Week Five
28th January – 03 February 2019
One month down.
And I am not finding this a constraint or a chore in the slightest. I’m really enjoying myself and rediscovering my passion for film as viewer not just as a maker.
This week, writer/director Oonagh Kearney, writer Rachel Smith and myself attempted the first ever Watching Women Remote Film Club – and it was awesome (for us) to sit and chat about film with fellow BBC Drama Room Alumni. We rambled on for far too long and probably didn’t focus enough on the film but I believe that’s kinda normal for book/film clubs – our 82 minute live feed is saved in the Watching Women 2019 facebook group.
And I finally made it to the cinema for the first time in 2019 – and I managed three cinemas trips this week as the wee one was away with her Dad.
I obviously love film and TV – does anyone attempting to forge a career in this industry not? But attending the cinema is a particular pleasure. I am as prone as the next person to the siren song of my phone and so it’s a delight to step inside a dark room and gives yourself over to another world for a couple of hours.
This week I was joined by Emily for one show, and my sister Grainne for another but on Sunday morning I was the only person in the cinema for Destroyer. Unsurprising – it was 9:25am and not exactly family fair.
I’m an avid solo cinema goer – I’ve probably been to more films on my own then with a companion. A lot of people baulk at the idea of visiting the cinema alone but it actually makes more sense to me –if I’m going to be sitting there not speaking for two hours what does it matter if I know the person next to me?
BTW the blog is being posted a little bit late this week due to Child Meltdowns (Monday) and Russian Doll (Tuesday).
Mary, Queen of Scots
Director: Josie Rourke
Writer: Beau Willimon
Where I watched it: Queen’s Film Theatre, Belfast
There’s been a lot made of the Mary vs Elizabeth rivalry/sisterhood in the trailers and press for this film, but this is Saoirse Ronan’s film - everyone else, including Margot Robbie, is playing a secondary character.
I think the direction here is daring and assured and I like how the casting appears to be colour-blind. It gives the film some freshness - along with the some of the costume design and James McArdle’s hipster hair and beard.
The acting is excellent - Margot Robbie gives us a vulnerable, flawed, and very human Elizabeth I. Jack Lowden just oozes charisma; it’s clear why such a strong woman falls for his ultimately spineless wretch. David Tennant is delightfully hateful as John Knox.
And Saoirse Ronan is amazing - full of life and heart and a little mardy.
But there is a problem with her character - she is too good, too honourable, kind, too modern in her thinking. She is being mythologised in this film the way Elizabeth has been in the past. I would have liked more shade and shadiness to her character. Surely Mary was not sinless and blameless.
But very enjoyable and I hope Josie Rourke gets to make more films - this is an exceptionally assured debut - as I’m excited to see what she does next.
The Hitch-Hiker
Director: Ida Lupino
Writers: Ida Lupino & Collier Young
How I watched it: Amazon Rental
This low-budget classic noir has no fat on the plot coming in at just barely 70 minutes. It’s handled with style and panache - lots of driving though the desert yet still captures the dark, grimness of the genre.
Yes, it’s a bit wobbly at places and the protagonists are very passive but I think that stems from sticking too close to the original “True Crime” inspiration. The lesson being sometimes you have to leave reality behind unless you are making a bio pic.
I recommend reading more about Ida Lupino if you have the chance – I’m delighted to have been signposted to her.
Catastrophe (Series 3)
Co-Creators/Writers: Sharon Horgan & Rob Delaney
Director: Ben Taylor
How I watched it: All4
I found this series vastly superior to series 2. A lot of the cartoonish aspects that I found so grating have gone - now it feels like two very odd people reacting in a believable and funny way to realistic situations.
Maybe it’s because unlike last series that flirted with Sharon’s post-natal depression but jettisoned it for a tired, old “tempted” storyline this series actual deals with life situations that don’t feel manufactured - a man who hates his job walking away from it and struggling to find anything else and turning to drink, and a woman desperately trying to make up to her husband for a mistake and dealing with ailing parents. The final two episodes are a lovely mix of humour and sadness and oh, my Carrie Fisher leaves us with an amazing last scene. She is so missed.
Excited for Series 4 - which is showing on Channel 4 right now. And I’ve heard it’s the last series.
The Favourite
Director: Yorges Lanthimos
Writers: Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara
Where I watched it: The Lighthouse Cinema, Dublin
This is how you do absurdist cinema - you throw naturalism under the bus and you commit utterly to the world you are building through the characterisation, costuming, dialogue, performances, and direction.
Wonderful.
It is great to see a film about rivalry between women that so boldly strips away the idea that this has anything to do with sexual jealously and lays bare that it has instead everything to do with security and power. It’s no surprise that Davis’s original screenplay was called The Balance of Power because so much of it is not only about who has the upper hand - but the internal balancing act that gaining and keeping power requires.
Olivia Coleman is amazing - her Anne is monstrous, mad, but also heart-breaking in her desperation for love and affection. Her hatred of music and what it stirs up in her is so beautifully handled.
All three of the central characters are marvellous - layered and complex neither good nor bad but human, despite their absurdity. It is a pleasure to see three such talented actors relish these roles.
Nicholas Hoult is also hilarious as the Tory opposition leader but this is very much a film focused on the women at the centre and their sensibilities.
I agree with others who’ve said it falters at the end as it doesn’t really know how to wrap itself up.
Divine but not perfect.
Destroyer
Director: Karyn Kusama
Writers: Phil Hay, Matt Manfredi
Where I watched it: Vue Cinemas, Liffey Valley
I managed to miss the first 10 minutes of this but I doubt that made much difference.
Urgh.
I was expecting a lot from this neo-noir and it failed to deliver. Nicole Kidman’s Erin Bell is not Medea - she is a one-note character. And that note is not badass but fucked-up idiot. Yes, the usually beautiful Kidman is transformed to ugly (I totally agree with Jan Carson that the make-up is too much) but she did far better work in Big Little Lies and Top of the Lake.
I read a review that celebrated the scene where Bell is forced to give a hand job to get some info - the reviewer used this as evidence that the character was written to be truly female not just a gender-swap gimmick.
Eh? So being truly female means having to degrade yourself sexually to get things done? The scene was pointless and gratuitous and served no purpose other than to degrade the character- which we didn’t need cause we need she was fucked up on account of letting herself go (eyeroll) and I was already convinced of her willingness to do whatever she deemed necessary when she took a bag of guns off a scary man without batting an eye.
And then the bank job scene - what the actual? It made no tactical sense from her end and was just an excuse for a big shoot out. Didn’t make her seem reckless and out of control - just made the whole plot feel ludicrous.
And it’s so reductive to take an anti-heroine and make her central tenet being a bad mother and getting her lover killed. Seriously.
This is not a good script.
Karyn Kusama is a great director and the panache she shows might be what is dazzling reviews but underneath it’s hollow.
Instead check out Kusama’s The Invitation on Netflix - a very smart thriller-horror film that keeps you guessing the whole way and which has the emotional depth this film lacks.
Anything else?
Just Hunted, SAS: Who Dares Wins, and lots of Hey Dugee - which is amazing. The best children’s cartoon in years.