Oscar Season: 'Lady Bird', 'Dunkirk' & 'Get Out'

We have decided to temporarily suspend our year-by-year viewing of the Oscar winners in order to spend a few weeks going through all the nominees of the 2018 Academy Award for Best Picture. We'll be watching and reviewing several every week, and this week we finished with the films Lady Bird, Dunkirk and Get Out. 

Lady Bird

Plot

Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson (Saoirse Ronan) is on the cusp of adulthood but she must navigate boys (Lucas Hedges and Timothée Chalamet), a nagging mother (Laurie Metcalf), a depressed Dad (Tracy Letts), friendship dynamics and a yearning desire to go to an esteemed, cultured college.

Doug says

During the first few scenes of this small indie flick, I found myself bored already of the stereotypical ‘not-cool-but-still-oh-so-hipster’ Christine (she listens to ‘Of Mice and Men’ audiobooks, she writes poetic messages all over her walls, she calls herself ‘Lady Bird’ because she thinks having a parent-given name is so weird). It’s all quite try-hard and dare I say it, it’s been done. To death. 

But as the film continues, it becomes clear that this isn’t about her as a hipster try-hard annoying kid, but actually about people and how your dreams aren’t always what you want. It also paints love - particularly mother-daughter love - not as the saccharine always-lovely relationship painted by American literature & art, but as an often savage and hurtful thing. As Paul says, no character is allowed to remain 2D for long. The school ‘it’ girl Jenna emerges as someone who wants a placid life, remaining right where she is. Christine’s best friend (in one of the most painful scenes) has refused to go to the prom because she feels alone and sad. And by choosing a modern setting and the age-old theme of coming-of-age, it’s a film that can discuss many different elements - homosexuality, popularity, what it means to be yourself, religion - and get away with it. 

I liked how the nun is painted as an old wiser figure with a sense of humour. It’d be easy to go a different way but throughout this film, every predictable path is eschewed in favour of something more real, and more unexpected. You do end up caring for each and every person in it - and Timothee Chamalet pops up again doing such a 180 performance from Call Me By Your Name that casting agents everywhere must be agog at his performance range. 

Ultimately this film belongs solely to Laurie Metcalf. Saoirse Ronan does a good job, but she cannot compete with the emotional powerhouse that is Metcalf’s talent. Even in a scene where Ronan faces the camera, pleading with Metcalf to talk to her, we end up watching the hunched, tightness of Metcalf’s back muscles rather than Ronan’s face. It’s an astonishing, layered turn and although Alison Janney in I Tonya is slated to grab Best Supporting Actress, it’s going to be a tough one. While Three Billboards talked about the power of rejecting violence, here the lesson is summed up neatly by the nun teacher: isn’t noticing someone the same thing as love? 

Mark: 9 / 10

I'll also be pointing out the number of people of colour with a speaking role in each film. This is to see if the 'Oscars So White' scandal has actually had any effect on Hollywood's conscience. 

People of Colour: 5 speaking roles, most of which are large supporting characters 

Paul says

Ahhh, to be a 17-year-old millennial. The world is your oyster, with hundreds of opportunities at your feet. You’ve been groomed for top A Level grades and you’re ready to tackle that BA, all paid for by the Student Loan. Before that, you could save elephants in Thailand, teach orphans in Ghana and/or grow some dreadlocks and smoke dodgy cigarettes under the Cambodian night sky- and your university place will be waiting for you when you get back. What a time to be young!

Oh, but don’t inadvertently shame your parents who didn’t have these advantages. And don’t spend too much money having fun because inflation’s on the rise. And don’t be too expressive with your body art because employers hate that. And besides, you might not get a job after 3 years slaving over critical theory essays because the recession is just around the corner and you’ll be stuck with a succession of unpaid internships. And don’t moan about it because there are children far worse off than you.

That is the essence of Lady Bird - and it illustrates these 2002 teenage girl woes with a dead-pan, dry commentary intertwined with touching tragicomedy. It has the poignancy of 10 Things I Hate About You with the power of The Perks of Being A Wallflower. 

The best part of this film is how the writers change our attitudes towards characters just by quickly revealing something about them. Lady Bird’s obnoxiously vegan sister-in-law reveals that she was kicked out by her parents due to their aversion to pre-marital sex. Lady Bird’s ineffective father turns out to have depression. These moments are sudden, and transform characters from 2D to 3D in the blink of an eye, reflecting how, as we enter adulthood, we see our elders no longer as heroes and villains, but as complex, vulnerable individuals.

I also loved Saoirse Ronan and Laurie Metcalf- both nominated for acting Oscars. They flit seamlessly from bickering to bonding like real mothers and teenage daughters and they steal the show.

I knew I’d love Three Billboards and The Shape of Water, and I knew I’d be diffident towards Darkest Hour and The Post. But Lady Bird has completely taken me by surprise and become a strong contender for my favourite nominee. It’s funny, devastating, insightful and touching all in the space of just 94 minutes. I adored it, and most audiences will too.

Mark: 10/10 

Dunkirk

Plot 

Soldiers desperately try to escape the French beaches as the German army closes in. P&O Ferries have their work cut out.

Paul says

We’ve seen many a war film during our journey through historical Oscar winners, and Dunkirk felt like a throwback to the days of Mrs Miniver and The Best Years of Our Lives (with better special effects, obviously). 

But for me, this doesn’t work in Dunkirk’s favour. By making the Germans an unseen force (in fact, they’re never referred to as Germans, but as “the enemy”), Nolan hasn’t adhered to political correctness at all. The enemy is sinister, mythical and insidious, like Dracula or the hunter who shoots Bambi, totally dehumanising an army that suffered in similar ways to ours. To make it even more one-sided and patriotic, he has made Hans Zimmer throw some Elgar into the soundtrack and has Churchill’s big speech read out at the end. It’s not the balanced depiction of history that the 21st century demands.

Also, there’s virtually no decent characters. The younger actors all blend into one mess of sweaty, frightened soldiers with the same haircut, and the older ones stare with fear and bravery into the middle distance just like they were taught to do at the Greer Garson acting school.

But what the film lacks in character, it makes up for in atmosphere. It’s intense, especially on the big screen, and the battle scenes and crowd scenes are choreographed to evoke a sense of terror and awe that is quite captivating. I also liked the use of three different perspectives (the beach, the boats and the air) to further add to the sheer scale of this unique episode in history, as well as different time spans for each. 

So mixed feelings about this one- it’s spectacular and structurally innovative and I was never bored, but it’s got one-dimensional English/American patriotism written all over it. If you share Facebook posts about people showing disrespect because they’re not wearing a poppy in November, you’ll love it.

Mark: 5/10 

Doug says

Ugh. I don’t have time for this film, so let’s just start with the positives and plunge into what disturbed me about this film being made today in 2018. 

It’s well made, Nolan is a craftsman. The scenes, settings and every element is perfectly lit, framed, and shot. You’ve got the great Mark Rylance driving the most captivating element of the plot (and indeed of the whole Dunkirk thing: the tiny civilian boats coming to rescue the army). Visually it’s stunning. The mixing of the chronologies is genius, blurring timelines so that everything seems to happen at once despite taking place at very different times. So that’s what’s good. 

What’s bad? Well to put it bluntly, this film is dangerous. It’s propaganda on a higher level than Darkest Hour. It’s fodder for any Brexit voter who likes to shout racist slurs while waving the Union Jack to God Save The Queen. Why? Well for a start - why was this film even made? 

It’s a film about white men in the army doing a tactical manoeuvre that - yes was brilliant and stirring - but also doesn’t seem to justify why we’re showing this today. But that aside - the Germans are shown entirely as dark shadowy figures. It’s very much an ‘us and them’ film, and you’ve even got the eminent Kenneth Branagh (who I am growing to loathe with each new overdone wannabe-Olivier performance) saying something stirring or other. Everything is trite - a boy falls down the stairs in a boat and blinds himself, cue twenty minutes of Cillian Murphy looking a bit guilty. But I didn’t care. About any of it. 

Because much like Darkest Hour, this is trying to spoonfeed patriotism blindly, and with two of these films appearing in the Best Picture category, it’s a worrying reflection of what’s going on in the world today. 

Mark: 3 / 10

People of Colour: 0

Get Out 

Plot

Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) is finally meeting his girlfriend Rose’s (Allison Williams) parents (Bradley Whitford and Catherine Keener). If you thought YOUR partner’s parents were difficult to be around, then you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Doug says

I was told that this is a film about a black man being locked in a cellar and spending the entire film trying to get out. I was unenthused. However whoever told me this had clearly watched the wrong film as it is entirely, thoroughly not that. 

Instead it’s a weird dreamlike film that delivers punches wrapped in such eloquent and jarring metaphors that you are left reeling. It’s hard to pick specific moments but the targets include white ‘allies’ of black civil rights who are anything but (‘I would have voted for Obama 3 times’ is a catchphrase), the objectification of the black body by the white gaze, and most savagely, how black people often have to ‘act white’ in order to be fully accepted. 

Daniel Kaluuya thrills and leads an excellent ensemble cast. The moments of horror aren’t cheap and one in particular - where a black maid smiles at Chris (Kaluuya) with fixed happiness while tears of wretchedness drop from her eyes - lingers uncomfortably afterwards. When it’s revealed what’s going on - the situation is far enough from reality to be fully absorbing, while the underlying links and metaphors cut deep. 

It’s a film about race - specifically in the US but with strong links to all Western countries - but it manages to tread the line between making pertinent, clear points about our society, and delivering a brilliant, intricately-plotted horror film. Extraordinary, and far from what I thought it would be. It’s also our only nomination with the lead being non-white. A brilliant contender for this year’s awards. 

Mark: 10 / 10

People of Colour: 6 speaking roles, (1 lead, 4 supporting, 1 cameo) 

Paul says

And we finish this side-project with the Best Picture wild card- a horror/thriller. This is one of the rarest genres to be recognised at the Oscars. According to my 5-minute research, The Exorcist was the first horror film to even be nominated in 1973 and The Silence of the Lambs is the only one to win in 1991. In a genre fraught with blood, guts and gore, a horror film that gets nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars immediately has high expectations.

And bloody hell, Get Out delivers big time. There is a constant sense of unease and discomfort that escalates slowly, so if you’re a nail-biter, you may need a manicure afterwards (and maybe even a pedicure if you’re especially panicky).

And yes, this is all about race. Specifically, the film attacks the pseudo-liberalism found amongst white people who say things like “I love Oprah” or “I actually prefer Whitney’s version to Dolly’s because it’s more soulful” and think that this basically makes them Rosa Parks. When the parents’ sinister secret is revealed, the film further attacks white peoples’ fascination with African-American biology and how they can assimilate it into white culture. 

Deep, yes? It’s scary for all races because audiences clearly see the sort of insidious racism inherent in white people. White people especially will, and should, feel squeamish because they will see their own actions and words that do more harm than good.

Get Out is on one level a very exciting, mysterious piece. But it’s also important because it’s one of the few horror films that extends the genre into unknown territory (akin to Scream or Cabin in the Woods) and we also see the storyline all through the eyes of an African American character- which, for the Academy Awards, is pretty innovative.

Mark: 10/10 

Oscar Season: 'Phantom Thread' and 'The Shape of Water

We have decided to temporarily suspend our year-by-year viewing of the Oscar winners in order to spend a few weeks going through all the nominees of the 2018 Academy Award for Best Picture. We'll be watching and reviewing two a week, and this week we started with Phantom Thread and The Shape of Water. 

Phantom Thread

Plot

Aloof, eccentric dressmaker with Carry On name, Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis) begins super-weird relationship with young waitress, Alma (Vicky Krieps). The relationship hits a few snags due to Woodcock’s general unpleasantness, his possessive sister (Lesley Manville) and Alma’s refusal to be dominated by either.

Doug says

Let’s get this out of the way. Phantom Thread is one of the worst films I have seen in the entirety of our Oscars project. I mean, the whole ‘starting in 1929 and working our way through’ thing. It’s skillfully shot, and the picture quality is far slicker and shinier than A Broadway Melody but it’s ultimately oddly plotted, bizarre and - for the first time in the Oscars project - amateurish. 

There are scenes when Day Lewis and Krieps are clearly improvising (one can only imagine the director delightedly cheering them on from behind the camera — improvising is for some reason often encouraged, despite it not being actually part of an actor’s remit). It made me remember improvised scenes by GCSE drama students which were excruciating and misled. 

That should really be the tag line of this film: A misled jaunt. The plot seems like it might be setting up for something but then rapidly abandons good storytelling for pretentious nonsense. Day Lewis puts on a good accent as per and waves his hands about  a fair bit, but does nothing to reinforce my idea of his as a thoroughly overrated actor, and Kriegs seems like a decent actress but nothing special. 

But none of this - none - compares to the real tragedy of this film, which is the criminal underuse of one of our most exciting actors: Lesley Manville. This shoddy script doesn’t allow her more than the briefest occasional chance (which of course she seizes) to show her talent. Anyone who’s seen River on Netflix or Ghosts on the West End stage will know quite how brilliant and powerful an actor she is, but here she’s given only a moment here and there to shoot a glance or mutter a comment. Unforgiveable. 

Ultimately, a dull, confused film. But I am still in utter astonishment at the sub-par quality of the acting and dialogue throughout. At points you could have easily convinced me that we were watching an Am Dram group have a crack at film acting. This got a nomination and mother! didn’t?!

Mark: 0 / 10

I'll also be pointing out the number of people of colour with a speaking role in each film. This is to see if the 'Oscars So White' scandal has actually had any effect on Hollywood's conscience. 

People of Colour: 0 (Of course this film isn't even progressive...) 

Paul says

About a year ago, Doug and I saw a fringe theatre play near Caledonian Road. The play involved two women, one was a normal pregnant woman, the other was a modern depiction of the Greek Goddess Hera. The interaction between them displayed a mildly interesting study of modern-day fertility. Unfortunately the play did what most drama students die for, and descended into perfunctory, awkward monologues in which the pregant character kept droning (for reasons I have yet to fathom), “the clock.....tickssssss”.

This is what I thought of whilst sitting through Phantom Thread, probably the strangest entry for Best Picture this year. For me, it started strong, with Woodcock and Alma’s unusual relationship blossoming through a battle for control- and leading to darker territory when Alma decides to poison him with mushrooms. I was excited by the study of gender dynamics and the descent into Hitchcockian domestic thriller, reminiscent of Dial M for Murder or Notorious.

But at the halfway point, the film resorts to pretentiousness, and the relationship develops and concludes in ways that are so excessively analysed and thought out that they’re unintentionally hilarious, and far from convincing. This is a classic example of how one can get so conceptual and so influenced by film theory that one forgets the fundamental purpose of film- to be entertaining.

The ideas put forward when the film begins have potential. I liked Lesley Manville’s unreadable menace, the way in which dressmaking became a symbol for control and the sense of uneasiness throughout. But these elements are lost in place of the sort of thing you see during an A Level Drama exam that’s trying to tick boxes and prove its intellectualism. 

Most of the audience was giggling at the film’s most ridiculous moments. But there was a bloke sitting next to us who permanently sat on the edge of his seat, with chin in hands, evidently thinking about Important Artistic Things. Phantom Thread is a film for him, not for us.

Mark: 4/10 

The Shape of Water

Plot 

Girl meets boy. Girl is mute and boy is human-amphibian hybrid captured by nasty scientists and imprisoned in an oppressive facility. What could possibly go wrong?!

Paul says

I knew I’d love The Shape of Water, not least because director-writer Guillermo Del Toro’s magnum opus, Pan’s Labyrinth, is one of my favourite films ever.

It has all the elements of a “Paul” film. A surrealist blending of fantasy and reality, a simple, slightly predictable but occasionally surprising story, a pantomime villain that you just despise, and the sort of cathartic moments that leave you exhausted.

The beauty of it lies in how convincing a romance between a woman and a creature can be. In fact, this mysterious lizard-man could rival Armie Hammer for most attractive man at the Oscars. The film shows various forms of sexuality, ranging from the brutal to the sensual, that suggests this is Del Toro’s prime theme. Whether or not this is the case, it makes the film soaringly romantic- similar to the sort of tragic romances Disney depicted in Beauty and the Beast and Pocahontas.

Sally Hawkins is an adorable lead too, with Octavia Spencer as her best mate delivering comedy and high drama in equal measure. Both are nominated for Lead Actress and Supporting Actress respectively and both are strong contenders- especially Hawkins who has no spoken lines.

It would be unfair of me to mark the film down because it’s not as good as Pan’s Labyrinth. Del Toro’s previous film is, for me, insurpassable. It’s nastier, more fantastical, and more devastating. The Shape of Water is gentler, tenderer and there’s only one “monster”. But it’s beautiful, and I challenge you not to feel anything throughout.

Mark: 10/10 

Doug says

It must be hard for Guillermo del Toro. His style and previous work is so well known and idolised that each new film could be a gamble - will this one flop or stand up to scrutiny? 

And I think this one succeeds. It’s a lovely, glamorous film. Shots of the huge (empty) period cinema beneath Sally Hawkins’ Elisa’s run down apartments are achingly beautiful, while true to the title, del Toro plays with how to capture water on screen. During one, stunning, scene, Elisa and her lizard-creature lover embrace in a flooding bathroom and the swirling water captures the soaring, surging nature of their love affair itself. 

Hawkins is wonderful as the mute woman managing to show reams of layered and complex emotions simply with her eyes and body language. One scene where she rails against her gay professor friend Giles (a captivating Richard Jenkins) is magnetic. And speaking of Giles, a scene where he hits on his local cafe’s handsome shopkeeper, only to be nastily rebuffed is painful and strongly evocative of the early ‘60s period this film takes place in. 

It’s a film of superb performances. The ever-wonderful Octavia Spencer makes the most of her small supporting role, including a scene when she makes a telephone call that is so packing with different, powerful emotions that it gives Myrna Loy a run for her money. 

My favourite thing about del Toro is that he paints such brilliant villains that you cannot wait to see them utterly destroyed. Michael Shannon turns in a performance as the utterly evil Colonel Richard Strickland, a man literally rotting away. 

So what’s not to love? Well, it’s not much, but unlike Paul I cannot separate del Toro from his work. And whereas Pan’s Labyrinth is a firm 12/10, this one lacks the slight reality imbued in that, meaning that the whole film ends up a little dreamlike, and lacking the grounding element that makes Labyrinth stay with you for years afterwards. A slight quibble, but del Toro has set this bar for himself…

Mark: 9.5 / 10

People of Colour: 4 (3 small one-scene roles and the marvellous Octavia Spencer as main cast)

Oscar Season: 'The Post' and 'Three Billboards Outside Epping, Missouri'

We have decided to temporarily suspend our year-by-year viewing of the Oscar winners in order to spend a few weeks going through all the nominees of the 2018 Academy Award for Best Picture. We'll be watching and reviewing two a week, and this week we continued with The Post and Three Billboards Outside Epping, Missouri. 

The Post

Plot

Two senior newspaper editors, Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks) and Katharine Graham (Meryl Streep) come into possession of documents which prove corrupt governmental things involving the Vietnam War, and debate extensively about whether to publish them. 

Paul says

Slap the name Spielberg on anything and immediately our hopes rise. In recent years he’s moved on from the Christmas afternoon blockbusters of the ‘80s and onto hefty political epics with Lincoln and Bridge of Spies. The latter was a particularly effective depiction of the Berlin Wall and rise of Communism in the ’50s, and from The Post I was expecting something along those lines.

But The Post suffers from similar faults as Darkest Hour (in fact, it’s worse for the sole reason that I fell asleep 3 times in the cinema and merely twice during Darkest Hour) in that it tries to evoke some pretty complex historical and emotional storylines in just 2 hours. Television has repeatedly proven over the last 10 years that a slow-burning 10-episode miniseries is far more absorbing when tackling historical events that fill up multiple Wikipedia articles. Spielberg touches on the importance of journalism when combating corrupt politicians, the struggles that women face in an intimidating male-heavy workplace, the controversies of the Vietnam War, and the moral issues involved in investigative reporting. But the film barely skims the surface of any of these themes for the simple reason that it’s just too short. Spielberg should have taken one angle and rolled with it.

It’s also a blatantly calculated aim at Best Picture. Nasty politicians trying to silence heroic journalists is so anti-Trump and Katharine Graham’s gradual dominance over self-important mansplainers is so anti-Weinstein that it’s almost as if Spielberg is desperate to prove himself as Democrat and feminist enough so that the Academy can’t help but throw votes his way. Me, cynical? Never! But even if this isn’t the case, there are nominees who tackle these themes with much more integrity and sparkle.

Mark: 1 / 10

Doug says

It’s rare to find a Meryl Streep film that disappoints, but boy oh boy does The Post manage it. It’s a shame to find our second historical film of the Oscars season is equally a turkey, but once again we find ourselves facing a shallow and pointless film. Just as Darkest Hour provided an overly sentimental and try-hard ‘inspirational’ vibe, The Post tries to stir up a love of independent media, and craft an entire film around a moment that would ultimately take up about twenty minutes of a better movie. 

The raison d’etre of this film is that Meryl in her 2017 Golden Globes speech talked about the importance of a free media to prevent Trump from winning. It’s also that Oprah said exactly the same thing in her 2018 Golden Globes speech. It’s clearly one of Hollywood’s ‘values’ currently, and so Spielberg has leapt aboard the popularist train and made a film about how important the press is, but made it historical so as to ‘disguise’ the purpose. It doesn’t work.

The main reason for this is that the period of history they’ve picked is dull. They’ve chosen to depict a decision pre-Watergate rather than Watergate itself. And while reviewers and our parents have mentioned All The President’s Men did this, there are already generations of people who’ve never even heard of this film. 

But finally, it’s disappointing because Streep - despite her best efforts - doesn’t get a chance to shine. There’s a hint of it in the scene when Katharine Graham finally gets some gumption and tells her bossy advisors to shut up, and there’s moments - such as when she walks through the crowd of female secretaries, into a room of exclusively male executives - that suggest a better pathway. 

But ultimately, it’s a film that doesn’t know what it’s doing, and suffers accordingly. It’s dull and poorly written, and seems to be tacking on to a current ‘issue’ for purely callous reasons. And even Streep with her glorious talent can’t do much to save that.

Mark: 2/10 

People of Colour (speaking roles only): 2 (2-3 lines each) 

Three Billboards Outside Epping, Missouri

Plot 

Mildred Hayes’ (Frances McDormand daughter was raped and murdered, but the local Chief of Police (Woody Harrelson) failed to find the killer. Believing they should have done more, Mildred uses three disused billboards to protest the police’s inaction - and the whole town is up in arms about it.

Paul says

This is a marvellous film, not only the best nominee I’ve seen so far, but one of the best I’ve seen in the last few years. 

The brilliance lies in how it surprises you at every turn. I went into this expecting Mildred to become a heroic vigilante who tracks down her daughter’s killer herself, with the police being patronising, racist bureaucrats. But no! As the film progresses, we quickly realise that the Chief of Police is actually quite reasonable and it is Mildred who is behaving with horrific though understandable irrationality. I won’t divulge much else about how the plot develops, but the writing does an outstanding job at setting up the usual Hollywood cliches, and then obliterating them. Mildred enters the film with hard-faced intimidation and casually saying “Bitch, fuck, cunt”, but when she sees a cockroach stuck on its back, she tenderly turns it over; a potentially violent confrontation between Mildred, her ex-husband and their son is suddenly prevented comically by the entrance of the ex-husband’s dim-witted new girlfriend. And big plot points that seem overly hysterical lead to believable character development.

McDormand very much deserves her second Best Actress Oscar for this- she’s the sort of angry working-class woman with an empathetic edge that we’ve all met or even been raised by. But Harrelson and also Sam Rockwell have both been nominated for Best Supporting Actor and they earn every bit of praise this brings. 

I was expecting something far more brutal and politically-charged (Kill Bill as written by Oprah Winfrey) and Three Billboards ticks this box, but it’s also ponderous and philosophical. It’s a film about decent people giving into their animal instincts when angry- and suffering the dire consequences. Powerful stuff!

Mark: 10/10 

Doug says

Phew! After Darkest Hour and The Post, I was ready to assume Hollywood has lost all sense of talent and given up. But with this thoughtful, real film we are given a real treat. 

It’s not what the trailer makes out. While there’s some aggression and some violence, much of the film centres around carefully constructed moments. And for me what is the best thing is the core lesson of it: violence begets violence. And the bravest thing a person can do is to turn away from that 

It’s a core performance from McDormand that holds the thing together. She’s driven by anger from the death of her daughter, and she has decided that she’s fed up of the case being forgotten. So the billboards are purchased with a provocative message. It’s not intending to hurt anyone, just get her daughter’s case back up and into conversation - and get it solved. 

What I particularly loved was writer & director Martin McConagh’s refusal to bend into any false sentimentality (so far a rarity in this year’s nominees). Every decision the characters make feel real and grounded, and there’s some beautiful turns - particularly worth noting Mildred’s ex-husband’s new girlfriend who milks comedy from every beautifully-timed pause. 

My one critique is that I didn’t find myself particularly caring for any of the characters’ outcomes. But the tension doesn’t let up, and one scene - involving someone choosing to forgive and offer orange juice instead of more violence - left me thinking about the bravery and strength that such a thing can take. Well woven storytelling at its best. 

Mark: 9 / 10

People of Colour: 5 (2 significant roles - our best so far. Isn't that terrible?)  

Oscar Season: 'Call My By Your Name' and 'Darkest Hour'

We have decided to temporarily suspend our year-by-year viewing of the Oscar winners in order to spend a few weeks going through all the nominees of the 2018 Academy Award for Best Picture. We'll be watching and reviewing two a week, and this week we started with Call Me By Your Name and Darkest Hour. 

Call Me By Your Name 

Plot

A glum teenager in northern Italy, Elio (Timothée Chamalet) becomes romantically obsessed with visiting American academic Oliver (Armie Hammer). And.....that’s about it.

Doug says

Who cannot remember the blissful agony of calf-love? That’s what Call Me By Your Name posits as its main theme. It tells the story of a seventeen year old on the cusp of manhood, and a handsome twenty-five year old student who have a sensual, illicit romance in 1980s Italy. While the story is well-trodden and at times a little false, the performances from Timothée Chalamet and Armie Hammer as the young music prodigy and the swaggering American respectively are captivating and truthful.

The real winner of this film though is the landscapes. Director Luca Guadagnino uses angles, colour, shading and the beautiful Italian landscapes to paint a vivid setting of languid heat. Italian people sit living their lives at the edges of each frame – a woman fans herself in a waiting room, another sits in the sun shelling peas. We feel the sunlight drenching our skin, the refreshing cool of the abundant pools and lakes. Guadagnino makes make us think of our own summer romances, and of course remember the exquisite agony of how they always end.

I write this a few days after seeing it, and several of us who went to the cinema together have found ourselves affected in different ways and I think I understand why. The film centres around the themes of youth and ripeness – Elio notoriously masturbates into a succulent peach (youth, ripeness, skin, sex all intermingled), and they dredge up Ancient Greek-style statues from the sea (youth and ripeness being most prized in their culture). But what lasts from the film is the slow, sad realisation that many of those watching this have already had these moments and have moved past them. Calf love and its agonies don’t seem to reoccur. And we are left with the bittersweet realisation that we may never be those heady, naive, vital people again who fall in and out of love over the course of a summer. We end up mourning for the people that we (hoped we) were.

It felt a little sparse at times – a monologue from Elio’s Robin-Williams-lookalike father felt a little too neat (and therefore rang a little false), but I can’t think of a film that has filled me with such longing for my own past, and also for the pasts I might have had. The subtlety of each gesture, word and moment means that the film’s power rolls on well past the credits. I found myself wanting to dislike the film, but it triumphs regardless. A sumptuous reminder of the cruelties and joys of the romances you’ll never get again, and a mesmerising backdrop of Italian landscapes that make you want to go there yourself, and be there in the dust and the heat with the possibility that you might just seize the moment – this time. 

Mark: 10 / 10

I'll also be pointing out the number of people of colour with a speaking role in each film. This is to see if the 'Oscars So White' scandal has actually had any effect on Hollywood's conscience. 

People of Colour: 0 (Oh dear) 

Paul says

The best part of Call Me By Your Name is the way it captures Italian rural life. The cinematography is so good that the perpetual heat, the dusty buildings, the boredom, and the languorousness are all emanating from the screen like the Italian heat itself. You become completely transported.

It also skilfully captures the complex emotions involved in one’s first relationship. The soaring excitement, desire for secrecy, fear, bad decisions, and vulnerability are all displayed in Chamalet’s award-worthy performance. I defy you not to identify with him- or at least develop a lump in the throat at his tearful final scenes. His performance is all the more astonishing when you notice that the central romance relies entirely on meaningful half-sayings and covert, inconspicuous forms of body language. When Elio tells Oliver of his attraction to him, he doesn’t do it explicitly but drops hints whilst they walk separately around a war memorial before their bodies meet again on the other side. During their first sexual encounter, their desires are so overwhelming that they literally inhale one another’s auras as they writhe, rather than simply kiss. It’s balletic and gorgeous and unconventional.

The film is, however, a bit inconsequential. Nothing much happens other than the main romance. Whilst this reflects the inert nature of lethargic Mediterranean holidays, I was occasionally begging for Oliver to reveal some deep, dark secret to juice things up (Is he married? Is he a woman? A Soviet spy? Anything!)

Nonetheless, this is a touching, beautiful and unpretentious piece which captures emotions and moments with expertise and awakens us to a gay erotic fantasy that we never knew we had.

Mark: 8/10 

Darkest Hour 

Plot 

The UK, 1940. War is raging and British politics are in chaos as Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain (Ronald Pickup) is ousted and replaced with controversial eccentric, Winston Churchill (Gary Oldman). Over the first month of his term as PM, Churchill tackles Dunkirk, a push for peace negotiations and disloyalty amongst his own party.

Paul says

The trouble with playing Winston Churchill is that John Lithgow impersonated him in The Crown in 2016 to huge acclaim. While the performance had the expected cantankerousness, the writers also weren’t afraid to tackle Churchill’s darker side- his self-importance and deepest insecurities.

Darkest Hour shies away from all this, preferring to present him as the usual symbol of British patriotism. Gary Oldman gives a great impersonation (in fact, he’s probably more accurate than Lithgow) but he’s let down by the film’s insistence on staying as conventional and reverential as possible. Netflix have been far more daring.

The film starts strong with director Joe Wright (who did Atonement and Anna Karenina) introducing the man himself with playfulness and irony. We first see him in bed and being unpleasant towards his new secretary (Lily James- horrifically boring). But again, the film slips into a conventional biopic about Winston overcoming various forms of antagonism. An amusing scene towards the end in which Winston chats with some passengers on the tube promises more humanity, but it’s an afterthought, and the flare dies out again in place of big Shakespearean speeches and bland discussions of peace vs war. It’s awfully disappointing.

Darkest Hour is saved slightly by a great central performance from Oldman (he’ll probably win the Best Actor Oscar- blokes in these roles tend to do so) and I liked Kristin Scott Thomas as Clemmie Churchill, who has been nominated for Best Supporting Actress despite being underused. But the film suffers from similar faults to The Iron Lady- it’s dull, it’s rambling, its politics are diluted and unfocused and, to make matters worse, the critics are all orgasming over it. Hmph.

Mark: 3/10 

Doug says

Let’s not beat around the bush: this film is pretty awful. It’s as if they decided to write a film about Churchill, chucked in some original speeches and went ‘how do we fill up the rest of the film’? Dunkirk gets mentioned briefly, then it swells to be the ‘crisis’ of the film and then they change the subject, don’t finish it and put a caption at the end of the film to the effect of ‘by the way, Dunkirk went okay’.

It’s a callous attempt to recreate Meryl Streep’s win as Margaret Thatcher – put a renowned actor in the main role, impersonating a British politician, write a shoddy film about it and hope to scoop up the Oscars. But the thing is firstly Gary Oldman is not as good as Meryl. So it’s an impersonation that seems probably pretty correct but seems to lack heart. He wheezes and groans to his heart’s content but you don’t end up really caring about him.

Secondly we are currently awash with Churchill performances. Timothy Spall did a pretty good turn as him in The King’s Speech. And then as Paul points out there’s John Lithgow in The Crown: Season One. Lithgow dominates Darkest Hour simply by not being in it. His performance in The Crown was so much better: subtle, full of reality and weakness – and ultimately so human and relatable that he ended up stealing every scene he was in from under Claire Foy’s feet. Oldman on the other hand does nothing. It’s an impersonation, it’s not a role.

The one good scene (as Paul points out) is when Churchill descends into the Tube and meets real people. But even then the writers can’t hold back from saccharine daftness as the ‘real people’ all cheer loudly in such a rehearsed saccharine manner that I felt actually repulsed. This film isn’t so much spoon-feeding you patriotism as it is trying to water-board you with the Union Jack.

Also I was so bored, I actually fell asleep for ten minutes.

Mark: 1 / 10

People of Colour: 1 (one scene: man on the underground, 2-3 lines)