Ladies In Black: DVD Review

Ladies In Black: DVD Review

Pleasingly gentle and relentlessly pleasant, Bruce Beresford's period drama Ladies In Black is one of those cautionary films that feels contemporary with its message that refugees add much to the country mix.

Set in 1950s Sydney in a downtown department store, Goodes, it's the tale of Lesley (Rice, in bookish form, who takes up a summer job with the ladies working there.

On the cusp of moving away from being a child and into womanhood, Rice's Lesley yearns to be at university and a poet or actress, but her desire to embrace a new life is met with indifference from most of her uncultured co-workers and indignation from her father who's not sure he wants his daughter at uni.

But taken under the wing of Julia Ormond's refugee haute couture dresser Magda, Lesley begins to flourish...

Ladies In Black doesn't do conflict.

There are elements of it hinted within the kind of fluffiness that an older generation will enjoy, but its messages of female empowerment and of refugees adding much to the cultural mix come in easy to swallow doses, with nary a hint of major drama anywhere.

A side-plot involving one of the shop staff losing her husband is bizarre at best; but there are some nice touches throughout the frothiness that hint at more below. Shots of various members of staff at Christmas add a soupcon of something undisturbed and unexpanded, because Ladies In Black isn't interested in spinning anything other than a slightly rose-coloured tinted look at life in 50s Sydney.

It's not exactly a shame, and it's clear Beresford and his capable direction is not looking to rock the apple cart, but when a film is best described as gentle and pleasant, you can tell there is more that could have been done.

Ormond, Rice and Taylor give creditable performances, and the rest of the ensemble works well, but ultimately Ladies In Black isn't interested in doing much more than delivering a film that keeps an older generation amused.

The storylines don't challenge, the threats don't mount up and the denouements can be predicted a mile off - but in terms of today's cinematic offerings, its desire to play safe and unswerving from predictable is possibly to be commended - as this is easily a film you can take your mum and your nan too, and not worry about a thing. 

Instant Family: Film Review

Instant Family: Film Review

Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Rose Byrne, Isabella Moner, Octavia Spencer
Director: Sean Anders

It's easy to be cynical in the face of Instant Family, a Hollywood movie about fostering that ends up in a gloop of manufactured sentiment and predictability that underscores its premise.

And yet, much like The Big Sick drew deep from the well of personal experience for Kumail Nanjiani and Emily Gordon, Instant Family's vein of veracity comes from director Sean Anders' autobiographical input into the script.

Byrne and Wahlberg and Ellie and Pete, a couple who decide fostering is the way to go to help them out of the rut of their lives. Believing their house flipping mentality will help with parenting (fix them up, move them on), the couple find themselves drawn to teen Lizzie (Dora The Explorer's Moner).

However, social workers warn them that Lizzie comes with two younger siblings and a mother who's a drug addict, and in and out of their lives.

But, Ellie and Pete are determined to press on with the adoption - no matter what it may bring.

Instant Family deserves kudos for putting a face on adoption, so rarely seen in movies of this type, where the kids are usually portrayed as kooky and the system is a breeze.

In the first third of the film, Instant Family's commitment to a heart-breaking truth is to be duly applauded, with much of the movie doing a lot to break stereotypes and introduce some kind of complexities to what actually transpires. Its honesty will resonate with those caught within, and will open eyes for others unaware of how the reality of the system can be.

It's largely due to the reality of what Anders went through, but by keeping the core cast of characters real and grounded, Instant Family may open a lot of doors to the idea of fostering, and provide some harsh truths that are often glossed over. It's rare to see such honesty in a broad studio product, and while Instant Family strays away from too much didacticism, its commitment to honesty, punctuated with humour, is extremely commendable.

It helps that Byrne - and believe it or not, Wahlberg - are genuinely likeable, with their neuroses and foibles feeling greatly relatable, and helping the audience through some of the more sentimental edges that creep in as the inevitabilities of going through the Hollywood machine mount up.

Broad as it needs to be (and not always to its credit, thanks to populating some of the outer characters as kooks), Instant Family's pleasantries make it a dramedy that's worth enduring, even if the ending can be seen a mile off.

It may be a touch manipulative, and be mocked for being so by those unaware of the complexities of being a part of the system, but Instant Family more than delivers on its promise to sell a message.

That's no bad thing, but given the film has laughs when it needs to and has a receptive audience onside because of it, this is actually a family worth hanging out with over the Christmas and New Year period.

The Wife: DVD Review

The Wife: DVD Review

Slow-burning and blessed with two powerhouse leads, the adaptation of Meg Wolitzer's 2003 novel, The Wife is definitely a film for those older in years looking to reflect.

Close and Pryce are husband and wife Joan and Joe Castleman, whose lives are irrevocably changed when Joe gets a call offering him a Nobel peace prize, to be awarded in Stockholm for his writing.

As they head off to the ceremony for the literary award, Joe's agog at what's ahead and Joan is the supportive long-suffering wife who sits in the background, happy to keep him on schedule and out of the limelight.

But as the ceremony nears, tensions rear between the two as their history is thrown into the spotlight.

The Wife is a perfectly fine piece of drama, that bogs itself down with its flashbacks and exposition.

The desire to explore this blowhard husband and the stoic wife stutters as it jump between the past and now, with the best part of the work coming in the present as the powderkeg nears explosion.

It helps that Close and Pryce spar well, and equally gel; their portrayal of a long marriage and of decisions made in the past help anchor the piece as it chops and changes. If Close is strong in her delivery, stoic and still in her building rage and regret, Pryce is equally dismissive and oblivious to what's around him.

Close is very much the patient glue which holds the drama together, a nuanced turn that anchors proceedings as the reflections play out. The wry delivery of some of the lines also provide plenty of barbs as well, with the screenplay built very much on the three-act play approach.

Ultimately, The Wife soars when it deals its hand of the present day fallout of the past. And a clever examination of some of the final wording proves delicious in many ways as well.

But The Wife flounders in its execution of the past, and confuses the reasoning adopted by some of the lead characters; it remains enigmatic and like a stageplay in its execution - though overall, that's no bad thing. 

Cold War: Film Review

Cold War: Film Review

Cast: Joanna Kulig, Tomasz Kot
Director: Pawel Pawlikoswki

Ending with a truly extraordinary final shot, Pawlikoswki's love story Cold War is a paean to the golden age of cinema and the universality of a romantic tale.

Shot in black and white and set in post-war Poland, it's the tale of composer Wiktor (Kot) and auditionee Zula (Kulig) who are attracted to each other, even though their fates should not be intertwined.

Landing a role in his troupe, Zula bewitches Wiktor, and as they cross Eastern Europe touring, their lines become more blurred, and their roles in each other's lives stronger than expected.

Cold War opens with local villagers singing and proceeds to let the cameras linger on the musical numbers and the committed performances of the singers. In fact, as it progresses, you could almost feel that Pawlikoski's more determined to archive local folk music and lore, before the story of Wiktor and Zula kicks in.

It is transcendantly shot; every frame oozes class as the black and white gives an eternal veneer to what plays out, but equally, the leads demand your attention to.

Kot channels inherent tragedy and frustration as Wiktor, the man for whom circumstance proves ruinous. Equally, Kulig has the kind of charm that lights up a love story throughout the years, and gives more than enough clout to the arc as it plays out.

Ultimately, Cold War will thaw even the most hardened of hearts as it dances the line between wondrously shot musical moments on stage and then veers toward the emotional intimacy of a relationship that shouldn't be.

Steeped in pathos, and riddled with seductive tones, Cold War is a luminous film that possesses a timelessness which is hard to deny.

A Simple Favor: DVD Review

A Simple Favor: DVD Review

Better known for his comedies like Ghostbusters, Paul Feig turns his directing eye to an adaptation of the 2017 novel from Darcey Bell.

Attempting to make it film-noir, but still imbuing it with comedic sensibilities and campy touches, A Simple Favor is the story of vlogger Stephanie Smothers (Kendrick, by far and away the best thing in this film) a nerdy widower and mother-of-one who strikes up an unlikely friendship with upmarket fellow Emily Nelson (Lively, suitably bitchy when needed, but unable to fulfill some of the film's requirements).

Entranced by Nelson's drink-during-the-day mentality, Smothers and Nelson become BFFs. One day, however, when Smothers is left to pick up Nelson's child, she doesn't return, prompting fears she's gone AWOL in the most sinister of fashions....

As Stephanie investigates, she begins to discover something sinister...

A Simple Favor works on some levels, and fails on some others.

The aforementioned comedy touches don't quite gel with the desire to go a bit darker here and there, and Kendrick's Nancy Drew type digging is sometimes foiled by an unevenness of tone, which, while not fatal to proceedings, can occasionally deliver a whiplash which is hard to shake.

Thankfully, Kendrick holds a lot of this together, going the full gamut from nerdish outsider caught up in the bitchiness of small-town school-gate gossip to empowered crusader, inspired by Emily's laissez-faire dismissal and attitude to life. Kendrick more than delivers, peppering her preppiness with the kind of touches employed in Pitch Perfect.

Lively isn't quite as strong, and while Emily's boozy detachment is a hard one to play, she doesn't quite hit the convictions needed late in the piece. Equally, Crazy Rich Asians' star Henry Golding delivers a too-nice-to-be-true turn that complements, but doesn't elevate what's going on.

Ultimately, the outlandish twists of the noir and the comedy slightly foil some of the final suspense, and there's a little too much garbled exposition at the end delivered without breath or pause.

These are minor niggles though, and there's much to be said for the stylish execution and the sassy French OST.

A Simple Favor is a smart watch in places, but the tonal mixes, while never fatal, do make the overall effect less powerful than it could have been - and it's saved solely by an exceptional Anna Kendrick. 

Crazy Rich Asians: DVD Review

Crazy Rich Asians: DVD Review

In truth, Crazy Rich Asians is a masterpiece of staging and hollow spectacle.

It's a tale as old as time itself, one which dabbles in fairy tales, and enigmatically weaves some very familiar threads in among opulent gaudiness. It's almost satirical in ways, if it wasn't such a blatant  and shallow piece at heart.

It's your classic girl (Wu) meets boy (Golding), girl dates boy for a year, blissfully unaware that said boy is part of a mega-rich family and who tries to introduce girl to her snooty mother (Yeoh), who's dismissive of the differences between the two.

Along the way, throw in some very familiar and very obvious cultural issues and jealousies, stir it all up et voila, Crazy Rich Asians.

And yet, if the tale is an all too hoary rote one, the rom com greatly benefits from some truly globally impressive cinematography (it's like a tourism board advert for Singapore at times) and some directorial flourishes from Chu himself.

Whether it's showing off the excess, drowning the screen in swathes of local culture (hello, extended street vendors montage) or thrusting to prominence the Asian way of life and actors, it's clear why Crazy Rich Asians is having a moment to shine.

Like the subject matter, it's a little indulgent and overlong, and certainly, some of the sequences feel like they could have been excised from the 2 hour run time, and in parts, it has to be said that some of the narrative feels weaker than it ought to be, an excuse to join together the dots of its paper thin characters, and kill some time prior to the next luxurious sequence.

But Wu shines, as does Yeoh, with what little they have; and Humans star Gemma Chan brings more than enough to the table as the subject of potential sequels.

In this obvious tale of family clashes and of tradition, Crazy Rich Asians rightly deserves the applause it's getting for bringing the culture to a wider audience, and by telling a very familiar story complete with broad brush strokes in what will be to many, unfamiliar surroundings. It's the very essence of representation and is also somehow the epitome of where 2018 has marked the turning point.

But for cinema purists, looking for a little more perhaps, Crazy Rich Asians could do with an expeditious trim, a plumping of some of the elements of its Jane Austen edges and a bit more of a killer hook. Here's hoping the sequels manage this - and more.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

2019 is upon us, and here's wishing you all a 2019 that's practically perfect in every way possible!

Happy New Year, and all the best to you and yours for 2019!