Review: Promising Young Woman

  

Putting this candy-coloured take on the way sexual abuse can sour a life seems like the dictionary definition of counter-programming during the holidays. But this aggressively provoking film – in which Cassandra (Carey Mulligan) becomes a #metoo vigilante – is close enough to a traditional superhero / revenge film to feel like a much-needed corrective to the usual holiday action thrill-rides.

 

By day 30 year-old Cassandra (Carey Mulligan) seems to be wasting her life, working a dead-end customer service job and living with her puzzled parents: by night she goes out, pretends to be drunk, and waits for “nice guys” to try and pick her up. They get more than what they bargained for; eventually, so does the audience.

 

The usual payback thrills from this kind of film are here but this has more on its mind than just sweet revenge. Cassandra’s backstory is slowly filled in to become a hard-hitting look at the way abuse can derail a life, and just how difficult it can be to get back on track - especially when everyone on that track is acting like it never happened and even if it did, was it really so bad?

 

This never questions the necessity of her actions, but it's doesn't exactly revel in them. Cassandra's character is too well developed for this to remain the one-note vigilante thriller it initially seems to promise, and her mission of vengeance has just enough nuance to keep things uncomfortable. 

 

Not every step here is as sure-footed as it could be (the ending manages to be satisfyingly uplifting on a thematic level while remaining grimly downbeat in its specifics) and Mulligan's exhaustive, exhausting performance carries things more than it should, but there's more than enough verve here to get it across the line in style.

 

The casting of a steady stream of dreamboat TV stars (Adam Brody, Max Greenfield, Christopher Mintz-Plasse) as the parade of creeps Cassandra encounters are the candles on this brightly iced cake, playing characters so similar to their starring roles you’ll wonder why you never realised they were scum all along.

 

 

- Anthony Morris

 

 

 

Review: Another Round

Martin (Mads Mikkelson) is in a rut. A high school teacher who's boring his students, a married man who barely speaks to his wife, he's drifting through life, the promise of his younger years long gone. Then at a birthday party with three friends - all of whom share his sense of a life slipping away - one of them comes up with an idea: why not get drunk and stay drunk all the time?

Thanks to a fairly dubious-sounding theory that people are born with an alcohol deficiency and the natural blood alcohol content for a human is .05%, the quartet embark on an experiment that largely involves stashing booze all around the school and topping themselves up whenever they can. 

And for a while it works. Sure, they reek of alcohol, their hidden booze keeps getting discovered, and the occasional slurred word and stumble threatens to give the game away - but they feel more alive and engaged than they have in years, and their work and home lives are on the way up. Until they aren't.

As a low stakes look at middle age despondency this isn't quite as grim as it could be, but there's little denying the overall mood isn't so much "feel good" as "feel anything". These are men on the downhill slope of life, and while their boozy scheme does help them reconnect with the world around them, it's only ever a temporary solution.

It might seem obvious that things are going to come to a bad end - they're middle aged men drinking during the day; if this was a movie made in the west the demon drink would have them all dead and the school burnt down - but writer / director Thomas Vinterberg (The Hunt) underplays that angle in a way that highlights the many differences between Europe and the English-speaking world.

Here the men's problem isn't framed so much as drinking itself as it is that drinking - especially excessive drinking - is an activity for the young. The quartet's problem isn't so much the physical affects of drinking (though they definitely play their part) as it is their ultimately doomed attempt to recapture their youth. Some of them realise what's done is done and move on; some don't.

As a regular, average, beaten down schlub, Mikkelson hits the perfect balance of present-day depression and past potential. His former glories are behind him, but that doesn't mean he can't reach back and grasp them for a moment here and there, and it's hard not to cheer him onwards even when it's clear the path he's heading down can't end well - any movement is better than the numb stasis he's been in. 

The film doesn't exactly end on a sombre note, or a hopeful one, or even a combination of the two; rather it captures everything the film's said and releases it in a moment of pure expression that - whatever this film's other flaws - is one of the most striking and heartfelt conclusions seen in a long while.

 

- Anthony Morris

Review: Long Story Short

Time travel movies are all about agency. The fun comes from seeing someone moving outside the normal flow of time, and then using that to change things (or try to). It's not the actual traveling through time that's the hook (we all travel through time every day), it's what the characters do with that ability that keeps us watching. Long Story Short gets there, but it definitely takes its time.

Teddy (Rafe Spall) is a procrastinator. After he met current partner Leanne (Zahra Newman) by pashing her by mistake on New Year's Eve, their relationship has slowed to a crawl. It's been three years and he's only just proposed to her; when they're going to get married is anyone's guess. But when he's called out about it by a mysterious stranger (Noni Hazelhurst) - at his father's grave, no less - he's spurred into action... briefly.

The night of their wedding he's still putting things off (booking a honeymoon, mostly), when he stumbles across a strange wedding gift: a can that comes with a card reading "do not open for 10 years". He lies down to sleep, and when he wakes up in what he thinks is the next morning, it's actually a year later, Leanne is pregnant, and he starts freaking out.

The "freaking out' stage of the story goes on for longer than you might think, as Teddy barely gets time to find his bearings in one time before he's swept ahead another year. There's no time for any real forward planning; all he can do is take in the yearly updates on his life - and increasingly he's not happy with what he's hearing.

Thanks to some solid work from writer / director Josh Lawson, this feels like a much bigger film than it is. With a tiny cast (Ronny Chieng as Teddy's best mate is pretty much it) and a story that largely takes place in one apartment (don't worry, Teddy goes outside eventually) this still manages to feel like a full scale rom-com. The performers are a big plus too: both Spall and Newman are consistently entertaining as characters traveling in different directions in life.

The contrast between the two keeps the film watchable even when the story is running on rails. Spall's frantic panicking as a man in love who's seeing that love slip away (being flung through time might have something to do with it too) keeps the energy up, while Newman gets to be the more level-headed of the two while convincingly showing their relationship ebbing away.

As for the "running on rails" part. it gets pretty obvious where this is heading early on, and annoyingly Teddy has zero agency for most of this film - he can't influence events in any real way, as no sooner has he figured out what's going on that he's off again. How this must look to outsiders is never considered; he just goes a bit strange for a few minutes each wedding anniversary then snaps back.

There's a bit of an attempt to tie this all in with some personal growth for Teddy (putting things off and working too hard is bad), but his love for Leanne is never in doubt. The message here is basically "life's too short", which is fine as messages go but once you've said it you still have another 89 minutes left of movie to fill.

Long Story Short is basically too good-natured to have any real fun with the plight of its hero, with most of the comedy more about assuring the audience that the mood is going to stay light than scoring any real laughs. It's a slight story, but a charming one - just don't ask any questions about how they could possibly afford their Sydney beachside apartment.

- Anthony Morris

Review: The Little Things

It's the 1990s and a serial killer is on the loose. That sounds about right; the 1990s were a high point for serial killers in pop culture - Seven was a hit in 1995 - and though this script was first written in 1997 it makes sense to keep the action set back then. Serial killers aren't exactly a relic of the past, but we've got better things to worry about in 2021.

It also helps that we haven't seen a lot of serial killer movies lately (unless you're spending your time deep down the trashier end of the streaming services), because most of what The Little Things has to offer initially seems as stale as the contents of the first victim's fridge. 

A woman's been killed, and it looks like the latest crime from a repeat offender. Hotshot LA detective Jim Baxter (Rami Malek) is on the case, and mysteriously unpopular country deputy sheriff Joe Deacon (Denzel Washington) just happens to be hanging around his former workplace. Why sure, he'll take a look at the case if Jim asks nicely.

So far so buddy cop, though already there are a few questions. Why does (almost) everyone at his old job seem to hate Deacon? Why is Baxter so keen (well, slightly keen) to have him check out the case? And why is Deacon sticking around when he should be heading home - oh wait, it's because this case looks an awful lot like the unsolved string of murders that led to him having a heart attack and getting a divorce and leaving the force for a quiet job in the country.

Writer / director John Lee Hancock (The Blind Side, The Founder) keeps the writing and visuals workmanlike, which means for a while this gets by almost entirely thanks to the presence of Washington and Malek. They're both legit movie stars with charisma to burn (news flash) and while neither is being particularly challenged here they're both skillful actors who can do a lot with a little. 

And a little is what you get here; even the murder details are fairly tame, and while a creepy opening sequence goes some way towards establishing the killer's menace, our cops are clearly not up against any kind of murder mastermind.

So it makes sense that Albert Sparma (Jared Leto) turns out to be their prime suspect, because the thing that makes him their prime suspect is that he wanders around acting like a serial killer. But is he really a killer or just a wannabe who's being played by an actor hamming it up like crazy and sticking his gut out like he's pretending to be pregnant? Looks like they're going to have to go outside the law to get the proof they know is just out of reach.

If it's not already obvious, once you look past the performances much of this solidly competent film is fairly by-the-numbers, and how much you enjoy it is going to rely more than usual on whether you think it sticks the ending. The good news is, it's an ending that goes some way towards elevating what's come before - it even, in a somewhat blunt way, goes some way towards explaining why you'd make such a pro-cop movie (they're lone heroes taking down an evil that society is powerless against!) in 2021. 

It won't keep you up at night - it probably won't keep you thinking once you get home - but it does provide a decent update to what otherwise seems like a generic salute to the 1990s, when being murdered in your bed by a deranged maniac following some creepy ritualistic pattern was about as scary as it got.

 

- Anthony Morris

 

Review: The Honest Thief

 

There's a level of quality to Liam Neeson movies you just don't get with other aging action stars. It's not just gratitude that he hasn't gone totally off the rails like, say, Bruce Willis: even when a Neeson actioner seems like a fairly basic effort - which let's admit, The Honest Thief is - there's always a couple of scenes or twists that show that somebody somewhere along the line was looking to make a decent movie. And for a film like this, "decent" is pretty solid praise.

Tom Carter (Neeson) is a break-and-enter thief who's racked up a seven-figure haul from various banks over the last few years. Then he meets Annie (Kate Walsh) at the storage center she owns and runs, and despite a fairly average "meet cute" scene, he promptly falls head over heels in love. Time passes, he realises he can't go on living a lie with her, and so it's time for the so-called "In-and-Out Bandit" to give himself up. 

Not being a total sap, he tries to cut a deal with the FBI: he'll hand himself in and hand over the cash if they give him a short sentence in a nearby prison where Annie can visit. Agent Sam Baker (Robert Patrick) and his partner Tom Meyers (Jeffery Donovan) get a decent laugh out of this, and to be fair Carter does come off as a bit of a rube in these early scenes - this is a movie that gets better as it goes along and there is a halfway decent explanation for why Carter seems a little out of touch with the world of crime, but it's a bit of a bumpy ride early on.

Not convinced Carter (who's calling them from a secret location, AKA a hotel) is the In-and-Out Bandit, Sam passes the investigation onto junior agents John Nivens (Jai Courtney) and Ramon Hall (Anthony Ramos), which is when things start to get interesting. Carter sends them to his cash stash to prove he's the man, they find the money and figure "why not just keep the cash and say the guy's a nutcase?" and before you know it everything has gone wrong for everyone and it's car chases and gun battles on the streets of Boston.

Interestingly for this kind of film, it's the bad guys who start out as the smart ones. Niven's plan is a perfectly good one that only goes awry though bad luck (well, good luck for Carter), while Carter is kind of a chump until it's time to turn into Liam Neeson, action hero - and even then there's just enough to his character to give him a handful of scenes that aren't the usual run and gun stuff.

This is a little rough around the edges at times - there are some decent car chases and nice Boston location shooting; there are also a few sets that really look like sets - but there's enough polish on the script (co-written by director Mark Williams) to keep it from feeling completely generic. Character quirks are the kind of thing that add value to this kind of film but are too easily overlooked: whether it's Meyers stuck with his ex-wife's dog or Carter grousing about being dubbed "The In-and-Out Bandit", this has just enough sparkle away from the action to keep things interesting. 

Neeson's action career has largely kept ticking along because he's been willing to push things a little. Bouncing between films like A Walk Among the Tombstones, The Commuter and Cold Pursuit, he's managed to find ways to keep his formula relatively varied while still delivering what his fans are looking for. The Honest Thief is perfectly satisfying for what it is, which is the most generic action film he's made in a while; guess that's one way to keep bucking the trend.

- Anthony Morris

 

Review: On the Rocks

Laura (Rashida Jones) is a mother of two who, all things considered, is doing pretty well for herself. She’s got a nice apartment in New York, two adorable daughters who aren’t handfuls at all, and Dean (Marlon Wayans) a hard-working husband who’s caring and attentive. Sure, her daily routine seems to have hardened into a rut and she can’t find her way back into her writing (turns out having kids and being used to writing at night don’t mix), but things could always be worse. 

 

For example, she could start to suspect Dean of cheating on her just when her freewheeling father Felix (Bill Murray) lobs back into her life. 

 

Felix is an art dealer and ladies man who flirts with every woman he sees – and is charming enough to mostly get away with it. Even Laura knows he’s not someone she should be confessing her worries to, but where else can she turn? And once Felix is on the case, she finds herself drawn into what threatens to become a full-blown caper tailing her husband all across New York looking for proof of an affair that probably (possibly?) doesn’t exist.

 

Having writer / director Sophia Coppola back working with Murray again on their first feature since Lost in Translation defined (or in Murray's case, re-defined) their careers is clearly the big draw here. It's something of a surprise then that it’s the earlier scenes built around the rut Laura finds herself in that are this film’s strongest. Murray gives a thoroughly charming performance as a character that plays to all his strengths and he has great chemistry with the equally appealing Jones, but it’s hard not to feel that the film loses something when he’s on the scene, slipping down a notch into a lighter, less memorable mode.

 

Possibly it’s simply that the stakes dwindle once he arrives. Laura’s relationship is central to who she is; for Felix, much as women are to be adored, they remain essentially disposable. The clash between these views is meant to be one of the film’s core issues – which one of the duo is going through life the right way? – but it’s hard to get much drama out of trying to figure out if someone is cheating when one of the team of investigators thinks it doesn’t really matter because men are programmed to roam.

 

(Felix does express some minor outrage at the idea that someone would cheat on his little girl, but he can’t sustain it; an angry dad would make this a much less amusing film)

 

On the Rocks prizes a light touch in all things, but there’s a maturity under it all that makes it feel more like a wine night spent with one eye on the babysitter’s clock than a freewheeling romp through the city at night. The lack of Coppola’s usual swooning romanticism is keenly felt; Felix might live in a high-toned world of wheeling and dealing in a string of luxury apartments, but whatever the artworks on the walls they still feel down-to-earth (he is, after all, always doing business), while the New York they explore only rarely looks like anything more than a series of nicely shot locations. 

 

It's a consistently funny film, though the third act stumbles a little. The humour is rarely an end in itself; a scene where Felix charms his way out of a speeding ticket is both delightful and a pointed look at how a certain kind of white male can slip through life (though Murray's self-aware performance never lets Felix off the hook - he knows exactly how the world works). This grown-up mood is central to a film about a woman who may wonder how she got where she is, but she’s happy (mostly) with the result. 

 

This isn’t about escape, it’s about maintenance. The relationships here aren't idealised; there's no bloom of first attraction, just the ongoing struggle to make it work with people you (still, somehow) love. Lost in Translation was about feeling adrift in a life that had somehow appeared around you and embracing the chance to break out; On the Rocks is more about realising you should be be happy with the life you've worked hard to make for yourself. 

 

It's a perfectly reasonable message for this warm and charming film - though being a successful author with a New York apartment probably helps.

- Anthony Morris

Review: Waves

Tyler (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) is seventeen and has the world at his feet. A high school wrestler looking at getting into college on a scholarship, he has a loving girlfriend, Alexis (Alexa Demie), a well-off family, and a life in South Florida that's a whirlwind of cars, friends, training and hanging out. There's the occasional off note - his father, Ronald (Sterling K. Brown) is a self-made man who means well but pushes his son maybe a little too hard - but on the whole? Life is good.

And then it isn't, and while this family drama has more to say than simply "shit happens", the capricious nature of life and the way even the steadiest of good fortune can be revealed to be hanging by a thread is at the core of what's to come. A shoulder injury jeopardises his future; seeing it as a personal failure, he decides to keep it secret. Things get worse, and when Alexis reveals she's pregnant his life begins to spiral out of control. Disaster seems inevitable, and the fallout will shatter more lives than his own.

Writer-director Trey Edward Shults (It Comes at Night) is as interested in creating a sensory experience through film as he is in telling a story, though the story here definitely stands up. The early scenes with Tyler sees the camera constantly on the move through an at-times glowing, garish world, sliding and spinning through a life lived at precarious speed. Even before the wheels come off, there's a constant tension, a sense of things only seemingly under control.

In the back half of the film the focus shifts to Tyler's little sister Emily (Taylor Russell), an minor presence early on who turns out to have hidden depths of her own. Already quiet, she becomes almost withdrawn after Tyler's trainwreck and the film's visual energy settles down with her (the aspect ratio also shifts to 4:3 after the increasingly claustrophobic widescreen of Tyler's scenes; when her life once again opens up, so does the screen).

Emily finds a relationship of her own, even as her family struggles (and fails) to come to terms with what's happened. After the tension of the first half of the film, we're in the same situation as Emily, wary of new faces, always alert for the damage they could deal out. What follows is surprising in the way it confirms that life goes on, and can even be good; some of the moments would seem forced or melodramatic in a lesser film, but after what everyone's been through any moment of peace and insight rings true.

Often films that focus so firmly on visuals and sound as Waves earn tags like "lyrical", and it's well-deserved here. But there's a raft of outstanding performances as well, from a cast that moves effortlessly from big scenes to subtle character moments. Shults has created a living, breathing world; it's definitely worth a visit.

- Anthony Morris