Being the Ricardos: We still love Lucy

Being the Ricardos (2021) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated R, for profanity

Available via: Movie theaters and (beginning December 21) Amazon Prime

By Derrick Bang

Writer/director Aaron Sorkin loves the crackling intensity of rapid-fire dialogue amid interpersonal conflict, as we’ve seen in earlier projects from TV’s The West Wing and The Newsroom, to big-screen efforts such as The Social Network and The Trial of the Chicago 7.

 

The stars of I Love Lucy — from left, Desi Arnaz (Javier Bardem), William Frawley
(J.K. Simmons), Vivian Vance (Nina Arianda) and Lucile Ball (Nicole Kidman) — rehearse
a scene wherein Ricky and Lucy Ricardo attempt to "re-unite" the bickering Fred and
Ethel Mertz.

When Sorkin is at the top of his game, the result is exhilarating: absolutely the word to describe this new film.

Being the Ricardos is set primarily during a tumultuous single week in late 1952, as the stars, writers and sponsors of I Love Lucy shape the second season’s next episode, prior to it being performed and filmed before a live studio audience. That said, frequent flashbacks reveal the early careers of Lucille Ball (Nicole Kidman) and Desi Arnaz (Javier Bardem), and how they met and married.

 

Those elements are fascinating, as Sorkin deftly sketches the ambition, shrewd intelligence and business savvy that — once they got together — transformed two B-movie contract players into industry visionaries: They co-created one of television’s all-time most successful shows (No. 1 in the Nielsen ratings for four of its six seasons) and then founded Desilu, one of the world’s top TV production companies at the time (and later the home of Star Trek, among many other hits).

 

Captivating as all this is — and the power couple’s many innovations almost are too numerous to take in, so quickly (a Sorkin trademark) — the film primarily focuses on three crises that erupt during this one week:

 

• A newspaper photo that leads Ball to believe that Arnaz is having an affair;

 

• Muckraking gossip columnist Walter Winchell’s bombshell announcement that Ball is a communist (!); and

 

• The revelation that Ball is pregnant with their second child, and her determination — with Arnaz’s support — to break television’s then-cultural taboo against showing pregnant women on screen.

 

While all these events are factual, Sorkin has “massaged” history — and heightened the intensity of his film — by having them occur simultaneously. (They didn’t. Most notably, Winchell’s radio bombshell wasn’t made until a few days after Ball’s second meeting with the House Un-American Activities Committee, in September 1953.)

 

Ergo, the cacophony of calamity is artistic conceit, but it’s a forgivable sin.

 

Verbal jousting is ubiquitous throughout, in the audacious manner of a 1930s screwball comedy: between Ball and Arnaz; between both of them and their three favorite writers, Madelyn Pugh (Alia Shawkat), Bob Carroll Jr. (Jake Lacy) and Jess Oppenheimer (Tony Hale); and between all five of them and the CBS suits (Clark Gregg, Nelson Franklin and Dan Sachoff) and Phillip Morris representative (Jeff Holman) who question, nitpick, challenge and argue over any line or act that might be considered controversial, risqué or offensive to American TV viewers.

 

It’s a revelation, to be reminded of the jaw-droppingly insane restrictions placed on TV shows, back in the day … and the long-suffering patience required of the stars, writers and directors who had to put up with such nonsense.

 

Alan Baumgarten’s editing, throughout, is as tight and quick as the rat-a-tat dialogue.

The Prom: Gotta sing! Gotta dance!

The Prom (2020) • View trailer

3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for thematic elements and suggestive/sexual candor

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.22.21

It’s easy to see why director Ryan Murphy was attracted to this Tony-nominated stage musical; it’s basically a double-length episode of his hit TV series, Glee.

 

On steroids. With an A-list cast.

 

Having decided to save a small Indiana town from itself, our four Broadway stars — from
left, Trent (Andrew Rannells), Barry (James Corden), Dee Dee (Meryl Streep) and
Angie (Nicole Kidman) — salute themselves in song.

The Prom — a Netflix original — boldly blends serious social commentary with frivolous Broadway razzmatazz, and gets away with it because the Bob Martin/Chad Beuelin script cheekily acknowledges as much.

 

“This is how actors intervene,” proclaim the lyrics in one of the many patter tunes, “through fiery songs and dance breaks!”

 

Indeed, Beguilin’s lyrics — he co-created the stage musical, with Martin’s book and Matthew Sklar’s music — are wickedly clever, with snarky messaging, insider jokes and tongue-twistingly inventive rhymes that even Tom Lehrer would admire.

 

Assign this material to scene-stealing talents such as Meryl Streep, James Corden, Nicole Kidman and Andrew Rannells, and the result — while a bit bloated, at 130 minutes — is a lot of fun.

 

The story kicks off during the opening night production of Eleanor!: The Eleanor Roosevelt Story, a wildly expensive and thematically ill-advised musical featuring New York stage stars Dee Dee Allen (Streep) and Barry Glickman (Corden). The post-opening party turns into a disaster when reviews crucify the show, effectively flat-lining their careers.

 

While commiserating with career chorus girl Angie Dickinson (Kidman) — who has just quit her 20-year job in the musical Chicago, after once again losing the plum role of Roxie Hart, this time to Tina-Louise (very late of Gilligan’s Island, and still with us) — they decide that salvation lies is attaching their star status to some sort of noble cause, thereby reaping the benefit of flattering publicity.

 

Trouble is, Dee Dee and Barry are unapologetic narcissists — and even admit as much, in song — and therefore embrace this notion for all the wrong reasons.

Bombshell: Provocatively outFoxed

Bombshell (2019) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated R, for profanity and (often unpleasant) sexual candor
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.3.20

It’s hard to be completely satisfied, when a disgraced sexual predator departs his high-profile corporate job with an eight-figure severance package.

Despite her ongoing spat with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump having
become very public, Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly (Charlize Theron) is assured by
boss Roger Ailes (John Lithgow) that he still has her back.

Director Jay Roach’s new film, a scorching slice of recent history, depicts Fox News Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes’ fall from grace, following the brave revolt of numerous female employees who finally said enough is too much.

The frequently snarky script comes from Charles Randolph, who adopts an approach similar to that he took with his Academy Award-winning screenplay for 2015’s The Big Short. Thus, these events unfold against ongoing break-the-fourth-wall narration from Charlize Theron’s Megyn Kelly, who frequently addresses us viewers directly, in order to offer essential back-story. The resulting tone shifts wildly from dark humor to painful intimacy; we chuckle ruefully one moment, recoil in aghast consternation the next.

Stars Theron, Nicole Kidman and Margot Robbie are backed by equally compelling performances from a wealth of supporting players, some seen only fleetingly but no less memorably (as with Malcolm McDowell’s fleeting appearance as Rupert Murdoch). Theron and Kidman play real-world Fox News anchors Megyn Kelly and Gretchen Carlson; Robbie’s Kayla Pospisil is a composite character drawn from Ailes’ lesser-profile victims.

No surprise, then — since Pospisil is constructed for maximum dramatic impact — that Robbie has both of the film’s standout acting moments.

But they come later. Our introductory crash course in Fox News-style “journalism” comes from Kelly, when she trots us through the bullpen and newsroom, her observations peppered with deliciously acerbic remarks. Theron’s wholly immersive transformation is frankly startling; makeup designer Kazu Hiro and costume designer Colleen Atwood — both Oscar winners — have essentially turned their star into Kelly. Theron completes the illusion by flawlessly replicating Kelly’s walk, stance and manner of speech.

The first act is dominated by Kelly’s unexpected feud with then-Republican presidential contender Donald Trump, in the summer of 2015: a headline-generated spat that climaxed with the latter’s tasteless accusation that the Fox News host had “blood coming out of her wherever” during the early August Republican candidates’ debate. Conscious of not wanting to “become the story,” Kelly absents herself for a bit, with Ailes’ support.

John Lithgow, barely recognized beneath the makeup and padding required to convey Ailes’ massive weight, is almost fatherly and sympathetic here … but that’s part of the man’s two-faced abuse of power. Given that Lithgow is an inherently sympathetic actor, it’s easy to think of Ailes benevolently, in these early scenes.

The Upside: Moderately uplifting

The Upside (2017) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated PG-13, and rather harshly, for suggestive content and drug use
By Derrick Bang

Hollywood efforts to remake French films are spotty at best; for every reasonable success — Point of No Return and Three Men and a Baby come to mind — we endure half a dozen wincingly awful bombs such as Dinner for Schmucks, My Father the Hero, Two Much, The Toy, Oscar, The Jackal and … well, you get the idea.

Helping Phillip (Bryan Cranston, left) with his daily correspondence is one of many tasks
that Dell (Kevin Hart) initially finds bewildering ... particularly when Yvonne (Nicole Kidman)
makes a point of removing hand-addressed, light blue envelopes from the stack.

Too many American filmmakers simply don’t get — or fail to appreciate — the wit, subtlety and gentle humor of European writers and directors, who obviously have more faith in their viewers’ intelligence. American remakes tend toward vulgarity, boorishness and broadly overstated farce. Characters who felt real in a French original, become garish burlesques.

I therefore greeted the announced remake of 2011’s The Intouchables with wariness, particularly when Kevin Hart — an aggressive comedian hardly known for delicacy — was announced as co-star. The original is a quiet masterpiece that’s both funny and deeply touching; directors Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledana did a superb job of turning Philippe Pozzo di Borgo’s 2001 memoir — Le Second Souffle (A Second Wind) — into a heartwarming dramedy about two men from completely different worlds, who nonetheless forge a deep, interconnected friendship.

Well, color me surprised. Director Neil Burger’s The Upside may not have the emotional impact of its predecessor, but it’s a game effort. Credit screenwriter Jon Hartmere for retaining both the original’s crucial plot points, and (for the most part) its thoughtful, often melancholy tone. The modifications required by transplanting these events to New York are integrated smoothly, and Hartmere even made a few wise improvements (such as ditching a snotty daughter character, who was a pointless distraction).

Best of all, Burger successfully guides Hart through a comparatively nuanced performance, mostly bereft of the mugging, wild gesticulations and wide-eyed bluster that have become his signature in moron comedies such as Ride Along, Get Hard and Central Intelligence. His Dell is a fairly real guy here: one to whom we can relate, and with whom we can sympathize.

He’s an embittered ex-con who can’t see beyond a lifetime of bad choices. He’s long separated from a girlfriend (Aja Naomi King, as Latrice) and son (Jahi Di’Allo Winston, as Anthony) who want nothing to do with him; he’s also just this side of being sent back to court by a parole officer whose patience has worn thin. The latter’s final edict is adamant: Get a job. Now. Or tell it to the judge.

Aquaman: Waterlogged

Aquaman (2018) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated PG-13, and somewhat generously, for considerable sci-fi action and violence, and occasional profanity.
By Derrick Bang

This film has serious issues with tone and balance.

Far too much of director James Wan’s narrative — he shares writing chores with Will Beall, Geoff Johns and David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick — sags beneath the weight of overly florid, Shakespearean-style dialog that most cast members lack the gravitas to pull off.

Having burrowed deep beneath the Sahara Desert, to discover the remnants of a long-
lost undersea kingdom, Arthur (Jason Momoa) and Mera (Amber Heard) activate a device
that will provide the next clue to the whereabouts of the fabled Lost Trident of Atlan.

And which is compromised further by the mildly earthy comments tossed off by star Jason Momoa. Mind you, he’s good with a quip, and Wan apparently felt that such contrasting elocution styles would be amusing. Instead, it’s merely awkward.

Then there’s the matter of villains. A superhero is only as good — as interesting — as his adversaries, and Momoa’s Aquaman has two. By far the more stylish, and far more dangerous, is a high-tech pirate known as Manta, played with savage malevolence by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. He’s a baddie to be reckoned with: a rage machine who radiates danger and has serious issues with our hero.

But Manta is relegated to B-villain status: an afterthought who isn’t much of a problem, and ultimately becomes a joke.

Which is ironic, because the true joke is Patrick Wilson’s laughably awful handling of the alpha villain: Aquaman’s half-brother Orm, would-be despotic ruler of all the undersea kingdoms. Wilson is atrociously out of his depth — pun intended — and radiates about as much menace as damp Kleenex. He looks and sounds like a whiny little boy who’s about to have his toys taken away.

This film collapses every time Wilson speaks a line, or faces off against the far more formidable Momoa.

I’m guessing Wan brought Wilson along for the ride, because the two of them have worked together on a bunch of nasty little horror flicks (the Insidious and Conjuring series, The Nun). Which points further to Wan’s poor judgment.

Aquaman also suffers from excess been there/done that: the inevitable result of too many superhero films piling atop each other. The regal look and sound of Atlantis, with its massive statuary and guarded “approach bridge” — and its position as one of seven mythic undersea kingdoms — are blatant echoes of Thor’s Asgard and its neighboring eight realms.

Aquaman’s mano a mano duels with Orm, over control of the Atlantean throne, are straight out of the Black Panther playbook … where, rest assured, the clashes were handled far better, and carried much greater emotional weight.

The Beguiled: Not beguiling enough

The Beguiled (2017) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated R, and rather harshly, for fleeting sexuality
By Derrick Bang

As a setting, Southern Gothic is a character in its own right: drooping, moss-draped trees enclosing antebellum mansions, their white paint edged with gray and slightly peeling; a keening, high-pitched whine of insects driven into a constant frenzy by shimmering heat; the miasma of humidity so unrelenting that everything — flora, fauna and dwellings — sags beneath a soggy layer of warm moisture, and the mere act of drawing breath is a weary challenge.

Sensing that Edwina (Kirsten Dunst) is self-conscious about her appearance,
McBurney (Colin Farrell) lavishes praise about her features and deportment, knowing
full well that she'll melt under such flattery.

A sense that evil spirits prowl during a night so enveloping that stars and fireflies do little to keep the darkness at bay.

Director/scripter Sofia Coppola’s fresh adaptation of Thomas Cullinan’s The Beguiled certainly wins points for atmosphere. Cinematographer Philippe Le Sourd frames every inch of production designer Anne Ross’ tableaus — interior and exterior — with the reverence of a painter agonizing over each individual brush stroke.

The characters in this unsettling morality play also are well cast, with Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst and Colin Farrell delivering a level of quiet intensity more frequently experienced with a live Broadway performance. Which also feels appropriate, given that the story’s claustrophobic setting could be realized equally well on a theater stage.

Coppola directs her cast with a sure hand, coaxing performances that fascinate just as much for their protracted silences, as for carefully selected snatches of dialog. Kidman, in particular, conveys a wealth of emotion during moments of circumspect silence.

If only Coppola’s script equaled the rest of her film’s carefully assembled elements.

The tale unfolds in 1864, midway through the Civil War, within the confines of the Farnsworth Seminary, a Southern girls’ boarding school nestled deep in the Virginia woods. The institution is run by Miss Martha (Kidman) and her colleague Edwina (Dunst); they share classroom instruction and the daily reading of prayers.

The student population has dwindled to five, all girls with nowhere else to go. Amy (Oona Laurence), Jane (Angourie Rice), Marie (Addison Riecke) and Emily (Emma Howard) are adolescent, vulnerable and trusting; teenage Alicia (Elle Fanning), hastening the onset of a womanhood she has no means of embracing, carries a whiff of temptress about her.

These seven have become a family, Miss Martha just as much a surrogate mother as a formal teacher. The dynamic, with its daily rituals, feels timeless; they may have sheltered in this vast mansion for mere months, or perhaps years. (The action actually takes place at the Louisiana-based Madewood Plantation House, also borrowed by Beyoncé for her “Sorry” music video.)

Lion: Roars too softly

Lion (2016) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang

Saroo Brierley’s personal saga is the stuff of harrowing Dickensian melodrama: a deeply emotional and ultimately triumphant journey recounted in his 2014 memoir, A Long Way Home.

Waiting to reunite with an older brother who fails to return for him, 5-year-old Saroo (Sunny
Pawar) boards a parked train, assuming that it eventually will take him back home. Sadly,
and alarmingly, he's in for a nasty surprise.

The story screamed for big-screen treatment, but the result disappoints. Poet and novelist Luke Davies’ script focuses only on the beginning and end of Brierley’s chronicle, ignoring a lengthy middle segment and — as a result — leaving viewers with all sorts of questions. Perhaps more crucially, the film’s powerful first half completely overwhelms what follows; first-time feature director Garth Davis lacks the skill to hold our attention during the increasingly tedious and dull second act.

On top of which, Dev Patel — who plays the twentysomething Brierley — is badly overshadowed by young Sunny Pawar, who plays 5-year-old Saroo.

Pawar’s performance is stunning. Patel ... not so much.

The film clearly has been a marketing challenge, given the various posters created to pique viewer interest. None is very dynamic, perhaps the most misleading dominated by large close-ups of Patel and co-star Rooney Mara, staring into each other’s eyes, thus implying a romantic focus that’s only a very small part of the narrative.

All of which is a shame. Davies didn’t adapt the story very well; Davis brought nothing to the table; and the Weinstein Company bungled the marketing. Brierley deserved far better.

We meet Saroo as an adorably precocious little boy, completely devoted to older brother Guddu (Abhishek Bharate). They live in cruel poverty, in the Ganesh Tilai neighborhood of rural India’s Khandwa, in the Nimar region of Madhya Pradesh. The boys beg, scuffle for odd jobs, and steal coal from moving trains, to supplement the meager wages earned by their single mother, Kamla (Priyanka Bose), who moves rocks at construction sites.

When Guddu gets word of potential work a short nighttime train ride away, Saroo demands to tag along, insisting that he’s strong enough to do anything his brother can do. Guddu relents, but the journey proves exhausting for the little boy; Guddu leaves him to rest on a platform bench, promising to return soon.

But he doesn’t.

Before I Go to Sleep: A dull, contrived snooze

Before I Go to Sleep (2014) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated R, for violence, pointless profanity and fleeting nudity
By Derrick Bang

This modest thriller opens with an intriguing first act, loses momentum in the second, slides into stupidsville during the climax, and concludes with a sappy epilogue that drew well-deserved snickers of disgust from Wednesday evening’s preview audience.

Truly, a lamentable waste of an A-list cast.

Breakfast is always the worst time of day for Christine Nicole Kidman), for it's when she
 must attempt to absorb two decades' worth of details about a long and happy life spent
with husband Ben (Colin Firth), whom she cannot remember from one day to the next.

UK author S.J. Watson’s Before I Go to Sleep was an auspicious debut novel in the spring of 2011, climbing bestseller lists on both sides of the Atlantic, earning translations in more than 40 countries, and galloping home with two significant crime writers’ awards. I can only assume that the premise and execution worked far better on the printed page than here, via director Rowan Joffe’s screenplay ... although I note that even some of Watson’s complimentary critics complained about his contrived denouement.

Actually, contrived isn’t strong enough. As executed by Joffe — a clumsy scripter thus far known for leaden adaptations of thrillers by Martin Booth (The American) and Graham Greene (Brighton Rock) — this manipulative psychological mystery completely falls apart during post-mortem analysis. It utterly fails the “driving home” test, as unhappy patrons pick apart details and plot element which, in the final analysis, don’t make sense and simply couldn’t happen in the real world.

Which is a shame, because — as a director — Joffe establishes a reasonably tense and unsettling atmosphere as the story begins.

Christine Lucas (Nicole Kidman) wakes each morning frightened and confused, in a bed, bedroom and house that are wholly unfamiliar, having slept next to a man who appears a total stranger. That would be Ben (Colin Firth), who gently, patiently explains that he’s her husband, and that they’ve been married for years. She doesn’t remember any of this, he continues — quiet despair clouding his eyes, as we realize that he has repeated this well-worn script hundreds (thousands?) of times — because she suffers from psychogenic amnesia, the result of a traumatic traffic accident.

Christine begins each day believing that she’s still a single woman in her 20s, when, in fact, she’s a 40-year-old wife. She can absorb and process information each day — assisted by displays of photos and messages that Ben has posted throughout their house — but she forgets all the “new” information each time she sleeps. And then, the following morning, the whole heartbreaking ritual takes place again.

Kidman is persuasively disoriented, her wary eyes flickering between this man she doesn’t recognize, to the rooms of a strange home that are filled with photographic reminders of years spent with him: wedding and vacation pictures, casual shots of her wearing clothes that hang in the closets ... everything that indicates a long and deliriously happy life at Ben’s side.

Ben heads for work each weekday morning — he teaches at a nearby school — and leaves Christine to re-discover her life, become re-acquainted with her surroundings. By dinnertime each evening, she has come to accept and appreciate how ghastly this is for her: and also for sad, faithful Ben, who clearly hopes that, the following morning, she’ll know who she is without being prompted.

But no; the pattern has remained fixed for years.

The Railway Man: Journey to serenity

Railway Man (2013) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated R, for highly disturbing scenes of torture and war violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.25.14

It’s somewhat ironic that the “code of silence” shared by former British prisoners of war who survived their WWII ordeal, while forced to help construct the Siam-Burma railway, seems to have been echoed by filmmakers.

The calm before the storm: Patti (Nicole Kidman) has fallen deeply in love with Eric
(Colin Firth), despite knowing very little about his past. Details will emerge soon enough,
at which point we'll find out just how determined this woman can be, when it comes to
uncovering the truth.

Following the 1957 release of director David Lean’s classic (if fictionalized) Bridge on the River Kwai, nobody has re-visited those events on the big screen.

Ironic, because — as often happens — truth is far more powerful than fiction. And, in this particular case, even a bit stranger.

Director Jonathan Teplitzky’s adaptation of Eric Lomax’s memoir, The Railway Man, is a deeply personal film: by turns grim, heartbreaking and spiritually uplifting. It’s propelled by yet another impressive and emotionally complex performance from star Colin Firth, who appears to be cornering the 21st century market on delicately articulated psychological turmoil.

Merely to glance upon Firth’s face is to share in the grief of a man we don’t yet know; the invisible scars radiate from him in waves.

But Firth isn’t alone. He’s matched, scene for scene, by Nicole Kidman’s equally fine work. Her part isn’t as showy, but it’s just as crucial; she delivers the same persuasive power with small gestures. A tilt of the head, a half-smile that vanishes before blossoming fully. The beginnings of a comment, swallowed before any words escape her lips. A sense that this woman constantly walks on eggshells, lest she unknowingly awaken more dormant memories in the man she loves, but doesn’t yet know or understand.

Memorably deft performances, in both cases.

For the most part, the same can be said of scripters Frank Cottrell Boyce and Andy Paterson, who labored for years to turn Lomax’s book into a film. Their first act is a clever tease: deceptively light and sweet, almost a frothy romance, before dark storm clouds begin to smother the cheerful, sun-speckled tone.

The longer second act is horrific, in the manner of all powerful WWII sagas. The narrative may be far removed from the usual Western European setting, and the enemy faces may be different, but barbarism is universal. We wonder, once again, at man’s ability to debase and torture his peers. Not even war — not even this war — seems an adequate excuse for such spiteful cruelty.

The third act ... well, that’s where Boyce and Paterson falter a bit. But only a bit, and I’ll get back to that.

Stoker: A chilling family affair

Stoker (2013) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rating: R, for violence, disturbing sexual content, dramatic intensity and brief nudity
By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.29.13

In Chan-wook Park’s corrosive view of the universe, blood isn’t merely thicker than water; it positively congeals the connective tissue of inherited moral putrescence.

And nurture doesn’t stand a chance against nature.

India (Mia Wasikowska) loves to play the piano; it's a great way to release tension.
Charles (Matthew Goode) also enjoys the instrument, but his fondness seems more
directed at playing with his niece ... and the resulting duets turn rather creepy.

Park, the South Korean director known for gorgeously stylized but grimly unsettling thrillers such as 2003’s Oldboy and 2009’s weirdly disturbing Thirst, has made an equally disconcerting American debut with Stoker. This new film is gorgeous to look at, with cinematographer Chung-hoon Chung creating captivating magic with every frame, but the on-screen beauty is at odds with the casual rot festering within our three primary characters.

That juxtaposition is intentional, of course, as is the undercurrent of amused detachment that laces every scene in Wentworth Miller’s gleefully nasty script. These characters taunt, torment and torture each other with an élan the Borgias would have admired, and Park orchestrates the mayhem in a manner that essentially dares us to enjoy the depravity right along with them.

Some of the humor is obvious, starting with the connotations raised by Miller’s choice of a family name — Stoker — or the affectionate nod toward Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt, by naming Matthew Goode’s unhinged interloper Uncle Charlie. But we also can’t help chuckling at the enthusiastically carnivorous manner in which Goode tears into his character; rarely has evil been this charming, tempting ... and forbidden.

The film opens as India Stoker (Mia Wasikowska), recently turned 18, stands at the edge of a field, staring intently at something within. She describes herself cryptically via off-camera narration, adding a layer of poetic eloquence to a tableau that already seems vaguely wrong.

The scene shifts to an India who seems slightly younger and significantly more withdrawn; we understand that we have retreated in time, but not too much. This is her 18^th birthday, and she’s indulging in her favorite annual treat: finding the “special” present from her beloved father, who always hides it in a cryptic manner. The gift itself doesn’t matter all that much, and in fact it’s the same every year: a fresh pair of saddle shoes (definitely not an accidental choice on Miller’s part, given the shoes’ striking contrast between black and white).

No, India anticipates the thrill of the hunt, and the knowledge that her father has gone to so much trouble to please her.

Australia: Wizards of Oz

Australia (2008) • View trailer for Australia
4.5 stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for violence, brief sensuality and dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.26.08
Buy DVD: Australia • Buy Blu-Ray: Australia [Blu-ray]


Blend the giddy, wonderfully inventive editing and swooping camera movements of Moulin Rouge with the sort of old-style epic storytelling Hollywood hasn't made in decades, sprinkle with a precocious narrator and top with megastar wattage, and the result is guaranteed to be a great time at the movies.

Actually, the result is Australia.

The snobbish aristocrats flee indoors when their high-society dance is "ruined"
by a sudden cloudburst, but Drover (Hugh Jackman) and Lady Sarah Ashley
(Nicole Kidman) have the opposite reaction: They know this sorm signals the
long-awaited end of the summer drought.

Director Baz Luhrmann, undoubtedly thirsting for some way to match the crowd-pleasing success of his Moulin Rouge, returned to the land of his birth to delve into the WWII-era events that dragged Australia onto the world stage once and for all. Luhrmann doesn't work rapidly — indeed, this is only his fourth film, after Strictly Ballroom, Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge — but his visual creativity and storytelling talent grow with each new project.

We Americans still honor the bombing of Pearl Harbor each Dec. 7, an event that seared our national consciousness at a level that wouldn't be matched until the 2001 destruction of the Twin Towers. But in our characteristically myopic way, we have very little knowledge of what happened in Australia at that same time, back in 1941, when the same Japanese air forces also leveled the city of Darwin.

And that's only a single chapter of the ambitious saga concocted here by Luhrmann, Stuart Beattie, Ronald Harwood and Australian novelist Richard Flanagan. The story begins in 1939, with a slightly whimsical tone that misleads us into expecting the sort of hearty Outback adventure depicted in (for example) The Man from Snowy River.

Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman), prim and proper to the point of near absurdity, has been left in London while her husband attempts to augment the family fortune half a world away, in the unforgiving terrain of Australia's Northern Territory. Contact is sparse, and Sarah grows impatient; she decides to hop a plane — dragging along what seems like half of London's fashion district in her scores of suitcases — and investigate the situation personally.

She arrives in the middle of a barroom brawl that has erupted because the man known only as "the Drover" (Hugh Jackman) has responded unkindly to a racist remark directed at his longtime mate, an Aboriginal stockman named Magarri (David Ngoombujarra). This dust-up is staged for maximum comic effect, and of course Sarah eventually discovers that Drover is the "reliable man" sent to bring her to Faraway Downs, where her husband has been struggling to build a cattle empire.

As far as Sarah and Drover are concerned, it's mutual loathing at first sight. (Naturally, we don't expect that to last long.)

Unfortunately, Sarah reaches her property only to find that her husband has been murdered, supposedly by an Aboriginal "witch doctor" named King George (David Gulpilil, an Australian film legend who debuted all the way back in 1971's Walkabout). King George is known to linger near the property, because he's keeping an eye on his grandson, Nullah (Brandon Walters, making an impressive acting debut).

Nullah shares an extraordinary bond with his grandfather; the two communicate through chanting and singing, and the boy has an unquenchable curiosity about all things musical.

Faraway Downs itself is on the brink of ruin, and manager Neil Fletcher (David Wenham) strongly advises that Sarah simply sell off the property and return home.

The story to this point — and from this point forward — is narrated by young Nullah, as captivating a presence as the similarly young protagonist who recounted Mel Gibson's quasi-magical exploits in The Road Warrior. Nullah's chopped English is heart-tugging from the get-go, the words tumbling from Walters' mouth as if he can't, in his enthusiasm, get them out quickly enough.

But for all his wide-eyed irrepressibility, Nullah is a tragic figure: a half-Aboriginal, half-Caucasian boy adrift in a rigorously segregated society that treats him as an outcast. He's vulgarly dubbed a "creamy" by the likes of Fletcher ... which is grimly ironic, since this sneering low-life is the boy's father.

On top of which, if Darwin's "civilized" Catholic church element catches wind of Nullah's presence, the boy will be snatched away from his mother and sent to the sort of ghastly orphanage depicted so well in 2002's Rabbit Proof Fence.

Sarah soon learns that Fletcher is much worse than a racist; although ostensibly working for her late husband, the station manager actually has been plotting with local cattle baron King Carney (Bryan Brown), who aims to monopolize the entire Australian beef industry, and covets possession of Faraway Downs and its sturdy herd of four-legged steaks.

Names aren't accidental in this story, by the way, and make no mistake: What follows will be a contest between these two "Kings."

Back in Darwin, Carney holds the upper hand and is trying to force a contract to supply beef to the awakening Australian military presence ... at a price-gouging level that Capt. Dutton (Ben Mendelsohn) hopes to resist.

Having deduced Fletcher's perfidy, Sarah fires him; her dander now up, she determines to bring her cattle to market. Unfortunately, Fletcher has taken the crew with him, and she's left with pretty much nobody.

Until Drover reappears.

Roped into this English rose's harebrained scheme, Drover reluctantly agrees to lead a cattle drive with half a dozen misfit riders who include Sarah, Nullah, a couple of Aboriginal women and alcoholic accountant Kipling Flynn (Jack Thompson).

Up to this point, Luhrmann's tone has been light, and his film has the rugged but playful atmosphere of, say, Howard Hawks' Hatari, with Jackman standing in for John Wayne, and Kidman the obligatory "useless woman" destined to smarten up and toughen up. Brown and Wenham make great villains: the former the backroom schemer, the latter the lackey willing to get his hands dirty.

Even now, though, this deceptively superficial "Western" has undercurrents of genuine tension, starting with the vulnerable Nullah's very presence; we've also already seen that Luhrmann isn't afraid to pull his punches, and tragedy enters these proceedings pretty quickly.

Then things really roar into full throttle, and the ride never lets up for the duration of the film's nearly three-hour running time. The stakes get higher, the tension waxes, wanes and waxes again, and you'll be at the edge of your seat, heart in mouth, for pretty much the entire final hour.

Jackman is a sturdy leading man, able to satisfy the extremely eclectic character demands placed on Drover. He has no patience for the racist swine who infect Darwin's upper-crust society, and is far more at home with Aboriginal companions, for which he makes no apologies. Drover's also an expert rider, horse whisperer and gallant doer of good deeds: a man of integrity who'll not back down from a fight that involves injustice.

Factor in Jackman's winning smile, and you can't miss.

Indeed, Luhrmann obviously recognizes the magnificent asset he has in his leading man, and the film comes with two iconic "Jackman moments" guaranteed to set female hearts a-fluttering across the land: the first out in the rough-and-tumble Outback, when the actor doffs his shirt for a soapy scrubdown; the second worlds and attitudes away, in Darwin, when Drover pops up in a perfectly tailored, cream-colored tux.

But Jackman is much more than good looks; his laid-back charm is a force of nature, and he also persuasively sells Drover's more serious moments, or his explosions of justified indignation.

Kidman, in great contrast, starts out as an object of near-ridicule, her prissy exterior almost laughably at odds with the steel Sarah tries — and initially fails — to inject into her tone. By design, Lady Sarah initially floats above these proceedings, refusing to embrace either this land or its people, as befits her aristocratic upbringing. The eventual thaw, slow in coming, arrives as this dainty creature becomes increasingly protective of Nullah.

We realize, suddenly, that Kidman's Sarah no longer is a comic stereotype, and has embraced both her companions and her new environment.

Thompson and Brown, both veteran Aussie character actors, capably fill their Outback archetypal roles. Wenham is an intriguing study: an apparently minor-league thug initially dismissed as inconsequential, who surprises us with both his resilience and capacity for evil.

Gulpilil's King George is fascinating throughout: particularly intriguing, given that his role is mostly silent.

But young Walters is the glue that binds this film; he's probably in more scenes that either Jackman or Kidman, and the young actor rises to the challenge, and then some.

Cinematographer Mandy Walker shoots these proceedings to emphasize the Northern Territory's lush expanse, and the film stock has the rich color and razor-sharp resolution of classic John Ford Westerns. Production designer G. Mac Brown has his hands full, whether going for tired and baked, as the dilapidated Faraway Downs is introduced, or establishing the harbor at Darwin, warships at the ready, but waiting like sitting ducks for what is to come.

Composer David Hirschfelder's dramatic score is appropriately sweeping and orchestral, while music supervisor Anton Monsted makes canny use of source songs, none better employed than Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg's "Over the Rainbow."

I can't remember the last time I had so many emotions tweaked during a film, while also having this much fun. Oh, wait, yes I can: It was during Moulin Rouge.

Australia will similarly pack 'em in during the entire holiday season.