Smile – Film Review

Posted on September 29, 2022 by ashleymanningwriter

Director: Parker Finn

Writer: Parker Finn

Starring: Sosie Bacon, Jessie T. Usher, Kyle Gallner, Caitlin Stasey, Kal Penn, and Rob Morgan

Rating: ★★★★

Smile is the feature length directorial debut from Parker Finn, based on his short film Laura Hasn’t Slept. It’s a reimagining of the classic Japanese horror film Ringu, while also dealing with the theme of trauma working in a cycle.

The film starts by introducing Dr Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon), who as a child found her mother’s body after she’d died of a drug overdose. While dealing that traumatic event, as an adult Rose has set out to help people, working as a doctor at an emergency psychiatric hospital. A new patient is brought in, suffering from visions of a people she knows smiling at her. During her first session the patient commits suicide in front of Rose, who then starts to see similar visions.

As you’d expect no one believes Rose, instead they think she’s having a breakdown like her mother did years before. She has no one to turn to, and the whole time she is being haunted by visions of people smiling, getting closer and closer. It’s so simple and yet genuinely scary and tense to watch. You’re never quite sure when it’s going to happen next, and you’re on the edge of your seat for most of the film, waiting for the next scary moment. Just people smiling in a really forced way is deeply unsettling, which creates a really chilling atmosphere that grows slowly, and doesn’t ever let up throughout the film.

As Rose is investigating what’s happening she discovers that it’s a cycle that’s been repeating itself. Much like the video tape in Ringu/The Ring, whoever is cursed will end up committing suicide in front of someone else and pass the curse on to them. The biggest difference, is there’s no specific time limit, some only last four days, while others manage a week. There’s the constant anticipation that the curse could take hold at any point, and Rose is never safe.

Sosie Bacon is magnificent as Rose. She makes the entire film with its outlandish premise work, with a believable performance that’s filled with genuine fear. You instantly connect with her and want her to survive what’s happening. Her fear feels real, and that makes all of the horror that much more heightened. There are some wonky performances from the side characters, but that’s not too much of a distraction.

This is definitely something you want to go into without seeing the trailer. One of the best scares is ruined by the trailer, and everyone in the screening I was in tensed up when we saw the big moment coming. It’s a shame that it was spoiled, as the trailer was already good without that moment. If you’ve seen it, then you know the moment. In the actual film, there is a slight over-reliance on jump scares which is frustrating, and sadly, the ending is incredibly weak. You can see it coming way too soon, and it’s not original in the slightest. It even has one of those annoyingly obvious fake-out endings.

The journey makes it all worth it though, and while there is a lot of jump scares, the majority of them work. The atmosphere is creepy, and Sosie Bacon gives one hell of a performance. What it lacks in originality it makes up for in pure terror.

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Blonde – Film Review

Posted on September 28, 2022 by ashleymanningwriter

Director: Andrew Dominik

Writer: Andrew Dominik

Starring: Ana de Armas, Adrien Brody, Bobby Cannavale, Xavier Samuel, and Julianne Nicholson

Netflix calls Blonde ‘a bold reimagining’ of Marilyn Monroe’s life, which is one way to describe it. It’s based on the Joyce Carol Oates novel of the same name, which also takes liberties with history. It takes elements of the truth, exaggerates it, adds a chunk of fictional parts, and sensationalises everything on screen. This is easily one of the most divisive films this year.

It’s definitely not an easy watch, with Monroe presented as a victim to everyone in her life. At one point, as she’s being carried to the president’s room to be used by him, she asks is she’s a piece of meat and if this is room service, which is pretty much how she’s presented throughout the film. From her mother until her death, she receives abuse from every angle. Monroe is completely aware of how she’s being treated, but it powerless to stop it.

The film is very bleak. Even during the brief moments of happiness, people are taking advantage of her. Such as in the early days of her marriage with Arthur Miller, here played by Adrien Brody and listed as ‘The Playwright’ in the credits, he’s steals words from her mouth for his play, after promising not to. She’s never able to let her guard down, not even around those she’s supposed to be safe with and has no way to defend herself. Her relationship with Joe DiMaggio, played by Bobby Cannavale and listed as ‘Ex-Athlete’ in the credits, is full of abuse. It’s hard to watch at points, as she moves from disaster to disaster.   

She’s presented as a child, throwing tantrums to try and get her voice heard, only to be drugged up to be kept quiet as her life becomes a blur. She also never calls either of her husbands shown in the film by their name, instead calling them daddy and asking if she’s been a good girl, as she endlessly searches for unknown father in others. Fetishising her underneath the idea that she was never able to grow up due to her abusive and mentally ill mother. Monroe is turned into someone with daddy issues looking to be loved.  

This is a film that’s completely obsessed on showing the horrors and abuse in Monroe’s life and almost ignoring everything else, presenting her as a victim and not much more that that. Despite the issues with the script, the film is incredibly well made. Ana de Armas is excellent in the role, giving a believable and really strong performance, while also re-creating some of the most iconic moments of Monroe’s life.  The direction and visuals is also spectacular. The film moves between aspect ratios, from colour to black and white, seamlessly, and it does feel like a cinematic journey.

Some of the best bits of the film is where is becomes more of a psychological horror than a biopic. Scenes like a ringing phone hidden in a chest of drawers, turning into a baby crying shortly after a miscarriage is harrowing to watch, calling back to her own childhood as she suffers through the loss of her child. The film also gets a little trippy with dream sequences, that are quite effective. It also has to be said that while it’s over two and a half hours long, it doesn’t feel it and the film moves at a steady pace throughout.  

Writer and director Andrew Dominik said that Blonde has ‘something in it offend everyone’ earlier this year in an interview, and the film comes as close to fulfilling that promise as possible. It’s shows graphic abuse of all kinds, that is incredibly uncomfortable to watch, from the physical abuse she receives as a child to being used as the president’s plaything, it’s horrific. The film also takes liberties with the truth and takes any agency Monroe had away in her own life, relegating her to a plaything for others. It doesn’t go into details about how she rebelled against the studio system, not wanting to be typecast. setting up her own production company (Marilyn Monroe Productions) and in the process being part of the spark that dismantles the even-by-then archaic system. It doesn’t mention how she took a lot of control over her public image or her social activism. With so much of her life swept away, with a more dehumanising approach taken, you have to question what’s the point in offending everyone and not telling the actual story? In the end, as good as the direction and performances are, the film only serves to further darken and confuse Monroe’s legacy.  

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Radioactive – Film Review

Posted on September 27, 2022 by ashleymanningwriter

Director: Marjane Satrapi

Writer: Jack Thorne

Starring: Rosamund Pike, Sam Riley, Aneurin Barnard, Anya Taylor-Joy

Rating: ★★

Radioactive is a deeply flawed biopic of Marie Curie (Rosamund Pike), who discovered radioactivity with her husband, Pierre Curie (Sam Riley). The film covers Marie’s life from meeting Pierre, up until her death in 1934, telling the story of her personal life as well as her scientific discoveries. It’s not a good film, despite a great performance from Rosamund Pike, as it simply doesn’t do a great job at telling Marie Curie’s story.

The science, major discoveries, and relationship with Pierre is all very fast paced, taking up around half the runtime, and doesn’t really slow down enough for you to really get a deep understanding of her discovery and how it happened. The basics are there, but the film is trying to cover too much time and so much feels brushed over. 

One of the stranger things the film does, despite trying to cover almost four decades, is have moments that flashforward in order to show things that happen as a direct result from Curie’s discoveries, from radiotherapy to the nuclear bomb. These segments last way too long and should have really just been a montage at the end instead of breaking up the main narrative.

There’s also way too much time given to the scandalous affair that Marie Curie had with Paul Langevin (Aneurin Barnard) after Pierre dies. It feels like just as much time is given to that event, or maybe even more, than is given to her scientific discoveries. That combined with the flashforwards makes it feel like they couldn’t find an engaging way to tell the interesting parts of her story.

The biggest sin the film commits is the altering of history, especially something that’s supposed to be a biopic. One of the less troubling changes is Marie and Pierre’s meeting, which is turned into a romcom meet-cute. Then there’s the fictional fear of hospitals that Marie is given in order to add some drama at points of the story. Worst of all is the conflict between her and Pierre when he accepts the Nobel prize by himself as Marie stays at home, which just straight up didn’t happen. Neither travelled when they won in 1903, but travelled together in 1905. Things like that are frustrating in biopics, but it’s made worse since it doesn’t add anything to the story.

It’s like the filmmakers are so unsure of the story that they need to make things up to keep it entertaining, which is even more evident by the number of, inexplicit but pointless nude scenes early on. Why?  Is someone really sitting down to watch a biopic of a scientist who would end up disappointed if there’s no nudity within the first twenty minutes.

When Marie and Pierre do explain what their doing to someone at dinner, it’s genuinely interesting and the experiments are shown in a really engaging way. It’s a shame that this wasn’t the main focus of the film. Coming out of the film, where I went in only knowing the basics of Marie Curie’s work, I come out knowing barely anything more. Even some of the more interesting moments of her life, such as the reason she moved to Paris (as women couldn’t study in the University of Warsaw), is left out.

The story of Marie Curie is interesting, but Radioactive fails to capture that. Instead, it focuses on the sensationalism of her personal life rather than the science, alters history way too much, and is simply too long.

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Demons 2 – Film Review

Posted on September 26, 2022 by ashleymanningwriter

Director: Lamberto Bava

Writers: Dario Argento, Lamberto Bava, Franco Ferrini, Dardano Sacchetti, and Sergio Stivaletti

Starring: David Knight, Nancy Brilli, Coralina Cataldi Tessoni, Asia Argento, Dario Casalini

Rating: ★★★

Demons 2 was released eleven months after the original, quickly put into production due to the financial success of Demons. This time around the ridiculousness is ramped up, while the gore and violence are toned down, in order for the film to receive a lower age rating. Like the first one, Demons 2 is a classic of 1980s Italian horror, and definitely holds up today.

The incident from first one is briefly mentioned on TV, but you don’t need to have seen it. This is almost a completely stand-alone sequel. The story takes place within a high-rise apartment building where Sally (Coralina Cataldi Tessoni) is celebrating her birthday with a group of friends. All throughout the building families are watching a film on TV where the characters are entering the now walled up walls of the city from the first film. Within the fictional film they find a body of a dead demon and one of the group accidentally cuts themselves and gets blood on the corpse. Switch back to the apartments and a demon starts to break through the TV in Sally’s bedroom, infecting her, who in turn infects most people at her party and then set forth to take on the rest of the building.

While the first film has some sense of logic to how the demon attack begins, with the mask in the cinema, this one just has them breaking through the screen. It makes absolutely no sense, but it’s entertaining so it doesn’t matter. As this is a sequel everything has to be turned up, from the body count, number of characters, and effects. There are so many characters throughout the building that it’s hard to keep track of them all. All the way through it you’ll spot people who you forgot were still alive. It makes for good scenes of chaos, especially when a large group try to defend themselves in the car park under the building, but it does mean there is absolutely no character development. They’re just cannon fodder. The main characters are Sally’s next door neighbours George (David Knight) and Hannah (Nancy Brilli). They miss most of the actual killings as George is stuck in an elevator for most of the film, since the power goes out, and Hannah is waiting at home for his return, pregnant and craving cake.

Something that isn’t as extreme is the amount of gore, when compared to the first film this is very tame. While it’s not as extreme with blood and death in every moment, when it goes in that direction the effects are incredible. Sergio Stivaletti worked on the effects, and they more than stand up today. Highlights are the puppet demon that breaks out of the stomach of a child, which is really grizzly, there’s also a dog that turns frenzied and is genuinely scary. The best effect is when Sally turns into a demon, kicking off the whole event. Like the first film her nails split, as the demon ones push through, her demon teeth push through her gums pushing out her normal teeth. The whole thing is eye-wincingly awesome to watch.

One of the best improvements over the original is that the pacing is slowed right down, so it doesn’t lose steam halfway through. It takes longer for the demons to actually appear and manages to keep a good pace throughout. The opening introduces us to the large group of characters, but there’s not much depth to them, even with the added time.

Demons 2 is a loud and ridiculous film. It may not be the best horror film of the 80s, but it’s fun to watch. The sequel is an improvement in almost every way, and it’s a real shame the series didn’t continue beyond this point. A remake/reboot would be interesting to see.  

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Sunday Morning

Posted on September 25, 2022 by ashleymanningwriter

Hello everyone!

I feel it’s been a little while since I wrote an update post, so thought it would be good idea to have a catch up. I haven’t written any fiction so far this month, which is frustrating but I have been busy with reviews and reading. At the time of writing this I have six full reviews written to be posted in the future and hoping to get even further ahead in the next few weeks. I’ve also been reading a lot recently, and have read more books during September than I have in all previous months of the year combined, which I’m pretty happy with. I have a few more to read over the next couple of weeks and will be reviewing some of them. I have set a reading challenge for myself as well, which I won’t reveal just yet, but I’m in the process of completing it and it’s going smoothly so far.

I’m going to be covering London Film Festival again this year, and have already started watching and writing up reviews for the films I have online access to. I’m hoping to watch and review even more than last year, so keep an eye out for that. As soon as the dates were announced earlier in the year I booked them off work, so I’m also looking forward to my first full week of work this year. I’ll be off from the 4th until the 17th October, so will be getting plenty of films watched, books read, and hopefully get some writing done. I’m not going down to London for the full festival, as the hotel costs are incredibly high, but I’m going down for three days and will be watching a ton of exciting stuff.

The other thing I’m doing with my time off, other than getting my eyes tested (which I should have done about three years ago), is finally start travelling. I have a trip booked to Turin for three days. I’ve wanted to go to Italy for years, which started due to the Assassin’s Creed games (and now I’m going somewhere not featured in the games), but have decided to go due to a Dario Argento exhibition in Turin. I have everything booked already, and am nervously excited. It’s the first time I’ve been on a plane, and the first time I’ve left the UK since 2003. I’m also planning on going to a few filming locations from Argento’s films, so will probably write a post about that as well.

I’ve also been watching TV, keeping up to date with House of the Dragon, which I’m loving, and Rings of Power, which I wish would speed up a little. As I’m sure most Game of Thrones fans were, I was a little nervous about House of the Dragon, after the poor Season 8, but it’s been superb every episode, and has had a stronger season one than Game of Thrones did. Loving it so far. With Rings, I’m enjoying it, but it’s excruciatingly slow. I feel like barely anything has happened in almost six hours. It’s a beautiful looking show, but I’m hoping the plot moves a bit quicker. I enjoy it while it’s on, but I don’t look forward to the next episode like I have been for House of the Dragon.

That’s what I’ve been up to recently, as well as some of my upcoming plans.

What have you been reading and watching recently? Let me know in the comments.

Thanks for reading and speak again soon,

Ashley

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