The Reports on Sarah and Saleem

This Palestinian film tells of a man from East Jerusalem and a woman from West Jerusalem- both married, him with a child on the way, her already raising a young daughter. He’s a truck driver delivering baked goods to the café she owns. And they’re having an affair. When a trip to Bethlehem sees a malicious security report filed against them, events start to spiral out of control, dragging in security services on both sides, and both their partners in a widening story of unintended consequences.

This is a simply told but effective film – largely about the politicisation of what should by rights be a private matter, as private secrets are misinterpreted as having state importance. There’s a reality to the actions here – nothing is ever melodramatic or strained – and events build as they spiral out of control. And this doesn’t feel particularly like it’s taking sides between the Palestinians and the Israelis either – more a plea for some level of reason in a part of the world that is so caught up in politics it forgets to be human.

The Realm

Manuel is a Spanish government official who has been enjoying success and a certain amount of corrupt earnings out of his position for over a decade. But when anti-corruption forces start looking investigating, he finds his co-conspirators start pointing the blame at him, and the only way he can defend himself is to blow the conspiracy wide open.

This is okay without being entirely satisfactory – I do feel like some of the details get a little lost (and this may be a cultural thing – I’m sure this is based on recent Spanish history and the details would be more immediately obvious to a Spanish audience, but as it’s laid out here it’s a very quick tumult of ledgers and bank accounts that don’t entirely make anything clear beyond “something dodgy’s going on”). But once the action starts as Manuel starts to try to manoeuvre his way out of his obvious fate, it becomes reasonably appealing. Manuel never quite becomes a compelling lead – he’s a bit too doggedly dull for that, without much of a personality – never the less there are a few reasonably tense moments. But in the end I felt distinctly unengaged.

Brightburn

This is sorta a case of “Superman Meets the Omen”, as a couple adopts a small boy they find who crashlands from another planet. But when he reaches the age of 10, he begins to manifest strange powers, and shortly he’s turning them against everyone around them in lethally gruesome ways.

In many ways, this is very trashy – this film hasn’t met a gore effect it doesn’t like, the plotting is laid down in fairly unsubtle way (the childless couple is implied by their library consisting of nothing but fertility books, and the one science class we see the kid in practically rings out “see the parallels”). And it’s really very willing to let the kid be horrible fairly frequently – once he turns, there’s no attempt to give him any sympathy. Elizabeth Banks as the mum has the brunt of most of the acting material, and while her character is perhaps beaten a little too hard with the stupid stick as she keeps on insisting her little boy couldn’t possibly be doing anything wrong, Banks largely makes it work. The ending shows a few signs of both low budget and a reluctance to close off too many possibilities for a sequel, meaning it’s slightly dissatisfying as a standalone piece, but as a short (90 minutes), sharp shocker, this does the job reasonably well.

John Wick 3: Parrabellum

The John Wick franchise seemed to start as a slightly jokey premise – “they killed his dog, so he killed everybody”. And in many ways they remain very eccentric films – the complex etiquette and cultural standards of different groups of professional killers as they engage each other, and the extreme style with which the proceedings take place mean there’s no way you can take these as realist narratives, and therefore divorce us to enjoy the balletic fights and the iconic performers in roles that fit them like gloves. After some overly-complex manoeuvrings in John Wick 2, this one gets straight down to stripping back the complexities to a very simple premise – everybody in New York (and possibly in the world) wants to kill John Wick, and John Wick has to survive on the run. Keanu’s deadpan suits this like … well, a really good suit (and he gets a new one to replace the much-abused one he’s been wearing for most of the first two films). There’s good feature roles for the returning Ian McShane, Lance Reddick and Lawrence Fishburne, along with brand new ones for Anjelica Houston (proving that in the right role an overblown Russian accent is a gift, not an impediment), Halle Berry (who finally gets to show her badass roots after years of being in not-quite-right roles that never quite knew how to use her) and Mark Dascascos (whose physical high-camp from his days on Iron Chef fit quite well with his targeted attacks on Keanu). Oh, you could regret that, perhaps, the film slightly wears towards the end as the final battle goes that little bit too long, and the blatant setup for a further sequel means we’re fated to keep on going with this, but, really, when an action movie series is as kinetic, stylish and stripped-to-the-bone as this, why complain?

Acute Misfortune

This tells the story of the later years of the artist Adam Cullen – an Archibald Prize winner whose darker impulses saw him deliberately chasing an outsider status, and his relationship with his biographer, journalist Erik Jensen – a relationship that’s part performance, part intimidation, part enabling, part exploitation and partially a perverse series of acts of love. Based on Jensen’s book (and co-written by him), it’s pretty unsparing on both men – Cullen’s best work is behind him and he seeks refuge in drugs, in guns, in big-noting himself and in minor acts of rebellion, and in following him, Jensen is anything but the impartial observer – he’s along for the ride, nervously enjoying and enabling Cullen’s worst tendencies (even while managing to get himself shot in the leg). Most of the film is these two men circling round one another – Daniel Henshall looming as the brutish Cullen, and Toby Wallace as the jaded cub-reporter Jensen. In supporting roles, Max Cullen brings a wounded dignity to Adam’s dad (Max Cullen’s actually Adam Cullen’s cousin, meaning he’s playing his own uncle); and Genieveve Lemon similarly has great presence as his mother. This is by no means an easy film to watch – in many ways, it’s another film about how Australian Men are horrible to one another and everybody else around them – but it’s intriguing and engrossing.

Little Woods

In the town of Little Woods, North Dakota, just south of the Canadian border, Ollie (Tessa Thompson) is sitting out the last weeks of her probation, having been caught importing Canadian medications, initially to help her dying mother and later to make a profit on the needs of the townspeople. At the end of her probation she plans on leaving town and giving her house to her estranged sister, Deb (Lily James)– but bank demands and Deb’s unwanted pregnancy means money’s unexpectedly tight (with an abortion also much easier and less expensive across the border)  and the temptation to do the crossing again begins to build…

I’ve been wanting to see Tessa Thompson in a lead for a while now and this certainly does have that – it’s not a perfect film, unfortunately (the tension sorta dribbles away during the last twenty minutes) but for much of its length it’s a strong study in people with limited options up against desperate circumstances. There’s a strong authentic feel to this small town made up of people living in desperation, and Thompson winds her way through the conflicting agendas that come up intriguingly – Llily James less so (she’s not the actress I would have first thought of for the role of a middle-of-nowhere single mum with no money and no prospects, and while she’s not actively horrible, she’s not outstanding either). The social issues that underlie this are obvious but this never descends into overt preachiness so much as being an active living demonstration of the effects of these issues on real people. There’s a nice authenticity to this, even If I wish this paid off in a more definitive and dramatic way.

Pokemon: Detective Pikachu

Bringing Pokemon into live action (or… actors and photorealistic-ish CGI) after twenty-odd years of games, anime and manga means, in this case, taking a lot of the characteristics of them while imposing a whole new plot onto things. Abandoning the game and anime recurring plotline of sending a pre-teen child out into the world to capture creatures and have them fight for him, instead this is the story of an insurance agent brought to the big city by the death of his father, only to discover there are sinister circumstances behind his father’s death and only one Pokemon with a deer-stalker hat can help him (hint, he’s in the title).

This is a weird combination of inventive world building and uninventive plotting. The mixture of the two means that this is a movie that has a lot of great eye-candy, but the story never really takes us anywhere very far – none of the actors have very much to play and, while they interact with the various Pokemon in ways that show off the individually entertaining aspects of the creatures, there isn’t a lot beyond that. It’s mildly diverting during the running time, and it’s never exactly dull (there’s always another creature just around the corner), but it does feel a tad pedestrian.

ALL IS TRUE

In the last years of William Shakespeare, after the Globe burned down during a performance of Henry VIII, he returned home to a family he’d never spent much time with, to a neglected wife and daughters and to the memory of his son, who died aged 10 while his father was working in London. This film takes a somewhat melancholic look at this period of his life, as Shakespeare reconciles himself both to his personal and literary legacy, dealing with the family he left behind on his way to becoming a legend. Kenneth Branaugh as Shakespeare has a quiet dignity to him, bruised and broken but still with his own fire within. Judi Dench as his wife plays the discomfort with having this stranger who she married but never really knew well suddenly returned into her life. Ian McKellen’s role as the Earl of Southampton features in what’s basically a self-contained segment of the film as he and Shakespeare discuss the world, their place in the world, those controversial sonnets and Will’s position in history. There’s also two daughters who feature in their own controversies, confronting Shakespeare with his personal failings.

In some ways this is a tad lacsidaisical – there are a few interesting revelations but mostly this is a film about resigning yourself to living with the history you’ve made. But I do think it packs a reasonable punch, with emotions building as we travel with Shakespeare on his final laps of the world.

The Hustle

A remake of “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels”, which is itself a remake of “Bedtime Story” from the 1960s, this is a close enough redo that the original screenwriters are still credited (one of them is Paul Henning of “The Beverley Hillbillies”!). And the simple basic structure basically works – two con artists, one sophisticated, one vulgar, both work in the south of France, and after escalating rivalry, they decide to take a bet on who can con one particular mark better. And the key two roles are well cast- Anne Hathaway has a ball as the snob, and Rebel Wilson is thoroughly at home with the vulgarian. If this doesn’t ultimately work quite as well as the original, it’s partially due to being a little too loosely directed (the climactic set of twists don’t quite land with the sharp thump they need), and partially due to the mark, when he arrives, looking noticeably like a 12 year old and quite clearly never being quite as interesting as either of his scene partners. But for much of its length this is a reasonable enough light diversion.

Sheeple

In an Iranian slum, people survive by following whoever will lead them – their “shepherd”. But what happens when they’re being led astray - by criminals, by customs that only cause pain, by dysfunctional family relationships, by misguided egos and by desperate poverty? This film takes us through the lives of these people – finding survival under the most desperate of circumstances, and confronted by the collapse of things they thought were certain.

This is compelling filmmaking – there’s a perverse sense of humour about some of this, as the characters minor squabbles end up assuming life-and-death importance, and a balanced sense of reality – this isn’t something where so much misery is piled on for so long that only a last minute unlikely intervention can prevent the audience from wanting to slash their wrists. The only flaw is that the subtitling has clearly been done a little on the cheap – sometimes it flashes on screen a little too quickly to read, and there’s a couple of unsubtitled gaps where conversation is clearly happening. But it’s still a strong, compelling film to watch. 

Long Shot

The “opposites attract” vein of romantic comedies has had a pretty long run. And the schlubby dude who hooks up with the highly professional woman has a bunch of clichés that can get annoyingly repetitive – he always has to loosen her up and she always has to make him grow up. This doesn’t completely avoid the cliché (she’s the secretary of state preparing for a presidential run, he’s an investigative journalist whose political convictions have made him fairly unemployable), but it does at least present her transition as being more about reigniting her political convictions, and him getting  a political awakening about the necessity of understanding other perspectives. And it’s very willing to point out exactly how unlikely the pairing is, letting the dawning romance take at least an hour or so to simmer before breaking to the surface.

I do tend to find Seth Rogen reasonably likable though not necessarily as funny as he thinks he is, and Theron gets a chance to play a role that’s a little less formally contained. And there’s some nice performances in the supporting cast as well. But I don’t think this will go down as revolutionising or resetting the romantic comedy – it’s more a comfortable wallow in some familiar tropes with a couple of modern remixes here and there. But I enjoyed its gentle ways – while, yes, it could definitely stand to be a little more politically barbed here and there, and there’s a distinct flavour of both-sides-ism towards the end, it’s a reasonable exercise.

Gloria Bell

This is a deep dive into the life of a divorced woman in her mid-late 50s as she finds herself on the dating scene again – losing herself on the dance floor or singing romantic songs as she drives around town, and falling into a relationship with an ex-military paintball-operator. Julianne Moore is in pretty much every scene as the titular Gloria, clearly seeking connections and willing to inconvenience herself a fair way in order to make them happen. John Tuturro as the lover is a mixture of gentleness and slowly emerging risky signals – as it becomes increasingly obvious he’s a partner who’s simultaneously very much in need of a lot of Gloria’s attention, and not willing to give much of himself up to compromise.

I do think this is slightly mismarketed as being an inspirational “Eat, Pray, Love” style tribute to older women, while in reality it’s a more bitter, complex piece. The soundtrack is used in almost a Dennis Potter kind of way – commenting on the situations Gloria is in with their glib pop music lyrics, with the simple positive messages never quite meeting her own sense of unease. And the resolution, when it comes, isn’t so much a triumph as a still point of celebrating survival. Still, this is a strong adaptation of the Argentinian original, centering on a great central performance.

Top End Wedding

This is a cute piece created by Miranda Tapsell as a vehicle for herself as a young aboriginal businesswoman whose plans for a romantic hometown wedding are disrupted when her mum leaves her father, destination unknown. Pursuing her mum with her fiancé by her side, she ends up travelling all round the top end as she gets a better understanding of her mother’s heritage.

This does suffer from a couple of the clichés of romantic comedies – there’s a few too many cases where people who are meant to be in love with one another end up delaying crucial conversations way too late, there’s some wedding planning that bears very little resemblance to how an actual wedding would be planned, and some of the humour wanders towards the blatantly obvious. But between the incredibly likeable cast, the gorgeous scenic vistas of the Top End, a joyous spirit and a deep heart, this gets away with a whole lot of things that, if I were wearing my overanalytical critic hat, I would have issues with. I think this may very well fall into the category of “movies I know are probably filled with flaws but I love anyway” alongside last year’s “Mamma Mia Here I Go Again”. It’s a film whose fundamentally sweet nature make it difficult to argue against.

The Hummingbird Project

Two brothers are working on a pipeline that could revolutionise the financial industry – in the game of fast placed share trading, triumph is measured in fractions of a millisecond, and the shortest of delays can mean billions of dollars. But they’ve got troubles – their former employer is determined to see them fail, their financiers are on their back, there are rival technologies out there that could supersede them, medical problems, equipment problems and government problems pursues them on their road to success.

This should be the slightly wonkish exercise in “how this industry works” that really interests me, but somehow this left me kind of cold. Jesse Eisenberg has never been the most likeable of protagonists, but here there’s not really anything playing against his nerdish intensity – Alexander Skaarsgard shows he’s able to be reasonably personable even when he removes his obvious handsomeness and pops on a balding hairdo, and there’s not quite enough for Salma Hayek to do that can make her more than an intermittent threat. It sorta feels a tad flat and, while there are a lot of small incidents along the way posing mini-threats, it never feels particularly unified or driven towards a single point. Which means ultimately it’s a bit dull.