We'll be doing our final round up of all the Best Picture nominees for this year's Academy Awards. This week: Little Women, Jojo Rabbit and The Irishman.
Little Women
Plot
The March sisters in Civil War America gradually discover that they are no longer little girls.
The tough part of adapting Little Women is that there are 3 other highly-regarded adaptations already made in 1933, 1949 and 1994. So how does one make it fresh and appealing and not just a re-hash? Well, writer-director Greta Gerwig has nailed it. Little Women is magnificent. She has re-vamped it by not telling the story chronologically, and flitting between the concluding stages of the sisters’ lives, and the first character-changing events. This constantly connects up the characters’ “before” and “after” stages, and maintains a snappy pace. Gerwig very subtly alters the lighting, and the actresses alter their manner very slightly so that when the scene changes, we know instantly what stage of the tale we are at. This is immensely thoughtful directing, and it’s a travesty that Gerwig hasn’t been nominated.
Thankfully, the acting has had more traction. Saoirse Ronan has been rightfully nominated for Best Actress for her spirited performance as Jo, but for me it was Florence Pugh (who has been nominated for Best Supporting Actress) as Amy who stole the show. Pugh skilfully ensures that Amy’s vengefulness does not overshadow her intellect and likability, and she thoroughly deserves the Oscar. Eliza Scanlan manages to inject loads of charm into the rather thankless role of ailing Beth, and the oft-criticised Emma Watson actually makes Meg interesting- and achievement in itself! The male performances also deserve note, my favourite being Chris Cooper as the kindly but grieving Mr Laurence.
Even though I knew exactly what was going to happen, I was enthralled by Little Women from its lively start to its meta-theatrical finish. It goes beyond the female-centric themes of the original novel to create a universal film that addresses community, family, fiction and coming-of-age with great power. A deserved hit!
Mark: 10/10
Doug says
The real question of the 2019/20 Oscars will be ‘why do the Oscars hate Greta Gerwig?’ She has failed to have a Best Director nomination despite delivering fresh, exciting work that reframes old stories, tells new stories and puts women squarely in the heart of the narrative. Little Women matches her astonishing debut Lady Bird in that it feels compelling, important and so - so - clever. By messing about with chronology she gives us moments such as Beth’s two illnesses - and the differing results - in the space of a few minutes. And yet somehow these grandstanding techniques never get in the way of her cast’s subtle, intriguing performances. Laura Dern, who is having quite the Dernaissance, is fab and as Paul says Florence Pugh steals the whole thing, making us understand and like the volatile, passionate Amy.
I also loved Gerwig’s nod to Louisa May Alcott, (Gerwig also wrote this). We see a split ending for Jo, one where the author publishes and is a single, happy woman, and another more conventionally correct ending where she marries a nice man and is also happy. Gerwig’s playfulness with the writing and filming of these split narratives is wonderful to witness and leaves the audience with more interesting thoughts and questions than the original novel might provoke.
But lastly, we all know the true marker of how good this film is. Yes, it’s Meryl Streep. Meryl sitting in a carriage! Meryl wearing a funny lace hat! Meryl delivering speeches about things! You know when Meryl’s involved that it has to be good. And so in this case, as ever, it is true. Cracking!
Mark: 10/10
Jojo Rabbit
Plot
A little boy called Jojo in Nazi Germany starts to realise that his idol and imaginary friends, Adolf Hitler, is not what he is cracked up to be.
Here’s a delightful little surprise that tackles Nazi Germany in a very new and original way. How they managed to get such tasteful humour into this, I do not know. Jojo Rabbit is essentially the tale of the rise and fall of Hitler but told through the eyes of a boy who sees Hitler as his imaginary friend. Hitler begins as friendly, empathetic, ditzy and encouraging, but as time goes on and the flaws and evils of his regime come to light, he becomes bullying, coercive and aggressive. The changes in this imaginary “Hitler” parallel the changing perceptions of the man himself, from every German’s best mate and rock star (the opening credits are actual footage of Nazi rallies with a Beatles song played over) to the ultimate symbol of hatred, oppression and evil.
The acting is wonderfully lively, with many laughs being got from Scarlet Johansson, Sam Rockwell, Rebel Wilson and Roman Griffin Davis, and especially from Archie Yates as Jojo’s best friend, who nails every punchline he’s given (“Our only friend right now are the Japanese and between you and me, they don’t look very Aryan”).
A minor quibble is that the dynamic direction and alternative style of story-telling isn’t always maintained. Some scenes, particularly between Jojo and Elsa (a Jewish girl he hides in his house) are less interesting, and heavy on dialogue and sentimentality. But the film swiftly returns to its unpredictable and sardonic nature, so Jojo remains a funny and haunting addition to the nominees and a damn strong candidate for winning too.
Mark: 8/10
Doug says
This film could so easily have gone wrong. A film about a member of the Hitler Youth whose imaginary friend is Hitler. My friends all said from the trailer that they thought it looked bizarre. And bizarre it is. Scarlet Johansson is a wise-cracking mother who puts on a fake beard to instruct her son, the Jewish girl hiding in the walls steals all of Jojo’s knives, and Rebel Wilson delivers monologues about how Jewish people all have tentacles. Oh and Sam Rockwell and Alfie Allen have a homoerotic vibe as two jaded leaders of the Hitler Youth. It’s mental.
What the film does brilliantly, is that it presents this world (the fall of Hitler) as almost comic, so that when darker moments happen, they’re jarring and almost unrecognisable. The SS turn up at his door, and while they’re tall and gangly (Steven Merchant in inspired casting), the menace of them soon seeps out, leaving viewers uncomfortable without any real reason why given. Similarly as Jojo begins to make friends with Elsa the Jewish girl, ‘Hitler’ stops being funny and goofy, and actually (in a brilliant turn by director Taika Waititi) starts to feel like the screaming, hysterical figure that we recognise from archive footage. In essence, he becomes more real. There’s a very specific scene when I noticed that the entire audience had stopped laughing. A difficult feat to pull off.
I think the film suffers from this lackadaisical style though. An important death comes out of the blue and to be honest doesn’t feel as impactful as it should. And while the ending is sweet and well acted by both leads, you still feel there was an element of the story that was skipped over. But overall, an enjoyable film and one certainly worth the nomination.
Mark: 7/10
The Irishman
A truck driver called Frank Sheeran tells the tale of his involvement with mobsters and dodgy politicians….
….and that’s pretty much it. The Irishman is 3.5 hours of Italian-American men allying, betraying, murdering, and manipulating each other. The problem I have is not so much the length. Yes, 3.5 hours is pretty gargantuan for a film, but I’m sure we’ve all binged 5-10 hours of the latest HBO drama in one go.
The problem is the quality of the story-telling. There is such a large number of mobsters, all of which get a moment, but even in 200 minutes the script is spread so thinly across these characters that I found it impossible to care about what they’re doing let alone why or when. The story makes incredible jumps in pace and will go from lengthy pieces of exposition to rattling through important bits of political info, which left me disengaged many times. And while De Niro, Pacino and Pesci give very strong, accomplished performances, they’re pretty much playing the exact same stock characters that they are known for playing. Did I care about the outcome of any of them? Hell no.
There’s also nothing very new here. If you’ve seen The Godfather, Goodfellas, or, hell, even Some Like It Hot, you’ve seen all of this before.
Scorsese is a bloody awesome story-teller. The Wolf of Wall Street is a ferocious attack on life in the stock market, while Gangs of New York is an exuberant thrill-ride. Critics are interpreting The Irishman as Scorsese looking back over his own life and career, paralleled by Frank Sheeran’s own look back over his eventful life. But The Tempest this ain’t. I would say Wolf, Gangs and Goodfellas are better examples of Scorsese’s panache. Meanwhile, The Irishman doesn’t so much provide a climax for his career, but rather a limp tumble over the finish line.
Mark: 1/10
Doug says
Oh my god, Scorsese needs to calm down, soothe his ego and hire an editor. For the first hour of this gangster film, I was thoroughly engaged, and by 2 1/2 hours I was just wishing it would stop. As we launched into hour three, I was barely watching.
It’s a confusing tale of some real-life Mafia types and their adventures, and using remarkable new technology, Al Pacino and Robert de Niro are able to play younger versions of themselves. It’s very convincing. But perhaps it’s not my cup of tea, or perhaps they really aren’t that amazing any more - I didn’t really feel engaged in the story or their characters.
Ultimately I can’t say more than this. It’s nicely shot, but the fact that Scorsese got a nomination for this overlong, confusing film that at times feels like a Pacino/de Niro shrine, is just bizarre. Why not hire other actors to play their younger selves? What is the point of this whole thing? Why is the Academy so quick to fawn over whatever Scorsese churns out?
Nothing to say except - I stopped watching. I preferred Cats.
Mark: 2/10
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