The Girl on the Train

Our most recent film only came out on DVD this week. It was based on a popular best-selling novel, which I had not read, and so we had a good audience for the screening, including several people we had not seen before.

While researching the film in order to write my notes I'd read the plot and so knew roughly what was going to happen. However the fragmented storyline muddied the water sufficiently to keep me on the edge of my seat. My only complaint was that one key flashback was subsequently (and crucially) proven not to have happened: thus I felt a bit cheated because of this.

Here are my notes:

The Girl On The Train

USA 2016                                111 minutes

Director:                                  Tate Taylor

Starring:                                    Emily Blunt, Rebecca Ferguson, Haley Bennett, Justin Theroux and Luke Evans

Awards and Nominations

• BAFTA Nomination for Best Actress (Emily Blunt)
• A further three wins and five nominations

“In the end, however, the whole movie rests upon the shoulders of Emily Blunt, and she holds it all together brilliantly, even as her character is falling apart. From the intimacy of My Summer of Love, through the “hangry” sorcerer’s apprentice of The Devil Wears Prada to the sci-fi action heroine of Edge of Tomorrow and the blindsided FBI agent in Sicario, Blunt has proved herself to be a mesmerising presence in a range of genres. In Rachel’s fractured personality, we see echoes of Blunt’s previous screen lives, refracted through a prism of self-destruction that somehow never alienates the audience. Retaining the British accent that makes her even more of an outsider in this scary New World, Blunt convinces completely as a drunken fish out of water. This train may not be bound for glory, but her disruptive company is worth the price of the ticket.”

Mark Kermode

Rachel Watson (Emily Blunt) becomes infatuated by the sight of a seemingly perfect couple visible from her daily commuter train. On one day she sees something that shocks her, and driven on by intrigue and obsession she starts to uncover the truth of what has happened.

The film is based on the best-selling thriller of the same name by Paula Hawkins, although for the purposes of the film the action has been relocated from London to New York. The conceit of the book echoes the classic Agatha Christie detective novel 4.50 from Paddington (filmed as Murder She Said (1961) with Margaret Rutherford playing Miss Marple for the first time), but the dark themes of the story in its cinematic version carry distinct echoes of the work of Hitchcock, especially in films such The Lady Vanishes (1938) and Rear Window (1954).

Emily Blunt began her career on the stage in the UK before moving into TV where she won an award for Most Promising Newcomer for her role in My Summer of Love (2004). She won a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress in the TV film Gideon’s Daughter (2006) and shortly afterwards made her Hollywood debut in the comedy The Devil Wears Prada (2006), for which she received both BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations for Best Supporting Actress. Since then she has demonstrated her versatility as a performer with roles in many different genres including historical drama (The Young Victoria (2009)), science fiction (The Adjustment Bureau (2011)), and a musical (Into The Woods (2014)). She is currently filming Mary Poppins Returns in which she has been cast in the title role.

Director Tate Taylor also began his career as an actor with roles for both TV and cinema before making his name as a director with The Help (2011) (for which he also wrote the screenplay). He followed this with Get On Up (2014) a biography of the musician James Brown and currently has various projects as director in development.

 

Here's the trailer:

 

 

The History Behind Denial

There is no such thing a coincidence, and the day after my post on Denial there was a long interview with Richard J Evans in The Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/feb/14/richard-evans-interview-holocaust-denial-film

It was interesting to see that focus of the film had to be on Lipstadt to make it work as a drama, but it was the three years of detailed work that Evans and his team carried out made it clear to Lipstadt's team that they had probably won the case before it started: what remained to be decided was the scale of the victory.

I also read that Richard Evans had locked horns in exchanges with Michael Gove over the teaching of history in schools. I've read his Third Reich Trilogy and am currently reading The Pursuit of Power, his new history of Europe in the 19th century: all have been excellent and I will certainly read more of his work.

Denial

I'd wanted to see Denial ever since I'd read an interview with David Hare about the writing his screenplay for the film. I'd known about the subject matter of the film in general terms but had not been aware of the details. The film seems to have had a relatively limited release but I managed to catch up with it and was very impressed: in an age when a government spokesman can talk of  "alternative facts" and politicians can question the value of "experts" it was a timely reminder of the value that an eminent historian can bring to the real world.

For obvious reasons the exchanges in the court scenes were lifted verbatim from the official transcript, but what was not clear until I did some research on line at home was the timescale of events: Richard J Evans and his team took three years reviewing Irving's published work and tracking his quoted back to their original sources: it was their work which proved the truth of the statement about David Irving in Lipstadt's book . Evans subsequently wrote a book - Telling Lies About Hitler - about his role in the case which I am currently reading and it is both fascinating and horrifying in equal measure.

Evans dismisses Irving's key document that supposedly exonerates Hitler from culpability for the extermination of the Jews is absolutely damning:

This supposed key document in Irving's arsenal of alleged documentary proof of Hitler's lack of culpability for the extermination of the Jews had long been regarded by professional historians as nothing of the kind. He could only present it as such by ignoring the logical contradictions in his reading of the document, by ignoring is immediate context and by suppressing all the uncertainties with which it was associated.

This is definitely one for us to screen at our film society.

Here is the trailer:

 

Bridget Jones's Baby

This is our most recent screening. there was some debate, ie a quick chat, about whether it was too "popular" for our society, but there have been requests in the past for more "female friendly" films - I still remember Mama Mia with a shudder, although it was a profitable evening on the bar - so we went ahead with it.

I'd enjoyed the film at the cinema and found it even better on a second screening: there were some filthy lines I'd not picked up, knowing how the film was going to end made it possible to see the misdirection that the production team had carefully applied at key points, and I'd completely missed that Darcy's middle name was "Fitzwilliam".

I'm pleased to record that just about everyone enjoyed it - and once again we had good takings on the bar.


Here are my notes

Bridget Jones’s Baby

UK 2016                                  123 minutes

Director:                                  Sharon Maguire

Starring:                                   Renee Zellweger, Colin Firth, Patrick Dempsey, Emma Thompson, Jim Broadbent and Gemma Jones

“This is a better Bridget than the last movie, The Edge of Reason, because it doesn’t feel the need to indulge shark-jumping setpieces like zipping off to Thailand. We stick in her old London manor of Borough and she’s still in the same old scuzzy flat, still working for a cable TV news company, where she has now improbably become a producer. This is pretty broad comedy we’re talking about: not Mrs Brown’s Boys-broad, but broad nevertheless. Yet the effect is achieved in the same way as the first movie. Basically, Bridget presides over a kind of coalition government of very good supporting turns which on aggregate enforce their chaotic comic rule over the audience. Just about.”

 Peter Bradshaw

Shortly after her forty-third birthday Bridget Jones (Renee Zellweger) discovers that she is pregnant but is only 50% sure who the father is: after getting drunk at a music festival she sleeps with a handsome stranger (Patrick Dempsey), and at the christening of a friend’s child she meets Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) again and they subsequently spend the night together. As her pregnancy progresses Bridget makes increasingly desperate efforts to obtain DNA samples from each man to confirm which of them is the father.

It is a truth universally accepted that a globally successful film must be in want of a sequel (or two). Thus the 2001 film of Bridget Jones’s Diary, from Helen Fielding’s bestselling novel was followed in 2004 by a looser adaptation of her novel Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, with a screenplay by a team that included both Andrew Davies (whose work includes the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice that made Colin Firth’s name) and Richard Curtis. This too was globally successful and from 2009 there was discussion of a third film. Although Renee Zellweger and Colin Firth soon committed to the project, despite protracted negotiations over the screenplay Hugh Grant declined to take part. Thus the film finally went ahead without Daniel Cleaver and the screenplay, by a team that includes Fielding and Emma Thompson (who created a superb role for herself), goes back to Helen Fielding’s original columns in The Independent to produce a new story that introduces Jack Quant (Patrick Dempsey) as a rival love interest to Mark Darcy. Somewhat confusingly Helen Fielding has also just published a new novel Bridget Jones's Baby: The Diaries in which Daniel Cleaver, Hugh Grant’s character, plays a significant part.

On its UK release the film became the most successful romantic comedy ever. In terms of its overall performance in 2016 in the UK and Ireland it was the third most successful film of the year, being beaten only by Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. All three films are either sequels or spin-offs; this is perhaps indicative of the risk averse attitude of producers of big budget films.

 

Here's the trailer:

 

 

Suffragette

This film came out last year and I missed it, so I was delighted when we chose to screen it in January and it turned out to be well worth seeing.

I remember while I was studying A Level History the BBC screened a series about the Suffragettes called Shoulder to Shoulder. I'd already found the period interesting and so was hooked on the series. Inevitably the constraints of a feature film disallow extended narratives, so the story focuses on a fictional character, with the real figures in supporting roles.

I thought it worked really well, although it was a little unfair to Asquith's government as it did not mention any of the other pressures it faced nor any of its achievements (let alone the approach of war in 1914). Disclosure: if I had gone through to the second round of Mastermind my specialist subject would have been the life of  H H Asquith.

But enough of me: here are my notes...

Suffragette

UK 2015                                  106 minutes

Director:                                  Sarah Gavron

Starring:                                   Carey Mulligan, Anne-Marie Duff, Helena Bonham Carter, Brendan Gleeson and Meryl Streep

Awards and Nominations

• Won Best Actress (Carey Mulligan) and Best Supporting Actor (Brendan Gleeson) at the British Independent Film Awards plus nominations for Best Supporting Actress for Helena Bonham Carter and Anne-Marie Duff
• A further 12 wins and 12 nominations

“While Abi Morgan’s script for The Iron Lady parked politics in favour of personal appraisal, this altogether more polemical work provides a solidly researched and at times surprisingly grim primer on the years leading up to Emily Wilding Davison’s still contested act of self-sacrifice in 1913… Morgan intertwines socioeconomic detail with domestic melodrama as Maud [Carey Mulligan] leads us from the fringes of the fight to the firing line, her composite character providing a thumbnail sketch of collective oppression into which Mulligan breathes admirable individuality. Meryl Streep provides a fleetingly aloof cameo as Emmeline Pankhurst, rallying the troops from the balcony before disappearing into the night, but the real firebrand is Helena Bonham Carter as chemist Edith Ellyn, who provides the movement’s combustible spark.”

Mark Kermode

In 1912 Maud Watts (Carey Mulligan), a laundress becomes involved in the Suffragette movement led by Mrs Pankhurst (Meryl Streep), and after taking part in a protest is sent to jail. Her increasing involvement in the movement leads to the end of her marriage, and Maud takes part in further demonstrations culminating in a planned protest at the Derby in 1912, as a result of which Emily Davison (Natalie Press) is knocked down and killed by the King’s horse.

The film is based on historical events and although Maud Watts and her family are fictional it also portrays some historical characters. In 1903 Mr Pankhurst and her daughters had set up the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) to promote its aims of women’s suffrage through highly visible public campaigns. Asquith’s government had refused to allow a vote on the issue so the WSPU initiated a campaign of violence to publicise its aims, although many historians including Asquith’s biographer Roy Jenkins agree this “clearly damaged the cause”. The campaign led to jail sentences for many of those who took part and as a response the government passed the Cat and Mouse Act in 1913, to allow the release of those whose hunger strikes had made them ill, in an attempt to prevent the suffragettes from gaining public sympathy. This led to an effective stalemate and it was only the outbreak of war in 1914 that made Mrs Pankhurst end the campaign of militancy in order to support the government’s stance against the “German Peril”.

In 1916 the Speaker of the House of Commons set up a conference to examine electoral reform and in 1917 presented its report which included a recommendation for limited women’s suffrage. As Prime Minister Asquith had opposed women’s suffrage, but after being ousted by Lloyd George he now supported the idea. In1918 Lloyd George’s government gave the vote to women over the age of thirty and it was Asquith’s earlier reforms to the House of Lords during the struggle to pass the People’s Budget in 1909 and 1910 that helped its passage through Parliament.

Screenplay writer Abi Morgan started her career by writing for TV before moving into film where her work includes the screenplays for Brick Lane (2007), The Iron Lady (2011) and Shame (2011). Sarah Gavron started her career making documentaries, but kept return to narrative filmmaking because of her desire to tell stories. Her first feature film was Brick Lane (2007).

Suffragette is the first film to be shot on location in the Houses of Parliament.

 Here is the trailer:

 

 

Love & Friendship

I'm in catch-up mode: we screened this film at the beginning of last month but I'm only now getting round to updating my blog.

One of the advantages of this time of year is that there are so many good films on release as the awards season comes into view, but the disadvantage is that with everything else going on it means that other jobs have to slip.

The film was far better than I expected and VERY different from any other adaptation of a Jane Austen Novel that I'd seen either on TV or the big screen.

Here are my notes:

Love & Friendship

Ireland/Netherlands 2016         93 minutes

Director:                                  Whit Stillman

Starring:                                    Kate Beckinsale, Xavier Samuel, Chloe Sevigny, Morfydd Clark, Tom Bennett and Stephen Fry

Awards and Nominations

• 3 wins and 32 nominations, including Film of The Year, Best Adapted Screenplay (Whit Stillman), Best Actress (Kate Beckinsale) and Best Supporting Actor (Tom Bennett) 

“What audacity, what elegance! Here is a hilariously self-aware period comedy polished to a brilliant sheen. Whit Stillman was probably born to direct a Jane Austen movie. But he has found a new way of dramatising Austen – or just found a new Austen, an Austen who appears to have pre-emptively absorbed 21st-century satire and inoculated herself against it. This Stillman has done by lighting on an early, posthumously published novella, Lady Susan, bringing it to the screen, and renaming it after a quite separate piece of juvenilia, thus playfully echoing the classic noun balances of her more famous titles.”

Peter Bradshaw

Lady Susan Vernon (Kate Beckinsale), a beautiful but penniless widow, comes to the estate of her in-laws to absent herself from the colourful rumours about her past dalliances. While staying at their estate she decides to find husbands for both her debutant daughter Frederica (Morfydd Clark) and herself.

In her short life Jane Austen completed six novels: four of these were published to acclaim during her lifetime, two were published posthumously and all have been adapted many times for the stage, TV and cinema. Of these the most successful have been Andrew Davis’s superb TV adaptation of Price and Prejudice (1995), which gave Colin Firth the role of a lifetime as Darcy, Ang Lee’s Sense and Sensibility (1995), with an Oscar winning screenplay by Emma Thompson and Amy Heckerling’s Clueless (1995), which updated the action of Emma to contemporary Beverley Hills. But Austen had been writing from an early age and her Juvenila included the epistolary novels Love and Freindship (sic) and Lady Susan, and it is the latter work which Whit Stillman has adapted, although he borrowed the title (with corrected spelling) from the former.

The first three films which Stillman wrote and directed – Metropolitan (1990), Barcelona (1994) and The Last Days of Disco (1998) – are all comedies of manners based on his own early life, and in a recent retrospective of his work it was suggested that his films all have a sort of costume drama sensibility, but without the costumes, and now with Love & Friendship he had made a costume drama, period dress and all. However Stillman rejected this view of his film:

"Love & Friendship doesn’t loom as a costume drama, because it’s a pretty funny comedy, so it’s really not what you might anticipate. It’s not Downton Abbey in any way, shape or form. There are a lot of very good English comic actors who have done the supporting parts and really shine… I love Jane Austen. I sort of wanted something of my own to work on between paid script writing assignments. It’s good that I had so much time with no producer or studio executive wanting delivery quickly because it’s an incredibly funny novella she wrote, but hard to read and hard to dramatize. It’s an epistolary form from the 18th century and there are all these very funny ideas and lines buried within. It’s kind of an inaccessible format and it was a long process of adaptation”

The film had its premiere at the 2016 Sundance Festival before going on release in the US in May 2016 and within three months it had taken over $18 million against an estimated budget of $3 million. It is early in the current awards season but in December 2016 at the Evening Standard Film Awards Kate Beckinsale won the award for Best Actress and Tom Bennett the award for Best Supporting Actor, and in The Guardian review of the Best Films of 2016 Love & Friendship appeared in sixth place.

Here's the trailer: