There is always something authentically human lost in performative imitations of reality, and no matter how much actress Elizabeth Berry tries to capture it in her twisted attempts at method acting, that missing element continues to elude her. The subject of her research in May December is former schoolteacher Gracie, who was caught twenty-three years ago sleeping with her student Joe and was consequently sentenced to prison. The fact that they have since gotten married and raised three children together does little to quell the nauseating discomfort of her manipulation, but if Elizabeth is to deliver an accurate portrayal of Gracie for her upcoming movie, then such judgements must be put aside.
Not that the creative results are necessarily worth the pain inflicted. In Todd Haynes’ eyes, both the art and the humanity it imitates are drained of their dignity, tragicomically warping the suffering of Gracie’s abused husband into superficial imagery. Even at Elizabeth’s subtlest, her shadowing of Gracie’s everyday movements is entirely intrusive, offering insights that she later records as voice memos describing her subject’s visual features and odd mannerisms. When she runs a Q&A at a local high school drama class, she explains her acting process that compels her to study humanity’s darkness and spontaneously give into its organic rhythms, though it isn’t until we see this in action that we truly appreciate the emptiness of her endeavour.
Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore, and Charles Melton all give psychologically rich performances, each concealing malice or trauma behind attractive, idyllic appearances,
It is especially in the pet shop storeroom where Gracie was first caught with Joe that Elizabeth finds herself overcome with that passion. As she leans back against the wall, she begins to pleasure herself, while Haynes silhouettes her in a dim blue light and slowly zooms his inquisitive camera in on her shallow re-enactment. For the sake of her own full-bodied immersion, some degradation of Gracie and Joe’s lived experience is required, crossing the line of good taste so that it may be offered up for mass consumption in cinemas and living rooms.
A slow, uncomfortable zoom in on Elizabeth as she reenacts the notorious storeroom seduction, absorbing herself in an extremely private affair.
Later, this blurring of identities extends to an illicit affair between Elizabeth and Joe, though one which she claims no personal investment in. His heartbreak is made all the more tragic by his gradual recognition of the innocence he lost to Gracie, and his desperate attempt to find a real connection with a woman his own age. When he asks Elizabeth what their intimacy actually means to her, her response is chillingly condescending, with Natalie Portman’s deadpan line delivery reinforcing the same blasé attitude that Gracie used to justify her paedophilic molestation twenty-three years ago.
“This is just what grownups do.”
As Portman begins to adopt Julianne Moore’s unassuming lisp and self-absorbed naivety, a parallel contrast emerges between their characters’ outward mannerisms and internal amorality, marking a prime achievement for both actresses. While 1950s Hollywood melodramas are typically Haynes’ main source of inspiration, the probing of unstable psyches here bears the distinct mark of Ingmar Bergman, and follows in the Persona lineage of films that obscure boundaries between strikingly similar women.
Haynes lays mirrors throughout his mise-en-scène, here using one in a shop change room to surround Elizabeth with Gracie on either side.
The mirrors that Haynes formally lays throughout his mise-en-scène develop this idea of doubles further, catching their reflections in evocative compositions that suggest a hint of illusory deception, and at times even psychological domination. Behind the neatly patterned wallpaper and lush piano score, dark undertones creep forward to underscore the malevolent artifice of the entire power dynamic, carefully constructed to frame Gracie as an innocent victim of the judicial system. Even though she asserts that it was Joe who first seduced her, we can’t help but notice the glint of self-recognition in her eyes when she goes out hunting, encounters a fox, and shares a silent moment of understanding with her fellow predator.
Gracie goes hunting, but pauses as she makes eye contact with a fox similarly searching for prey, not unlike her relationship with Elizabeth.
The frequent cutaways to Joe’s caterpillars are employed with even more acute purpose in May December, tracing them through their chrysalis stage and right to their emergence as monarch butterflies, though this time it is the young husband’s evolution which is bound to Hayne’s primal metaphor. As Joe witnesses his teenage children coming of age and relishing the freedom of youth, he mournfully begins to recognise how much of his own was stolen from him, and the immense betrayal he suffered at a trusted adult’s hands. The trauma hidden behind years of denial begins to break free, and his gradual escape from Gracie’s grip brings the same bittersweet liberation that he offers his butterflies.
Haynes’ butterfly cutaways work as an effective motif next to Joe’s journey, as he too begins to undergo a liberating transformation.
Of course though, the entertainment industry would never show such interest in a character of actual substance. Joe’s side of the story is simply not as scandalous as Gracie’s, and he is thus doomed to remain a supporting role in Elizabeth’s cheap, second-hand recount of their illicit affair, the facts of which she can’t quite manage to nail down. The information that Gracie’s embittered son from her first marriage provides about how she was sexually abused by her old brothers becomes the bedrock of Elizabeth’s research, providing a rational psychological explanation for his mother’s actions, but her complete denial of these events muddies the waters even further. Perhaps he is fabricating a story simply to earn himself a movie credit, or maybe it is Gracie who is lying to maintain the illusion of a perfect life – though ironically this lack of a tragic backstory makes her appear even less sympathetic, and her actions unjustifiably cruel.
May December belongs in the Persona lineage of films, blurring identities between two women with sinister undertones.
Either way, Elizabeth finds herself immensely frustrated over the lack of answers keeping her from getting to the heart of Gracie’s character, if there is a heart there at all. With no comprehensible motivation for this actress to cling to, all she is left to play with are hollow mannerisms and an all-too-suggestive snake to stroke as she finally reconstructs the pet store seduction in front of a camera. “It’s getting more real,” she insists after the director calls cut on the third take, though clearly her attempt to reconcile easily digestible entertainment with a complicated reality is futile. After all, the amiable masks that Elizabeth and Gracie wear to conceal their parasitic habits are no replacement for a genuine, empathetic understanding of humanity, or even art for that matter. Within May December’s strange duality of life and fiction, all that matters is the artificial image of feminine sensitivity projected by its two women, winning the unearned sympathy of neighbours and audiences alike through performances of astoundingly shallow proportions.
Elizabeth’s research of Gracie comes to feeble fruition, as she delivers a performance that nails the voice and mannerisms but is stripped of interiority.
The great evil that takes centre stage in The Zone of Interest is not often seen alone in historical records. Being married to Auschwitz’s longest-serving commandant, Hedwig’s name is virtually always attached to her husband’s, Rudolph Höss. Perhaps rightly so too. After all, wasn’t the great horror of the Holocaust perpetrated by the highest Nazi authorities, more than the families who never once stepped foot inside a concentration camp? It is not as if Hedwig Höss had any power of her own to halt the momentum of Hitler’s Master Plan, and so where is the harm in enjoying her position of privilege attained through her husband’s line of work?
Still, there is a chillingly blasé attitude here that is evident early in the film when she dons a fur coat from a pile of prisoners’ belongings, tries on the lipstick she finds in the pocket, and vainly admires herself in the mirror. If we are to judge evil based on one’s own moral conscience rather than the tangible impact of their actions, then the self-centred, apathetic woman that Jonathan Glazer depicts in The Zone of Interest may harbour an even darker soul than those who perpetrate the horror themselves. It quite evidently takes a special sort of inhuman cruelty to live in such close proximity to largescale genocide, profit off its spoils, and continue each day as if thousands of people weren’t being routinely murdered just beyond the garden wall.
Hedwig Höss does not kill or torture a single person in The Zone of Interest, and yet she may be one of the most despicable villains in recent cinema history, callously indulging in the privilege that is founded on the mass extermination of Jews in Auschwitz.
By the time Rudolph is offered a new job and Hedwig is given an opportunity to move her family elsewhere, it is impossible to excuse her anymore. It isn’t that she is ignorant to the atrocities, nor that she is reluctantly trapped in uncomfortable circumstances. The self-dubbed “Queen of Auschwitz” lovesher home and garden with a vile passion, and will do anything to hold onto this luxurious lifestyle without a shred of care for its appalling foundations.
Purely in terms of genre, The Zone of Interest’s historical fiction couldn’t be further from the science-fiction premise of Glazer’s previous film Under the Skin, and yet the two make for fascinating companion pieces in the realm of sinister, minimalist cinema. If Under the Skin finds the vulnerable humanity in a monster, then The Zone of Interest exposes the monstrosity that resides in a seemingly mundane human, all while Glazer keep us at a chilling distance from both.
Wide angle lens sit back in long shots with chilling distance, while the buildings of Auschwitz rise up over the walls in the background as constant reminders of the suffering that lies on the other side.
Long, static shots especially dominate the aesthetic of the latter, dispassionately setting the camera back at high angles that occasionally lifts into distorted birds-eye views, but more often letting us observe scenes of domestic life bound by that vast, grey wall persistently standing in the background. It serves its purpose well as a physical boundary for the concentration camp, and yet from the other side it fails to completely conceal the terrible truth betrayed by the guard towers, barbed wire, smokestacks, and trains peeking over the top. In sheer contrast, the flowers and vegetables that Hedwig proudly nurtures in her backyard are ironically thriving only a few metres from Auschwitz’s gas chambers, forming a lush, twisted image of Eden that she calls her “garden paradise.”
Distorted overhead shots and symmetrical compositions, casting an observant eye upon formal proceedings.The fact that Hedwig takes so much pride in her “paradise garden” makes her character even more disturbing, as Glazer sets scenes of life and nourishment against backdrops of death.
It is often in scenes set around this visual disparity where the most compelling character work is accomplished, denying Glazer’s characters the sympathy of close-ups, and forcibly associating them with Auschwitz through wide shots. Rudolph may try to block it out when he lights a cigarette and turns his back to the fiery smoke pouring from the gas chamber chimneys behind him, but the camera stoically captures it all, denying him anywhere to hide in the frame. Even when Glazer’s compositions aren’t so visually arresting, the formal rigour of this icy detachment is powerful, evoking the severe, psychological cinema of Stanley Kubrick and Michael Haneke. When it comes to the interiors of the Höss household though, the flat colours, crisp depth of field, and use of background doorways as frames makes Roy Andersson an even stronger comparison, seeing Glazer deploy a similarly dry, dark humour with discerning judgement to underscore the setting’s sheer incongruency.
Domestic bliss is often disturbed by the sounds echoing from over the wall, and clearly some can shut them out more easily than others.
The few times the camera is taken off its tripod, it travels in steady parallel motions, but otherwise it is through the rhythmic repetition of familiar shots that we track the banal routines of the Höss family. On this level, Glazer’s poetic visual beats and editing cadences reveal Yasujirō Ozu to be another unexpected influence, even if The Zone of Interest never quite touches the heights of the Japanese director’s masterpieces. The few times he diverges from his rigid formal structure with misplaced negative exposure shots and a single fade to red also weakens the similarities somewhat, and yet these flaws are little more than minor distractions from an otherwise relentless portrait of historic fascism, loaded with magnificently subtle worldbuilding.
Kubrick, Haneke, Andersson, and Ozu are all names the comes to mind when it comes to Glazer’s visual and formal severity. This is not an easy watch, yet the cinematic accomplishment is considerable.
Because as a disquieting immersion into the outskirts of Auschwitz, The Zone of Interest is just as concerned with the stifled remnants of horror lingering in the haunting sound design as it is with its visual details. Distant gunshots interrupt Hedwig’s quiet life, but she gives them as little attention as does the shouting guards, crying babies, and tortured screams that fill the air. Mica Levi’s sparse score intermittently lets out deep, guttural groans that could very well come from some demonic engine, and it too blends eerily well in with the mechanical grinding of machinery that can be heard whenever a new train of prisoners arrives, or when the gas chambers are set to work. The only time that Glazer amplifies this horrendous soundscape is also the only instance that his camera cuts to a close-up, letting us deduce from the audio alone that we have crossed the threshold into Auschwitz, and are currently standing in the middle of the concentration camp.
The single close-up in The Zone of Interest takes us inside Auschwitz but blocks out the scenery, leaving the suddenly loud, immediate sound design to be the only indicator of our new location.
For the most part though, this sound design is quietly hypnotic, lulling us into the same state of helpless submission that each character must face and which exposes the true nature of their soul. Nowhere is this reckoning illustrated so vividly as when Hedwig’s mother visits the villa and tries to sleep, only to be confronted with blazes of fire from the gas chambers lighting up her bedroom. All she can do to shut it out is draw the curtains, but not even that can silence the hellish blasts that continue to keep her up. In the middle of this sequence, Glazer meanwhile cuts to Hedwig, who couldn’t be sleeping more soundly.
Hedwig’s mother is awoken at night, deeply disturbed by the haunting noises coming from over the garden wall, while her daughter sleeps soundly.
The profound, emotional unrest that moves her mother to leave without warning the following day is not one the Queen of Auschwitz would ever understand. In fact, Hedwig alone may be the only significant character in The Zone of Interest to never even display the tiniest shred of guilt buried deep in her mind. At least her husband Rudolph is forced to gaze upon Nazi Germany’s vile operations every day when he goes to work, thus grasping on some instinctual level the inhuman barbarity that he is perpetrating – not that this absolves him. His hypocrisy is extremely evident when he evacuates his children from a river upon discovering human remains floating by, attempting to shield them from the consequences of his own actions, though his psychological compartmentalisation is never clearer than in the very final minutes of Glazer’s film.
Rudolph Höss makes for a fascinating comparison against his wife, Hedwig. Glazer never absolves him, but still uncovers a repressed feeling of guilt in his stomach that fights to get out.
Rudolph initially receives the news that his name is to be given to a key operation in Auschwitz’s success with excitement, most of all because of what it means for their family’s security and comfort. Still, as he departs his office and begins his journey down several flights of stairs, some visceral disgust erupts from within. He pauses, heaves, and dry retches, before descending another storey – only to uncontrollably give into that primal urge again.
At first, the following flashforward to images of present-day Auschwitz appears formally unjustified, like some clumsy attempt to strip the film’s message of its poetry. Cleaners sweep empty gas chambers and sanitise the furnaces, while the camera observes the mountains of shoes preserved behind windows as historical artefacts. A touch of Alain Resnais’ documentary Night and Fog can be felt here too as Glazer’s camera solemnly beholds the lifeless remains of this great historical tragedy, but then just as we are expecting the film to end, it cuts back to Rudolph.
A formal break from the 1940s setting that takes us to the modern day – a glimpse at what will become of Rudolph Höss’ shameful legacy.
Call it a premonition, or simply a sudden, unexplainable feeling that his name will forever be attached to one of humanity’s greatest injustices, but whatever shame Rudolph feels in this moment doesn’t halt his descent into darkness. This is how fascism survives, Glazer gravely laments. Not through the destruction wrought by torture, murder, and genocide, but through the passive denial of reality by those who reap its rewards and swallow their nauseating self-hatred as they go. As for those like Hedwig Höss who betray no such remorse for their exploitative privilege, and who are even given the benefit of Glazer’s judicious camera to peel back the layers around their empty soul – perhaps they stand alone at the top as the greatest evil of all.
A deeply disquieting ending as Rudolph Höss descends the stairs into darkness, pausing only to retch and glimpse a haunting future.
The Zone of Interest is currently playing in theatres.
Oppenheimer sits at the intersection of technical accomplishment, critical prestige, and mainstream popularity more than any other 2023 film, and as such largely defines the year in cinema. While some of its competitors are close in quality, you wouldn’t think it given the enormous buzz that has followed Christopher Nolan’s film throughout awards season. If it does win Best Picture, then it will no doubt be one of those years that is fondly remembered as one of the few times the Academy got it right.
As for the troubling case of Wes Anderson being shut out of the Oscars again – it is clear that many are starting to take one of the great directors of this generation for granted. Some would label his consistent style between each film as predictable or twee, but the remarkably high calibre of his work can’t be denied. This is the first of many times in this article Asteroid City will make an appearance in the snubbed category.
Oppenheimer (Produced by Emma Thomas, Charles Roven, and Christopher Nolan)
Christopher Nolan has been a dominant force in film culture since Memento in 2000, but he has only been nominated for Best Director once before (quite rightly for Dunkirk). This isn’t only the perfect chance for the Academy to finally give him the recognition he deserves on a prestigious historical biopic. He earns every bit of this award with an awe-inspiring command over his parallel editing, quantum cutaways, close-ups, and of course the suspenseful build-up and execution of the Trinity Test.
It is incredibly easy to swap out Justine Triet for Wes Anderson among these nominees. Anatomy of a Fall has a very good screenplay, but Triet’s direction is wobbly and erratic, suffering greatly next to the visual splendour and formal layering of Asteroid City. There are so few directors working at as consistently a high level as Anderson, and it has now been almost ten years since his last nomination in this category for The Grand Budapest Hotel in 2024.
What’s Been Snubbed: Michael Fassbender for The Killer
Cillian Murphy gives the greatest male performance of the decade so far in Oppenheimer, and reveal an incredibly compelling psychological breakdown through Nolan’s beautifully framed close-ups. Aside from him, the Academy dropped the ball a little this year, going for ‘good’ rather than ‘great’ performances. It would have been great to see Michael Fassbender be nominated for his stoic, dead-eyed work in The Killer, or to go up the weirder end of the scale, Barry Keoghan for Saltburn or Joaquin Phoenix in Beau is Afraid.
Will Likely Win: Lily Gladstone for Killers of the Flower Moon
Should Win: Emma Stone for Poor Things
What’s Been Snubbed: Sandra Hüller for The Zone of Interest
It is an incredibly tight race between Lily Gladstone and Emma Stone this year, and both are very deserving actresses. Gladstone is where I would ultimately put my money, simply because she is an exciting rising star to get behind, and Stone won quite recently for La La Land. Annette Bening gives a fine performance in Nyad, but it is pretty easy to take her out of the race here and give a second nomination to Sandra Hüller in The Zone of Interest, which is an even greater achievement for her than Anatomy of a Fall.
It is a stacked category this year, and coincidentally many of the nominees are playing unassuming villains who hide behind false facades of warmth and innocence. Gosling is one of the best things about Barbie, while Ruffalo and de Niro stand out even further in greater films, but it is Downey Jr.’s seething anger and Machiavellian plotting that beats out the competition. To follow that theme further, Skarsgård does more than enough as the most chilling villain of the John Wick franchise to earn a place alongside these other very fine nominees.
Will Likely Win: Da’Vine Joy Randolph for The Holdovers
Should Win: Emily Blunt for Oppenheimer
What’s Been Snubbed: Scarlett Johansson for Asteroid City
Da’Vine Joy Randolph has the momentum for The Holdovers, even if Emily Blunt is far more impressive as the enduringly cynical Kitty Oppenheimer. That said, Scarlett Johansson gives a greater performance than any of these nominees in Asteroid City, nailing Anderson’s deadpan humour and quiet sorrow. She may be one of the biggest roles in the film, but it is still an ensemble piece at heart, thus justifying her place in this category.
May December’s screenplay probes greater psychological depths of a troubled marriage than Anatomy of a Fall, and offers an array of richer characters whose identities blend and diverge. Still, neither amount to Ari Aster’s darkly comic odyssey in Beau is Afraid, constructing a surreal character study that gets to the very core of an anxious, guilt-ridden mind.
Anatomy of a Fall (Written by Justine Triet and Arthur Harari)
Nolan has long suffered criticisms of writing too much exposition, and yet the dense dialogue of Oppenheimer works to this screenplay’s advantage, moving at a brisk pace that weaves between multiple timelines and imbues even minor characters with fascinating nuances. Killers of the Flower Moon also offers tremendous insight into another historical tragedy with enormous scope and attention to detail, so it is disappointing to see it miss out here, especially when Barbie’s screenplay is so clumsily constructed and The Zone of Interest’s is so minimalistic.
Killers of the Flower Moon (Written by Eric Roth and Martin Scorsese)
What’s Been Snubbed:Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
It feels very strange to choose a Marvel film over a Hayao Miyazaki animation (and especially one as strong as The Boy and the Heron), but Across the Spider-Verse does something truly special creating a hyperkinetic collage of comic book, watercolour, and pop punk styles among so many others. Following in the stylistic steps of Spider-Verse as well is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, blending digital and traditional animation to deliver a grungy visual feast, and yet somehow its innovations were overlooked at the Oscars this year.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Directed by Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson)
Ludwig Göransson’s pounding electronic score plays a crucial part in maintaining the kineticism of Oppenheimer, barely pausing long enough to allow us any breathing space in our rush towards total annihilation. It is a shoe-in for Best Original Score this year, even if Poor Things’ bizarre configuration of untuned strings, breathy pipes, and jarring mallets perfectly complements the visual abstraction of Poor Things. Bobby Krlic’s score for Beau is Afraid is almost as brilliantly eccentric, and could easily replace John Williams’ 48th nomination in this category.
Will Likely Win: ‘What Was I Made For?’ from Barbie
Should Win: ‘I’m Just Ken’ from Barbie
What’s Been Snubbed: ‘Dear Alien’ from Asteroid City
It is Barbie’s to win this year. While ‘What Was I Made For?’ has a clear path to winning with its victories at the Grammy Awards, ‘I’m Just Ken’ would make for a fun upset. This has always been a weird category at the Oscars, so I’m continuing my tirade on Asteroid City’s snubs and complaining that ‘Dear Alien’ isn’t in there.
‘I’m Just Ken’ from Barbie (Music and lyrics by Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt)
It isn’t just the masterful sound design around the Trinity Test that would earn Oppenheimer its win here. Sound designer Richard King also imagined and created the sound of vibrating quantum particles, and placed us right inside Robert J. Oppenheimer’s dazed mind by isolating specific audio tracks in his environment. You have to feel sorry for The Zone of Interest being nominated in the same year, given the pure aural horror of Auschwitz that is crafted there. John Wick: Chapter 4 is a little too genre for Oscars consideration, but it could have easily slotted into this category as well with its action soundscapes.
If it isn’t Oppenheimer winning in a technical category this year, then you can usually expect to see Poor Things there instead. Each stop along Yorgos Lanthimos’ dreamlike adventure is defined by its own distinct colour palettes and architecture, and is only really rivalled this year by Asteroid City – which again misses out on a category it should have been a strong contender in.
Asteroid City (Production Design by Adam Stockhausen)
This is the only category that I’m expecting Oppenheimer to win without necessarily deserving it. Hoyte van Hoytema’s IMAX photography is no doubt impressive, but the visual experimentation with lenses, zooms, and colour in Poor Things is too brilliant to ignore, and may land it as the most beautifully shot film of the past few years. El Conde isn’t even close to beating its competition, but I do appreciate the recognition here for Edward Lachman’s stark, monochrome cinematography in one of the best films of the year, especially given its lack of nominations elsewhere.
Finally, any year that Wes Anderson makes a film but doesn’t see him nominated in this category is a gaping oversight. The fictional play of Asteroid City escapes into a saturated world of faded pastels that is entirely distinct from the black-and-white cinematography of the television segments, even while his crisp depth of field, symmetrical framing, and rigorous blocking are carried across both.
Willem Dafoe’s prosthetics as Dr Godwin Baxter are the main draw here, but it is the attention to detail around Bella Baxter’s makeup and how it reflects her journey through childhood and adolescence that gives Poor Things the edge over its competitors. The snub for The Iron Claw isn’t devastating, though given the innovations around creating fake sweat that isn’t too slippery for wrestling scenes, one would expect some recognition to be due there.
The Iron Claw (Hair and Makeup by Natalie Shea Rose and Elle Favorule)
Poor Things wins out for the incredibly bizarre fashion of its alternate, surreal world vaguely based in 19th century designs, and much like the makeup, how it uses this to illustrate Bella Baxter’s growth from poofy, infantile outfits to more mature attire. Something similar is achieved in the recreation of iconic outfits in Priscilla as well, though the costumes there are clearly more connected to 60s celebrity culture.
If Oppenheimer somehow only wins one award at the Oscars, then it is this. Jennifer Lame has seemingly taken over from Lee Smith as Nolan’s regular editor, following up her astounding work on Tenet to craft what is essentially a 3-hour montage of increasing urgency, not unlike Oliver Stone’s political thriller JFK. Huge levels of stamina are required to keep this momentum up for such long stretches of time, as she bounces multiple timelines off each other in her propulsive parallel editing, and intermittently cuts away to those tiny surges of pure quantum energy representing Oppenheimer’s inner thoughts. John Wick: Chapter 4’s film editing is focused more on thrilling action set pieces than conveying vast amounts of information, but it is still one of the best edited films of 2023, and should have earned a place on this shortlist.
Somehow Poor Things, John Wick: Chapter 4, and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse were overlooked in this category, which is made all the weaker for it. Among those, the incredible digital backdrops of Poor Things that should have earned it a nomination, but in the meantime it is The Creator that stands a notch above the competition for the vivid worldbuilding of AI humans and futuristic structures.
The Creator (Visual effects by Jay Cooper, Ian Comley, Andrew Roberts and Neil Corbould)
When corporate analyst Luke first discovers his co-worker and secret fiancée Emily has been promoted, his show of support can’t mask the disappointment in his eyes. Rumours whispered around the office suggested that he would be the one to take the place of the previously fired portfolio manager, and the hierarchy at the Manhattan hedge fund they work at is not an easy ladder to climb. It isn’t just the cutthroat executives and their exceptionally high expectations that feed the competition, but the white-collar workers beneath them are constantly undercutting each other’s successes as well. At least Luke and Emily share an emotional security that views individual successes as victories for both – but only really if Luke can use his future wife’s new position as a guaranteed leg-up for himself.
Power is both the end goal and the means to achieve it in Fair Play, enticing each character to the higher echelons of One Crest Capital, though this scheming is not merely contained to fraught office politics. It is deeply intertwined with Luke’s masculinity in his sexual relationship with Emily, keeping him from getting hard when his feelings of emasculation rise to the surface, and reinvigorating him when he takes forceful control. On one level he knows that she would never compromise her integrity, but he still can’t help letting nasty rumours about her sleeping with executives feed his insecurities. For Luke, this erotic thriller thus becomes a quest to assert his dominance in both the office and his personal life, while Emily gradually realises what compromises must be made to keep her position.
First-time director Chloe Domont winds up her spring-loaded narrative with careful control in Fair Play, mounting its tensions to a point that can no longer bear the weight of Luke and Emily’s mutual disdain. The passionate sex scenes drawn through so much of its first act gradually grow more strained with their increasing discomfort, and it certainly doesn’t help that they must subjugate their private romance every day to the sterile scenery of glass cubicles, pressed suits, and fluorescent lights.
Whatever seeds of intimacy are planted between colleagues here simply cannot survive the sexless brutality of corporate America and the competition it thrives on. As a result, primal desperation is the only instinct left in them, seeing Luke flail between expensive self-help gurus and publicly begging the CEO on his knees for a promotion. Conversely, Emily grounds her political manoeuvring in a keen self-awareness, navigating the gender dynamics of the workplace by involving herself in its misogynistic culture and thereby marking herself as an exception to its prejudices.
Anxiety only continues to climb beneath this main narrative as well in the constant phone calls from family members finding out about Emily and Luke’s secret proposal, and their frustrating insistence on an engagement party. Should news of their relationship make it back to the office, then the discovery would implicate them both in an extreme conflict of interest, and raise questions around whether she is leveraging her position for Luke’s benefit – which of course she is. The collision of personal and professional lives is inevitable, and when it finally does unfold, Domont delights in staging a savage, public display of contempt and humiliation. The struggle up the corporate ladder has a long list of casualties in Fair Play, and when gender roles are thrown into the roiling mix, intimate relationships and fragile egos are the first to be sacrificed.
There is no need to worry about the wildfires spreading through the surrounding forest, Leon and Felix are frequently told during their stay by the Baltic Sea. They are a safe enough distance away that their getaway can continue uninterrupted, simply letting the sea breeze blow the flames inland. Even as Leon tirelessly works on his manuscript and Felix builds his photography portfolio though, the blaze of summer romance proves to be alarmingly volatile. Incidentally, the small holiday home that they are staying in also happens to be occupied by another vacationer, Nadja, whose fling with local lifeguard Devid intertwines with the dreams and hormones of her fellow occupants. For the time being, all four are happy assuming that the distant danger won’t interfere with their tiny bubble, and yet it is only a matter of time before this inferno shifts direction and wreaks havoc on their delicate lives.
Following on from Christian Petzold’s subaquatic fantasy-drama Undine, Afire marks the second in the German filmmaker’s proposed elemental trilogy. He wears the parallels to Eric Rohmer’s thematic series of seasons and proverbs with pride here, displaying similar fascinations in those casual interactions between friends and lovers that belong to the idyllic days of youth. Romance, drama, and comedy airily float around characters with only the slightest hint of foreboding menace, all while Leon isolates himself from the others as a brooding loner.
To be fair, the start of this holiday has not been particularly pleasant, with a broken-down car, a water damaged ceiling, and Nadja’s noisy trysts keeping him up at night. Stoking Leon’s discontent even further is the complete inadequacy of his own writing, drawing criticism from his publisher Helmut, as well as Nadja herself. At least in the latter case, he can easily brush off her comments as uneducated – she only works as a lowly ice cream vendor down by the beach after all. It is exactly this dismissal though which exposes his intellectual arrogance, as well as his readiness to leap to false conclusions about her academic background.
Leon’s jealousy towards the easy-going Felix comes from a similar place too, as he watches the myth of creative success only being earned through painstaking obsession crumble before his eyes. While Leon sulks over his tortured genius, Felix approaches his photography with an open-minded spontaneity, attracting the praise from Helmut that his friend desperately desires, and still finding the time to effortlessly form new relationships. So self-absorbed is Leon that he doesn’t even notice sparks of romance igniting between Felix and Devid until Nadja directly tells him that they are sleeping together, not even slightly bothered by the fact that her fling has found another lover.
Perhaps this trio is blinded by their shared joy as they play games and make love into the night, but so too is Leon’s vision clouded by his bitter insecurity. When all four are finally forced to confront the pressing danger of local forest fires, all they can do is stand on the roof and gaze at it from a distance, hypnotised by its brilliant orange glow illuminating the night sky. The contrast it strikes against the soothing blue hues of Petzold’s day-for-night wash is vividly realised, threatening to disrupt the status quo even as characters naively express relief that the blaze won’t come any closer. Neither is the trance disrupted by the arrival of white ash fluttering down from the sky like snow, casting an enchanting thrall over this quiet retreat. It takes a sudden medical emergency to snap these vacationers back to reality, only to realise on their way out of the forest that they may have left their evacuation far too late.
It is here in this climax that Petzold delivers some of his most compelling symbolism, foreshadowing a destruction of innocence as he lingers on the burnt remains of a baby boar and deer that have been abandoned by their families. Much like the clash of warm and cool hues in his natural lighting, these fiery visuals are harshly juxtaposed against the calm ocean setting which Felix photographs, Devid patrols, and Nadja works by. Leon does not quite appreciate the beach in the same way, and yet it is exactly where he finds himself wandering to in the wake of tragedy, watching its bioluminescence light up the water with tears in his eyes. If only he had accepted Nadja’s earlier invitation to see what he sees now, he quietly regrets. If only he recognised the futility of his work, shed his inhibitions, and opened himself up to new possibilities. His confession of love ultimately comes far too late, and has the worst possible timing one could imagine.
But then if Leon did submit to the heated throes of passion, would he have been among the unlucky ones to succumb to its flames, burning to death in a tight lover’s embrace? Petzold wields his metaphor here with a haunting elegance, alluding to those two bodies uncovered at Pompeii that were locked in a similar position, and imbuing Afire’s resolution with an almost mythical quality. Young love requires a certain vulnerability that those looking in from the outside might be terrified to submit to, and yet once consumed by the blazing euphoria that Petzold so delicately depicts in its raw, elemental form, anybody can see that it is worth the peril.
Afire is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.
In recent years, the upward trend of Hollywood stuntmen picking up cameras and becoming directors has reinvigorated the action genre with a visceral practicality. While Chad Stahelski and David Leitch have been revolutionising the art of the set piece, Sam Hargrave’s career has been relatively quiet, though this is in part due to his late emergence on the scene. After working as a stunt coordinator for both Marvel and DC Studios, he made his debut on Netflix in 2020 with Extraction, an introduction to black ops mercenary and sullen action hero Tyler Rake whose return in the sequel gives him even more to brood over. Much like the first instalment, Extraction 2’s visuals are as ambitious as its narrative is thin, revealing a confidence behind the camera that thrillingly elevates Joe Russo’s otherwise mediocre screenplay.
Tyler has barely had any time to settle into retirement and rehabilitate from prior injuries when a new job comes knocking at his rural Austrian cabin, drawing him back into the business with mysteriously personal stakes attached. Davit Radiani, co-founder of Georgian drug empire the Nagazi, has been imprisoned with no hope of bribing his way out, and so he has also moved his wife Ketevan and two children in to keep them under his control. Tyler’s task to stealthily infiltrate the jail and rescue the family is straightforward enough, and yet there are three main complications which lengthen Extraction 2’s conflict into a feature-length narrative.
The first is the nature of Tyler’s relationship to Ketevan, having previously been married to her sister Mia. The tragic backstory of their child who passed away from cancer often stops the film’s narrative momentum dead in its tracks, and although Chris Hemsworth carries magnetic star power and a strong physical presence, he plays the emotional beats here without a great deal of variation. Still, the groundwork is laid out for a redemption arc that broadly examines the responsibility fathers have for their children, thereby leading into the second primary complication – kingpin Davit’s relationship with his son Sandro.
Though the teenager is effectively a prisoner within his family, Sandro’s total belief in Davit’s goodness blinds him to his selfish manipulation, and motivates him to follow in his father’s footsteps as a Nagazi. As a reluctant participant in Tyler’s rescue, he is also torn in his wavering loyalties, frequently threatening the safety of his sister and mother as he tries to reach out to their pursuers. Besides the success of the mission, the moral goodness of this young man is also at stake, ultimately testing Tyler’s patience, compassion, and guidance during his temporary substitution as the family’s surrogate father.
Even with all this in mind though, it is clear that Extraction 2’s narrative and character development is not where Hargrave’s passion lies. It is the moment-to-moment development of individual set pieces that becomes the third main source of tension in the film, and which reveals his greatest talent as an action director. The impressive 12-minute take from Extraction that followed Tyler’s rescue of a drug lord’s child is topped here by an even more remarkable 21-minute take through multiple locations, keeping us in the grip of a prison break, riot, and chase that all unfold in real time with heart-pounding urgency.
It matters little that this shot was simulated by stitching together 49 individual cuts – there is no faking Hargrave’s skilful manoeuvring of the camera through frenzied environments, often with extras, searchlights, and falling snow filling the frame with movement. Inside the prison, we navigate several perspective shifts between our heroes and a small force of armed guards confronting rampaging inmates, even briefly entering Tyler’s dazed perspective after his head is smashed with a brick and tethering us to his face in close-up. The spectacle is marvellously paced in waves too, drastically raising the stakes as fences between both sides of the conflict are violently torn down, and yet also pulling back in quiet pauses that allow a moment to breathe between fights.
With no visible edits, this long take makes for the perfect showcase of practical stunt work, carrying a creative yet visceral brutality as loose rocks, shovels, a furnace, and even an arm lit aflame by a Molotov Cocktail become improvised weapons. It is too bad that the handheld camerawork somewhat obscures this at times, lacking the smoothness of Alfonso Cuarón’s direction in Children of Men’s car chase scene which clearly inspired its dextrous weaving in and out of moving windows.
Unlike lesser action filmmakers though, Hargrave’s set pieces in Extraction 2 consistently advance the narrative with great momentum, frequently pushing Tyler to adjust his tactics to new terrains and threats. As he fights off an enemy inside a giant glass tower, his associate’s unconscious body slides down a glass platform just outside, thrilling driving up the tension with added time pressure. The old stone church of dusty scaffolding and angel statues where the Nagazi have set up base similarly makes for a grand climax, seeing Tyler pivot when the immediate danger of their hostage situation comes to light. It is often where the film’s blocking, editing, and camerawork takes a step back that its plot falls back on weak exposition, though fortunately these passing moments are more forgettable than outright awful. Hargrave is a far more talented director than Russo is a writer, and it is through his dynamic set pieces that Extraction 2 pushes its reluctant fathers to confront their paternal responsibility with electrifying tenacity.
The events leading up to Samuel Maleski’s fall from the third-floor balcony of his French chalet are clouded with uncertainty. Though he has been making his presence known through the Caribbean music rudely blasting throughout his wife Sandra’s interview with a graduate student, it isn’t until we see his body lying on the snow outside that we meet him face to face. Their blind son Daniel and his guide dog Snoop are the first to find him after returning from a walk, and given that the fall took place after the student’s departure, there is only one suspect left. “I didn’t kill him,” Sandra asserts to her lawyer Vincent when the forensic evidence starts to point towards murder. His reply is blunt.
“That’s not the point.”
Indeed, the matter of whether Sandra is responsible for physically sending Samuel toppling over the edge is merely a distraction from Anatomy of a Fall’s real investigation. Both are guilty of letting their marriage slip into mutual disdain, as are so many troubled spouses heading towards a breaking point. While the jury of her court trial endeavour to dissect the facts of the criminal case, Justine Triet positions us as the jury of Sandra’s conscience, unburdening the viewer with the legal necessity of arriving at an unequivocal verdict.
It is through this ambiguity that Anatomy of a Fall also develops such a psychologically compelling narrative, layered with doubts around specific details and theories. Was the blunt head trauma that Samuel suffered before dying from a weapon, or from hitting the shed roof on the way down? Were the secret recordings he was making of his and Sandra’s arguments part of his creative process, or a premeditated effort to frame her as his murderer? Was his guilt over Daniel’s crippling accident really enough to drive him to a second suicide attempt?
As pieces of evidence as they are brought to the court’s attention, Triet fluidly weaves flashbacks and cutaways, though whatever certainty they grant us in the moment are frequently dispelled by equally convincing cases against them. When the dirty details of Sandra’s dark writing and previous affairs are dredged up by the prosecution, the humiliation she suffers is akin to that of a divorce hearing, only without a living target for her to deal it back to. She is alone in her shame, unable to perfectly express herself in her second language of French, and even being separated from her son over the final weeks of the trial.
Though Triet’s documentary-style zooms, whip pans, and handheld camerawork are intended to compound the indignity by hinting at the media presence in the courtroom, they ultimately mark a weakness in Anatomy of a Fall’s visual form. The first act’s setting around Sandra’s home in the French alps is pristine, and recurring overhead shots of the frozen ground where Samuel fell are impactful, especially when capturing the chilling sight of his blood mixing with pure white snow. There are still some sharp visual flourishes later on, such as when Triet places us in Daniel’s overwhelmed perspective on the witness stand by swinging a close-up from left to right around his head, but the camera’s spontaneous naturalism does not always match the iciness of her narrative and characters.
As much as we find great empathy for this widow whose insecurities have been relentlessly picked apart by strangers, both Triet and actress Sandra Hüller are careful to keep us at a cold distance from the truth. If we are to accept the student’s description of her semi-autobiographical novels as mixing reality and fiction, then perhaps there is a version of Sandra who harbours dark thoughts of murder, but whether she is capable of acting on them is another matter. Even if she was not the one to physically push him, there is still the question of whether their broken marriage is at least partly responsible, and by the time Anatomy of a Fall has thoroughly autopsied its lifeless remains, there is at least no doubt as to who is responsible for its slow, agonising death.
Anatomy of a Fall is currently playing in cinemas.
So intoxicating is the allure of fame in Priscilla that by the time its young, naïve schoolgirl is trapped behind the white iron gates of Graceland, she can barely distinguish between its privileges, constraints, and everyday banalities. Whether she is bribing classmates with her intimate connection to Elvis or being forced to dress according to his tastes, everything seems to blend into an uncritical acceptance of her strange new life, floating by on musical montages and dreamy vignettes. Watching these incredible contradictions of extravagance and mundanity inhabit the same space is a surreal experience, begging the question that Priscilla never consciously ponders in fear of losing all that she has been given – why her?
Perhaps this is the reason that Sofia Coppola washes Priscilla out with such a muted colour palette and low contrast lighting, lulling her guileless protagonist into a subdued state of passivity, though visually the cinematography is a missed opportunity. The curated mid-century American décor deserves to pop onscreen with a vibrancy that reflects Priscilla’s colourful obsession, and which heightens the pristine world of Graceland into the same fantasy realm as Marie Antoinette’s Palace of Versailles where Coppola drew flourishes of gold and pink through elaborate French interiors.
Still, both these films make for fascinating companion pieces in her filmography, reframing historical figures through introspective studies of female celebrity, youth, and exploitation. Where Marie Antoinette is born into royalty and thus doomed to suffer the consequences from birth, Priscilla’s ascension to widespread recognition is rapid and unexpected. Anachronistic pop music from across the late twentieth century give way to some excellent needle drops in both their soundtracks, but it is especially notable in Priscilla that Elvis’ music never makes an appearance beyond his diegetic performances. For once he is not the centre of the story, and we are finally given the chance to explore Priscilla’s identity outside of his shadow.
Next to Jacob Elordi’s tall, swaggering rockstar, Cailee Spaenee inhabits Priscilla’s tiny frame with an awkward innocence, and yet the transformation she makes from a 14-year-old teenager to a grown woman in her late 20s is extraordinary. Even when she isn’t speaking, close-ups narrow in tight on her awestruck face listening to the conversations bounce between Elvis and his friends, while anytime she comes forward with her own contribution she is sent back into her quiet shell. Besides the extreme limitations imposed on her freedom, there is little that distinguishes her from her peers, making this miraculous fulfilment of a teenage girl’s fantasies all the more tragic.
Still, as Priscilla ages she also discovers desires that she had always denied, and which don’t always align with Elvis’. He places her on a pedestal, elevating her as a bastion of purity while sleeping around with movie stars in a prime example of the Madonna-whore complex. For Priscilla though, this neglect simply leaves her sexually frustrated and emotionally demoralised, forcing her to adopt the image of the faithful, virginal wife he has crafted for her in the public eye. Only when she storms off in an argument for the first time and Elvis comes chasing after her does she realise just how important this is to him. Suddenly, the power she wields in this relationship comes into focus, and the seeds of future rebellions are planted in her mind.
Priscilla’s newfound confidence in her femininity does not immediately free her from the prison of the public eye, as even right before she heads into hospital to give birth, she applies fake lashes and makeup for the paparazzi. Nevertheless, it does empower her to begin carving out her own future and identity, while Elvis’ disappears into a haze of substance abuse. Had she not been randomly picked from the crowd as a teenager, perhaps she would have been among those swathes of fans crowding Graceland’s gates as she drives out of his life, and yet she is the one with the wisdom and perspective to free herself from the patriarchal cult of celebrity they have all been caught up in. All of a sudden, Priscilla’s lonely, insulated world of normalised frivolity doesn’t seem so unique, as Coppola’s languid tone poem of passive obsession reveals its hypnotic hold over western culture at large, and finally offers this grown woman the agency that she was denied in youth.
To work as a conductor and composer is to live two separate lives, according to Leonard Bernstein in Maestro. Within the privacy of his studio, he sits alone and crafts eloquent musical expressions that allow a self-examination of his own soul. This is the grand inner life of a creator, he explains to the journalist interviewing him, in direct conflict with the majestic outer life of a performer who stands on stages in front of enraptured audiences. This is where his polished genius is displayed without the trial and error, inviting people into a world that is constantly evolving according to each new note, rhythm, and shift in dynamics.
To carry around both personalities is to virtually become schizophrenic, Bernstein jokes to the journalist interviewing him, and yet the conflict between both identities is clearly a point of reckoning. “I love people so much it keeps me glued to life even when I’m most depressed,” he elucidates, putting his overwhelming dependence upon the company of others into words, though he almost immediately follows that up with the darker side of the same statement.
“I love people so much that it’s hard for me to be alone.”
Interviews with radio, television, and newspaper journalists are formally scattered throughout Maestro, giving Bernstein the chance for self-reflection at different ages.
Perhaps this is why Bradley Cooper sees Leonard’s complicated relationship with his wife and muse Felicia as the key to uncovering his creative essence, where both private and public lives chaotically collide. His affairs with other men become temporary antidotes to that haunting fear of loneliness, and within his marriage to Felicia, they also become an open secret. The bitterness that mounts behind closed doors and within resentful glances can only stand to be contained so long, and erupts in one particularly nasty exchange when he brings a younger boyfriend home for Thanksgiving.
Cooper adopts a classical Hollywood style in his lighting and staging, and continues updating Maestro’s aesthetic as the decades pass by.
Drawing visual inspiration from Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage, Cooper stages them at the extreme edges of a wide shot in the New York City apartment where they quarrel, and hangs on the frame for several minutes. As Felicia points out his habit of framing affairs as intellectual nourishment, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade passes by the window in the background, taunting Leonard with views of a joyful public celebration that he would much rather be at. He can’t help but love people, he weakly asserts, and yet he too can see the future she predicts where he simply dies “a lonely old queen.”
Remarkable precision in Cooper’s framing and blocking, hanging on this shot for an entire argument – Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage is a clear inspiration, and the Thanksgiving Day parade floating through the background is a nice touch.Cooper’s decision to hang on shots for several minutes without cutting or moving his camera is a dominant visual choice in Maestro, and one that is rare in so many modern films.
Cooper shows an impressive restraint in many domestic scenes like this, using slow zooms and static shots on beautifully staged compositions that continue long past the point most contemporary directors would have cut to a reverse shot or close-up. By opting for longer shot lengths and a steadier pacing, he is specifically styling Maestro after the pristine, glossy look of classical Hollywood films, even using the narrow Academy aspect ratio and a sharp shift from black-and-white to colour photography with the dawn of the 1960s. At its absolute strongest, he uses the lighting and framing of this polished aesthetic to craft cinematic paintings of Felicia and Leonard’s troubled relationship, brightly illuminating her as she stands in wings of the theatre while consumed by her husband’s giant shadow conducting the orchestra. Carey Mulligan’s performance is undeniably strong, but there is more conveyed through images like these than much of her dialogue.
Carey Mulligan continues to prove why she is one of the best actresses of her generation, often stealing scenes from Cooper who is already tremendous.An incredibly evocative shot of Bernstein’s dark impression conducting across the wall and curtain of the theatre, while Felicia quite literally lives in his shadow.
When Cooper does kick the energy of the film up a notch, he does so with formal purpose, separating these bursts of theatrical vigour from his home life. Overhead shots keep pace with him as he excitedly runs to take his place on a stage, and when he stands in front of an orchestra, he throws his entire body into the act with magnificent passion and control. This is the image of Leonard Bernstein that the public recognises and that the maestro himself indulges in, engaging with the souls of audiences stirred by his evocative musical expressions, and Cooper has rarely been better than he here as he disappears into the role.
Energetic tracking shots sitting overhead and speeding through hallways, imbuing the visual style with the zest and passion of a young Bernstein.Cooper absorbs us into Leonard and Felicia’s theatrical dream ballet set to ‘New York, New York’ with magnificent choreography.
At the peak of both his performance and direction, he smoothly navigates his camera in a majestic six-minute take through the orchestra during Bernstein’s famous conducting of Mahler’s ‘Resurrection’ Symphony at Ely Cathedral, tracking in on his sweaty, grinning face and lively movements before travelling around the edges of the stage. It is nothing less than a demonstration of virtuosic brilliance, capturing a magnetic presence that the camera can’t seem to tear itself away from, while elsewhere Cooper interprets his passion with greater abstraction in a romantic dream ballet set to the song ‘New York, New York.’ Even when he is at home or in a restaurant, the theatre is apparently never far away, as Cooper’s transitions between locations are so slick that they virtually become invisible within unbroken shots.
Bernstein’s conducting at Ely Cathedral is one of the great scenes of 2023 – a showcase of camera movement and method acting from Cooper who throws his full body into the music.
Where Cooper’s vision for Maestro begins to falter is in the same place as many other biopics, as he covers such a large span of the musician’s life to the point of stretching the narrative thin. Fortunately, there is just enough of a focus on his and Felicia’s relationship to hold it together as a decades-spanning study of his deepest loves, addictions, and insecurities, none of which really fade over his lifetime but rather take different forms in shifting circumstances.
The sensitivity and support that Leonard unselfishly gives to Felicia as she battles cancer might be surprising given his past unfaithfulness, and yet it is also entirely consistent with his claim that his overwhelming love of others is also his greatest struggle. On the darker side of this, he also never quite breaks his habit of grooming young male students following her death, as he instead runs even faster from the loneliness that threatens to consume him in his old age. The genius that Cooper so vividly captures in Maestro is one that can see no other option than to lead double lives of a conductor and composer, a family man and philanderer, a heterosexual and homosexual – yet whether by the pressures of social convention or personal inhibition, even he cannot reconcile the contradictions of his own humanity.
The contradiction of Leonard Bernstein in two scenes – the loving husband who cares for his wife on her deathbed, and the promiscuous philanderer who kept sleeping with his students long after she passes away. Cooper does not shy away from his complicated legacy.
The students and teachers of all-boys boarding school Barton Academy have no issue letting Mr Paul Hunham know that he is by far the least liked member of staff. He is a hardline traditionalist who rarely gives high grades, refuses to let his class off early on the last day of semester, and freely dishes out creative insults with unfettered bluntness. Quite understandably, those few students who won’t be returning home for the Christmas break are dreading spending it with him instead. Even outside of school term, he continues to impose study and exercise schedules, and rules over their downtime with unwavering rigidity.
It is through the warm, festive magic of The Holdovers though that Paul crucially separates himself from the hostile teachers of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off or The Breakfast Club. Alexander Payne instils his protagonist with an amiable sincerity that is scarce to be found in so many contemporary films, using both style and narrative to call back to the cinema of the era that these characters are living through. Just as America was caught between its mid-century innocence and a horrific grappling with the Vietnam War in the 1970s, so too are the teenagers of Barton coming to grips with a harsher world than they once believed, making for a coming-of-age film that unites generations in common emotional struggles.
More specifically, it is the comedy-dramas of Hal Ashby that inspire Payne’s direction in The Holdovers, many of which were in conversation with the decade’s political issues. The relationship that forms between Angus and Paul obviously lacks the romance of Harold and Maude, and yet the bond they form similarly transcends a significant age gap, while the appearance of Cat Stevens’ song ‘The Wind’ within the 70s pop soundtrack draws the connection even deeper. The long dissolves that link scenes in their unauthorised excursion to Boston also recall the snowy, cross-state road trip of The Last Detail, blending frozen landscapes and close-ups in transitions that thoughtfully evoke a distinct time and place in American history.
The film grain that Payne emulates in his digital cinematography takes the nostalgia of 70s cinema a step further, but more than anything else it is the complex character work which richly embodies the decade’s counterculture. Most of the boys’ parents are relegated to minor roles here, setting off on winter vacations that leave their children emotionally isolated over the Christmas break and struggling to find any meaning in the holiday season. Angus’ relationships with his mother, father, and stepfather are particularly delicate, forcing him to shield a raw, wounded heart behind layers of white lies.
That his cantankerous classics teacher turns out to be the most well-equipped adult in his life to nurse those afflictions comes as a surprise to Angus, and perhaps even more so to Paul himself. He too has learned to hide his insecurities, though his defence mechanism manifests as a front of cerebral confidence, awkwardly inserting ancient historical facts into conversation and even outright lying to an old college classmate about his academic career. It is the small details of Paul Giamatti’s performance that develop this professor into such a nuanced portrait of middle-aged loneliness, from the lazy eye that keeps others guessing which one to look at, to the shyness around women that hints at a life of celibacy. Should he let the air of intellectual authority disappear for even a second, then he might just be exposed as a social outcast whose entire self-worth rests on his job.
If there is anyone worth opening up to though, it is Angus. While they are trapped inside the school alone with head cook Mary Lamb, they slowly drive each other insane, and Payne delights in the gags that ensue from their rivalry. The rapport that all three build over time is carefully earned, even if the time stamps which mark the passing days are formally weakened by their relatively quick drop-off. This is a film of small moments of connection, transforming forced obligations into genuine desires to fill the voids in each other’s lives. For Angus and Paul, this takes the form of a father-son relationship, while for Mary it is the loss of her child in the Vietnam War that keeps her grieving at work over the Christmas break, and which sees her subconsciously take on a maternal role in this surrogate family of outsiders.
Payne’s comedy is rarely extraneous to these relationships, but often serves to bring these characters together in moments of levity or, at the very least, high-pressure situations that they might look back on with humour. Driven to rebel out of sheer frustration, Angus taunts Paul with a forced chase through the school hallways, but ultimately fails to subvert the power structure when he dislocates his shoulder. Angus’ decision to take the blame for the incident and save his teacher is more than just a step towards reconciliation for them – it is paid back in full by Paul at a critical point in his own character arc, sacrificing his ego and rigid principles for his student’s future. It is not by discipline, but rather through compassion and mercy that he makes the biggest impact of his teaching career, without ever losing that sardonic wit that gives Payne’s festive film its amusingly cynical edge. By the end, it is almost impossible not to give into the effortless, authentic charm of The Holdovers, as Paul, Angus, and Mary transform what so many consider the loneliest holiday of the year into a season warmly dedicated to its most distant outcasts.
