Review: Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

Mad Max movies falter when they slow down. It's a series built on speed; characters might talk about what they've lost, but the past is the past and they're hurtling through a future that's crumbling around them. Furiosa doesn't exactly slam on the brakes, but as a companion piece to 2015's Fury Road - which restarted the Mad Max franchise after close to three decades dormant - it's largely taking us to places we've already been.

Fury Road sketched in Furiosa's backstory. Taken from the Green Place of Many Mothers as a child, she grew up in the Wasteland, rising to a position of power in the brutal Citadel run by Immortan Joe. This fills in the gaps, sometimes in ways that honor the franchise's tradition of full throttle storytelling, other times in ways more familiar to prequel fans.

The opening sequence where Furiosa (played as a child by Alyla Browne) is snatched, raced across the desert to the camp of Dementus (Chris Hemsworth, hamming it up) then almost saved by her pursuing mother is a breathless, thrilling beginning. Things slow down when Dementus' horde stumble upon the Citadel and discover Joe (Lachy Hulme) and his familiar henchmen are no easy mark; warring tribes are slower and more crushing than speeding individuals, and while the violence we expect in the Wasteland continues, the storytelling shifts into epic mode, with alliances and sieges and betrayals.

Through this Furiosa (now played by Anna Taylor-Joy) comes of age, dodges one fate and embraces another. Hiding as a mechanic, she plans her escape; War Rig driver Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke) becomes her mentor and her guide. Meanwhile, Dementus is proving an unstable element in the fragile ecosystem that sustains the Citadel. War is coming, and Furiosa's plans for escape will be overtaken by her desire for revenge.

Director George Miller hasn't slowed down with age. There's a number of good action sequences here, and one excellent one. But the breathless pace of the best of the Mad Max series is absent, and revisiting familar settings and characters means this often lacks the confronting weirdness the franchise is so good at. A fleeting static cameo from a familiar Road Warrior got a cheer; someone being dragged down into a desert sinkhole was a nice call back to the deadly sand dunes of Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.

But the limited settings also limits the film's horizons. At times the Wasteland almost threatens to become safe, a well worn path - though the physical setting for the hooning around (this was filmed in the Australian outback, whereas Fury Road was filmed in Africa) is more varied and striking than in the previous film, and used to better effect.

Taylor-Joy is more fevered and feral than Charlize Theron's Furiosa, a woman desperate to regain what she's lost. Burke plays a guide to what she'll become, a rare character with his head on straight; everyone else is ruthless or insane, preferably both if they want to survive, and Miller's retained his eye for uniquely Australian faces (a dusty musician Tim Rogers turns up early).

Fury Road was a relentless onslaught of escalating and outlandish action. This can't reach those heights; it's probably wise that it takes another path. At close to two and a half hours, it's an epic striving for a different kind of overload. If it doesn't fully succeed, it still goes hard enough to skid over the line.

- Anthony Morris

Review: Fremont

Donya (Anaita Wali Zada) is having trouble sleeping. She's an Afghan refugee - she was a translator for the US Army - who now lives in Fremont, California. She works in a fortune cookie factory, lives in a building with other refugees, eats alone at a restaurant where soap operas constantly play, and doesn't think she has PTSD. 

The rhythms of Donya's life are small ones, and Iranian-American director Babak Jalali's film takes its time immersing the viewer in them. The men around her are usually older and keep their distance, while her workmate and friend Joanna (Hilda Schmelling) has a lot going on. Donya's fine with keeping people at a remove.

The she pushes her way into the practice of Dr Anthony (Gregg Turkington) because she wants sleeping tablets. When he asks about her past and her situation, her facade doesn't exactly crack - and it isn't really a facade - but she does start to realise that she may need more out of life than the bare bones she's been gnawing on.

Meanwhile at the cookie factory, a major upheaval. The person writing the fortunes has died (as the boss says, "she was too old to be thinking about the future") and Donya takes on the job. Dr Anthony thinks this might be a way for her to express her thoughts and feelings, though she'll have to make them "cookie friendly". Taking his advice maybe a little too close to heart, she puts her phone number on a fortune and sends it out into the world.

Deceptively deadpan and shot in often striking black and white, it's a story both intimate and wide-ranging. Told in a minor key, there's big feelings and high stakes here if you look. Donya's blind shot at connection puts her job in jeopardy, while also bringing her in contact with Daniel (The Bear's Jeremy Allen White) and a world - or maybe just a slightly ajar door - of passion and romance.

Despite it's at times placid tone, the brutal mechanisms of our world grind away just out of sight. Donya doesn't explain her past, but the outline alone suggests horrors. Looked at one way, her job is repetitive and crushing, her life outside it threadbare. 

But there's solace and comfort there too, as sorting and packing cookies creates a soothing repetition. When she's offered the chance to be creative, she grabs it with both hands and uses it for her own gain. The company's too; who better to write cookie fortunes than a dreamer?

- Anthony Morris