Review: Advantageous

Year: 2015

Certificate: 12

Director: Jennifer Phang

Screenwriters: Jacqueline Kim, Jennifer Phang

Cast: Jacqueline Kim, Samantha Kim, James Urbaniak, Jennifer Ehle, Freya Adams

In a near-future North American metropolis, single mother Gwen Koh (Jacqueline Kim) is the face of the Centre for Advanced Health and Living, a company offering clients the ability to gain a more advantageous look by transferring their consciousness into a new body. When the company replaces her with a younger spokesperson, Gwen comes face-to-face with the discriminatory employment priorities of her society. Faced with escalating financial difficulty, Gwen must decide whether to take a risky but fiscally rewarding decision in order to secure her daughter Jules (Samantha Kim) a place at a prestigious prep school.

A chilling picture of an all-too-imaginable future, Phang’s ambitious but understated film is both a subtle exploration of delicate family dynamics and a scathing commentary on society, race and gender. Initial shots of Jules running and dancing, carefree, along the pavement with her friends provide a stark contrast to her hunched and tense posture as she tries to study while the crying of the woman in the apartment below drifts up through the floor. The city itself first appears idyllic- chrome and glass fronted, with dynamic sculptures, clean streets and a leafy park- but the spectre of unrest and inequality soon creeps in as Jules and her friends observe an explosion in a distant building (‘not again’ sighs Ginger), and Gwen finds a woman sleeping rough in the hedgerow outside her apartment block.

While the near-future setting touches on familiar science fiction mainstays (the rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer, and flying cars), the focus on how societal expectations of race and gender may change feels both well considered and realistic. After losing her job, Gwen finds it almost impossible to get re-employed. In a telling conversation with her ex-employer is told that making women redundant is “safer… than having desperate men on the streets.” Suddenly, the fact that it is women who Jules can hear crying in the adjacent apartments, and who Gwen sees sleeping on benches and in hedgerows, begins to make sense. Similarly, at first glance the world seems post-racial. Gwen, a child of Asian immigrant parents, has risen to a high and visible position at her company, and Jules’ friendship group is racially diverse. However, several interactions make it clear that race is still a factor in determining societal order. Gwen’s (white) bosses tell her they’re looking to replace her with someone whose look is ‘more universal,’ and the catalogue of inspirational transfer bodies available from the Centre for Advanced Health and Living are racially ambiguous but unfailingly light-skinned. Indeed, the advertisement that Gwen stars in for the company tacitly states that transference would be an attractive option for those who feel ‘held back’ by their race. As palpable as these themes are though, they never feel over-emphasized, and Gwen’s central motivations during the film: to find a good job, to secure her daughter’s future, and to re-establish broken family ties, transcend her situation as a member of more than one marginalised group even as they are influenced by it.

Director and co-writer Jennifer Phang brings a dreamy atmosphere to the proceedings, with the sinewy morphing corporate art of the buildings, vastness of the city and hologram phone calls creating a believable near-future. This, coupled with the film’s refusal to jump in with immediate exposition invites comparison to the work of Shane Carruth, particularly Upstream Colour, although Advantageous is less wilfully obtuse. The Kafkesque nature of Gwen’s odyssey and cast of mysterious supporting characters (the group of women Gwen dines with in an opulent setting have more than a little of Macbeth’s wyrd sisters about them) create a slow, gnawing tension which is as enticing as it is disturbing, and the dramatic twists scattered throughout achieve the mean feat of eliciting thrills without the need for big-budget bombast.

Verdict: 5/5

Bonus: Phang’s original short film upon which the movie is based can be viewed here. The full film is available everywhere on Netflix and on demand.

Image credit: facebook.com/Advantageous

Review: Macbeth

Year: 2015

Certificate: 15

Director: Justin Kurzel

Screenwriters: Jacob Koskoff, Michael Lesslie, Todd Louiso, William Shakespeare (original play)

Cast: Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, David Thewlis, Sean Harris, Jack Raynor, Paddy Considine

As civil war tears across Scotland, a meeting with three prophetic witches in the aftermath of a battle ignites the ‘vaulting ambition’ of brilliant soldier Macbeth (Michael Fassbender), testing his loyalty to King Duncan (David Thewlis) to its limit.

Muscular, haunting, and drenched (literally and figuratively) in the wild weather and muted colour palette of the Scottish highlands, Justin Kurzel’s intepretation of one of Shakespeare’s most powerful tragedies resonates with import and emotion. The opening scene, a battle played out in balletic slow motion backed by Jed Kurzel’s thundering score, sets the tone perfectly for the artful chaos set to unfold as Macbeth’s encounter with the Wyrd Sisters (here three women of different ages accompanied by a child) places him on a path to destruction.

Fassbender and Marion Cotillard as Lady Macbeth both deliver impressive performances. Their backstory, ambiguous in Shakespeare’s script, is more explicitly charted out in an early funeral scene for a toddler, and the two leads embrace this tragedy in their characterisations. Fassbender’s extraordinary talent for physical mannerism is put to good use here; Shakespeare’s complex dialogue is made transparent in Macbeth’s increasingly tense posture and darting eyes as guilt and paranoia slowly overwhelm him. Kurzel and Cotillard’s interpretation of Lady Macbeth is unusual: they avoid more typical touchstones such as anger or (in more uncharitable interpretations) hand-rubbing greed and opt instead for a serpentine sense of entitlement, perhaps driven by past tragedies. This at times seems a little at odds with the script during the first act, however it becomes a stroke of genius when things begin to go awry. Cotillard’s expressive face betrays Lady Macbeth’s mounting desperation as she realises that the rarefied life she envisioned in return for one dark deed is beginning to disintegrate as rapidly as her husband’s sanity.

It is these and other interesting directorial and stylistic decisions which make this adaptation completely Kurzel’s own. The two most famous speeches, ‘is this a dagger…’ and ‘out damned spot…’ are given a fresh perspective with the addition of spectral presences in their own way more alarming than the canonical ghost of Banquo, whose appearance is understated other than in the effect it exerts upon Macbeth. Pared down to just under two hours, the story moves at a steady pace, but some parts- the first act in particular- feel a little rushed. Macbeth’s initial, tortured vacillation between loyalty to his king and the seductive promise of power is somewhat glossed over here, which perhaps underplays the character’s (initially, at least) strong sense of morality, and what it costs him internally to compromise that. That misgiving aside, careful script editing by Koskoff et al. and the strength of the supporting cast, including Paddy Considine’s Banquo and Sean Harris’ brooding but shrewd Macduff, mean that every scene hums with tension, and that Shakespeare’s meaning is seldom lost.

Verdict: 4/5

Image credit: macbeth-movie.com

Sicario Review

No Country For Americans 

Released : September 8th 2015

Certificate : 15

Director : Denis Villeneuve

Cast : Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro, Josh Brolin, Daniel Kaluuya

Plot : After a career full of successful bust FBI agent Kate Macer (Blunt) and her main co-worker, less qualified Reggie (Kaluuya) come across a unique crime scene that is linked to the very top of the Mexican cartel. Kate is offered a shot to assist further deep across the Mexican border by laid back government officer Matt Graver (Brolin). Assisted by Alejandro (Del Toro) whose title is unknown to Kate, they lead an investigation into the head of Mexican cartel.

Denis Villeneuve returns to our screen with another dark thriller, with a cast to match his best work, Prisoners, a film which established him as a craftier of a unique brand of moral thriller, with more style than had been seen in the genre since The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. The aspects of Prisoner which made it effective as a thriller was, a top cast working on top form, of course Villeneuve handy work and an unpredictable edge. All of which resulted in a thriller a cut above the rest. Here again Villeneuve returns with a cast to match Prisoners skill, but from outset appearing to be lacking in a storyline as initially new and chilling as that of Prisoners. The frequently explored topic of films for his new film is the war of drug trafficking, where Villeneuve has attempted to add uniqueness to the topic is by exploring the morality behind the fight, an area not new to cinema either, as well as a very personal character driven perspective of the fight. Neither of these quite as darkly unique as the topics tackled in Prisoners, but instead, Villeneuve has traded in for bullets, body count and scale while still in keeping with a murky winding road of a story of his previous work.

One of the main bases of this film are a characters, of which there are few, who are used as main point to draw the drama from the film, when it isn’t the intense action sequences. The film carries with it what could be considered by many to be a duel protagonist story, of a much high calibre than an average buddy cop film. But for the most part the film focuses around Emily Blunt’s Kate, a top of her class rule follower who not only has a burning desire for the end of the cartel, but also a strong moral compass. From just this information is can be easily predicted how she will react when she is thrown deep behind enemy lines in the pursuit of the cartel, the film teases this invertible drama brilliantly. The second main figure is that of Benicio Del Toro’s Alejandro, who is just a mysterious and unknown as the fight that Kate finds her self in. The enigma behind Alejandro might gain the most original teaser to a film it is well executed and adds to the film attempts to keep the audience in the same position as Kate, which is in the dark.

Despite the strong character and drama that steams from this, the sell out act for this film is Villeneuve work, as due to him the film stands as a model answer for how to build tension in a film. Sicario stands as a type of film that is a directorial joy to watch, due to the fact that, for the observant cinema goer, it can be easily noticed which this a film where every shot and camera movement is for a complex purpose. For those unaware of the finer detail, the effect will still be as riveting, but the meaningful crafted nature of the film demonstrates the care the thought put into the film on Villeneuve part. The specific effects themselves were fairly simplistic in nature, but proved for brilliantly effective results, for example sequence to break up the narrative of the film were mostly consistent of huge wide aerial moving shots of the desert as well as Mexico, coupled with the sound score that was progressively sinister despite being slow in tempo (reminiscent of films such as Nightcrawler). The effect on the audience was to unsettle them as well as demonstrate the mass scale of the issue faced by the team, conveying the hugely corrupted land. This being one of the most basic and noticeable ways in which Villeneuve parts the tension in the film as well as the meaning of the film, with camera shots holding no action codes or dialogue. This is not a radical concept to cinema, but to see it carried out beautifully and with precision never fails to be entertaining, as an example of well crafted cinema. Other proofs of Villeneuve understanding of the thriller genre was the effect and frequent effect of lighting codes, not only for effect by as well as meaning, the orchestration of the action sequences, and the way he made the audience feel much the same way as our main character Kate, which was a blend of scared, tense and confused.

As for a main characters presentation to us, Blunt nailed it. Her characters fear and anger as she realises the extent of the situations was delivered without flaw, the audience was able to easily relate to her reaction and share in her feeling due to Villeneuve audience positing, and this made Blunts performance all the more tasteful. This is not her best performance to date, as she was able to convey the characters overwhelmed sense as the story develops and realises her helplessness nature, and the way she translated the character strong will for a moral code despite the escalating wrongdoings and misconducts that she is exposed to provides a character performance its hard not to rally behind. The second side of this dual character film, which provide the mysterious edge and more complex character was Del Toro’s performance. He’s Mexican outcast was a stylish as he was enjoyable to watch, and Toro fitted the role perfectly, convincing the audience that this character was both tortured as well as experience with the cartel. Providing a great character contrast to Blunts role as both are placed in the firing line of the drug lords. Maybe the one good result of the 2010 The Wolfman was the ability for Del Toro and Blunt to get a feel of each other acting to provide for riveting, thou be it brief, dramatic character interaction within the film, most notable of which is the end act in which the acting reaches a peak as well as the meaning behind the film.

Overall Sicario is an outstanding thriller which carries with it the uniquely dark aurora that made Villeneuve so enjoyable in Prisoners. Blunt and Del Toro have redeemed their past collaboration with performance which are one of their best to date, and even despite Brolin slightly cartonish persona it manages to work with the film. But this being one of biggest minor flaws in a film that is otherwise well constructed and well delivered, with one the strongest climax’s to any film this year. A thriller that manages to operate on both a character based level as well as a wider meaning and maintains an effect that can be deemed, nail-biting.

Verdict : Sicario is the thriller to see in 2015, adding to Villeneuve history as he establishes himself as a modern master of the thriller genre, with another dark, moral and unpredictable tale which proves to be as thought-provoking as some of the best drug war films.

Verdict : 5/5

Quote : “You should move to a small town, somewhere the rule of law still exists. You will not survive here. You are not a wolf, and this is a land of wolves now.”