film reviews, interviews, features | BRWC

Author: Mark Goodyear

  • Spencer: Another Review

    Spencer: Another Review

    Pablo Larraín’s Jackie is a film I often think back to. Not to anything specific, and not with any great critical thought; I see an image of Natalie Portman as Jackie Kennedy, and I feel like that simple introspection captures the entire film. Safe to say, this is not a common sensation, but it is a profound one. It’s almost like he made a painting and filled it with all the tumultuous agony that occurred to Jackie in 1963; whatever way I look at it, it’s beautiful. Now he has a new muse, a figure even more tragic: Princess Diana (Kristen Stewart), or as she was known before and after her marriage Diana Spencer.

    So, when I heard Larraín was making this picture, I knew at once that when I had seen it, I would have an enduring image of Kristen Stewart amid Diana’s tumultuous life, and I do. The specific tale Spencer tells is on the precipice of the Princess’ divorce from Prince Charles (Jack Farthing) on the grounds of Sandringham estate over the three days from Christmas Eve to Boxing day. A time when the mental demons which plagued Diana were at their most fierce. Of course, as the film says in so many words, this is only a fable formed from the true tragedy, so those looking for historical re-enactments should look elsewhere. 

    Instead, Spencer portrays Diana’s sheer anguish in full force as her husband engages in a not-so-secret affair. To display this, Sandringham becomes haunted by figures both real and imagined. In reality, the ever-present eyes and ears of Major Alistar Gregory (Timothy Spall) follow Diana in constant attempts to keep her in line with what the Royal family wants from her. And in her mind, most haunting of all is the figure of Anne Boleyn, the beheaded wife of Henry VIII. Each tortures Diana as she attempts to go about her days there, but sanity alludes her when she needs it most. 

    In truth, it almost became cruel to show Diana this way, to state that her reality became deranged to such levels. But there is one ultimate quality that proves Larraín’s intentions were tender and pure, and it’s the appearance of Diana’s two young sons, Princes William and Harry (Jack Nielen and Freddie Spry). There are scenes involving these two that will warm the coldest of hearts and working alongside them is when Stewart produces her finest work ever. It becomes a painfully beautiful reminder that Diana was at her core a loving mother, and in no way did she deserve the mess Charles put her through. I think that was a much better way to display such cruelty than explicitly depicting cheating. 

    As the tale goes on, we all know what’s coming, but Larraín isn’t concerned with that. Instead, he gives Diana a Swansong worthy of her elegance, and although we know it’s not truly the end, I think most will be touched by it regardless. And that’s the genius of Pablo Larrain, and why he is currently the best working director in the biopic genre, he knows the best ways to bend the truth, and he always does so for the sake of empathy, the nitty-gritty isn’t always necessary. 

    Spencer is a moving depiction of one of the world’s most beloved figures brought to life by the ever-talented Pablo Larraín and career-best work from Kristen Stewart. 

  • Spider-Man: No Way Home – The BRWC (Light Spoiler) Review

    Spider-Man: No Way Home – The BRWC (Light Spoiler) Review

    LIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD.

    Spider-Man: No Way Home is the climax of Jon Watts’ MCU Spider-Man trilogy, but it’s also so much more than that. It’s a culmination of everything live-action the character has done since I was born. It does this with a bit of help with Marvel’s latest gimmick — no more gems; this is the age of the “Multiverse”. With Peter Parker (Tom Holland) outed at the end of the last film, the events of his life begin to take a downward turn. And when this leads to negative impacts on his friends MJ (Zendaya) and Ned (Jacob Batalon), he leaves himself no choice but to visit Dr Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch). Antics ensue, but eventually, Peter is offered a choice on whether he wants to make the whole world forget he is Spider-Man. However, the spell goes awry, and Spidey’s new adventure goes from navigating college admission to fighting off villains from another universe, villains audiences will be quite familiar with.

    A brilliantly thrilling action sequence reintroduces us to the marvellous Alfred Molina as Doctor Octopus, and the iconic Willem Defoe Green Goblin quickly joins him. For the uninformed, they are the marquee villains from Sam Rami’s Spider-Man trilogy from the 2000s, but Sony wasn’t content to stop there. The Amazing Spider-Man isn’t the most celebrated franchise, but that doesn’t stop the two villains from Marc Webb’s films appearing with the Lizard (Rhys Ifans) and Electro (Jamie Foxx) joining in on the fun. 

    And here is where No Way Home separates itself, at least partially, from the typical mould of the MCU. There’s nothing quite like seeing a man you saw impaled by his own glider nearly 20 years ago back before your eyes and developing. And on the other side of things, adversaries not given a fair chance to shine, finally pulling off what they were supposed to be. It’s overly heavy-handed at times, and the quippy nature of these films remains a disservice unto themselves, but this entry is still quite surprisingly moving. There’s one particular call back that I won’t specify because it is a major spoiler, but I think you’ll know it when you see the film. It touched me far more than I ever expected this movie could, and anything that can do that deserves celebrating. 

    However, I can safely say that No Way Home shines as the most important MCU film of the year, even beyond the very fan service-y premise. It’s not one you’ll want to miss if you’re going to make sense of things down the line. From the get-go, it becomes apparent that there’s only so many ways this can end, and story-changing ramifications are where it winds up. In this sense, it’s certainly Spidey’s biggest adventure and his most gut-wrenching too. Thanks to that, this is easily Tom Holland’s finest ever performance. The way he’s grown into a hero across his trilogy has been unlike anyone else; it almost seemed like they wanted to keep him a child rather than forcing him to come of age. So here he is finally left with no choice, and come the end, Holland can proudly stand shoulder to shoulder with his heroic peers and be just as great as them.

    Beyond even that, the technical side of things remains a constant wonder. The digital de-aging is Marvel’s best to date, and the fight choreography is topped only by the brilliant sequences of Shang-Chi as the best of the year. These technical elements primarily maintain the longevity superhero movies are now experiencing. Just when you think you’ve seen every way to throw a shield or sling a web, they find a new way to make it exciting, and while the formulaic approach will have to fall off one day, it’s not coming any time soon if things can stay made to this standard. 

    No Way Home sets Holland’s Spidey atop the Marvel mountain as the MCU’s greatest and most complete trilogy, and it does so in ways fans will adore for years to come. 

  • Zola: SFF Review

    Zola: SFF Review

    I don’t remember when I found out; I only remember the confusion. A24 announced they were making a movie based on a Twitter thread. Baffling. So, I sought it out and read it from start to finish, and my word was it a trip. Aziah “Zola” Wells, the woman who wrote the thread, wrote with such character that everything became remarkably evocative and gripping. Now 2021 brings us the promised film under the helmsmanship of Janicza Bravo. They simply called it Zola.

    If you’re unfamiliar with the viral thread, I’ll offer some details of the wild story. Zola (Taylour Paige) works day to day as a waitress, but she’s a stripper of a night. Those two worlds colliding become the genesis for the road trip from hell. During one seemingly ordinary shift, Stefani (Riley Keough) walks through the door and asks Zola if she dances, and that’s all it took; they became instant friends. It was only the next day that Stefani made the offer of easy money dancing in Florida, so off they went. There are only two more important characters, Stefani’s boyfriend Derrek (Nicholas Braun) and her “roommate”, only credited as X (Coleman Domingo). 

    From the offset, Bravo presents her film as stylishly as possible. Parts of the twitter overlay pop up on the screen, and everything feels dreamlike and fast. Eventually, it becomes slightly oversaturated, but there is no denying it’s the perfect way to capture the nature of the tale. Zola is not a typical slow burn A24 feature in this sense. It has no desire to waste time and only aims to get across how crazy this story is as fast as possible. In a flash, they are dancing in Florida, but not before we meet the hilarious Derrek who insists he’ll make Jackass style comedy videos online one day. I’ll say now that Nicholas Braun often steals the show as the awkward and sometimes endearing Derrek; he’s one of Zola’s greatest assets.

    However, he ends up stuck in a motel room while the girls and X head out to the club. Here’s where things start to get crazy. When they’re done, it’s revealed X is Stefani’s pimp, and she’s stuck working for him because he threatens the life of her young daughter. This revelation is severe and would take most scripts away from reckless abandon comedy and into the realm of heartbreaking drama. But not Zola, that’s not how she wrote it, and that’s not how the script presents it. Instead, everything remains snappy and borne thoroughly from the narrative voice heard in the tweets (some of which echo verbatim) and in this sense, the original text was well treated. 

    But I found it particularly interesting that not all the aspects of the tweets make it to the screen. Most of the content is there, and Bravo presents it to maximum hilarity, but not all of it. Most notably missing is the ending, or more aptly the epilogue, involving the arrest of X. This absence suggested something quite striking to me. One would assume a Twitter thread story would lack the depth to form a good film, but instead, the film lacks the depth to capture the story wholly. Reading it back, you can find moments where Wells was open enough to add a deeper backdrop to the calamity, and Bravo shows no interest in that. Moments like the conversation between Zola and Derrick, a moment in the thread that offers him some redemption. The style wouldn’t need to suffer for these moments either; only realism suffers for their loss. The ultimate result is something entertaining regardless, but it ends with the lingering question: this wasn’t a dream, so why does the film keep playing like it was?

    Zola doesn’t always make the most of the original text, but it’s irresistibly hilarious and packed with committed and entertaining performances. 

  • The Worst Person In The World: SFF Review

    The Worst Person In The World: SFF Review

    No matter how hard we try, we can never plan out our whole lives; it’s simply impossible. But many still try, and added structure can lead them to great things, but they will always lack excitement. Julie (Renate Reinsve), the main character of Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World, is no such person. She is a gleeful mess, a young woman with no idea what dreams she wants to chase but with the knowledge she is chasing something. 

    A humorous narrator takes us through her whimsical decisions after leaving high school. She begins as a surgical student, a subject she enrolled in purely because it’s hard to get accepted, before wish-washing her way to photography, where she finds at least some purpose. Then, she meets a comic book artist at a party, and her life is changed forever. His name is Aksel (Anders Danielsen Lie), and he quickly enamours the much younger Julie. Here we realise the film’s structure is in 12 chapters, each easing us through her life. 

    Before we know it, we are in the midst of something rather unique. On the surface, Trier’s film is a rom-com, home to both true belly laughs and dazzling romance. And yet, it’s also a coming-of-age film with no clear path as to how our heroine comes of age; we just feel she has by the end. When I say no clear path, a lot does happen; it just doesn’t all correlate to changing her ways. The most crucial moment is when she meets Eivind (Herbert Nordrum), the second man she falls for. 

    The romance aspect of the film is at its strongest between Eivind and Julie. Their meeting is a classic romantic evening where the two push the boundaries of what is acceptable to do between two strangers and have it not called cheating. It’s intoxicating and perfectly idealised. And when they decide, to hell with it, they want to be together and not with anyone else, Trier stops time for them in one of my favourite sequences of the year. It’s all brilliantly done. 

    But that’s only one side of the coin, the fun part, the part we all wish our lives could be all of the time. Aksel takes us through the other side, the heartbreaking side. He’s a bemused man when he gets dumped. He’s middle-aged now, and despite that, this young woman seems like all he’s ever known. They fight and plead, it’s not pretty, but it’s real. And then he leaves the narrative with almost a cut to black to be replaced, and just when we think that is that, he returns. 

    The final two chapters of the film reunite Aksel and Julie under tragic circumstances, and if she comes of age anywhere specifically, it’s here. I won’t go into the detail, but they find the closure their relationship lacked and deal with the consequences of lost love. Seeing them fall apart the way they do is incredibly moving, and Lie, in particular, will make tears in any theatre flow. Fluttering through life is nothing to be ashamed of, but even so, reality catches up with all of us, and that is what Julie learns harshly. 

    So, when the credits roll, it’s hard not to feel like you’ve just seen something near perfect. A concoction of both sweet and sour with maybe a pinch of some secret ingredient to bring it all together, a recipe it would seem results in one of the finest films of the year. Perhaps what will stay with you the most is just how relatable Julie can often be because we’ve all coasted around at some point, even if only for a little while. When those final two chapters come, many audience members will receive the blunt realisations Julie does. I know I did.

    The Worst Person in the World marks a wonderful achievement for Joachim Trier and his cast, and it should become the measuring stick by which all modern Rom-Coms are measured. 

  • Titane: SFF Review

    Titane: SFF Review

    I try to frame my reviews around themes the film I’m talking about touches upon and discuss how or if it enhances those themes’ discourses. Julia Ducournau’s second feature Titane is not a film I can discuss this way because it’s not about anything and never truly correlates to reality. Instead, Titane is a product of unhinged and gory auteurism, like if Leos Carax directed a Cronenberg film. And in saying this, I feel I must note that I do not enjoy the films of Carax but do enjoy Cronenberg’s — I think that sums up most of my issues. 

    Titane is the odyssey of Alexia (Agathe Rousselle), an exotic dancer we meet working a car show. She provocatively dances in front of hordes of men, and it becomes apparent she’s very popular. All seems normal until she brutally murders a man who aggressively comes on to her. Eventually, we discover this isn’t a one-time thing, Alexia is a serial killer, one who generally kills without rhyme or reason, and it only gets weirder from there. It also gets harder to talk about. 

    See, Ducournau only really has one gimmick with Titane: shock value. Everything after the first murder is entirely nonsensical, and yet to say anything specific as to what happens would defeat the whole purpose of the film, because many will adore its socking strangeness, but only when sprung on them in the moment. So, here’s what I will say. There are brutal murders and countless eye closing moments (the legend of how many people fainted during my screening has gone up to 20). But there’s also nothing to connect with, nothing to cheer on or empathise with. 

    You can’t cheer for Alexia; she’s a psychopath. And yet, when Titane begins to feign depth by introducing a father/child relationship with Vincent (Vincent Lindon), an aging firefighter, Ducournau appears to ask us to root for her newfound family. No matter which way you spin it, this is odd, and I just couldn’t be taken in by it. Vincent himself is very endearing. He’s a man who lost his son ten years ago, but he’s never stopped looking for him, and in this aspect, you can at the very least root for him, but other aspects make this avenue unattainable too. 

    All the while, as they slowly connect and we’re looking for anything to relate to, Alexia is changing. She is constantly suffering due to an interaction that is both a spoiler and beyond logical comprehension. But the suffering is supernatural and slowly destroys her body. Her methods of dealing with what’s happening to her ultimately become far more disturbing than any of the horrors she commits upon others. Which only begs the question of why? Why make something so twisted and leave it meaningless? Wickedly entertaining at times and funny at others, yet always crying out for an answer to that question; I still don’t have it.

    But, for all the silliness, over the top violence and fake attempts at meaning, Titane remains impeccably crafted. Ducournau’s style is as much of a rollercoaster as her narrative but to a vastly more significant effect. She effortlessly swings the pendulum from dread-inducing brutality to genuinely funny interactions many times throughout the film. And perhaps what is most impressive is her conviction to the wildest parts of her story. Everything is displayed as viscerally as possible, which means all the body horror her fans crave forces its way front and centre pulling no shots. It’s a conviction that earns my respect and allows me to understand why this film has garnered the praise it has, but it wasn’t enough to win me over.

    Roger Ebert once saw similar issues in the work of David Lynch, most famously in Blue Velvet. Later in life, he became a great admirer of the man. I suppose he saw his films from a new point of view and found some enlightenment. I find Titane cruel, bizarre, and empty, but I still respect it, and I hope one day to find that same enlightenment because if there is something here to love, I want to love it too.