The Whale – Film Review

Posted on October 14, 2022 by ashleymanningwriter

Director: Darren Aronofsky

Writer: Samuel D. Hunter

Starring: Brendan Fraser, Sadie Sink, Hong Chau, Samantha Morton, Ty Simpkins

Rating: ★★★★

It’s taken ten years for Darren Aronofsky’s adaptation of Samuel D. Hunter’s play The Whale, to get made. The problem was finding someone to play the lead character, Charlie. Aronofsky couldn’t find a suitable actor, until he saw a trailer for a film with Brendan Fraser in a supporting role, and realised he would be perfect. The result is a dark look at life with an equally dark sense of humour.

Charlie teaches an online course, where he never has his camera on. That’s so his students can’t see how overweight he is. Living alone, after the death of the love of his life, Charlie has turned to comfort eating, ending up weighing around 600 pounds. He’s shut himself off from the rest of the world, with only Liz (Hong Chau) as a friend. She’s also a nurse who looks after Charlie. With the eating taking a toll on his health, Liz believes Charlie only has a few days left to live, and in that time he wants to set things right with his daughter, who he hasn’t spoken to in eight years.

As everyone seems to be talking about, this is a massive return for Brendan Fraser, who has spent years out of the spotlight, appearing in smaller roles and the TV series Doom Patrol in the meantime. There’s no exaggeration to say that this is the best performance of his career. All of the praise is completley deserved and it’s a gripping and emotional portrayal of guilt, depression, and coming to terms with your own death. You really feel for him, and Fraser gives it absolutely everything.

Likewise Hong Chau is brilliant in the film. She’s Charlie’s only friend, and she cares for him deeply. Their relationship feels real and she does a great job at bringing her to life. There’s brilliant interactions, not just between Liz and Charlie, but also when she warns a missionary, Thomas (Ty Simpkins) from trying to convert him, which is both funny and heartbreaking as she retells the story of Charlie’s boyfriend’s death. The rest of the cast is also great, with excellent performaces and natural dialogue, making the dark drama sink in and the jokes click at all the right points.

The story is about life, and how things don’t turn out the way you expect, and at the same time there’s still time to make an impact. What drives Charlie in what could be his final days is his relationship with his daughter, and no matter how bad their relationship may seem there’s hope that it could work out. The play was inspired by one of Samuel D. Hunter’s students. After he asked them to write something honest, one of them said they need to learn to accept that their life wasn’t going to be as exciting as they expected, and that line not only features in the play/film, it also drives the entire story and characters.

The Whale is devastating to watch, while at the same time wickedly funny. Fraser gives a career defining performance, and one that will surely be heavily recognised in the upcoming award season. It just works in everyway.

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Living – Film Review

Posted on October 13, 2022 by ashleymanningwriter

Director: Oliver Hermanus

Writer: Kazuo Ishiguro

Starring: Bill Nighy, Aimee Lou Wood, Alex Sharp, Tom Burke

Rating: ★★★★

Living, which is directed by Oliver Hermanus and written by Kazuo Ishiguro, is an adaptation of Akira Kurasawa’s Ikiru, which is itself an adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich. It’s a moving story about life, death, and finding joy in the small things.

Bill Nighy is beyond fantastic in the film, giving a moving performance as Mr. Williams. He’s a bureaucrat endlessly working without any real friends, even his son doesn’t want to spend time with him. He leads an orderly life, living by routine to the point that when he’s late to work, his colleagues are all surprised. After being told that he has a terminal illness, he re-evaluates his life, and wondering when he became so rigid. In his youth he wasn’t like what he’s become and there’s a shadow of regret over his life.

He decides to make the most out of the remaining time that he has left, first on a day trip to the sea-side joining someone he meets in a cafe and then taking example from a colleague at work, Margaret, who is played by the wonderful Aimee Lou Wood. Margaret has a positive outlook on life, making things full of whimsy and turning the ordinary into something fun. She has nicknames for everyone at work, but they’re not malicious, just funny observations about who they are.

Mr Williams is very straight laced, with his set routine and isn’t one to make converstaion with others. Because of this, while he’s able to open up to Margaret about his illness, he’s not able to tell his son. He reherses what he’s going to say, but is unable to actually say it. In the same way that his son is unable to speak to him about what he wants. It’s an awkward relationship, which leads to some funny and sad scenes. While the film is about death, it’s not a bleak or depressing film. It has it’s emotional moments, but it’s much more focused on finding happiness, and a few satirical moments about bureaucracy with paperwork just being pushed endlessly from department to department. There are quite a few funny moments, even if the film is not a full on comedy.

One of the main themes is finding joy in the little things. Things like the day to day interactions with people or singing a well loved song, are the important things in life. With his remaining time Mr. Williams sets forth to accomplish something, nothing major, just helping set up a children’s park. There’s a great sense of joy from something so small, but at the same time he’s aware that while it will outlast him, it will eventually be replaced by something else. There’s a real sense that everything is temporary.

Living is a sentimental and life affirming film, showing that it’s never too late to live life. Bill Nighy is fantastic, giving one of the best performances of his career. A poignant and emotional film.

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The Son – Film Review

Posted on October 12, 2022 by ashleymanningwriter

Director: Florian Zeller

Writer: Florian Zeller and Christopher Hampton

Starring: Hugh Jackman, Laura Dern, Vanessa Kirby, Zen McGrath, and Anthony Hopkins

Rating: ★★★★

Florian Zeller follows up his Oscar winning film The Father with The Son, another adaptation of one of his plays. This time around he’s tackling teenage depression, as well as father and son relationships. Unlike The Father, which tried to present the story from the viewpoint of the character struggling with dementia, The Son is a lot more conventional in structure. The story follows Peter (Hugh Jackman), whose son is struggling with depression. His son, Nicholas (Zen McGrath) moves in with Peter and his second wife Beth, in the hopes it helps to be closer to him.

The cast is really great, especially Jackman and Dern, who both deliver very natural and emotional performances as Nicholas’s parents. Zen McGrath does a good job, his character feeling strained under the weight of depression. His performance is a little one note at times, but it still connects. You can feel his struggle. Vanessa Kirby is also really great as Beth, Peter’s second wife, struggling with Nicholas while trying to support Peter. The performances are all great, as you’d expect from the cast.

One of the more interesting ideas about the film is that children become their parents. Peter believes his father, played by Anthony Hopkins, is essentially a monster. Someone who worked all the time, putting pressure on his son, and not being there when he was needed most. Peter likes to think he’s not similar at all, but he sees parts of his father in himself. Anthony Hopkins only appears in one scene, and yet his glorified cameo is the best performance of the film. He’s unrelentingly selfish and relishing in it. His relationship with his son, is so messed up, and he feels no remorse. It’s a glorious performance, and honestly one of the highlights of the film. He’s so menacing and it’s no surprise when Peter freaks out, after seeing his father in himself.

The ending is incredibly frustrating, because you can see it coming really early on in the story and it feels a little forced because of it, but as the same time the characters are so good, you don’t want the inevitable to happen. You will it to change, but you know it’s going to happen. One of the final scenes is dragged out to perfection, as you hope it’s not going to play out the way you know it will. Hearts beating faster and hands gripping the arm rests tighter, right up to the moment. It’s a really well constructed and lands powerfully.

The Son is a dark film with a small sprinkle of humour. The performances are great and it tackles some heavy subject matter head on. It does feel a little stagey, which is no shock considering its source material, and it does feel a little too long, but it’s a great film and I enjoyed it more than I did The Father, which I found very cold and unemotional, while this is engaging from the first scene.  

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The Good Nurse – Film Review

Posted on October 11, 2022 by ashleymanningwriter

Director: Tobias Lindholm

Writer: Krysty Wilson-Cairns

Starring: Jessica Chastain, Eddie Redmayne, Nnamdi Asomugha, Kim Dickens, and Noah Emmerich

Rating: ★★★★

The Good Nurse is directed by Tobias Lindholm, adapting the non-fiction book of the same name by Charles Graeber. It’s the story of Charles Cullen, a serial killer nurse who was able to get away with killing patients at various hospitals for sixteen years, purely due to the hospitals not wanting it to come back at them. The film follows another nurse, Amy Loughren, played by the fantastic Jessica Chastain, who helps police take down Charles Cullen, played by the equally fantastic Eddie Redmayne.

Both Chastain and Redmayne are phenomenal. Amy is an instantly likeable person, someone who takes their job very seriously, going above and beyond to help every patient. She’s also sick, but is unable to take time of work due to not having worked at the hospital long enough to have medical insurance. It’s a tragedy that someone who’s so vital to helping others, is unable to get the help she needs. In real life, she has a happy ending, receiving the help she needed and is still a nurse today.

The first scene shows Charles as he watches a patient dying, the camera focusing on him as others in the room rush around to save them. You can tell there’s something off about him, but you’re not quite sure what. The same thought arises later when he cleans up one of his victims to make her presentable for her husband, after her death. He labours over it, as if he genuinely cares, but there’s something sinister underneath. Beyond that he seems so nice and caring towards Amy that you don’t want him to be the killer. He seems to really care about her, looking after her while she’s ill and helping with her children. The real Amy Loughren has said that Charles was two different people. Her friend, and the serial killer, and that’s definitely shown on screen.

The other side of the story is the two police detectives who are investigating the death of one of Charles’s victims. They’re only investigating it as the hospital have contacted them after a seven week internal investigation, but at the same time they’re not co-operating with the police, keeping their own investigations secret in order to save their reputation and avoid lawsuits. It’s a frustrating conspiracy that’s sadly pretty close to what happened in reality.

This is one of those true story films that feels like it must be exaggerated, and yet somehow the actual reality is somehow even more unbelievable than what’s shown on screen. It only hints at Cullen’s history with mental health, and the amount of suspicions raised about him in previous hospitals isn’t fully explored. There were even victims who claimed he was in their room when he shouldn’t be, and yet he was still able to get work, still able to kill more people. There’s some text at the end of the film that although he was only convicted of twenty-nine murders, it is estimated the amount of deaths is around four hundred, making Charles Cullen the most prolific serial killer in history. After watching this you’ll be lost down a rabbit hole of researching, and it’s hard to comprehend just how he got away with it for so long.

With some great performances and a terrifying true subject, The Good Nurse is an excellent film. It’s a tense thriller and one that’ll stay with you long after the story ends.

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Emily the Criminal – Film Review – London Film Festival

Posted on October 10, 2022 by ashleymanningwriter

Director: John Patton Ford

Writer: John Patton Ford

Starring: Aubrey Plaza, Theo Rossi, Megalyn Echikunwoke, Gina Gershon

Rating: ★★★½

John Patton Ford’s feautre length debut as writer/director is Emily the Criminal, a smart and gripping crime thriller. Aubrey Plaza produces and stars as Emily, who is struggling to find work after being convicted for assault and with looming student debts above her head, turns to illegal means to make ends meat. She meets Youcef (Theo Rossi) who teaches her how to commit Credit Card fraud and quickly falls for the criminal.

Aubrey Plaza is really great as Emily, completely believable as someone who doesn’t take nonsense from others. She’s a strong willed character, and is really well written. With how she’s struggling, you do root for her, but the darkness boiling underneath the surface does show at points and you can imagine she’d be very scary if she needed to be. The full details of her assault charge aren’t given, but you know enough to know she doesn’t regret what happened, just that she didn’t scare him enough so that he didn’t call the police.

On the other hand Youcef is a little weaker. He’s a likable charcter, and Rossi has great chemistry with Plaza, but his character is essentially a thief with a heart of gold. If people don’t want to break the law, he lets them leave. He teaches Emily what he knows, even though he barely knows her. He cares deeply about his mother, promising to make enough money to give her a better life. It’s all a little too good to be true, and you’re waiting for some reveal to happen.

All the way through you’re waiting for Emily to get into trouble, either with the law or other criminals. There’s conflict at the centre of the story, but it’s not really Emily’s. Writer and director John Patton Ford manages to side-step most of the cliches and give us a story that subverts expectations and genuinely surprises. It’s still very tense, especially when Emily is committing fraud, and you’re constantly on the edge of your seat waiting for what happens next.

Two of the best scenes in the film aren’t even about fraud. They’re where Emily is in job interviews, saying what everyone’s wanted to say to during interviews. There’s a bit of social commentary through snarky comments about internships and honesty that feel really genuine. It’s also commenting on the amount of graduates who are over qualified but still end up in dead-end jobs while trying to pay back student debts, unable to make the most out of their education. It’s not the full focus of the film, but it’s definitely there.
The film has a runtime of around ninety minutes, which makes the whole thing fly by.

It does feel like the story could do with a little more room to breathe. Early on there’s a moment when Youcef tells Emily some rules, saying that she shouldn’t commit fraud on the same place in a week, and never complete a deal at her house. Obviously those things happen, but it’s so quick from when her success starts. It feels like we’re skipping a few steps to get to the dramatic moments, and it loses the natural flow. There’s also very little consequences for breaking the rules. When she completes a deal outside her house, she gets robbed it’s a really tense and brutal scene, but she takes it all back from the robbers moments later, and it’s not mentioned again.

With a great performance from Aubrey Plaza, and some gripping and tense scenes, Emily the Criminal is an all round entertaining film. It subverts expectations and while it does feel a little contrived at points it still has you hooked.

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