film reviews, interviews, features | BRWC

Author: Mark Goodyear

  • The Eyes Of Tammy Faye: The BRWC Review

    The Eyes Of Tammy Faye: The BRWC Review

    Faith is murky. It’s a subject film specialises in because it’s a wonderful medium in which to explore faith, especially from the outside looking in. And considering the topic is taboo in general conversation, that’s a rather handy resource. However, filmmakers must tread lightly, for a misstep in this realm can leave their work hollow and insulting. The worst examples of this are works that look to the wrong aspects of faith, and one such misplaced look is through The Eyes of Tammy Faye.

    Michael Showalter’s feature delves into the world of televangelism, particularly the lives of two of the biggest televangelists ever, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker (Andrew Garfield & Jessica Chastain). The tale begins as one of love. Jim and Tammy meet in college and fall for each other instantly after it becomes apparent they both have unconventional feelings about faith. Soon after, they marry and settle into a life that provides the grassroots for their future empire. The genesis of which comes down to a puppet called Susie Moppet. You see, with this hand puppet Tammy and Jim put on shows for children, shows about how to find God’s love. And thus, the first domino falls with an ember.

    This ember sparks an incomprehensible blaze in the form of the PTL Network, the home of the Bakker’s televangelist programs and the cause of all their great wealth. That wealth ultimately causes the Bakker’s downfall, and it’s precisely where these people and the film turn sour. No matter how you look at the programming on PTL, it was a scam. A scam Jim may have primarily operated, but a scam most certainly capitalised on by Tammy. It takes a grand amount of ignorance to look at the exorbitant lives they buy for themselves and conclude Jim is the only person at fault. And yet that’s exactly what happens, and in doing so, Showalter tosses around a redemption never earned. Yes, Tammy had a unique and inspiring view of Christianity, but for all the times she used it for good, like her famous interview with an AIDS patient, she would perverse it into a negative through life in her giant mansion funded through lies and manipulation. 

    Eventually, Showalter’s film dissolves into a headscratcher, one tragically host to two of the year’s best performances. Chastain shines under layers upon layers of prosthetics and make-up, and Garfield is firmly her equal as he goes about being a master manipulator destined to fall. Together, they are the only true redeeming quality as they tread the formulaic grounds with unending charisma. And this is enough for the first portion of the film to get by, the part before they’ve done anything wrong. But as we trudge through to the drama, things don’t add up in favour of The Eyes of Tammy Faye ever being necessary to make. Have we run out of people to glorify to the extent that shady televangelists need to be painted across the silver screen? I don’t think so. 

    The Eyes of Tammy Faye is an unfortunately misguided affair that celebrates a figure history has granted no valid reason to celebrate, and as such, it fails in the attempt.

  • King Richard: The BRWC Review

    King Richard: The BRWC Review

    Some people are capable of mind-boggling levels of belief. Martyrs epitomise this, for the courage it would take to believe that much is truly incomprehensible. But stories of unwavering certainty don’t always end so tragically. Some are simply beautiful and uplifting, yet baffling in just as many ways. Reinaldo Marcus Green’s latest feature King Richard tells one such story, and it just so happens to be about the father of two of the greatest and most famous tennis players of all time, Venus and Serena Williams (Saniyya Sidney & Demi Singleton).

    Upon King Richard’s announcement, people were confused about why the film would be about Richard Williams (Will Smith) and not his massively successful and inspirational daughters. The answer there is simple: their stories are ongoing, and beyond even that, the final product is just as much about the sisters as it is their father, and it even adds their just as brilliant mother Brandi (an excellent Aunjanue Ellis). 

    We first meet the pair as children in the streets of Compton training solely under the tutelage of their parents. It’s a rough atmosphere seeing Richard often in harm’s way to protect all five of his daughters. But none of that matters to him, because Richard has a plan designed to summit Venus and Serena atop the sporting pantheon and into the realm of immortality. So, we follow everything he lays out to an ending we know is coming, yet it works. 

    Richard believes in his plan to a fault, so much so that it’s what drives the entire family’s day to day life. Training is a family affair with all five sisters coming out to help Serena and Venus hone their craft — because there’s no one left at home to watch them, and the inconvenience is a small price to pay. The sheer amount of drive he puts upon them quickly dawns an intense realisation: had the sisters failed, this would have been far too much pressure to put on children. But they didn’t, and recalling this is what gives this film its greatest strengths. It’s almost like he really knew. That God granted otherworldly clairvoyance to him, and he simply knew his daughters would be great. And as farfetched as this is, and as heavy-handed as the script can be with it, Smith’s work is so powerful he makes it believable.

    Smith has rarely failed to display his raw talent in his now long-spanning career, yet he delivers what might be his finest performance ever in King Richard. From the tennis courts to their crowded home, Smith dominates the screen with Richard’s enigmatic presence, a presence devoted to displaying the pure love a man can have for his daughters. 

    Where some issues arise is in the formulaic approach. Green isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel here; he’s not trying much at all. For the most part, he’s happy to get by on the tried and tested biopic format, and it can get frustrating at times. It’s particularly disappointing when recalling he utilised the same approach when blundering his last film, Joe Bell. But ultimately, King Richard is a testament to the old format because it proves once again that it still works. For every unintentional echo of another film in the same vein, Green produces a singularly poignant moment for the sisters. 

    It’s these heart-warming moments that make King Richard so worthwhile. There may be a lot of films made like this one, but there aren’t many stories out there like it, so it remains irresistibly evocative. The only similar tale coming to mind is told in Rachel Griffith’s Ride Like a Girl, a picture with similar drawbacks that manages to get by on the remarkable true story.

    King Richard is the crowd-pleaser of the year. It may be a little too happy to exist in the realm of the classic biopic formula, but the story and the central performance are both too great to overlook.

  • The Last Duel: The BRWC Review

    The Last Duel: The BRWC Review

    Honour is a dangerous thing. It’s not inherently masculine, though it’s most formidable when bickered upon between men. In matters of honour, we become reckless; no one wants to appear lesser than anyone else, and when this sensation links to issues of desire, the laws of logic and reason by which we rule ourselves often fade. Of course, this is not a blanket occurrence, some men don’t see the need to be so foolhardy, but the men of Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel most certainly do. And even though these men have the direst of reasons to fight for honour, they come to encompass how doing so can make us so weak.

    Inspiring Scott’s latest are true events which transpired in the 1300s between Sir Jean de Carrouges (Matt Damon), his wife Marguerite (Jodie Comer) and his old friend Jacques Le Gris (Adam Driver). Once told, it’s a gruesome tale, and to get the full scope, we go through three chapters. First is from the perspective of Carrouges, second from Le Gris and third from Marguerite. Each treads familiar ground, uncovering layers and providing conflicting accounts of the horrific event at the core. Said event being the heinous rape of Marguerite at the hands of Le Gris, over which the men fight the titular duel. However, the storytelling goes far beyond this. It begins with the two men as comrade squires riding to battle and continues long into the formation of grievances between them, all as Carrouges meets and marries Marguerite, eventually leaving her vulnerable to the womanising Le Gris.

    The strongest of the three retellings is by far Marguerite’s, but there’s a wonderful nuance that comes across solely in the first two. Despite beginning friends, the pair are quickly at odds when Pierre d’Alençon (A hilarious Ben Affleck) gifts land to Le Gris that was to have gone to Carrouges as a part of Margurite’s dowry. Everything up to this point is relatively inconsequential, yet Scott still ensures he tells most of it in both chapters. In doing so, he uncovers the small things men like this lie about solely for the sake of honour, like who saved who amid bloody and reckless battle. Further in this point only grows until it becomes apparent within these two acts that both men are wholly ruled by their self-image, leaving quite a haunting sensation at the realisation that the small lies grew so dangerously. And when rumours spread of the accusations against Le Gris, the toxicity which they impose upon themselves leads them to a battle to the death.

    Yet, Marguerite remains only a tool for the two men to hate each other because the structure leaves her without a voice two-thirds of the way in. Instead, we see Carrouges’ account which depicts him being far kinder and noble to his wife than she recalls, and Le Gris’ retelling has a partial and very disturbing insinuation that she wanted what he did to her. All this changes in the third act. Here what was beginning to feel like an incomplete film becomes whole as Marguerite opens the doors for us to get to the truth. And as she does, Jodie Comer delivers one of the finest performances of the year, one where you can’t pinpoint the specific moment in which it becomes great; it simply does. Through her telling of events, we see how the hubris of the men before her ruined our mosaic with falsehoods. Most impactful of all, the trial and duel are only included in her part, and it shows how, despite initially wanting to fight for justice, Carrouges begins to use her as a pawn for his own battle, that formidable battle to protect his honour. 

    All in all, The Last Duel is a remarkable outing from a veteran director who approaches a genre he knows well with a wholly new lens forged in the modern-day. When doing such a thing, it could be easy to try and force old with new, but Scott rises above this and produces work that cuts deep into the weaknesses of men and marks eerie parallels to the world today.

  • The Wheel: TIFF21 Review

    The Wheel: TIFF21 Review

    Young love is one of the cruellest sensations we can experience. The ignorance of youth twists even the purity of cupids bow into a ticking time bomb, preparing to turn lust to ash and joy to tears. However, a select few find destiny doesn’t want them to follow such a path, for they have the blessing of what the dreamers call true love. Cinema is enamoured with this concept — the idea of two people being star-crossed baffles many of cinema’s greats, and countless films poignantly explore how true love is and isn’t possible. Steve Pink’s latest feature, The Wheel, is one such endeavour to delve into this realm as he tackles the marriage troubles of Albee (Amber Midthunder) and Walker (Taylor Gray), a pair of 24-year-olds who married when they were 16 in Texas. So, it’s safe to say this new ground for the director of Hot Tub Time Machine.

    We meet Albee and Walker as they sit on the precipice of their lives falling apart. They are driving up into picturesque mountains as conversation reveals the two are taking their trip to try and save their marriage. Upon arriving at their Airbnb, they meet the only other two characters of importance, Carly (Bethany Anne Lind) and Ben (Nelson Lee), a slightly older couple just about to tie the knot. The second they meet, Albee abruptly informs Carly why they are in town and so begins her plans to try and keep the couple together; because if there’s one way to describe Carly, it’s as a dreamer.

    But of course, things don’t go to the way she’d hoped, and the troubles between Albee and Walker prove to cut deep, and all the while, cracks form in Carly’s perception of Ben. This is all presented as the quartet revolves around one another; Ben meets Albee in a bar, Walker offers to help Carly build the altar for her wedding. In these little moments, you begin to feel the raw sadness of The Wheel. Walker is the sweetest, most loving protagonist I have seen in a long time, and next to him, Albee is only a cruel and broken husk who has forgotten, or never even truly knew, how to love. Their tragedy juxtaposed against Carly and Ben’s disintegrating happiness almost makes for something too melodramatic. But with a steadiness we have yet to see from him before, Pink plants a flag on his uneven ground and says yes, he will break our hearts, but maybe he’ll put them back together too.

    From here, they come together in an explosion and things spiral to the conclusion where the pairs face their ultimatums. In between are one or two very effective needle drops, and a limitless amount of outstanding cinematography by Bella Gonzales, with a special mention deservedly going to the titular Ferris wheel, which is gorgeous.

    What I can say without offering spoilers is that the performances are incredibly moving. Midthunder walks the tightest rope of all four as Albee digs her toxic claws into almost every scene, but the person underneath still shines through when she needs to. When this occurs, her performance becomes one of brilliantly subtle complexity. On the other hand, Lind and Lee are called upon to offer some very different elements to the picture. Carly represents everyone who wants true love but isn’t sure if they can ever find it and Lind wholly encompasses her with a great sympathy that shines throughout, especially when she’s trying to help Walker. Ben is very much the other side of the coin, he’s nowhere and everywhere simultaneously, and it becomes abundantly clear he doesn’t know what he wants. It’s almost scary how well Lee pulls this off as he slowly reveals more and more about Ben’s true nature.

    But it is Gray who steals the show. You can’t help but feel for Walker. At every turn, it never seems like he is doing anything other than loving Albee. And this isn’t an obsessive thing. He’s not creepy about it. He’s pure and loving and kind and just doing what anyone would do; taking his last chance to win back the love of his life because he believes down to his soul his young love was true. Gray paints all this passionately across the screen, and in the final scene alongside Midthunder, they tare your heart from your chest, cementing theirs as fantastic performances. 

    The Wheel is a moving inspection of the complexities of love that succeeds in no small part thanks to the immense talent of its cast. 

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ND9dnlN-S2s
  • Our Friend: Review

    Our Friend: Review

    The classic tearjerker is often so much more now. The psyche of sadness has become much more of a focus, and the grand melodrama that made countless tears fall for decades are becoming rarer and rarer. Of course, they still exist, they’ve just been enhanced. Take Lulu Wang’s The Farewell (2019) or Barry Jenkins’ If Beal Street Could Talk (2018). Both are setting out to make you cry, but they also do so much more than that. The classics I’m talking about are Titanic or The Notebook; they don’t make em’ like that anymore. And whilst not quite so epic, Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s The Friend is a heartbreaking true story presented through the lens of the classic tearjerker. 

    Our Friend is about a trio of people connected through the hardest period of their lives. Nicole (Dakota Johnson) and Matt (Casey Affleck) seem to be living their dream; married, kids, a house, and jobs they have a passion for. Then it happens. In one moment, the dream is shattered; Nicole is diagnosed with cancer. We see all this as a mosaic, jumping through time to ultimately gain the full picture. And the most important part of that picture comes when, while caring for his two daughters and his ailing wife, everything becomes too much for Matt. Enter Dane (Jason Segel), Nicole and Matt’s best friend from college. From here begins the evocative tale of a man doing all he can to hold the pieces of a struggling family together for no personal gain. 

    This specific type of heartbreak is not easy to turn to film. There’s something cruelly personal about cancer despite its all-encompassing nature. So, showing this intense distortion of family life can be hard to make watchable. But with an ever-steady hand, Cowperthwaite skillfully finds the balance between emotion and perversion to deliver a raw and moving experience. And the key to this success lies in the ever-capable hands of the brilliant Jason Segel. Yes, this is a role very much cast to type, but when an actor exudes so much kindness as he does, why not keep him in similar roles? It is this very kindness that flows through Our Friend like a soothing current, ushering it into the realm of genuine poignancy.

    Beside him, Johnson and Affleck are unflinching in their depictions. This is still very much a sanitised movie depiction of cancer. But, two or three moments arise where the pair, alongside Isabella Kai and Violet McGraw, who play their daughters, create evocative moments, highlighting where Our Friend is at its strongest. Not when dealing directly with the consequences of having cancer on an individual, which is only really shown at the end. But more how cancer destroys everything on the periphery as well: picking up the kids late from school, not cleaning the house in months, and most harrowingly of all, having to explain it all to your children. In those moments, Cowperthwaite finds true insight and justifies telling this story the same way the original article did.

    The issues arise in the length of the picture. On paper, 124 minutes for such a story seems justified, but once you’re in the midst of it, things begin to drag ever so slightly. This is most felt anytime the characters deal with the affair subplot Nicole and Matt take us through. It’s handled with the least gravitas of any aspect of the movie, and it fails to amount to anything important. And while it’s a vital part of the true story, I can’t help but feel it should have been cut and replaced with more on how Dane gave up his life and home to help his friends, a subplot only briefly dealt with. 

    Our Friend is a powerful true story of human kindness. And although it may drag, the exceptional work of three leads makes it well worth watching.