by Oscar O’Sullivan

Monday – Whisky Galore and The Spy Who Loved Me

I’ll generally concede that the British make great comedy, but this wasn’t it. Whisky Galore should be an anarchic good time, and is advertised as a subversive anti-authority piece, but it feels too entrenched in the sensibilities of its time to work in the modern day. Set during WWII, we follow the residents of a small Scottish island that has, disastrously, run out of whiskey. Though the depression of the natives is played for laughs, it plays too understated, feeling like more of a drab drama than the outrageous comedy I was promised. Things don’t begin to heat up until the real plot kicks off, when a ship containing tens of thousands of crates of the good stuff crashes just offshore. The locals hurry to secure the whisky, which puts them at odds with the local Home Guard stick-in-the-mud. He calls in inspectors from the mainland to confiscate the ill-gotten-goods, leading to an entertaining game of cat-and-mouse as the locals stay one step ahead of the long arm of the law. There’s just one problem – none of this even begins to happen until the back half of the movie, by which point I’ve all but lost interest already. Some of the gags are inspired, especially the absurd ways that whisky is hidden in plain sight, but it’s too stingy with the comedy on the whole, leaving you thirsty for more. 5/10.

Certainly the biggest Bond yet, and the most impressive in many ways, but also obviously confused about its own direction. Moore has settled into a restrained, glib take on the character – posh, precise and utterly lacking in empathy. The closest he comes to real emotion is when Agent XXX (Barbara Bach) alludes to the death of his wife, an unexpected but welcome call-back to Lazenby’s Bond that can be used to explain why Moore’s incarnation seems to have more pronounced issues with romance than either of his predecessors. Speaking of romance, this film angles itself as the most overtly romantic instalment since From Russia With Love, even reusing that same basic setup of a Russian agent working with and falling for 007. While Moore and Bach don’t have quite the same chemistry as Sean Connery and Daniela Bianchi, I find Bond is always at his best when he has a consistent companion to bounce off of, and their snarky back-and-forths keep the energy up. On the topic of energy, this is a bombastic entry, full of intense stunts and superb sets. Perhaps the spectacle clashes with the more intimate intentions of the romance plot, but how can you argue with a film where a man skis off of a sheer cliff face and opens a Union Jack parachute in time with the iconic Bond theme sting after falling just long enough to get you worried? Aside from the usual motif and the title song, the soundtrack is a strange one, reflected the confused tone of the film – including several pieces of classical music and a jarringly obvious use of the theme from Lawrence of Arabia. The main villain is one of the more generic and understated Bond baddies – evil billionaire with an island lair wants to sink the world under the waves – but his henchman Jaws (Richard Kiel) is an instant hit, a silent giant with metal teeth who lurks through the plot like a slasher villain, defying death over and over to keep menacing our heroes in increasingly intense ways. While it lacks the fresh energy that made Moore’s first-go-round stand out, this really does feel like classic Bond action on an even bigger scale than before – hopefully it doesn’t signify the same slide into bad habits that saw Connery’s entries lose their lustre towards the end. 8/10.

Tuesday – The Philadelphia Story

Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, James Stewart – what an incredible three-handed lineup of leads for this breezy, raucous comedy. Hepburn is immediately captivating as the high-society woman preparing for her second marriage, physically and vocally commanding in a way that immediately makes clear why nobody is willing or able to stand up to her whims. Everyone except for Cary Grant, her disgraced first husband who has come home to disrupt the nuptials with his well-mannered but cutting barbs. While their marriage was definitely an unhappy one (the film alludes heavily to drink and violence in their shared past), Hepburn is made to realise that she misses having someone in her life who didn’t worship her unconditionally, and the audience may begin to suspect that Grant’s plans go deeper than mere petty disruption. Complicating matters further is Jimmy Stewart, playing a journalist for a gossip rag who has been sent to get the inside scoop on the wedding of the century. Stewart’s character is prickly and opinionated, openly resentful of the wealthy class he’s found himself rubbing shoulders with and uninterested in playing along nicely with Grant’s schemes. His grumpy, caustic honesty inadvertently endears him to Hepburn, setting the stage for a messy tangle of romantic misadventures right on the eve of her big day. The plot is jam-packed with all kinds of awkward scenarios and comical misunderstandings, with nobody ever managing to be quite on the same page. The structure shows it’s origins as a stage play, each scene having a set dramatic goal that will play out in a single location before we cut forward to the next setting and the next exchange. Characters may enter and exit a scene, but rarely will we cut away to another location or conversation before the current one has run it’s course. And like the best plays, this is a world where everyone is devastatingly clever and witty, even when making a fool of themselves. The highlight of the film sees Stewart and Hepburn both getting hammered at a high-class party, resulting in some of the best drunken acting you’ll ever see and the dramatic climax of the film. Now there is something fundamentally reductive about the core moral message – Hepburn’s strength of character is a burden that holds her back from true love and she needs to be softer if she ever wants to be a happy woman – but it isn’t laid on too thickly outside of a couple of uncomfortable scenes halfway through, and neither of her romantic interests are seriously trying to change her, leaving it up to her to decide who she wants to be. A superbly fun romcom with a top-shelf ending. 9/10.

Wednesday – Shadow of a Doubt

An Alfred Hitchcock thriller that skews morally darker than I was expecting, while at the same time portraying less onscreen violence than usual – sometimes it’s the unsaid thing that proves more unsettling. Charlie (Teresa Wright) is strangely enamoured with her namesake Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotten), who has fled some briefly-glimpsed entanglement across the country to stay with his family. Charlie’s affection for her uncle toes the line of becoming unwholesome, but that’s only the beginning of the subtle horror that begins to circle this picture-perfect suburban household. It’s the casual and comedic details that really complete the picture – Charlie’s precocious bookworm sister, her gang of simpering schoolgirl friends, family dinners and household chores, all perfectly mundane elements that Hitchcock lavishes an affectionate focus on, all so he can contrast them even more sharply with the eventual depravity that is uncovered. While the twist itself may not be especially shocking, it’s still worth going in blind and learning the truth alongside Charlie, whose increasing concern and desperation is what really sells the scenario. The cinematography also enhances the subtly sinister tone, using harsh angles and moody shadows without drawing overt attention to itself. For example, one spectacularly evocative image has two characters chatting on a porch at night. One is bathed entirely in darkness, a subtle glint in his eye giving him a demonic aspect. The other, positioned beneath a lamp, has her head halo-ed by the light. It’s an image that makes an impression, but it isn’t overly fabricated, just a simple two-shot where those tricks of lighting that complete the contrast seem almost accidental, natural even. As gripping a thriller as you could hope to watch, without even a single onscreen murder. 10/10.

Thursday – A Real Pain

Written by, directed by and starring Jesse Eisenberg, it’s would frankly be irresponsible not to read into this as a form of self-therapy for actor. Set on a trip to Poland where the two leads learn about their late grandmother’s experience as a holocaust survivor, the emotional core of the film is Kieran Culkin as the charming but damaged cousin, viewed through the simultaneously jealous and protective perspective of Eisenberg’s more nebbish character. While he may struggle to fit into the group or express himself and often seems in awe of the ease with which Culkin goes through life, Eisenberg’s character is also much more put-together – he has a job, a wife and child, something to go home to. Culkin, for all his easy graces, is a fundamentally unhappy person, a perennial loser sleeping on his mother’s couch and doing odd jobs for friends. Jesse Eisenberg delivers two or three monologues that cut to the core of his character’s (and his own?) neuroses, while Culkin never opens up, despite several near-breakdowns. If any of my readers are a little shy or otherwise socially odd (let’s not kid ourselves here), this may sound like a familiar coping mechanism – we convince ourselves that our otherness will bring us stability and success in the long run, while those confident and happy people we long to be are actually deeply unhappy behind their smiles. Seeing this played out on screen is perhaps a little sappy, but the strength of the performances and the playful patter of the dialogue makes the feeling work. The other thematic ingredient in the mix, dealing with generational trauma and the weight of revisiting history’s darkest chapters, is added in just the right quantity to complement the primary flavour of social dramedy. Nothing about the script or the visual language of the film is revolutionary, but it’s solidly made in the mold of its inspirations (I was particularly reminded of the work of Noah Baumbach, who Eisenberg worked with on The Squid and the Whale). Worth a watch for Kieran Culkin’s performance alone – it’s not at all far removed from what he did as Roman Roy on Succession, but the changed context and his sheer skilfulness in this type of role make it a joy anyway. 8/10.

Friday – Nosferatu (2024) and Saturday Night

At least when a film is an ambitious disappointment, I can accuse it of trying too hard to reach for something. What surprised me most about Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu was that it seemed to not be trying that hard at all. Eggers has very directly adapted the source material, painting inside the lines like a good boy almost every step of the way. The differences he does bring the table mainly lies in his visual style and the addition of more viscerally gruesome material than your typical mainstream vampire film, but even then what’s on offer here feels tame when viewed next to Eggers’ previous work. There is plenty here to unnerve, but nothing that shocked me. After films where Robert Pattinson masturbates over a wooden mermaid and a witch grinds a baby into paste, a little necrophilia seems positively tame. Another disappointment is the dialogue – Eggers normally has a talent for memorable exchanges, blending period-accurate language with unbalancing humour. Nosferatu falls into the trap of having it’s cast use posh English accents and vernacular when the setting is 1800s Germany. I’m not against the practice in principle, and there have been times when I’ve praised a film for this exact kind of incongruity – see The Duellists, for example, where Harvey Keitel plays a French soldier with his natural strong Brooklyn accent – Nosferatu sets itself up for criticism by having characters slip random German words and phrases into their speech, and because almost none of the actors seem to be using their natural speaking voice, further highlighting the artifice of the accent convenience. Aaron Taylor-Johnson seems to struggle especially with the posh patter of his character, calling to mind Keanu Reeves’ embarrassing attempt at a British accent in the 90s Dracula adaptation. What makes this stranger still is that Taylor-Johnson is British, so one struggles to imagine why he comes across so unnatural. The rest of the cast fares better, but largely suffer from having nothing concrete to do for most of the film. Nicholas Hoult takes the lead early on as Thomas Hutter, sent on a strange journey to the castle of Count Orlok, with his role very quickly boiling down to terrified reactions, a yard-stick to tell the audience how frightened they themselves should be. Lily-Rose Depp as Ellen is the surprise gem of the ensemble, an inexperienced actor taking charge of a demanding lead role. Her face is perfectly haunted and morose throughout, while her physical writhing and fits of manic expressiveness never lose their fascinating impact. Willem DaFoe and Ralph Ineson round out the ensemble nicely, but suffer from a serious case of bystander syndrome, unable to interact with or affect the plot in any real way for most of the runtime. Here is where the script really stumbles, as the majority of the dialogue can be boiled down to exposition, Willem especially burdened with dialogue that blatantly delivers the film’s themes over and over again. Eggers’ best work has never been heavy on plot, which may explain why he struggles to write for something so extremely narrative. When his innate humour shines through, most often in throwaway one-liners given to Willem and Ineson, you can see what the majority of the film is lacking – it needed more Eggers in the script, and perhaps a little less Eggers in the visual department. He has shackled himself to a very measured and, dare I say it, repetitive approach to imagery (when I get my hands on the physical release I’ll be sitting down and counting how many times he pans and flips the camera at the speed of molasses). The one aspect of the film that I would say is an unambiguous triumph is the titular vampire himself, played with an admirable lack of vanity by Bill Skarsgard. I say this because you practically cannot tell that it’s him under there, so expertly have they disguised his face with prosthetics, a fantastic make-up job that still allows him to emote. If you listen very closely you can hear him in the voice, although he winds up sounding closer to his father Stellan. Pre-release press revealed that Bill trained with an opera coach to lower his voice an octave and that he was taught how to speak in the accent of an ancient Transylvanian by an expert in dead languages. This is the attention to period detail and esoteric approach that I expect from a Robert Eggers film, making the mundanity of everything else in the film all the more disappointing. The unique design and inhuman presence of this take on The Vampyre almost make this a worthwhile retelling on their own, but the plot needed to be tinkered with just a little more. If you’ve seen one adaptation of Stoker’s novel, it can be difficult to get invested in others, especially when they tell the story so straight. Unfortunately, the look and atmosphere that Eggers brings to the table aren’t enough to put this on the top of the heap. 6/10.

Was Saturday Night Live ever actually funny? The glimpses of material we get in this film are never as funny as the actual backstage drama, begging the question of why we are watching a film that treats the show with such overblown reverence. The drama still works by virtue of following a very predictable underdog structure, and thanks to the efforts of the young cast. My lack of familiarity with the real people being portrayed, aside form a couple of big names, allowed me to appreciate the pure mechanics of the acting a little more – I don’t really care how accurate Cory Michael Smith was being to the real Chevy Chase, I only care that he gave a funny and engaging performance. I can’t quite wrap my head around why the film has an omnipresent ticking clock, counting down at regular intervals during the 90 minutes to have the show ready, but the film itself runs a good twenty minutes longer than the timer we’re given. The foreshadowing and myth-making can become a little ridiculous – characters directly predict how famous their co-stars will become in future, while naysayers all but scream at Lorne Michaels (Gabriel Labelle) that his show will never run for fifty years – but the frantic energy and loveable cast keep things on track. 7/10.

Saturday – Angel and the Badman

A fairly rote and surprisingly bloodless cowboy adventure where injured outlaw John Wayne is nursed back to health by a family of pacifistic Quakers. The setup has promise, with some fun culture-clash comedy and a fairly sweet romance, with the family’s innocent daughter falling for Wayne’s macho charm. Wayne is playing his stock role, loud and abrasive but a force for good when pointed in the right direction, such as when he bullies a local rancher into becoming a better neighbour. Despite a strong start, including a tensely done standoff where Wayne bluffs a gang of baddies with an empty pistol, the story flops and flounders around for far too long, dilly-dallying with a string of tangents that let the air right out of the plot. Combine that with a lack of the genre’s expected action, an overbearingly obvious score and a damp squib of an ending, we’re left with an instantly forgettable Western that retains just enough good qualities to entertain in the moment. Also worth mentioning that the DVD copy I watched was fuzzy and badly cropped. 5/10.

Sunday – It’s Complicated

I reviewed this when I watched it last year and don’t think I found any radically different insight on this revisit. Calm and measured in spite of it’s zany premise, disarmingly raw in how it examines the complex emotions of divorce, bizarrely structured but undeniably hilarious. Alec Baldwin is just the right amount of scummy to root against but fundamentally charming enough to explain why she falls back into his arms, while Meryl Streep plays the fragile emotionality of her character without ever coming across as hysterical. Ends on a strangely muted note for a romcom. 8/10.