Oppenheimer

“It is a paradox…”

This is the first lesson that Robert Oppenheimer teaches to his sole student in theoretical physics at the California Institute of Technology.

Oppenheimer’s words are separated from the churning world beyond his classroom, a world lurching into the madness of a second World War. Brilliance set against terror as Robert’s words enrapture wonder in his student is a summary of Christopher Nolan’s latest masterpiece. Robert Oppenheimer, who in the quiet desert plains of New Mexico, led the Allied research effort into nuclear weapons. From Robert’s effort, the Damocles sword of apocalyptic fission has kept the global superpowers in a tenuous peace ever since. Their great game relegated to intermittent bouts of proxy conflict. Flitting between the euphoric vibrancy of the past and the dour monochrome of the 1950’s, Oppenheimer finds our modern-day Prometheus to be a paradox whose character and intentions are muddied by self-recollection and cross-examination. The film begins with a young Robert Oppenheimer beset by visions of time and space unfolding before him. Is Robert mad, a visionary, or a man marked by destiny? The answer is that the man is the nuclear bomb, a chain reaction carving itself through the space and time, neither good nor bad but ultimately unaware of how his journey effects everything in the proximity of his personal and professional life.  

Nolan builds across three hours a moving examination of a singular man whose actions have shaped history since. In the contradictions of Robert Oppenheimer, Nolan presents humanity’s own contradictions. Our equal capacity to be gods and monsters. Our vast capability to create and discover matched by an equal craving to destroy. Unlike the chain reaction of nuclear fission, Robert Oppenheimer can wake up and see the consequences of his journey to discover whether an atomic bomb was possible. Robert Oppenheimer becomes a figurehead against nuclear proliferation. His rebuttal against further weaponry contrasts against the calculations of Washington’s atomic wargames which mould mass murder into chess. The dichotomy between moral horror and the hamster wheel of maintaining an advantage against foes equally eager to kill turns Oppenheimer’s final third into the strongest advocacy for nuclear disarmament and mutually assured destruction as our species’ innate mistrust is revealed. Robert Oppenheimer’s personal horror, and his symbolic punishment in a Cold War witch-trial, underlies a theme of stewardship seen before in Nolan’s previous film Tenet. In the guise of nuclear fire Oppenheimer projects humankind’s dissonance to the forces it has unleashed and the toll it could have on our planet. The same dissonance to our ecological impact pervades Tenet in the shape of its antagonist’s background, his indifference to consequences after his enjoyment of the world, and the forces he represents. 

What keeps Oppenheimer compelling is the perpetual sense of conflict. Robert’s internal struggles reverberate into his loyalty to his loved ones, his colleagues, and his country while in the autopsy of his sins under a kangaroo trial Robert’s life is caught in his conflict against peers, the war against the Nazis and then the Soviets. Nolan foreshadows every event with the tinge of uncertainty, a lingering whiff of inner betrayal as Robert’s own country devours his life and under this act of catharsis, Robert settles into the comfort of the doomed.

Christopher Nolan, alongside Ridley Scott and Dennis Villeneuve, is one of the upmost world builders of Western cinema active today. From the visual apparition of dirty laundry in Robert’s trial to the nightmare of Hiroshima made manifest, Oppenheimer sears into the viewer’s memory, just as Nolan’s films often have. Nolan’s sense of scale, composition and montage create films that have the entrancing tang of dreams before waking, sweeping the spectator along until the end.  Oppenheimer is carried by the Atlantean effort of Cillian Murphy as the titular character. Cillian has always touted a chameleonic adaptability to roles, but for Oppenheimer the man undergoes the true metamorphosis of method acting. Starving himself into the wraithlike dimensions of the real Robert, Cillian becomes this Prometheus figure of Oppenheimer, haunted from the beginning by actions yet unfolded, brimming with flaws, mania and genius. Across press junkets, Nolan has depicted Oppenheimer as a film designed around Cillian, and his fellow actors have lauded his strength and brilliance in the role and in leading the film. It is easy to see Cillian obtaining an Oscar this year and being propelled to a level of stardom beyond his beloved role in the Peaky Blinders series. Alongside Cillian’s central performance a bevy of actors depict friends and foes to Robert; from Matt Damon to Robert Downey Jr. Both Emily Blunt and Florence Pugh should be commended for their performance as Robert’s romantic interest during his life, with Blunt simply being exceptional as the wife who supports Robert in all his shortcomings and misdeeds.

Few directors, if any, have the freedom of Christopher Nolan to create singular tales of this budget or scale as Oppenheimer. What Nolan has created is another entry into film history which will be cherished in the future, and for now should be supported as the constant studio and streaming systems crush individual releases.

By Saul Shimmin

Air

For millennials onwards, Nike has been omnipresent. The company’s singular tick is a memorable icon in the pantheon of American multinationals personifying the global age. Set in 1984, Air follows Nike’s quest to sway Michael Jordan, a basketball rookie, to be sponsored by the company. By returning to the company’s past, Air’s miracle is that a faceless company is made human.

Air establishes Nike as a struggling adolescent, fogged by uncertainty as it matures into a listed company and vies to become a real competitor in sportswear. Nike and Jordan are paired by Air as twin underdogs, whose potential is readily dismissed by the established critics of the day fixating on stronger peers. Events spark into life when Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon), the head of Nike’s floundering basketball team, sees the raw talent of Michael Jordan while sifting through tapes of college basketball matches. Instead of devolving into corporate jargon, jingoistic clichés, slick suits and tense meetings, Air is a personal journey of an unlikely few fighting against the odds. In the rise of Nike and Michael Jordan, Air’s story also strikes at the worth of the individual in a capitalist society which commodifies them but denies them a fair share. This point swirls in the background of Air as the inequalities of college sports loom over events, reference is made to Carolyn Davidson who made the Nike logo, while Jordan himself is an object, rendered into a silent figure whose face is never shown.

The establishing scene of Air focuses on Sonny. He displays complete dedication to basketball, before reaping a killing on spread betting across NBA teams which is then squandered on roulette. Sonny is brilliant but flawed; a gambler who leans towards recklessness. Sonny corrals Nike into staking the future of the company on Michael Jordan, forming a team of fellow eccentrics whose sweat and sacrifice creates a slight chance to succeed against the likes of Converse and Adidas

Ben Affleck delivers his best direction in Air since Argo. The central tension of Air is whether Sonny has made the right gamble. Air forms the question and allows doubt to build in the viewer’s mind until the human cost of Sonny’s impulse is driven home in a restrained but powerful scene when his colleague Rob Strasser (Jason Bateman) breaks down during his birthday spent at the Nike HQ.

Echoing basketball, Air feels like a team effort. Not one character or actor comes to dominate events. From Jason Bateman as Rob Strasser to Viola Davis as Jordan’s mother Deloris, every single actor on screen pitches in to make Air a compelling biopic. Ben Affleck is fantastic as the quirky, flawed yet endearing CEO and founder of Nike, Phil Knight. Witnessing Knight lurch back into the risk-tasker who founded Nike around Sonny and ditch the CEO persona is one of the highlights of Air. Reflecting its time, Air is pleasantly anachronistic. The film harks back to the mid-budget character driven films, often with heart-warming plots, which populated cinemas until the 2010’s. This type of film is an almost extinct breed as studios take ridiculously high stake gambles like Sonny, sinking huge budgets into a singular film plucked from recognisable intellectual properties to make their money.

The demand for films like Air, which are character driven biopics spun from real events, is proven by its longevity at the box-office. Watching Air on a Monday night during its second week, the cinema was almost full and week later the film is still being shown in cinemas. Lastly, Matt Damon is great as ever. Damon’s natural charisma brings warmth to the role of Sonny as a driven visionary in the field of basketball.

By Saul Shimmin

John Wick: Chapter 4

Springing immediately from the carnage of the past films, John Wick: Chapter 4 finds the titular anti-hero still raging against “the High Table”, the omnipresent organisation which perpetuates an underworld of contract killing and organised crime. Vexed by Wick, the High Table has become increasingly draconian in its efforts to expunge the infamous bogeyman of assassination. The High Table turns to an emergency leader, the foppish French Marquis (Bill Skarsgård). Marquis, another antagonist of the Wick series, is an arrogant aristocratic son of the underbelly challenging the everyman Wick who pulled himself up from orphanhood through violence.

Since the humble start of the original franchise as a throwaway flick which roared into a sleeper hit, the John Wick series has exceeded itself time and again. From darkened hotel halls in Osaka to the nocturnal streets of Paris, Chapter 4 is a visceral action film loaded with the signature gun-fu of the series which draws inspiration from John Woo, Dredd and the Bourne series. Thanks to director Chad Stahelski’s career as a stuntman, the Wick series has always focused on action with story being an excuse for the gun-smoke and martial combat. The physicality and slick choreography of every scene returns for Chapter 4 but the formula remains fresh under Stahelski’s vision. Not one iota of any scene feels repetitive or re-used from past iterations.

For all its similarities to past films, Chapter 4 is a concise story compared to the meandering Chapter 3. This latest film provides a definite pause to the character of John Wick. In allowing for a moment to breathe, the story itself crystallises into a stronger tale of personal growth. Wick, long defined as a chaotic revenant, undergoes introspection and recognises the folly of his actions. Wick begins to live for others rather than supping on a feed-back loop of grief, adding a further dimension of humanity to the character. Across the films, Wick has faced split antagonists. Since Chapter 2, this division has been between High Table member and wet-work assassin. In Chapter 4, Wick’s counterpart on the ground is Caine (Donnie Yen). Caine is a shadow of John, a fellow assassin once retired but now pulled by chance back into the underworld. Their pairing, alongside Yen’s performance, only makes Wick’s arc more poignant as Chapter 4 concludes. Keanu Reeves, his career revived by the role back in 2014, is once again magnificent as John Wick. Lawrence Fishburne, Ian McShane, and Lance Reddick also come back with gusto to their respective roles in the film’s underworld. Bill Skarsgård delights in the sadistic form of the Marquis whose blue-blood coldness dominates his scenes.

What should also be praised is Stalheski’s world-building. The director and his team across all Chapters have created this semi-surreal parallel reality of organised crime jury-rigged together by anachronistic devices, sheltering eccentric characters and fuelled by gold coins. Audiences should cackle at this pantomime, but it is so earnest that viewers cannot help but go with the swing as a radio announcer broadcasts the price on Wick’s head while tunes warble across the Parisian soundwaves.

Chapter 4 may not be goodbye, but it is a fitting close for now and with the already announced Ballerina spin-off, John Wick will surely be gracing screens in some form soon enough.

By Saul Shimmin

Babylon

The latest film by Damien Chazelle styles itself as a loving ode to the Halcyon days of Hollywood. Across multiple protagonists, Babylon charts the heady days of the post-war silent era into the painful rebirth of Depression America and talking film. Babylon is an act of agony, endured over three hours. Viewers are first subjected to overblown excess before the story, once promising a tale of Hollywood’s life cycle of change, becomes as addled as its partying extras and the film’s heroine Nelly LaRoy (Margot Robbie).

Babylon is an awful form of manic. Numbing highs of unpalatable decadence crash against a brooding and introverted crusade of quasi-morality as protagonists find themselves outside the Hollywood system. For all the film’s gleeful self-congratulation at exhuming the wrongs of the long-dead Tinsel-town regime, its characters and events offer nothing meaningful against the system.  Nelly LaRoy hunts powder trails like a sniffer dog and selfishly crashes against the studio system regardless of consequences. Jack Conrad, the most likeable of the protagonists, is a Hollywood insider; a womanising actor and chief prize for MGM. Manny, whose arc offered something interesting about being warped by the system, with compromise and money winning over integrity, falls into a cliché plot of obsessing over a damned woman.

Echoing Avatar: The Way of Water, Babylon comes across as a pet project from Chazelle gifted with an obese budget, with the film’s conclusion driving into the viewer’s skull that this auteur loves cinema more than anyone watching. What is more infuriating is that Babylon has the potential to say so much. The story touches upon the transience of art, ageing, change and how cinema is as much a tool of societal control as it is a force for freedom. The film is visually exquisite and the score of pumping jazz has a triumphant zest that fills the heart. There are many scenes of absolute pain and delight which other directors can only aspire to. One sequence descends into curdling Horror as viewers are pushed into the life of unhinged L.A. kingpin James McKay, played with relish by Tobey Macquire. Babylon gives audiences enough to earnestly root for its success, but by bottling the spirit of the times the film is defeated by its own excesses.

Criticisms aside, the whole cast deserve as much praise as possible. Brad Pritt is as great as ever while Margot Robbie does well to breathe life into an unlikeable person. Diego Calva brings a warm charm as Manny. Actors in the smaller supporting roles equally steal their scenes. Lukas Haas best known as the child from Witness is memorable as Conrad’s troubled friend George Munn while P.J. Byrne sears into the mind as an explosive Assistant Director.  

Babylon may one day be lauded. For now, it is not worth a ticket, and its existence is a sign of studios approving bid-budget pitches without solid plot as a spending war continues against streaming platforms.

By Saul Shimmin

The Menu

A select few are ferried by boat to Hardwick, a remote island home to the highly awarded restaurant of the same name catering to the ultra-rich. This mecca of fine dining is led by the enigmatic Julian Slowik (Ralph Fiennes). A hinted note of unease, ringing out as events begin from protagonist Margot’s (Anya Taylor-Joy) arrival at the dining experience, is an amuse bouche of what is to come. The select guestlist for the night settle down into a meal which far exceeds any expectation and will be memorable for terrible reasons.

Directed by Mark Mylod, The Menu is a delectable thriller whose elements are concocted into a gut-wrenching ensemble delivering the right amount of tension and powerlessness. Following the perspective of Margot, the film’s heroine is pitched into the divide between guests and servers as Slowik’s special night plays out. Events act as a commentary on class as Slowik enacts revenge for the “servers” against the men and women within the lofty echelon of the one percent.  Faced by their reckoning, the ensnared rich and wealthy remain blind to their own flaws and their casual indifference towards those beneath them. Slowik however, is not a sympathetic hero leading a rebellion. An ominous presence, first built by his absence and cult-like staff, Slowik is a dissection of monomania. For Slowik his strive to deliver the best cuisine possible has eaten everything away, warping him into a force of fickle cruelty reaping a toll among guest and staff alike.

For viewers who watched The Crazy Straight Line, Ralph Fiennes channels the persona of Robert Moses from the play into Slowik. Both men are driven by obsession, damaging those around them. Mirroring the character of Moses in the play, Fiennes portrays Slowik as complex and sympathetic despite his monstrous nature. Slowik has moments of tender humanity, displayed towards Margot and his staff as the servers complete their ritualistic final meal. The enigma and mania around Slowik is symbolic of the underbelly within a culinary career. Men and women in the profession subject themselves to daily pressure, overwork and isolation where their resulting efforts are fleeting and forgotten after consumption.

The character of Slowik becomes entwined with Margot, who stands in for the audience due to her being the unwitting everyman swept into Slowik’s Kitchen Nightmare. Their sub-plots intermingle with the central dilemma of whether Slowik’s night will unfold as he foretells. The Menu is split between courses as the plot breaks into a documentary-style presentation of what is being served. Anya Taylor-Joy and Ralph Fiennes deliver excellent performances as Margot and Slowik respectively. Nicholas Hoult also deserves praise for his portrayal of Taylor, Margot’s date who is insufferable and foolish yet still delivers comic relief.  Director Mark Mylod invokes a blend of a traditional thriller, foretelling events and fleshing central characters through visual clues while also adopting a pastiche of Netflix’s kitchen documentaries.

The Menu has had a limited release and is now available on Disney+. It is well worth a watch.

By Saul Shimmin

Avatar: The Way of Water

Since the surprise hit of Avatar back in 2009, a sequel has long been in the offing. Over a decade later and the first sequel in an extended franchise has arrived. Helmed again by director James Cameron, Avatar: The Way of Water returns audiences to the moon of Pandora and its indigenous Na’vi who successfully pushed out the human presence. Time has also passed upon Pandora, finding an older Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), hero of the original Avatar. Chieftain to his tribe and father to a budding family, Jake doubts that he is the fighter he once was as humans return to Pandora. Sully’s self-doubt, caused by his conflicting duty as a father and chieftan, leads Sully and his family to seek shelter with an oceanic tribe.

The original Avatar was a story of colonial conflict and finding identity set in a sci-fi world. The film was novel but self-contained. The Way of Water is here to set up greater events in Cameron’s cinematic universe. Ladened with deus-ex machina moments to shoehorn old characters, precipitate events and foreshadow future plot lines, the film is a long act of world-building which feels every minute of its three hour plus run-time. The personal crisis of Jake Sully is lost as the story follows Sully’s children, establishes new mysteries and the oceanic Metkayina tribe. The broader back-ground thread of a returned and resurgent humanity bearing genocidal intent, is also forgotten for an impactful but objectively unnecessary sub-plot with environmental overtones. Sully’s moral crisis is then returned and readily resolved as the The Way of Water repeats the conclusion of Avatar.

My personal gripe with The Way of Water is that the whole affair is a bloated pet project. Nearly every scene bears a palpable weight of excess, dragging long after delivering its message. The slap-dash ping around characters and sub-plots, loaded with leaps of logic and the inclusion of actors whom Cameron has already worked with all point to an unrestrained director. Directors can pursue a passion project, but it is arrogant that Cameron expects viewers to endure over three hours to follow the future Avatar films, especially when The Way of Water simply treads water rather than tell a story. The same criticism can be levelled at Star Wars or the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but at least these films each try to tell a distinct story which connects to a greater narrative.

Visually The Way of Water is stunning in terms of its scale and visual effects and the cast deliver good performances, but it is not enough to save the film from itself. The Way of Water has elicited a decent ticket sales so far, but whether this is genuine audience engagement or nostalgia for the original film will be seen when Avatar 3 comes around.

By Saul Shimmin

The Guilty

In the still heart of a summer night, an apocalyptic wildfire casts orange flames at the fringe of Los Angeles. The flaming corona silently plays out myriad times on the many screened eyes of a police dispatch room. Troubled dispatcher Joe Baylor (Jake Gyllenhaal) is nearing the end of his shift, when a panic-stricken woman named Emily (Riley Keough) whispers for help over the phone as she is whisked away by an abductor beyond LA’s limits, and outside of Joe’s help.

A re-telling of the Danish original adapted by Nic Pizzolatto, famed creator of True Detective, The Guilty is a closed-room thriller whose boundaries slowly shrink around its protagonist. Flitting between the concrete confines of the dispatcher’s office and the ephemeral external, connected by words caught over phone calls, Joe’s physical disconnect between his callers symbolises his lack of control. Disempowered to help Emily against her abductor, Joe’s impotence transforms into a lack of control that becomes emotional, personal and psychological. The walls close in upon Joe as Emily’s plight bleeds into the crumbling array of Joe’s life and state of mind. What unfolds in The Guilty is part grief and part acceptance as one man continues down an existing decline to find some redemption. The compelling element of Joe’s arc is how willingly and destructively the man reaches out for penance. The question of “why?” burrows deep into the viewers mind, as The Guilty severs itself into A-plot/B-plot structure between the internal struggles of Joe and the external predicament of Emily which Joe seems fixated to solve. Both plots tease that not everything is at it seems, until both narratives merge into one painful ending.

Pizzolatto is renowned for his skill to craft tales about the doomed and the destructive, but in Joe Baylor Pizzolatto conveys the human equivalent of a car crash. From the onset, as Joe violently shakes for breath in the bathroom, his dramatic end is pre-ordained. Under the camera of Antoine Fuqua, the dispatch office becomes a claustrophobic coffin as Joe exudes the entropic volatility of a rabid animal, brilliantly portrayed by Jake Gyllenhaal whose performance carries The Guilty given that it is essentially a one-man show. Pizzolatto’s writing, Fuqua’s direction and Gyllenhaal’s direction converge into a viscerally unsettling undertone to The Guilty that never loosens its bite on the viewer. The central premise of a closed-room thriller may dissuade viewers, but The Guilty is a Netflix original which you should take the time to watch. Riley Keough, Ethan Hawke, Paul Dano and Viven Lyra Blair should also be praised for their fantastic deliveries as the callers to Joe during his troubled night.

By Saul Shimmin

The Gray Man

Sierra Six (Ryan Gosling) is an assassin in a mysterious CIA program dubbed the “Gray Men”, which sends highly trained yet unrecorded operatives on dangerous wet work missions. The enigmatic yet legendary Six is sent on a mission to Bangkok which quickly becomes far from routine. Stumbling across a piece of information which reveals corruption high within the CIA, Six is caught in a twisting web of agency intrigue endangering those close to Six.

Directed by the Russo Brothers, The Gray Man is an exhilarating action film which uses spy thriller elements to convey a globe-trotting story connected by a series of bombastic stunts. Having helmed the Avengers line of films for Marvel, the Russo Brothers understand how to transform a film into a spectacle. Going for a lighter tone than Extraction, their previous Netflix film, the Russo Brothers have harnessed the budget afforded by Netflix to make The Gray Man into what would have been a blockbuster if released in cinemas. The trailers released by Netflix for The Gray Man have done the film a real disservice, broadcasting the film as a series of flat yet ridiculous action scenes. The action sequences are actually completely engrossing and increase in their intensity and intricacy throughout The Gray Man. The film culminates in a rip-roaring battle, but the best action sequence is a sweeping gunfight earlier in the film involving a tram within central Prague. At times what unfolds during the action of The Gray Man requires the heavy suspension of disbelief, but the viewer will be swept up into accepting what occurs as the film holds itself out to be nothing more than escapist fun. It is also hard to pick holes in action sequences when these scenes have been crafted and choreographed with such care. The Gray Man’s narrative and tropes are typical Hollywood fare, cast from elements seen throughout the genre, but they are done well by the Russo Brothers and do not detract from the viewer’s enjoyment of the story. The nominal focus of The Gray Man is around corruption within the CIA, but it does not try to tell a story about shadowy agencies and governmental overreach as complex as that of the The Bourne Identity and its sequels. This is just context for the film’s jet-setting and gunfights. Enough happens in terms of the narrative to keep viewers invested between the violence, and a clear follow-up is teased by the film’s conclusion. A sequel and a spin-off have each been confirmed by Netflix and there is enough mystery around Sierra Six as a person and the individuals he is combatting to expect both spin-offs to be equally as good as The Gray Man.

A large reason why The Gray Man is so entertaining rests with Ryan Gosling as Sierra Six. Gosling has demonstrated time and again from Drive to La La Land that he is an actor able to carry a film upon his performance alone. Gifted with a charisma and humour that was used to great effect in The Nice Guys, Gosling shows throughout The Gray Man that he can be a leading action man for the present box office. Gosling brings a real comedic relief and charm to The Gray Man which seems often to be Gosling improvising rather than written parts of the script. Gosling humanises Sierra Six into a likeable person when other actors could have turned the character into an introspective and ultimately forgettable bruiser. Reunited with her former co-star Gosling from Blade Runner 2049, Ana de Armas delivers a good performance as Six’s beleaguered handler Dani, complemented by Billy Bob Thornton as Six’s recruiter Fitzroy. Among the supporting cast it is Chris Evans whom stands out as the villainously volatile Lloyd Hansen, a former CIA operative whose brief career with the service propelled into becoming a rampaging mercenary. Evans has previously displayed to audiences his ability to portray a character far from the heroic Captain America during Rian Johnson’s Knives Out. However, Evans shows how far and how convincing his range as an actor goes during The Gray Man. Evans turns Lloyd into a truly unstable villain whom viewers will love to hate.

In terms of direction, The Gray Man treads the style of action laced films which the Russo brothers are known for. The film is not visually inventive, but it is well composed by two individuals who understand their craft and the type of film they want to convey to audiences. Not since The Devil All The Time has a Netflix film been as entertaining. The Gray Man is a real challenger to traditional cinema releases, yet given the lack of advertising support from Netflix, the film seems to be another vanity project despite the streaming giant’s financial uncertainty.

By Saul Shimmin

Elvis

Grievously unwell within a Las Vegas Hospital during the 1990’s Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks), the infamous manager for Elvis Presley, wanders through a drug induced recollection of his life alongside Elvis. Starring Austin Butler as the titular singer, Elvis is a biopic which captures the majesty and the travesty of the king of Rock and Roll.

From Romeo + Juliet to The Great Gatsby, director Baz Luhrmann has conveyed a unique vision to audiences. Luhrmann’s films are grand affairs which harken back to old Hollywood while also having the polished allure of a music video. Luhrmann’s style does entertain viewers but can often feel overwhelming through its lavishness. For Elvis Luhrmann’s direction is more restrained. The first act of Elvis follows Luhrmann’s typical style, as Elvis’s childhood and his nascent stardom flash before the audience in saturated memories accompanied by tracks taken from Gospel, Blues and burgeoning Rock and Roll. The film at first is imbued by the giddiness shared between Colonel Parker and Elvis. Elvis himself is full of hope and excitement for his musical career while Parker sees Elvis as a new trick to pull money from “rubes”. Elvis begins with Parker locked in his memories, rationalising his treatment of Elvis, but later events unfold from Elvis’ immediate perspective. Once Elvis starts totrack events from the singer’s point of view, the film becomes sombre and complex. Elvis is buoyed to stardom by technological and societal changes that he does not comprehend. The dawning of pop cultures propels his fame while his covering of African American music renders him a target for opponents to the civil rights movement. Elvis’ relationship with Parker becomes a battle of wills and the central plot for the film. Parker manipulates the inexperience and good nature of Elvistime and again. Elvis himself rails against Parker, attempting to wrestle artistic control and remain relevant as the forces of change leave him behind as the 1960’s come into swing. Despite the initial ambiguity, Luhrmann clearly depicts Parker as a devil figure who latched onto Elvis rather than forging the singer’s greatness. By contrast Elvis is conveyed as a complex man struggling against a degree of fame that was near unprecedented. Elvis’ fame, and his battle against Parker, add a poignancy to the film’s sub-pots around Elvis’ personal life with his family and his wife Priscilla.

Elvis is overly long and certain scenes definitely drag on, but the life of the singer contains a lot to dissect, and Luhrmann does a commendable job in depicting the man’s life.  The musical scenes play to Luhrmann’s strengths as a director and convey Elvis’ skill as a performer and his draw as a star. These scenes also demonstrate the sheer talent of Austin Butler who eerily captures Elvis’s style as he sings and dances before the camera, with Butler’s performance as Elvis in his first Las Vegas show being the highlight of the film. Butler has certainly found his star turn as Elvis and for good reason. Tom Hanks delivers a commendable performance as the villainous Colonel Parker but the veteran actor is outshined by Butler. Olivia DeJonge is excellent as Elvis’ wife Priscilla Presley. Appearing alike to the real Priscilla, it is a shame that DeJonge’s screen time during Elvis is limited due to the film’s focus on Elvis and Parker.

What should be said about Elvis’ plot is its relative silence about the singer’s relationship with the African American musicians which he borrowed songs from. It is a complicated matter which can equally apply to The Beatles and Rolling Stones who, like Elvis, opened white audiences to African American music. Elvis avoids commenting on the matter despite Luhrmann showing that Elvis’s fame was squarely built upon the pioneering African American musicians within the film. The obvious reason is that this sub-plot would have muddied Elvis’s central narrative of a singer exploited by his manager.

By Saul Shimmin

Men

Reeling from the abrupt death of her husband, Harper Marlowe (Jessie Buckley) leaves London for an unnamed and remote parcel of the English countryside. Taking residence in a Tudor manor, Harper’s bucolic sanctuary is perturbed when Harper attracts the attention of a presence from within the woods.

The latest film by writer and director Alex Garland, Men weaves the English ghost story into a feminist critique of our society whose budding potential ultimately withers away.  

The heart of the English ghost story, crafted by M.R.James, is about vulnerability. The archetype of M.R. James’s stories is an isolated hero, an academic of middling years striding alone into a new land who scatches upon the supernatural.  Confronted by their discovery, the hero realises how vulnerable they are when alone against the presence now in pursuit.Garland takes the vulnerability of hero in the English ghost story to highlight women being ostracised by society for the misbehaviour of men. At best women are ignored and at worst women are blamed for the actions of men . The anonymous hamlet where Harper finds herself is devoid of women, a space populated like The Midwich Cuckoos by men bearing a uniform appearance regardless of age and gender. Pursued by a male presence hewn from the forest, Harper’s alarm is met by indifferent townsfolk who in turn begin to project the guilt Harper harbours for her husband into an ominous labelling of blame.  In parallel to this slow surrounding by the villagers, Harper descends into a cat and mouse game as the presence , suggested to be the Green Man, invades the camera and in the village’s history.

From video calls with Harper’s friend Riley (Gayle Rankin) scrambling her face into a chilling scream to the quaint English countryside warping into a dangerous nightmare, Garland visually composes a modern English ghost story. Sadly this crumbles during the final act. The problem rests with the narrative, whose crescendo is a visceral scene which offers revelation without explanation. Men ends with an abrupt shot of Harper and then a cut to the credits. For all its slow build, Men rests only on the potential of its attempt to tell a female focused ghost story. It is a premise which is intriguing, but Garland fails to pull the premise off. Mystery in a film can be the driving motor of events, adding a tension which adds scale to what the hero and the spectator experience. Yet mystery without answers is ultimately snake-oil, the peddling of a pitch without anything substantial to reward the spectator’s time. Men feels like a cope-out, a promising but unrealised idea which was still made into a film. In that vein Men echoes Garland’s prior film of Annihilation, of a woman cast into a strange land who confronts an outside presence that ultimately brings the hero back to close and uncomfortable truths. Annihilation, like Men, refuses to give a real answer or clear ending to viewers.

Alex Garland is one of the foremost British directors. Narrative issues aside, Men does capture the mood and setting of the ghost stories which inspire the film. From Dredd which was his unofficial directorial debut, to Annihilation, Garland projects a style befitting the themes and setting of his films. Hopefully Garland’s next film overcomes the weakness of Men. The score by Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury adds to the haunting both in Harper’s past and her present with the score becoming weaponised into a sound effect in Men’s more biting moments. Jessie Buckley delivers a mesmerising performance as Harper Marlowe. However, it is Rory Kinnear and his chameleonic shifting between the village men which steals the limelight.  

Men is an interesting experiment of ideas which does entertain viewers for most of its duration and the film will find its fans. Personally, I cannot recommend Men as film to rent or see in the cinema.

By Saul Shimmin