at least one character “That was supposed to be epic, but it wasn’t.” The dialogue is still cheesy (even with four screenwriters), the supporting cast is tropey, but it’s still hard not to feel your inner 12-year-old squeeing in delight.

[stextbox id=”grey” bgcolor=”F2F2F2″ mleft=”5″ mright=”5″ image=”null”]2018 | US | DIRECTORS: Steven S. DeKnight | WRITERS: Emily Carmichael, Kira Snyder, Steven S. DeKnight, T.S. Nowlin | CAST: John Boyega, Scott Eastwood, Jing Tian, Cailee Spaeny, Rinko Kikuchi, Burn Gorman, Adria Arjona, Zhang Jin, Charlie Day | DISTRIBUTOR: Universal Pictures (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 111 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 22 March 2018 (AUS) [/stextbox]

March 22, 2018
Review: Atomic Blonde

The 1980s have been going for at almost 40 years now, and ATOMIC BLONDE proves that even the fall of the Berlin Wall could not stop them. So as the unmistakable beats of New Order’s ‘Blue Monday’ segues into David Bowie’s ‘Cat People (Putting Out Fire),’ we strap in for another Cold War spy flick. This one genre flick that definitely struts to its own rhythm.

On the eve of the 1989 collapse of the Wall, British MI6 spy Lorraine Broughton (Charlize Theron) is sent to Germany to investigate the recent death of an agent. Forced to work with unorthodox station chief David Percival (James McAvoy), she must also root out double agents via a series of flashy spy moves.

Kurt Johnstad’s screenplay uses a familiar interrogation motif as his narrative frame, as Broughton’s supervisor (Toby Jones) and CIA contact (John Goodman) retrospectively question her about the events of Berlin. Yet director David Leitch (John Wick) uses the edits to his advantage. The connective tissue of the flashback is all that is needed to rapidly bounce Broughton between bedrooms, car chases, and close-quartered fisticuffs.

Wrapped in the spray paint and neon aesthetic of 1989-by-way-of-2017, and the ever-present whiff of smoke and vodka, ATOMIC BLONDE is sex-positive as well as being sexy. This is James Bond without the overt misogynistic tendencies. An ongoing relationship with French spy Delphine Lasalle (Sofia Boutella) puts Theron in the driver’s seat, comically playing up the uncomfortable seat-shifting of Jones and Goodman as she continues to recount her tale.

At other times, Leitch pulls few punches in the action stakes. A climactic third act confrontation is an 8-minute stairway/apartment battle that is cleverly composed to give the illusion of a single shot. The action here is brutal and unrelenting, on par with similar approaches in Oldboy or Netflix’s Daredevil, and is the logical contemporary(ish) progression of Theron’s Mad Max: Fury Road persona. In another sequence, Theron fights off bad guys to the tune of ‘Father Figure,’ one of the best uses of George Michael since Keanu.

Retaining the 1980s ‘greed is good’ mentality, the copious Stolichnaya placements are never close to being subtle. So while ATOMIC BLONDE never fully breaks out of the well-trod path of comrades that have come before, it’s a clever spin on the model and plays against conventions for every few turns of playing into them. Here’s hoping that there’s more like this to mine from the Cold War, and that the eventual 1990s equivalent is just as fun.

[stextbox id=”grey” bgcolor=”F2F2F2″ mleft=”5″ mright=”5″ image=”null”]2017 | US | DIR: David Leitch | WRITERS: Kurt Johnstad | CAST: Charlize Theron, James McAvoy, John Goodman, Eddie Marsan, Sofia Boutella, Toby Jones | DISTRIBUTOR: Focus Features (US), Universal Pictures (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 115 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 28 July 2017 (AUS), 3 August 2017 (AUS) [/stextbox]

July 28, 2017
Review: Ingrid Goes West

The age of social media has spawned many essays, spanning the emoji spectrum from 💕 to 🍆. Yet it’s Matt Spicer’s debut feature, INGRID GOES WEST, that gets to the ❤️ of how the various platforms have become ubiquitous part of our culture. A film that is equal parts dark comedy and a study in obsession, it’s also a great vehicle for the talents of lead Aubrey Plaza. #aubreyplazaismyspiritanimal

After undergoing psychiatric help following an obsessive relationship with a social media ‘friend,’ Ingrid (Aubrey Plaza) travels to Los Angeles🌞 to work her way into the life of social influencer Taylor (Elisabeth Olsen). While a very real friendship begins with landlord, neighbour, and Batman devotee Dan (O’Shea Jackson Jr.), Ingrid’s determination to be part of Taylor’s “#perfect” life becomes a little #craycray.🤪

While it would be easy to place this into a Single White Female stalker category, or a simple comedy about current trends, Spicer and David Branson Smith’s script goes much further than this. Ingrid is certifiable, a fact established early in the film. This is a character who kidnaps a dog 🐶 to ingratiate herself into Taylor’s life, after all. Yet she’s also a representation of all of us in the audience, where connection is not only based on how many likes, follows, or regrams you might have, but a necessary part of social acceptance.

Finding the right tonal balance between parody and drama, Olsen is pitch-perfect as the fairweather #Instafamous friend, one whose narcissism is just as damaging to her relationship with her artist husband (Wyatt Russell) as it is to Ingrid’s fragile psyche. Plaza embraces her starring vehicle by kicked her Wednesday Adams routine to the curb with an amazing performance that veers between manic enthusiasm and torrential bawling. Yet closest that film gets to true darkness is the cycle of blackmail and violence that Ingrid gets into when Taylor’s brother Nicky (Billy Magnussen) latches onto her motives.📱

In the end, the film’s emotionally satisfying climax says more about social media trends than most pieces of marketing software . Even so, this isn’t a film about how social media has made us obsessive or disconnected from one another. It’s about how it has amplified our need to find those basic human connections to a global scale, leaving us on an optimistic note. #iamingrid #oneworld #blessed♥ #filmlife📽️

INGRID GOES WEST screened at the Sydney Film Festival 2017.

[stextbox id=”grey” bgcolor=”F2F2F2″ mleft=”5″ mright=”5″ image=”null”]2017 | US | DIR: Matt Spicer | WRITER: Matt Spicer, David Branson Smith | CAST: Aubrey Plaza, Elizabeth Olsen, O’Shea Jackson Jr | DISTRIBUTOR: Universal Pictures (AUS), Sydney Film Festival | RUNNING TIME: 97 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 10 June 2017 (SFF) [/stextbox]

June 13, 2017