28 Years Later: The Bone Temple

What life is left in the zombie genre? 28 Years Later had a few harrowing scenes involving those infected by the Rage virus, then left that behind for a thoughtful look at loss on both the personal and social level. The Bone Temple takes it a step further, suggesting that the only thing left of interest with the franchise's not-quite-dead is the humanity they may retain. Don't worry, brains do get eaten; it's just presented as something the zombies should grow out of.

When we last saw pre-teen lead Spike (Alfie Williams) he was being grabbed by a crazed gang of deadly Jimmy Saville fans. Now he's presented with a choice: if he wants in, first he has to take an existing member out. Overseen by the big boss Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal (Jack O'Connell) - his name is not the only misremembering of the past the gang will commit - Spike does end up becoming the latest Jimmy, though he's not all that happy about it.

The gang is your typical bunch of post-apocalypse psychos, roaming the countryside preying on the more civilised, reminding us that the instant society collapses the only possible way to survive is to become a murderous killer taking what you want and relishing in sadism and torture. Only it turns out there's slightly more to them than that.

Sir Lord Jimmy is clearly a nutter, but he's also a Satanist, and his brutal belief system springs (somewhat logically) from the assumption that the carnage unleashed on Great Britain by the virus was the Devil claiming his territory. Acting in the usual way we expect apocalypse survivors to go about is here shown to be a ridiculous and deluded overreaction to events; despite what endless seasons of The Walking Dead tried to teach us, treating everyone you meet as your enemy is to see the world upside down.

Over in the other main plot, Doctor Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) keeps getting visited by the local infected Alpha - who he dubs Sampson (Chi Lewis-Parry) - because he's become hooked on the sedatives Kelson blow-darts him with to keep him from attacking. A strange friendship gradually develops, as the morphine mellows Sampson out and Kelson starts to wonder if other drugs could suppress other effects of the virus. In between getting high with his new stoner buddy, of course.

The two plotlines eventually converge, though not in a way that you'd easily predict. These colliding worlds result in what is quite possibly the scene of the year, in which Kelson (for reasons), puts on an insane one-man show set to Iron Maiden's 'Number of the Beast' that is stunning to watch whether you're a near-feral teen who's never heard recorded music before or just someone watching it take place on the screen.

That scene alone is worth the price of admission; the rest of the film is a surprisingly low-key and thoughtful take on being caring in the face of destruction (plus some people are skinned alive). Director Nia DaCosta (working from a script by Alex Garland) keeps the visuals slightly more straightforward than Danny Boyle did with 28 Years Later; if it never consistently hits that film's manic highs, solid storytelling is nothing to complain about.

It's message is slightly blunter too, but as the middle film in a planned trilogy it needs to lay things out. The monsters here are those who see other people as nothing but prey; the infected don't have much choice in the matter, whereas choosing to be a monster turns out to be a pretty good way to be devoured by monsters in turn.

Also Sampson eventually puts on pants, which turns out to be an essential part of his character development. Guess civilisation does have its downsides.

- Anthony Morris 

Review: Hamnet

How hard is it to tell a sad story about a young couple whose child just died? What about if it's also the origin story behind one of the most acclaimed English-language plays of all time? And it features two of the finest actors of their generation, especially when it comes to conveying inner pain and turmoil? If that sounds like a lot to take in, don't worry; director Chloe Zhao (Nomadland, The Eternals) will hold your hand every step of the way.

Agnes (Jesse Buckley) is something of an outcast in her rural Medieval community. Rumours suggest she's a witch; spending her spare time in the local woods with a hawk doesn't do much to dispel them. A Tutor (Paul Mescal) finds himself drawn to her. They share a kiss in a barn, and we all know what that means.

His family (mostly notably his abusive father) aren't keen on the marriage. Her brother, who is responsible for her by law, is also dubious but trusts her judgment. Despite their love, the Tutor's writing doesn't go well, and he decamps for London while she remains behind. She has twins; one is stillborn, but revives. Things go well for a time, then don't.

It's a 500 year spoiler to reveal that young son Hamnet dies; these scenes of disease and death are the high point of the film, largely because they involve things that are actually happening in front of us. When the Tutor goes back to London to work - because by now his family are living in the biggest house in town, Will got to pay the bills - Agnes is increasingly unhappy that he doesn't seem to share her grief. 

Then word reaches her that his latest play is not a comedy as she'd thought, but a tragedy titled Hamlet. Keen to correct her husband's spelling, she heads to London, where numerous falsehoods are dispelled.

One of the big advantages Hamnet has, and it takes full advantage of it, is that while most of its audience will have a rough idea of what Hamlet is about, it's not a Shakespeare play that's all that easy to see. There hasn't been a mainstream film version in decades (unlike, say, Macbeth), nor is there an obvious classic version that's readily available (Romeo & Juliet).

So when this posits that the play ends on a moment of mass emotional catharsis that's basically a group hug... well, it is an early performance, maybe Shakespeare changed a few things later on. And while the ending of Hamnet gets a lot of mileage from the play - so much so that it's reasonable to assume some of the clumsier moments beforehand are there just so the ending will seem all the more impressive - in the context of the film all Shakespeare's prose really means is "sometimes people grieve in different ways".

There are moments, mostly early on, where Hamnet gives its characters room to breathe and its story a chance to suggest more than the obvious. Buckley and Mescal are extremely good at their jobs, which here increasingly involves remaining plausible while undergoing extremes of emotion, and Buckley is fearless -though occasionally we're reminded that fear isn't always a bad thing. If this was merely the story of a young couple struggling through loss, there'd be plenty here to recommend.

Taking a classic and then revealing the "real story" of its origin can be thoughtful and entertaining, though most attempts usually settle for obvious and pandering. The drive is always to explain away rather than go deeper; it's not enough to enjoy The Lord of the Rings, we have to be told that JRR Tolkien fought in WWI... in holes... against sinister forces in black... you get the idea.

Hamnet is the kind of film that never refers to Mescal's tutor as Shakespeare, so for much of the run time maybe this is just the story of some other Middle Ages playwright - it's not like England had a shortage of them - but opens with some text pointing out that at the time the names Hamnet and Hamlet were functionally the same. It flatters the audience's intelligence, but makes sure nothing goes over their head.

To its credit, Hamnet doesn't pretend that Hamlet can be boiled down to a play about a dead child written by a grieving father. Here, Shakespeare has turned his loss into one aspect of his multifaceted art; Anges, on the other hand, turns her loss into an unforgettable tortured freak-out while seeing a performance of that art. 

It's either a powerful statement on the depths of grief, or something that suggests she has never seen a play before and has no idea how they work. Which seems unlikely because her husband is William Shakespeare so let's go with the first one.

This is a film that gradually locks everything down, leaving nothing to chance or interpretation. Some subjects require this level of hand-holding: something as universal as grief, not so much. It ends up feeling both obvious and oppressive, peeking through a window at people pulled to and fro like puppets. All the world's a stage, as someone once said.

- Anthony Morris 

 

 

Review: Christy

One of the questions that doesn't get asked often enough about movies is: who is this for? While it's often obvious that the path to success lies in having a rock solid answer - the Avatar movies might not be for you, but they're obviously for someone - it's surprising how much time and money and effort gets spent on films where you leave the cinema wondering why the film makers bothered.

Christy is a based-on-actual-events movie about Christy Martin (Sydney Sweeney), the woman who single-handedly (in this telling at least) turned female boxing into a profitable sport in America in the 90s. She was also a closeted lesbian for much of that period, married to her trainer James (Ben Foster) in a relationship that became increasingly exploitative. So there's a lot going on, and it's not hard to imagine a version of this story that hits hard for one audience or another.

What we get here though, is a bit of a mess. If you are a fan of boxing, the fights here are nothing to write home about. If you're looking for a story where a woman fights against numerous personal obstacles to become her true self, there's about ten minutes of that right at the very end of the film - and it requires you to spend a very long time with a number of increasingly loathsome characters, all of whom receive next to no on-camera punishment despite deeply deserving it.

Sweeney clearly took on the role hoping to establish herself as a serious actor, which means she spends large chunks of the film looking unglamorous. Her performance is pretty much all that holds this together, though it's uneven at times; Sweeney is at her best playing characters with agency, while much of Christy's story - in this film at least - is about how those around her deny her that.

Not to mention she's playing a character who must have been pretty abrasive in real life for much of her career because even the watered down version is pretty harsh at times. Fortunately her husband is even worse, played by Foster largely as a blank-faced robot just waiting for someone to flip his switch to kill mode. Are these enjoyable people to spend time with? No. Fortunately the fighting scenes are thrilling enough to oh wait no they're not.

Instead of steering into literally any aspect of this story that might have made it entertaining, this comes across as a project handed to people who assumed somebody else was providing the element that would make this take off. Individually the elements are well-crafted - director David Michod knows his stuff - but none of those elements steps forward to become the reason to watch this film.

There are fights but they're not great, her career here skips over the comeback that anywhere else would be the whole point, she's gay but the film almost entirely focuses on people being shitty to her and is more interested in her (male) gym team accepting her than her finding love; the end crawl is basically "you remember that minor character she had one conversation with? That's her wife!". 

As a sports biopic it's rote, yet the elements that would make it stand out are largely downplayed. Christy starts out flat on the canvas and never gets up.

- Anthony Morris