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  • Servant: AppleTV+ Review

    Servant: AppleTV+ Review

    Dorothy (Lauren Ambrose) and Sean Turner (Toby Kebbell) are an upper middle class, ambitious couple who have just invited somebody new into their lives. Dorothy has given birth to a son, Jericho, but sadly after only a few months Jericho dies.

    Dorothy’s therapist suggests they use a support doll to help them through the grieving process, however as time goes on the Turners decide to hire a nanny, Leanne (Nell Tiger Free) to look after Jericho. Everything’s going well and Leanne even takes to their ‘baby’ as if he were real, but soon Sean starts to realise that Leanne is having a strong influence on not only their lives, but that of their son’s as well.

    Servant is a suspenseful drama with elements of horror created by Tony Basgallop and executive produced by M. Night Shyamalan. A slow burn drama, Servant takes its audience through the lives of the Turners with each episode asking more questions than it would like to answer. Something that has worked in other television dramas, but may divide audiences.

    Filmed in a style that has the trademark of Shyamalan’s work, Servant is a mostly quiet melodrama with elements of comedy which help to lighten the mood a just the right moments.

    A high note is Dorothy’s brother, Julian (Rupert Grint), rough around the edges and not always concerned with responsibility, Julian offers a lot of memorable scenes and audiences may never think of Grint in the same way again.

    The class divide between the Turners and Leanne (who Sean refers to as staff) is clear and the entitlement that they have due to their expensive lifestyle may lead the audience to believe that they may be getting what they deserve, but Servant never goes that way.

    Instead a constant feeling that something is wrong with everything about the Turners and indeed Leanne’s presence hangs in the air throughout the entire show. Patience is something that is needed by an audience that watches Servant, but if they hang in there they will be rewarded by great performances and a suspenseful and unexpectedly funny script that will leave the audience wanting more.

  • Omehabiba Khan: A Quick Chat

    Omehabiba Khan: A Quick Chat

    Omehabiba Khan: A Quick Chat. By Eleanor Klein. – Omehabiba Khan is currently one of the biggest beauty influencers in the Midwest. Hailing from Chicago, Ome has grown her social media platforms exponentially in the past few years. Now juggling several projects such as her own dating show Rishti Live and her own marketing agency, we had the opportunity to catch up with her!

    How did you get into being a social media influencer?
    It started with my love of being in front of the camera and editing videos like music videos. 

    Did you always want to be a social media influencer?
    I knew I wanted to be someone that was going to make the change!

    What has been your greatest experience in the industry and why? Meeting inspirational people like Huda, Alya, and Mona Kattan. It’s inspiring to see women with similar upbringing and culture build an empire.

    What is the best piece of advice you have ever been given?
    Turn your negative energy as fuel to drive it into a positive one.

    What advice would you give to anyone looking to enter the influencer industry?
    If anyone doesn’t want you to do it, it’s because they afraid to see you do better then them. So DO IT!

    You can follow Omehabiba on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/ome/?hl=en

  • The Roads Not Taken: Review

    The Roads Not Taken: Review

    In The Roads Not Taken, seasoned filmmaker Sally Potter shows us an uneventful and often nonsensical day in the life of dementia sufferer Leo (Javier Bardem), as his daughter Molly (Elle Fanning) takes him to the dentist and the optometrist.  Leo frequently loses himself in various memories, as he relives his past with first love Dolores (Salma Hayek) and ex-wife Rita (Laura Linney), as well as some time he spent writing alone in Greece. 

    Potter’s latest work is perhaps her most personal yet, dedicated to her brother Nic, who suffered from a form of dementia himself, but the film sadly misses the mark both thematically and narratively, delivered with little panache and a confused sense of ambiguity. 

    One of the biggest issues here is in the way that those around Leo treat him; his illness is neither manageable nor his own fault, but you’d be forgiven for thinking otherwise on several occasions. Medical professionals seemingly have little patience for him, and his ex-wife and friend, Rita, seems to have made her peace with the fact that he’s no longer the man she once knew. Molly mostly seems to love and care for her father, but even she seemingly renders him a nuisance at times, and when so few characters appear to have empathy for the man, it’s hard for an audience to feel any, either. 

    Where The Roads Not Taken completely loses its focus is in the apparent hallucinogenic experiences that Leo has throughout, all of which are both cliché-driven and bizarre, wherein Potter tries to inject some ambiguity into a work that feels all too obvious. The film’s message is abundantly clear, both from within the narrative and from the title itself, so Potter’s solution for this appears to be multiple out-of-place surrealist imagery designed to do little more than impress, none of which are as clever or profound as she would like them to be. 

    It wouldn’t be fair to say that the film lacks any strengths; it’s stacked with strong performances from talented actors, all doing what they can to elevate the messy material. Bardem is more than convincing in the central role, while Fanning is a natural presence as always, and Linney and Hayek do excellent work with what little they have, but none are able to mask a work that is both empty in its compassion and lacking in its execution. It is a slow and arduous journey to a disappointing destination, devoid of any real heart or soul, both of which are imperative for a story like this to work. 

    The Roads Not Taken is a film that will undoubtedly resonate with those who have had similar experiences, but will likely fail to captivate an audience looking for anything more than personal reflection; a deeply personal work with nothing meaningful to say about its subject. 

  • Amazing Stories: AppleTV+ Review

    Amazing Stories: AppleTV+ Review

    Amazing Stories is the reboot of the Steven Spielberg series from 1985, once again executive produced by Spielberg himself. An anthology series comprising of five episodes in its first season, each episode takes a very different story with different directors and writers and is now available on AppleTV+.

    Each episode takes a light hearted and yet dramatic science fiction and fantasy inspired story. However, if the first episode entitled The Cellar is anything to go by, then Amazing Stories is pleasant enough, but not exactly must-see TV.

    Sam (Dylan O’ Brian) and his brother Jake Taylor (Micah Stock) work in construction and spend their time exploring old houses in order to renovate them for new home owners. Sam isn’t really into the work though, preferring to go out on dates than do a hard day’s work.

    Then one day while the Taylors are going through one of their houses, Sam finds an old box which holds an old sepia photograph of a beautiful woman in a wedding dress. A storm’s brewing, so Sam and Jake board up the house, but when Sam goes into the basement and sees the barometer pressure going off the scale, he’s transported back in time to 1919 where he meets, Evelyn Porter (Victoria Pedretti) the beautiful woman in the photo.

    The Cellar is the pilot episode of Amazing Stories and perhaps a good indication of the style and tone of the series, giving the audience a taste of what to expect. Unfortunately, it feels like the story hasn’t been given enough time (no pun intended) to run its story isn’t given long enough to make much of an impact.

    It also feels like the audience may have seen this story before as it feels like a cross between an episode of Quantum Leap, Back to The Future and 80’s time travel romance Somewhere in Time starring Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour. Quite early on it’s evident as to where the story is going and the dramatic turns are done on the turn of a dime, but the ending does at least try to give it one more twist.

    However, when this ending comes the audience may wish they’d have watched something more exciting instead.

  • Oleander: Review

    Oleander: Review

    By Thomas White. 

    Oleander is the story of a precocious teenager and her rebellion against the religious principles of her Christian abstinence program. 

    Narrated by voiceover we witness her acting out, her resistance manifested by flaunting her sexual promiscuity and showing disregard for any form of authority, although it is never made clear why she does not simply stop attending these meetings. Instead she writes a popular social media blog recounting her narcissistic exploits. 

    However, angsty teenage behaviour aside, we do feel an empathy for the character. Emily Robinson plays the role with honesty and a free-spirited nature which is hard not to warm to. Presented with her outlook, seeing the other characters from her viewpoint, we naturally gravitate towards taking her side, regardless of her naïve attitude. 

    Peri Gilpin brings solemnity to her performance as the evangelistic mediator of the group meetings, her own neediness and desperation straining out behind an overly beseeching facade. 

    This is only increased by the presence of a camerawoman, played by Jennifer LaFleur, who is simultaneously filming the meetings for a promotional documentary. She, we are told via Oleander’s voiceover, does not conform to the faith but operates as a neutral party. Although we follow the story principally through Oleander’s eyes, it is this outsider to whom we can look for an unbiased viewpoint as events unfold. Professional to a fault, her ultimate service is to that of the director, carrying out the job ruthlessly and by any means necessary, whatever the emotional cost. 

    These two opposing endeavours, the holy righteous documentary and the irreverent online posts, are equally about self-promotion. Both represent the same thing, the sense of having some sort of control over life’s insecurities. 

    https://vimeo.com/381253052/7f0f5cfc8c

    Religion and media are the driving themes, incorporating with them trust, betrayal, sex, power, ego, and other complexities normally associated with them. By using two of the most powerful organisations and mediums used to influence society, director Kate Hackett has a rich emotional palette with which to tell a simple but effective, clever and unexpected story. 

    What we initially take at face value turns into a deeper, manipulative plot, a deception we allow ourselves to accept readily, much in the same way as those seeking an established construct to which to devoutly conform. 

    Without giving too much away, Hackett plays just as much with the audience’s mind as she does with Oleander’s distorted emergence by the film’s unpredicted conclusion, a fate dictated by those with the practical skills and tools to influence minds. It pulls at the emotional heartstrings, doing a cut and paste job of our preconceived ideas of formal narrative emphasis and human understanding, leading to a satisfying payoff.