film reviews, interviews, features | BRWC

Category: REVIEWS

Here is where you would find our film reviews on BRWC.  We look at on trailers, shorts, indies and mainstream.  We love movies!

  • Sunny Side-Up: Review

    Sunny Side-Up: Review

    Gregory Samuel (Hunter Davis) is a funeral director and has to deal with people every day – dead or alive. Greg does seem to prefer the company of his client’s dearly departed though as he has social anxiety that makes him question every little thing he says and does.

    Then one day after a mishap at work, Greg’s boss suggests that he takes some time off from work to gather his thoughts and get himself sorted out. The trouble is that Greg lives alone and with only his thoughts to keep him company, that sounds like a fate worse than death.

    Greg tries his best to stay busy, but boredom starts to settle in and that constant voice of self-doubt just won’t stop. Then he meets Emma (Samantha Marie Creed) and by her pure force of will, she eventually gets to know Greg and soon he starts to realise that perhaps some risks are worth taking.

    Sunny Side-Up is a feel-good comedy drama about a lonely man who can’t cope with that nagging voice in his head that tells him everything is wrong. Effectively replicating the feeling of what it feels like to live with uncontrollable anxiety, the voiceover by Davis as well as moments of physical manifestation of Greg’s anxiety do get a little annoying, although that may entirely be the point.

    With the majority of the movie being told from inside Greg’s head this may also give a perspective on social anxiety, but it may also make the audience feel sympathy for him or feel annoyed. However, Davis makes Greg a likeable person, so those with a heart will want to try and understand him better.

    The only issue with the movie is Emma, Emma feels like the archetypal dream girl that only exists to make Greg feel good. She’s inextricably drawn to Greg and likes everything he likes and likes spending time with him. She’s everything that Greg’s dreamed of in a woman, but she also doesn’t feel real. Saying that though, Sunny Side-Up feels like a realistic portrayal of social anxiety that doesn’t have any easy quick-fix solutions, but instead shows that there can be a light at the end of the dark, lonely tunnel.

  • Backwoods: Review

    Backwoods: Review

    Molly (Isabella Alberti) is a beautiful high school cheerleader that all the boys want. She starts to get close to Noah (Michael Anthony Bagozzi), the team’s waterboy and they end up going to a party to blow off some steam. Hunter (Matthew McCoy) is your typical high school football jock who only thinks about himself and is surrounded by friends who buy into the toxic masculinity that he does.

    However, he has a soft spot for Molly as well and when Molly finds herself bound in the boot of a car after falling unconscious, she starts to think that Hunter may have taken advantage of her in her drunken state. Molly’s problems are about to get a whole lot worse though when she’s kidnapped by the local urban legend, The Hangman.

    Backwoods is a horror movie directed and co written by Thomas Smith and Erin Lilley. Billed as a slasher for the #MeToo era, there’s definitely something to be said in a fresh and original way about a murderous psychopath who kidnaps cheerleaders.

    The problem is that with Backwoods’ script and cast make it feel more like a production made by a traveling theatre group, visiting schools to warn them about the dangers of underage drinking and toxic masculinity, rather than something more nuanced.

    Although the cast try their best, the moments where the audience are supposed to suspect that certain characters may be evil are signposted so clearly that it would take an idiot to not realise what the movie wanted its audience to feel. Plus, the casting of Noah and Hunter is a mistake because they unfortunately look so similar that it’s hard to tell them apart.

    Then movie does eventually get into the horror portion of the script, but it leans heavily on familiar tropes seen in many horror movies before. So much so in fact, that the audience may feel that Molly is never truly in danger as her menacing villain is just a man in a set of overly exaggerated prosthetics.

    However much Backwoods wanted to do something current and topical with its premise, unfortunately it fails. With an all too familiar set of horror cliches, any deeper meaning is undermined and its abrupt ending makes it feel like it missed the point.

  • Uncle Frank: The BRWC Review

    Uncle Frank: The BRWC Review

    While their big-screen outings have stalled financially (the solid Late Night and Brittany Runs a Marathon couldn’t connect with audiences after sizable Sundance acquisitions), Amazon has established itself as a premier voice in auteur-driven cinema. Their willingness to support a diverse cornucopia of filmmakers allows these commercially-unfriendly offerings to thrive outside of traditional means. The streaming juggernaut is now showcasing Oscar-winning screenwriter Alan Ball’s latest Uncle Frank, a character-driven tale that lands with emotional authenticity.

    Set in 1973, Uncle Frank follows Beth (Sophia Lillis), a college student living in New York alongside her marginalized Uncle Frank (Paul Bettany). When the family’s patriarch (Stephen Root) passes away, the two road trip to their hometown, with Frank bringing alongside his previously-undisclosed boyfriend Wally (Peter Macdissi).

    Uncle Frank rests its laurels on the assured cast. After years stuck inside the Vision prosthetics, it’s a pleasure to see Paul Bettany tap into a grounded role onscreen. As the intellectually-driven Frank, Bettany tackles the character’s lingering demons with emotional weight, utilizing a cutting wit to mask his deeply-seated trauma. When the film asks Bettany to expose his subdued emotions, the actor displays a well-dialed cadence that never feels artificial. Sophia Lillis continues to shine as a promising up-and-comer, while Peter Macdissi forms a lived-in pairing with Bettany onscreen. Ball’s film operates at its peak when the actors are at their most intimate, expressing the fear and repression behind the character’s LGBTQ identity.

    While sleight in its narrative construction, Uncle Frank’s emotional resonance speaks to a generational struggle for acceptance. The oppressive historical context further extenuates the film’s vital conceits, with Ball and company crafting this exceedingly relevant struggle with the utmost sincerity. As a writer/director, Ball’s deft hand allows the tender emotional beats to register without ever drifting towards mawkishly insincere territory. I am glad the material conveys real-world steaks without being overly-glum. Under all the dramatic tension, Ball’s warmly-drawn core emits a genuine impact.

    Uncle Frank‘s pleasant appeals are ultimately limited by its mannered delivery. Ball’s second film comfortably rests upon familiar filmmaking devices, relying upon an over-earnest score and a relatively flat shot selection. It all feels oddly staged at times. I wish Ball broke down the traditional devices to create his own visceral voice onscreen.

    While limited in its impact, Uncle Frank is a well-tempered detour through familial drama. It likely won’t stand the test of time like Ball’s previous efforts, but it will make for an agreeable drama for streaming audiences.

  • The Announcement: Review

    The Announcement: Review

    A married couple and their adult son reveal surprising truths about themselves during the course of an evening dinner in a smart restaurant. 

    Based around a basic and familiar concept, as the title suggests, one may feel a slight apprehension as to just how imaginatively constructed and engaging it could be. Such rudimentary concerns can often make or break a short film with limited time in which to make an impact. 

    The interest of the scenario lies in the juxtaposition of the emphasis of the revelations themselves and the somewhat incongruous situation in which they take place. The trivial versus the high-flown. It is a comic device which works well. Not only does it set the tone, it also allows one to settle into the drama as it plays out, to derive the humour on one’s own terms instead of having the gags signposted. 

    Out of the three family members the wife (Felicity Montagu) is the most convincing. She shows an extra level of depth to her character which the others lack, although that is not to do disservice to the son (Hugo Chegwin) and husband (David Schaal) who both give solid performances. 

    In this way director James Kibbey wisely plays the comedy straight and the humour deadpan. It keeps the tone fairly neutral, neither too light nor too heavy, making it possible to judge the balance between absurdity and severity on equal terms. 

    Due to its short running time, the film essentially plays out as a short sketch, or vignette. No backstory is necessary, and the few references to the past, weaved into the dialogue, are never distracting. 

    Being largely a script based piece, well written and comfortably naturalistic, it could be easy to overcompensate by trying to communicate too much visually, a consideration Kibbey clearly understands. Instead he uses simple, functional shots and unobtrusive camerawork, so as not to draw attention away from the narrative. It is an enjoyable and entertaining watch. Amusing, witty, it keeps you wanting to know what each new confession, and subsequent reaction, will be. 

  • County Lines: The BRWC Review

    County Lines: The BRWC Review

    County Lines: The BRWC Review. By Alex Purnell.

    County Lines’ introductory scene impressively sets the tone of the entire film, sat in a one-to-one counsellor meeting, Tyler (Conrad Khan) is asked to define the term acceptable loss, unable to understand the question, or simply just dismissive of it, the young man is ultimately informed that the acceptable loss in his current profession is his own life. 

    Stepping in the footsteps of BFI greats such as Saul Dibb’s Bullet Boy (2004), County Lines is a tragic and cruel coming of age story, revealing the underbelly of London’s drug trafficking crisis and the exploitation of vulnerable teens. Dark and emotional, it bears all of its scars with It’s shocking and terrifyingly realistic violence making it heartbreaking and difficult to digest, made even more brutal by the protagonist’s young age.

    Tyler (Conrad Khan) is a quiet 14-year-old attending a rough inner-city school in London. After his single mother Toni (Ashley Madekwe) loses her job, the teen gets coerced into becoming a pawn for a county lines drug operation to provide for his mother and younger sister.

    The job forces the young man to travel out of London with a stash of heroin, meeting up with dangerous individuals connected to the drug trade to help create drug networks in smaller towns and suburbs connected to London via train links.

    It’s a sombre story all too relatable for many young teens within the UK, County Lines is triumphant at shining light on a far-reaching yet lesser-known crisis which is ruining the lives of many families and young adults.

    The performance of Conrad Khan playing Tyler is incredibly moving. An absolute gem of the film, Khan manages to encapsulate a confused young-man reaching out for a guiding father figure. Displaying a full rainbow of emotions, caring for his younger sister yet menacing and malicious towards his mother, his metamorphosis into a low-end street thug has you internally screaming for him to get on the right path as he ignores the constant offers of help.

    Director Henry Blake succeeds in his attempt to create a hard-hitting problem piece, it’s barbaric and arduous, yet vital in its portrayal of realistic gang violence and drug trafficking within Britain’s borders.