Abominable: A huge delight!

Abominable (2019) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG, for no particular reason
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.27.19

Well, this is quite the charmer.

Writer/director Jill Culton — aided by co-director Todd Wilderman — has delivered a gentle, heartfelt fantasy that sends its young heroine on a journey that enables her to find her best true self, while undertaking a rather unusual mission of mercy. The title character of Abominable isn’t your garden-variety yeti — if there is such a thing — but a creature of extraordinary talents, who is at one with nature in unusual ways.

Believing that they've finally escaped their pursuers, Yi and her friends — from left, Peng,
"Everest" and Jin — are dismayed to discover that things remain quite dire.

A mildly creepy prologue introduces the white-furred critter as an unwilling captive at a massive, secret scientific complex replete with scary medical bays, long corridors and nasty doors that slam shut from above. Even before the yeti is shown — the first few panicked minutes take place from its point of view — we empathize with this Whatzit, given that it’s held captive in such a frightening environment.

And once it’s revealed, during a pell-mell escape that sends the terrified creature into the chaos and cacophony of a major metropolis, our hearts and minds are wholly won over. Nobody could resist such a cuddly beast, with its massive blue eyes, and mouth forever stretched into the semblance of a wide smile … even if it is the size of a large truck.

Elsewhere, we meet teenage Yi (voiced by Chloe Bennet), a feisty, high-spirited dreamer who never seems to spend time with her mother (Michelle Wong) and grandmother Nai Nai (Tsai Chin), much to their lamentation. But they allow this semi-detachment, recognizing that Yi still hasn’t recovered from the recent death of her beloved father, a concert violinist whose instrument is her most prized possession.

Yi has spent the summer working all manner of odd jobs, in an effort to raise enough money to solo on the lengthy vacation trip that she and her father had long planned. This has made her a joke to all her self-absorbed, social media-crazed peers, including 18-year-old downstairs neighbor Jin (Tenzing Norgay Trainor), a narcissistic cynic who can’t pass a mirror without verifying that he’s still the hunkiest guy in town.

Jin’s 9-year-old cousin, Peng (Albert Tsai), is more sympathetic to Yi’s moods, but he’s an unbridled “total kid” who bounces off the walls, and constantly tries to get his older friends to play basketball.

Yi soon stumbles across the yeti’s hiding place, on her apartment roof. Mutual fear gives way to wary friendship, particularly when Yi realizes — thanks to a nearby billboard extolling Mount Everest, which the yeti can’t stop staring at — that the frightened creature simply wants to return home. She dutifully dubs it “Everest.”

Victoria and Abdul: A revealing friendship

Victoria and Abdul (2017) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, and too harshly, for dramatic elements and mild profanity
By Derrick Bang

History is laden with fascinating incidents and anecdotes, and — here’s the amazing thing — more pop up all the time.

Having been granted the privilege of serving "the jelly" — at the request of Queen Victoria
(Judi Dency) — Abdul (Ali Fazal, center) does his best to maneuver the wobbly dessert,
while Sir Henry Ponsonby (Tim Pigott-Smith) watches nervously.

You’d think, given the tireless methodology of modern research, that we’d have uncovered pretty much everything by now. Chances are, not even close.

Case in point: The unlikely, all but unknown — and (deliberately) mostly concealed — camaraderie that bonded Britain’s Queen Victoria and a former Muslim Indian clerk named Abdul Karim. The saga came to light in 2010, with the publication of research journalist Shrabani Basu’s Victoria & Abdul: The True Story of the Queen’s Closest Confidant; the details were assembled from the hitherto undiscovered journals of both Abdul and Victoria, the latter written in Hindustani Urdu (!).

The narrative immediately demanded even wider exposure, and this thoughtful big-screen translation comes courtesy of director Stephen Frears: an apt choice, given the similar sensitivity he brought to the depiction of Elizabeth II, in 2006’s The Queen. Scripter Lee Hall has adapted Basu’s book with grace and the sly wit at which the British excel, particularly when they’re poking gentle fun at themselves.

The thoroughly captivating result is anchored by the venerable Judi Dench, taking a second crack at the role she first played in 1997’s Mrs. Brown (which, rather intriguingly, details a similarly “imprudent” incident in Queen Victoria’s life). But while Dench dominates this new film — how could she not? — Ali Fazal also deserves credit for the elegance with which he has brought an equally compelling character to life.

This is late during Queen Victoria’s reign, when she has become — in her own words — fat, lame, cantankerous and impotent (along with several other marvelous pejoratives that I couldn’t jot down quickly enough). The regal routine, and life itself, have become tedious things to be endured, rarely enjoyed. She suffers fools not at all, let alone gladly; each day begins with chiding admonitions about diet and “movement” from the royal physician, Dr. Reid (Paul Higgins).

Dench always has excelled at withering glances, and they get plenty of exercise here. Victoria is well aware of the obsequious jockeying that takes place behind closed doors, as her many children — led by heir apparent Bertie (Eddie Izzard) — and court hangers-on curry favor and snipe at each other. No conversation comes close to actual candor; she can’t trust anybody to be sincere, and she’s well aware that everybody is waiting for her to die.