When lonely screenwriter Adam meets his mother and father for the first time in over 30 years, it seems as if barely any time has passed at all. The reunion comes as a cathartic experience, letting them catch up on significant life events they have missed, apologise for past misgivings, and appreciate each other as fully rounded humans, despite his parents being preserved in the exact same state that he remembers from right before their deaths. They are quite literally living in the past, coming to terms with his queerness in an era where AIDS is running rampant, and not being fully aware of the details that surround their fatal car accident. Grief has suffocated Adam into a repressed silence for many decades, and only now can the adult orphan find closure with those who inadvertently started it, opening him up to new relationships and experiences that he had always walled himself off from.
Therein lies the second narrative thread of All of Us Strangers, completing this four-hander with Adam’s far more outgoing neighbour, Harry. His drunken, flirtatious visit one night to Adam’s apartment is greeted with shy reservation and gentle rejection, though our protagonist’s interest is officially piqued and a relationship soon begins. Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal’s chemistry is beautifully realised in their complementary performances, basking in the simmering excitement of new love. When they aren’t out partying in London’s nightclubs, they lay in each other’s arms back home, discussing their shared experiences of growing up homosexual in the 1980s and the amusing semantic difference between being “queer” and “gay.”
For a time, All of Us Strangers is caught in a repetitive structure alternating between Adam’s interactions with his parents and his dates with Harry, though Andrew Haigh suffuses each scene with an ambiguous, dreamy quality that becomes increasingly disorientating. Visually, he dimly washes Adam’s home in a burnt orange lighting, romantically consuming them in the colours of a sunset that never seems to fade. Haigh’s use of mirrors also makes for some fractured compositions that frequently isolate Adam within his apartment, and alternately create countless doubles inside his building’s elevator that symbolically surrounds him with illusions on all sides. After all, what are these visions of his parents if not imaginary extensions of himself?
The existential malaise that encompasses Adam’s life continues even when he ventures out into public, suggesting a hint of Sofia Coppola’s delicate meditations that contain her characters within lonely bubbles. Haigh languishes in the tranquillity of his visual storytelling, drifting along soothing waves of synthesised drones and long dissolves that steadily disintegrate our sense of time, until we too can barely grasp the difference between Adam’s dreams and reality. While high on ketamine at a club, visions of his long-term future with Harry give way to further hallucinations, and from there each new scene takes us deeper into the surreal layers of his subconscious.
As Adam lies in his parents’ bed and listens to his mother speak of old regrets, an overhead shot slowly zooms in on their faces, before slyly letting those figments of his imagination disappear altogether. Travelling through the London Underground, he sees the warped reflection of his younger self scream into the tunnel’s black void. Stirred by a newfound confidence, he finally decides to introduce Harry to his parents, and his delusion is painfully brought to light when they both find his childhood home dark and empty.
Haigh commands his magical realism with subdued wonder and unease all through All of Us Strangers, persisting even through its genuinely shocking snap back to reality in the final scenes that reveals the full, heartbreaking extent of Adam’s daydreams. Human connection is a saving grace for those carrying enormous emotional burdens, and without it many may simply fade into the miasma of modern living. At least in its absence, Adam can find solace and guidance through its imagined substitute, wistfully summoning up ghosts of childhood memories and alternate lives that he might have once led.
All of Us Strangers is currently playing in theatres.
The family curse that is rumoured to have haunted the Von Erich wrestling empire hangs heavy over The Iron Claw. It is said that when patriarch Fritz Von Erich changed his surname from Adkisson to his mother’s maiden name, he brought misfortune upon all those who carried it on, including his eldest son Jack Jr who passed away in an accident at the young age of 5. One random tragedy on its own is simply bad luck, surviving brother Kevin believes, and has little to do with superstition. Still, the more disasters that pile up, the harder it is to deny the presence of some invisible force setting each child of the Von Erich family on a slow, agonising path to total ruin.
Beyond fate and luck, perhaps there is a third, far more rational reason behind the heartbreaking catastrophes hunting these brothers down though. Fritz’s ambitious drive to preserve his family legacy may very well be his own biggest threat, and only escalates in response to the damage it does. Surely Jack Jr’s freak death can’t be put down to this, and neither can the sudden onset of David’s enteritis, but the young wrestler’s decision to ignore physical pain in pursuit of greatness certainly aligns with his hard-headed father’s no-excuses credo. Although much of The Iron Claw is framed through the eyes of Kevin, it is Fritz who becomes the most compelling character in his selfish push for glory, openly playing favourites with his sons to breed competition and excellence.
If anything, this Darwinian approach to parenting hurts his relationship with his children more than their bonds with each other. The devastation that is wreaked on their lives is made even more gut-wrenching by Sean Durkin’s portrayal of them as such close companions, never placing their personal ambitions over their family. Fritz may not bear a lot of fondness for Mike, the youngest and least interested in wrestling, but his own brothers don’t think twice about supporting his musical aspirations, and Kevin similarly never lets his friendly rivalry with David and Kerry wither into animosity. When illnesses, accidents, and suicides begin to pick them off, we can see the mental burden placed on Kevin as he anxiously accepts the possibility of a family curse, and yet Fritz can only seal his anguish tight behind a stoic denial of responsibility.
It is also at this point that Durkin begins to reveal the true nature of The Iron Claw – not as a conventional sports biopic about underdogs rising to the top, but a patient, psychological drama obsessed with the thin division between destiny and chance. Enormous weight is placed on a single coin flip that will determine whether Kevin or Kerry will take David’s place in a major fight, and that is all it takes to set off a new chain of events that sees Kerry lose his foot in a motorbike accident, Mike step up to represent the Von Erich empire, and subsequently suffer permanent brain damage. Perhaps with a more supportive father the misfortune might have ended there, and yet in Fritz’s mind the only way to move forward is to raise the bar even higher, setting the mental health of his sons on the same downward trajectory as their physical welfare.
The visceral impact of Durkin’s editing and lighting heavily evoke Raging Bull in early boxing scenes, but his direction also submits to a subdued despair the deeper we get into The Iron Claw’s narrative, turning an introspective eye towards Kevin’s trauma. Durkin knows when to step back on the montages and hold on a shot, often pairing them with a slow zoom that draws our eye to both the foreground and background, and creating a subtle discomfort that jarringly runs against these wrestlers’ dynamic energy. Long dissolves become more common here too, creating an ethereal disorientation that formally matches supernatural visions of ghosts appearing just within the peripheral view of living characters, eerily out of focus.
Zac Efron’s performance fits well into this uncanny atmosphere, simultaneously carrying an enormous, beefy physique and great emotional vulnerability. Directly proportional to the immensity of his adversity is the anger which he unleashes in the wrestling ring, uncontrollably mounting until he is disqualified for continuing to use the ‘Iron Claw’ on his opponent past the ringing of the bell. The irony that this was once Fritz’s signature move is not lost on Durkin. In trying to become their father, each of the Von Erich children sacrifice a little bit of their own sanity and wellbeing, falling to a psychological darkness that many of them never escape from.
Though there is the faintest tinge of horror and suspense attached to Durkin’s direction, The Iron Claw would be better described as an extended tragedy underscored by persistent fear, only letting its overwhelming grief resolve into tearful reflection in the final act. “Tonight, I walk with my brothers,” are the last words of the last Von Erich suicide note, and Durkin brings a tender sensitivity to his visualisation of such a heavenly meeting. If this family curse is real, then perhaps it merely takes the form of poor parenting rather than some evil superstition, and yet the end results are virtually indistinguishable. It is the descendants of the damned who suffer most in either case, as the sins of the prideful, overbearing father prey on the only good thing to have spawned from his legacy – the unwavering kinship of brotherly love.
It may just be a coincidence that swimmer Diana Nyad’s surname translates to “water nymph” in Greek, but that doesn’t stop her from reminding every second person she meets of this connection. Her destiny is written into her very being, she believes, and there is very little that can shake her focus from the objective that has eluded her for over thirty years – to swim the 110-mile strait between Cuba and Florida without a shark cage. She had failed once before at the age of 28, and now in her 60s the disappointment still hasn’t faded, relentlessly pushing her forward with passion and grit to become the first person to accomplish this feat of remarkable endurance.
Coming from the world of documentaries, Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi have specialised in subjects who test the limits of their physical capabilities, whether it is the mountain climber of Free Solo scaling El Capitan or the cave divers saving the Thai soccer team in The Rescue. With its basis in the true story of Diana’s extraordinary achievement, Nyad makes for a natural leap into narrative filmmaking for the husband-and-wife duo, playing to their strengths by cutting in newsreels and talk shows from her youth. While much of this archival footage is a disheartening reminder of Diana’s initial failure, the voiceover of her younger self also delivers inspiration, driving her onward with reminders of her unique strength.
“The whole key to success in marathon swimming, masochistic as it may seem, is the person who succeeds is willing to ensure the most pain in the most number of hours.”
She may not readily admit to it, but Diana is also a woman who is deeply and sentimentally attached to the past, which Nyad further develops in its dreamy flashbacks. Even beyond her frustration in her previous let-down, she holds onto the memory of her father’s idyllic adoration of Cuba, and the PTSD of her sexual abuse at the hands of her childhood swimming coach. “I hate victim shit,” she spits, trying to brush off the lifetime of pain it has caused her, and yet it is virtually inseparable from the tenacious, self-punishing perseverance that pushes her on.
It is fortunate then at least that Diana has her long-time coach, best friend, and platonic soulmate Bonnie by her side, offering her the holistic care and concern that she is unwilling to give herself. The rapport between Annette Bening and Jodie Foster in these roles is compelling, revealing several decades worth of camaraderie in their blunt honesty and deep knowledge of each other’s idiosyncrasies. When Diana rates a pain in her shoulder as a 6 out of 10, Bonnie knows very well that actually equals “a normal person’s 8,” and so too does she realise that fabricating a story about authorities declaring the swim to be impossible would make her friend dig in even deeper.
There is no understating the role that Bonnie plays in her journey. Although Diana is the swimmer, Bening and Foster are effectively co-leads in Nyad, striving towards a common goal with equal passion. While Diana suffers a great deal physically and mentally, Bonnie bears an enormous emotional toll, realising that she is encouraging her friend’s death wish and receiving little recognition for her efforts. Still, the bond they share is undeniable, often returning to a comforting motto of reassurance and fortitude whenever insecurity begins to creep in.
“Onward.”
Through the danger of sea creatures, allergic reactions, and dehydration, Diana and Bonnie keep this maxim at heart – if not on a physical level during several more failed swims, then at least mentally. That willpower is their strength after all, and what Diana especially relies upon with an older body that has weakened since her youth. At times the obstacles they come up against are a little too clearly contrived for the sake of plot, and it doesn’t help either that the sharks are rendered through shoddy CGI. Instead, the ocean often feels far more perilous in those eerie night sequences where Diana’s rope light sheds an eerie red glow within the darkness, revealing the beauty and terror of the world she is seeking to conquer.
Somehow though, it is still those final miles that are the most difficult to overcome, propelling both Diana and Bonnie to the brink of absolute exhaustion even as the destination comes into view. Nyad may be straightforward in its underdog tale of struggle and success, but it earns these emotional beats well through its visceral, physical danger. For Diana, destiny is nothing more than a matter of tenacity and patience, driving one’s body to its extremes simply to prove that it can be done.
It is said in Roman mythology that when Saturn learned of a prophecy foretelling his downfall at the hands of one of his children, he set out to eat each of them as they were born. As a man desperately searching for an heir to his business and family name, Enzo Ferrari may not possess great sympathy for the King of Gods, and yet the journalist who draws this comparison may not be so far off given the devastation that is visited upon young men looking to earn the entrepreneur’s admiration.
Unlike those unfortunate souls, Enzo would much prefer to sit above the fray of motor racing as an engineer and businessman, coaching the drivers of his automobiles rather than risking his own life behind the wheel. He understands their addiction to the sport all too well, and uses that to feed their sense of competition by telling them individually that they alone each have the best chance of winning against each other. This is ”our deadly passion, our terrible joy,” he grimly declares, though his romanticisation of its lethal danger is not easily missed.
With Ferrari premiering at the Venice Film Festival in 2023, the eight years that separate it from Michael Mann’s previous film Blackhat is the longest period of dormancy in his career, beating out the six years which had divided that espionage thriller from Public Enemies. That this is the story he chose to break the drought is somewhat surprising given the crime and action films that otherwise define his career, but this is not the first time he has ventured into biopic territory either, having previously used the genre to examine the legacy of boxing legend Muhammed Ali. In this instance, the awe he holds for the founder of the Ferrari brand is clearly a prime interest for him, stretching all the way back to the early 2000s when he first began exploring a potential film adaptation. Enzo is exactly the sort of morally compromised man whose ruthless pursuit of a singular objective aligns with many of Mann’s greatest characters, and yet who also hides all his pride, shame, and sorrow behind tinted sunglasses.
After Adam Driver’s recent stint as the head of the titular fashion brand in House of Gucci, his second shot at playing another Italian entrepreneur of the twentieth century is a moderate improvement. His talent is undeniable as he remarkably passes off as a man in his late 50s, outshining a poorly miscast Shailene Woodley as his mistress Lina Lardi, though often being outdone by the raw fire of Penélope Cruz. Much of her storyline in Ferrari as his wife Laura is spent furiously narrowing in on her husband’s secret family, drawing her determination from a bottomless well of grief over the recent passing of their son. That Enzo is so prepared to replace the deceased Alfredo with his illegitimate child is an insult to his memory, she vehemently asserts, desperately trying to preserve the remnants of her broken family.
Perhaps the blame that Laura places on Enzo for their son’s terminal illness is unjustified, but it certainly reinforces that image of a God feasting on the deaths of his children. If we are to view his drivers as his descendants too, then the fact that he took one of their widows to be his mistress is entirely damning. As the untouchable head of the Ferrari family, he exerts an influence which even pulls the Roman Catholic church itself into his orbit, becoming a Don Corleone figure in a scene that alludes heavily to The Godfather. As Enzo listens to a homily about car manufacturing, the sounds of his competitor’s vehicles can be heard clearly from a nearby test track. Stopwatches are withdrawn from the congregation’s pockets as they line up for communion, vigorously ticking along with the score while Mann sharply intercuts between both locations. In place of God, it is Ferrari who reigns over this sacred building, holding greater respect for speed, efficiency, and victory than human life.
Nowhere do the consequences of this idolatry becomes so devastatingly apparent than in the Mille Miglia of 1957. This was historically the last time the open-road, thousand-mile endurance race was played out, and for very good reason. Where the rest of the film suffers from flaws in its pacing, these thirty minutes carry a thrilling momentum in its razor-sharp editing, even when we cut to scenes of Enzo, Laura, and other characters following the competition from a distance. Dispersed throughout this heart-pumping sequence too are some of the film’s finest long shots, basking in the green valleys and dusty orange skies of Italy’s countryside, before moving into the cobbled streets and narrow streets of Rome. Once again, the sound of ticking stopwatches weaves into the music score with urgency, while dolly zooms queasily warp the road ahead of Enzo’s driver Alfonso de Portago through the quiet rural commune of Cavriana, luring him to an awful fate.
European car racing history is littered with tragedies, and the Mille Maglia was especially no stranger to participants and spectators losing their lives in fatal collisions. That Mann so unflinchingly presents the accident which officially brought an end to this specific race is profoundly shocking. The blown-out tyre which causes it may be caught in slow-motion, but the car’s violent cleaving through a crowd of bystanders happens so fast that the only hope we can cling to is that death came instantly and painlessly.
Whether the environment of ruthless competitiveness that Enzo fostered was responsible for Portago’s decision against changing his worn tyres is delicately uncertain, and later leads into a court trial that Ferrari brushes over far too quickly in its abrupt ending. To Mann though, the details of his manslaughter charge and its eventual dismissal are unimportant. Far more fascinating is Enzo’s reaction as he visits the gruesome site where eleven lives were claimed, including those of five children. Like a coroner examining a mangled carcass, he picks through the wreckage of his race car, barely even turning his eyes to the crushed and severed corpses around him. If the media vilifies Enzo as a deity who props up his legacy by feasting on the lives of his own children, then perhaps they are merely carrying through the justice that was never delivered in court. For all of Ferrari’s narrative unevenness, the god of conquest at the centre of Mann’s modern mythologising makes for a compellingly thorny subject, leaving behind a long trail of bodies in his blood-stained ascent to cultural immortality.
The nature of celebrity culture is a fickle thing for Professor Paul Matthews, as wild and unpredictable as those strangers’ dreams across the world that star him as the main character. There is no rational reason for why they started, and there is no explanation why his role in them suddenly evolves from passive bystander to monstrous villain. Perhaps it is a reflection of his own insecurity, feeding a disastrous loop of self-loathing that amplifies the more he worries about the way others are perceiving him, though director Kristoffer Borgli is evidently more interested in Dream Scenario’s metaphysical allegory than its hard logic. Paul’s sudden rising star comes with its own trappings that most regular people would be ill-equipped to handle, and especially one as meek and obsessively self-conscious as this “inadequate loser.”
The combination of Nicolas Cage’s eccentric neurosis and a lightly absurdist screenplay that exposes an anxiety-ridden dork no doubt has the essence of Charlie Kaufman’s insanity baked into its conception, with notable touches of both Adaptation and Being John Malkovich thrown in the mix. Borgli delights in the feverish surrealism of his characters’ dreams, initially drawn from the sheer incongruity of seeing Cage’s nonchalant reactions to extreme disasters and emergencies, before escalating into psychotic horror scenarios that have him violently killing people Freddy Krueger-style – and this movie reference does not go amiss either. Whether he is casually watching one of his students be chased by a tall, bloody man through a field of tuxedoed men, or maniacally marching down a dark corridor to his daughter’s bedroom with a frightening grin, Dream Scenario is at its strongest exploring the irrational language of the human subconscious.
Although Paul is at the centre of this whole phenomenon, the fact that he is not experiencing these dreams himself ironically places him on the outside looking in. The hushed whispers between his students in the early days quietly single him out as a freak, and when the media eventually turns him into an idol, he can only approach his newfound fame with awkward, confused laughs. An amusing turn from Michael Cera as the head of an agency for unconventional celebrities simply called ‘Thoughts?’ further strains the tension between Paul’s integrity and readiness to sell out all his ideals too, as well as his own loyalty to his wife when the opportunity arises.
The true danger of Dream Scenario arrives though in the target that is effectively placed on Paul’s back, teased early on when a disturbed stranger breaks into his home with death threats, and arriving in full force when these dreams suddenly turn into nightmares that plunge his reputation into total infamy. Of course, this shift is not totally in his control, but is that not the nature of widespread public opinion?
As a frustrated Paul lashes out, records insincere apology videos, and continues to be harassed by strangers totally convinced of their own judgement, it gradually becomes clear that Borgli isn’t quite sure how to stick the landing besides letting it fizzle out with his character’s dwindling 15 minutes of fame. Dream Scenario is not especially profound in its interrogation of cancel culture, though it does display flashes of creative inspiration in Paul’s characterisation, comically framing multiple lines of the company name ‘Thoughts?’ behind his overthinking head, and weaving in his evolutionary biology background through a fitting zebra motif. The animal’s natural ability to camouflage within crowds closely aligns with Paul’s desire to sink back into obscurity, effectively using inconspicuousness as a survival mechanism to preserve a safe, boring life. If he is going to stand out to anyone as a “remarkable nobody,” then it isn’t going to be for strangers, young women, or fellow celebrities. The only people whose approval he needs are those who already know him better than everyone else, and who only ever dream about him being the best version of Paul that he can be.
Unlike Mary Shelley and her fellow Gothic writers, Yorgos Lanthimos is not greatly bothered by man’s displacement of God through scientific progress. The artificial creation of life in Poor Things no doubt induces feelings of profound discomfort and horror, though the ethical dilemmas raised here are more fanciful in their eccentric incongruencies and psychological implications. Where Frankenstein hid great existential horror within the prospect of creating artificial life, Poor Things hides a majestic appreciation for humanity within an even more disturbing biological experiment – the transplant of an unborn baby’s brain into the body of her tragically deceased mother. When confronted with accusations of transgressing the laws of nature, mad scientist Dr Godwin Baxter returns a simple question that lightens his moral darkness to a medium grey.
“Would you rather the world had not have Bella?”
It is true that he has sentenced this infant to grow up inside the body of an adult, but so too has he effectively saved her life. In much the same way a child reveres their parent or a believer worships their deity, Bella appropriately gives her own endearing nickname to the professor – God. Along with his duck-dog hybrids and barking rooster, she joins his fantastic menagerie of similarly Frankensteined creatures that he leads as a lumpy misfit of the highest order. Lanthimos doesn’t hide the Garden of Eden allegory that encases Bella in a sanctuary of grotesque innocence, though the overtness of the metaphor is no concern. After all, it is merely the starting point for Bella’s coming-of-age odyssey across Europe and Africa, where Lanthimos aims his offbeat, satirical wit at the modern complexities of sex and gender.
Lanthimos’ allusions to Frankenstein are right there on the surface, but it is the reinvention of Mary Shelley’s work in a surreal, disturbing allegory which keeps Poor Things from becoming derivative.Bella is a mix of Eve and the Prodigal Son – born into God’s grotesque Garden of Eden, she falls to temptation and leaves on a magnificent journey, only to be welcomed back with open arms.
With The Favourite being a watershed moment for Lanthimos’ development as a cinematic artist, Poor Things continues that stylistic trajectory of surreal brilliance which elevates his most recent work above his first few films. His auteur trademarks are instantly recognisable, distorting detailed sets through wide-angle lenses to dramatically stretch its elaborate features, and fish-eye lenses that seem like voyeuristic peepholes. Long dissolves are also Lanthimos’ editing device of choice to convey his characters’ slippery grasp on reality, just as our own perspective is challenged in visual gags that force us to look twice at images as simple as a horse pulling a carriage. No doubt his continued collaboration with writer Tony McNamara pays off marvellously as well, delivering an absurd, biting wit that punctuates stiff formalities with anachronistic profanities and heightened slapstick.
Lanthimos brings back the fish-eye lens from The Favourite. It’s formally well-done in the way it is carried through, and adds a great deal to this visually distorted world.
And yet even with all these similarities in mind, the epic adventure that carries Bella across oceans in Poor Things is far more sprawling than the tightly contained worlds of Lanthimos’ other films. For the first time in his career, soundstages are used in place of real locations, allowing for a level of visual control and curation that his previous budgets could not afford. Traces of Terry Gilliam’s eccentric surrealism can be found everywhere, adopting avant-garde camera angles that warp insanely constructed set pieces beyond any hint of realism, from God’s giant Gothic manor to the castle-like cruise ship of turrets and towers. Tracking shots and zooms navigate these scenes with a steady fluidity, as rigorously measured as the production design itself, though they only barely mask the hidden chaos of Bella’s existence.
A superb use of miniatures in these long shots, set beneath a sky that always seems to be in motion with wispy clouds and rich, impressionistic patterns.Lanthimos formally sets Bella’s confinement to God’s manor apart from her journey through stunning black-and-white photography, only letting colour take over when she rebels and sets out to discovery the world.
At its most dreamlike, Poor Things interprets Bella’s voyage through wispy, greyscale images of her riding grotesque fish and crossing bridges in slow-motion, and uses these abstractions as chapter breaks between each new location. Within her actual adventure, purple swirls and angry blue clouds stretch across vast, starry skies that could have been painted by Vincent van Gogh, and cast impressionistic textures over miniatures of steampunk cities. In Lisbon, trams are suspended by wires between 19th-century buildings, and hot air balloons shaped like UFOs float above the urban skyline. Elsewhere, Alexandria is depicted as a sandstone hellscape of extreme poverty steeped in fiery golden hues, and the monochromatic streets of Paris offer respite with its sheets of soft, powdery snow. The idiosyncratic palettes of these settings are also made all the more vibrant by Lanthimos’ choice to starkly shoot most of the film’s first act in black-and-white, formally sectioning off Bella’s confinement to God’s manor from her extraordinary, colourful journey of discovery.
Lisbon is an anachronistic, steampunk city of high-wire trams and hot air balloons – absolute magnificence in production design.Bella’s brief stopover in Alexandria is soaked in blazing gold palette – absolute uniformity to an aesthetic.Meanwhile, Paris is a jungle of beautiful architectural oddities blanketed in snow.
With such an imaginative production design landing Poor Things among the most handsome films of the past few years, and a screenplay as boldly funny as McNamara’s, it takes an extravagantly talented ensemble to match this heightened world. Ramy Youssef and Jerrod Carmichael are the only ones who apply a little too much restraint here, while Willem Dafoe and Mark Ruffalo strike a perfect balance between chewing the scenery and precise comic timing.
To go this long without mentioning Emma Stone though is a crime. Her achievement as Bella stands among her very best, playing out an extraordinary but gradual evolution from incoherent infancy to liberated young adulthood. “What a very pretty retard,” her future husband proclaims early on as he watches her toddler-self jump and spin in uncoordinated motions, and it is this incongruency between her mind and body which forms the rich foundation of Lanthimos’ comedy and drama. Given her womanly appearance, Bella is not shielded from society’s archaic gender politics, and yet like most children she is a being of pure impulse who pursues whatever momentary sensory pleasures come her way. In this unique instance, it is only natural that her sexual discovery of “furious jumping” quickly becomes a carnal yet innocent obsession, and one that men like rakish cad Duncan Wedderburn selfishly seek to exploit.
Emma Stone’s performance stands tall among her best, showcasing her comedic range with slapstick and verbal timing in a way she has never touched before.
The physical comedy and rapport that Stone and Ruffalo share as adventuring partners here is gleefully charming, especially during one dance scene calling back to The Favourite that lets them unleash ridiculous moves to a bizarre honking instrument. It is when Bella begins to rub up against Duncan’s misogynistic entitlement that her place in the world slowly comes into focus, even as she remains ignorant to her origins. Distressed by the pain she sees in her travels, she tries to donate a large portion of Duncan’s wealth to the needy, only to naively let it fall into the hands of untrustworthy sailors. When she eagerly takes up employment as prostitute against his wishes, she grows further disillusioned with the discovery that some men find pleasure in her pain, and that her employer would prefer her to remain submissive.
After Emma Stone, Lanthimos gathers a strong supporting cast led by a rakish Mark Ruffalo, who has never been funnier than he is here.
Deepening the question of Bella’s bodily autonomy though is the very nature of her being – this is not her body, but her mother’s. Her belly bears the scar of her own birth by C-section, strangers recognise her as a different person in public, and late discoveries about her mother’s suicide complicate the relationship they never had. Having strayed from God’s domain and partnered with a gutless chauvinist, she is forced to become her own maternal guide in a misogynistic world, navigating its arbitrary social conventions through little more than trial and error. She learns of indulgence and restraint, generosity and self-care, taking each in moderation as her mind slowly catches up to her physical appearance. Jerskin Fendrix reveals his aggressively abstract score to be a perfect mirror of this journey as well, initially offering a window into her infantile mind with untuned strings, breathy pipes, and jarring mallets, and then gradually layering in more complex textures as these sounds mature alongside her.
Vacuous pretensions of respectable society be damned, Bella is a woman looking to carve out her own peculiar path through the world, rebelling against God’s creation even as she expresses a deep, abiding love for him. It matters little that Lanthimos’ final act sticks an unsteady landing, heading off on a sudden new adventure that continues past the point the story should have wrapped up. Films as boldly ambitious and wickedly funny as Poor Things are so exceedingly rare that flaws are simply part of the lavishly embellished package, relishing the magnificent improbability that any natural or manmade creation should ever exist to begin with in a world as preposterous as our own.
If there is one thing that Paul King’s whimsically spirited prequel understands about the world of Wonka, it is that chocolate is not merely a treat – it is a meal, a drug, an entire system of currency, and the source of all meaning in life. In the urban winter wonderland of 19th century Paris, every corner of society is controlled by those wealthy chocolate makers who feed the sweet-toothed church and state, using their extensive powers to shut out rival entrepreneurs. For what is essentially an origin story covering the young adulthood of Roald Dahl’s famous chocolatier, the stakes are ludicrously high, hilariously blending conventions of crime, heist, prison break, comedy, and musical genres into a delicately crafted piece of cinematic confectionary.
Though delightfully entertaining on its own terms, the decision to connect Wonka’s story directly to the 1971 adaptation Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is ultimately double-edged. Had it been framed as an original spin on the novel, perhaps King might have put a more unique stamp on Dahl’s work, but he still clearly relishes the camp designs of the orange-skinned Oompa Loompas and nostalgic musical cues. Almost every original number here seems like filler between reprises of ‘Pure Imagination’ and ‘The Oompa Loompa Song’, both of which wistfully hint at the future Wonka will set up for himself at his chocolate factory.
For the most part at least, Wonka largely avoids being weighed down by its intellectual property, letting Timothee Chalamet put his own refreshing spin on the role previously played by Gene Wilder. Given that they are essentially playing the same character at separate points in his life, the differences between both performances are notable. Where Wilder’s Wonka was a mischievous cynic who had grown disillusioned with the world, Chalamet’s is a woefully naïve optimist, overly trusting of strangers and romantically hopeful that he can make his fortune within a day of moving to Paris. This Wonka does not confine himself to a factory, but effortlessly builds a network of allies and joyfully dances atop the glass ceiling of the Grand Palais with his closest friend, street urchin Noodle. Armed with nothing but a small case of enchanted items and chocolates, he proves his resourceful intellect from day one, even as he struggles against scheming competitors and greedy proprietors.
The cast that King gathers around Chalamet is similarly impressive, drawing on old collaborators from The Mighty Boosh like Rich Fulcher and Simon Farnaby, as well as Sally Hawkins and Hugh Grant from the Paddington movies. Joining his troupe for the first time as well are the comedic talents of Rowan Atkinson, Matt Lucas, Keegan Michael-Key, and Olivia Colman, the latter of whom particularly impresses as a greasy, Madame Thenardier-type con artist and innkeeper. There isn’t a weak link in this ensemble, each carrying through the eccentric wit, gentle slapstick, and charming sincerity that King has built into the fabric of his semi-magical world.
Next to these lively performances, King’s playful scene transitions and bouncy choreography similarly move the humour along at a rhythmic pace, though it is the production design which most crucially connects Wonka’s boundlessly creative ethos to his candy-coloured environment. The careful curation of pink, purple, and red palettes sets an air of warm festivity against the snow flurrying through Paris’ streets, while props and set pieces are as imaginatively bizarre in their visual conception as they are in their narrative functions. When Wonka finally sets up his shop at the Galeries Gourmet, these impossible visuals only continue to heighten with candy cotton clouds circling a giant, blossoming tree growing in the centre.
Given that Wonka’s candy also has physiological effects on consumers, from intoxicated overconfidence to spontaneous flying, it is no wonder the Chocolate Cartel see him as such a threat. The culmination of their sabotage arrives in a climactic display of remarkably economical storytelling, knitting about a dozen plot threads together into a tightly woven pay-off not unlike the final acts of the Paddington films. Giant questions such as the mystery of Noodle’s parentage are answered, but even more impressive is the intertwining of seemingly irrelevant plot points such as Slugworth’s extraordinarily firm handshake, Wonka’s illiteracy, and his friends’ incredibly niche skillsets. There are no loose ends to be found in this tidy bow of a resolution, save for those which lead directly into Dahl’s story. Wonka is so easily digestible, it might as well have been made by the chocolatier himself.
Given how deeply connected all Hayao Miyazaki’s films are to his sense of childhood wonder, trauma, and pantheistic spirituality, it may be useless singling out any one as his most personal. Still, the fact that The Boy and the Heron unusually captures the storyteller at two different points in his life through a pair of surrogate characters offers new, introspective dimensions to his body of work. For the first time in his decades-long career, his young hero is a boy, Mahito, clearly standing in for his younger self as he escapes into a fantasy world and tries to reconnect with his deceased mother. Fortunately, Miyazaki’s mother did not pass away until old age, and yet the time she spent in hospital during his formative years was clearly a point of reckoning with mortality for the young artist.
Next to Mahito, the mysterious Granduncle who constructed the whimsical realm of cursed oceans and anthropomorphic creatures also becomes a stand-in for Miyazaki, albeit one who is older, wiser, and full of regrets. Both are world builders with the power to shape imagined landscapes into either harmonious paradises or freakish nightmares, though given the innate human flaws of their creators, any setting is likely to be a mix of both. Now coming towards the end of their lives, they both seek out successors to carry their legacies, and yet the question of whether their work can or should be continued looms large. At some point in life, fantasy has run its course, and one must return to reality armed with the new perspectives that have been gained from their dreams.
For Mahito, this is a reality he would much rather forget – the Pacific War has not only killed his mother, but has forced him to evacuate Tokyo with his father, thereby staining his childhood with wartime trauma. His complicated feelings around moving to the countryside and his father remarrying his aunt Natsuko drive him to act out, while the presence of a mysterious grey heron that lives on the estate and an abandoned tower in the yard also tease the possibility of adventurous escape. It only takes Natsuko’s strange disappearance for Mahito to start connecting the dots between each of these, eventually journeying into the tower that was built by her eccentric Granduncle many years ago to discover the surreal universe which lies beneath its foundations.
The whimsical similarities to Alice in Wonderland are evident in this setup, betraying Miyazaki’s adoration of Disney’s animated classics, though the allusions don’t end here either. The influence of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs can similarly be traced right down to the seven eccentric grannies occupying Mahito’s countryside home, as well as the unconscious heroine who lies helpless inside a glass coffin late in the story. Much like his pioneering American counterpart, Miyazaki’s storytelling strengths lie in his manipulation of recognisable archetypes, even as he develops his narrative and symbolism in far more elusive directions.
Most prominent among the allegorical icons in The Boy and the Heron are the human-like birds who commonly bear some sort of malicious intent, whether it is the pelicans who eat the souls of unborn babies, or the legion of parakeets who strictly adhere to an authoritarian rule. The raspy-voiced heron in particular becomes a devious twist on Alice in Wonderland’s White Rabbit too, luring Mahito into his world with cruel illusions and grotesquely hiding his true form of a stumpy, caricaturish man in his toothy beak. Though Mahito learns that all herons are liars, he also finds this particular birdman reluctantly becoming one of his closest allies, and incidentally learns from him along the way that not all fabrications are necessarily evil. When the possibility of bringing back his deceased mother is dangled in front of him, he no doubt sees the sham, and yet it is his open-minded curiosity which leads him into a journey of emotional healing through his ancestor’s dreamlike creation.
“I know it is a lie, but I have to see it.”
Miyazaki delights in using hand-drawn animation to construct these layers of verisimilitude, heavily evoking a Salvador Dali-style surrealism when a duplicate of Mahito’s mother eerily melts away, and elsewhere when a dropped rose unexpectedly shatters into tiny pieces. This world operates on a dream logic that distorts the very structure of space and time, leading our young hero down an endless corridor of doors opening to different points in the past, and moulding his deepest fears into life-saving superpowers.
Lady Himi proves to be incredibly significant here, wielding control over the fire that killed Mahito’s mother, and thus turning that destructive force which haunted his nightmares into a force for good. Elemental imagery of air, water, and earth is woven through much of Miyazaki’s fantasy world, and yet it is her whirlwinds of blazing orange flames which consistently provide the most security to Mahito, as well as a maternal guidance that he has sorely missed in his grief.
Conversely, the direction that the Granduncle provides his young descendant is not one of nurture, but rather a burden of responsibility which may not even be worth the continuous effort. Life and fiction must both come to an end, Miyazaki recognises, and yet meaning persists in the wake of both. If The Boy and theHeron truly is his last film, then it is poetic that such a grand adventure into escapist fantasy and back again should be the one to conclude his decades of marvellous, animated world building.
The Boy and the Heron is currently playing in theatres.
There is little in Bottoms that breaks the formula of the classic high school teen comedy, though it is in this familiar realm that Emma Seligman is most comfortable sending up its Gen Z archetypes with their own brand of self-deprecating irony and dark humour. On its surface, the premise of two unpopular lesbian students beginning extra-curricular self-defence lessons for their fellow female students subverts the hyper-masculinity of its most obvious influence in Fight Club, though its narrative calls back even more distinctly to the sex-driven quest of Superbad and the violent black comedy of Heathers. After all, behind Josie and PJ’s mission is the simple objective to lose their virginities to cheerleaders Isabel and Brittany, and it is apparent that there are no lows too depraved for them to stoop to along the way.
The comic timing that Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri share in these lead roles is sharp, positioning them as socially awkward and morally dubious misfits ready to exploit whatever good cause or convenient lie presents itself to them. They didn’t start the rumour that they spent summer in juvenile detention, but they are happy to capitalise on the clout it gives them, and local concerns around recent attacks from rival school Huntington provides the perfect feminist justification for their self-defence lessons. Of the two, Edebiri delivers the more sympathetic performance, though Sennott’s bratty egotism even more effectively underscores the hypocrisy of high school politics – regardless of where one sits in the hierarchy, everyone is as equally cruel.
This isn’t to say that Bottoms lacks sincerity, as Seligman pays real attention to the development of each fight club member towards a united empowerment, but even this comes by complete accident through PJ and Josie’s misguided leadership. Much like Seligman’s debut Shiva Baby, Bottoms is at its strongest when it embraces the chaos and savagery of the ensemble’s wildly conflicting personas, but also successfully turns the goofiness up a notch when painting out the meathead jocks as the broadest caricatures of them all. Outside of the fight club, quarterback Jeff is the greatest source of physical comedy, theatrically keeling over in extreme pain when PJ’s car gently bumps his knee, and submitting to his role as a damsel in distress at the film’s marvellously choreographed climax.
By the point that the full force of Seligman’s cinematic excellence is unleashed in this heightened, Tarantino-esque finale, it is a little too late to save the relatively dull visuals that pervade the rest of Bottoms, but if there is any scene which deserves such a remarkable set piece it is this. The stunt work is complex and dynamic, turning the football field into a battleground between two schools literally fighting for their lives in dramatic slow-motion and high-contrast while spectators watch in awe from the grandstand. Any remaining shred of realism that had previously lingered is gone, and in its place is a full-throttled commitment to bizarre spectacle exposing the absurdity of teenage politics, and the carnal desire for sex and violence that lingers beneath. In her deft balance of conflicting tones, Seligman smartly realises that there is no point choosing between sharp-tongued irony and lowbrow slapstick. Like so many real-world teenagers she is levelling her playful satire at, the high school students of Bottoms are as brilliantly quick-witted as they are disastrously stupid, and are all too happy staying that way.
The task of cinematically adapting a historical legacy as immense as Napoleon Bonaparte’s is not one to be taken lightly, especially when densely packing a feature film with several decades’ worth of his conquests. Although Ridley Scott’s interpretation of the French leader’s life covers an enormous span of time from the French Revolution to his eventual exile, it does not carry the same dramatic weight as Abel Gance’s more focused 1927 epic, which ends its story much earlier with Napoleon’s grand triumph at 1796’s Battle of Montenotte. A great deal of room is allowed there for the sort of historical detail which Scott merely skims over in title cards announcing new characters, events, and years – and even with a shorter length on his side, his Napoleon rarely carries the same vigorous energy as its five-and-a-half-hour counterpart.
To be fair, this comparison to one of France’s most celebrated cinematic masterpieces does not give Scott credit where it is due, and only serves to emphasise how thinly he spreads this story across a vast scope. The strength of his direction here lies not so much in its loosely sprawling structure as it does in the humour, blocking, and spectacle of individual moments, offsetting Napoleon’s legacy as a military commander and tactical genius with scenes of his childish petulance. The sense of divine purpose which imbues him with regal confidence is the same which drives him into entitled tantrums at the dinner table, as he amusingly proclaims that “Destiny has brought me this lamb chop!” with an absurd lack of self-awareness.
Scott does not go so far as to probe the psychosexual depths of Napoleon’s emotionally stunted nature, though his inability to connect intimately with others is all too apparent, especially when his wife Joséphine enters the picture. Their sex is profoundly dispassionate at first, though an awkward intimacy soon develops which only further underscores his strange infantilism. Tied in with that as well is an egotistic dependence on her admiration, forcing her to declare that he is the most important thing in the world, and conversely seeing him admit with far greater truth that he is nothing without her. After all, he needs an heir to carry on his legacy, and the prospect that he may be infertile threatens the foundations of his entire reign.
Perhaps this is why Joaquin Phoenix slips so naturally into this eccentric vision of the French emperor, despite being much older than Napoleon actually was at the height of his power. This is not a young, virile man with boundless charisma and masculine poise, but a cagey strategist who cannot translate his sharp mind on the battlefield to his own personal life. This is not the Napoleon that history remembers, and given the accusations of historical inaccuracy that Scott has brushed off with disregard, it may not even be the Napoleon that existed. Creative licence is a powerful tool in the right hands though, and the line that Scott draws between male leadership, ego, and impotence is vivid, demonstrating that the insecure fool and the impressive military leader are not mutually exclusive identities.
After all, when it comes to the latter Scott relishes shooting Phoenix’s Napoleon against backdrops of remarkable spectacle, starting with Marie Antoinette’s execution at the Place de la Révolution in front of riled-up masses, and later seeing him win extravagant battles in Austria, Russia, and Egypt. The siege of Toulon is his first great success as an artillery commander, and also Scott’s first real demonstration in Napoleon that his deft control over giant set pieces has not faded over the years, borrowing a few visual and editing cues from D.W. Griffith as soldiers scale colossal walls and fires light up the night.
It is no coincidence that the detail of Napoleon’s tactical manoeuvring directly correlates to the brilliance of Scott’s technical direction either, as both reach their peaks upon the frozen wastelands where the Battle of Austerlitz unfolds. Using its natural geography of hills, trees, plains, and fog to his advantage, Napoleon lures the united Austrian and Russian forces into an ambush, drives them to retreat over a frozen lake, and shatters the ice with cannonballs, thereby winning one of the most significant battles of the Napoleonic Wars. Scott’s visual storytelling is remarkable here, coordinating complex interactions between enormous numbers of extras through hostile landscapes, and intercutting the action with visceral underwater shots of drowning, bleeding soldiers desperately fumbling to escape their fate.
Elsewhere, Scott imbues scenes with a dramatic weight in his slow-motion photography, and curates handsomely muted colour palettes with soft blue filters and the dim, golden lighting of candles. Napoleon’s greatest weakness though is its unevenness, inconsistently letting these soaring visuals come and go, and eventually dropping the focus on the French emperor’s personal life as the Battle of Waterloo approaches. In place of his emotional immaturity, an even greater form of egomania becomes apparent, seeing him boldly charge into combat with blazing confidence before witnessing the demise of his entire life’s work. For once, it is the opposing side that Scott captures with noble admiration, watching the Duke of Wellington’s army form infantry squares in rigorous uniformity and take the higher ground over Napoleon’s men.
Even with everything lost though, this is a man who will still carve out his own version of history. Was it the Russians who burnt Moscow to spoil the French victory, or was it part of Napoleon’s plan all along? Was it really his fault that he lost the Battle of Waterloo, or was it his incompetent marshals? Is the image of a mighty leader and master strategist really all there is to the first emperor of France? Scott does not so much seek truth in that matter as he uses it to underscore a modern scepticism towards our male leaders, and especially those whose meagre wisdom and childish convictions are undeserving of such enormous egos. If only this film was a little more refined in its focus, then perhaps he might have reconciled these distinct features into one character with greater formal acuity, backing up his technical brilliance with the sense of purpose that Napoleon himself was so blinded by.
