and some 2013 movies I am glad I did see.
In Richard Curtis’s new film, About Time,
Tim is told on his 21st birthday that he has the inherited ability
to travel back in time to any point he can remember from his own life. He soon learns how to use
this to correct ‘mistakes’ he has made. At the end of this summer I wish I could go back in
time to the moments when I decided to go see Oblivion, Olympus has
Fallen, and Now You See Me
and decide otherwise.
Oblivion starts
well. It is good to
see Andrea Riseborough - who was so impressive in the Channel 4 English Civil
War drama The Devil’s Whore, Brighton Rock, W.E.
and last year’s Shadow Dancer – co-starring along-side Tom Cruise and Morgan Freeman. The photography and design are
first rate, but after the initial set-up this film simply descends into a
compendium of well known SF plots.
It amounts to a lot of CGI and set design signifying nothing very much. Directed by Joseph Kosinski
(Tron Legacy) it was written by Karl Gajdusek (November
Man) and Michael Arndt
who did fine work writing Little Miss Sunshine and Toy
Story 3.
But this makes me wonder, again, why Hollywood
doesn’t simply adapt more of the great SF novels directly for the screen rather
than asking non SF writers to dream up and write original SF scripts. Of course there have been a few
great adaptations – some of them from a single Philip K Dick idea, and one, Blade
Runner, that took
outrageous and successful liberties with his novel Do Androids Dream of
Electric Sheep. But these are exceptions,
and it took a huge amount of work to develop the
script – not to mention at least three later edits to finally bring Ridley
Scott’s vision to the screen over the objections of Hollywood money-men.
Sadly this is the first of two summer films that
Morgan Freeman should have declined. He is also in Olympus has Fallen,
a Gerard Butler vehicle trying and failing to be Die Hard 5
(or is it 6 by now?). Directed by Antoine Fuqua
(Training Day, Tears of the Sun and
Shooter) the plot is so ludicrous and full of gaping holes and utter
implausibilities that no matter how hard Gerard works, and he does work really
hard, it fails. And Morgan
Freeman adds to his pension fund but diminishes his reputation once again. This only matters because
surely he has the ability to a truly great screen actor instead of becoming a
‘film star’ – someone who is recruited simply to be the same familiar
character, reassuring an audience that likes to know what to expect.
And so we come to Now You See Me. This has a potentially great
cast, and reunites one of my favourite actors, Mark Ruffalo, with Louis
Leterrier, the director of The Incredible Hulk, plus Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson,
and Isla Fisher, the Scottish actor who was charming in Burke & Hare,
and impressive as Myrtle in The Great Gatsby. I should,
however, have been warned by
Leterrier’s other films, The Clash of the Titans, Transporter 2
and Unleashed. You may like and even admire some of these but
they hardly suggest that their director has the subtlety, a light touch and
some character development – or at least characterization. Maybe he will do better, and let
his cast do better in Now You See Me 2, but I will
take some convincing.
And so we
return to About Time. This film is certainly ‘about time’, but not
about time travel, even though that is a central
narrative device. This
film is about how we use our days, just like Groundhog Day,
its most famous precursor.
Richard Curtis has scores of successful TV shows to his name, but
has previously only actually written and directed four films, Love
Actually, Pirate Radio, Notting Hill, and of course Four
Weddings and Funeral, He has also written
or adapted War Horse, two dozen
episodes of The Vicar of
Dibley, two Bridget Jones movies, many Blackadder and Mr. Bean episodes and much
of Spitting Image and Not the Nine o’clock News.
This CV suggests that Mr. Curtis has a well developed talent to
amuse, but maybe not too much depth.
About Time is charming and often amusing, in large part thanks to the
acting. Domhnall Gleeson, (seen in the last two Harry Potter
movies, Never Let Me Go, True
Grit and Anna Karenina) plays Tim and
Rachel MacAdams, who
stepped in late when Zooey Deschannel dropped out, plays his love interest. You may remember Rachel from the US adaptation
of State of Play
and the two recent Sherlock
Holmes films. She
also recently starred in Terrence Malick’s film To the Wonder.
The necessary chemistry between the two leads is obviously there
and they bounce off each other convincingly. It has been said that Domhnall could be
channeling Hugh Grant here, but he
has already shown he has considerable range and extends it here with impeccable
comic timing and substantial
charm. Bill
Nighty does his familiar and popular shtick as Tim’s father, and Lindsey
Duncan plays mother as competently as ever.
I thoroughly enjoyed watching this, though it is nowhere as
interesting as Groundhog Day, or as engaging as Four
Weddings. One of
the films great strengths is the soundtrack, including music from Ben Folds, Sugababes,
The Killers, Dolly Parton (sung by Andrea Grant), Groove Armada, Craig David, The Cure, Ashanti, there
are also two live performances by Barbar Gough. Mike Scott’s How Long Will I Love You is
performed live as a nice linking sequence by Jon Boden, Ben Coleman, Nick
Laird-Clowes and Sam Sweeney.
The crucial soundtrack song is Into My Arms
by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, which could almost have been the inspiration of
the whole film.
In it Nick Cave sings
I don’t believe in an interventionist God,……
but if I did I would kneel down and ask Him
Not to intervene when it came to you
Not to touch a hair on your head
To leave you as you are
And if He felt he had to direct you
Then direct you into my arm,
Into my arms, O Lord, into my arms…..
And I believe in Love
And I know that you do to,
And I believe in some kind of path
That we can walk down, me and you
So keep your candles burning
And make her journey bright and pure
That she will keep returning
Always and evermore
Into my arms, O Lord
Into my arms.
This is not a film about time travel, it is a film about love, and
living in love, gratefully accepting every day as a gift, and living it just as it comes. That may not be very
profound, but it is important.
Writing about this film already makes me fonder of it.
And then….
This summer the British National Theatre produced Kenneth
Branagh’s Macbeth as part of the Manchester
International Festival, and broadcast it live to selected cinemas. I couldn’t get
a ticket for the live show, but was lucky enough to see it later as part of their
encore programme.
I say lucky because this was without doubt the finest production
of ‘The Scottish Play’ I have ever seen. Branagh directed and plays Macbeth
with Alex Kingston as his wife.
The play was performed in a church (the publicity always said ‘a
deconsecrated church’ though I would have been delighted to have hosted in any
consecrated church I have ministered in) and played up and down the transverse
central passage. This long
narrow stage was deep in mud and, after the initial battle, (fake) blood. Branagh does not simply tell us
of this battle, he shows it, and the speed, danger and intimacy of it set up
the whole production.
Branagh’s Macbeth has obviously dreamt
of wearing the crown, but once gained it gives him no comfort. Uneasy lies this
head. He knows the
price of what he has done, and
fears for his life - even though the witches tell him he is (seemingly)
invulnerable – and soul. Like any good Shakesperean actor Branagh
trusts the text, and like every great actor he delivers it is as if he is discovering the lines as he
says them. Now every
familiar speech is a new journey of discovery, as he slowly realizes what he
has become, what he is becoming.
This is the tragedy, this is the terror. He stammers and falters. The delivery throughout is naturalistic, playing down the
poetry, playing up the visceral truth.
His scheming wife is
also undone by the deed.
Alex Kingston's Lady Macbeth is sexy and frightening and finally
pitiable. Ray Fearon's
Macduff, John Shrapnel's
Duncan and Jimmy Yuill's Banquo
are properly solid. You
would want to have them by your side in any battle.
If you get a chance to
see this do not let it pass you by.
There may be some great films of Macbeth, and I very much want
to see Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard’s upcoming version, but this is
as close to live theatre, and live theatre of the highest standard, as we will
witness in a cinema.
The NT website will tell you when and where you might
see this, along with many other
productions broadcast as part of their 50th anniversary. I would love to see their Frankenstein, directed by Danny Boyle,
with Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee
Millar, plus Othello,
Warhorse, Hamlet and The Habit of Art, but living
here on the Irish West Coast……
