Tag: Helen McCrory

Hotel Splendide (2000, Terence Gross)

Hotel Splendide is based on a novel by Marie Redonnet. She doesn’t get any credit in the film, director Gross instead taking the full writing credit. Guess the WGA is good, actually.

The film having a novel source explains a few things, principally why Hugh O’Conor is narrating the movie. O’Conor’s ostensibly an aquaphobic staying at the titular hotel, a sanitarium set up on a remote island. I say ostensibly aquaphobic because the film implies, time and again, O’Conor’s really there for something else, and everyone’s been lying to him about his fear of water. There’s even the implication the hotel staff intentionally gave him aquaphobia to take his mind off his real problem, which—based on O’Conor’s character otherwise being entirely devoted to peeping on sexual congresses and playing solitaire with nudie cards—seems to have been him being a sexually frustrated serial killer.

Doesn’t matter because O’Conor disappears in the second act when the film finally gets around to letting Daniel Craig have some agency, only to bring O’Conor back to screw up the finish.

And it’s impressive Splendide’s gotten to a point where O’Conor can drag it back down. The film rallies big time when it really shouldn’t be, including turning Stephen Tompkinson into a dangerous villain when he’s previously just been a simpering mama’s boy without a mama. The mother ran the hotel, dying a year before the present action kicked off. Toni Collette has returned from the outside world, having left five years before when the mother disapproved of her and Craig’s love affair.

Someone—not Craig, who starts the film enraged at Collette for abandoning him—wrote Collette to beckon her back. Her arrival will ruin Tompkinson’s control over the hotel, which is killing off its residents and not getting any new ones since no one who’s been off the island still thinks eating nothing but eel and seaweed stew to constipate yourself and require daily enemas is a good idea anymore. Or at least, one would hope. Splendide requires a bunch of suspension of disbelief, like how the family running the hotel—who’ve presumably never lived anywhere else—have such good vocabularies or how they get power (they get gas by converting residents’ shit into methane to fuel the hotel forever, with the furnace being an angry stand-in for the departed mom), or why they seem to have new clothes. Maybe the novel explains it. Or perhaps the novel’s good enough it doesn’t have to explain it. Or perhaps the novel just avoids it like the movie.

The film starts with director Gross overestimating how charming quirky can be, especially since the quirkiness is laden with ableism, misogyny, and… icky. O’Conor’s icky without being dangerous, while Tompkinson is odious and potentially dangerous (though when the dangerous comes out, Gross makes it ableist to further villainize him, which is a lot). But the person who has it worst—other than maybe actually physically abused kitchen staff Toby Jones—is the sister, Katrin Cartlidge.

Tompkinson manages the hotel, Craig runs the kitchen, Cartlidge handles the physical therapy whether she likes it or not, and retired since his widowing dad Peter Vaughan just hanging around. The film presents Vaughan as a sympathetic old dodderer, too weak to stand up to the dead wife, but then has all these terrible details about him as he perpetuates a bunch of abuse. Gross seems entirely unaware because it involves women, and they aren’t really characters in Hotel Splendide, like when top-billed Collette essentially becomes Craig’s accessory for the second act.

At times, both Collette and Craig are quite good. Unfortunately, usually not in their scenes together. If they aren’t bickering about Collette literally not wanting to be abused by Craig’s family, Collette’s just silent when Craig does things. The third act doesn’t completely whiff their relationship development, but it comes pretty close. Then the denouement makes them irrelevant. It’s very messy.

Besides Collette and Craig, there are good performances from Cartlidge, Joerg Stadler, and Helen McCrory. Everyone else is fine, save Tompkinson and O’Conor, who are both terrible, though it’s unclear how much is Tompkinson’s fault and not just Gross’s script or directing. O’Conor’s, unfortunately, a charisma vacuum, with or without Gross.

Technically, Splendide hasn’t got much going for it. Gross’s direction of actors is slightly better than his composition, which wouldn’t matter if it were better because Gyula Pados’s photography is terrible. Though not as bad as Michael Ellis’s editing or, especially, Mark Tschanz’s music. The film relies on Tschanz’s score more than anything else, and, even with O’Conor’s annoying narrator, better music probably would’ve saved the day.

For a while, it seems like Splendide will end up being a mildly compelling oddity for Collette, Craig, and Cartlidge. Sadly, it doesn’t. Though it doesn’t fail Collette or Craig anywhere near as much as Cartlidge. It fails her something fierce.

Loving Vincent (2017, Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman)

Loving Vincent is the story of the man in the yellow suit (not to be confused with the Man in the Yellow Hat, which is sort of unfortunate because monkey) and his quest to deliver Vincent Van Gogh’s last letter.

The title comes from how Van Gogh signed letters to his brother–“your most loving brother.” The man in the yellow hat, played by Douglas Booth, has a letter for Theo. It’s a year after Van Gogh’s death. Little does Booth know his quest will reveal Theo’s died as well. Upon that discovery, Booth heads to Auvers-sur-Oise, where Van Gogh lived for the last two months of his life.

There, he finds himself in the middle of a mysterious suicide, which Booth turns into an unsolved murder. Loving Vincent, the film, is very wishy washy on having any kind of opinion on the matter. In fact, as Saoirse Ronan chastizes Booth, you’re not supposed to fixate on how Van Gogh died, but how he lived. Oddly, until that point (and even a little later), the film fixates on how Van Gogh dies. It’s constantly pivoting to avoid having to fixate on his living.

First and foremost, the flashback sequences are always narrated–Van Gogh appears all the time, played by Robert Gulaczyk–but he’s never the protagonist, always the subject. The film, I might have mentioned earlier, is the first entirely handpainted motion picture. Ninety-five minutes, 65,000 frames, all oil painted. The actors were filmed in front of green screens. Booth’s quest looks like a Van Gogh painting. In fact, his quest just introducecs him to the other subjects of actual Van Gogh paintings so it’s a Van Gogh painting subject team-up movie.

Except the flashbacks are entirely black and white. And very, very realistic. And directed in an entirely different manner than the present action of the film. There’s a lot of first-person camera work in the flashbacks, which makes things rather urgent, but never visually interesting. Visually competent to be sure, but never visually interesting. All the visual interesting stuff is in the present, for feckless Booth to encounter.

If Loving Vincent were more concerned with being educational–if it were purely educational–it’d be a lot more successful. Instead, the writers–co-directors Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman as well as Jacek Dehnel–settle on this didactic tone at the end, condescending to Booth for his interest. As well as the audience’s because if they’re not interested in what Booth’s interested in, there’s no narrative. The movie ends with a song–addressing Vincent Van Gogh–about how he’s now loved, even though he wasn’t when it mattered. Again, if it were an IMAX movie, if it were educational… sure.

But as historical fiction? It’s a bit much.

The direction is a lot of the problem. Kobiela and Welchman are dull in the present. They set up shots like paintings, which then look like paintings, but they’re dramatically inert. You watch Loving Vincent for the visuals (and the visual references), not much else. Except, of course, Chris O’Dowd showing up as a fifty year-old Frenchman with a huge beard (bigger than Van Gogh actually painted it) and O’Dowd’s charming Irish accent.

The accents–well, no one except Gulaczyk has what could might called an authentic accent. It’s a bunch of British actors playing French people with distinct British accents. Gulaczyk might not even being doing a Dutch accent, it might just be his Polish accent, but at least it’s not English.

Acting-wise, Booth is okay. He gets better as the film goes along. The first act is rough as the film sets him out on this quest. John Sessions is fun. Aidan Turner’s all right. Jerome Flynn is all right. He’s not in it enough after all the emphasis the narrative puts on the character; he plays Van Gogh’s doctor for those last two months. He also suffers from the most egregious style shift. In the same scene, thanks to different painters (there were 125 painters who worked on the film), Flynn’s head changes size dramatically between shots.

In the bigger supporting roles–the above actors really only have one scene, except Booth, of course–there are Saorise Ronan as Flynn’s daughter and the object of Van Gogh’s affections, there’s Helen McCrory as Flynn’s disapproving housekeeper, and then Eleanor Tomlinson as the innkeeper’s daughter (where Van Gogh stayed those last two months). McCrory’s an evil harpy without a character. Her animation is also overly brusque, like she’s not worth the attention. Even though the film uses her multiple times as an expository tool.

Ronan’s not great. She’s okay. Eventually. Her animation gets a lot more attention, but none of it to rendering any kind of visual performance. There’s nothing to meet Ronan’s dialogue delivery.

Tomlinson’s great. She and Booth have actual chemistry, something Loving Vincent’s lacking the rest of the time. It’s because Tomlinson even gets a character. She’s got more depth than anyone else, including “protagonist” Booth. Booth gets some backstory and subplots, but nothing consequential. The movie’s not about the characters, it’s not about the crossover, it’s about how the audience cares too much about how Van Gogh died and not enough about how he lived.

So it’s weird the movie’s all about how he died.

The oil painted frames are the draw. Though the film never does anything with it CGI couldn’t do. And the decision to avoid trying to show Van Gogh in the world as he saw it (i.e. his paintings) is a major cop out. One the film tries to cover with a couple readings of his letters.

Again, as a purely educational film, it’d be awesome. But with the attempted narrative? A beautiful technical achievement. And not much else.

1/4★

CREDITS

Directed by Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman; written by Kobiela, Welchman, and Jacek Dehnel; directors of photography, Tristan Oliver and Lukasz Zal; editors, Kobiela and Justyna Wierszynska; music by Clint Mansell; production designers, Matthew Button, Maria Duffek, and Andrzej Rafal Waltenberger; produced by Sean M. Bobbitt, Ivan Mactaggart, and Welchman; released by Altitude Film Distribution.

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Frankenstein (2007, Jed Mercurio)

“a monstrous creation ; especially : a work or agency that ruins its originator”

Frankenstein. (2008). In Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary.

Retrieved October 2, 2008, from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Frankenstein

I wish I could use the OED, but it doesn’t seem worth thirty bucks.

Especially ruins. Two important words for a Frankenstein adaptation. Jed Mercurio does a future Frankenstein, set in the near future–after a super-volcano covers the world with ash, presumably to allow for nighttime shooting and a small number of outdoor shots. What his Frankenstein, here a Victoria (played by Helen McCrory), does different than her filmic predecessors is create her monster for a reason–she needs to farm its organs for her dying son, William. William’s father is Henry Clerval (James Purefoy).

Purefoy is the only character, besides Neil Pearson’s Professor Waldman, whose surname the script verbalizes. The words Frankenstein are never spoken in the television movie’s ninety minutes and they’re only seen on screen briefly and half distorted. Discovering how Mercurio is going to bring familiar elements into the effort is one of the more interesting things. Because lots of the stuff is neat–a female Frankenstein married to Clerval, neat. Mercurio makes frequent homage to the 1931 film and maybe even some of the Hammer ones (I really wouldn’t know, I try to forget the Hammer Frankenstein movies).

But Mercurio’s neatness–his cuteness–is eventually problematic. Bad guy scientist Lindsay Duncan is revealed, in the end credits, to be Professor Pretorius. During the film, everyone just calls her Jane. So her status as a bad guy is disguised through a trick, but it’s also indicative of where Mercurio goes wrong. He comes really close to making something new, but fails because he’s not adapting the novel or even using it as a starting point… he’s making a neatly put together, kind of Frankenstein adaptation, one where cute homages overpower the story.

Mercurio introduces a lot of entirely new ideas to the standard–a female Frankenstein, a motive for creating the monster, a lack of responsibility (Duncan and Pearson are the ones who take over the project)… not to mention the good doctor putting her dying son’s DNA into the monster. With the rather adult romance between McCrory and Purefoy, Mercurio’s Frankenstein could go places and, until the twist ending, appears ready to plunge into the deep end. I trusted Mercurio to pull off the ending right, which might explain some of my displeasure. He copped out. He didn’t just cop out of a proper adaptation ending, he copped out of ending the story he told well. His ending is as sensational as a television movie with an obviously limited budget (the monster only gets one close-up) can get.

I think Mercurio was going for a stab at reality, but it’s unclear.

McCrory is good, though her determination in the first act is poorly paced. At ninety minutes, Mercurio’s script feels like a solid stage adaptation rather than a filmic adaptation. He’s restricted to certain sets but he doesn’t spend enough time on them. Purefoy starts out stumbling, but eventually turns in a respectable performance. Both Pearson and Duncan are goofy villains, never once believable as scientists working in academia. Benedict Wong is great as McCrory’s assistant–Ed Gore, get it? It’s cute, but it’s also only in the credits.

I wasn’t expecting much from Frankenstein–I thought it was the BBC holiday special from last year; it isn’t–but it had a lot of good material in it. But Mercurio got lost in all his busyness and didn’t concentrate on what was working right. I mean, there’s a whole subplot with the cops on the monster’s trail. It’s silly.

1.5/4★½

CREDITS

Directed by Jed Mercurio; screenplay by Mercurio, based on the novel by Mary Shelley; director of photography, Wojciech Szepel; edited by Andrew McClelland; music by John Lunn; production designer, Will Hughes-Jones; produced by Hugh Warren; released by Independent Television.

Starring Helen McCrory (Dr. Victoria Frankenstein), James Purefoy (Dr. Henry Clerval), Neil Pearson (Professor Waldman), Benedict Wong (Dr. Ed Gore), Matthew Rault-Smith (William Clerval), Fraser James (Joe), Lindsay Duncan (Professor Jane Pretorius), Ace Bhatti (Dr. Dhillon), Julian Bleach (The Monster) and Cally Hamilton (Little Girl).

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Uncovered (1994, Jim McBride)

With irregular fade outs, elevator muzak for a score, bad direction and a British cast pretending to be Spanish, Uncovered plays like a mix between a British television movie and a–Canadian–after school special (albeit one with a European approach to nudity). I’ve read the source novel, an intricate thriller, and this filmic adaptation is absent any suspense. That lack is a combination of elements. First, Jim McBride directs with less enthusiasm than a Pringles commercial. He avoids Barcelona scenery and actually makes the choice to flash back to the fifteen century. It’s like he was desperate to sell the finished product to a television network. The film has a few interesting moments–the art restoration scenes–but McBride brings nothing to it.

The next problem is that score. According to IMDb, Philippe Sarde has an inordinately prolific career (around two hundred films). Based on his work for Uncovered, I imagine only three of them aren’t atrocious.

So the combination of McBride and Sarde make Uncovered incredibly problematic, but with good direction and an acceptable score, could the film survive the production philosophy? Possibly.

The production philosophy is simple and unbelievably stupid. Uncovered requests the viewer ignore accents and ethnicity. It asks the viewer to ignore John Wood is British, it asks the viewer to pretend heavily accented Irishman Paudge Behan is a gypsy. A blond-haired, blue-eyed one who wears around Hawaiian shirts. Sinéad Cusack’s character is never defined as Spanish, so maybe that one’s forgivable. Kate Beckinsale’s character is apparently supposed to be British, just living in Barcelona for the majority of her life. As Spanish nobility, Michael Gough is funny enough to ignore the major problems.

But where Uncovered is conflicting is in its approach to the characters. Even if McBride can’t direct a scene, the conversations between the characters are startlingly refreshing and blunt. Beckinsale’s character’s obsession with her weight (probably direct from the novel, since the movie doesn’t show much ingenuity), is a welcome cinematic approach. It’s part of her character, not a plot point. It began before the present action and it’s going to continue following.

Also interesting is–again from the novel–the lurking danger of AIDS.

The character stuff–and the awkwardly successful romance between Beckinsale and Behan, mostly because Beckinsale’s good enough to rise above the defects–almost makes Uncovered all right. But then the end does it in, mostly because of the terrible score and Wood’s performance going down the toilet.

Had the filmmakers just set the movie in England and hired a decent director (it’d be hard to use Sarde’s score in England), Uncovered would have probably been all right. Had they gotten a good feminist rewrite of the script, it would have been excellent.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Jim McBride; screenplay by Michael Hirst, McBride and Jack Baran, based on a novel by Arturo Pérez-Reverte; director of photography, Affonso Beato; edited by Éva Gárdos; music by Philippe Sarde; production designer, Hugo Luczyc-Wyhowski; produced by Enrique Posner; released by CiBy 2000.

Starring Kate Beckinsale (Julia), John Wood (Cesar), Sinéad Cusack (Menchu), Paudge Behan (Domenec), Peter Wingfield (Max), Helen McCrory (Lola), Michael Gough (Don Manuel) and Art Malik (Alvaro).

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The Queen (2006, Stephen Frears)

Glibly, I can say the most amazing thing The Queen does is humanize Tony Blair, seeing as he’s been decency’s biggest quisling in recent memory. But seeing a sympathetic portrayal of politician–one still in power when a film is released–is uncommon. Michael Sheen really creates a Tony Blair, certainly a Tony Blair one wishes the real person measured up to. And royalty is often sympathetically portrayed, just not modern royalty, which is where The Queen becomes rare. I had assumed the screenwriter adapted a book, something with some non-reporter-like confirmation (apparently, the screenwriter got independent confirmations of specific facts)… because The Queen then becomes a fictionalization of a real person, but a fiction striving for truth… is a truly exceptional attempt for a work.

I watched this film with tears in my eyes for much of it, because it made me privy to something private. An autobiography isn’t private, it’s published. I don’t like considering the impetus behind a film’s creation–it’s money, almost always, unless the film’s really cheap (and then it’s usually the desire for future money)–but this film mustn’t have easy to make in that regard and–I’m losing my train of thought. My film review vocabulary isn’t geared for admiring people’s intentions. Anyway.

Superficially glibly… James Cromwell. Cromwell’s been a ham for a good ten years or so. The Queen really rescues him from it. The role lends itself to ham and he doesn’t do it. Alex Jennings is also excellent as Charles. Some of The Queen‘s easy effectiveness comes from the majority of the characters being privately conflicted, unable to release it. Sheen acts as a bit of a release valve, getting to vocalize frustration, which the other main characters cannot do.

As for Mirren–being disinterested in the history of the Windsors, my fiancée proved invaluable in explaining certain details to me (the film would work just fine without the knowledge, of course)–but I did find it odd, back when I heard about the film, the quintessential British female actor (from the American perspective anyway) playing the quintessential British female. I assumed it would be an easy fit, but Mirren–a little differently from Sheen’s Blair, since Blair isn’t a world figure in the same way–creates the Queen. Through her interactions with her staff, from assistant to groundskeeper, Mirren gradually establishes more than a visible humanity, but really makes the audience understand more her feelings than the response to her actions.

In terms of handling–storytelling handling–if The Queen were an absolutely fictional piece, it’d be good but not revolutionary. It’s a somewhat standard structure, two main threads, one secondary one, but, again, the subject matter and the handling of it–I love the scenes Frears cuts a little short, in the middle of dialogue, when the Queen ceases listening and then so too must the audience–makes the film a particular achievement. Oddly, the only other thing I can think of to even compare this film to is… Bubba Ho-Tep, but whereas that film brought deep feeling to the fictionalized life of a real person, The Queen brings it to the real life of a real person. It’s really something.

4/4★★★★

CREDITS

Directed by Stephen Frears; written by Peter Morgan; director of photography, Affonso Beato; edited by Lucia Zucchetti; music by Alexandre Desplat; production designer, Alan Macdonald; produced by Christine Langan, Tracey Seaward and Andy Harries; released by Miramax Films.

Starring Helen Mirren (The Queen), Michael Sheen (Tony Blair), James Cromwell (Prince Philip), Sylvia Syms (the Queen Mother), Alex Jennings (Prince Charles), Helen McCrory (Cherie Blair), Roger Allam (Sir Robin Janvrin) and Tim McMullan (Stephen Lamport).

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