Brooklyn

For F*** Magazine

BROOKLYN 

Director : John Crowley
Cast : Saoirse Ronan, Domhnall Gleeson, Emory Cohen, Jim Broadbent, Julie Walters
Genre : Drama
Run Time : 1 hr 52 mins
Opens : 18 February 2016
Rating : NC-16 (Sexual Scene)

One heart is torn between two lands in this historical romance. Said heart belongs to Eilis Lacey (Ronan), a young woman from the small Irish town of Enniscorthy. Eilis’ older sister Rose (Glascott) arranges for Eilis to go to Brooklyn in search of better prospects, Eilis leaving Rose and their mother (Jane Brennan) behind. Father Flood (Broadbent), a priest active in the Irish community in Brooklyn, arranges for Eilis to stay in a boarding house run by the landlady Madge Kehoe (Walters). Father Flood also enrols Eilis in bookkeeping classes at a night school. Eilis meets and soon falls in love with Tony Fiorello (Cohen), a plumber from an Italian family. When Eilis returns to Ireland after a family emergency, she begins spending time with eligible bachelor Jim Farrell (Gleeson), a mutual acquaintance of Eilis’ best friend Nancy (Eileen O’Higgins). The small Enniscorthy community, unaware that Eilis is already in a relationship with an American boy, expects her and Jim to end up together. Eilis begins to re-evaluate the future she has planned, feeling the pull of home and of the promise of a bright future in Brooklyn.

            Brooklyn is based on the novel of the same name by Irish author Colm Tóibín, adapted for the screen by Nick Hornby. This is not a particularly grand story, but the intimacy and honesty of the tale draws one in. Director John Crowley has crafted a drama that is earnest and wonderfully devoid of cynicism. It’s a throwback to a bygone era without being self-conscious and it captures the period in eminently relatable fashion. While Eilis is meant to represent any number of young Irish girls stepping across the pond to forge new lives in America, the story doesn’t sacrifice the character’s individuality in the process. Its portrayal of the immigrant experience is quietly stirring and thoughtful rather than overtly political. Tonally, Brooklyn hits all the right marks to make a maximum impact: there’s a pervading melancholy that achingly conveys what it feels like to be homesick, but the film never becomes dreary and Hornby’s script contains well-placed moments of wit and humour.

            Ronan reminds us yet again why she’s among the finest performers of her generation, Brooklyn capitalising on her talents in the best way possible – she gets to use her delightful natural Irish brogue, for one. The blend of impish charm, raw vulnerability and emotional depth that Ronan brings to the role of Eilis is ever so appealing. The audience is in her corner from minute one and it is satisfying to see the initially tremulous Eilis’ confidence gradually increase as she becomes accustomed to her new life in Brooklyn. As an Irish-American herself, Ronan says she identifies strongly with Eilis’ journey. With this role, Ronan has become the second-youngest actress to be nominated for two Oscars. One hopes that many more projects like Brooklyn find their way to her.

The film’s portrayal of young love is clear-eyed and just sentimental enough, Cohen endearingly awkward and just sweet as can be as Eilis’ suitor Tony. The “aww shucks” factor he brings to the part comes off as genuine and wistfully romantic without straying into sappiness. We’re cheering for Eilis and Tony to stay together, so Gleeson has an uphill battle in making Jim seem like anything more than a nuisance. His measured dignity ensures there is an actual conflict as to who Eilis ends up with. Walters and Broadbent are perfectly cast as the stern, traditional landlady and the kindly priest respectively. Eilis’ housemates are sometimes catty, but the girls do form a certain camaraderie. A scene in which two of them teach Eilis how to twirl spaghetti without making a mess, in preparation for Eilis’ visit to Tony’s house for dinner, is amusing and heartfelt.

            Brooklyn is comprised of several conventional narrative elements, but it ends up being far more than the sum of its parts. This is a relatively simple story that is absolutely captivating, a romance that is sweet but not cloying, a drama that is heart-rending yet not manipulative. The specificities of the setting and the care taken in realising the 50s Brooklyn and Enniscorthy locales imbue the movie with texture and authenticity. It’s old-fashioned but steers clear of stifling stodginess and is resonant even if one doesn’t have a personal connection to the specific culture and period depicted. Lyrical, engaging and sincere, Brooklyn is a work of disarming beauty.

Summary: Personal and richly humane, Brooklyn is a small tale gracefully told, carried by a glowing, transcendent performance from Saoirse Ronan.

RATING: 4.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong 

Pride And Prejudice And Zombies

For F*** Magazine

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES

Director : Burr Steers
Cast : Lily James, Sam Riley, Jack Huston, Bella Heathcote, Douglas Booth, Matt Smith, Charles Dance
Genre : Horror/Thriller
Run Time : 107 mins
Opens : 11 February 2016
Rating : NC16 (Violence)

Something is rotten in the state of England – human flesh. It is the 19^th Century and a plague has befallen the nation, resulting in zombie hordes. Country gentleman Mr. Bennet (Dance) has ensured that his five daughters are trained in martial arts and weaponry to defend themselves against zombies, while Mrs. Bennet (Sally Phillips) is more concerned that they marry well. When the wealthy and single Mr. Bingley (Booth) purchases a nearby house, Mrs. Bennet sends her daughters to the first ball where Bingley is expected to appear. The girls defend the party from a zombie attack, and attraction sparks between Mr. Bingley and the eldest daughter Jane (Heathcote). Meanwhile, the second eldest daughter Elizabeth (James) clashes with Bingley's friend, noted zombie slayer Col. Fitzwilliam Darcy (Riley). Meanwhile, local militia leader George Wickham (Huston), who had a falling out with Darcy, takes a shine to Elizabeth. Elizabeth and Darcy must overcome personal pride and societal prejudices to battle the zombie menace and discover their true love for each other.

            Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is based on the 2009 parody novel of the same name by Seth Grahame-Smith, who combined Jane Austen’s 1813 classic Pride and Prejudice with zombie fiction elements. A film adaptation has been in the works since even before the novel’s publication, with Natalie Portman set to star as Elizabeth and David O. Russell directing. Alas, the end result doesn’t have quite that level of pedigree, with 17 Again’s Burr Steers writing the adapted screenplay and directing. Portman remains as a producer. Across the development process, it ended up that Grahame-Smith’s follow-up novel Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter got a film adaptation first.

            While Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter was criticised for being too self-serious, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies acknowledges its inherent absurdity more readily. It’s not a dour affair and there is a great deal of winking self-awareness to be had, which led to this reviewer laughing more than he anticipated to. However, it’s quickly all too apparent that this is built on just one joke, that zombies are having their heads blown to bits amidst all the Jane Austen refinement. This is how the idea was conceived: an editor at Quirk books literally compared a list of “fanboy characters” like ninjas, pirates, zombies and monkeys with public domain classics like War and Peace, Crime and Punishment and Wuthering Heights. Sounds arbitrary, doesn’t it? This laziness comes through and the novelty factor proves insufficient in sustaining the film.

            We’ve had Charlize Theron with a bionic arm driving a giant oil tanker across a post-apocalyptic wasteland and Emily Blunt in a mech suit fighting aliens, so kickass heroines are in vogue. In this film, the Bennet girls were trained in a Shaolin monastery and are proficient in various forms of combat. In one scene, two of the sisters engage in sparring practice while gushing over Mr. Bingley, speaking the original Austen dialogue. It’s pretty fun.

James makes for an adequate plucky, wilful protagonist and the actress demonstrates her awareness of the type of film she’s in. The Cinderella and Downton Abbey star is perfectly convincing as an aristocratic 19^th Century English woman fighting social norms, albeit a little less convincing as a formidable zombie killer. Riley’s Mr. Darcy is brusque and brooding, clad in a leather duster. Unfortunately, Riley and James share little chemistry and there’s no flow to the progression of their relationship. Matt Smith showcases good comic timing as the bumbling clergyman Mr. Collins, heir to the Bennet estate. In Austen’s original novel, George Wickham turned out to be a liar and conman, if not an out-and-out villain. Things end a little differently here. Huston’s pulchritude has a slight tinge of menace, which makes him suited to the role. Dance is a welcome presence as the kindly yet strict Bennet patriarch, but his Game of Thrones co-star Lena Headey gets all too little screen time as the eyepatch-wearing Lady Catherine de Bourgh.

Many readers have used charts and diagrams to follow the interwoven relationships in Pride and Prejudice. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies trips up when it tries to get through the plot of the story as quickly as possible so it can get to the next zombie attack. The genre mashup isn’t as seamless and confident as it needs to be to fully sell the conceit. Furthermore, the action sequences aren’t particularly memorable. It’s also lacking the raw sex appeal of, uh, Colin Firth.

Summary: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is not the unmitigated train-wreck it could’ve been, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that all the premise should sustain is a mock trailer on Funny or Die.

RATING: 2.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong 

The Dressmaker

For F*** Magazine

THE DRESSMAKER

Director : Jocelyn Moorhouse

Cast : Kate Winslet, Judy Davis, Liam Hemsworth, Hugo Weaving, Sarah Snook, Caroline Goodall, Kerry Fox, Sacha Horler

Genre : Drama

Run Time : 119 mins

Opens : 28 January 2016

Rating : PG13 (Some Coarse Language and Some Sexual References)

Revenge never goes out style in this dark comedy-drama. It is 1951 and after a long absence, Mrytle “Tilly” Dunnage returns to her hometown of Dungatar in the Australian outback to care for her ailing mother Molly (Davis). Tilly was accused of murder at the age of 10 and was exiled from the town. In the intervening years, she has become an expert designer and seamstress, having worked in Europe for high fashion houses such as Balenciaga. Teddy McSwiney (Hemsworth), a childhood friend, goes about romancing Tilly, though all the other residents of Dungatar regard her with suspicion. After Tilly helps general store clerk Gertrude Pratt (Snook) undergo a dramatic makeover, the women of the town become infatuated with Tilly’s couture creations. With the help of flamboyant police Sergeant Horatio Farrat (Weaving), Tilly uncovers the truth behind what happened all those years ago and enacts her vengeance on the townsfolk.

            The Dressmaker is adapted from Rosalie Ham’s 2000 novel of the same name. Director Jocelyn Moorhouse co-wrote the script with her husband P.J. Hogan; a film version seeing the light of day after an earlier attempt in the mid-2000s fell through. A cursory glance at the title or poster might mislead one to believe that this is a run of the mill chick flick. For better or worse (mostly worse), The Dressmaker isn’t. Beneath the surface of immaculately-tailored dresses, an unsettling nastiness is bubbling over and The Dressmaker has quite the caustic edge. It’s a twisted tale of small town revenge that feels more like an askew Western than it does a period countryside romance. Moorhouse herself describes it as “Unforgiven with a sewing machine”.

            The Dressmaker is refreshing in how different it is, but it is also vexingly difficult to place. There are wild tonal inconsistencies: this is a film where a woman trips over a poofy skirt as she tries to keep her fiancé from seeing her in an embarrassing get-up, a policeman drapes himself in pink fabric and traipses about to the Flower Duet from Lakmé and someone’s anterior tibial artery gets severed. Moorhouse’s fearlessness in going full-tilt weird is alternately novel and off-putting. The odd combination of broad slapstick and some shockingly dark moments makes it difficult to get involved in the story, the overall effect vaguely alienating.

            Winslet as Tilly is inspired casting and her performance anchors the sometimes-shaky film that surrounds her. Her turn as an old-school femme fatale with revenge on the brain is pitch-perfect and she has poise to spare as she struts about in an array of striking ensembles created by costume designer Margot Wilson. It is heightened and exaggerated, as the rest of the movie is, but Winslet manages to find some nuance here. Davis is captivating as Tilly’s dementia-addled mother, who seems at first to be little more than a crotchety old lady who’s not altogether there, but eventually emerges as a complex, sympathetic figure. Davis imbues the movie with genuine pathos – there are raw emotional moments which feel out of place given the absurdity of it all, but Davis makes them work.

            Hemsworth fares considerably worse as Teddy, the rugged, dashing farmboy. While he does provide a good amount of eye candy, he’s completely mismatched with Winslet, the burgeoning relationship unconvincing as a result. Teddy is also supposed to be around the same age as Tilly. Hemsworth is 25 and Winslet is 40; it just doesn’t work onscreen. Weaving is quite delightful in a colourful supporting role, his cross-dressing Sergeant Farrat possibly having an even greater penchant for quality women’s wear than Anthony “Tick” Belrose did in Priscilla: Queen of the Desert. A number of Australian actresses including Sarah Snook, Sacha Horler, Alison Whyte and Julia Blake help populate Dungatar with the peculiar people who call the town home.

            The Dressmaker is an odd bird, a costume comedy-drama dipped in acid. Its third act is especially bleak, and that’s when everything comes unstitched. Director Moorhouse brings a great deal of style to the proceedings and this is a distinct approach to the source material, but The Dressmaker is too inconsistent and tonally confused to work.

Summary: While Kate Winslet shines in the title role, The Dressmaker’s peculiar, unpalatable sensibilities make it a poor fit.

RATING: 2.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong 

Room

For F*** Magazine

ROOM 

Director : Lenny Abrahamson
Cast : Brie Larson, Jacob Tremblay, William H. Macy, Joan Allen, Sean Bridgers
Genre : Drama
Run Time : 118 mins
Opens : 14 January 2016
Rating : PG13 (Some Coarse Langauge)

It’s mother and child against the world in this drama based on Emma Donoghue’s novel of the same name. Joy “Ma” Newsome (Larson) has been held captive by “Old Nick” (Bridgers) for seven years, locked away from the outside world. Ma young son Jack (Tremblay) has been her companion for five of those years, and the only thing he’s known is the tiny shed known as “Room”. When Ma and Jack finally escape from Room, the world at large, which Jack has hitherto thought of as existing only in some unknowable realm depicted on television, is waiting. Ma’s parents Robert (Macy) and Nancy (Allen) welcome their long-lost daughter back with open arms, but the transition into normalcy is far from a smooth one for Ma and Jack.

            It is unfortunate that this reviewer’s first instinct upon hearing the title of this film was to draw a connection to The Room, that 2003 classic of so-bad-it’s-good cinema. This reviewer knows he’s not alone in that, but it’s something Room certainly doesn’t deserve. Donoghue adapted her own novel into the screenplay for this film, having conceived the story after learning of the 5-year-old child Felix, one of the children held captive in the infamous Fritzl case. As with many smaller films that quickly attract awards season buzz, some audiences might enter the theatre with lofty expectations of a grandiose, artsy work. In director Lenny Abrahamson’s very capable hands, Room is an intimate experience that unfolds at a decidedly unhurried pace. However, it’s remarkably easy to get invested in the tale and caught up in Ma and Jack’s small odyssey made large.

            Everywhere one looks, there are film critics raving about the two central performances in Room, and it turns out that Larson and Tremblay are indeed more than worthy of all the praise that has come their way. Every awards season, there are bound to be marquee stars tackling a high-profile, meaty role, usually a biopic of some description, in a bid for Oscar glory. Said performances are typically showy and not always successful. Larson puts in the opposite of that with a quiet, achingly beautiful portrayal of a woman who has braved an unimaginable ordeal, and has a child to care for in the midst of all that. Tremblay’s Jack is utterly believable, immediately putting this reviewer into the character’s shoes. There must be an immense amount for a child in Jack’s situation to process, and believably bringing out that depth is a challenge that Tremblay gamely overcomes.

The symbiotic bond between mother and child is strengthened by their experience as captives - Ma is literally Jack’s world, and vice versa. We know they break free of Room, so where’s the mystery or tension? The strength of the relationship is such that the “how” of their escape becomes secondary to the intertwined journeys of the characters. The book was written from Jack’s point of view, with Jack relating his experiences via voiceover in the film. There’s an innocence that is tempered with an unflinching view of how harsh reality can get, a purity that does not disintegrate into amorphous schmaltz. Nothing gets cranked up to eleven, so the emotional beats flow forth naturally and do not come off as an arm-twisting on the part of the filmmakers.

As Jack’s grandparents that he is only just now getting to know, Allen and Macy provide warmth and deep, abiding, mostly unspoken sadness. As their captor, known only as “Old Nick”, Bridgers is deeply unpleasant without being cartoonishly villainous. It’s made clear that because of the many years of emotional torment, Ma’s troubles are far from over once she emerges from Room. While we might breathe a sigh of relief after the escape, a good portion of both Ma and Jack’s soul remains trapped in Room, perhaps forever.

Considering the near-universal acclaim the film has received, it’s certainly not for everybody. For a story that contains elements as dramatic as years-long captivity and a child witnessing the outside world for the first time, this is a very subdued affair that will try the patience of more restless viewers. Keeping the focus on Ma’s bond with Jack means the film doesn’t delve too deeply into the psychological implications of surviving such a trauma. If you’re not wholeheartedly invested in Ma and Jack’s journey from the beginning, it might be difficult to stick around to see what unfolds. However, given the openness and rawness of the performances that Abrahamson draws out of Brie and Tremblay, it’s hard to imagine there will be too many viewers who won’t be.

Summary: A small, low-key movie that packs a powerful emotional punch, the affecting performances of the leads effectively convey an extraordinary bond between mother and child.

RATING: 4 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong 

How I Live Now

For F*** Magazine

HOW I LIVE NOW 

Director: Kevin Macdonald
Cast: Saoirse Ronan, George MacKay, Tom Holland, Anna Chancellor, Harley Bird, Corey Johnson
Genre: Action, Drama, Thriller
Run Time: 101 mins
Opens: M18 (Sexual Scene)
Rating: 23 January 2014

The coming of age movie: it’s a genre that won’t go out of style. Anyone from any generation can relate to the concept of being post-pubescent, casting aside the carefree whims of childhood and “finding oneself”; wrestling with newfound thoughts and emotions, many attributable to the onset of hormones. Based on Meg Rosoff’s acclaimed young-adult novel of the same name, How I Live Now presents a coming-of-age tale of a different stripe, unfolding against the backdrop of a modern-day world war.

Elizabeth (Ronan) – or Daisy, as she insists on being called – is a morose, bratty New York teenager sent by her father to spend the summer in the English countryside. Playing host to Daisy is her Aunt Penn (Chancellor), sister of Daisy’s late mother. An academic expert on extremism and incredibly busy given the tense political climate around the world, Aunt Penn is called away on official business. So, Daisy is left with her cousins Isaac (Holland), Eddie (MacKay) and Piper (Bird). Though frosty and unwilling to participate at first, Daisy eventually settles into life away from the city. She also enters into a taboo romantic relationship with Eddie, but their blossoming romance is violently interrupted by the reality of an enemy occupation of the United Kingdom and the young lovers are torn apart. Daisy goes on the run with Piper, whom she has to care for, facing a variety of threats in the hopes of being eventually reunited with Eddie.



Young-adult novel adaptations have become attractive prospects to studio execs but are more often than not risky endeavours too. In 2013, The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones and Beautiful Creatures were critical and commercial duds. How I Live Now is atypical among such movies, the British production bearing an arthouse/indie flavour. The book it’s based on is not the first in a series of seven; there’s just one book. Lovingly photographed by cinematographer Franz Lustig, this is far from a wannabe Twilight or Hunger Games, though it has been mis-categorised as such. But this is not to say that it stands head and shoulders above its peers as some kind of picture of sophistication.

Director Kevin Macdonald, of The Last King of Scotland and State of Play fame, does a masterful job of quietly hinting at the larger world in which this intimate story takes place. When Daisy arrives at the airport, we glimpse the increased presence of uniformed soldiers and the stepped-up security measures. Chinook helicopters fly past in the background. The threat remains unnamed and unspecified, a looming, faceless terror. Macdonald draws on his own childhood summers spent in the countryside for his portrait of a carefree idyll bathed in soft sunlight, so when the movie enters “wartime mode”, the transition is effectively jarring.



However, one gets the feeling that a far more interesting story could have been told given this rich, thought-provoking backdrop. The film meanders and ambles, time spent with the main characters seeming more like time wasted than anything else. Daisy is sulky, pouty and insufferable, an amalgamation of teenage traits, utterly unlikeable and difficult to sympathise with. At some points in the film, the voices in her head are audible to the viewer, a cacophonous buzz of self-loathing and platitudes gleaned from teen magazine self-help articles. We’re not going to pretend like we were all angels at that age, but Daisy is not an easy protagonist to tolerate, let alone root for. We imagine Kristen Stewart is like this in her everyday life.

It’s at least a little of a good thing, then, that it’s Saoirse Ronan and not Bella Sulkypants in the part. Macdonald called his leading lady “the Meryl Streep of her generation” and that isn’t necessarily hyperbole. Ronan is without her Irish brogue, speaking instead with a convincing American accent. She makes the most of the part and tries to imbue Daisy with something beneath the “like, whatever” exterior. Tom Holland, who was very impressive in tsunami drama The Impossible, is good here too as the 14-year-old who’s still very much a little boy, laughing and playing pranks and still managing to have a good time in spite of the bleak situation that surrounds him. Harley Bird is as chipper as her name (and her character’s name, “Piper”) suggests, but she does sometimes come off as the annoying tag-along kid.



Now, to address the elephant in the room: Daisy romances her first cousin. The term itself isn’t spoken, but there is a “YOLO!” undercurrent beneath most of the film: “We’re young and you only live once, so screw the rules!” MacKay’s Eddie is a quiet, enigmatic animal-whisperer who sweeps Daisy off her feet and teaches her to break free of her neurotic headspace. Young people do impulsive things, yes, but in the midst of this life-or-death ordeal one can’t help but yell at the screen “Guys, you’re not thinking this through!” More often than not, infatuation clouds Daisy’s judgment and her refusal to try and comprehend the bigger picture – that of the impending Third freaking World War – makes it hard to get into How I Live Now.

SUMMARY: It’s sufficiently different from every other teen romance and there’s an intriguing, brutal and sometimes frighteningly realistic backdrop to the proceedings, but its miserable lead character and the unmined potential of the premise mean How I Live Now has trouble sticking.

RATING: 2.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong