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Intrigo: Dear Agnes – Review.

What is a human life worth? How is it possible that a woman like Agnes (Carla Juni) could agree to kill another human being? Is it the money? Or are there other forces at play? A funeral. A young widow and two adult children. Agnes is burying her much older husband and the children are his, not hers. Agnes senses that someone is watching her and glimpses a woman roughly her own age standing nearby. Within seconds, the woman is gone. They were once very close, Agnes and Henny (Gemma Chan). A friendship both rewarding and demanding, which ended in disaster. Now Henny seeks reconciliation.

But Agnes seems cautious. Agnes is completely thrown by Henny’s proposal. Henny is married to David and asks Agnes to help her murder him. She’s prepared to pay good money and also to let Agnes choose the manner in which David is to die. Agnes realizes that the past has caught up with her and that she has no choice. What really happened between Agnes and Henny in Bruges all those years ago? How could it be that two people who enjoyed one another’s company so much, could end up hurting each other so badly? They, who had loved each other so much.

The Intrigo trilogy so far has been quite frustrating with me, especially the first two. They all have such terrific concepts that end up ultimately going to waste. The writing in each of them manages to handle the stories in such sloppy ways that make you disappointed knowing what the potential could have been.

With that being said, however, I have noticed over the course of these three movies that they slowly get better as each movie passes. The weakest one of the bunch is without a doubt the first, Death of an Author. It was painfully complex and ridiculously sloppy. Samaria was a step-up but still not enough to impress. Thankfully, in a shocking twist, Dear Agnes is not only the best entry of the trilogy, but it is actually a good movie.

A large part of why this is is due to the screenplay. It’s heaps and bounds better than the stories we got previously. Yes, it still plays out in the traditional style of each Intrigo film before it, but it’s either I have gotten used to this style of storytelling now, or the plotline here was actually interesting. Some part of me thinks it’s both.

Daniel Alfredson and Birgitta Bongenhielm wrote the screenplay for Dear Agnes. A screenplay that, much like the others, takes a bit to get going, but eventually gets genuinely interesting. I felt a true connection to the characters this time around because they were actually fully developed.

Before even going in to watch this movie, I was already a little bit excited knowing that Gemma Chan was in the film as one of the lead characters. Chan is not new to the field, starring in high-profile pictures such as Crazy Rich Asians, Captain Marvel, and Transformers: The Last Knight. Her acting abilities have always impressed me, and they did once more here. She is powerful and raw as Henny, a character that mourns for the past and struggled with her friendship with Agnes. The way her story was presented was very detailed and thought-provoking.

But in addition to Chan, all of the other actors do a great job and have amazing chemistry with one another, namely Carla Juri and Jamie Sives. Together, they all three deliver strong performances in a movie that is finally deserving of their incredible acting talents.

I suppose the story could have delved a little bit deeper and could have taken these characters to even darker places, but the story we already got was still surprisingly fun and gripping to watch. Finally, we have a good Intrigo movie. It’s just a shame that its the last one.

Dear Agnes, the final installment in the Intrigo trilogy, finally manages to tell a compelling enough story worthy of its incredible actors.

Judy and Punch is a curious film. It’s the reimagining of the quite problematic childhood puppet show some of us will remember, Punch and Judy, told from Judy’s perspective. It’s frightfully violent, darkly comic but doesn’t quite succeed in being the feminist film it attempts to be.

The story is based on the Victorian puppet show Punch (Damon Herriman) and Judy (Mia Wasikowska). Except for this time, it is Judy’s story that takes front and centre and the title of the film accurately reflects that Judy’s name comes first. The story is set in the fictional town of Seaside. Judy is the master puppeteer yet Punch is the whose ambition drives the show. He is the showman but through his recklessness and alcoholism, tragedy strikes and worst still, he lies to try and save himself.

This film is brought to us by writer/director Mirrah Foulkes. It is interesting seeing Judy through a woman’s gaze and these two characters are well rounded. It is equal billing. She manages to tell a story without it descending into preachy melodrama. In no small part is she aided by brilliant performances by the entire cast. The cinematography adds to the dark dramatic comedy that this film sits in and is sublime.

The first half of the film is told at a cracking pace and the level of violence that Judy and Punch dole out on each other appears commonplace in Seaside society where women are hung for witchcraft without proof etc. The main problem with this film is that Judy is not in it for quite a chunk of time and that means we, the audience, almost forget about her. When she does reappear we can guess what will happen and it leads to us guessing what the ending will be.

For all its flaws, Judy and Punch is a timely examination of social norms that have long stood commonplace, men being believed over women no matter how flawed the man, low level violence and mob hysteria. It is only a shame that Judy wasn’t in the film more.

Judy and Punch is available to stream now.

Science and religion are subjects that rarely ever meet, let alone have anything in common. It’s said that the difference between scientists and theologians is that theologians have all the answers and scientists are still looking. So, it may surprise people that The Dalai Lama has been interested in science ever since he was a child.

The Dalai Lama: Scientist is a documentary that looks at the way that his holiness sees the world through both science and religion and attempts to put the two together to make sense of the wider world.

Through interviews with his holiness himself and footage from interviews and discussions between scientists and The Dalai Lama, The Dalai Lama: Scientist explores in intricate detail the different aspects of both science and religion through subjects such as quantum physics, neurobiology and Buddhist philosophy.

After a short, but interesting interview with his holiness the documentary soon goes into the various discussions between some of the world’s most renowned scientists and The Dalai Lama. Unfortunately, this takes up the bulk of the documentary and there’s a lot to take in for an audience who are looking for a casual and uplifting documentary about two very different views of life finding a connection.

The documentary is narrated very dryly, only talking about what The Dalai Lama has said and done, with very little room for his holiness to speak for himself. It’s only through the discussions that the audience gets a true feeling of his personality, his presence and the devotion that his followers have for him.

There are also a lot of moments during the documentary where it briefly stops to put up cards with bullet points, making the documentary feel more like an educational video for a class, making the audience feel like a student in a class rather than an adult interested in the subject.

It would have perhaps been more interesting to hear more about how science has influenced The Dalai Lama’s life personally, but it seems that the documentary has a set quota to fill. So, before the audience has time to contemplate the points raised by the parts of the documentary, it moves on.

The Dalai Lama: Scientist may be interesting for those students studying philosophy, science or theology, but for an audience looking to absorb more about one of the world’s most respected religious leaders, it gives the audience far too much all at once with little time to breathe.

Angelfish: Another Review – Summer in the Bronx, 1993. Brendan (Jimi Stanton) is a troubled but hard-working high school drop-out with a manipulative mother and a brother on the verge of self-destruction. Eva (Princess Nokia) is a bright, young woman about to start college in the fall, but with the pressure to make her family proud clashing with her own secret hopes and dreams for the future. Sparks fly when the two meet, and their respective worlds collide. As the young couple’s relationship develops, their home lives and dreams for the future threaten to tear their new and fragile love apart.

Peter Andrew Lee’s Angelfish starts off a little bit rocky. We get jolted fairly quickly into a scene in which Brendan is shown working at a deli that he doesn’t really enjoy working at, but does so because he is in need of money and it is the only job that he can get at the moment. One day on a regular shift, a customer, Eva, walks in and starts to get catcalled by a man. Brendan sticks up for her, and he instantly develops quite the crush on Eva, and it seems as though she feels the same way about him, too.

This is perhaps the biggest issue with the film and one of the reasons why it took a little while to get into it. The whole movie revolves around their relationship and the tries and tribulations that they must go through in order to keep their relationship afloat. However, for a long time, it felt as though these two really weren’t meant for each other. After all, they just met at a deli and barely said more than a few words to one another.

Luckily though, the script that Lee wrote ultimately fleshed them out a lot more by the time the second act comes into play. From that point onward, the movie became not only much more entertaining and genuinely funny and sweet, but it became much more believable as to why these two liked each other.

One of the reasons why I eventually ended up caring for our two lead protagonists was due to the excellent performances that Jimi Stanton and Princess Nokia give. Together, they exude brilliant chemistry and have a terrific screen presence. They genuinely felt as though they had known each other in real life for many years, and working on this film together was natural for them.

In addition to them, this is just a beautiful movie to look at as well. Director of photography Jamal Solomon presents a ton of lush scenery as well as run-down city roads in a brilliant manner. Everything stands out greatly to the point where I genuinely cannot recall a single bland-looking shot here.

As a whole, Lee has managed to craft a love story that, at first, seemed a bit jarring and a little unbelievable. Thankfully though, he turns it around fairly quickly into a genuinely compelling tale of two people falling in love and tells it in a sweet and charming way.

Angelfish has a rocky start but ultimately develops into a genuinely sweet and compassionate film with excellent performances from Jimi Stanton and Princess Nokia.