Final Girls Berlin Film Festival Review: Maggie May
‘Sometimes, doing nothing is the best thing to do’ isn’t always the best advice to follow. This is certainly the case with Mia Kate Russell’s short film ‘Maggie May’, which will be showing at this year’s Final Girls Berlin Film Festival.
‘Maggie May’ revolves around two estranged sisters, Sam and Maggie, who try to reconnect after the death of their mother. However, this doesn’t go completely to plan.
The 14-minute short film can solely be described as tragic and harrowing. Lulu McClatchy, who plays Maggie, is fantastic as the sister who does nothing after her sister is involved in an accident. Instead, she manages to ignore every bad thing that’s going on around her.
While she’s depicted as a villain, due to her negligence, there are hints throughout the film that also paint her as a tragic figure: her house is a mess; she suffers from anxiety. While she’s tragic, she is unsympathetic, and the film doesn’t try and shine her in a good light.
However, Sam May, played by Katrina Mathers, is a sympathetic character, and tragic in a different sense. Abuse and negligence are the core themes of this short, as it’s revealed that Sam is in an abusive relationship and is then involved in an in-home accident that eventually causes her demise.
Something that could’ve been prevented if Maggie had done something about it instead of ignoring it. On top of this, Sam is haunted by the constant crying of her baby children.
Both story arcs are acted out beautifully and makes this short, sadly, very believable. The acting is subtle, but effective, and is mixed with images of Maggie’s messy home life. The practical effects of Sam’s injuries and ultimate demise are also great and, at times, grotesque.
Overall, ‘Maggie May’ is a tragic and harrowing experience, and is a sad tale between two siblings. While I would highly recommend this short, go into this with a certain mindset, as this is an emotional rollercoaster.
Stephanie Patrick (Blake Lively) veers down a path of self-destruction after a tragic plane crash kills her family. When Stephanie discovers it wasn’t an accident, she turns to a former CIA operative who can help her find the culprits. But her quest to uncover the truth soon turns into a full-blown quest for revenge as she decides to punish those responsible.
The Rhythm Section is a movie that not a lot of people were all that excited for, and I don’t blame them. The marketing behind it was almost nonexistent. There was only one poster released for the film, and even the poster is just kind of bland and doesn’t do much to sell the movie that the studio was making. Even the trailer feels strange and uneventful, which is more than likely the reason why not a bunch of audiences are flocking to the theatre to see this new Reed Morano-directed feature.
But in defense of the filmmakers, The Rhythm Section is a hard movie to market. It really is. This is a movie in which a woman goes on a path of revenge after a plane crash tragically kills her family and as the film progresses, she learns secrets and has to uncover mysteries.
To be truthful though, this is a movie in which they attempt to set up questions and mysteries and attempt to answer them later, but not only are these supposed “secrets” and “mysteries” not all that interesting, but the answers they give are sloppy and misguided. This is a movie that will leave you feeling drastically unsatisfied and depressed more than anything.
I understand that the subject matter of the film is definitely depressing and sad, it is just that the script barely has a moment in which we feel excitement or enjoyment. It’s a needlessly dour experience that is also extremely boring. Clocking in at one hundred and nine minutes in length, The Rhythm Section is not really all that long of a movie. But what makes it feel longer than it actually is is the script by Mark Burnell, who wrote the novel of the same name that the film is based on.
The script has way too many scenes in which nothing of meat really happens. There isn’t a lot of story progression here, and as a result, a large portion of the movie not only feels wasted, but boring. Don’t get me wrong though, this movie is not all bad. This is nowhere near one of the worst movies I have ever seen or anything like that. There are most certainly some positives here.
One of which being the performances all across the board. Blake Lively is truly great here in the lead role. She gives an emotionally driven performance, and her work here is really strong. That being said however, I did not root for her character nearly as much as I was supposed to. The entire movie is about her trying to get revenge on people responsible for this plane crash that I mentioned earlier. But what is baffling about the film is that her character also ends up killing numerous people along the way. So, this will also cause the family members of these people to want to get revenge on her more than likely in the future too. It’s stuff like that that make this film kind of hard to watch at times.
There are also some incredibly strange music choices throughout, which are strangely upbeat songs. If that was not frustrating enough, the editing is also quite jarring. It is not horrible editing by any means, but there a lot of abrupt cuts that end scenes that feel quite unnatural unfortunately.
But like I said, this movie is not a trainwreck. It is not going to go down in history as one of the worst movies ever made or anything like that. But what it is, is a massively underwhelming film that doesn’t really have a lot to say or do, and there is barely any thrills to be found along the way. Yes, there are a couple of scenes that were fun to watch, but they are so few and far between. Another good element to the film is its cinematography by Sean Bobbitt. It is not miraculous, but it gets the job done well.
The Rhythm Section struggles to tell a cohesive and thrilling story with a weak screenplay, bizarre editing and off-putting stylistic choices.
Lone Wolf is a left field take on puberty and fitting in. Sam (Freya Van Dyke-Goodman) is going to a sleepover at her new pal Willow’s (Izabella Measham-Park) House.
Hard enough normally, but difficult when you clearly don’t fit in with the group and the stuck up bully of the group Blair (Mackenzie Mazur) won’t get off your back! Let alone when you clearly have feelings for your friend Willow and then suddenly weird things start happening to your body. This is Lone Wolf.
Lone Wolf is a coming of age tale done in 7 minutes, and it’s oddly warming. I wouldn’t say the film is going to be busting out of the screeners with an arm full of awards, but it’s going to get a lot of showings and it’s going to get some love.
The performances from the young set of actors is good, Joanne Booth gives a good cameo as Sam’s mum Julie, and there is a clear set of directives from director January Jones. The style is simple and plain, and it’s got a good feeling about it.
The script however is it a little wooden and doesn’t allow the actors to take advantage of their range. Short films often suffer from having to stick so much in with only one line to do it. It’s like being given a 500 word essay to summarise two completely different novels, it’s hard and Lone Wolf just about does it. I’d give a 2:2.
This is partly what stops it being great but the main criticism of Lone Wolf is its big reveal. Not trying to give too much away, but as I said in the intro there’s a ‘change’ happening in Sam’s life. We see it build up part by part bit by bit, it’s tense, and we don’t know where it’s going.
Yet suddenly, BANG her mates are doing the same thing and we’re done. It’s a happy ending! But just a little like ‘Hell we’ve run out of time! Get it in’.
I like Lone Wolf and it’s available on youtube to watch, so I’d recommend it to anyone as it’s only 7 minutes lone and a nice little watch it you’re killing time. Get those views into the 1000’s and support small film.
One of the films that is due to premiere at the Final Girls Berlin Film Festival next week is ‘Kaya’.
‘Kaya’ is a 12-minute short film set in Mexico. The film revolves around Kaya, a woman whose younger sister, Luna, has been kidnapped by human traffickers. During her search, she stops at a truck stop one night and confronts two of the traffickers and helps a female victim escape.
‘Kaya’ is brilliantly directed by Catherine Fordham. Shakira Barerra, who plays lead character Kaya, is also fantastic, not only acting as a figure who’s going through a harrowing journey, but also as someone who is wanting revenge for what’s happened to her younger sibling.
Her physical acting, during the fight scene that the film does show us, is beautifully choreographed and believable.
The use of symbolism between the central fight scene, of which we don’t see but instead hear, and the Looney Tunes cartoon that we do see is fantastic. The cartoon features a small bird being chased by two cats and ends with the tiny bird eating one of the huge characters.
The parallels really emphasis that women are strong and will fight to survive just as much as men will. Women are often seen as weak, or not as capable as men and this is simply not the case.
The film is paced perfectly and is direct, never once softening its disturbing subject matter. Kaya tells a simple, tragic but compelling story that is, unfortunately, still relevant in the modern world, and gives us a powerful message at the end: May All Beings Be Free.
Thirty-four years after his death, Airman William H. Pitsenbarger, Jr. (Jeremy Irvine) is awarded the nation’s highest military honor, for his actions on the battlefield.
Before I went in to see The Last Full Measure, I was worried that I was going to be getting a painfully dull surface level movie. That synopsis did not sound enticing to me whatsoever, but I was still holding out some hope for this film. Todd Robinson’s latest feature admittedly has a stacked and talented cast, which is probably the aspect that I was most excited for. From the likes of Sebastian Stan, Samuel L. Jackson, Christopher Plummer, and Ed Harris, the cast seemed quite promising. Why would all of these A-list actors come together for one movie if it wasn’t going to be good?
Sadly, I find myself asking the same exact question even after seeing The Last Full Measure; a movie with all the best intentions and definitely tells the story of a remarkable man, but it just does not tell it in the most exciting or captivating way.
The screenplay is written in such a way where we are never really shown anything extraordinary or inspiring. This should have been a deeply moving and emotional journey, but it instead just feels like a boring walk in the park. A large portion of the film is just characters talking to one another with nothing exciting going on dialogue-wise. I am completely okay with what they like to call “talking movies”; movies that practically only showcase dialogue with no “exciting” sequences. One of my favorite “talking movies” in recent years is Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies. That movie was chalked full of dialogue that was smart, thought-provoking and riveting. This is the opposite, however.
The problem is that the dialogue that we are given here is not anything to get up and excited about. It tells this truthfully remarkable story in such a bland and forgettable way, and it is ultimately a movie that you will forget about incredibly quickly after leaving the theatre.
This is the very definition of a style over substance film. The editing, while admittedly impressive, is done in a way to make the film feel more grand as a whole, but in reality, it just isn’t. It feels heavily pretentious.
But don’t get me wrong. This is by no means a truly awful film or anything like that. It isn’t good, but it does have some good things in it. One of those is by far the acting. Every single one of the cast members delivers a gratefully terrific performance, with perhaps my favorite one coming from none other than Sebastian Stan himself. He feels considerably reserved in the role of Scott Huffman. His performance reminded me that he is genuinely one of the most underappreciated actors working in the industry right now.
It is not just him that is great in this movie either though. Samuel L. Jackson, Ed Harris, and Christopher Plummer all deliver expert performances too. Like I talked about earlier, all of these actors are incredibly talented and have been working in this industry for a long time. Some of them for several decades. I was expecting them to be good here, and they definitely are.
Another positive here is the musical score by Philip Klein. It feels quite, reserved, calm, yet powerful all at the same time. Byron Werner’s cinematography is also something to acknowledge. It is nothing out of this world, but it does the job at selling these locations depicted throughout the film and it was pleasing to look at.
The Last Full Measure fumbles at telling a remarkably powerful story with its bland screenplay that often feels like style over substance.
