Category: REVIEWS

Anna: Review. By Halli Burton.

It comes as no surprise that Dekel Berenson’s short film, Anna, is being developed into a feature.  It’s full of promise and characters with backstories begging to be told.

Take Anna for instance (played by Svetlana Alekseevna Barandich), a cuddly middle-aged single mum, who looks older than her 45 years, and works in a meat shop in war-ravaged Ukraine. She clocks in, works hard, clocks out then goes home to her teenage daughter Alina (Anastasia Vyazovskaya) who barely looks up from her phone.

Then there’s the redneck Texan man, who’s in Ukraine looking for love. Their paths cross after she throws caution to the wind and responds to a radio advertisement urging women to sign up to attend a party where they can meet American men. What follows is nothing short of tragic yet wonderfully comical, a testament to Berenson’s brilliant storytelling. It’s worth noting here that Anna was nominated for the Palme d’Or for Best Short Film at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

With an existence so monotonous and dull you can’t blame Anna for trying her luck, but judging by the much younger women also attending the party, the chances of meeting someone who could change her life were, unlike her, very slim. Yet, in complete contrast to her slow and sluggish movements at work, Anna throws down some rhythmic moves on the dancefloor. Is there more to this old-ish woman than meets the eye?

ANNA – Cannes Official Selection – trailer – Dir. Dekel Berenson [2019] from Dekel Berenson on Vimeo.

The exchange between the Texan and Anna is hilarious, thanks to the creative and hilarious translations of an interpreter.  What is clear is that their romantic goals are completely out of sync. Anna wants companionship and the Texan wants to get physical and ‘look under the hood’ before he takes her back to America.

It turns out that it’s not just her who dreams of a brighter future, as she bumps into a familiar face at the party.

Some films aren’t so much narrative-driven epics as they are hypnotic slow-burning questions about humanity. In films like this, there may well be a story, but it takes a back seat. The real experience is within the viewer’s mind, how it interacts with what the film is asking and depicting. Space is so often a feature that is involved in films like this. There’s something about wandering the infinite expanse that inspires the largest of thoughts. It makes sense when you think about it, after all, whenever someone’s out there it’s to continue humanities never-ending quest for answers.

James Gray’s Ad Astra tells a story of this quest, and of a man looking for his father. Roy McBride (Brad Pitt) lost his father to space 30 years before we meet him. His father (Tommy Lee Jones) was chosen to and accepted the role of head of the lemur project. A mission designed to seek extraterrestrial life forms on the outer edges of the solar system. Roy believed his father was dead, but when incidents begin occurring that link back to the lemur project, he is selected to venture forth into the unknown to seek his father.

It is important that when you see this film, you have adjusted expectations. It is not so much a thrilling adventure of a son saving his father. Ad Astra is the inner struggle of a man fighting to understand why he is the way he is. Roy battles with his feelings throughout the film, and it is that battle we are made subject to more than anything else; it’s entirely brilliant. However, it isn’t exactly what the trailers promised, so beware. Instead of a hero saves the day thriller, Ad Astra is exactly what I described in the intro, a slow burner that will ask more of you than you will ask of it.

The experience rests solely on the more than reliable shoulders of Brad Pitt, who delivers a total knockout performance. Roy rarely feels any genuine emotion; he faces death and loss at every turn yet remains vacant. It’s impossible not to empathise with Roy, and that is why it is such an exceptional performance. Pitt embodies this stoicism with a vigorous concentration, never letting slip that Roy is even capable of feeling until it’s the right time. He is a genuine chance to do something that hasn’t happened for an actor since 2007 and be nominated twice on the same night at the academy awards. He’s had an exceptional 2019 and reminded us all that he isn’t just a prolific producer he’s also one of Hollywood’s best performers.

Visually Ad Astra is the year’s best film. Every single shot is awe-inspiring from beginning to end. Visiting Mars is particularly stunning and was reminiscent of how gorgeous Blade Runner 2049 was. The cinematography, production design and visual effects teams have all outdone themselves. What they have managed to create is nothing short of masterful and without them, this film would be a tragic failure. Needless to say, this film has enough visual triumphs to make a sizable impact on awards season.

Gray is a born filmmaker; he’s already proven that. With Ad Astra, he expands upon his already terrific filmography with one of his best films yet. Time was his true undertaking in this picture. The way time passes, and how we so often don’t make the most of it, that’s the life Roy has led, and that is a massive part of what Gray is trying to talk about in his work. Throughout it seems everything always comes back to this concept and it resonates more than any other film he has made to this point. Ad Astra will speak to anyone who takes the time to listen and listen clearly. If you manage to do that this movie won’t leave your mind for days to come, and that’s what makes it not only a wonderful script but also terrific direction.

The ending will divide opinion, and that’s okay. What won’t divide opinion is the ambition of Ad Astra as a whole, particularly when it comes to narrative. Gray and Pitt started a film with lofty goals in mind and have risen to every one of them. When it does come time for the end, even if you don’t like it, I think you will struggle to say that you didn’t just sit through something incredibly beautiful. Therein lies its biggest achievement of all, no matter what this film will have an impact. The only difference lies in how significant that impact is.

Ad Astra reaches for the stars and never lets go, taking us on a deep and wondrous journey reminding us never to lose sight of what’s right in front of us. Pitt and Gray make for a brilliant cinematic pairing and together they have forged another great modern foray into sci-fi.

By Matt Keay.

Opening cold at a party the night before the last day of high school, the unflinching portrait of ‘Low Low’ is scratched in from the outset. A girl describes the first time she saw a man naked. She can recall the colour of his crotch; the way the experience made her feel, how she felt sorry for the man in question.

Then, she tells the nervous boy sharing the bed with her that she was only six at the time, and the man was one of her mother’s numerous one night stands, kicked out of her bed and relegated to the couch. The girl immediately follows this story with a come on to the virginal partygoer beside her, removing her underwear, claiming, accusatorially, ‘We don’t have to do anything’. There is a clear dichotomy here between the assured, experienced young woman, and the uncertain, unsophisticated boy, which courses through the veins of Nick Richey’s debut feature.

’Low Low’ concerns the exploits of four girls. Candace (Montana Roesch), Lana (Kacie Rogers), Willy (Alexis Raich), and Ryan (Ali Richey) are poised at the precipice of impending adulthood, determined to support each other through the trials of teenaged angst, yet mindful of the paths they could be forced to trudge down come the end of their last summer together. Drugs, sex, unplanned pregnancy, violence.

These are everyday experiences for these girls, from broken homes, fighting against authority, adversity, and whoever stands in their way. The quartet have to face the reality of the group fracturing; Candace prepares to leave for college, Lana and Willy are set to stay behind, and Ryan remains hopeful in passing her GED and moving into higher education, too. 

Along the way, there are numerous teenage-centric quests to fulfil; the ending of Cherry’s romance with her boyfriend (he’s not going to college with her), for instance, and the smoothing of Ryan’s stunted relationship with her mother, the dynamic of which is poisonous, at best. The tying-up of loose ends results in fireworks between the girls, as they question not only their own places in the world, but their importance in each other’s lives.

The film’s strength is in the rich, naturalistic performances of the four leads. The chemistry between them is convincing and infectious, regardless of the situations they find themselves in. They are each at once vulnerable and arresting, capable of a huge range. (There is a particularly darkly comic scene involving the procurement of a Plan-B pill for Willy which tests the chops of all involved.) Plus, the film looks great, all woozy and sun-addled by day, pitch and suburban by night. 

However, there is nothing new here. Richey borrows aspects of many coming-of-age dramas and teen comedies. For as many debts to ‘Kids’, ‘Stand By Me’, or recent HBO show ‘Euphoria’, there are licks of ‘Clueless’, ’10 Things I Hate About You’, and even the ‘Scream’ franchise. It feels manufactured, and disingenuous. (The mean streets of Vancouver, Washington, are in reality filmed in Los Angeles, conversely, which really amps up the artifice.)

In truth, Richey’s wearing of his influences on his sleeve appears to be more a matter of expediency than intent. ‘Low Low’ loses steam in the third act, slipping under the heft of the previous hour, selling the emotional weight of its emotional conclusion short. It’s a party at which I wouldn’t want to stay too long.