Film Review: The Descendants

The Descendants. Rated M (mature themes and coarse language). 115 minutes. Directed by Alexander Payne. Screenplay by Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash. Based on the novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings.

One of the many complications that attend an actor’s celebrity status (in this case, George Clooney), is that the relentless torrents of salacious gossip and innuendo about their private lives can often overwhelm – or at the very least distract from – the work they attempt for the sake of their craft.

And so it is with the powerful, intricate and involving contemporary family drama in which Mr Clooney’s Matt King is struggling with a considerable number of responsibilities; his two recalcitrant young daughters (Alexandra and Scottie), his being named the sole trustee of his ancestor’s spectacular, pristine beachfront land, and the fact that his wife Elizabeth lies in a coma (the result of a boating accident) from which she unlikely to recover.

It is rich dramatic fodder, and Mr Payne (Sideways) expertly guides his outstanding ensemble through the emotionally-charged and conflicted minefield. Shailene Woodley acts everyone else off the screen as the eldest daughter Alexandra – managing to deliver a perfectly pitched performance as a girl on the cusp of adulthood who is beginning to accept her share of responsibility for whatever the future may hold. Amara Miller makes a superb debut as the youngest daughter Scottie – delivering her engaging young character’s vulnerability, fear and individuality with rare insight and precision.

Mary Birdsong and Rob Huebel provide brief, but expert, support as Matt and Elizabeth’s conflicted friends Kai and Mark – with the scene in which Matt confronts them in their home about Elizabeth’s apparent infidelity, the dramatic highpoint.

The fine threads of black comedy are a welcome relief from all the bleak, intense and introspective drama, but it is ultimately Patricia Hastie’s haunting and wordless performance as the comatose Elizabeth that serves to remind us that we are all equally responsible for the messes we risk leaving behind.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.

Film Review: The Iron Lady

The Iron Lady. Rated M (mature themes and violence). 105 minutes. Directed by Phyllida Lloyd. Screenplay by Abi Morgan.

Not since Charlize Theron’s brilliant performance as serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster (2003) has an actress disappeared so completely beneath the skin of their character. But where Ms Theron was equally immersed in a compelling drama about increasingly desperate personal circumstances, Meryl Streep’s superb Margaret Thatcher is adrift in a movie that fails, entirely, to equal the sum of not insignificant parts.

When we first meet Ms Streep’s elderly Baroness Thatcher, she is shuffling about in a corner store buying a carton of milk – the price of which, she later bemoans to the ghost of her dead husband Dennis (Jim Broadbent), has gone up. It’s a curious and domestically banal introduction to a film about one of the most powerful, ambitious and divisive political leaders of the 20th century – and Britain’s first female Prime Minister.

What follows are lots of MTV-inspired clips of a glamorous Mrs Thatcher striding around surrounded by lots of men, grainy stock newsreels of the ugly, violent, civil unrest (the infamous “Poll Tax” riots, the 1984 Miners’ Strike and 1981’s Brixton riots) that accompanied a good many of Prime Minister Thatcher’s social and economic reform-driven policies. Brief engagements with her younger self (played by Alexandra Roach), the 1982 Falklands War, a very long button sewing-on sequence, and some idle chatter about the emergence of the single currency we now know as the Euro, round out the determined political unconsciousness of it all.

Ms Morgan’s reductivist screenplay and Ms Lloyd’s (Mamma Mia!) undisciplined camera seem happiest when their star is moping around in the dark – scratching about the place for some semblance of the commanding influence she once wielded on the world stage. What might have been useful would have been a script that stopped fluffing around in the kitchen and explored the vast wealth of potential an intelligent film about Margaret Thatcher might have exposed. Meryl Streep’s performance in that film would truly have been something to behold.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.

Film Review: The Muppets

The Muppets. Rated G. 110 minutes. Directed by James Bobin. Screenplay by Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller.

Throughout the mid to late 1970s and early 1980s, it was impossible to get enough of Jim Henson’s adorable Muppets – who began life in 1969 as the puppet stars of Sesame Street. Fortuitously, Mr Henson embarked on a mission to expand his audience – and with the backing of impresario Lew Grade, The Muppet Show premiered in 1976.

The 120 episodes of The Muppet Show featured a “very special guest star” for whom a precious spot on the show was considered a career highlight, while Henson’s marvellously quirky and musically ambitious characters – including Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Animal, Dr Teeth, Electric Mayhem, Beaker and The Swedish Chef – were soon celebrated the world over.

The Muppet Movie (1979), The Great Muppet Caper (1981) and The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984) were hugely successful cinematic incarnations, but by 2005’s The Muppets' Wizard of Oz, the franchise’s appeal appeared to have been exhausted.

Tastes had changed – and Kermit and friends were effectively retired.

And so with generous lashings of nostalgia, Mr Segel and Stoller’s joyfully self-reflective script takes us into the world of the, now, retired Muppets. Gary (Mr Segel) and his Muppet brother Walter (Peter Linz) are indefatigable Muppet fans, so when Gary decides to take his long-suffering girlfriend Mary (Amy Adams) on holiday in Los Angeles, the motivation is to visit the old Muppet Studios and Theatre. When Walter inadvertently overhears Tex Richman’s (Chris Cooper) plot to demolish the historic theatre and drill for oil in the ground beneath it, the trio track down Kermit and encourage him to get the Muppets back together again and put on a show to save their precious theatre and studios.

Mr Bobin (The Flight of the Conchords) establishes a light and breezy tone for the film early and never wavers – while the requisite cameos (including Jack Black, Whoopi Goldberg, Zach Galifianakis, Ken Jeong, Selena Gomez and Mickey Rooney) are all handled delightfully.

But it is the reassembling of the old Muppet gang that is supremely entertaining (Miss Piggy, for example, is now the Plus Size Editor of French Vogue) and as they bring their Muppet Telethon to life to raise the money to save their theatre, it is impossible to resist the temptation to stand up and cheer. And when the Oscar-nominated “Rainbow Connection” makes its appearance, it’s equally impossible not be overwhelmingly moved by just how influential these extraordinary little puppets once were. And still are.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. Rated M (violence). 129 minutes. Directed by Guy Ritchie. Screenplay by Michele Mulroney and Kieran Mulroney.

Mr Ritchie absolutely cements his directorial reputation with this sequel to his high-octane Sherlock Holmes (2009). With the exception of the writers, the cast and creative team that ensured the first movie was as good as it was are back onboard – and the result is, mostly, quite magnificent.

If the Mulroneys’ dense screenplay is darker than the first instalment, it succeeds beautifully in escorting us both further and deeper into the film’s enthralling visual environment and the characters who inhabit it. The overall pacing, however, feels uneven and places too much emphasis on the big action sequences – spectacularly achieved though they are.

On the eve of Dr Watson’s (Jude Law) wedding to his beloved Mary (Kelly Reilly), Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Jnr) is investigating a number of bomb-blasts that are targeting high-profile members of politics and society. When he suspects that the destruction may be the work of his great foe Professor James Moriarty (Jared Harris), Holmes and Watson find themselves fighting for their lives (and the lives of everyone close to them) as Moriarty steps up his plan for the destruction and domination of Europe.

Mr Downey Jnr (pictured) takes his brilliant Holmes into another realm altogether – flawlessly capturing the detective’s wild eccentricities and idiosyncrasies in another virtuoso performance. Dr Watson gets a bigger slice of the action this time and Mr Law makes the most of every opportunity. Mr Harris (Lane Pryce in Mad Men and the son of the late, great Richard Harris) is perfectly menacing as the evil tormentor Moriarty, while Ms Reilly’s feisty Mary and Stephen Fry’s Mycroft (Sherlock’s brother) are hugely entertaining. Noomi Rapace (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Ridley Scott’s Alien prequel Prometheus – currently in production) is excellent as the mysterious fortune-teller Madam Simza Heron who discovers that she, too, is a target of Moriarty’s henchmen.

The grim mood and tone of the story (there are no laughs and Rachel McAdams’ fearless Irene Adler is ruthlessly dispatched early) feels as though we have been immersed in an intricately layered novel – with the ‘shadows’ of the title richly imagined and realised in Sarah Greenwood’s perfectly atmospheric production design and Philippe Rousselot’s cinematography.

But it is Mr Ritchie’s grand directorial vision for the film that ensures it rises above its momentary and fleeting flaws to become an enthralling adventure – and one that kicks off the 2012 cinematic year in commanding form.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Happy Feet Two

Happy Feet Two. Rated G (very mild sense of threat). 103 minutes. Directed by George Miller. Screenplay by George Miller, Gary Eck, Warren Coleman and Paul Livingston.

When Happy Feet (2006) won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film in 2007, it came as no surprise to anyone who had seen it. The story of Mumble (voiced by Elijah Wood) the little tap-dancing, misfit penguin was a captivating visual and musical treat. Without his ‘heartsong’ (the unique song that penguins sing to attract a mate), Mumble’s adult life within the penguin colony would be one of loneliness and despair. This simple and effective storyline powered an immensely engaging film about difference – even managing to incorporate a powerful environmental theme without turning audiences off. And the final scene of Happy Feet is the birth of Mumble and Gloria’s (voiced by the late Brittany Murphy) baby Erik – who is the undisputed the star of Happy Feet Two.

Voiced by Ava Acres, Erik is the epitome of cute – and while Erik’s travails are similar but less compelling than Mumble’s were in the first movie, they are the sequel’s pulse. Matt Damon and Brad Pitt voice the Laurel and Hardy-esque pair of Krill – Bill and Will – while Robin Williams returns as the scene-stealing Ramon and Alecia Beth Moore (better known as Pink) takes over the role of Gloria in fine voice, with her “Bridge of Light” the absolute musical highlight.

When an ecological calamity isolates the emperor penguin colony from their food source and leaves their baby penguins exposed to the feared seabird predators (the skuas) – the plot to free them becomes protracted and, ultimately, tired and tiring. The sequences involving Bill and Will (while stunning in 3D) serve primarily as distractions from the main game, and with only a couple of exceptions, the film deliberately steers well away from involving drama. The story of Sven (Hank Azaria) – which takes up a good third of the film – feels desperately over-worked, while the subplot involving Bryan the Elephant Seal (Richard Carter) and his children is beautifully done.

Ultimately, Happy Feet Two still dazzles with its singular visual finesse, even if the overall result is one of a heavy-handed, unevenness that makes it a shadow of its predecessor and a good deal less memorable.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.