Film Review: The Imitation Game

The Imitation Game. Rated M (mature themes). 114 minutes. Directed by Morten Tyldum. Screenplay by Graham Moore. Based on the novel by Andrew Hodges.‬

Verdict: A great story, perfectly told.

Truly great films, those rare beasts in which every single element merges into a flawlessly unified whole, have been sadly lacking in our cinemas. And it is not until a film like The Imitation Game comes along that you realise just how potentially short-changed we have been as film-loving audiences. 

The Imitation Game begins by insisting that we pay attention in case we miss something. A direct address to an audience is an audacious start to 34 year-old Graham Moore’s superb debut feature-length screenplay. And as the captivating drama of all that follows carefully unfurls under Tyldum’s expert direction and Benedict Cumberbatch’s magnificent central performance, you find yourself disappearing into the story no matter how hard you might try to resist.

Charged with trying to work out how to decode Nazi Germany’s Enigma code, mathematics genius Alan Turing (Cumberbatch) and his colleagues work day and night inventing a machine that will be capable of deciphering the millions of coded messages being used by the German command to smash the allied naval forces during World War 2. The human brain, Turing declares, is too slow, and set against the backdrop of annihilation on the high seas, the code-breakers must race against time to give the allies greater opportunity to pre-empt the German attacks.

Within a uniformly outstanding ensemble, Keira Knightley is great as code-breaker Joan Clarke, with whom Turing would develop a profound and lasting relationship. The scene where she dismisses his anxiety-stricken declaration of his homosexuality is an absolute highpoint, and it is difficult to imagine that Cumberbatch could have been as good as he is without Knightley’s career-best supporting turn as his closest, and most important, confidante.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Wild

Wild. Rated MA 15+ (strong sex scenes and drug use). 115 minutes. Directed by Jean-Marc Vallée. Screenplay by Nick Hornby. Based on the autobiographical novel by Cheryl Strayed.‬

Verdict: Mother Nature fails to show up in this intimate story of survival and redemption.

With rare candour and an unashamed sense of wanting to light the way forward for others who have suffered the torture of domestic abuse, the intimate details of Strayed’s downward spiral after the collapse of her seemingly perfect marriage and the untimely death of her mother Bobbi (Laura Dern) result in a riveting survival story.

Similarly to Tracks (2013) and Into the Wild (2007), Wild explores a journey into the wilderness, where life as Strayed (Reese Witherspoon) knew it is supposed to be challenged by the experiences of the environment beyond her far from ordinary day-to-day existence. In this case, the wilderness is represented by the 4,286 km long Pacific Crest Trail that starts at Mexico’s border with the USA and ends at Canada’s.

Using an array of often rapid fire flashbacks to the devastating experiences of the past, Vallée (who also edits brilliantly with Martin Pensa), has connected the various tormented conflicts from Strayed’s past into a near-perfect whole, to which Witherspoon and Dern (both of whom have been nominated for Academy Awards® for their work) respond superbly. Dern, in particular, brings extraordinary truth through vulnerability to her performance that makes her painful exit from the story almost too difficult for it to recover from.

While the counter-intuitive rhythm provides the film with a deeply unsettling sense of time and place, a significant problem is that the hiking sequences remain mostly unremarkable. With few exceptions, there is little sense of impending danger or remoteness, to the point where the experience too often resembles a walk in the (national) park.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Unbroken

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Unbroken. Rated M (mature themes and violence). 137 minutes. Directed by Angelina Jolie. Screenplay by Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, Richard LaGravenese and William Nicholson. Based on the book by Laura Hillenbrand. 

Verdict: An incredible story about the power of Faith. 

Since the end of hostilities in 1945, writers and filmmakers have turned to World War 2 as a source of rich dramatic material. The treatment of Prisoners of War by their Japanese captors has featured prominently, with The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence (1983), and The Railway Man (2013) just three of the most well-known films to explore the subject. And unless you have been living under a rock for the last decade or so, you will know how gruesome that subject can be. 

While Jolie, cinematographer Roger Deakins, a quartet of writers and an outstanding ensemble of actors have undeniably made an excellent film, Unbroken struggles to bring any new insight or justification to the essential conflict, which it pursues with relentless, almost breathless, vigour.

Louis Zamperini’s (superbly portrayed by Jack O’Connell) story is an incredible one, and the best of Unbroken is when the film focuses on the extraordinary good fortune that ensured Zamperini’s continued survival against all the odds. It is little wonder that Zamperini made a pact with God to serve Him for the rest of his life if he was to survive the horrors that he endured on a daily basis – a pact Zamperini held to until he died in July last year.

Mutsuhiro Watanabe’s (Takamasa Ishihara) obsession with breaking Zamperini’s body and spirit becomes, simply, incomprehensible, and Unbroken’s bleak, brutal and unforgiving second act becomes harder and harder to watch. And then the reason crystallises. It is not a film about forgiveness in the same way that The Railway Man is. Unbroken, instead, is one of the most perfect films about the power of an unbreakable Faith – especially in oneself – in recent memory.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb

Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb. Rated PG (mild violence and some scary scenes). 98 minutes. Directed by Shawn Levy. Screenplay by David Guion and Michael Handelman.

Verdict: The third instalment of this popular series is a very special experience.

Since its debut in 2006, Levy’s Night at the Museum series has enjoyed a rare kind of popularity. Based on its rock solid family-friendly entertainment values and some wonderfully inventive special effects, enjoying a Night at the Museum movie became something like catching up with old friends. This third, and apparently final, instalment is almost no different.

Its sobering point of difference is that it marks the final onscreen performances of the genius Robin Williams and Hollywood veteran Mickey Rooney, both of whom passed away last year. Rooney’s role in this film (as one of the museum’s pensioned-off security guards), unlike his presence in the first one, is small. But for lovers of Hollywood film history, seeing Rooney (whose career began with a short film made in 1926) working the camera with his trademark mischievousness one last time, is a brief but precious gift.

Watching Williams work for what would be the last time, is an entirely different proposition – and one that marks this film with a kind of melancholy that, strangely, suits it perfectly. Guion and Handelman have obviously been briefed to wrap it up, and Ben Stiller’s Larry is on a mission to ensure that the Golden Tablet does not continue to disintegrate to the point where the magical coming to life of the museum’s exhibits is gone forever.

Levy, who has directed all three movies, ensures that it runs like clockwork, and the return of the regular cast members (including Ricky Gervais, Owen Wilson’s miniature cowboy and Steve Coogan’s miniature Roman soldier) ensures a sense of respect the ensemble have for the power of this always entertaining, magically realistic fantasy.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Big Hero 6

Big Hero 6. Rated PG (mild themes and animated violence). 108 minutes. Directed by Don Hall and Chris Williams. Screenplay by Jordan Roberts, Daniel Gerson and Robert L. Baird. 

Verdict: The perfect family-friendly start to the cinematic year. 

If there is a better family-friendly movie to kick off the year than this visually stunning and big-hearted story about a robotic nurse and his grieving young charge, then it is impossible to know what it might be. Inspired by the Marvel Comics superheros of the same name, Walt Disney Animation Studios have created a pure gem – combining astonishing feats of character design, animation and marvellous storytelling in equal measure.

Hiro Hamada (Ryan Potter) is a teenage robotics genius who roams the city’s back alleys finding robot fights so his inventions can win him lots of prize money. When his older brother Tadashi (Daniel Henney) introduces him to his own creation – Baymax the personal healthcare companion (Scott Adsit) – Hiro is inspired to create robots that will generate positive change in the world. But when Hiro’s newly-minted ‘microbots’ fall into the hands of an evil Kabuki mask-wearing thief, he must work out a way of regaining control of his invention before they are used for diabolical purposes.

From the first frame, there is an overwhelming sense that we are in the company of master filmmakers. Set in the futuristic city of San Fransokyo, the merging of Japanese and American icons and geography informs everything about Paul Felix’s inspired production design, which reaches a spectacular zenith when Hiro and Baymax travel into a dazzling virtual world toward the end of the film. Hall, Williams and editor Tim Mertens establish a perfect pace for the story, which ensures that there is never a dull or uninvolving moment.

The excellent screenplay refuses to shy away from the inherent drama associated with a perfect rites of passage story, and powering all the visual splendour is a deeply affecting story about the value of kindness, and why it is important that we care for one other.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: ‪The Water Diviner

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The Water Diviner. Rated M (mature themes and violence). 111 minutes. Directed by Russell Crowe. Screenplay by Andrew Knight and Andrew Anastasios. 

Verdict: A terrifically assured directorial debut from Russell Crowe. 

 

For his directorial debut, Russell Crowe has wisely surrounded himself with the cream of the crop when it comes to creative collaborators. In the perfect company of production designer Chris Kennedy (The Road), editor Matt Villa (The Great Gatsby) and composer David Hirschfelder (The Railway Man, Shine), veteran, Oscar®-winning cinematographer Andrew Lesnie (The Lord of the Rings, King Kong, The Lovely Bones) beautifully accounts for the film’s visual ambition, which leaves Crowe to bring a fine actor’s eye to the storytelling detail. And it is a terrifically assured debut.

Joshua Connor (Crowe) and his wife Eliza (Jacqueline McKenzie) are grieving the loss of their three sons at Gallipoli. While Eliza remains trapped in an ultimately futile charade, Connor copes by using his divining skills to build a well on their property. When Eliza succumbs to the hopelessness of their situation, Connor decides to travel to Turkey and bring his boys home so they can be buried next to their mother. 

The screenplay’s finely wrought vignettes that make up the majority of Connor’s dedicated search for his beloved sons combine to create an involving saga of one man’s determination to re-unite his family. The shocking final battlefield sequence involving Connor’s sons (led by a standout performance by Ryan Corr as Art), is overwhelmingly powerful in its bruality and finality. 

Having worked with some of Hollywood’s most influential directors (most notably Ridley Scott for Gladiator and Ron Howard for A Beautiful Mind), Crowe’s directorial debut was always going to be an intriguing experience. To his absolute credit, we constantly find ourselves involved intimately in the characters’ journeys, with his camera determined to bear reliable witness to not only the terror of war, but the hope and optimism that love can bring to the ruins of a tragically interrupted life. 

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.