Category: REVIEWS

Trying: The BRWC Review. By Alif Majeed.

You always tend to be wary when a show tries to start with a loud bang by shocking the audience to get their attention. And Trying is a show that begins with a loud firecracker of a beginning where the leads (Jason and Nikki, a winning Rafe Spall and Esther Smith) realising that her monthly pregnancy cycle is almost over, need to have sex right then. The fact that they are on a public bus is not a concern for the desperate couple who decide to do it right there caution be damned. It is the kind of cheat used to start the show with a gag to grab eyeballs. 

It also grates how it tries to say something is cute in the show. Only instead of using a laugh track like a multi-camera show, Trying tries to substitute that by using cutesy upbeat music on cue as if to say, “Awe, look at us. So cute.” But even if the cutesy track gets annoying after a point and it still tries too hard to get us to like it for being charming and funny, it almost doesn’t need that in the first place. The good thing about Trying is that for most parts of its short first season, it manages to keep your attention even though it uses several tactics to make you try to really like it. And that track does grow on you after a while the same way the characters do.

Jason and Nikki are the typical new-generation couple who would probably be well loved all across the board when they were young, and when their futures were unclear. But then you realize that ten years later, they still haven’t grown up and haven’t managed to change their inherent immature nature. (it was a horrifying gut punch when I first watched Clerks 2 realized that they were still in the same store doing the same thing). Worried of their predicament, it starts to nag them (Nikki more so than Jason), and they decide that they need a child. It is scary that both seem to be blissfully unaware, at least in the beginning, as to why they are doing it instead of wanting a child.

Nikki is the girlfriend that everyone would want until you realize that years have passed, and all the cute things that you fell for in the first place becomes troublingly worrying. She is painfully aware of what makes her character cute and lovable, which worries her when she realizes that age might have caught up with her. Especially moments when she worries about her banal job and how people her age has moved way past her up the food chain. (“We are not doing a job we love but a job we are stuck in”) But Esther Smith infuses a bucket load of charm into the Nikki that you still might want to continue the ride with her.

Rafe Spall, who often seems to be associated with the role of a third wheel or a “Baxter” who gets dumped or fired by the end, finally gets a leading man role and makes full use of the opportunity. More at peace with the fact that age has caught up with him, (“Am old. I can do three things, and then I get tired.”), he takes up the calm, cool boyfriend role who always has a quip to defuse the situation quite well. You also feel for him when his calm exterior occasionally cracks and gets overwhelmed by their decision that they are so ill-equipped to handle (“You are afraid of everything so am not allowed to be afraid of anything?”)

Another important character in the show is Imelda Staunton, who plays the Penny, the child worker on their case. Penny reminds you of that sweet elderly old relative of yours who would gently manipulate you into doing something for them without you even figuring the manipulation until its too late. And Imelda Staunton does play the character with the right amount of playfulness that it is hard to figure out where her loyalty lies.

There is also the mandatory Harry met Sally best friend couple played by Ophelia Lovibond and Oliver Chris. Except imagine if Carrie Fischer and Bruno Kirby were married for a few years now. And their conversations are mostly about dealing with their children. As likable and effortless as they are in their roles, they just come across as the typical best friend couple who are used as springboards or projections to mirror or crystalize the lead’s situation. 

There is also a When Harry met Sally kind of interview sequences in the show. And the bus scene that happens at the beginning strongly reminds you of that iconic orgasm scene between Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal, complete with an old lady as a witness to it. 

That’s the thing about Trying. It does thread the same path that many shows and movies before it already has. And it is not as funny as it thinks it is. All that tides over to a large extent because of the two charming leads may not have convinced us that they would make good parents by the end. But we are sold on the fact that they might be there by each other’s side kicking and dragging each other to the finish line.

By Rowan Malyon.

Heart-breaking and eye-opening, Susan Rosenzweig proves that a documentary doesn’t need to be lengthy or big budget to get its point across. Though only a brief fifteen minutes, Baby Hers shines a light on the American dairy industry, intending to show how consumerism and indifference have led to cruel practices that are uncomfortable to digest.

Beginning with a quote from Agatha Christie’s The Last Séance, a short story about a woman desperate to get her child back, this film makes no bones about the director’s thoughts on the industry. Don’t let the somewhat plastic opening trick you. The use of the song ‘Baby Mine’ from Disney’s Dumbo, another tale about a mother being separated from her child, does come across as a little preachy. We can’t help but think, ‘oh, here we go again, another flimsy guilt trip’. But this is not the run of the mill conscience-hounder we are used to. This film aims to educate without instruction. It is descriptive not prescriptive. 

Footage of a woman talking about her newborn baby is interwoven with clips of calves being dragged away from their mothers. The animals’ mournful cries could make even the most stone-faced viewer recoil. Pictures from inside these industrial farms, of sick and injured cows and the harvesting process they go through for our benefit, do make one wonder how we could have let things get this bad. But this short film does not set out to convince people they need to stop drinking milk, just that we need reform, and rightly so, I think. 

What is refreshing about this documentary is that despite its short length, Rosenzweig gathers interviews from a range of sources. We hear from two passionate animal sanctuary owners against milk consumption; a vet and farmer trying to repopularise the more ethical, ‘old ways’ of farming; and the consumer, a mother, who would love more options when providing for her family. 

It is a balanced film and, perhaps because of its brevity, the first documentary that has actually made me want to seek out more. Helpfully, Rosenzweig makes this easy for us by providing links for more information at the end of her film. 

In one pithy message, she raises the point that milk consumption in the US has been on a steady decline since the 1970s. The Washington Post has published many articles questioning whether milk is all that useful in the way of bone development, and whether humans are even equipped to digest it, so this certainly is a change that consumers may be open to.

This is a topical film for a world constantly updating its ideas of what is right and what isn’t. It is guaranteed to make you feel something, whether it makes you change your consumer habits or not is up to you. It certainly made me think. Perhaps I’m biased, I’m lactose intolerant. But then, maybe we all should be.

A man (Thomas Cocquerel) wakes up in serious pain with no memory of how he got there after only what he can presume to be an accident. After realising something is wrong, he attempts to make his escape and out of what he assumes must be a hospital.

That’s where he meets his caretaker, (Angus Macfayden), a jovial man with a dark streak of menace who only wants to look after his patients. The male patient also meets a female patient (Camille Stopps) who has seemingly been there for longer than him and has a wary respect for their caretaker and knows exactly what he’s capable of doing, nonetheless the male patient wants to do his very best to escape.

Alive is a grim horror movie along the lines of the Saw franchise, with a similar setting that gives its audience very little to go on as the script drip feeds them what they need to know only as and when they need to know it. Isolated in what could only be an abandoned hospital, Alive has its cast claustrophobically close for the majority of the movie and Macfayden plays his sinister doctor to the point where being in his presence must have been very unnerving.

Cocquerel and Stopps also play their parts well, the unwilling victims who know nothing about themselves or each other have a good chemistry and the audience may want to root for their escape as the good doctor’s cruel treatments get more and more barbaric.

Mostly played as a generic horror movie, Alive does manage to turn some of the horror tropes on their heads and there are a couple of twists along the way. Although admittedly these twists do come with a certain suspension of disbelief.

However, by the time the movie ends the audience will have to decide for themselves whether the twists were worth all the drama, whether they made any sense or whether the movie’s twists were as well thought out as they appear.

A movie that will definitely please horror fans and one that will make you think about the ending long after it has finished.

Nine-year-old Sophie (Chloe Coleman) catches JJ (Dave Bautista), a hardened CIA operative, spying on her family during a routine surveillance operation. In exchange for not blowing his cover, JJ begrudgingly agrees to show the precocious girl how to become a spy. What at first seems like an easy task soon turns into a battle of wits as Sophie proves you don’t need much experience to outsmart a seasoned agent.

When I first saw the trailer for My Spy as a coming attraction while in the movie theatre a while back, I basically had the same thought that everybody had – “this looks awful”. It reminded me of an extremely bad late 90s or early 2000s comedy. Some part of me was holding out hope that it would be a welcomed surprise, but deep down inside, I still had a feeling it was going to suck. Sadly, it did suck. My Spy is a painfully cringe-worthy film with a list of problems.

The first on the list is without a doubt the script, written by Jon and Erich Hoeber. Right from the start, it feels like it doesn’t work. We watch a scene in which Dave Bautista’s JJ is in the middle of a sticky situation after a bunch of people start to suspect that he is a CIA agent. What does JJ, who is allegedly a top-of-the-line agent, do in order to defuse the situation? He starts cracking jokes while there are several guns pointed at his head. Instead of shooting him right on the spot, everybody in the room gives him a sort of confused glare, but there is only a fight scene after this happens. In real life, this would have gone the complete opposite way.

I understand that this is a goofy, over-the-top comedy and it isn’t going for a completely grounded story, but it was just a bit jarring and it was hard to get into. Easily the strongest aspect to the film is the dynamic between Dave Bautista and Chloe Coleman, who do their best despite the weak writing. Together, they are sweet and oftentimes fun to watch. It’s a standout duo in an otherwise lackluster movie.

One of the biggest missteps this film takes is that it tries to aim towards teenagers and young children far too much. This is a movie that tries to take itself seriously one minute, and then the next, we watch the macho-man Dave Bautista himself do the Nae Nae dance along to Cardi B’s “Bodak Yellow”. Not only did this happen once, but twice. Each time made me shake my head in embarrassment.

Surprisingly enough though, the action sequences here aren’t too bad. There is one moment in the final fifteen minutes or so that was truly entertaining to watch and actually managed to include a couple of good jokes as well. Still, though, this is a remarkably tough film to sit through. Even though it’s only ninety-nine minutes long, it feels much longer. It will probably entertain young audiences occasionally, but I still don’t think that this spy comedy has enough up its sleeve to warrant a watch.

Dave Bautista tries his best in My Spy – a poorly written action-comedy that simply doesn’t have enough good humor up its sleeve or a good story to go along with it.

By Rowan Malyon.

A slow-burning but intense film, Tape is sparse in colour, staging, and in its message. Based on true events, this film does not shy away from the point it is trying to make about the entrenched sexual harassment in the entertainment industry.

Deborah Kampmeier’s film follows the mysterious and vengeful Rosa (Annarosa Mudd) as she records producer Lux (Tarek Bishara) in the process of assaulting Pearl (Isabelle Furhman), a struggling young actor, after she becomes the latest in a long line of “protégés”. 

Though somewhat expository at times, the film does not have any reservations about discussing this unfortunately ubiquitous but unspoken problem. A non-traditional horror, Kampmeier captures the fears that women face every day. The audience should understand what kind of story this is going to be from around the 30 minute mark but the suspense built, the how, the where, and the why, keeps us hooked. 

The film could not be more topical. In fact, Kampmeier references a few very recent, infamous rape cases in the US in the climatic final scene. Polanski, Cosby, these were high-profile cases, but Tape assures us that these things happen every day, in innocuous places, to people who never get their stories told.

Through bleak streets and empty apartments, Kampmeier captures the loneliness one can feel despite living in a bustling city, the loneliness that seeps from Pearl. Except she’s not alone. 

Though at some points, the use of Rosa’s secret cameras can separate the audience from the action and is oftentimes clumsy, the film could not work without them. They are also a perfect conduit for the film’s overall message. 

When Pearl looks into the camera hidden in a clock in Lux’s dark and foreboding “set”, she looks Rosa right in the eye, making her question the morality of her actions. But she also looks at us, asking us why we didn’t get involved. Why didn’t we stop this from happening? Why do we not speak up more when women need our help? The cameras make us as culpable as Rosa. 

What’s more, when Lux tries to convince Pearl that sex scenes are not only something she will have to deal with as a real actress, but a necessity, something she will not succeed without doing, the camera is knocked out of line. We don’t see him coerce her, just as society turns its face away from abuse. His distorted voice does not belong to him anymore, it could be anyone’s, any of the countless abusers inside the industry and out of it. 

Stark references to Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus remind us that this is not just a modern issue. It is something that has haunted society since it began, and the series of other videos that Rosa collects on her tablet illustrate this endless cycle. 

Tape is gritty and realistic, perfectly capturing the anxieties of living as a woman, from the subtle microaggressions of the media and coercions from men in power, to simple things not often discussed, like Rosa’s obvious unease when she is escorted by a man twice her size, a man who obviously does not understand or even notice her discomfort. This film highlights how often women are forced to be alright with situations that make them uncomfortable, and how they are made to feel guilty when they react.

What is refreshing about Tape is that despite its seemingly unsatisfying ending, there is a different sort of triumph here. When Rosa holds Lux at gunpoint, it is a far-fetched and rather jarring climax to such a naturalistic film. However, the vacuum it creates allows for a very powerful scene in which the all-female witnesses discuss their own experiences of sexual assault. Unlike the tragic Lavinia, so often referenced by Rosa, the women in this film actually gain voice. 

Despite its jumps between realism and fantasy, Tape is a good film about an important issue. It doesn’t lecture or push too hard, it simply holds a mirror up to its audience and to life, while Peal’s fated words ‘whatever it takes’ echo forebodingly in our ears.