Room To Review

Haunting flashbacks of Adam’s father, shotgun in hand, are accompanied by scenes of burning carcasses to make up the introductory ten minutes, with no simple expository dialogue to hold the hand of the viewer. From the outset, tone supersedes all else as the film introduces its topics of isolation, mental illness, denial and possibly some redemption.

After receiving news of the upcoming birth of his first nephew, our protagonist Adam embarks on his odyssey. He travels the country, like a biblical shepherd of the nativity, to reconnect with his family as much as himself, his past as much as his future. That may sound one-dimensional and overly grandiose, but there’s a profound visionary sense to the film. Adam is the procrastinating wanderer, unable to avoid the inevitabilities of his lifestyle, one of surface charisma and an unattached cool (think like a clean-shaven, melancholy Buddha), but it leaves him emotionally distant from his family and life in general. The  film introduces Adam through almost standalone episodes of interaction with new characters, including his girlfriend, cousin, old friends, and random teenagers, each contributing to the subtle construction of the dark cypher of Adam’s identity.

The minimalism that covers the film’s sensibility buries any straightforward meaning, leaving uncertainty and inviting speculation. It pulls you in by almost subliminally suggesting the drama through the production and score. Everywhere less is more, Barry Ward’s stoic, stony-faced reacting is his multi-layered acting, the epic Odyssean journey through the rural wastelands and brutalist cities is played out in the overcast bleak fields, local pubs and in council estate flats. By avoiding melodrama and splicing Adam’s isolation and distance into the production, the film feels like an experimental character investigation, which it achieves effortlessly.

Dylan, how do you approach a character who has no memories of who he was?

Dylan O’Brien: My favourite thing about it is the discovery. The audience is able to watch a character and discover the things that he never ever knew about himself before in his previous life as he cannot remember. He’s the “Greenie”, the new guy and the audience kind of experiences that too. Through his perspective obviously and learns as he goes, and then to watch him discover these leadership qualities, the real qualities that he has is a really cool thing. The way you approach it I guess it just honestly, as honest as you can. That is all you have to work with in that sort of situation.

How do you feel about your growth as an actor and taking on such a big project?

Dylan: I feel comfortable. From day one, I loved the script and the story, I thought it could be something cool and interesting. The first thing I saw was that you two [Thomas Brodie-Sangster and Will Poulter] were attached to it, and Kaya as well. Then I met Wes, and saw his vision for the film, it was easy to feel comfortable, everyone was so good at what they were doing and bringing to the table that I was confident. I wanted to live up Wes’ vision and keep up with everyone else.

Thomas, looking back through your career, you’ve already played an extraordinary variety of characters. Were there any new challenges in Newt’s portrayal?

Thomas Brodie-Sangster: The same with any character that comes along. The fun thing about what we get to do is messing around playing all sort of people. People that existed, people that exist in a book and fans already have a specific idea of who they are – so you have to work with that. It takes a bit of juggling, but it’s all part of the fun. All I was told was that Newt was the nice guy, he still had the English accent, and he had a bit of a limp. So I just played around with that really.

Will, in terms of contrast, how did you feel going from your hilarious role in We’re The Millers, to this much more serious, straight role?

Will Poulter: I felt lucky to have something quite different. I love the actor’s actors, those people who can do a mixture of stuff, all of that versatility, which I don’t feel I have, but I wish to aspire to and keep people guessing by choosing a role that is different from the one before and hope that all goes well.

Had you read any of the books before being auditioned or cast? Will: Like Dylan, I slightly freaked out when I got halfway through reading it because there wasn’t total synergy between my character, the script and the book, but I think the script is adapted well and the best-loved features have been translated perfectly. From an acting perspective it was tricky, on and off set we would talk about how our characters didn’t have that “thing” anymore. We’d go back and forth over what was just in the book, and what we were confusing with what. So I actually stopped reading it, but finished it afterwards, and then also The Scorch Trials [next book in the series] – which is pretty insane!

Gally cares a lot about Glader traditions, he’s attached to the environment and protecting the Glader community, so do you think he had a hand in creating these traditions? What sort of person do you see him as?

Will: He was one of the first boys up, so I feel it was naturally part of building that hierarchy because physically too, he is a builder. There’s a few things that I identify with, but I hope there aren’t too many similarities. There is a strong by-the-book quality about him, he’s pedantic, likes order and finds comfort in the hierarchy. He’s an enforcer of that but he has power struggle issues too. He struggles with his superiors, Alby particularly, and he sees an opportunity to set up his own kind of revolt. I think a lot of that also comes from fear, he is ultimately a coward and he likes that protective bubble, he’s scared that one day they will need to leave the oasis and leave the maze.

What was it like shooting those scenes between your two characters, Newt and Gally? There is so much tension there and it could have went to quite a dark place, did you keep it wrapped up or try to use it?

Thomas: There was, but there is also a big mutual respect between the two characters. Newt respects Gally’s opinion because he likes to hear what everyone has to say, he is an open person and sees everyone for who they are and how they can be best fitted into this establishment. He sees people as how they can help, and how he can help. He could completely shun Gally away, but Newt has a different way of dealing with things.

Will: By the way, I am awful with politics, but if you’re going to put it in political terms, Thomas and Newy come across as more democratic, and consider everybody views and strive for a bit more collaborative running of the Glade. Once there’s a threat to the idea of staying in the Glade forever then Gally becomes a dictator in a way and tells people what they’re doing, and leads the revolt. Wes always said Gally and Thomas are two sides to the same coin, and it really nearly kicks off because there is some serious tension, so that was really fun too.

How did you find the green screen CGI-heavy scenes?

Dylan: Wes was so animated. He describes what’s out there, in such a way that you want to crack up. He is so detailed, we’d hear him shouting “IT’S COMING AT YOU, [BANG BANG CRASH] AHH!”. You could understand what is happening exactly, and we also had a great balance of having real worlds that we were shooting in. The Glade was built, and geographically specifically too. The entire thing that you see in the film is exactly like that. Nothing is cheated, we actually had the door there to go into the maze, the box in the ground, a tree house, they even grew a cornfield! The visual effects are just the icing on the cake. Having this real environment to feel a part of was really important to Wes. He would paint a picture for you when you were shooting, he’d draw sketches that looked incredible.

Will: I don’t use the words visionary and genius lightly, but they do genuinely apply to Wes Ball. We all feel really lucky to get to work with him at this stage of his career, so that we can say we worked with Wes Ball on his first feature film.

Is Wes signed on to direct any of the future films?

Dylan: Hopefully! He’s so passionate about it, he’s adopted this project as his baby.

Last one. Any humorous stories from the set that you can share with us?

Dylan: It was like being at summer camp with ten of your best friends! In one of the hotels, we had BB guns, but I decided to go out and get an M16…

Will: It was the size of a sofa! We were all running around with pistols and stuff, but Dylan comes out in the hallway, looking like a drug-free Scarface, and sprays the hallway! Getting lots of M16 BB bullets in my back was a good prank. Somehow, he kept it a secret too. Did you keep it under your bed?

Dylan: It was so hard for me to keep from telling everybody. Thomas came into my room and I whispered “I got to show you something” … and I said “you cannot tell anyone, but I am going to whip it out when we play tonight”. At one point, a security guard came up, it’s two in the morning and we’re running around this hotel shooting with our air-soft-guns. (We were the only ones in the hotel though). We were immediately like “Oh no, we really sorry”, as if we were in trouble, but he just said “Y’all rehearsing. That’s okay. Do you think you could keep it down? How long are y’all supposed to be doing this for?”. We were so shocked. “An hour or so?”

Will: He was so kind! He said “I can organise a place that y’all can play, like a conference room?” but I said “No, this is better for the film and stuff”, so he walks away and we’re left pretending we’re rehearsing! “Okay, let’s take it from the top.”

The first half features run-of-the-mill world-building that is necessary to set up the franchise for a lucrative future. We are thrust into “The Glade” alongside its latest inhabitant or “greenie” Thomas. In their community of teenage boys, amnesia is a prerequisite – a sly bit of storytelling which allows for constant doses of exposition without having to slow the story down. No-one knows how they ended up in their square meadow prison, but each month a new greenie is sent to them. Any more background runs the risk of spoiling the thrill of the film because The Maze Runner thrives on telling the audience barely enough to explain itself. It’s claustrophobic, hurried, and tense by design with testosterone driven alpha male political struggles within the Gladers.

The action flows fast once the world is set up and the boys of the Glade are set in their roles enough to take on the maze, which is inhabited by murderous bio-mechanical sentries. Back in the Glade, the society is strictly defined. There’s the angry traditionalist Gally (Will Poulter) and the builders, the runners who map the shifting labyrinth of the maze, fresh-faced children, doctors and diplomatic leaders. Everything’s holding nicely (apart from the hundred foot high brick walls surrounding them) until the balance is shifted further by the arrival of some feminine energy in Teresa (Kaya Scodelario), and the Gladers head into the maze.

Once you sideline the ridiculous mythological overtones of the constructed maze and the Lord Of The Flies social drama angle, the obstacles start piling up behind the enjoyable action sequences once our heroes leave the Glade. The score, by John Paesano, is emotion-by-numbers and undeniably annoying as it looms over the actors and some powerful performances, especially Aml Ameen and Thomas Brodie-Sangster. As dystopias go it’s action over politics, explosions over social commentary, but director Wes Ball hoists the film around wherever possible to up the action ante and there’s a tantalising finish that’ll be the main takeaway from a certified money-spinner. Although it’s best seen with no prior information, the tension balances out the action and fulfils the purpose of the film; to set up the franchise.

Right. Back to the crime-and-avoiding punishment gang film that follows Shenko, an estate gang leader played by Harley Sylvester. On the other team are the older generation who “remember how it used to be”, led by Mitch (Allen) who's now a staunch family man. After things escalate into a turf war, Mitch gets the band back together and there's a lot of hazy flashbacks, brawls and well-delivered thuggery of all kinds. Football gangland films know how to set up a big fight.

However, even with my Blackwood history and the best will in the world, The Guvnors feels disappointing. Despite Shenko's marauding drawl and penchant for brutal pen-knives feeling genuinely gruesome, the script is a series of clichés and cut-scenes. When Trey (Merkell) appears as a malicious right-hand-man to Shenko, my mind skipped to his natural opposite number, Thumper in A Bug's Life. As the story unravels to its climax, the convenient coincidences and too well-treaded story lines pile up and the ending descends from a gritty theatrical finish to something closer to parody.

There's famous literary quotes added to give the film a credibility boost and here starts the rolling ball of unimaginatively integrated lazy film tropes. It's almost like a satirically bad checklist of things-not-to-do. After an hour of story-setting, the directing-by-numbers style starts to infect the film. The actors fight to keep restrained through the slingshots between blubbering at funerals to exposition flashbacks, via some age-based comedy

The Guvnors knows how to cater to its target audience, but the build-up of recycled plot points is too distracting for anything to survive, I almost missed Sylvester's auspicious debut. Elsewhere, the sexual politics are iffy, and the hypocrisy of the older generation wondering what happened to respect, while preparing to pulverize people is staggering. When the tension is handled gently the results are stifling and gripping, but they're eclipsed by the tension-sapping writing. There's a few good laughs dotted around and after all it's got the Blackwood factor, so at least there's that?

Grade = C+

Originally posted here, at Screenjabber.

If The Police Officer's Wife had to take an efficiency test, it would fail in a bleak grey hue. It would also be accompanied by 2 minutes of “human beings can behave like animals” hint footage of foxes nibbling at shrubbery before fading to black and giving the audience hope that the film has ended. At nearly three hours, it probably hasn't. There might be more energy in this review than The Police Officer's Wife, and this is dead text on a screen. 

Spare a thought for Finder and Zimmerschied who turn in performances that are left impotent by Gröning's directional decisions. At one point, the family shyly sings their way through nursery rhymes, which is equally menacing and light-hearted, and performed remarkably well by Finder and Zimmerschied. As the domestic tensions rise there are harrowing scenes of neglect and abuse that climax in desperate acts from both camps, but each scene worth remembering is hidden between naturalistic ephemera that threatens to extinguish all remaining interest in our two main characters.

Although the two performances are adept and gruelling at times, the sluggish pacing of the film and apparent ill-discipline, intended or not, makes it impenetrable outside of film festivals where it can be sold as a voyeuristic, introspective “art cinema” investigation into the human psyche under the banal pressures of work. All of the above could be true but who's going to notice the deeper meanings of a film this aggressively disengaging?

If The Police Officer's Wife was trying to be a Nietzschean abyss-centred film, like All Is Lost or Tree Of Life, it's missed by quite some distance, which leaves the question, what is this film trying to be? Hopefully, it's trying to be forgotten.

Grade = C

The Congress piqued my interests with its sci-fi concepts, but beyond the enticing ideas, the experience of the film is engaging, challenging and genuinely funny. The screen time is split between live action and fluid animation that morphs and undulates throughout the film, especially as Wright's character struggles to find her place in a world where everyone is pretending to be an animation. Far from single minded in its commentary on performers and intellectual property, there are more engaging and emotional side-stories here than some directors produce in a lifetime. At one level, Wright is desperate just to care for her almost deaf son, but she also finds herself in a bamboozling sticky relationship with the man who animated her for 20 years. Voiced by Hamm, Dylan Truliner knows Wright inside out, and in full HD.

At the purely animated conference, Wright asks a droid “Does this make sense? Or is it just in my mind?” The droid replies “Everything makes sense, and everything is in your mind” - and that's about as straightforward as things get here. The latter half of the film takes place in stunning dreamscapes created in the shared consciousness of entire swathes of the population sedate themselves for the chance of a dream existence in a fantastic hallucination. In this world, most shots are overflowing with vibrancy and surrealism, drawing from Roger Rabbit's Toon Town and Beatles animations, and even Studio Ghibli bonanzas of bonkers modes of transport. Expect phallus-fish and sidewinding flowers snaking their way across the screen, all while our aged Robin Wright wanders despondent through the melee searching for her son.

Folman's biggest challenge here is how to say coherently communicate everything this film tries to deal with, in a way that doesn't get tangled up in itself, or feel preachy and obvious. Despite visual acid aides, acerbic dialogue from Wright (“I look like Cinderella on heroin”) and strong vocal performances, Folman actually fails here. When The Congress darts between reality, shared hallucinations, dream states and individual paranoid visions, things get messy. Good news is, it's always an instant snap back into a cinematic experience.

If you want to criticise a film for being too ambitious, you can. I won't. I left the film feeling dazed, burnt out, and dying to talk about all the issues raised in a film. I'm off to dip back into the animated worlds to hunt for all the celebrity cameos, which I won't spoil for you now. I didn't just watch The Congress, I experienced it, and that's all you can really ask for……right?

Grade = A

I could spend hours agonising over the best way to summarise Robin Williams' film history, legacy and impact. I'm 20 years old, and I haven't seen enough of his work (that's soon to change). To me, Robin Williams was my english teacher, my doctor, my steroid-chugging sailor-man, my mad scientist, my genie, and much more. As hard as his performances made me laugh, they also made me think, and both are some of the deepest, and fondest film experiences of my childhood.

Picking out a single quote from the film history of Robin Williams character is a wonderfully life-affirming task. Versatile, adept, and able to disappear into a role despite being a superstar, Robin Williams is worthy of all the superlatives I can throw at him.

Deep niche documentaries and lowest common denominator sports movies alike ask “Who do we need to please?” instead of “how can we make the best film?”. For reference, see any football film bar Bend It Like Beckham, and Next Goal Wins. However, recently, documentaries are morphing closer to narratively-driven films, thanks to production companies. Alongside Next Goal Wins, and Pulse Films, another is a media entity, and one of the most idiosyncratic companies around; Vice. Say what you want about Vice (you know, the gratingly “cool” boundary-pushing click-bait news site for delusional twenty-somethings, convinced they're too cool for Buzzfeed? Good.), but All This Mayhem's most defining features are its mile-a-minute pace and its portrayals of the larger-than-life Pappas brothers. Of course, it helps that the our duo are former stalwarts who were caught with dollar signs in their eyes (and drugs in their cars), but VICE's ability to find interesting stories and re-package them with a branded stamp synonymous with cutting-edge innovation is also what makes this film so fun to sit through. The escapist fantasy angle that drips off the VICE website, drips off this film too, because VICE know how to do sex, drugs, and youthful recklessness – and don't we all want a bit of that?

Back to the film. The mish-mash of vintage home footage, partnered alongside HD grit balances the film's authenticity and VICE-class. Add to the mix some volatile talking head stories, and the film seems to be morphing into a documentary shooting for the heights of Shakespearean tragedy. Skaters have an iconic film here, and non-skaters have an excellent dropping in point. 

Grade = A-

Straight off the bat, how did you manage to coerce such remarkably convincing performances out of your duo of young actors, Ryan Jones & Nathan Varnson?

Lastly, the obvious one – what's next for you?

Thankfully, it's not all doom and adolescent gloom because the tension is released through typical boyhood roughhousing and general tomfoolery. Shortly put, there's a lot of scrapping, and it's endearing to watch. Generally though, the film's focus on undeniably heavy subjects is constant. It takes its time as it morphs its way from scene to scene with large portions of silence-building tension. Carbone creates deliberately spacious and music-lite atmospheres in the story, drawing in the audience by keeping the ominous sense bubbling underneath the conflict between the kids and their brother's grieving father (O'Leary). In the hands of a less-focused director, the tit-for-tat petulant responses between the two camps could've been played for laughs, but the construction of Hide Your Smiling Faces film is intentionally fragmented, which is always a high-risk strategy, especially when you've got no A-list star to grab the headlines, or fulfill the role of “eye-candy”. All of this deliberate small-mindedness, all the way from the partially improvised dialogue to the editing and style, results in a tabula rasa premise – it gives barely any information to the audience, requiring some serious mental engagement on heavy topics discussed by Eric (Varnson) and Tommy (Jones), a 14-year-old and a nine-year-old.

If you're prepared to go with the boyish and improvised dialogue that's intertwined with mature-beyond-their-years musings on their poor dead friend, you'll be rewarded with a film that's as tense as it is intelligent. Along the way, there's home invasions laden with subtext, alongside the animalistic “Tree Of Life” dream-fare that's more recognisable. Crucially, Hide Your Smiling Faces leaves out the expected coming-of-age-isms that would've dragged it down, making it a unique take on a well-trodden genre. There's no parental tirades against kids getting into trouble, it's all implied with a fantastic less-is-more sensibility.

Grade = B

The camerawork lingers on sideways glances and conversations are peppered with common everyday stuttering, which could lead Maguire's character to a dead-end of annoying whiny neuroses, but the film is engineered to drop each and every viewer deep in Becky's corner. The upshot is we're more likely than not to ride it out with her purely because she is so obviously the one and only focus point of the film. In the supporting cast we have the only other three dimensional character played by Plester, a skittish but laid-back boss who sparks a relationship with Becky, leading to low-key office misdemeanours.

Elsewhere, there's a side story involving cromniomancy (the art of divination through onion carving – bit of Wiccan trivia there) as Becky longs for “The One”, be it her clearly interested boss, or her sporty co-worker (Royce Pierreson). Backed by middle-of-the-road acoustic folk music, the onion witchery feels like a misstep, and the film often falls between independently interesting ideas like this, and ends up shooting itself in the foot with indecision.

Love Me Till Monday exists somewhere in between deep character study, office drama, rom-com, but each part is left unfulfilled, despite the charming courting between Becky and Steve, an anti-romance laden with the same awkward laughing that can affect any film where the improvised dialogue falters. Luckily, director Hardy does wrench everything he can into a position where Becky is central, but that sometimes isn't enough either.

Upon leaving university with big dreams, only to find a barren job market and the film industry not in its best health, Hardy and company made Love Me Till Monday as a passion project, but sadly, the passion is scarcely there. When Maguire's improvised dialogue finds its place, Becky comes across as likeable enough but sadly her performance is one of the few attention-grabbing things about Love Me Till Monday.

Grade = B-

Supermensch is the directorial debut of Mike Myers, but really, it’s the tale of a man who’s been gently pulling the strings of pop culture for his entire life – or so this gushing documentary would have you believe. Shep Gordon doesn’t just know the Hollywood magic circle, he’s their favourite member. 

As he runs through his story, we are treated to the ins and outs of Gordon growing up in a Jewish household, starting life out on the road with Alice Cooper, and all manner of crazy shenanigans. There’s drugs, women and tons of rock and roll, but Gordon is also surprisingly humble and…simply a really laid back and easy-going kind of dude, which is where the “mensch” comes from. It means “a person of integrity or honour” and Gordon seems to have it in abundance.

Although he’s surrounded by power and money, Gordon manages to remain kind and positive, even though in later life he comments that “fame is unhealthy” as he looks back on some of the tragedies he’s witnessesd. The “Supermensch” even manages to avoid feeling fake when talking to camera even though Mike Myers is a close personal friend of Shep Gordon’s. His care for people seems to be refreshingly genuine, from his most famous friends, through to the annoying paparazzi photographers who stalk his Hawaii sanctuary beach house.

If you were so inclined (and I am definitely not this way inclined) Supermensch could come off as 90 minutes of nauseating back-patting and self-high-fiving from an exclusive colluding cabal of corpulently affluent rockstars. The problem with that view is that only the most delusional and disconnected viewer could sit through all the larger-than-life anecdotes and not be intrigued. From having his computer fixed by Steve Jobs to managing Pink Floyd for 9 days, Shep Gordon has had a remarkable life, and although the directing follows a cut-and-paste documentary format, Supermensch: The Legend Of Shep Gordon has got stories anyone would want to hear. In the future, Shep Gordon would be the ultimate Futurama “head-in-the-jar”.

Grade = A-

Allow me to grossly oversimplify the grand central issue into one succinct question; do you get the metaphor? Your reaction to this question will basically determine your reaction to the film, because Zlotowski's constructions seem to be most effective if your reaction to the question is positive. The closed off, intense environment flips between being bland and uninteresting, or enticingly oppressive, depending on whether you accept the lines she draws between love, radiation, obsession, addiction and all the other themes that the film puts forward, front and centre. Even the earthy sophistication and intelligence brought by Rahim, and especially the brooding beauty and magnetic air of Seydoux, can be rendered useless if the metaphors appear too overwrought and obvious. It's the difference between tasting a legendary wine and having it thrown in your face, and I'm not sure Grand Central comes down on the right side of the equation throughout the film. Sure there's brutally frank camaraderie between Gary and his fellow workers, who could all begin a slow and painful death if someone else messes up a simple, menial task, but that tension relies on a connection with the characters. Up until the last third of the film, the plot plods along and will have already lost anyone who's not already hooked.

As it turns out, in Grand Central's case erotic drama and nuclear radiation do go together like Léa Seydoux and the silver screen. Although Rahim is our rough and tumble protagonist, Seydoux robs him blind of every scene, and their natural, human partnership helps the film's contrived analogies feel less like an unwelcome funk lingering on the air – like radiation, for example.   

Grade = B+