Review: Get Out

Year: 2017
Director: Jordan Peele
Screenplay: Jordan Peele
Starring: Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Bradley Whitford, Caleb Landry Jones, Stephen Root, Lakeith Stanfield and Catherine Keener

Synopsis is here:

Note: Get Out is a film that is best seen stone cold. I’ve tried not to talk too much about the plot of the film as to avoid spoilers, however, this review may have enough in it to hint at certain elements.

An ex-work colleague was once talking to a group of us about how they felt uncomfortable when travelling to Southall, a suburb of London with a high Islamic Asian demographic. They were quick to note that they had nothing against Muslims mind. They just felt uncomfortable around that suburb as that was "their neighbourhood". One must laugh when hearing things like this. When you're a POC in England, dependant on where you are, you are almost constantly surrounded by white people. You cannot say that you feel uncomfortable around them. It’s just not cricket. Although technically, going by the standards set by my colleague, I should feel uncomfortable from when I get up in the morning until I go to sleep.

This is often the underlying issue when we look and talk about race. It's Farage feeling uncomfortable about not hearing English being spoken on the tube. It's Camilla Long dictating to (mostly white) readers that Moonlight was written for especially white people to feel a certain way, despite being created from a black person's own personal experiences. It's Piers Morgan trolling on the word Nigger. Everything is always seen through the prism of whiteness, which is of course considered what you should call normal. Another example of this? A swimming teacher telling my father that my genetic make-up dictates my swimming prowess. Another would be a previous ex-girlfriends mother always skirting around what to say to me as her daughter had never brought home a black boyfriend. Often me and my friends and family nod and smile about certain "white" tics that occur around us. There's still the belief, even with the more liberal amongst us, that we are somewhat different in our makeup. An element of the exotic and otherness that compels and discomforts people. It could be Ebonics, it could be athleticism (see the shit Serena Williams deals with). There is always SOMETHING.

That something is what is what Jordan Peele candidly deals with his directorial debut Get Out, a dryly amusing and deeply disconcerting horror comedy that has been noted as an updated take on Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967), in which Chris (Daniel Kaluuya); a young black photographer, visits the mysterious estate of his girlfriends (Alison Williams) family to terrifying results. Get Out gleefully riffs on Stanley Kramer’s wonderfully composed social commentary with a tongue firmly implanted in its cheek. Peele’s film grabs hold of something that I had wished the likes of Neil LaBute's remake of The Wicker Man (2006) had been more interested in. Get Out timely exploration of racial framing is not only relevant but blazingly incisive. It would be too easy to make the villains of this piece the type of overtly hostile, backwards evildoers that littered Red State (2011). With Get Out, Peele isn’t afraid to expose that not only the racial inequities that inhabit the veins of western civilisation run deep. They can also be well hidden in the blood of those that people who call themselves allies.

Get Out is not a typical horror film in that we are overload with abject viscera and telegraphed jump scares. Jordan Peele is far more interested in creating an atmosphere similar to the likes of The Twilight Zone or even Black Mirror. This is done with the adeptly crafted screenplay which utilises its main conceit with a dark wit and an affecting sense of truth. Unlike so many horror films which often deal with white suburban fear, Get Out revels in the perversity of treading lightly in white spaces while black. Not since Halloween (1978) has a horror film played so subversively with the uniformity of suburbia. It’s a film which pulls no punches with this theme starting from the first frame, which arouses the fateful tragedies of Trayvon Martin, to a subtly chilling encounter with a policeman that may feel all too familiar to a black male. Nothing is taken to chance here. When we observe the scene with the police officer, note that the actor cast holds a resemblance to ex-officer Darren Wilson. I’ve watched this sequence twice now at the time of writing. I still marvel at how tightly crafted the dynamics of power play out. Believe me when I say this. When you watch it again, you see something different a second time. Let’s just say, in situations like that, we’re often not just scared of the officer.

This is a film which indulges itself in the power plays that occur when it comes to race relations. The film is clearly satirical and makes sure we are aware of it, but it knows how to strike a nerve with the audience it’s catering to. So much of the film nods knowingly to the painful awkwardness of being the only minority in a crowded white room. From the supposed well-intentioned gestures that carry soft offences to the outright obnoxiousness that people feel that they can spout because of the colour of your skin. Peele’s film neatly taps into the fear that many people of colour hold.  That by merely existing, you stand out more. By being a minority, your feelings should come second to a white person’s desires. The master stroke of Get Out is to suggest that it’s within more liberal whites that the most insidious racism occurs. But how could that be? They’re on your side, right? What makes Get Out so engaging is how it toys with ideas of white privilege. It’s not just enough to occupy wealth and opportunity, but even if you are the white elite, it may just be easier to own the black existence, just because you like it.

To say anymore may be telling, in fact, I may have already said too much. However, it’s safe to say that Peels film plays out like a race-themed version of Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man (1973). Its densely-packed screenplay captures the sense of paranoia and helpless that many feel when operating with certain spaces and each scene adds another layer of commentary and creepiness to proceedings. The film’s crowning achievement, a painfully awkward, remarkably on point house party sequence is one that resonates with me from a deeply personal standpoint. It’s a scene that plays out as if it knew me. Every conversation that takes place, every micro-aggression which gets thrown towards Chris (a superlative Kaluuya) feels as if it’s been lifted from situations I’ve been involved in. As exaggerated as the film is (and it is exaggerated), this one sequence, amongst others, holds a candour that’s difficult to shake off the shoulders.

Peele; an attentive sketch writer in his own right manages to balance this with a spiky sense of gallows humour. The film’s funny because it’s true. It’s also terrifying for the same reasons. It’s a film that’s clearly cine-literate. Name-checking the likes of Rosemary’s Baby (1968), The Exorcist 3 (1990), and Night of the Living Dead (1960) and The Stepford Wives (1975), but not letting its references get in the way of the message of benevolent racism.  It is rounded off by an expertly picked cast who are all allowed to play to their strengths. Special credit should go the likes of Marcus Henderson, Betty Gabriel and LaKeith Stanfield who steal scenes from under the noses of the principle cast with the type of nuance one doesn’t expect from a film which operates under B-Movie mechanics.

If there are any flaws with the movie, it would be with its final third, in which the action shifts from the wry observations of the first two acts into more notable horror film fare. While Get Out still manages to keep a couple of tricks up its sleeve, it travels down the route of many films of its type. Mostly because it’s difficult to see if it could go anywhere else with the material. This shouldn’t detract that Get Out is operating at a higher level than most horror movies. It’s a film in which it’s motifs have already appeared to have penetrated the zeitgeist. This no mean feat, but Peele’s film comes from a place well known to many who will watch it. It will not change the minds of bigots, but that’s not the point. There are moments in this film which struck a chord in me (possibly many others) in a way that other films will not. The beauty of Get Out is that finally in 2017 we get an intelligent genre piece that people of colour can really call their own. The pain of Get Out is that it’s 2017 and we still have to acknowledge it’s truisms.

Review: T2 Trainspotting

Year: 2017
Director: Danny Boyle
Screenplay: John Hodges
Starring: Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller, Robert Carlyle

Synopsis is here:

The 90’s seem so very far away now. Talking to some people I know, it’s ancient history. Time makes fools of us all, and trying to explain dial up internet, Ibiza Uncovered and Gazza’s goal at Euro 96 to younger generation millennials will no doubt leave some us feeling foolish. The same could almost be said for Trainspotting. When first released in 1996, the film was a cultural phenomenon. For us Brits, it was as iconic to the 90’s as Britpop and bleached blonde hair. If you didn’t know that Irvine Welsh’s series of vignettes was a novel, you certainly knew it was a movie. Shallow Grave (1994) introduced us to Ewan McGregor and Danny Boyle, but it was Trainspotting that truly broke them out. From the thumping drum of Iggy Pop’s Lust for Life which launches the film, it’s uniquely comic yet bleak portrayal of junk addiction, to the simple yet brash mugshot poster, everything about the film screamed iconic.

20 years after Boyle introduced us to “perfect day” overdoses on skag, we are reintroduced to Mark Renton and his so-called friends in a film which isn’t really aiming for the same never say die exuberance that infiltrated our hearts. Why would it? Danny Boyle, one Britain’s more idiosyncratic directorial exports, is quick to let us know that two decades have really slapped these guys in the face. So much so, that even the consideration of playing Lust of Life pains the listener. Of course, this is not about the loudness of the track, but more the memories it digs up. We re-encounter Renton hit with physical health problems, but, like all his mates, he is haunted by his moment of betrayal which in turn left his friends in the gutter.

Instead of revelling in golden-hued nostalgia, T2 works best when its characters are reminded that their past is rife with sin. Trainspotting was drenched in a youthful nihilism which motivated every character, T2 has Renton and co look deep within themselves with a deep sense of regret. The film’s poignancy lies within what the characters have thrown away in the last twenty years. There’s no doe eye back slapping at the heady days of their youth. These people hurt each other and it shows. We like to think that such deep old wounds will heal over fine. They don’t. There’s always scar tissue.
T2 is pretty much what a life of toxic masculinity can get you. Whether it’s Begbie’s resentment towards his son, despite not being in his life, to the fractious relationship between old “pals” Simon (Sick Boy) and Renton. Boyle accurately details the dissipation of youthful energy within the angry young man. Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting was originally released around the same time as Chuck Palahniuk’s novel Fight Club (now well known as a 1999 film), and both Boyle’s film and Palahniuk’s book do a remarkable job of showcasing one of the main issues of the so-called 90’s man: that they had very little to rebel against. Therefore, they turned amongst themselves. T2 has Boyle explore what would happen if these Scottish roustabouts tried to salvage some of the remnants of themselves, and each other, after the damage is done.

This is all done with the smoothness you expect from a director like Boyle, who decides early on that while he and screenwriter Hodge may be able to give us anything exemplary from a narrative perspective, he’ll certainly work hard with Anthony Dod Mantle to ensure that visually the film will retain interest. The askew compositions, metaphors and visual motifs to Irvine Welsh’s own novelistic off shoots, are never indulgent and playfully highlight the cock-eyed viewpoints of our Scottish antiheroes.

It’s little surprise however, that much like the original film, T2 is quite top heavy. While the scams that are pulled off here don’t feel as rambunctious as before, they still show that wickedness doesn’t rest easy, even as our protags stumble into middle age. Like its predecessor, T2 loses a little bit of shine as it dives into the final third. The plot descends into something rather mechanical and uninspiring, while certain character decisions feel rather unconvincing.  When T2 focuses on dubious antics, it excels. When it becomes bogged down in actual plot, it stagnates. This doesn’t stop the cast from giving it their all. Both Mcgregor and Miller slip back into the groove easily. As does Robert Carlyle whose Begbie still excites in spite of the film spending a bit too much time with him. The film’s secret weapon however, is Ewen Bremmer, who’s role as the dopey Spud fully establishes him as the film’s emotional core. Unlike the previous film, Bremmer’s role is more fleshed out, giving T2 something Trainspotting never had and was never really looking for: Heart.

That’s never been the reason to watch Trainspotting though. It’s always been the scams and shenanigans. That’s what the audience is here for. Dodgy plot be dammed. Whether it’s robbing Unionists of their credit cards, or some dubious blue pill action, the bleak lolz are there for the taking. T2 Trainspotting gleefully obliges.

Review: Jackie

Year: 2016

Director: Pablo Larraín

Screenplay: Noah Oppenheim

Starring: Natalie Portman, Peter Sarsgaard, Greta Gerwig, Billy Crudup, John Hurt, Richard E Grant

Synopsis is here:

Everything is a tad oppressive in Pablo Larraín’s Jackie. It’s all a little bit constricting. Mica Levi shrieking strings from her Under the Skin score, rear their head once more in new arrangements. The aspect ratio is smaller, tighter than what we are used to. Natalie Portman, who features in nearly every shot gives a deliberate and affected performance. One that peaks on near consistent anxiety.

If separated in some way, it probably wouldn’t have been all that effective. Of course, the point of Jackie is to bring them together in such a way, that everything bears down on the viewer, as it would its titular character. This film about the days Jackie Kennedy spent between the assassination of her husband; President Kennedy and his burial, often seems less like a biopic or insight into grief, and more like an essay of unwanted fame and survivor’s guilt. JFK is only often witnessed in brief glimpses (we even see the infamous moment in grisly detail), yet his presence looms large. Such is the way of Larraín as a formalist. Nearly every aspect of the film seems to highlight how the cloud of this man’s death weighs down heavily on his now widow.

Jackie boils throughout with a quiet intensity. Despite its delicate pacing, there’s a restlessness that burns through every scene. When a man like Kennedy dies, how do you find time to mourn? Usually, when someone dies, those close them are often consumed in the mundanity of grief. Often there’s a privacy to proceedings.  Larraín’s film considers the idea that Jackie, known during Kennedy’s presidency for her wish for privacy and image control, is torn between her own private grief and the desire in to ensure that JFK’s legacy is preserved.

We don’t just see this in the technical aspects, like where Stéphane Fontaine’s camera does all it can to isolate Portman’s Jackie any opportunity it can by either crashing it’s subject with oppressive close-ups or pushing her out into wide empty spaces. We also find it in Portman’s wonderfully conflicted performance. The forced affliction in her voice and wide-eyed apprehension would feel out of place in the hands of a lesser director. Larraín’s control of the film’s form creates a perfect fold for Portman’s anxious performance. During these final days, Jackie wanders the near endless rooms and halls of The White House, like a lost spectre. Through Jackie’s conversations with Kennedy’s remorseful brother Rob (the never bad Peter Sarsgaard), we find a woman who's not only violently displaced by tragic events, but one who has never felt she was a piece of the grand puzzle. 

Despite this, there’s no backing down. The conversations we witness in this film may or may not have happened. That’s not the point. Much like the zany Miles Davis biopic Mile’s Ahead of last year, Jackie this isn’t really about an accurate “truth”. It’s about a heightened emotional one. Jackie never panders, but it certainly does give reasons to ponder. At a time when our political spheres are losing their heads, Jackie coincidently appears at a time when many are rummaging through the dying ambers of a certain kind progressive idealism. It’s fascinating to watch the Chilean director Larraín, explore the opening cracks of where America felt these ideals first began to fray. With Jackie, the filmmaker installs a brittle and enduring resolve that quietly emerges from an individual who helps to cope with a nation's grief with a defiant poise and a steely grace.    

Review: La La Land

Year: 2016
Director: Damien Chazelle
Screenplay: Damien Chazelle
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone

Synopsis is here:

I write this review of La La Land on the day Donald Trump is sworn into office as the 45th president of the united states. Since November, the world has descended into a kind of mania, due to America’s decision to elect the businessman-cum-reality T.V star. With good reason, too. Strangely the only other thing that’s had as a cult of personality as strong as Trump on my twitter feed, has been Damien Chazelle's Oscar forerunner La La Land.

However, for all my liberal film writers despairing at The Donald’s apparent lack of progressive thought and seemingly regressive desire to shoot America back to a lily white 1950’s that never really truly existed, it’s fascinating to see many of them fawn over a movie which at times feels like it’s doing similar. La La Land is a film that doesn’t so much have one foot in the past, rather than a whole leg and while the film gives everything a lot of gusto, it’s fizziness falls into forgetfulness very soon afterwards. Is it because I’m not a musical fan? No. La La Land does really well with two actors that aren’t particularly known and watched for their musical talents. I feel one of the main issues I hold with La La Land is (that going back to Trump) it appears at a time where real life cynicism is so overwhelming, that the film’s colourful escapism has filled a void in many. Not a problem. We often need the fantasy. But second coming of MGM this is not.

Despite my apparent negativity towards the film, La La Land is actually easy to like. It’s two leads, Stone and Gosling have chemistry in their dancing as well as their acting, with Stone sparkling in her role of Mia, a struggling actress. It’s hard not to smile at the two bouncing off each other. We’ve seen this before in Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011), but in La La Land the two have far more time to fizz off each other and that’s a good thing.

However, this is a film pauses itself to have a little moment about how Jazz is all about conflict and yet decides against having too much of it. It does a lot to hark back to the MGM musicals of old, but never feels as radical or dynamic as the best of those movies. Bizarrely the moments that stuck in my head were not so much the grand song and dance set pieces, it was the smaller quieter moments which struck me. When the singing stopped and we saw two great looking performers give each just the right look into each other’s eyes.

Meanwhile, director  Damien Chazelle shows off his technical prowess with La La Land’s overcomplicated camerawork infiltrating the film’s simple narrative. The film’s visuals are often impressive but also very self-aware. Much like the film’s references, it’s enough to push a person out of the film. The film also lacks the same beautiful use of rhythm that graced Chazelle's Whiplash (2015). Granted we’re not looking for the rat-a-tat tempo of that movie, but at no point does La La Land feel like it’s going with the flow. Again, this stems from the film’s roaming camera, which never feels like it trusts it’s cast. It really should.

While this not meant to be as intense as Whiplash, La La Land has Damien Chazelle again looking into themes of art, jazz and sacrifice, although here the film holds a certain amount of artifice. This is not because of La La Land’s flights of fancy, but down to the suggestion that despite black innovation (John Legend in a small role) and an Afro-American old guard, the real heart of Jazz lies in hip, young, white traditionalist Ryan Gosling and his busy hands. Not so much of an issue in Whiplash in spite its New York Middle class setting. La La Land and its nosedive into the awards pool, shows itself to be a very “white” movie. Amusingly, this highlights why I try not to pay much attention of the Oscars. For all the debate around #OscarsSoWhite, the success of La La Land as we hurtle towards the academy awards is very telling and by no means surprising. Films like La La Land do well because it’s a film of a certain model, in love with its past glories. It just so happens that those glory days weren’t particularly diverse.

As much as film writers have been quick to hail La La Land already as a modern classic to be remembered, at times it’s no more a throwback to relatively easy nostalgia than Transformers or Marvel Cinematic Universe, although it is a classier one. It’s often sparkly, sometimes lavish, but certainly a transparent revert to type. A relatively frothy musical which is quick to remind us of older movies but not as memorable musically as one would hope. Musicals should leave a viewer with a spring in the step. This left my mind with some bright spells amidst a slight cloud of fog.

Review: Silence

Year: 2016 (U.K Release: 2017)
Director: Martin Scorsese
Screenplay: Jay Cocks, Martin Scorsese
Starring: Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver

Synopsis is here:

It's fascinating to me that after dividing audiences with The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), in which we watch a man sell his soul for greed with the greatest of ease, Martin Scorsese decides to follow up his rowdy and wildly successful dark comedy with a quiet passion project about two priests doing what they can to save their own souls.

What we have here is a religious heart of darkness. An odyssey about spiritual nourishment which strangely left me longing. Silence is tough to "get" and you feel it's length. But it doesn't transcend in the same way Tree of Life (2011) did, or nor does it ever becomes as replenishing as Of Gods and Men (2010).

Having recently seen The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), I was astounded by its simple elegance. A silent movie which as profound as it is simple. Perhaps due to the limitations, or simple artistic choice, the film's stripped-down nature and decision to shoot in mostly tight close-up was a masterstroke. Capturing the defiance, grace and catharsis of a woman, whose faith is put to the very test.  Silence is a meticulous exercise of craft in which very frame is a painting, every inch of blocking is precise and yet that seems to be what restrains it. It's beautiful to watch, with Scorsese highlighting his love for the moving image, even though the roving camera, we know him for is knowingly still. Here it is patient. Less reactive. It's a stillness, which feels likened to Ozu than the rock and roll director of Mean Streets. It is a choice made for contemplation, although I'm not sure it captures the emotion that flows through the likes of Carl Theodor Dreyer's film

Marty's so-called "lesser" modern works have often entertained due to the director being enraptured with the pulp of cinema. The long-distilled conversations that occur in Silence seem to try and force their way into the bloodstream, and at the films best, it moves with a quiet drama. However, I'm never transported as I am here than I am with his more trashier entries, maybe because despite their rich cinematic foundations, they appear to be more effortless. Silence's glacial pacing and combative conversations are never drawn out to the point of tedium, but they are not always easy to digest, even at when the conflicts reach their peak of friction. Silence often feels more like a sometimes-satisfying thesis, more than anything. At times the experience is draining, at some points compelling, but through its running time, it always felt distant. Even more so now after time contemplating.

Smaller gripes include Latin accents which fall out of sync while the English from some of the Japanese cast is at times difficult to pick up. While these are minor issues, they still all hold an ability to keep a viewer at a distance from its stoic protagonists. Both Adam Driver and Andrew Garfield give high tier performances, but neither performances are delivered to reel you in. Compared to Willem Dafoe complicated performance in Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), both Driver and Garfield, never engage us at the same level. With previous Scorsese films, we could cope with the distance of his lonely men, often due to their villainy. With Silence, much of the space placed between the protagonists and the audience is due to arrogance. With this, it is difficult to walk alongside them. Unlike the ethereal Tree of Life (2011) or even visceral The Exorcist (1973), which both find ways to invoke ways to connect with the human element. This stays extremely difficult until it's coda.

In a world that is becoming increasingly more secular, a film like this feels like a diamond in the rough. For the viewer, it will be easy to see Silence as difficult to get to grips with. Sombre, solemn and deliberately paced. This is a film which requires its viewer to do the work, and even then, the rewards may feel fleeting.