by Oscar O’Sullivan

Monday – Challengers

Sometimes a movie just works. Challengers is a deceptively simple story of a love triangle gone wrong, so confident in the storytelling that it begins with the climax, a grudge match of professional tennis that we are regularly thrust back into between vignettes of the characters pasts. There is nothing in the extensive flashbacks that could be called a twist or reveal, nothing that dramatically recontextualises the climactic action, but the non-linear exposition of the plot is still hugely engaging to witness. It’s also visually and aurally staggering, striking at precisely chosen moments with frantic camera movements, sudden and overwhelming snippets of score underlining tense exchanges of dialogue. Said dialogue is fantastic, with every scene being either flirtatious, aggressive and often both at once, and the three leads deliver career-making performances, portraying their characters across a period of nearly fifteen years with nothing but their own skills and a touch of makeup to convey the aging process. The standout is Josh O’Connor as Patrick, a rich kid playing at poverty who coasts through life on his athletic skills but doesn’t have the drive to take his career all the way. O’Connor is instantly magnetic, impish and playful, who at the beginning of the film’s timeline is the more accomplished of the two friends, the better player on the court and in romance. A decade later, his roguish irresponsibility has become pathetic, begging for an advance on his potential tournament winnings so he can pay for a hotel, and resorting to a Tinder hookup for a place to sleep. Mike Faist as Art is the other contender, more shy and reserved than his friend, content to hang back and let him take the lead in all things. Faist stands out less because his character is less explosive that O’Connor’s role, but he still delivers a cracking performance with what he has to work with, especially in the modern portion of the film, when Art is a famous tennis pro who is visibly depressed and directionless, torn between his growing desire to leave the sport behind and his deep-seated fear that his wife Tashi only loves him when he competes. Tashi is the central figure of the movie in many ways, the child prodigy whose career was finished by a freak injury before it could even begin, and now lives vicariously through Art’s success. This is the second time this year that Zendaya has blown me away with a performance, here playing a character defined by self-assurance. Tashi is always in control, or at least believes herself to be, approaching everything with a calm and calculating confidence, choosing Art over Patrick largely because Art doesn’t challenge her, even if she cannot help but be attracted to the chaos Patrick introduces into her life. In an industry landscape where original stories are increasingly rare, a script this excellent is something to be celebrated, and director Luca Guadagnino brings it to life with a vital, kinetic eye. 9/10, catch it while it’s still in cinemas for the full impact of the Reznor/Ross score.

Tuesday – The Quiet Man

The quintessential image of how Americans view Ireland. All that’s missing is a Leprechaun. Fields of rolling green, nothing on the roads but horses and carts, not a building taller than two stories anywhere in sight. Hilariously, the dialogue somehow feels less cliched and riddled with sayings than this years That They May Face the Rising Sun, though of course the Irish cast are a motley crew of stereotypes anyway. We’re lucky in a way that the prevailing stereotype of the Irish overseas is whimsical harmless rural drunks. I think every movie should have a break for pints mid-way through the final fight. 8/10, would love to visit the shooting locations sometime.

Wednesday – The Searchers

Probably the best possible Western you could make within the limitations of 1950s Hollywood. For all it’s gesturing at noble ideas, this is still a commercial film, a big budget production in a genre that was viewed as “low art” for much of film history. It condemns the the treatment of Native Americans and then plays into harmful stereotypes in the same breath. It rails against the violence of the frontier, but still lionises the violent men who save the day. Even it’s strongest thesis, the deconstruction of the stock John Wayne hero as a snarling, irrational racist, is tempered by the need for a happy ending, it’s final condemnation of him left purely visual, when a tangible punishment would have been more satisfying. But then, the absence of satisfaction becomes a part of the message. Here is a film that says at every turn “We wish we could have done more. We wish we could have shown more”. It does all it could have done and asks for our forgiveness. Whether we can accept it’s storytelling shortcomings or not, it’s formal qualities are unimpeachable. 9/10, a must-see for anyone who knows their Westerns.

Thursday – Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Perhaps because this one was lodged in my mind as the best of the trilogy, I found myself disappointed by this revisit. It’s major flaw is that the human side of the story is both under-written and over-represented. What truly stands out about this trilogy, after the visuals, has always been the compellingly crafted dynamics of the apes. The movie plods through the set-up of it’s first half but absolutely sings in the second, with truly excellent action scenes and far more visual variety than in the grey, forest-bound first half. While Reeves mastered the visual language of these films on his first attempt, he didn’t yet have the confidence to commit fully to putting the apes front and centre. What he does with Caesar, Koba and the rest here is brilliant and laid the groundwork for his exceptional second entry, but the perfunctory human element holds this back from perfection. 8/10.

Saturday – Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

History repeats itself. Just like with Dawn, this distant sequel is almost entirely let down by it’s insistence on foregrounding human characters. Now the two human leads are far less prevalent here than Jason Clarke and his family were in Dawn, but their presence has an even more pronounced effect on the overall feel of the movie. In the first modern entry where Earth has fully become a Planet of the Apes, having two actors who look like they could have stepped out of the modern day exchanging dialogue shatters the otherwise mystical, alien atmosphere that the film works very hard to create in its first act or so. Not helping matters is the primary smart human being played by Freya Allan, best known for Netflix’s The Witcher. Now I don’t especially like to badmouth people’s hard work (I love it actually), but her performance here is distractingly bad, very wooden and unengaged, especially when placed next to the bevy of physically committed mo-cap turns from the rest of the cast. She is quite good in the early scenes where her character feigns muteness, but later developments fail to justify her inclusion in a plot that should have been purely monkey business. The sequel that the ending sets up is intriguing, but the confused tone of the final scenes makes me wonder if this team is capable of telling the story that logically follows this one. Still, it’s a special effects marvel on the level of Dune or Avatar, a solid fantasy adventure and filled with delightful allusions to the Caesar trilogy that prop up an otherwise thematically lightweight story. 7/10, if you are going to see it, the cinema is the place.

Sunday – Zatoichi’s Vengeance

Once again Zatoichi is protecting villagers from Yakuza intimidation, but this time the biggest hurdle is his own guilty conscience. Our hero is forced to examine the choices he has made in life, and weigh up the value of his violent actions against the potentially corrupting influence he has on an impressionable youth. Of course, no matter how much he wrings his hands and toys with the idea of a quiet life, there’s no rest for the wicked, and Zatoichi once again draws his cane sword for the sake of others. More than usual, he embraces the chaos of his role, laughing and taunting his foes as he metes out his final bloody judgement. His questions on morality may be left unanswered, but that’s how it must be; you can’t make another twelve films about a man who abandons violence for good, after all. 8/10.