Film Review: A Walk In The Woods

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A Walk In The Woods. Rated M (coarse language and sexual references). 105 minutes. Directed by Ken Kwapis. Screenplay by Rick Kerb and Bill Holderman. Based on the book by Bill Bryson.

When author Bill Bryson’s (Robert Redford) disconnection from the world and the people around him results in two very public humiliations, he decides to reconnect with nature, and himself, by hiking the 3,500 km long Appalachian Trail.

His wife Catherine (Emma Thompson) is convinced that the trek is too dangerous alone, so Bryson attempts to have one of his friends come along with him. One by one they refuse, until one of his oldest and forgotten friends, recovering alcoholic Stephen Katz (Nick Nolte), offers to accompany him.

Nostalgia dominates what is essentially a light-hearted stroll along a small section of one of America’s most spectacular scenic trails. Redford, and to a lesser extent Nolte, are cinematic royalty, and all of A Walk In The Woods’ rewards are a result of watching these two old-timers take on not only each other, but also Mother Nature in all her unpredictable glory.

Redford, who has starred in classics such as The Sting, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and All The President’s Men to name just three, seems awkwardly uncomfortable for much of his time on screen. There is a level of self-consciousness that sits uneasily on the surface of his performance, as though he is painfully aware that Kwapis and cinematographer John Bailey are determined to capture, in close-up, every intimate detail.

Nolte, though, is simply marvellous as the gruff, big-hearted and seriously out-of-condition Katz. The screenplay provides him with some great lines and all of the comedy, while also providing him with the film’s dramatic highpoint – a scene on a cliff top where he chooses, once and for all, to never touch alcohol again.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

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Film Review: Saving Mr. Banks

Saving Mr. Banks. Rated PG (mild themes). 125 minutes. Directed by John Lee Hancock. Written by Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith.

Verdict: This big-hearted, engrossing tear-jerker kicks off 2014 in magical style.

If this splendid film about P. L. Travers (Emma Thompson) negotiating with Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) over the rights to film her beloved Mary Poppins is anything to go by, then 2014 is going to be a great year at the cinema. What, at first, appears to be a film that is going to quaintly recall the relatively unknown story about the creation of one of Disney’s masterpieces, soon reveals itself to be a brilliantly written and acted story that will capture, and then melt, your heart.

Thompson is spell-binding as the perfectionist Travers, who travels from her home in London to the Walt Disney studios in Los Angeles to oversee the big screen adaptation of her beloved novel. Running in tandem with the showdown between the incredibly proper Mrs Travers and the determined Disney, is the story of the author as a young girl – Ginty (Annie Rose Buckley) – growing up in Australia, full of admiration for her alcoholic father Travers Goff (Colin Farrell).

Hancock (The Blind Side) directs what might have been an unwieldy affair masterfully, with the transitions between Australia in 1906 and LA in 1961 beautifully handled. John Schwartzman’s (The Amazing Spider-Man, Seabiscuit, Pearl Harbor, Armageddon) cinematography is gorgeous, as is Michael Corneblith and Daniel Orlandi’s (who collaborated on The Blind Side and Frost/Nixon) perfect production and costume design respectively.

Veteran composer Thomas Newman’s (American Beauty, Skyfall, Finding Nemo) score powers the story-telling beautifully, while still allowing the Sherman brothers’ (B. J. Novak plays Robert and Jason Schwartzman plays Richard) unforgettable songs from Mary Poppins (Let’s Go Fly a Kite is an absolute high-point) to star, as rightfully they must.

Hancock’s faith in his stellar cast is rewarded by superb performances from everyone, and from about the halfway mark until its heartfelt conclusion, be sure to have tissues handy. Quite a few.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film review: Nanny McPhee and The Big Bang

Nanny McPhee and The Big Bang. 109 minutes. Rated G. Directed by Susanna White. Written by Emma Thompson. Based on the Nurse Matilda books by Christianna Brand

With Nanny McPhee (2005), Emma Thompson (pictured above) captivated audiences with her delightful script and performance as the "hideously ugly" title character who restored love and meaning to the empty and dysfunctional lives of widower 'Mr Brown' (Colin Firth) and his unruly bunch of undisciplined children. And in spite of its obvious debt to the magic of Mary Poppins, Nanny McPhee went on to become a world-wide smash-hit – and we longed to have Ms Thompson come to our house and read us bed-time stories in that luxuriously silky voice.

Now, with Ms Thompson again writing and starring (and, this time, producing), we have the 'sequel'. While it can only ever have failed to recapture the bewitching qualities of its predecessor, it also suffers from trying a little too hard to offer something new and different. With the exception of Thompson's wonderful recreation of the enchanting title role and a fantastic (but all to brief) synchronised swimming piglet ballet, Nanny McPhee and The Big Bang ends up being something of a disappointingly lukewarm clone.

While her husband is away fighting in World War 2, Mrs Green (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is left alone to tend to the family farm and care for their three children. With the arrival of the spoilt cousins (the two excellent youngsters Eros Vlahos and Rosie Taylor-Ritson) from a besieged London, and with Uncle Phil (the brilliant Rhys Ifans) trying everything he can to convince the harassed young mother to sell the farm so that he can pay off his gambling debts, it soon becomes obvious that 'the person they need is Nanny McPhee'.

Oddly, none of the collaborators from the original film were onboard for this incarnation, and the outcome is all the poorer for it. Thompson's script, even with fabulous support from James Newton Howard's dynamic score, is nowhere near as secure as the gilt-edged fairytale that made the original so enthralling. The heavily World War 2 influenced storyline lends the film an incredibly dated and contrived narrative convenience, while Production Designer Simon Elliott's lack of feature film experience lets the film's long and weary sortie into a supposedly war-torn London collapse into low-budget pastiche. Cinematographer Mike Eley struggles, and ultimately fails, to find a unique look and feel, while editor Sim Evan-Jones can't quite pull Ms White's studious account of the patchy and disjointed narrative together into a cohesive whole.

While there is no doubt that the intended audience will find much to enjoy, it's a shame that, as the film progressed, the little ones gave up on their battle with restlessness and even at only 109 minutes, it all began to seem too much like hard work.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspapers Group and an edited version of it was published in the print edition of the Midwest Times.