Thumbnails Dec 23

by Tony Medley

The Marsh King’s Daughter: (9/10) 108 minutes. R. Daisy Ridley shines as the titular daughter Helena, in this tense, emotional tale that never lets you relax. Ridley is simply superb as the emotionally scarred Helena, who was raised in the marsh by her mother (Caren Pistorius) and father, Jacob (Ben Mendelsohn) but is suddenly thrust from what she knows of her home, torn away from her beloved father. Young Helena is played by eleven-year-old Brooklynn Prince who gives a stunningly moving performance for one so young.

Fifteen years later she is married to a loving husband, Stephen (Garrett Hedlund) with a daughter of her own But she is clearly troubled and things progress without a single letup of tension. I never relaxed once and a lot of that was due to Ridley’s award-quality acting.

I can’t fail to mention the cinematography of Alwin W. Kucher, who captures beautiful vistas but also utilizes lighting and angles in inventive ways that enhance the tension.

LA SYNDICALISTE (The Sitting Duck) (9/10): 116 minutes. Based on a true story, Maureen Kearney (Isabelle Huppert) is a powerful head union representative of a French nuclear powerhouse. But when she discovers corruption, she becomes a whistleblower and finds herself alone fighting against government and industry leaders. She is sexually assaulted in her own home but instead of being viewed as a victim, she becomes an accused. This is a terrific thriller that shows what happens to someone who tries to do what is right when challenging powerful people. In French.

Archie (6/10): 4-part TV Series on Britbox. NR. One lesson from this is, don’t let your divorced spouse tell your story. There is a possibly apocryphal story of a fan telling Cary Grant, “I always wanted to be like Cary Grant,” and Grant replies, “Well, so did I!” This film produced by his former wife Dyan Cannon tells that story of Archie Leach masquerading as Cary Grant (well played by Jason Isaacs), never happy, never satisfied. The first two parts tell of Archie up to 1932. It then jumps over all his brilliant successes as Cary Grant and cuts to 1962 when it picks up with his relationship with Cannon (Laura Aikman). She pictures him as an unhappy, unreasonable man. If you watch this and buy it, it destroys the romantic, sophisticated image that he created throughout his brilliant 35-year career.

Immediate Family (6/10): 100 minutes. NR. This is Director Danny Tedesco’s followup to The Wrecking Crew (2008), an enlightening documentary about the 1960s sessions musicians, about those who succeeded them as the sessions musicians of the ‘70s and later. They played the instruments for many of the music stars of the ‘70s. But unlike The Wrecking Crew, these guys traveled with the singers and played behind them on stage while The Wrecking Crew were strictly studio players.

The credits list 30-40 songs used in the film, but they consist of only maybe one bar from each. For a movie about music, this is almost all talk about how much they love one another, how they came to do what they do and how they got together. The Wrecking Crew was exceptionally informative, but this one is disjointed and much more esoteric.

Boudica: Queen of War (5/10): 101 minutes. R. Boudica (Olga Kurylenko) the queen of the Iceni people in first-century Britain became their leader when her husband is murdered by the Romans. This movie, which rightly claims to be “inspired” by true events, is mostly fiction because, frankly, little is known of Boudica or what actually happened.

Kurylenko gives a good performance as the widowed queen, but the film seems to be basically an excuse for writer/director Jesse V. Johnson to show scene after scene of bloody battles which are graphic. Frankly, it is ludicrous to think that what happened has any resemblance to what we see on the screen.

Napoleon (5/10): 158 minutes. R. There are so many things wrong with this revisionist look at Napoleon, it’s hard to know where to begin, so let’s start with the miscasting of clearly middle-aged chubby Joaquin Phoenix. But Napoleon was barely 30 years old when he assumed power in 1799; Phoenix is a well-worn 50 and looks it. Phoenix strikes out on capturing the personality of a man who could conquer Europe. Napoleon’s challenged height has been well-known and publicized (see Napoleon complex) but is never even alluded to.

Director Ridley Scott trivializes the battle at Austerlitz by inventing a battle sequence that did not occur. The presentation of Napoleon’s return from exile on the island of Elba is mind-numbingly absurd. That’s just a start on this shallow movie. I don’t have space for more. But in 2 ½ hours couldn’t he have at least mentioned the Napoleonic Code (still in force)?

On the positive side is the battle at Waterloo where Scott at least made it look realistic and then ruins it with a Hollywood-silly meeting of the eyes between Wellington and Napoleon after the battle. On the plus side, Vanessa Kirby steals the show with her performance as Josephine.

Eileen (3/10): 97 minutes. R. The only good thing I can say about this movie is that it made me thankful I did not read the book. Eileen (Thomasin Mckenzie) is an unhappy young woman working in a boys prison who lives with a drunken, abusive father (Shea Whigham). She meets Rebecca (Anne Hathaway), a new psychologist, who comes on to her and Eileen becomes infatuated with Rebecca’s attention to her and her glamor. But this is not a gay-themed movie. It is dark, enhanced by good cinematography and music, and has good acting with shocking twists but, in the final act, loses its track and makes little sense.

Book recommendation: Night Flight to Paris by Cara Black, a high-tension WWII thriller.