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...)
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?!
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)
No comments:
Post a Comment