2011. Dir: Rodrigo Garcia. Starring: Glenn Close, Mia Wasikowska, Aaron Johnson, Janet McTeer and Pauline Collins. ●●●●○
It's fairly common for me to disagree with the majority of critical and commercial response to movies, in fact on a regular basis I watch films hailed as the second coming only to walk away with a "huh?" and a shrug. Sometimes I just don't understand the fuss being made. Oddly though this usually only happens in one direction, I may detest a film everyone else loves but when a film is getting a mauling the best I can usually say is "it's not a complete disaster." However on watching Albert Nobbs I was shocked by the critical derision it have received on both sides of the Atlantic, what's more I don't really understand why, although I suspect it is in part due to the high expectations surrounding Glenn Close's very own passion project. Glenn first played the central role of a male impersonator off Broadway in 1982 and has been working on adapting George Moore's short story for over 20 years, and the sad truth is no matter how good you think the performance and the film is it wasn't worth a 20 year delay.
It's essentially the story of the emotional awakening of a repressed button upped butler who happens to be a woman. In 19th century Dublin with poor social mobility for men, let alone women, Nobbs has spent 20 years masquerading as a man in order to manage a dignified existence and save up to purchase a tobacconist. Her painful but safe life is disturbed when house painter Hubert Page (Janet McTeer) has to share Albert's room for the night and discovers Albert's secret. After a few hours of panic Hubert admits that she too is a woman, opening up a whole new world of emotional connection to Nobbs. Indeed the plan for the shop changes from being a one man show to a partnership as Alberts woo the impressionable young maid Helen (Mia Wasikowska).
Most of the characters are largely unlikeable, Nobbs is penny-pinching and emotionally insensitive, Helen is greedy and cheeky even Brendan Gleeson's Doctor is obsequious and a drunkard. Yet it is to the credit of everyone's performances that in spite of all that we care about the future of the characters.
Glenn in particular completely gets under the skin of Albert Nobbs, although frankly you'd expect that given the amount of time she's worked on the character, it's a totally committed performance as furtive and damaged as she is hopeful for the future, every moment of her history etched on her face, every decision the character makes reflected in her eyes. Janet McTeer is also masterful, less so for the emotionality her relative freeness and frankness leaves less to project from behind a mask, but physically she's perfect. There's a great scene where Close and McTeer put on dresses and take a walk along the beach, and they look like men in dresses, layers of performance which are incredible.
Wasikowska is less successful, her modern mannerisms difficult to get past, but she's the only cast member who seems out of place.
The script does a good job of highlighting the hypocrisies in Victorian society both in terms of class and gender, albeit mainly through the gossipy monologues from Pauline Collins' Hotelier. Where Jonathan Rhys Meyers aristocratic cameo is given free range to sleep with whomever he wants and Brendan Gleeson is conducting an illicit affair with one of the waitresses the merest suggestion of a scandal with Nobbs or Helen causes the eventual doom of their characters.
There are plenty of areas where the film gets things terribly wrong too. The pace is deadly slow - believe me I understand why many viewers consider the film to be dull and it is purely an actors love in - which has the doubled effect of confusing the timeline, about 18 months passes through the film, based on the seasons and certain plot points developing , but there's no depth to the time passing. The moments where Nobbs imagines the future of the shop cheapen both the idea and the film with the sub-standard graphics and finally the relentless gloom works against the viewer. Whilst I have no doubt that things were tough in the 1800's a glimmer of hope would have been nice (hopefully that's not too much of a spoiler).
I also loved Brian Byrne and Glenn Close's main theme Lay Your Head Down, both as performed by Sinead O'Connor in the end credits and as used in the narrative, it's a beautiful piece of music that deserved more attention at the end of last year.
This ranks low on the four blob films but I do believe it fully deserves that fourth blob and I would definitely recommend the movie to anyone.
Tuesday, 8 May 2012
Albert Nobbs
Wednesday, 23 March 2011
You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger
2010. Dir: Woody Allen. Starring: Gemma Jones, Anthony Hopkins, Naomi Watts, Josh Brolin and Antonio Banderas. ●●○○○
There's a sense of trepidation that sinks in whenever Woody Allen releases another picture. Where will it fit in the canon? How many times will I laugh? Will I regret the ticket price? Will it be better or worse than his last picture (like a neverending higher or lower card game)? Well the answers for You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger are as follows: Pretty low. Very few. Yes. And this is both better and worse than Whatever Works - better because the characters and morality is nowhere near as repugnant and worse because there isn't the experimentation and concepts that drove his previous film.
The overstuffed plot follows couples Gemma Jones and Anthony Hopkins and their daughter Naomi Watts with Josh Brolin as their relationships breakdown and they find themselves back on the dating game with (respectively) Roger Ashton-Griffiths, Lucy Punch, Antonio Banderas and Freida Pinto. Each of these relationships seems to be doomed to failure for the exact reasons that they are brought together - a mix of ennui and foreshadowing covers the players clearly indicating their individual fates.
The performances range from the reasonably entertaining - Antonio Banderas gets away with a hesitant charm and a tendancy to prevaricate - to the downright offensive; Lucy Punch doing to English high-class hookers what Mira Sorvino did for her American contemporaries only making it sound like a Catherine Tate impersonator. With some of the others barely registering. Anthony Hopkins in particular needs to get a new phone to deliver his performances through.
Of course this smorgasboard of talent would be forgiven if the writing was clever or witty. Unfortunately there's little realism in the script - nearly everytime Naomi Watts as the patient Sally, trying to remain sane as everyone else falls apart, speaks I found myself screaming inside "But no-one talks like that". Recrimination led arguments come and go with no sense of tension around them, mildly offensive chat-up lines seem to have the female cast gazing tenderly into their male counterparts eyes.
The are whole sub-plots that appear and drift away with no real meaning or connection to the whole including Brolin's writing career, Pinto's engagement and the dead son of Hopkins and Jones which seems to exist only to make a cheap psychological connection to forward momentum of Hopkins. All this would be forgiveable if the central fortune telling storyline (featuring the delicious Pauline Collins hammily doling out phoney advice to the neurotic Gemma Jones) was given the necessary room to breathe and develop.
The design is fine, location shooting fine and the jazzy score fine - but nothing we haven't seen before from Allen and it's not a London that I recognise that's for sure.
I wouldn't bother with this one, if I were you, just cross your fingers that Woody will find form again with his next picture so I can ask those leading questions again.
Friday, 3 September 2010
Pauline Collins
Happy Birthday to
Pauline Collins
70 today
Shirley Valentine herself has a lot to be celebrating this year, not only is it a special birthday for her but she's also got a pivotal supporting role in the upcoming Woody Allen picture You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (and it doesn't look awful). I think that deserves a plate of egg and chips to celebrate.
Thursday, 7 January 2010
20 for 2010 - You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger
Next on the countdown, and just missing the top ten at 11, is Woody Allen's You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger.
At 74 Woody Allen is showing no signs of letting his work rate slip - he has made at least one film per year since 1982 and there were a further 10 in the 15 years previous, and it's fair to say that within that time he's made more than his fair share of masterpieces. But will this be one of them?
I have been a loyal fan for most of those years, I evenly enjoyed Anything Goes, and the mere mention of Allen will usually get me into a theatre so there's no surprise in seeing this on my list. Saying that there is no denying the general direction the quality of the films is going. Even Vicky Cristina Barcelona, which had some of the best reviews Woody's seen in years, was markedly below his best output. In fact last years Whatever Works still doesn't have a UK release date, some 7 months after it was seen in America.
His latest London-set project - which should make it more likely to score over here - has a truly international flavour with a cast that includes Antonio Banderas, Frieda Pinto, Anthony Hopkins, Naomi Watts, Josh Brolin and Carla Bruni(!).
That sort of cast alone is enough to get me tingling. But I'm reserving judgement on the film itself until I see it.
