Ron Cook Archives – CULTURE MIX

Review: ‘The Choral,’ starring Ralph Fiennes, Roger Allam, Mark Addy, Allun Armstrong, Robert Emms and Simon Russell Beale

December 24, 2025

by Carla Hay

Ralph Fiennes in “The Choral” (Photo by Nicola Dove/Sony Pictures Classics)

Directed by Nicholas Hytner

Culture Representation: Taking place in 1916, in Ramsden, England, the dramatic film “The Choral” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few black people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: After the Choral Society in Ramsden loses several members (including its choir master) to military service, another choir master reluctantly takes over, and he recruits several new members who otherwise wouldn’t have been considered.

Culture Audience: “The Choral” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of star Ralph Fiennes and dramas about choirs who need to be trained under a new leader.

Jacob Dudman, Taylor Uttley, Oliver Briscombe and Shaun Thomas in “The Choral” (Photo by Nicola Dove/Sony Pictures Classics)

Dull and superficial, “The Choral” is a series of anecdotal scenes instead of a cohesive story about a revamped choir in 1916 England. This drama has underdeveloped characters with cliché and cardboard personalities. By the end of the film, you will hardly learn anything about the main characters except who is pursuing whom in a few romantic relationships among the young people.

Directed by Nicholas Hytner (who is one of the movie’s producers) and written by Alan Bennett, “The Choral” had its world premiere at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival. The movie screened at other festivals in 2025, including the BFI London Film Festival and AFI Fest. The movie takes place in 1916, in the small village of Ramsden, England. “The Choral” was filmed on location in England, at Saltaire Village, West Yorkshire and Versa Leeds Studios.

“The Choral” follows many of typical formulas in yet another movie about a cranky/stern choir director who has a limited time to train a singing group to be good enough for an upcoming competition or big performance. In this movie, the singing group is the Choral Society, a group of men and women who have recently lost several members (including the Choral Society’s choir master) to military service during World War I. Before the new choir master takes over in “The Choral,” the movie rushes through some scenes that show some of the people who are impacted by these changes in the Choral Society.

“The Choral” begins by showing two best friends in their late teens named Ellis (played by Taylor Uttley) and Lofty (played by Oliver Briscombe), who have the unpleasant job of delivering telegrams informing military families that one of their loved ones died in the war. Ellis is very flippant about this serious and depressing job. After they deliver a telegram to a weeping young woman (played by Fiona Morgan) with the news that her brother has died in the war, Ellis comments to Lofty as they walk away that Lofty could’ve used the opportunity to make romantic moves on the woman. “You could’ve gotten in there, Lofty,” Ellis smirks. “Grief. It’s an opportunity.”

Ellis is a one-note character who sees almost every moment of his life as an opportunity to flirt with women, chase women, or make comments on whether or not he thinks a woman’s physical appearance is attractive enough for him. It might be the movie’s attempt to show Ellis as a carefree ladies’ man, but Ellis just comes across as a self-absorbed creep. Lofty is a passive and somewhat generic character whose biggest worry is that he will still be a virgin when he turns 18 years old.

Ellis and Lofty have two other close friends (who are about the same age) in their social circle. Mitch (played by Shaun Thomas) is an earnest go-getter. Clyde (played by Jacob Dudman) is a military soldier who is missing in action in the beginning of the movie. The movie’s trailer and other marketing materials already reveal that Clyde shows up later, when he is discharged from the military for reasons that are shown in the movie.

Meanwhile, four decision makers for the Choral Society have to decide who will replace the people who’ve left the Choral Society because of military service. Bernard Duxbury (played by Roger Allam) is an alderman who sees himself as the leader of the decision makers. The other three decision makers are undertaker Herbert Trickett (played by Allun Armstrong), photographer Joe Fytton (played by Mark Addy) and Reverend Woodhead (played by Ron Cook), who have their opinions but find it difficult to persuade stubborn Bernard to change his mind on certain things.

An early scene in the movie shows Bernard and Herbert asking Ellis and Lofty to audition for the Choral Society. Later, during a meeting, the four decision makers lament the fact that Gilbert Pollard (played by Thomas Howes), the Choral Society’s previous choir master, left for military service because he volunteered and was not conscripted. After some discussion, the name Dr. Henry Guthrie is mentioned as a possible replacement for Gilbert.

Dr. Henry Guthrie (played by Ralph Fiennes), a bachelor with no children, is a talented musician who has recently returned to his native England after living several years in Germany. At the moment, he is working as a pianist at the Queens Hotel, which is not too far away from Ramsden. Henry is somewhat mysterious. Considering the tense relations between Germany and the United Kingdom during World War I, some people in the community are suspicious about Henry’s long residency in Germany and sudden return to England.

Is Henry a spy? A secret political supporter of the German government? “The Choral” hints that it could have this intrigue, but ultimately “The Choral” just makes Henry an inscrutable and often-grumpy character who reluctantly accepts the offer to become the Choral Society’s new choir master. Henry takes the job on the condition that Henry will get to work with his pianist friend Robert Horner (played by Robert Emms), even though Bernard says that Robert’s job with the choir will be an unpaid position.

“The Choral” then shows a very boring series of auditions that result in new members of the Choral Society. Ellis and Lofty are among those who make the cut. So does Bella Holmes (played by Emily Fairn), a young woman who had been dating Clyde before he went off to war. Bella is no longer interested in Clyde but doesn’t want to tell a lot of people that while he is still missing in action. After Clyde is found and is discharged from the military, he returns to Ramsden and joins the Choral Society.

Clyde finds out that Ellis has been courting Bella, who is mutually attracted to Ellis. “The Choral” wastes an opportunity to show Clyde as a well-rounded person who is dealing with the aftermath of war, including long-term physical and mental effects. Instead, “The Choral” makes him somewhat of a token disabled veteran (he lost his right arm during the war) who accepts Bella wanting to move on from Clyde so she can date Ellis, as long as Bella can still give Clyde the occasional hand job. That is literally the gist of Clyde’s story arc in “The Choral.”

Another new addition to the Choral Society is Mary Lockwood (played by Amara Okereke), a prim and proper Salvation Army worker. From the first few moments that Mary is on screen, it’s obvious she will be the star singer of the choir. During her audition, Mary gets wary reactions from longtime choir members Miss Muschamp (played by Carolyn Pickles) and Mrs. Pemberton (played by Angela Curran), whose only purpose in the movie is to play stereotypical uptight elderly women who feel threatened by someone who’s younger and more talented.

The Choral Society is preparing to perform songs from the oratorio “The Dream of Gerontius,” written by Sir Edward Elgar (played by Simon Russell Beale), who is very picky about who gets to perform this oratorio and how it’s performed, because it’s widely considered to be his masterpiece. The Choral Society is under pressure to do a performance that would make Sir Edward proud. Yawn.

In between monotonous rehearsal scenes, where choir master Henry does his expected scolding and scowling, there’s some very uninteresting drama that is only shown on a surface level. Mitch wants to date virginal Mary, who is afraid of dating anyone and wants to focus on her work. Robert is a closeted gay man at who might or might not be secretly in love with Henry.

“The Dream of Gerontius” is about a dead elderly man’s soul on a journey of death. In a community devastated by war deaths, this oratorio takes on particular significance. But you wouldn’t know it from the way this movie treats grief on a surface level.

Bernard had a son who died in the war. Bernard’s unnamed wife (played by Eunice Roberts) is briefly seen at their home as someone who is dressed entirely in black and who spends time sitting around and staring into space. Bernard tells her in an exasperated voice: “This house can’t become a mausoleum.” She replies, “You’re free to live entirely as you please, Bernard.” That’s the extent of which the movie addresses any grief in Bernard’s family.

A character named Mrs. Bishop (played by played by Lindsey Marshal) is a widow whose husband died in the war. Chronic flirt Ellis constantly eggs on Lofty to get some sexual action from Mrs. Bishop. In Ellis’ mind, Mrs. Bishop must be a horny widow who would welcome the chance to have a fling with a good-looking young man who wants to lose his virginity. The movie panders to this notion and makes Mrs. Bishop merely a prop who’s waiting around for male attention that’s shallow and fleeting.

“The Choral” is utterly phony when it comes to how it depicts race relations. Mary is black in a community where less than 1% of the population is black, but not once is her race mentioned in this nearly all-white community. Not once does anyone—not even Mary’s unnamed mother (played by Cecilia Noble), who has a scene talking to Mitch about his romantic interest in Mary—ask Mitch if he’s prepared for any backlash to having an interracial relationship.

Although it would be nice to think that this small village in 1916 England is so progressive that it’s a color-blind society where no one talks about different races, this type of community is an “only in a fictional movie” community for the time and place that it’s supposed to depict. Social class differences are barely acknowledged in “The Choral,” during a time when working-class men are disproportionately conscripted to war combat because they don’t have the resources to get out of this type of military service, compared to rich men. And the movie has a very trite depiction of what it must have been like for a gay man like Robert to live in this time and place.

As for the music and singing in “The Choral,” they are not very impressive and can be downright grating. “The Angel’s Farewell” is the big song performed in the movie’s climax. But you’d be hard-pressed to find a majority of people who see “The Choral” who will remember key components to this song. Fiennes and many of “The Choral” cast members are talented, but there’s only so much they can do when they are given two-dimensional characters to play. Instead of “The Choral,” this movie should be titled “The Bore All.”

Sony Pictures Classics will release “The Choral” in select U.S. cinemas on December 25, 2025. The movie was released in the United Kingdom on November 7, 2025.

Review: ‘Sew Torn’ (2025), starring Eve Connolly, Calum Worthy, K Callan, Ron Cook, Thomas Douglas, Caroline Goodall and John Lynch

May 25, 2025

by Carla Hay

Eve Connolly in “Sew Torn” (Photo courtesy of Vertigo Releasing)

“Sew Torn” (2025)

Directed by Freddy Macdonald

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed city in the United States, the dramatic film “Sew Torn” (based on the 2019 short film of the same name) features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A seamstress, who is struggling to keep her business operating, faces three choices when she comes across two wounded men and a suitcase full of cash on a deserted road.

Culture Audience: “Sew Torn” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in quirky thrillers that present multiple outcomes for different choices made by the story’s protagonist.

Thomas Douglas, Eve Connolly and Calum Worthy in “Sew Torn” (Photo courtesy of Vertigo Releasing)

“Sew Torn” can get tedious with its overabundance of offbeat characters. However, it’s an intriguing story showing three different outcomes when a lonely seamstress decides what to do about finding cash and two wounded criminals on a deserted road. The performances rise to the challenge of maintaining viewer interest, even though the characters aren’t quite as developed as they could be.

Written and directed by Freddy Macdonald, “Sew Torn” is his feature-film directorial debut and is based on Macdonald’s 2019 short film of the same name. The feature-length “Sew Torn” had its world premiere at the 2024 SXSW Film & TV Festival. The short film “Sew Torn” had no dialogue, while the feature-length “Sew Torn” has dialogue, some of which is darkly amusing, some of which is stuff and unnatural. Each movie has different cast members.

The feature-length “Sew Torn” (which takes place in an unnamed rural U.S. town; the movie was actually filmed in Switzerland) begins with a voiceover from protagonist Barbara Duggen (played by Eve Connolly), as the camera shows dead bodies on a floor. Barbara says in a flat voice: “If I were to tell you why I did what I did, when I was broke and alone, would you pity me, or would you say my actions were justified? Perhaps you’d relate to my isolation, my need. Or perhaps you’d simply see my lack of morality.”

The movie then shows a glimpse of who Barbara is to explain the choices she could make in the story. Barbara is a loner who owns a shop called Home of the Talking Portraits, which sells unusual products: custom-made yarn portraits that have audio recordings installed. Barbara inherited the shop from her deceased single mother (played by Petra Wright), who made several portraits of herself and Barbara. As part of the business, Barbara (who is a skilled seamstress) also operates a mobile sewing service, where she drives to do sewing jobs for customers.

Barbara is feeling despondent because ever since she took over the business, it’s been failing. In fact, the beginning of the movie shows that Barbara has already put up a Going Out of Business signs on display in the shop’s front windows. She is going to one of her last house appointments before she intends to close the shop for good.

This house appointment involves some last-minute mending and sewing of a wedding dress on the wedding day of a demanding socialite name Grace Vessler (played by Caroline Goodall), who will be marrying her third husband. Barbara is nervous because she’s a little late for the appointment. Grace is rude and tells Barbara that Barbara’s mother was better at doing business.

Barbara needs to sew a button on the wedding dress. However, Grace has been so obnoxious and impatient, Barbara pretends to accidentally let the button slip down a grate, when Barbara actually flicked the button down the grate. Grace is upset and Barbara uses this “lost” button as an excuse to go back to her shop to get another button. She assures Grace that she will be back as soon as possible.

While driving on a deserted road back to her shop, Barbara sees a bizarre sight. There’s been a motorcycle accident. The two men (one in his 40s, one in his 20s) are lying face down and wounded on the road. As Barbara drives closer, she sees that the younger man has a broken handcuff on his wrist, while the older man (wearing a motorcycle helmet) is grabbing the younger man by one of his legs, as if he doesn’t want the younger man to move any farther.

The younger man seems to be attempting to crawl to the briefcase on the road. Attached to the briefcase is the chain of the other handcuff. There are two guns nearby. Both men are too wounded to reach the guns and the briefcase. Barbara soon finds out that the briefcase is full of cash.

It’s pretty obvious that this is probably some crime that went awry. It’s later revealed that it’s a botched drug deal. Barbara has three choices: (1) Commit the perfect crime. (2) Call the police. (3) Drive away and do nothing about what she saw. The rest of “Sew Torn” shows what happens when Barbara makes each of these three choices.

Committing the perfect crime is what’s shown first. In this scenario, Barbara intricately threads yarn to each gun and to her car so that when she puts her car in motion, the guns will move close to each man to reach each gun. What happens next is exactly what she was expecting: Each man shoots each other. Barbara then backs up the car and steals the briefcase full of cash. This “perfect crime” scene is the entire plot of “Sew Torn” short film, which does not show what happens to the seamstress after she drives away.

The feature-length “Sew Torn” shows what happens after the seamstress drives away and thinks she has committed the perfect crime. Without giving away too much information, it’s enough to say that Barbara encounters several other characters in the movie. The younger gunman’s name is eventually revealed as Joshua Armitage (played by Calum Worthy), and the older gunman’s name is Beck (played by Thomas Douglas), whose job was to supervise Joshua.

Other characters in the movie are Joshua’s gun-toting father Hudson Armitage (played by John Lynch), who is a wealthy crime boss; a nosy elderly neighbor named Oskar (played by Ron Cook); and the town’s eccentric police chief Ms. Engel (played by K Callan), who is also the town’s notary and works as a wedding officiator on the side. “Sew Torn” has some compelling thriller sequences, but after a while, the characters in the movie might be a little too cartoonish for some people’s tastes. The movie uses a recurring motif of segueing to different scenes by showing a sewing machine stitching words with yarn.

Connolly does a very good job as the central character, considering that Barbara remains emotionally aloof for most of the film. “Sew Torn” is stylish on a technical level, but some viewers will have a hard time connecting emotionally to the movie, which keeps its characters fairly two-dimensional. If want to see a richly detailed movie about people with memorable personalities and interesting lives, “Sew Torn” is not that movie. If you’re in the mood to watch a unique movie to see how someone tries to get out certain dangerous predicaments with sewing skills, then “Sew Torn” is worth watching.

Vertigo Releasing released “Sew Torn” in select U.S. cinemas on May 9, 2025. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on June 13, 2025.

Review: ‘Empire of Light,’ starring Olivia Colman, Micheal Ward, Toby Jones and Colin Firth

December 11, 2022

by Carla Hay

“Empire of Light”

Directed by Sam Mendes

Culture Representation: Taking place primarily on the southeast coast of England, from December 1980 to August or September 1981, the dramatic film “Empire of Light” has a predominantly white cast of characters (with some black people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A white woman in her late 40s and a black man in his early 20s, who work together at a movie theater, become intimate friends as she deals with mental illness and he deals with racism.

Culture Audience: “Empire of Light” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of filmmaker Sam Mendes, star Olivia Colman and movies about misunderstood misfits that overload on melodrama that doesn’t always look authentic.

Pictured from left to right: Micheal Ward, Roman Hayeck-Green, Olivia Colman and Toby Jones in “Empire of Light” (Photo courtesy of Searchlight Pictures)

Considering that so many Oscar winners were involved in making the disappointing drama “Empire of Light,” it’s unfortunate that the movie’s story devolves into an overwrought mess and then rushes to clean everything up in the last 10 minutes of the movie. Too late. The cast members, led by Olivia Colman (who won a Best Actress Academy Award for 2018’s “The Favourite”), give impressive performances. However, “Empire of Light” becomes too bloated with heavy concepts and preachy messages that often look forced and clumsy in the screenplay and direction.

The “Empire of Light” team also includes writer/director/producer Sam Mendes (Oscar-winning director of 1999’s “American Beauty”); cinematographer Roger Deakins (who won Oscars for the 2017 sci-fi sequel “Blade Runner 2049” and Mendes’ 2019 World War I drama “1917”); and costume designer Alexandra Byrne (who won an Oscar for 2007’s “Elizabeth: The Golden Age”). Their talents and the admirable skills of the production design team (led by Mark Tildesley) make “Empire of Light” look visually striking. But visuals alone don’t make a great movie.

Unfortunately, “Empire of Light” tries to cram in too many storylines of complicated real-life issues—mental illness, racism, workplace sexual misconduct—that eventually get the “soap opera” treatment in “Empire of Light,” when these issues deserved so much better care in a movie with filmmakers and cast members of this high quality. “Empire of Light” had its world premiere at the 2022 Telluride Film Festival, followed by screenings at several other major festivals, including the Toronto International Film Festival and the BFI London Film Festival.

“Empire of Light” is not unwatchable. However, there are quite a few moments that are unintentionally cringeworthy—particularly when “Empire of Light” tries to make appreciation of movies and ska/rock music as some sort of “one size fits all” panacea for some of the characters’ major problems. The movie’s central relationship takes an “opposites attract” approach that doesn’t ring completely true, mainly because it’s intended to look like true love between friends, but it actually looks more like dysfunctional co-dependency.

“Empire of Light” takes place mostly in an unnamed city on the southeast coast of England. (The movie was actually filmed in Margate, England.) The story’s timeline spans from December 1980 to August or September 1981. Therefore, expect several references to the United Kingdom’s sociopolitical issues under prime minister Margaret Thatcher’s rule, such as the rise of racist skinhead culture; economic instability (often blamed on immigrants) stemming from the U.K.’s recovery from the 1970s recession; and fears about nuclear war.

It’s in this environment that Hilary Small (played by Colman) lives a very emotionally disconnected and lonely life in the beginning of the movie. Hilary is a never-married bachelorette in her late 40s. She has no children, no family members she’s in contact with, and no friends.

Hilary lives alone in a small apartment and spends her free time not doing much but staying in her apartment and occasionally going to a senior center, where she’s one of the youngest people there. An early scene in the movie shows Hilary being sociable enough that she participates in the senior center’s dances. However, she doesn’t make any meaningful emotional connections with anyone at this senior center.

Viewers soon find out that Hilary has been prescribed lithium by a public health professional named Dr. Laird (played by William Chubb), who encourages her to get psychiatric therapy counseling. (Lithium is commonly prescribed for bipolar disorder.) Hilary takes the lithium, but she doesn’t take the doctor’s advice to talk to a therapist. About halfway through the movie, more details emerge about Hilary’s mental state.

Hilary works as a duty manager/concessions supervisor at a movie multiplex called the Empire Theatre, located in an Art Deco-styled, seaside building that also used to have a combination ballroom/restaurant. As of now, the Empire just has three movie screens, but they are in large rooms decked out in red and gold Art Deco finery that has seen better days.

The unused parts of the building have gone into a state of disrepair and are off-limits to the public. Because the Empire has a limited number of screens, and the dilapidated ballroom is inoperable, the Empire doesn’t get rented out for a lot of events. However, England’s South Coast premiere of “Chariots of Fire” will soon be held at the theater. This premiere gala is the focus of one of the most dramatic scenes in “Empire of Light.”

The Empire has a small staff of people. In addition to Hilary, these staffers include:

Donald Ellis (played by Colin Firth), the Empire’s general manager, who is Hilary’s lecherous boss and who’s about 15 years older than Hilary.
Norman (played by Toby Jones), the theater projectionist, who is in his 50s and who takes his job very seriously.
Stephen Murray (played by Micheal Ward), a ticket taker/usher in his early 20s, who is the newest member of the staff, charming when he wants to be, and the only employee who isn’t white.
Neil (played by Tom Brooke), a box-office worker in his 40s, who is compassionate, witty and wryly observant of many things going on in this workplace.
Janine (played by Hannah Onslow), an 18-year-old ticket taker, who is a Mohawk-wearing party girl.
Frankie (played by Roman Hayeck-Green), Brian (played by Brian Fletcher) and Finn (played by Dougie Boyall), who are all ushers in their 20s, and who don’t say or do much in the story.

It’s shown early in the movie that Donald and Hilary are having a secret sexual relationship, with their trysts taking place in Donald’s office. Donald is married, and Hilary knows it, but Donald tells her that he and his wife Brenda (played by Sara Stewart) are in a passionless marriage where they no longer have sex. Donald expects Hilary to always say yes to him whenever he calls her into his office for their private “meetings.”

At first, Hilary seems to like the attention from Donald. But one evening, she’s alone at a restaurant and sees Donald and Brenda walk in and get seated at a table near hers. Seeing these two spouses together seems to trigger something in Hilary, and she quickly leaves the restaurant before ordering anything on the menu. Over time, Hilary starts to resent Donald for treating her like a meaningless fling. Her anger and resentment come out in different ways.

Meanwhile, Stephen has caught the attention of Janine, who tells Hilary and some other employees during Stephen’s first day on the job that she thinks Stephen is a hunk. Janine doesn’t notice that Hilary seems attracted to Stephen too. Hilary is very insecure about her physical appearance, so she thinks Stephen wouldn’t be attracted to Hilary. Whenever Hilary sees Stephen giving attention to or thinking about other women, Hilary pouts like spoiled schoolgirl.

Hilary gives Stephen a tour of the building on his first day as an Empire employee. He’s curious to see the top floor, which used to be a ballroom and restaurant. The top floor is roped-off with restricted access only meant for the theater’s management, but Hilary takes Stephen to the top floor anyway because he’s eager to see it. Even though this section of the building is run-down, Stephen is in awe of what used to be the grand architecture for this ballroom.

The top floor, whose windows have broken or missing glass, has become a home for several pigeons. Stephen notices that one of the pigeons has a broken wing. He rips his socks and uses them to construct a makeshift sling for the pigeon and asks Hilary to hold the pigeon while he wraps the sling around the bird. Hilary says she doesn’t really like pigeons, but she holds it, beause she wants to impress Stephen. Her spark of attraction to Stephen grows when she sees that he can be kind and gentle. She’s also surprised at how she likes holding this pigeon after all.

Later in the movie, another scene with this pigeon becomes another turning point in Stephen and Hilary’s relationship. These pigeon scenes are used as an obvious metaphor: Stephen helping the physically wounded pigeon is just like how Stephen helps an emotionally wounded Hilary. This metaphor is the movie’s obvious ploy at sentimentality, but it’s too “on the nose.” And to make things look even phonier, other things in “Empire of Light” present Stephen as almost saintly in the way he puts up with Hilary’s moodiness and nasty temper tantrums that she often inflicts on him.

New Year’s Eve is coming up, and Janine has invited Stephen to hang out with her and some of her friends at a nightclub to ring in the New Year. Stephen and Janine ask Hilary if she wants to join them, but Hilary politely declines by saying that going to nightclubs isn’t her thing. Hilary says her New Year’s Eve plans will be to watch annual New Year’s fireworks alone on the theater’s roof. Observant viewers will notice from Hilary’s facial expressions that she’s jealous that Stephen and Janine are going on a date for New Year’s Eve.

Later, Hilary takes her anger out on Stephen, when she notices Stephen and Janine mocking an elderly customer behind the customer’s back because the customer is hunched-over and walks slowly. Hilary shouts at Stephen in private for being unprofessional, and she tells him that being rude to customers is unacceptable. She also gives him a loud scolding for forgetting to give her the day’s ticket stubs at the end of his work shift.

On the night of New Year’s Eve, Hilary is on the roof, when she gets an unexpected visitor: Stephen. He tells Hilary that he left the nightclub where he and Janine had been partying because he doesn’t know Janine’s friends, and he felt uncomfortable that some people at the club were staring at him. (It’s Stephen’s way of saying that he felt that some people were being racist without coming out and saying it.)

Hilary is touched that Stephen would want to ring in the New Year with her. And this New Year’s Eve meet-up is the turning point in their relationship. Stephen says he’s sorry for being unprofessional on the job, while Hilary says she’s sorry that she yelled at him. And with that mutual apology, the ice is broken, and the beginning of a relationship starts to take shape.

During this conversation while they watch the New Year’s fireworks (it’s one of the movie’s highlights), Hilary and Stephen talk a little bit more about their lives. And they discover that they are two lonely and restless people who want more from their lives than what they are currently doing. Stephen is an aspiring architect who has been rejected by all the universities where he’s applied. Hilary tells him not to give up his dream and to keep trying to get into a university of his choice.

Hilary is feeling an emotional connection to Stephen, so after the New Year’s fireworks begin, she gives him a quick romantic kiss on the lips. He looks startled by this display of affection. An embarrassed Hilary makes a profuse, stammering apology, and quickly leaves, even though Stephen tells her that she doesn’t need to make an apology. The movie shows what Hilary and Stephen do about this mutual attraction that is both confusing and exciting for them.

Here’s where the movie has a big disconnect and failing: Viewers never find out anything meaningful about Hilary that’s not related to her job, her mental illness and her “daddy issues.” Hilary is unhappy with her life, but she never really articulates how she wants to change her life.

She hints that she didn’t expect to be working in a movie theater at her age. Hilary doesn’t even show an interest in the movies that are at the theater. What did she want to do her life then? Don’t expect “Empire of Light” to answer that question.

There are multiple scenes in the movie where Hilary goes on a rant about not wanting men to control her. As she blurts out in a manic confession to Stephen, it has a lot to do with her being a “daddy’s girl,” but her father cheated on Hilary’s abusive mother, and he asked Hilary to lie and cover up this infidelity. During another rant, she lists the names of random men whom she says have wronged her. But these are the only clues into what Hilary’s life was like when she was a girl or a young woman.

Hilary is irrationally jealous and insecure. She will have temper tantrums out of the blue, usually triggered when it looks like Stephen is thinking about other women. It happens in a scene where Hilary and Stephen take a trip to a deserted beach, go skinny dipping, and then make sand castles together. While making sand castles, Stephen mentions an ex-girlfriend who broke his heart, and he admits that he still thinks about this ex-love. When Stephen asks Hilary if she’s ever been in love, she avoids answering the question. And then almost immediately, Hilary verbally lashes out at Stephen with a man-hating tirade.

But the movie then abruptly cuts to Stephen and Hilary leaving on a bus, with both of them being pleasant with each other and acting like this awful argument didn’t even happen. It looks like bad film editing, but it’s really the movie’s awkward way of trying to show viewers that both Stephen and Hilary have serious issues with denial about Hilary being a loose cannon. Stephen will show time and time again that he’s a better friend to Hilary than she is to him.

Hilary’s jealousy of Janine, as well as Janine’s attraction to Stephen, are inexplicably dropped as a subplot when the movie later shows a montage of Hilary, Stephen and Janine hanging out with each other like they’re best friends forever. These three pals do things like go to a carnival and a roller skating rink together. Janine then gets sidelined in the movie for no reason at all. It’s an example of how “Empire of Light” has an erratic portrayal of these characters’ relationships.

That’s not the movie’s only problem. “Empire of Light” tries to make a big statement about the racism that Stephen experiences. But it’s with the tone that it matters more how Hilary is affected by having her eyes opened to racism, rather than placing more importance on how Stephen (who actually experiences racism in many painful ways) is affected by racism. The racism issues begin in the movie when Hilary, unbeknownst to Stephen, sees Stephen getting racially harassed by some white skinheads when Stephen is walking outside and minding his own business.

Later, Hilary witnesses Stephen encountering a racist customer named Mr. Cooper (played by Ron Cook), who lets it be known that he doesn’t want someone who looks like Stephen telling him the Empire’s rules of no outside food and drinks being allowed inside the theater. During a tension-filled exchange where Stephen maintains his composure and Mr. Cooper loses his temper and holds up the line of people behind him, Hilary tries to smooth things over and placate Mr. Cooper by telling him he can finish his outside food and drinks in the lobby.

Stephen nearly walks off the job in that incident, because he thinks that Hilary didn’t stand up for an employee being mistreated by a rude and racist customer, and instead Hilary was trying too hard to accommodate this toxic person. Hilary tries to make an excuse that what Mr. Cooper did wasn’t bad enough for Stephen to quit, but Hilary is missing the point: Stephen, who did nothing wrong and was following the rules, shouldn’t have to be the one to feel like he was guilty of doing something wrong, while the guilty person is being coddled by a manager who’s in charge of handling the situation. When Stephen points out this disparity to Hilary, she admits that he’s right, makes an apology, and begs Stephen not to quit.

Even though this scene accurately portrays how white people and black people can sometimes look at racist incidents differently, “Empire of Light” goes right back to treating Stephen as the character who’s supposed to make a very messed-up Hilary into a happy person. Hilary has some deep-seated issues that come to the surface and existed long before she met Stephen. It’s also no surprise when in the last third of the movie, “Empire of Light” uses racism as a way to contrive a melodramatic plot development that viewers can see coming as soon as this scene begins.

In addition, “Empire of Light” has a double standard in the problematic issue of a supervisor getting sexually involved with a subordinate. The movie makes Donald the “villain” because he abuses his power to have consensual sex with Hilary whenever he feels like it. Even though the sex between Donald and Hilary is consensual, it’s always at the demand of Donald.

However, when it looks like Hilary and Stephen are headed for a consensual sexual relationship, the movie doesn’t question the ethics of Hilary getting sexually involved with one of her subordinates. Stephen’s employment status at the Empire Theatre is also vulnerable because he’s a new employee. Hilary knows she’s got the upper hand and more power as Stephen’s boss, but the movie excuses Hilary for taking advantage of this imbalance of power when it comes to Stephen.

And frankly, based on the way Hilary sometimes treats Stephen like a doormat for her selfish purposes, it’s questionable how great this relationship is, even though “Empire of Light” desperately tries to put a “female empowerment” spin on it. Stephen does a lot for Hilary emotionally, but he doesn’t get much from her in return except companionship and some generic words of encouragement. None of this imbalance is given much scrutiny in the movie, because Stephen’s thoughts and feelings are treated as secondary to Hilary’s thoughts and feelings.

Stephen is never shown doing anything that proves he’s passionate about architecture, except mention that he wants to get a college degree in architecture. The last third of the movie makes a half-hearted attempt to show that Stephen has a life outside of his job. He gets re-acquainted with his ex-girlfriend Ruby (played by Crystal Clarke)—the ex who broke his heart—after she goes to the Empire to see a movie and unexpectedly finds out that Stephen works there. Stephen’s single mother Delia (played by Tanya Moodie), who’s an immigrant nurse from Trinidad, eventually meets Hilary under some stressful circumstances. But it’s forced into the movie as part of a subplot where it all comes back to putting an emphasis on how Hilary is affected.

“Empire of Light” shows Stephen being a dutiful and awestruck student of Norman, who teaches him how to operate the theater’s projector. The magic of the movies is a recurring theme in “Empire of Light,” which simplistically has Stephen encouraging Hilary to watch movies at the theater as a way to have some escape from her problems. Likewise, when Stephen (who’s a fan of interracial ska/rock bands like The Beat and The Specials) gets Hilary to listen to music from interracial ska/rock bands, the movie tritely shows Hilary telling Stephen that she now understands his culture after listening to some of these albums.

“Empire of Light” wants to be filled with important messages about life. And certainly, the cast members deliver adept performances when called to do their parts in scenes that look good on a technical level but fall short on an emotionally authentic level. No matter how much “Empire of Light” wants to portray it, you can’t truly understand a culture just by listening to a few albums. And you can’t force viewers with enough life experience to believe that Hilary and Stephen’s lopsided relationship is one where she ever really thought of him as an equal.

Searchlight Pictures released “Empire of Light” in select U.S. cinemas on December 9, 2022.