Culture Representation: Taking place mostly on a remote island,the animated film “The Wild Robot” has a group of characters that are talking animals and talking robots.
Culture Clash: After crash-landing on Earth, an alien robot becomes a mother figure to a young goose, who learns lessons about loyalty and life along the way.
Culture Audience: “The Wild Robot” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the book on which the movie is based, the movie’s headliners and family-friendly animated films that skillfully blend comedy and drama.
Fink (voiced by Pedro Pascal), Roz (voiced by Lupita Nyong’o) and Pinktail (voiced by Catherine O’Hara) in “The Wild Robot” (Image courtesy of DreamWorks Animation)
“The Wild Robot” is a heartwarming and visually dazzling animated adaptation of Peter Brown’s 2016 novel of the same. Lupita Nyong’o does an excellent job of making a robot character have believable humanity. The rest of the movie’s voice cast is also stellar.
Written and directed by Chris Sanders, “The Wild Robot” had its world premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. The movie keeps the plot uncomplicated and treads on a well-worn animated path of being a coming-of-age story where two very different characters are thrown together under unexpected circumstances and learn about life from each other. Most movies about robots usually have humans as main characters, but “The Wild Robot” stands out because there are no humans in the movie—only talking animals and talking robots.
“The Wild Robot” begins by showing a robot named Rozzum Unit 7134, later nicknamed Roz (voiced by Nyong’o), who crash-lands from outer space and becomes stranded on an island that has no humans. In the beginning of the movie, Roz is very rigid and focused only on following the orders that she was programmed to fulfill. She has been taught that once her duties have been completed for her owner, she has to shut down and be programmed for the next owner. It’s later revealed that Roz comes from a company called Universal Dynamics.
Roz’s appearance on the island causes the animals to fear Roz and think she’s a monster. When she is chased by a bear, she falls down and accidentally causes the death of family of geese, except for the only survivor: an unhatched egg. Roz believes she was programmed to protect this egg. A sly fox named Fink (voiced by Pedro Pascal) steals the egg, so Roz chases Fink through a heavily wooded area. Roz captures the fox, plucks a whisker from his face, retrieves the egg, and lets Fink go. The egg soon hatches and reveals itself to be a runt male gosling.
Roz asks this newborn goose, “Was this task completed to your satisfaction?” She asks the goose to rate her skills on a scale of 1 to 10. The frightened gosling can only chirp out an answer. Roz says, “I’ll register that as a 10.”
Roz and the orphaned gosling soon meet a family of young opossums led by a snarky matriarch named Pinktail (voiced by Catherine O’Hara), a mother of seven who doesn’t want to adopt this orphaned bird. Pinktail insists that Roz can take care of the gosling. Roz soon learns that she should have three tasks to complete to raise this newborn to become an independent goose who will be ready to migrate in autumn with the other geese in the community: “Eat. Swim. Fly by fall.”
At first, Roz wants to give numbers as a name for this gosling. (One bland and boring suggestion is 001.) However, Fink comes slinking back out of curiosity and says that this young goose should be given words as names. Roz takes this advice and names the gosling Brightbill when she sees his bill light up in the glow of the atmosphere.
Brightbill (voiced by Kit Connor) grows up to be a young adult who is bullied and taunted by other geese, who think of Brightbill as a tiny wimp and Roz as a monster. The chances look slim that outcast Brightbill will be invited to migrate with the other geese. Fink still hangs around as a family acquaintance who eventually earns more trust.
An elderly goose named Longneck (voiced by Bill Nighy) becomes the first goose to treat Brightbill and Roz with kindness. Other talking animals that appear in the movie are a fearsome grizzly bear named Thorn (voiced by Mark Hamill), a confident falcon named Thunderbolt (voiced by Ving Rhames) and an eccentric beaver named Paddler (voiced by Matt Berry), who is also trying to find acceptance with this clique-ish animal community on the island.
“The Wild Robot” has a lot to say about parental responsibilities and how families can exist with beings who are not biologically related. The movie treats themes of co-dependence and independence in thoughtful and clever ways, as observations and commentaries on interpersonal relationships and authoritarian control. A robot villain character named Vontra (voiced by Stephanie Hsu) represents the dark side of authoritarianism.
It’s fitting that the main character getting the child raising in “The Wild Robot” is a bird because the movie has several moments when Roz has to grapple with the experience of being an “empty nester.” One of the more impactful lines of dialogue in the movie is when Roz says she thinks of kindness as a survival skill. People might get misty-eyed in some scenes that are clearly intended to be tearjerking moments about family and friendship.
“The Wild Robot” brims with dynamic energy, gorgeous visuals and memorable characters, even if the movie offers no surprises. The movie’s writing and directing (complemented by Kris Bowers’ adventurous musical score) do not pander mainly to kids under the age of 10 because there’s much that can be enjoyed by people of many different age groups. The ending of the film obviously hints at a sequel, which should please viewers who want to see this appealing story continue.
Universal Pictures will release “The Wild Robot” in U.S. cinemas on September 27, 2024. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on October 15, 2024. “The Wild Robot” will be releaed on 4K UHD and Blu-ray on December 3, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place during the Han Empire in ancient China, the animated film “Dragonkeeper” (based on Carole Wilkinson’s fantasy novel of the same name) features a cast of characters that are humans and dragons.
Culture Clash: An orphaned girl goes on a journey to save rare dragons from being killed into extinction.
Culture Audience: “Dragonkeeper” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the novel or don’t mind watching a substandard animated film with mostly terrible voice performances that sound almost robotic.
Ping (voiced by Mayalinee Griffiths) in “Dragonkeeper” (Image courtesy of Viva Pictures)
“Dragonkeeper” is a shoddy adaptation of Carole Wilkinson’s 2003 fantasy novel of the same name. This animated film makes the story unfocused and bland. Most of the voice cast performances are stiff, with no real personality. They’re just reading their lines.
Directed by Directed by Li Jianping and Salvador Simó, “Dragonkeeper” seems to suffer from the effects of “too many cooks in the kitchen” for its watered-down and sloppily constructed screenplay. Wilkinson co-wrote the screenplay with Pablo I. Castrillo, Ignacio Ferreras, Rosanna Cecchini and Wang Xianping. When there are five or more credited writers for a movie screenplay, the movie is usually terrible.
“Dragonkeeper” takes place during the Han Empire in ancient China, but you wouldn’t know it because the English-language version of this movie makes no attempt to give the characters Chinese accents. All of the voice actors in the film have British accents. “Dragonkeeper” also do much to show Chinese culture, except for a sequence where a dragon teaches a girl what qi, also known as ch’i (psychic energy), is all about and how to use it.
The movie begins by showing two people whose lives will collide in a “good versus evil” battle years later. The story’s heroine is Ping, who is shown being taken as an orphaned baby by a cruel land owner named Master Lan (voiced by Tony Jayawadena) to become an enslaved servant. The story’s chief villain is Diao (voiced by Anthony Howell), a dragon hunter who is determined to kill every last dragon on Earth, or at least every dragon he can find in China.
Master Lan and his entourage are traveling home with baby Ping, but the infant’s loud crying annoys him. The baby is also of no use to Master Lan until the child is old enough to work for him. When Master Lan arrives in his village, an elderly woman named Lao Ma (voiced by Sarah Lam), who lives alone, immediately takes an interest in Ping and decides to raise her as if Ping were her own child.
Meanwhile, Diao has an ailing mother, (voiced by Jaqueline Chan) who is on her deathbed. Diao had been frantically trying to find a cure for his mother’s terminal illness. He believe it’s possible that dragons could hold the secret to healthy immortality. Although Diao is a dragon hunter, he also wants to use and exploit dragons if they can actually have some way to make humans immortal. Diao’s mother dies before Diao can find this miracle cure to death and diseases.
The movie then fast-forwards to when Ping (voiced by Mayalinee Griffiths) is about 9 or 10 years old. Master Lan goes to the home where Lao Ma and Ping live and forces Ping to go with him as his enslaved servant. During her miserable time working for Master Lan, Ping discovers that Master Lan has two adult dragons imprisoned in a secret dungeon.
The two dragons are Long Danzi (voiced by Bill Nighy) and Lu Yu (voiced by Beth Chalmers), who are among the last remaining dragons of their kind. Ping secretly befriends Long Danzi and Lu Yu. Ping also has a companion rat named Hua, who does not speak in the movie.
Something happens to Lu Yu, and Long Danzi is soon supposed to be sold to the emperor (voiced by Paul McEwan), who wants to keep the dragon as a pet for his spoiled prince son (voiced by Felix Rosen). Before Long Danzi is taken to the emperor, the dragon shows Ping an egg made of pearl and says an unborn baby dragon named Kai is in the egg. Long Danzi asks Ping to take care of Kai and keep this unborn dragon safe until Kai can be born.
There’s a certain body of water that is the only place that can dissolve the egg. Guess where Ping’s intended destination will be when she goes on an inevitable journey? Long Danzi notices certain signs that Ping might be part of a lineage of special Dragon Keepers, so Long Danz breathes a laser-like beam onto her chest.
“Dragonkeeper” then zig zags in a jumbled way through the rest of the movie, which has action scenes that often look like cheap-looking and unfinished animation. Except for Nighy (who gives a serviceable but unremarkable performance), all of the voice actors have little to no charisma for their characters. The emotions that are supposed to express in certain scenes are very flat, while the dialogue is very forgettable and trite.
“Dragonkeeper” also has themes and scenes that might be too intense or scary for children under the age of 7. Does any kid that young really want to see a movie about child enslavement? The last scene of “Dragonkeeper” ends like an underwhelming thud, with no real closure about a certain main character in the story. If people want to see an entertaining animated movie about young girl who befriends and rescued an endangered dragon, skip “Dragonkeeper” and watch Disney’s Oscar-nominated “Raya and the Last Dragon” instead.
Viva Pictures released “Dragonkeeper” in select U.S. cinemas on May 3, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Rome, in 1971, the horror film “The First Omen” (a prequel to “The Omen” movie series) features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class and the middle-class.
Culture Clash: A young American nun arrives at a convent in Rome to take her final vows and finds out sinister things are happening at the convent.
Culture Audience: “The First Omen” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of “The Omen” movie series and horror movies that blend religious teachings with body horror.
Ralph Ineson in “The First Omen” (Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios)
Creepy, gruesome and suspenseful, “The First Omen” has as much to say about demonic possession as it does about institutional control of female bodies. Impressive acting and some unpredictability make this horror movie one of the better “Omen” films. The end of “The First Omen” makes it clear that there’s a lot of potential for more storylines for multiple characters who are introduced in “The First Omen.”
Directed by Arkasha Stevenson, “The First Omen” is her feature-film directorial debut. Stevenson, Tim Smith and Keith Thomas wrote “The First Omen” screenplay. “The Omen” franchise started with the 1976 movie “The Omen,” which spawned sequels, TV series and a 2006 movie remake. In 1976’s “The Omen” (directed by Richard Donner and written by Davd Seltzer), a U.S. ambassador to Italy named Robert Thorn (played by Gregory Peck) and his wife Katherine Thorn (played by Lee Remick) adopted a son named Damien (played by Harvey Spencer Stephens), and the parents are horrified to discover that Damien is a child of the devil. “The First Omen” shows how Damien was born and there is more to the story than what many viewers might assume.
“The First Omen” (which takes place in 1971) begins with a slow-burn harrowing scene of two Catholic priests having a confessional conversation at a church in an unnamed location, as one of the priests talks about a woman who “volunteered” to be impregnated. But what really happened is shown on screen: A masked woman is strapped to a table and looking like a very unwilling volunteer. An elderly British priest named Father Harris (played by Charles Dance) is telling this story to a middle-aged Irish priest named Father Brennan (played by Ralph Ineson), who listens as Father Harris says about the impregnated woman: “She wasn’t conceived naturally.”
Father Harris, who claims to be one of the people involved in getting this mystery woman pregnant, adds this information about how the woman was impregnated: “What I can tell you is that the pregnancy happened quickly.” Father Brennan thinks that Father Harris has told him this story to ask for forgiveness. Father Harris says with an eerie smirk: “You think I want to be forgiven? It’ll be all over. You’ll understand soon enough.”
Father Harris then steps outside and something bizarre happens: Shards of stained glass come plummeting down on his head. Father Harris seems to be uninjured, until the back of his head shows a large, gaping wound that he cannot survive. Before he dies, Father Harris gives a disturbing smile that shows his teeth are bloody.
This scene sets the tone for the rest of “The First Omen,” which has some uniquely effective horror images and scenarios, along with some horror clichés. Although “The First Omen” takes place in 1971, many of the movie’s themes are timeless. It’s not a preachy movie, but there are some very obvious messages about discontent with government, as well as how much religion can or should have control in people’s lives.
Because it’s not a secret that “The First Omen” is about how the anti-Christ known as Damien was born, much of the mystery in the movie is about who will give birth to Damien. Observant viewers will figure out the answer to the mystery when the birthdate of a certain character is shown. The movie is not as simple and straightforward as it first appears to be.
After the scene showing Father Harris’ death, “The First Omen” then takes place in Rome (where the movie was filmed) and shows the arrival of a young American nun in her early 20s named Margaret (played by Nell Tiger Free), nicknamed Maggie. She is warmly greeted by a British clergyman named Cardinal Lawrence (played by Bill Nighy), who meets her at the train station. Margaret has arrived to live at a convent, where she will be taking her final vows.
Cardinal Lawrence, who invited Margaret to Rome, is the one who will officiate the vow ceremony. As she and Cardinal Lawrence drive through the streets of Rome, they see crowds of activists (mostly young adults) holding protest marches in the streets and sometimes blocking traffic. Cardinal Lawrence explains to Margaret that the activists are protesting unfair wages. He laments to Margaret that the younger generation is turning against religious institutions and “no longer looks to us for guidance. Perhaps you’ll win back their trust.”
It’s later revealed through conversations that Margaret grew up as an orphan in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Margaret has lived a very sheltered existence and is a virgin who has no experience with dating. The thought of doing something such as going to a nightclub terrifies her, because she thinks it’s sinful activity. Margaret is devoutly religious and does a lot of fervent praying every time she thinks she commits a sin, no matter how minor the sin might be.
Margaret will soon have her boundaries tested when she meets her free-spirited Italian roommate named Luz Valez (played by Maria Caballero), a novitiate who is also in her 20s and is about to take her final vows. The first time that Margaret and Luz meet, Luz has just arrived in their room after a night of partying. Luz is dressed in a black leather miniskirt and is wearing fishnet stockings.
Luz tells a shocked Margaret that there’s nothing wrong with having fun and showing off their bodies before they take their final vows, since the nun outfits they have to wear will cover up ther bodies. Luz convinces a reluctant Margaret to dress in a sexy outfit, put on makeup, and go with Luz to a nightclub. At the club, Margaret and Luz immediately attract the attention of two young men named Paolo (played by Andrea Arcangeli) and Alfonzo (played by Guido Quaglione), who offer to buy Margaret and Luz some drinks.
Eventually they pair off: Luz and Alfonzo end up dancing together, while Margaret and Paolo start off with an awkward conversation but loosen up with each other when they both find out that they are fans of Barbra Streisand. Margaret eventually begins drinking some alcohol too and begins dancing seductively with Paolo. Based on the way Margaret acts, this is the first time she has had these type of experiences.
The convent operates Vizzardeli Orphanage, which is the home of 62 girls, mostly in the age range of 6 to 11 years old. Margaret is one of the nuns who teach the orphans. Margaret strikes up a friendly acquaintance with a young priest named Father Gabriel (played by Tawfeek Barhom), who often visits the convent and who seems to know more than he is telling. Someone who isn’t very friendly to Margaret is Sister Anjelica (played by Ishtar-Currie Wilson), who has a very cold attitude to Margaret and who appears to be mentally ill.
Margaret soon begins to notice strange things are happening at the convent, which is ruled by an abbess named Sister Silva (played by Sonia Braga), a stereotypically stern nun. Not only does Margaret have nightmares, she also sees some terrifying things happening in real life. A few of those things have to do with what Margaret witnesses in the maternity ward’s delivery room.
One of the orphans is slightly older than the rest. Her name is Carlita Skianna (played by Nicole Sorace), who is about 14 or 15 years old. Carlita is quiet and appears to be a troubled child. Margaret slowly beings to get Carlita to communicate with her, but Margaret sees that Carlita is being secretly punished on orders of Sister Silva. Carlita frequently draws illustrations with some unsettling images. Based on one of the illustrations, Margaret begins to suspect that Carlita might be pregnant.
The release of “The First Omen” happened just two weeks after the release of “Immaculate,” another horror movie about a young American virgin nun arriving at a Catholic convent in Italy to take her final vows and then finding out about a very unholy pregnancy. Both movies also have issues about women losing control of their bodies when powerful forces want to dictate what can be done with their bodies. However, “The First Omen” is a genuinely scarier horror film than the somewhat campy “Immaculate.”
“The First Omen” starts of a bit slow and repetitive, but the second half of the movie is much better than the first half. “The First Omen” benefits greatly from Free’s riveting and believable performance as Margaret, who transforms from vulnerable and naïve to someone whose innocence is lost as she has to learn to defend herself against forces of evil. There’s an intense scene toward the end of the movie that is absolutely stunning in the physical and emotional acting involved to make the scene as effective as it is.
“The First Omen” (which has gorgeously Gothic-inspired cinematography by Aaron Morton) also explains why Damian was conceived in the first place. This explanation might be controversial with some religious conservatives. What makes “The First Omen” intriguing is how this movie opens up the possibility of spinoffs or sequels for characters whose stories need to be told. “The First Omen” succeeds not only as a prequel but as a gateway for another potentially fascinating world in “The Omen” franchise.
20th Century Studios will release “The First Omen” in U.S. cinemas on April 5, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in 1959 in England, the dramatic film “Living” (a remake of the 1953 Japanese film “Ikiru”) features an all-white characters representing the middle-class and working-class.
Culture Clash: A terminally ill man has an epiphany and re-evaluates what he wants to do with his life.
Culture Audience: “Living” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of “Irkiru” and people who are interested in watching thoughtful movies about changing one’s own life while preparing for death.
Pictured clockwise, from left to right: Alex Sharp, Hubert Burton, Adrian Rawlins and Oliver Chris in “Living” (Photo by Ross Ferguson/Number 9 Films/Sony Pictures Classics)
If you had only weeks to live, what would you do? The dramatic film “Living” poses that question, and has a protagonist who answers it. Bill Nighy gives a nuanced performance in this noteworthy British remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 classic “Ikiru.” The deliberate pacing and contemplative nature of “Living” can be recommended to people who want to see a movie about someone facing mortality. “Living” had its world premiere at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival and
Directed by Oliver Hermanus and written by Kazuo Ishiguro, “Living” (which takes place in 1959 in an unnamed part of England) begins with the introduction to the four businessman co-workers before they go on a train together to their monotonous office job for a company whose core business is never fully explained. Much of the movie contrasts the rigid, “button-down” environment of this office job and the personal evolution of the movie’s protagonist who tries to break out of the self-imposed rut that he’s been living in for many years.
The movie’s central character is a widower named Mr. Williams (played by Nighy), whose first name is never mentioned. It’s the movie’s way of still giving an air of formality to this character. Through conversations that the four commuter businessmen have in the movie, it’s made clear that Mr. Williams is a high-ranking executive at the company, and he is close to retiring. Mr. Williams is respected but also feared.
The four businessmen who work at the company are newcomer Peter Wakeling (played by Alex Sharp), who is in his 20s and eager to impress his co-workers; Mr. Hart (played by Oliver Chris), who is fairly quiet; Mr. Rusbridger (played by Hubert Burton), who is helpful to Peter; and Mr. Middleton (played by Adrian Rawlins), who is the apparent successor to Mr. Williams after Mr. Williams retires. Peter, Mr. Hart and Mr. Rusbridger are all in the late 20s to early 30s. Mr. Middleton is in his 60s.
The movie’s opening scene shows Peter on a train platform his first day on the job, as Mr. Middleton introduces Peter to Mr. Hart and Mr. Rusbridger. Peter tells an innocuous joke to make small talk. No one in the group laughs at the joke. Mr. Rusbridger advises Peter: “This time of the morning, it’s kind of a rule: Not too much fun and laughter, kind of like church.”
This serious attitude is even more evident in the office environment, where people speak in hushed tones and seem very conscious of following bureaucratic rules. Although the desks in the office are placed closed together, these co-workers seem emotionally distant from each other. The impression they give is that they have to be completely focused on work, and there’s no room and no tolerance for anyone to bring too much of their personal lives (or personalities) to the workplace.
Even if it’s never said out loud, it becomes obvious from Mr. Williams’ leadership style that he was responsible for creating this stuffy culture at this particular office. One day, during a dull meeting in a conference room, Mr. Williams tells his staff that he has to leave early for the day (at about 3:20 p.m.), and he says that Mr. Middleton can be in charge during Mr. Williams’ absence. As soon as the employees hear that Mr. Williams will be leaving early, the relief is noticeable on their faces, as if they know that when he’s gone, they can relax a little in the office.
The appointment that Mr. Williams has to go to is a visit with his physician Dr, Matthews (played by Jonathan Keeble). The doctor does not have good news to tell Mr. Williams. Tests results have come back that are “pretty conclusive,” says the doctor. Although the full details aren’t revealed until later, Mr. Williams has been diagnosed with a terminal illness. He has also been told that he only has six to eight months to live. This isn’t spoiler information, since this part of the story is part of the marketing for “Living.”
Mr. Williams keeps this information a secret from almost everyone he knows, including his adult son Michael (played by Barney Fishwick), Michael’s wife Fiona (played by Patsy Ferran) and Mr. Williams’ business colleagues. Michael and Fiona do not have a warm relationship with Mr. Williams. When these two spouses visit him, they (especially Fiona) seem to be more concerned about what kind of inheritance money they can get from Mr. Williams than his general well-being.
The implication is that for much of his life, Mr. Williams has been a cold and judgmental person who is set in his ways. And now that he is faced with the harsh reality of his imminent and painful death, he is seeing the consequences of not developing enough meaningful emotional connections. Michael, his closest living relative, barely tolerates him, which indicates that years of resentment (mostly unspoken) have built up between father and son.
Mr. Williams finds an unexpected bright spot soon after finding out the dark and devastating news about his terminal illness: A perky and talkative woman in her 20s named Margaret Harris (played by Aimee Lou Wood) is someone who used to work as a secretary in the same office as Mr. Williams. Shortly after the movie begins, it’s shown that Margaret has already given notice that she’s quitting to take a job as an assistant manager at a local restaurant called Four Corners.
One day, Mr. Williams invites Margaret to lunch, and they have a polite conversation where he tells her that he can write a letter of recommendation for her in whatever job she wants to have. Over time, after Margaret starts working at Four Corners, he makes a point of going there by himself so that he can talk to her because he’s lonely. They go on a few platonic dates, but Margaret isn’t really sure if Mr. Williams wants more than a friendship when he quickly becomes emotionally attached to her.
Meanwhile, Mr. Williams meets a bon vivant type named Sutherland (played by Tom Burke), who encourages Mr. Williams to loosen up and try things that Mr. Williams has never done before. If “Living” were a formulaic Hollywood movie, this would be the part of the story where Mr. Williams turns into a party animal or goes on wacky adventures, as part of checking off things to do on his “bucket list.” However, the quiet beauty of “Living” is that it doesn’t have those types of cheap gimmicks.
Instead, “Living” is more about the gradual discovery that Mr. Williams has about himself and understanding that even with a limited amount of time he has left to live, it’s never to too late to change. Throughout the movie, there are several flashback clips of Mr. Williams in his childhood. These flashbacks are artfully shown in a “vintage film footage” format. Mr. Williams’ childhood memories inspire the transformation that he has in this story.
“Living” is a movie that will frustrate or bore some viewers who want to see a flashier film with a lot of melodrama. Audiences should know before seeing this film that it’s an introspective character study rather than a story with major plot twists or surprises. Nighy’s performance is understated yet powerful in the way he portrays someone who chooses to suffer in silence but who makes a big statement toward the end of his life. Mostly, the movie does an admirable job of conveying the message behind the title: How someone lives is much more important than how someone dies.
Sony Pictures Classics released “Living” in select U.S. cinemas on December 23, 2022.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Western Australia’s Outback and briefly in New York City, the dramatic film “Buckley’s Chance” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few Aborigine people) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A 12-year-old American boy, who grew up in New York City, reluctantly moves with his widowed mother to a remote Australian ranch so that they can live with his paternal grandfather, and the boy encounters unexpected dangers shortly after moving to Australia.
Culture Audience: “Buckley’s Chance” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching family melodramas that have uneven acting and many ridiculous scenarios.
Bill Nighy in “Buckley’s Chance” (Photo courtesy of Vertical Entertainment)
“Buckley’s Chance” starts off as an earnest but bland family drama before it takes a steep nosedive into being an idiotic chase movie with very little suspense on how it’s all going to end. Not even the talent of the great British actor Bill Nighy can save this corny mess of a film. If the crime drama part of the movie had been written better, “Buckley’s Chance” might have been a film worth watching. But it all just becomes sloppily executed nonsense, including expecting people to believe that a dingo (a wild canine) can suddenly act like a friendly domesticated dog that knows how to do tricks, like shake hands with people.
Directed by Tim Brown, who co-wrote the “Buckley’s Chance” screenplay with Willem Wennekers, “Buckley’s Chance” is the story of what happens when a troubled 12-year-old American boy named Ridley Anderson (played by Milan Burch) moves with his widowed mother from New York City to a remote Outback ranch in Western Australia. Ridley finds out more about his Australian father’s side of the family, and he ends up getting kidnapped over a property deal. Ridley’s kidnapping doesn’t happen until the last third of the movie. Until then, expect to see a lot of scenes of Ridley pouting and sulking because he never wanted to move to Australia in the first place.
Ridley’s mother Gloria Anderson (played by Victoria Hill) is kind and patient, but she’s at her wit’s end on what to do about Ridley. They moved to Australia because Ridley has a history of having anger problems, which have gotten worse ever since Ridley’s father died about a year ago. Ridley’s emotional problems have been so bad that he’s been expelled from several schools. And because Ridley was very close to his father, Ridley grief has made him more likely to lash out in anger. He’s not dangerously violent, but he has very rude tantrums.
Gloria has made the drastic decision to start over in Australia, a country where she’s never lived and where she doesn’t know anyone. Ridley and Gloria will be living at Buckley’s Chance, the name of the sheep ranch that’s owned by widower Spencer Anderson (played by Nighy), the estranged father of Gloria’s late husband Bryce Anderson. The ranch is in an unnamed town in Western Australia, but the movie was actually filmed in Dangar Falls and Broken Hill in Australia. Bryce (played by Josef Brown, in a few flashbacks), who was Spencer’s only child, was a firefighter who died while saving people in a fire.
Bryce and Spencer hadn’t seen or spoken to each other for at least 20 years before Bryce died. Spencer did not attend Bryce’s funeral. Gloria knows very little about what went wrong in the relationship between Bryce and Spencer, because it was a sore subject that Bryce didn’t want to discuss with anyone. All she knows is that Bryce abruptly moved to the United States not long after he graduated from high school, because of a falling out that Bryce had with Spencer.
It’s under these tense circumstances that Gloria is hoping that moving in with Spencer will help heal this family rift. She also wants Ridley to be in an environment where he can have more discipline and be less likely to get into trouble. Of course, Ridley immediately hates living in a place that’s vastly different from New York City, and he’s resentful of having to abide by Spencer’s strict rules. Spencer is determined to turn this city boy into a skilled rancher.
The only thing that Ridley is interested in doing is filming videos with his video camera. It seems like he’s an aspiring director but he doesn’t really know it yet. Spencer has no patience for Ridley’s compulsion to constantly make video recordings of everything. When they go camping together, Spencer gets irritated when Ridley wants to film Spencer doing mundane things such as taking a nap or starting a fire.
Needless to say, Ridley and Spencer clash with each other almost from the beginning. When Spencer gives Ridley the nickname Riddles, Ridley snaps at his grandfather that his name is Ridley, and he better not be called Riddles. When Spencer tries to teach Ridley how to use a rifle by telling him to shoot a dingo that’s on the property, Ridley fumbles and misses his target, and Spencer gripes, “That was a waste of a bullet.”
Gloria doesn’t always see eye-to-eye with Spencer either. She’s very wary of letting Ridley learn how to use a gun. But when Spencer explains that people who live in this rural area need to know how to use a gun for protection against wild animals, Gloria reluctantly lets Spencer teach Ridley, on the condition that Ridley can only use a gun when an adult is nearby.
Ridley has a problem with the idea of shooting dingos, while Spencer insists that dingos need to be kept away and killed if necessary because dingos could be harmful to people and the ranch’s sheep. There’s a small pack of dingos (about five or six) that hang out in an open field near the ranch. One of the dingos is a tan male that escaped being shot by Spencer.
Ridley and the dingo make eye contact in a way that you just know this dingo is going to become like a pet to Ridley. It’s one of the more ridiculous aspects of this movie because the cutesy and contrived way that this dingo behaves is not like a how a feral dingo would behave in real life. Ridley sees the dingo again, when he rescues the canine from being caught in a barbed wire fence while Ridley and Spencer have gone camping.
Spencer has a friendly ranch hand named Jules Churchill (played by Kelton Pell), who is the only Australian adult who doesn’t seem to immediately get on Ridley’s nerves. Jules is a former high school classmate of Bryce, who was a star player on the school’s rugby team. Gloria and Ridley get a little bit more insight about what Bryce was like in his teen years from Jules, since Spencer is very resistant to talking about Bryce.
Spencer tells Ridley that the ranch’s name Buckley’s Chance is inspired by the Australian folk tale of an escaped prisoner named William Buckley, who hid in the wilderness. Years after most people thought Buckley was dead, he suddenly came out of the wilderness—and he was healthy and in great shape. His against-all-odds survival spawned the catch phrase of something having a “Buckley’s chance” if it can beat the odds and exceed expectations. It’s predictably used as a heavy-handed metaphor for what Ridley experiences in this story.
One night, Ridley overhears Spencer talking to Jules in a private conversation. Spencer tells Jules, “I’m trying to run a sheep station, not take care of a grieving widow and her son.” Jules asks why Spencer didn’t decline Gloria’s request to live at the ranch. Spencer explains that he didn’t want it on his conscience to turn his back on his family.
After hearing this conversation, Ridley feels even more alienated from Spencer and even more miserable living in Australia. Ridley verbally lashes out and throws tantrums in public and in private. Slowly but surely, more information eventually comes out about what really happened to cause Bryce to move far away from Australia and stop talking to Spencer. But there’s a lot more family angst, with Ridley at the center, to get through before these family secrets are revealed.
“Buckley’s Chance” unrealistically shows only a few people (including Spencer and Jules) working on the ranch. It’s a low-budget movie, but it wouldn’t have been that hard to hire some extras for a scene or two to show more people working at this ranch. It’s a ranch that’s supposedly so huge that a big company named Plunkett wants to buy the northeastern part of the ranch’s land, but Spencer has refused the lucrative offer.
It’s not stated what type of company Plunkett is, but it’s common knowledge that if Plunkett owned the land that it wants to buy from Spencer, the company would be able to employ numerous people in the area. Many of the townspeople aren’t happy that Spencer is being stubborn about refusing to sell this part of his land. They think Spencer’s unwillingness to sell the land is depriving the area of an economic boost that the area needs.
One of the pro-Plunkett townspeople is named Cooper (played by Martin Sacks), who angrily confronts Spencer about this stymied business deal when Spencer, Ridley and Gloria are having lunch at a diner one day. It’s the first time that Ridley and Gloria find out that the land is a big source of contention and that Spencer is very unpopular with the locals because he refuses to sell the land. Cooper has two lowlife cronies named Oscar Wallace (played by Anthony Gooley) and Mick Wallace (played by Ben Wood)—two dimwitted brothers who later threaten Spencer, who remains unmoved.
Without Cooper’s knowledge, Oscar and Mick end up kidnapping Ridley in a foolish attempt to get Spencer to change his mind about selling the land. Oscar is the bossy brother who comes up with the haphazard schemes and gives orders to Mick. Oscar and Mick plan to hold Ridley hostage until Spencer sells the land to Plunkett.
It’s a crazy idea, of course, and these bungling criminals find out that Ridley is smarter than they thought he was. Ridley escapes and encounters all kinds of obstacles in trying to find his way back to the ranch or to find help, when he has no food, water or survival gear. Blundering brothers Mick and Oscar are in hot pursuit.
And suddenly, Ridley has unrealistic strength, as if he’s some kind of superhero. There he is hanging off of a deadly cliff like he’s Spider-Man. There he is surviving a deadly waterfall like he’s Aquaman. And, of course, the dingo shows up to help Ridley, who names the dog Buckley. None of this is spoiler information, because it’s all in the “Buckley’s Chance” trailer.
And even though a 12-year-old boy has gone missing in the Australian Outback, the search-and-rescue team is woefully small, consisting of only a few police officers. An unnamed patrol officer (played by Julia Billington) is the only cop who’s consistently shown doing any real investigating. However, the one thing that’s somewhat realistic about the investigation is that the adults mistakenly think at first that Ridley has run away, not been kidnapped. Considering Ridley’s troubled history, and because the kidnappers didn’t leave a ransom note, it would be easy to make that assumption.
The hokey tone of “Buckley’s Chance” is even more annoying because of the cornball musical score that sounds like it’s from a sappy TV-movie of the week that has absolutely no interest in doing anything original. It all just a blatant sign that “Buckley’s Chance” will follow the same overused formula of other movies about a boy lost in the wilderness. And although the human/dingo bonding in “Buckley’s Chance” can be considered endearing, it’s more than a little irresponsible to make it look like a dingo can suddenly act like a domesticated dog that’s got some training.
The acting in “Buckley’s Chance” is either mediocre or terrible. Nighy is a better actor in other movies, and he struggles with doing any accent that isn’t British. His natural British accent comes through many times, even though he’s supposed to be portraying a lifelong Australian. “Buckley’s Chance” is told from the perspective of Ridley. And unfortunately, this role needed a more talented actor than Burch, who is too stiff in some scenes and who over-emotes in other scenes.
“Buckley’s Chance” does have some good scenic cinematography of Australia, but you can find similar footage from many professional video travelogues of Australia. At least in a travelogue, you wouldn’t have to sit through a lot of terribly unrealistic action scenes and the cheesy melodrama that stinks up “Buckley’s Chance.” In an effort to make this movie seem more exciting, the filmmakers overstuffed the last third of the movie with idiotic action scenes that ruined any shot of credibility that this movie would have had.
Vertical Entertainment released “Buckley’s Chance” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on August 13, 2021.
Culture Representation: Taking place in unnamed cities in England, the comedy drama “Sometimes Always Never” has almost all white cast (with one biracial/black character) representing the middle-class.
Culture Clash: A tailor and his adult son have emotional tensions with each other, stemming from the childhood disappearance of the tailor’s other son.
Culture Audience: “Sometimes Always Never” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of Bill Nighy and dry British humor.
Jenny McGutter and Tim McInnerny in “Sometimes Always Never” (Photo courtesy of Blue Fox Entertainment)
Bill Nighy tends to play a lot of characters with a droll sense of humor, so the dark comedy/drama “Sometimes Always Never” is right up his alley. This quirky film, which takes place in suburban England, won’t appeal to everyone, but viewers who enjoy “Sometimes Always Never” will probably like the film more for the actors’ performances than for the movie’s somewhat thin plot.
Directed by Carl Hunter and written by Frank Cottrell Boyce, “Sometimes Always Never” focuses mainly on the tension-filled relationship between a widowed tailor named Alan Mellor (played by Nighy) and his son Peter (played by Sam Riley), who can’t go a day together without bickering with each other. The reason they don’t seem to particularly get along is because years ago, when Peter was a boy, his brother Michael disappeared after storming out of their home during an argument while Michael was playing Scrabble with Peter and Alan. Michael has remained missing all these years later.
The mystery of Michael’s disappearance has affected both men in different ways, even though they both have similar unspoken resentment and guilt over the disappearance. Alan thinks Michael might still be alive, while Peter is convinced that Michael is probably dead.
Alan has become obsessed with Scrabble and finds any way he can to conjure up theories that he can somehow find Michael again by playing Scrabble. He plays Scrabble online and tells Peter about on online rapport he’s developed with a Scrabble gamer who goes by the name Skinny Thesaurus. Peter says he hates Scrabble and expresses his distaste over Alan’s far-fetched theories and continued obsession with this word game.
Alan is so stuck in the past over Michael’s disappearance that he still hands out a missing-person photo of Michael to strangers, even though the photo is of Michael as a child. It’s one of the first things that viewers see Alan doing in the movie’s opening scene, which takes place at an almost deserted beach.
Peter meets Alan at the beach to pick him up in his car, so they can go on a solemn journey together. The reason for this out-of-town trip? A body has been found that could be Michael. Alan and Peter have to travel to the morgue to identify the body.
During the trip, the father and son trade verbal barbs at each other, including their ongoing debates about synonyms and what words can legitimately be used in a Scrabble game. Peter is impatient about this trip and tells Alan that he’s got to go back as soon as possible to his wife, Sue (played by Alice Lowe), who’s a chemical scientist. Alan says to Peter, “I’m sure I’m going deaf. I don’t hear half of what you say.”
When Alan and Peter check into their hotel, the bickering continues. In the hotel lounge, they meet a married couple named Arthur (played by Tim McInnerny) and Margaret (played by Jenny Agutter) and make some small talk. The conversation inevitably turns to Scrabble, and it isn’t long before Alan, Margaret and Arthur start playing Scrabble together in the lounge, while Peter has left to go to his hotel room.
While Arthur takes a restroom break, Margaret confides in Alan that her husband used to be a singer who would record albums of cover songs for record companies looking to cash in on hits that were popular at the time. One of the cover songs he recorded is Bonnie Tyler’s “It’s a Heartache,” which is heard later in the story. Margaret also tells Alan that the reason why she and Arthur are in town is because they have to identify the body of their son who went missing when he was a child.
During the Scrabble game, Alan doesn’t tell Margaret and Arthur that he’s in town for the same reason. Arthur and Margaret find out the next day when they see Alan and Peter at the morgue at the same time. (It’s revealed in the movie if the child at the morgue is from either family.)
Peter gets very upset when he finds out that Alan was a fierce competitor with Arthur during the Scrabble game, and Alan ended up winning £200 from Arthur. Peter offers to pay back the money to Arthur and Margaret, but they politely decline. Peter scolds Alan for taking advantage of the couple, knowing that they are going through the same trauma of identifying the body. Alan just shrugs and says that he couldn’t help himself.
During the trip, Alan stays with Peter and his family, which includes Peter and Susie’s teenage son Jack (played by Louis Healy), a loner who spends most of his free time playing online video games. When Alan tells Peter that he’s concerned about Jack spending so much time on the computer, Peter replies: “Why would that be a worry? He’s at home. He’s not on the streets. He hasn’t gone missing.” Ouch.
As the story unfolds, there are other things that Peter brings up from the past when he argues with Alan. Peter hated that Alan had a habit of giving Peter cheap toys and games that were knock-offs of the originals. And because Peter’s mother died when he was a child (it isn’t specified when she passed away), Peter still feels resentment that he was raised by a father who focused a lot of energy on finding Michael.
There’s a minor subplot of the dynamics between Jack and his adult relatives. Jack and Alan form somewhat of a kinship when Alan becomes fascinated with Jack’s online computer games. Meanwhile, Sue has a habit of embarrassing Jack at bus stops, where he meticulously plans to be at the same time as a teenage girl named Rachel (played by Ella-Grace Gregoire), whom Jack has had a crush on for a while.
As for the movie’s title of “Sometimes Always Never,” that comes from a scene in the film where Alan is showing Jack some tailoring tips for suits. Alan tells Jack that when it comes to a suit jacket’s first three buttons, the first one should “sometimes” be buttoned, the second one should “always” be button, and the third should “never” be buttoned.
Alan has his own tailor shop (called Mellors Tailors) but the movie shows him doing very little work in his chosen profession. There’s that grandfather-grandson scene with Alan and Jack. And there’s another scene where Alan is shown alone at the shop, as if business is slow. Alan’s line of work actually isn’t that necessary for the plot, and the only real purpose is seemingly because the button advice he gave Jack ended up being used as the movie’s title.
There’s a scene in the movie where Alan, Sue, Jack and Rachel are playing a Scrabble board game together. Peter is watching nearby. Alan questions Sue’s use of a scientific word, while Peter tells Alan not to question his wife’s scientific knowledge. Alan persists anyway and looks up the validity of the word in a dictionary. Peter explodes with anger.
It’s clear that what Peter is angry about is really not about Alan questioning Sue’s word knowledge but about feeling like an outsider in his own household. And perhaps there’s some jealousy that Alan is forming a closer bond to Jack than Peter even had with Alan. And things get even more tense when Alan becomes convinced that an anonymous online Scrabble gamer is really the missing Michael who’s sending clues about his whereabouts.
“Sometimes Always Never” frequently uses a technique of having a particular word and its definition shown before each of the movie’s three acts. The movie has the look and feel of a stage play, not just because there’s a small number of people in the cast but also because of the lo-fi production design by Tim Dickel and art direction by Guto Humphreys. (The driving scenes in the car were obviously done in front of a green or blue screen.)
The visual look of the movie (from cinematographer Richard Stoddard) is kind modern yet retro, with copious use of low lighting for the interior scenes. Almost all of the buildings in the film have interior walls painted green, blue and red. These bright colors for walls in houses or a hotel are not very common for suburban England. It seems as if the filmmakers wanted to give the impression that this is a more whimsical England, compared to what’s normally seen in movies.
Although the acting from Nighy and Riley is very good, and the movie does a convincing flipping of traditional parent-child roles (Alan is impulsive and slightly rebellious, while Peter is more cautious and scolding), “Sometimes Always Never” has pacing that’s a little too sluggish at times. People will enjoy this movie best if they’ve got about 90 minutes to spare and aren’t expecting a lot of fast-paced action, loads of suspense or obvious jokes.
Blue Fox Entertainment released “Sometimes Always Never” in select U.S. virtual cinemas on June 12, 2020. The film’s U.S. digital and VOD release is on July 10, 2020. “Sometimes Always Never” was originally released in the United Kingdom and several other countries in 2019.
Culture Representation: Taking place in London and Seaford, England, the emotionally intense drama “Hope Gap” is about a middle-class white family affected by a painful divorce; the estranged couple’s son confides in two friends who are people of color.
Culture Clash: The former couple are at odds because the husband wants the divorce but the wife doesn’t.
Culture Audience: “Hope Gap” will appeal primarily to fans of arthouse cinema who want to see a well-written, well-acted story about the harsh realities of divorce and the effects that divorce can have on an adult child.
Josh O’Connor and Bill Nighy in “Hope Gap” (Photo by Robert Viglasky)
The divorce drama “Hope Gap” begins with gorgeous, sweeping aerial shots of Seaford, a small Sussex city on the South Coast of England. As the camera takes in the picturesque views of the cliffsides and grassy knolls, the movie’s narrator, Jamie Axton (played by Josh O’Connor), reminisces of a simpler time in his childhood. One of his favorite childhood activities was exploring in a cove called Hope Gap, located underneath the cliffs, as his mother would wait nearby on the rocks.
As viewers soon learn, Jamie’s nostalgic memories of Hope Gap are what he’ll have to cling to when he thinks of happier times in his parents’ marriage. And who are his parents? Jamie’s mother Grace Axton (played by Annette Benning) is retired, and Jamie’s father Edward Axton (played by Bill Nighy) is a history teacher at a local high school. Grace and Edward still live in their family home (a cozy Tudor house) in Seaford. Jamie, who’s in his mid-to-late-20s, is their only child, and he lives alone in a small London apartment.
Grace and Edward’s home might look comfortable, but the emotional atmosphere is filled with turmoil. The couple will soon be celebrating their 29th wedding anniversary, and Grace is annoyed that Edward doesn’t really seem to care. She nitpicks over little things—Edward’s hobby of updating Wikipedia articles, how he gets a cup of tea—and the more she nags and prods, the more he seems to shut down emotionally. She’s also angry that Edward doesn’t want to give any input for any plans she might have to celebrate their anniversary.
It’s obvious that Grace wants Edward’s romantic attention, and she’s practically begging him to say all the right things to her. But Edward seems to be paralyzed with not knowing if he can say the right thing, because Grace criticizes so much of what he does. Grace’s constant berating makes him think that he can never do anything right with her. As irritated as Grace seems to be with Edward, she speaks lovingly of Jamie. She tells Edward how much she misses Jamie and how she wishes he would visit more.
It isn’t long before Jamie comes to visit from London. Grace immediately starts in on Jamie about his love life. He’s single and dating, but not in a serious relationship. Grace says she wants him to settle down and get married, and she worries about him living alone. Jamie tells her that he’s comfortable living by himself, and he doesn’t seem to be in a rush to get married and have kids.
Meanwhile, Grace (who’s a very religious Christian and very opiniated) expresses disappointment when Jamie tells her that he’s become an atheist. She tries to enlist Edward in her debate with Jamie about religion, but Edward refuses to take sides. Edward tells Grace that religion isn’t a fact; it’s a belief.
Grace gets even angrier when she and Edward have a tense conversation alone together. She badgers him to tell her what will make him happier. He doesn’t really have an answer for her. He just wants to be left alone. The argument escalates when Grace asks Edward to tell her that he loves her, but he refuses. She gets so upset that she slaps him and turns over the kitchen table in a rage.
All the signs are there that Edward has emotionally checked out of their marriage. However, it still comes as a shock to Jamie the next morning when he finds out that Edward is going to leave Grace that day. Jamie gets the news when Grace has gone to church, and he and Edward are alone together.
Edward tells Jamie that he’s going to leave Grace because he’s fallen in love with another woman, they’ve been having an affair for about a year, and he’s going to move in with her. His mistress’ name is Angela (played by Sally Rogers), and she’s the mother of one of his students. Edward plans to tell Grace this devastating news when she gets home from church, and Edward doesn’t want Grace to be alone in the next few days after Edward leaves her.
It’s then that Jamie realizes that keeping his mother’s company after the breakup is the real reason why Edward invited Jamie over to visit, and Edward basically admits it. A shocked Jamie tells Edward that he wants to leave for a few hours because he doesn’t want to be at the house when Grace gets blindsided by the news. And the breakup goes about as horribly as you’d might expect.
Grace goes through the stages of grief, with denial and anger being the ones that are the hardest for her to overcome. She doesn’t want to give Edward the divorce, even though he’s offered her the house and a generous settlement. Meanwhile, Jamie is angry at his father and mostly takes Grace’s side in the breakup, even though deep down he now knows that Edward had been miserable in the marriage for many years. Jamie decides to spend more time with his mother when he can, so that she won’t feel so alone. He can barely speak to his father, and he doesn’t want to meet Angela.
As Jamie travels and back and forth between London and Seaford, the divorce starts to take an emotional toll on him too, as he sees his mother slide into a deep depression. She’s given up her hobby of collecting poems. She’s stopped caring about her personal appearance and she spends long hours staring into space. Grace also shows signs of mental instability that go beyond depression, because she leaves love notes for Edward around the house, in the delusional hope that he will change his mind and come back to her. And she gets a male Labrador Retriever puppy and names him Edward.
Jamie is somewhat of a loner, but he has two close friends he confides in about his personal problems—a couple named Jess (played by Aiysha Hart) and Dev (played by Ryan McKen). Jess and Dev, who are happily dating each other, offer some insightful advice to Jamie, because they know his dating habits, which is a side of Jamie that his parents’ don’t see. They tell Jamie that as much as he might dislike his father Edward’s seemingly aloof demeanor, Jamie can also be emotionally distant when it comes to romantic relationships, and maybe he needs to open up more.
When Jamie realizes that he’s a lot more like his father than he really wanted to admit, it prompts him to look at his parents’ divorce from a new perspective, and he starts to come to grips with how the failure of the marriage will affect his views on life. “Hope Gap” has a level of heartbreaking authenticity that isn’t seen very much in movies about divorce. That’s probably because writer/director William Nicholson went through something similar when his parents split up after nearly 30 years of marriage.
While so many movies about divorce have the divorced couple fighting over child custody, “Hope Gap” shows the perspective of an adult child of divorce who has to “choose sides” when the battle isn’t over custody but over loyalty. As the family at the center of the story, the three stars of the movie—Bening, Nighy and O’Connor—give admirable performances that are bound to pull at people’s heartstrings and tear ducts.
And the majestic seaside setting of “Hope Gap” (which is beautifully filmed by cinematographer Anna Valdez Hanks) gives added depth to the feelings of isolation, fear and wistfulness that the Axtons experience in the story. The treacherous waves that crash against the cliffs of Hope Gap are an apt metaphor for navigating the often-cruel devastation of divorce and not necessarily knowing how to survive it.
Roadside Attractions and Screen Media released “Hope Gap” in select U.S. cinemas on March 6, 2020. The movie’s digital and VOD release date is May 8, 2020.
Culture Representation: This comedic adapation of Jane Austen’s 1815 novel “Emma” is set in the fictional countryside town of Highbury, England, and revolves around the white upper-class main characters and some representation of their working-class servants.
Culture Clash: The story’s title character is a young woman who likes to meddle in people’s love lives as a matchmaker, and her snobbish ways about social status sometimes cause problems.
Culture Audience: This movie will appeal mostly to fans of Jane Austen novels and period movies about British culture.
Anya Taylor-Joy and Johnny Flynn in “Emma” (Photo courtesy of Focus Features)
This delightful and gorgeously filmed adaptation of Jane Austen’s 1815 novel “Emma” stays mostly faithful to the original story but spices it up a bit to appeal to modern audiences. In her feature-film debut, director Autumn de Wilde takes the comedy of “Emma” and infuses it with more impish energy that’s lustier and more vibrant than previous film and TV adaptations.
The title character of the story is Emma Woodhouse (played by Anya Taylor-Joy), a woman of privilege in her early 20s, who lives with her widowed father in the fictional countryside town of Highbury, England. Emma is a somewhat spoiled bachelorette who thinks she has such high intelligence and excellent judgment that she takes it upon herself to play matchmaker to people she deems worthy of her romance advice.
The movie takes place over the course of a year in the early 1800s, beginning one summer and ending the following summer. Viewers know this because different seasons are introduced in bold letters, like a different chapter in a book.
One of the changes from the book that the movie makes is that it begins with Emma attending the wedding of her friend and former governess Miss Taylor (played by Gemma Whelan) to Mr. Weston (played by Rupert Graves). (The book begins after Emma has attended the wedding.) Because Emma had introduced the Miss Taylor and Mr. Weston to each other, Emma feels that she has what it takes to play matchmaker to the unmarried people in her social circle. It’s at the wedding that viewers are introduced to most of the story’s main characters.
Emma’s father, Mr. Woodhouse (played by Bill Nighy), is a loving dad but often exasperated by Emma’s antics. He’s a hypochondriac who tries to shield himself from imaginary drafts of cold that he’s sure will cause him to get sick.
George Knightley (played by Johnny Flynn) is the handsome and cynical brother-in-law of Emma’s older sister Isabella (played by Chloe Pirrie). He thinks Emma can be an annoying meddler, but he nevertheless seems fascinated by what she does.
Mr. Elton (played by Josh O’Connor) is a social-climbing local vicar who has his eye on courting Emma, mostly because of her wealth and privilege. He’s unaware that Emma doesn’t see him has husband material.
Miss Bates (played by Miranda Hart) is a friendly, middle-aged spinster who is slightly ashamed about being unmarried at her age. She lives with her mother, Mrs. Bates (played by Myra McFadyen), who is a friend of Mr. Woodhouse.
Missing from the wedding is Mr. Weston’s son, Frank Churchill (played by Callum Turner), who has a different last name because he was adopted by his aunt, who is frequently ill. Frank chose to stay home with his aunt instead of attending his father’s wedding.
Emma, who says multiple times in the story that she has no interest in getting married, nevertheless takes it upon herself to tell other people who would be suitable spouses for them. She starts with her gullible best friend Harriet (played by Mia Goth), a slightly younger woman of unknown parentage who idolizes Emma for being more glamorous and seemingly more worldly than Harriet is. Knightley can see that Harriet will be easily manipulated by Emma, and he expresses disapproval over Emma befriending Harriet.
A local farmer named Mr. Martin (played by Connor Swindells) has asked Harriet to marry him, but Emma convinces Harriet to decline the proposal. Why? Even though Mr. Martin is kind and clearly adores Harriet, Emma thinks that Harriet deserves to marry someone who’s higher up on the social ladder. As far as Emma is concerned, Mr. Elton would be an ideal husband for Harriet, so Emma sets out to pair up Harriet and Mr. Elton, whom Emma describes as “such a good-humored man.” It’s too bad that Emma doesn’t see that his humor is really buffoonery.
Mr. Knightley occasionally stops by to visit the Woodhouses, and he warns Emma not to interfere in other people’s love lives. He thinks Mr. Elton would be a terrible match for Harriet. Mr. Knightley is right, of course, but Emma ignores his warnings. Emma begins to manipulate communications between Harriet and Mr. Elton, with the goal that they will end up together and happily married. At one point in the story, Emma and Mr. Knightley have a big argument and they stop talking to each other.
Meanwhile, a new ingenue comes on the scene named Jane Fairfax (played by Amber Anderson), who is the orphaned niece of Miss Bates. Jane (who is close to Emma’s age) is attractive, intelligent, talented. And everyone seems to be gushing about how wonderful she is, so Emma gets jealous. As Emma complains in a catty moment, “One is very sick of the name Jane Fairfax!”
Frank Churchill, a very eligible bachelor, begins spending more time in the area. And it isn’t long before Emma has thoughts about who would make a suitable wife for him.
However, things don’t go as planned in Emma’s matchmaking schemes. A series of events (and a love triangle or two) make Emma frustrated that things aren’t going her way. Unlike most heroines of romantic stories, Emma can be very difficult, since she can be bossy, selfish and occasionally rude. However, there are moments when she redeems herself, such as when she tries to make amends for her mistakes. If you know anything about romantic comedies and don’t know anything about how “Emma” ends, you can still figure out what will happen and if she’ll fall in love.
One of the changes made in this “Emma” screenplay (written by Eleanor Catton) that’s different from the book is that it puts more heat in the characters’ sexuality, with a makeout scene that’s definitely not described in the book. Another change is Emma shows more acknowledgement of people in the working-class, such as her servants and Mr. Martin, by interacting with them more than she does in the novel.
As Emma, actress Taylor-Joy brings a little bit more of a “hot mess” attitude to the role than Gwyneth Paltrow did when she starred in 1996’s “Emma.” Whereas Paltrow’s version of Emma was the epitome of prim and proper, Taylor-Joy’s version gives the impression that she would be ready to show her legs or knickers under the right circumstances. And as Mr. Knightley, Flynn’s pouty-lipped delivery gives him a smoldering quality that Jeremy Northam’s Mr. Knightley didn’t quite have in 1996’s “Emma.”
“Emma” director de Wilde comes from a music-video background (she’s helmed several videos for rock singer Beck), and perhaps this background explains why this version of “Emma” has a snappy rhythm to the pacing, which is sort of a tribute to 1940s screwball comedies. This pacing is subtle if this is the first version of “Emma” that someone might see, but it’s more noticeable when compared to other movie and TV versions of “Emma,” which tend to be more leisurely paced.
This version of “Emma” is also pitch-perfect when it comes to its costume design (by Alexandra Byrne), production design (by Kave Quinn), art direction (by Alice Sutton) and set decoration (by Stella Fox), because everything will feel like you’ve been transported to the luxrious English estates of the era. The costume design in particular is worthy of an Oscar nomination.
“Emma” certainly won’t be everyone’s cup of tea for people who don’t like watching period pieces about stuffy British people. However, fans of Austen’s “Emma” novel will find a lot to enjoy about this memorable movie adaptation.
Focus Features released “Emma” in select U.S. cinemas on February 21, 2020.
UPDATE: Because of the widespread coronavirus-related closures of movie theaters worldwide, Universal Pictures Home Entertainment has moved up the VOD release of “Emma” to March 20, 2020.
Culture Representation: Taking place primarily in New York City, the dramatic film “The Kindness of Strangers” has a predominantly white cast of characters representing the middle-class.
Culture Clash: Six strangers find themselves connected in some way when a suburban housewife takes her two young sons to New York City to escape from her abusive husband.
Culture Audience: This movie will appeal mostly to fans of independent dramas with multiple layers to the story, but the ludicrous contrivances in the screenplay will irritate people who are expecting a story with more realism and substance.
Caleb Landry Jones and Andrea Riseborough in “The Kindness of Strangers” (Photo by Per Arnesen)
If you’re someone who disliked the 2005 Oscar-winning movie “Crash” (one of the most controversial Best Picture wins in Oscar history), then you’ll really despise the drama “The Kindness of Strangers.” The movie takes a concept that’s similar to “Crash”—several strangers in a big city are connected in some way to each other and eventually meet—and makes it even more trite and ridiculous at the same time.
In “The Kindness of Strangers,” the big city is New York (“Crash” took place in Los Angeles), home to thousands of restaurants. But apparently one restaurant—a fairly upscale Russian eatery called the New York Winter Palace—is the go-to place in town for people to have their problems solved. But first, here’s a summary of the six strangers who end up being connected in the story.
Clara is a housewife who lives in Buffalo, New York, but in the dead of night, she’s left her home with her two young sons—older son Anthony (played by Jack Zulton) and younger son Jude (played by Finlay Wojtak-Hissong)—by driving to New York City. The reason for the secret trip? She’s escaped from her physically and emotionally abusive husband Richard (played by Esben Smed), who’s also been abusing the kids. She won’t go to the police or a domestic-abuse shelter because her husband is a cop, and she’s afraid that he’ll find her.
Alice (played by Andrea Riseborough) is an emergency-room nurse who never seems to go home because she’s always popping up in the story at the right momement to “rescue” someone. Not only is she a nurse, but she also does a lot of volunteer work at a church, where she leads a forgiveness support group. She’s also a regular customer at the New York Winter Palace.
Timofey (played by Bill Nighy) is the owner of the New York Winter Palace, which he inherited from his Russian grandfather. Timofey is American, but he fakes a Russian accent when he’s on the job. He has a droll sense of humor and a “seen it all before” attitude toward life.
Marc (played by Tahar Rahim) has recently been released from prison, where he spent a little more than three years on drug-related charges. His brother was a drug addict who eventually overdosed and whose drug activity got Marc arrested and wrongfully convicted. (Marc was in the wrong place at the wrong time.) Near the beginning of the story, Marc meets with Timofey and some of his restaurant colleagues, and convinces them to hire him as a manager of the New York Winter Palace.
John Peter (played by Jay Baruchel) is Marc’s defense attorney. He’s become somewhat jaded over his job, because he says he hates defending clients he knows are guilty. He’s part of the forgiveness support group led by Alice. And after Marc gets out of prison, he accompanies John Peter to the support group too. However, every time Marc goes to the group meetings, he insists he doesn’t really need counseling and he’s just there to be supportive of John Peter.
Jeff (played by Caleb Landry Jones) is a screw-up who can’t seem to keep a job because he keeps making dumb mistakes. He also has a nasty temper, because when he’s fired from a mattress-selling job, he takes a chair and smashes a window with the chair, while his supervisor and co-workers watch in shock. Jeff is four months behind on his rent and is close to being evicted.
When viewers first see Clara and her sons in New York City, she tells them they’re taking a fun vacation. At first, she’s able to fool them into thinking that it’s an adventure and they don’t have to go back to school because “New York is going to be kind of a school for you.” But then reality sinks in (her money starts to run out) and she resorts to stealing to get money for food and other essentials.
Clara steals a designer dress and purse to sneak into upscale parties at hotels and restaurants, where she shovels some of the party food in a bag when no one is looking. One of the places where she ends up stealing food is the New York Winter Palace, where she pretends she’s part of a big family that’s throwing a party there. Marc the manager strikes up a conversation with Clara and seems a little suspicious of her story, especially when he later sees her behind the coat-check desk where the coat checker should be. Clara ended up stealing a coat, and Marc narrowly missed seeing her commit this theft before she quickly left the restaurant.
Meanwhile, broke Jeff is confronted by his landlord, who tells Jeff that he won’t wait anymore for the rent that’s four months overdue. The landlord tells Jeff that he has one hour to leave the apartment. This demand is not only very unrealistic, but it’s also very illegal. Anyone who knows anything about New York City’s eviction laws knows that evicting a tenant is a drawn-out legal process that isn’t done in one day.
But this movie isn’t concerned about details like that, because it would ruin the set-up for homeless Jeff to end up at a soup kitchen, where (you guessed it) saintly Alice happens to be working right at that moment. She gets Jeff to help out in serving people at the soup kitchen in exchange for him getting free meals.
Meanwhile, the situation for Clara and her sons has gone from bad to worse. Clara has taken her husband Richard’s car (which he could easily report as stolen), but the car is towed away because she parked in the wrong zone and has too many unpaid parking tickets. Clara and her sons had been living in the car and now need to find shelter. And it’s the middle of an ice-cold winter, don’t you know, so that makes the situation even more pitiful.
Clara and the kids end up at the soup kitchen, where (surprise) Alice happens to be working. And then later, the family is really desperate for a place to stay, but Clara doesn’t want to go to a homeless shelter, so they end up at the church again where (surprise) Alice happens to be there too, right after she’s finished her support group meeting. Alice takes pity on Clara and the kids and offers them a room at the church for the night, even though it’s against the church rules. But wait, there’s more “coincidental” drama.
Clara and the kids barely have spent the night at the church when something almost tragic happens that involves someone being taken to the same hospital where Alice works and (surprise) she happens to be on duty that night too. And then Alice decides to break someone out of the hospital, even though it’s something that would get her fired and there are probably security cameras in the hospital that would catch her doing it.
And somewhere in this story, Clara ends up hiding underneath a table at the New York Winter Palace, where she’s seen by Marc, who doesn’t kick her out because he’s attracted to her. He lets her stay hidden under the table, as he serves her Russian food on the restaurant’s finest serving platters that he leaves on the floor like someone feeding a dog.
And then Clara finally comes to her senses and does something she should’ve done a long time ago: Decide to get a lawyer. She asks Marc if he knows any good lawyers. You already know who he recommends, even though John Peter’s specialty isn’t family law.
“The Kindness of Strangers,” written and directed by Lone Scherfig, is the kind of movie where the cast members’ acting isn’t the problem. (Although Nighy’s and Rahim’s American accents aren’t very convincing.) The biggest problem is the jumbled and hackneyed screenplay that has little regard for viewers’ intelligence.
The movie also takes the serious issue of domestic abuse and cynically uses it as just another plot device to connect the dots between these characters. And there are little details that indicate sloppy writing, such as a scene where incompetent and dim-witted Jake (of all people) puts someone on an ambulance gurney, when in reality an EMT or trained medical professional, not an untrained person, is required to do that.
Scherfig is capable of doing much better films (her Oscar-nominated 2009 drama “An Education” was one of the best movies of that year), so hopefully “The Kindness of Strangers” is not an indication that the quality of her work will continue to go downhill. “The Kindness of Strangers” isn’t the worst film you might ever see. It’s just not a very good movie, and you won’t feel much sympathy for the characters who make very bad decisions.
Vertical Entertainment released “The Kindness of Strangers” in select U.S. cinemas and on VOD on February 14, 2020.
