Review: Gringo

Hollywood is constantly reviving old genres, only most of the time nobody notices because the movies sink without trace. Gringo - an attempt to revive classic 90s-era Tarantino knock offs like, uh, 2 Days in the Valley - is the kind of film whose presence in cinemas seems a little surprising (finally, the David Oyelowo star vehicle we've been waiting for!) until you spot Australia's own Joel Edgerton up the top of the credits. And with his brother Nash directing (in only his second film, after the underrated The Square), this is more Aussie than half of next year's AFI winners.

  

Hard-working office drone Harold Soyinka (Oyelowo) is the kind of nice guy that always gets into trouble in crime movies, and here he’s in way over his head. His big-spending wife (Thandie Newton) has him in deep debt and his boss-slash-best-friend Richard Rusk (Joel Edgerton) is clearly planning to screw him over in an upcoming corporate merger. But first Harold has to take Richard and his vampy, foul-mouthed co-President Elaine (2 Days in the Valley star Charlize Theron) to Mexico to oversee their pharmaceutical operations, unaware that the firm has been up to some shady business (as in, cartel level shady) and if anything goes wrong Harold will take the fall.

  

The closest thing this has to a surprise twist (one that the trailers happily give away because it's pretty much the only satisfying development in the film) is that Harold realises he's got nothing to lose roughly five seconds before the trap closes shut around him and decides to try and spin what's happening his way. Unfortunately this move - which again, should be satisfying; seeing the little guy stand up for himself always is - doesn't really pay off, in large part because this film is never quite sure exactly who it wants us to cheer for.

Rusk might be an nasty dirtbag, but he's got the kind of self-centered energy that makes him fun to watch; Elaine is often just plain mean but there's enough of a human being in there that she's not pure evil either. A subplot featuring tourists-slash-drug mules Sunny (Amanda Seyfried) and her boyfriend Miles (Harry Treadaway) does little but showcase two extremely dull characters, while late arrival and conflicted hitman Mitch (Sharlto Copley) is yet another dirtbag who's more fun to watch than the nice guys. And Harold? He's pretty much a blank.

The various plots intertwine in mildly interesting ways and there's the occasional burst of nasty violence (plus a cartel boss obsessed with ranking Beatles' albums; told you the 90s are back) but - in something of a running problem for this film - it's never quite sure whether it wants us to really care about any of it.  Cheering for the bad guys is fine; it's when a film doesn't really know who it wants you to cheer for (or whether it wants you cheering at all) that there's a problem.

Gringo's cast of creeps are never dull, and the story moves quickly enough that things never really get boring either. But this isn't stylish or quick-witted enough to be a Tarantino film, nor are the characters quirky or schlubby enough for it to be a Coen Brothers tale. The reason Hollywood stopped making this kind of film is because without a strong point of view a messy crime thriller with muddled morals often ends up as a pretty average experience. And so it proves to be here. 

Solo: A Star Wars Story - some thoughts

It's tempting to think of Star Wars' Han Solo - first played by Harrison Ford and now, in his younger incarnation, by Alden Ehrenreich - as the kind of character where a little goes a long way. As a swashbuckling smuggler in the first film, he seemed piped in from another, more grown-up film. He was Luke Skywalker's cooler older brother, the guy that got the girl because he could actually talk to girls, the slightly shady guy who wasn't quite as shady as he seemed.

By not being purely good or evil, he gave the Star Wars universe depth; by being charming and flawed he gave Star Wars a sense of fun. So it only seems logical to give him his own movie - and when it turns out, as it does in Solo, that an entire movie based around Han Solo isn't quite as much fun as it seems like it should be, it's just as logical to think that maybe he's a character best consumed in small doses.

Thing is, there's already loads of stories built around Han Solo-esque characters that work perfectly fine. Science fiction is full of charming rogues on the wrong side of the (space) law; the early work of comic book writer-artist Howard Chaykin (who drew the comic-book adaptation of Star Wars) and Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat series come to (my) mind. And that's just in science-fiction. When you're looking at a character whose roots go at least as deep as Rick from Casablanca, there's really no excuse for not hitting it out of the park.

Pointing out that Han Solo was deeply unoriginal a character is no slight on him; the whole point of the original Star Wars was that none of the elements George Lucas mixed together were original. It was how he combined them that made them work, putting old favourites up against each other in ways that made them seem fresh - and in this new setting Han Solo, a character that almost could have been one of the Three Musketeers, seemed freshest of all.

The trouble with Solo isn't that Han Solo can't carry an entire movie; it's that Han Solo can't carry an entire Star Wars movie. Han Solo works fine in a universe run by bad guys, so long as there's no real alternative. There he can either be a decent guy getting along the best he can, or he's a one-man rebellion robbing the bad guys because that's the best way he can make them hurt. The first Guardians of the Galaxy movie is a great example of this: in a galaxy with no rules, the man who makes his own rules looks pretty good.

But once there's actual good guys standing up to evil, then you get Star Wars.

Star Wars is about good versus evil, big clashes of giant forces and the little people in between who step up to bigger roles. There's only one story for Han Solo in that kind of universe: the one where he decides which side he's on. They already told that story in the first Star Wars, and then they tell it all over again here. That's not a spoiler: what else could they do? It's already been established that the rebellion began pretty much as soon as the Empire took over, and once there's a rebellion then a guy like Han looks pretty shabby if he doesn't sign up - or at least lean heavily towards them - by the end of the movie.

There's a lot to like and enjoy in Solo - strong performances, some decent action sequences, a lighter tone than we've come to expect from recent Star Wars - but it can't overcome this fundamental flaw no matter how many times Han shoots first. It ends on a note that suggests there's more sequels to come, but the core story is already over; there's only so many times Han Solo can start out selfish then end up doing the right thing before he starts to seem pathetic, and a few reviewers were already saying that when his future self turned up in The Force Awakens doing the same old smuggling trick.

Of course, there's plenty of scope for a great movie about a man who keeps falling back into the same patterns in life, someone who sees himself as a rebel but can't help but conform when the pressure's on. It's just not a movie Disney is going to make about lovable space rogue Han Solo.

'It's been a long time since anyone looked after my [W]hole.' Some thoughts on TULLY

I saw Tully a few days after visiting a pelvic physiotherapist. I've been in a lot of pain lately after abdominal surgery, and the gentle touch of this practical young woman brought tears to my eyes. Her waiting room was crammed with prams and tired, lumpy-looking new mothers. 'Up to ninety per cent of women who've given birth vaginally have some kind of prolapse,' she told me, proceeding to put her gloved fingers inside me and feel for the places where my own baby had arrived fifteen years ago.

Nobody talks about this kind of damage, not really. And nobody talks about the grief and exhaustion of relentless early motherhood, except to joke about it, and say it's all worthwhile and you don't really remember the pain.

Bullshit.

Tully is a film written by Diablo Cody (Juno, Young Adult), herself a mother of three, and while it's supposedly a comedy, it's the most honest representation I've seen on screen of the despair that comes with maternal drudgery and extreme sleep deprivation. Directed by Jason Reitman (Juno, Up in the Air), the film stars Charlize Theron as Marlo, a mother of two, heavily pregnant with her third baby. She's tired, sad and angry. She swears a lot and doesn't even try to be nice to the school principal when discussing her special needs son. Marlo's husband (Ron Livingston) is a good man, but he's struggling to pay the bills and afraid his wife is going to fall apart emotionally the way she did the last time she gave birth.

So when Marlo's rich brother offers the baby-gift of a night nanny to help with the graveyard shift, it seems a guardian angel has arrived on the doorstep. The nanny, Tully (Mackenzie Davis) is a strange, dreamlike creature, a young woman with flat, bared midriff and a stock of fairychild wisdom.  How can she possibly help? And yet her touch is practical, confident and quiet. She tells Marlo she's there to take care of both baby and mother, the whole unit, the whole person. Marlo replies with a laugh: 'It's been a long time since anyone took care of my hole.' And off she goes to bed for the first proper sleep in a long time.

Charlize Theron has always been a fearless actress, careless of her beauty and quite prepared to gain weight for roles. (Think of her unrecognisable turn as thuggish serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster, 2003). In Tully, Theron shows the convincing physicality of a nursing mother who hasn't had time or energy to look after herself. With the cruel honesty of the young, her own daughter asks her what's wrong with her stomach. But the night nanny's help makes a huge difference. Marlo starts to return to life, and to summon back the kind of carefree, courageous young woman she was before motherhood.

There are few things in life as inescapable as parenthood. Tully is a kind of fantasy about being properly supported to bear, endure and - and even enjoy - this reality. There are some plot developments which may have you scratching your head or feeling let down at the film's close. But representation matters, and seeing this common (yet not commonly shown) part of human life on screen is a joy, and a relief in itself.

Rochelle Siemienowicz

A new comedy from Academy Award®-nominated director

Jason Reitman (“Up in the Air”) and

Academy Award®-winning screenwriter Diablo Cody (“J

uno”). Marlo (Academy Award® winner

Charlize Theron), a mother of three including a new

born, is gifted a night nanny by her brother

(Mark Duplass). Hesitant to the extravagance at fir

st, Marlo comes to form a unique bond with

the thoughtful, surprising, and sometimes challengi

ng young nanny named Tully (Mackenzie

Davis)

A new comedy from Academy Award®-nominated director

Jason Reitman (“Up in the Air”) and

Academy Award®-winning screenwriter Diablo Cody (“J

uno”). Marlo (Academy Award® winner

Charlize Theron), a mother of three including a new

born, is gifted a night nanny by her brother

(Mark Duplass). Hesitant to the extravagance at fir

st, Marlo comes to form a unique bond with

the thoughtful, surprising, and sometimes challengi

ng young nanny named Tully (Mackenzie

Davis)

Review: Life of the Party

When she’s dumped by her husband two minutes after they drop their daughter off at college, Deanna Miles (Melissa McCarthy) bounces back fast. Unfortunately her method of bouncing back is to sign up for college alongside Maddie (Molly Gordon) and finally get her degree in archeology. Deanna’s good-natured but cloying efforts to be “one of the gals” soon makes her the center of attention, especially among Maddie's somewhat quirky peers; clearly there's going to be big trouble ahead. 

But this film – a reworking of the 80s Rodney Dangerfield classic Back to School so bland it's hard to figure out why they bothered – is firmly determined to avoid any trace of drama or conflict. Often it feels like all involved would rather be making some kind of "you can do it!" inspirational text for middle aged women looking to restart their lives. Which is fine, but those things aren't exactly known for bringing the laughs.

So rather than picking up any of a dozen obvious plot threads, or even exploring the handful of ones they do establish, Deanna’s return to university rapidly becomes a trouble-free fantasy of sleeping with hot guys and reclaiming the identity her loveless too-soon marriage stripped from her. And that's all.

The mother-daughter friction promised by the set-up never materialises beyond a few awkward looks, no-one has any problem with a mature-age student basically taking over the campus, while both the classroom drama (it turns out Deanna’s not great at giving presentations) and some minor sorority hassles are barely speed bumps in her relentless victory march towards a big party that - surprise! - turns out to be yet another triumph. 

McCarthy remains one of the more energetic comedy performers around, but this relies far more than it should on that energy. Just because we want her to succeed doesn't mean we want her to succeed effortlessly, especially when it means everyone and everything around her barely registers. Perhaps some of these ideas - the wacky friends, her archeology puns - seemed funny enough early on to balance things out and make this a comedy that would actually be funny for 105 minutes. 

They aren't. This isn't.

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STRANGE COLOURS - Winner of the Best Australian Independent Film Award at the Gold Coast Film Festival

Last month I was one of the Jury members voting for the Blackmagic Design Best Australian Independent Film Award at the Gold Coast Film Festival (17 - 29 April 2018).

The prize (which includes $10,000 of Blackmagic camera equipment) was judged by four film critics from the Australian Film Critics Association: Luke Buckmaster, Lauren Carroll Harris, Cerise Howard and myself, and was won by Russian-Australian filmmaker Alena Lodkina’s impressive and poetic debut feature Strange Colours.

Set and shot in the remote opal mining community of Lightning Ridge, Strange Colours has been described as an inverted response to the outback horrors of Wake in Fright. Premiering to acclaim at the 2017 Venice Film Festival, and having its Australian premiere at the Gold Coast Film Festival, it's a film that features soft silky light, dreamy-pale landscapes and benign Ocker characters. These are wizened Aussie blokes, never seen without a VB in their hands, and yet they defy expectations with gentleness and good humour.

Written by Lodkina and Isaac Wall, Strange Colours stars Kate Cheel as a young woman from the big city who visits her estranged and ailing father (Daniel P. Jones, best known for his starring role in Amiel Courtin-Wilson's Hail). Sophisticated, surprising and beautiful, it's an Australian film to watch out for. The official website is here: http://www.strangecolours.com.

- Rochelle Siemienowicz