Review: Magic in the Moonlight

Woody Allen's latest, Magic in the Moonlight, is a frothy romantic comedy once again doting on a bygone age, joining the nostalgia parade where 2011's Midnight in Paris left off. Somehow, the whimsical titles of both films tell us much of what we need to know; they have the sticky-sweet consistency and, frankly, all the weight of a meringue.

The setting is 1928, in the sun-dappled climes of the Cote D'Azur, and the effervescent performers are Emma Stone and Colin Firth, who are pitted against one another in a battle between rationalist skepticism and light-hearted faith. In true screwball style, Stone is Sophie, a supposed clairvoyant who is wracked with 'mental vibrations' and contacts the dead in extravagant seances for the wealthy. Firth is a clever stage-show magician who decks himself in Chinoiserie and opts for a Far Eastern persona. Off-stage, he is a brittle, emotionally distant Englishman who denounces the fools taken in by phony swindlers. His chatty verbosity recalls Rex Harrison in Unfaithfully Yours, though the comparison essentially ends there.  While it's always a pleasure to watch both actors, one can't help but to feel a certain contrivance in the air - mostly due to how awkwardly certain lines are stuffed into their mouths.

Borrowing from the great screwball comedies of the classical age, the tone is affectionately trivial - and the wily woman is forever getting one over on the suave gentleman. The thing that distinguishes Allen's film from his beloved Lubitsch and Sturges, then, is that the very best from the screwball age are determinedly memorable, in spite of their inconsequential posturing. Whether it be by deliciously pattering dialogue or romantic matches made in Hollywood heaven, those films undercut any minor-note affiliations through their wit and edginess.

Magic in the Moonlight, sadly, never seems to lift itself out of triviality. As a result, it's almost instantly forgettable - an amusing slice of distraction and nothing more, without even the gut-twisting melancholy and artistic contemplation that Midnight in Paris left us with. It's supposed to be about submitting to the terrifying grandeur of life's uncertainty, while never fully relinquishing one's cynicism. Within that rather belaboured theme, Allen finds many witty lines but very little to actually say.

Magic in the Moonlight is, ultimately, a lot like a handful of penny sweets. Nostalgic and fun, perhaps, but they've soon dissolved - and it doesn't take long to realise that they're not very satisfying.


Now showing at Cineworld Nottingham + Broadway Cinema Nottingham

Canvas by Grolsch: Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller Filmmaking Today

I wrote about Gypsy, Roma and Traveller filmmaking for Grolsch Canvas. An ethnic group that has been maligned and misrepresented in cinema for many years, gypsy filmmakers are now providing honest, alternative representations of their community and history.  To read the article, you can click here. 

Canvas by Grolsch: Different Perspectives on the Vietnam War

I wrote about counterculture movies of the late sixties and early seventies and the Vietnam War for Grolsch Canvas. You can check it out by following this link.

Here's a little background.....

Vietnam was a trampling ground for Japanese and French colonial forces from the 17th century onward. In 1954, after a series of brutal revolts, The Geneva Accords granted Vietnam its independence from France. The U.S, initially pledging to aid the democratic process for fledgling nations, backtracked considerably when Communist revolutionaries, led by Ho Chi Minh, gained momentum in the North. America threw its weight behind the Southern puppet state, installing autocratic leader Ngo Dinh Diem and ignoring appeals from Ho Chi Minh to uphold ideals of self-determination. When a North Vietnamese takeover in 1964 led to the alleged Gulf of Tonkin incident, Lyndon Johnson officially declared war on North Vietnam.....   

        

Verité Film Magazine: Pawel Pawlikowski's Ida

You can find my review of Pawel Pawlikowski's Ida in the September issue of Verité Film Magazine.

Review: Two Days, One Night (2014)

Two Days, One Night, Dir. Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne 

The Dardenne brothers offer a psychologically realistic portrait of a working-class Belgian woman in Two Days, One Night. Within this tense, restrained personal story, there is also a superb deconstruction of the corporate mentality, with its short-term labour contracts and dog-eat-dog lay offs.

It takes place, like their previous films, in a nondescript part of contemporary Belgium, dotted with industrial estates. Marion Cotillard is Sandra, and her weary, drawn face and skinny frame fill nearly every intimate frame. Her beauty is like a distant memory; she is bare-faced and fragile, in a performance of desperate, quiet dignity. Sandra exudes a constant nervous energy; that anxiety is always on the verge of spilling over into wild-eyed terror or hysteria.

With the support of her kind, long-suffering husband (Fabrizio Rongione), Sandra has gone through a long spell of depression. She has just been deemed fit to return to work when a backstabbing foreman and the big boss, Dumont, decide she must be sacked. In the film's opening moments, we witness Sandra receiving a phone call - sobbing - and popping Xanax, something she does periodically as her emotions grow increasingly erratic.

The fresh humiliation, you see, is not that Sandra has been let go, but that her co-workers have been faced with a traumatic ballot vote: receive a 1000 euro bonus, or let Sandra keep her job and get nothing. They cannot have both. Unsurprisingly, the majority vote to jettison Sandra in exchange for their bonus - but when Sandra is able to postpone a new vote until Monday, she must spend the weekend convincing her co-workers to vote against their bonus and let her keep her job.

From that point, the Dardennes follow Sandra as she literally goes from door to door, asking for her fellows' vote. The camera is often in close-up or tagging closely behind its protagonist; the occasional wide shot feels jarring after so much intimacy.  She suffers rejection, buoyed up by some to be knocked back down again by others - it would be exhausting for anyone, but especially for a frail Sandra. She speaks to immigrants, other working-class families; some seem genuinely in need of extra cash, others merely greedy. The most illuminating element of the film are the responses to her plea; the tiny nuances and variations. We learn much from the workers' little evasions - their earnest lines of reasoning - or merely their living conditions. Financial condition is no barometer of one's willingness to help.

In this way, Two Days, One Night feels like an ode to compassion, or perhaps a swan song; and it is fiercely attached to the notion of workers' solidarity. Sandra and her husband's journey over the weekend, for all its harrowing moments, is wonderfully tender; their marriage is testament to all that is humane rather than self-serving. Relief comes not with success, per se, but with a sense of being connected to others. Over the course of the weekend, Sandra reaches some sense of wholeness; there is the vaguest suggestion that her alienation is of the Marxist sort. The corporate game, after all, is rigged - no matter who wins, someone will lose, and it will invariably be the common worker.

Although they are not manipulative filmmakers, the Dardennes transform the commonplace into the stuff of great tension and drama.  When, in the car with her husband, Sandra finally cracks a smile, it's almost startling. We realise she hasn't once smiled or laughed, as weighed down as she is by her troubles. It's a relief; like slivers of sunlight breaking through. There is something so richly edifying about the simplicity of her emotions, and the equilibrium they eventually reach. That Two Days, One Night can turn this tiny moment into something monumental is testament to what a profoundly sensitive film it is.


Now showing at Broadway Cinema Nottingham