Islands: Adrift

Islands (2025) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five); Unrated, but deserving a PG-13 for dramatic intensity, drug use and fleeting nudity

Available via: Amazon Prime and othr VOD options

By Derrick Bang

Sigh.

 

It starts so well.

 

Writer/director Jan-Ole Gerster’s brooding character piece initially radiates curiosity. 

 

Partly out of kindness, partly out of sympathyfor the clearly unhappy Anne (Stacey Martin),
Tom (Sam Riley, right) impulsively offers to spend a day touring her, her husband
Dave (Jack Farthing) and their young son around the island of Fuerteventura.

Tom (Sam Riley) wakens one morning, clothed and prone on beach sand; cinematographer Juan Sarmíento G. emphasizes the bright, blazing sunlight. Tom stumbles to his feet, slides into his nearby vehicle, and drives to his day job as a tennis instructor at a swanky resort hotel.

The disapproving receptionist, Maria (Bruna Cusí), hands him the week’s schedule, noting that he looks as rough as he feels. But Tom is popular — the schedule is fully booked — so his behavior apparently is tolerated by the Folks In Charge.

 

Tom spends the day cheerfully — but mindlessly — tossing tennis balls, lobbing and returning serves. He heads each night to Waikiki, a rowdy techno nightclub where he dances, smokes too much, drinks too much, does some drugs, and sometimes winds up in bed with a lovely lady (or two). He’s a blackout drunk, waking each morning with little (if any) memory of recent past events.

 

Lather, rinse, repeat: every day, apparently stretching back quite awhile. There isn’t much else to do, on this island setting of Fuerteventura. Tom is stuck, for reasons we don’t yet know.

 

(We rarely see him eat anything, which seems an odd oversight.)

 

Tom sees a fresh group of tourists arrive one day; one woman pauses, while stepping from the bus, and shoots him a contemplative glance. She appears later at his ramshackle office — where he keeps a concealed bottle of vodka, for occasional daytime snorts — having been directed there by Maria.

 

She introduces herself as Anne (Stacy Martin), and explains that she’d like tennis lessons for her 7-year-old son, Anton. Tom suggests his twice-weekly children’s group classes, but she insists on private lessons. Tom hesitates, then acquiesces, knowing that the French couple booked for the next day’s 9 a.m. slot rarely shows up.

 

Anne and Anton (Dylan Torrell) arrive on time, and Tom is impressed by the boy’s ability. Future bookings are made; on the next one, Tom meets Anne’s husband, Dave (Jack Farthing), quickly revealed to be a horse’s ass. Tom does the family a favor; Dave offers a cash thank-you, which Tom refuses. Instead, clearly liking Anne and Anton, Tom allows himself to be drawn into their island activities; he encourages as much, by spending a day touring them throughout Fuerteventura.

 

The Vault: Definitely worth opening

The Vault (2021) • View trailer

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

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.13.21 

We must acknowledge that complex heist films are utterly preposterous, involving improbable insider knowledge, unlikely coincidence and impossible split-second timing.

 

That doesn’t make them any less fun.

 

Having already navigated an impressive series of obstacles, our heroes — from left,
Thom (Freddie Highmore), James (Sam Riley) and Lorraine (Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey) —
are stunned by what comes next.

Director Jaume Balagueró’s entry in this engaging genre is a multi-national production involving five writers and 10 production companies, half of which display their insufferably arty logos before the film begins. Normally, so many cooks would be a recipe for disaster, but Balagueró somehow keeps an iron grip on this menagerie.

The caper also involves a twist I’ve not previously encountered: an objective so mysterious — the eponymous vault — that our protagonists have no idea what they don’t know about it … and yet must crack it.

 

But that’s getting ahead of things.

 

The setting is roughly a decade ago. Professional marine salvage expert Walter Moreland (Liam Cunningham) and his longtime partner James (Sam Riley) have just concluded a decades-long hunt for the remains of a 17th century ship, half-buried on the ocean floor off the coast of Spain. Moreland knows that the booty includes a set of coins used by the ship’s captain, Sir Francis Drake, to reveal where he buried vast treasures that he plundered during his career as a privateer.

 

Treasures that the British government wishes to retrieve, since Drake had a tendency to cheat his Elizabethan sponsors (so this story would have us believe). Ergo, Moreland has been getting clandestine assistance from a shadowy MI6 operative (Famke Janssen).

 

Alas, before Moreland can search the many recovered chests for the coins, his operation is intercepted by the Spanish Coast Guard. Since he lacks a legal salvage claim, the Spanish government seizes everything and locks it in an impregnable vault, somewhere within Madrid’s historic Bank of Spain. The nature of this vault, reputed to be the world’s most secure, has remained a carefully guarded secret for 70 years.

 

Elsewhere, 22-year-old Cambridge University engineering student Thom (Freddie Highmore) has just become a media sensation, courted by all manner of tech corporations, thanks to the ingenious manner in which he averted what could have become a major environmental crisis. Thom is a think-outside-the-box improviser with little interest in corporate fealty; he’s more intrigued by solving “impossible tasks” for their own sake.

 

Which makes him ideal for Moreland’s purposes.

Rebecca: A rather pointless remake

Rebecca (2020) • View trailer

Three stars. Rated PG-13, for sexual candor, fleeting nudity and dramatic intensity

By Derrick Bang 

Just as every generation gets its own version of The Three Musketeers, we seem destined to get a fresh take on Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca every few decades.

 

The new Mrs. de Winter (Lily James, seated), wholly unfamiliar with her new aristocratic
surroundings, is easy prey for the waspish, scheming housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers
(Kristin Scott Thomas).

It’s hard to top Alfred Hitchcock’s first crack at the novel, back in 1940. For my money, it’s the only adaptation that looks right, thanks to George Barnes ominously moody monochromatic cinematography (which won a well-deserved Academy Award). This is a truly gothic tale; it requires black-and-white cinematography, to highlight all the dark corners and foreboding shadows of one of literature’s most infamous estates.

 

No fewer than six television adaptations followed, the most notable arriving via PBS; in 1979, on Mystery, and in 1997, on Masterpiece Theatre. Although both are excellent, with terrific casts, they’re too “pretty,” thanks to the color cinematography.

 

The same is true of this newest adaptation, which arrives as a Netflix original. The cast is strong, with excellent performances from Lily James, Kristin Scott Thomas and Armie Hammer. But Laurie Rose’s opulent cinematography once again is too lush; his outdoor vistas — particularly a breathtaking establishing shot of a beach, from a vantage point out in the ocean — have the striking, painterly quality of a postcard.

 

This would be fine, if Rose supplied sufficient contrast with the mansion’s many interior sequences. But he doesn’t; nor does director Ben Wheatley seem sufficiently interested in adhering to the story’s gothic atmosphere. He and his scripters — Jane Goldman, Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse — fail to understand that the Manderley estate is as much a character as its inhabitants.

 

That said, this film is true to the story’s 1930s setting, which is equally essential. 

 

Following a fleeting prologue, during which James gives us the novel’s famous opening line — “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again” — the story emerges as a lengthy flashback.

 

She stars as a young woman — never granted a name — introduced as a “paid companion” to the insufferably condescending Mrs. Van Hopper (Ann Dowd). They’re vacationing in Monte Carlo; the young woman is reminded constantly of her lower social status by her mean-spirited patron, who spends considerable time sharing gossip with equally vacuous female aristocrats.

Sometimes Always Never: Absolutely!

Sometimes Always Never (2018) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, and much too harshly, for occasional sexual references
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.31.20

Fans of droll and quirk will love this slice of British whimsy; others are apt to find it much too precious and stylized.

Peter (Sam Riley, left) and his father Alan (Bill Nighy) "forgot" how to connect years ago;
they can't even bond over a game of Scrabble ... even though they're likely to play at
any moment, and in any setting.

Director Carl Hunter and writer Frank Cottrell Boyce clearly studied at the altar of Wes Anderson; Sometimes Always Never — debuting on Amazon Prime and other streaming platforms — has the mildly peculiar atmosphere and character eccentricity of (for example) Moonrise Kingdom and The Grand Budapest Hotel.

At the same time, Hunter and Boyce uncork a deeply — at times painfully — intimate story about grief, and the necessity of finding a way to move beyond tragedy.

We meet Alan (Bill Nighy) as he solemnly waits on a deserted Merseyside beach; he has arranged to meet his adult son, Peter (Sam Riley), for a day trip with a potentially fateful conclusion. Their relationship is wary and prickly. We sense that Peter long ago gave up trying to communicate meaningfully with his father, and for good reason; Alan’s cryptic comments and responses always seem three sentences behind, and in some entirely different conversation.

It gradually becomes clear that they’ve long been trying to find Alan’s other son, Michael — Peter’s older brother — who walked out of the house years ago, and hasn’t been seen or heard from since. They’re currently chasing down a faint lead: something one or both of them must’ve done many, many times before.

It proves fruitless … although, during their overnight stop at a twee B&B, they meet Margaret (Jenny Agutter) and Arthur (Tim McInnerny), a couple navigating their own, similar grief.

Back at home in Lancashire, Alan — a professional tailor who earned a comfortable living, and is the sole occupant of a well-appointed home — finds that he cannot stand to be alone. He therefore becomes an unannounced guest in Peter’s home, where he’s accepted graciously by the latter’s warm and cheerful wife, Sue (Alice Lowe). She seems to understand and accept her father-in-law’s aloofness and affectations in a way that Peter cannot.

On the other hand, Peter and Sue have given up trying to fathom their teenage son, Jack (Louis Healy), forever buried in front of his computer screen, playing an endless array of first-person shooter games. Jack gives up the bottom berth of his bunk bed, in order to accommodate Alan; what feels like an imposition blossoms into a connection bridged initially by their shared interest in games.

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil — Maladroit

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019) • View trailer 
1.5 stars. Rated PG, despite considerable violence and heartbreaking content
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.18.19

Wow. Genocide, in a (supposedly) family-friendly Disney fantasy?

What’s next? Gang rape? Child mutilation?

Uncle Walt must be spinning in his grave.

En route to a lavish dinner designed to acquaint Maleficent (Angelina Jolie, center) with
her future in-laws, Aurora (Elle Fanning) and Diaval (Sam Riley) can't help thinking that
this might be a very, very bad idea.

What were these people thinking?

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil is a tasteless, mean-spirited, Frankenstein’s monster of a movie: a textbook example of what happens when art is sacrificed on the altar of crass corporate commercialism. It follows 2014’s Maleficent, Disney’s response to Wicked, the stage play with its then-novel origin story of Dorothy Gale’s Wicked Witch of the West. Maleficent, in turn, was the origin story of the evil sorceress who bedeviled Aurora (aka Briar Rose) in Sleeping Beauty.

Which was a reasonable concept, the first time. But scripters Linda Woolverton, Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Noah Harpster have broken faith with the original fairy tale here — indeed, the entire genre — by blending cutesy-poo creatures with horrific violence, in service of a thoroughly unsubtle refrain of “We’ve got to overlook our differences, in order to get along.”

Real-world resonance notwithstanding, that lecture is getting very tiresome.

On top of which, the writers have blatantly borrowed (read: stolen) concepts from all manner of other, far superior fantasy sagas. The result is kitchen-sink overkill, as if dazzling us with a cornucopia of cheerful, colorful beasties will compensate for a story that becomes increasingly grim, depressing and sadistic.

And this is supposed to be for children? The PG rating is reprehensible, and a total lie. Disney should be ashamed.

Perhaps recognizing the folly of the entire production, most of the featured performers don’t bother acting. Angelina Jolie’s line readings are atrocious. Her Maleficent, intended to be intimidating, never rises above the smirking insolence of a star who recognizes that she’s wasting her time (and ours). Elle Fanning goes too far in the other direction; her Aurora is breathlessly melodramatic, her eyes forever wide with overwrought angst.

Harris Dickinson’s Prince Philip is no more than a stalwart hunk; his wooden insincerity is laughably inept. And the three actresses playing the colorful good fairies — transformed here into pixies dubbed Knotgrass (Imelda Staunton), Flittle (Lesley Manville) and Thistlewit (Juno Temple) — are just plain annoying.

Given that most of these actors have done superior work elsewhere, director Joachim Rønning deserves the blame for their poor performances here. He has no feeling for this material, having previously helmed only grim historical sagas — Max Manus: Man of War and Kon-Tiki — and 2017’s ill-advised Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, a similar big-budget franchise flop.