Wicked Little Letters: Hilariously entertaining

Wicked Little Letters (2023) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated R, for relentless, breathtaking profanity and vulgarity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.5.24

You’ve gotta love the cheeky epigram with which director Thea Sharrock opens her mischievous little film:

 

“This is more true than you’d think.”

 

When the newly arrived Rose (Jessie Buckley, right) first moves into the house
adjacent to where Edith (Olivia Colman) lives with her parents, they get along
reasonably well. Alas, that isn't destined to last...

Indeed, the vast majority of Jonny Sweet’s script is based on actual events ... including a couple of details that you’d swear he fabricated. The biggest shift from reality lies in the multi-racial casting, which makes the story more entertaining for us modern viewers.

The setting is the seaside town of Littlehampton, in the early 1920s. Sharrock and Sweet hit the ground running, with prim and proper Edith Swan (Olivia Colman) in the midst of an escalating feud with vulgar and earthy Rose Gooding (Jessie Buckley). Their hostility is exacerbated by the fact that their front doors are inches from each other, and their row houses have a common wall (which does little to mute the, um, enthusiastic late-night noises that emanate from the bedroom Rose shares with her lover).

 

The close proximity becomes even more uncomfortable due to shared toilets and baths.

 

Edith, last in a massive line of siblings, still lives with her parents, Edward (Timothy Spall) and Victoria (Gemma Jones). The former is a fire-and-brimstone authoritarian and emotional abuser, a role that Spall plays with terrifying ferocity. Whenever Edith fails to toe some behavioral line, she’s sent to her room to copy Biblical passages 200 times.

 

Edith’s mother long ago gave up trying to change this dynamic, and now meekly refuses to intrude. Jones makes the woman so withdrawn, that’s she’s practically insubstantial.

 

Buckley, in great contrast, throws everything into her performance as Rose, a rowdy Irish migrant with a cheerfully foul mouth that unleashes breathtaking profanities, while enjoying life to the fullest: often in the local pub, smoking, drinking and being the life of the party. Buckley is a total hoot: as much a force of nature as her character.

 

But although unschooled, Rose isn’t stupid. She’s also a sharp judge of character.

 

Her boyfriend Bill (Malachi Kirby), calmer and loyal to the core, loves to play his guitar while paying close attention to local doings. Rose’s young daughter Nancy (Alisha Weir) is a sweet adolescent who adores her mother, and has bonded tightly with Bill.

Empire of Light: Radiant

Empire of Light (2022) • View trailer

Five stars (out of five). Rated R, for profanity, sexual content, dramatic intensity and violence

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.23.22

Writer/director Sam Mendes’ handsomely mounted, intensely intimate character study is enchanting on so many levels, it’s difficult to know where to begin.

 

In the long-deserted upper level of their majestic cinema palace, Hilary (Olivia Colman)
watches, transfixed, as Stephen (Micheal Ward) gently tends to a pigeon with an
injured wing.

First and foremost, this is a loving valentine to the transformational magic of old-style film palaces: perhaps also a sad farewell to a manner of moviegoing likely to disappear within the next decade.

We’re also reminded, ever so gently, of the healing power of art in general — music, poetry, film itself — and the connective warmth of community, however unusual the “family unit” might be.

 

And this poignant story’s emotional impact comes from the powerhouse starring performance by Olivia Colman, whose bravura work here may be the high point of an already astonishing acting career. (I’ve said this before, about Colman’s work … and, somehow, she always tops herself.)

 

The setting is an English coastal town, where Hilary (Colman) is the shift manager of the Empire, a fading palatial cinema house that still looks quite fancy — to a point — while nonetheless being a shadow of its glory days. 

 

(Filming took place in Margate, a town on the northern shore of Kent, where production designer Mark Tildesley discovered Dreamland: a former cinema and ballroom, with a majestic art deco exterior attached to a seaside fun fair. His transformation of that venue, for this film, is breathtaking.)

 

It’s Christmas Eve, 1980; Hilary arrives for the day’s shift, unlocking doors and cabinets, turning on lights. The rest of the crew soon follows: notably projectionist Norman (Toby Jones), junior manager Neil (Tom Brooke) and 18-year-old worker-bee Janine (Hannah Onslow).

 

Everybody answers to supervising manager Mr. Ellis (Colin Firth), prone to outbursts of temper, and soon revealed as a tight-lipped bully who uses and abuses people. (Firth, a chameleon who could embrace any role, is thoroughly convincing as an unapologetic bastard.)

 

Business is light, despite the allure of top-drawer, second-run fare on the theater’s two screens; we sense that a long time has passed, since the Empire enjoyed anything approaching a full house.

 

Despite her obviously capable skills, Hilary is quiet, withdrawn and oddly muted. It’s as if her eyes have become motion detectors: dark and inert at rest, erupting suddenly with life — and a smile that feels forced, existing only because it’s expected — only when somebody interacts with her.

The Electrical Life of Louis Wain: Heartbreaking study of a tormented artist

The Electrical Life of Louis Wain (2021) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and brief profanity

Available via: Movie theaters and (beginning November 5) Amazon Prime

By Derrick Bang

One rarely encounters such a Dickensian life, outside of a Charles Dickens novel.

 

Artist Louis Wain’s personal and professional life was just as tragic, as the majority of his vast output was playfully joyous. He remains, to this day, one of the most beloved commercial illustrators in English history; during the Edwardian era, it was the rare home that lacked one of his posters, or many of his children’s books.

 

Louis (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Emily (Claire Foy) are
surprised to find a scruffy, rain-soaked kitten in their
garden. They'll soon be even more surprised by the
degree to which this little feline affects the arc of
Louis' artistic career.

He also deserves credit for helping elevate the humble pussycat into a companion worthy of being a pet, rather than a pesky creature best relegated to the streets.

Author H.G. Wells famously noted — during a radio broadcast reproduced in this biographical drama — that “He has made the cat his own. He invented a cat style, a cat society, a whole cat world. English cats that do not look and live like Louis Wain cats are ashamed of themselves.”

 

Wain also was quite popular on this side of the pond, at the beginning of the 20th century, and then much later, in the 1970s, when his more outré cat paintings were ubiquitous among the, ah, college-age psychedelic set.

 

Director Will Sharpe’s poignant, deeply sensitive film is highlighted by sublime performances from Benedict Cumberbatch and Claire Foy. The script, by Sharpe and Simon Stephenson, is remarkably faithful to Wain’s life and career … the all-too-brief highs and numerous shattering lows of which, are almost too much to bear.

 

Indeed, this saga’s midpoint, highlighted by an intensely intimate scene between Cumberbatch and Foy, surely ranks as one of the saddest, most heartbreaking moments ever captured on film.

 

The story begins in the early 1880s, when — following their father’s unexpected death — 20-year-old Louis (Cumberbatch), as the family’s lone male, is forced to support his mother and five younger sisters. 

 

Fortunately, he has a remarkable — and rapid — facility for drawing and painting, which he’s able to do with both hands simultaneously (which Cumberbatch depicts persuasively). Louis specializes in animals and country scenes, and within a few years is selling work to journals such as the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News and, a bit later, the Illustrated London News.

 

Unfortunately, Louis also suffers from a mental illness — possibly schizophrenia — which would remain undiagnosed throughout his lifetime. Symptoms include an irrational fear of drowning, which strikes unexpectedly. For the most part, he keeps such demons at bay via the manic intensity with which he fills every minute of every hour: sketching, tinkering with useless inventions, “composing” unmelodic musical works, and even sparring uselessly in an amateur boxing ring.

 

Along with a frenzied fascination with the wonders of electricity, which he comes to believe is a defining force in life and the universe.

 

So, yes: Cumberbatch once again is portraying an eccentric and deeply unstable genius, who’s all tics and twitches. But it must be acknowledged that his Louis Wain is completely distinct from his Sherlock Holmes, or his Alan Turing, or his Hamlet.

The Father: Not for the faint of heart

The Father (2020) • View trailer

4.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and occasional profanity

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.16.21  

This one is very hard to watch.

 

Not in the negative sense; director Florian Zeller’s film adaptation of his award-winning 2012 stage play — available via video on demand — is fueled by a powerhouse performance from Anthony Hopkins, cast as a mischievous 80-year-old whose grip on reality is unraveling. Hopkins’ performance is heartbreaking; the path his character walks is absolutely shattering.

 

Anthony (Anthony Hopkins) is all smiles and good manners when introduced to Laura
(Imogen Poots, left), who's being interviewed by Anne (Olivia Colman) to become his
caregiver. But the moment Anne's back is turned...

Consider this a companion piece to Julianne Moore’s Oscar-winning — and similarly distressing — performance in 2014’s Still Alice (although I wouldn’t recommend watching them back to back). The comparison isn’t entirely apt; Moore’s Alice spends the bulk of her film fully aware that she’s sliding into Alzheimer’s, whereas Hopkins’ Anthony has no knowledge of his condition.

 

Zeller’s non-linear and provocatively disorienting play was designed to give audiences a sense of what dementia looks, sounds and feels like; his film is similarly disconcerting. There’s no “beginning” to speak of; we’re simply dumped into Anthony’s world, for the most part confined to the flat that he shares with his divorced daughter, Anne (Olivia Colman).

 

She has fallen in love anew, and intends to join her new man in Paris. But she worries about her father, knowing that he shouldn’t be left alone. But Anthony is defiant, and refuses to put up with the caregivers Anne keeps bringing into the flat. His “trick” is to be charming and solicitous when meeting each new possibility — as with Laura (Imogen Poots), the one we witness — and then, later, to bully, frighten or antagonize them into quitting.

 

But I’ve already created an impression of linear progression, and that’s far from true. Zeller and cinematographer Ben Smithard favor establishing shots down the flat’s long hallway, and we never know whose voice — or presence — will manifest at the distant end. Anne’s clothing — and even age — shift. At one point, a man (Mark Gatiss) pops up in the living room, contentedly reading, looking like he belongs there.

 

Anthony misplaces things, most frequently his beloved watch. He forgets that he squirrels it away in a hidey-hole, to prevent it being stolen; Anne reminds him of this, and he erupts in a fury, incensed that she knows about that “secret” stash.

 

He frequently laments the absence of his other daughter — Lucy, his “favorite” — and wonders aloud why she never visits, oblivious to the pain such remarks cause Anne.