Category: REVIEWS

As a Nicole Kidman fan, I’ve been itching for Nicole to step out of her leggy-blonde and dowdy-mom roles for a long time. Karyn Kusama [Jennifer’s Body, The Invitation] has plunged Nicole into a role so different from anything she’s ever done before that you even forget you’re watching Nicole.

With a rich, dark and grimy backdrop of a blistering LA, we see Kidman play Detective Bell, a haggard and grizzly cop who discovers a crime that is inherently linked to her path. In a series of flashbacks, we see how young Bell was put into an under-cover operation she wasn’t prepared for to try and bust a drug/crime gang. Her partner in these flashbacks is played by Sebastian Stan, who comes into his own as an actor in this film. 

As other reviews have noted, it is a crying shame that Destroyer has been so cruelly snubbed in the Director and Lead Actress sections of the Oscar’s this year. Kidman puts in a career best and the film is reminiscent of such late 60s/early 70s cop thrillers as Dirty Harry or Serpico. 

Julie Kirkwood’s cinematography is brave and bold, reinventing scene fades and accentuating the blistering south-state heat. 

If you haven’t seen Destroyer yet, do it! It’ll be one of the most exhilarating 120 mins of your year! 

Under a bright winter sun an elderly man mutters the words tant pis (too bad) as he looks over the stunning bay. Appearing to be resigning himself to something – life, his house, a regret – he has a stroke and these words remain a mystery. As his adult children reunite around him, a level of unease based on absence sets the tone of the film. An unequal inheritance in her favour has brought Angèle (Ariane Ascaride) back to her childhood home, and she and her brothers Armand (Gérard Meylan) and Joseph (Jean-Pierre Darrousin) treat each other carefully as they come together under the strained circumstance of the demise of Maurice, their father. Remains of a washed-up boat bring the army to the village in search of impending immigrants. The distance between the groups is palpable when they eventually do meet, dominated by sullen-faced concern and wary hospitality.

Set in the modest and struggling family brasserie Le Mange Tout, in a fishing village near Marseille, the return home is one of anguish for Angèle (Ariane Ascardie), now a Parisian actress. Struck by the winter-induced absence of people and the ageing of others, the visit evokes a long-buried family tragedy. “How did you stay away from us for so long?”, asks her brother. As the film progresses, Ariane slowly asks herself the same question with the sea, lush vegetation, red soil, and an imposing viaduct carrying passing trains, evoking a physical memory of the past and dissipating her numbness.

Besides Guédiguian’s stable trio – Ariane Ascardie, Jean-Pierre Darrousin and Gérard Meylan – who reunite in this story of memories, grief and change, the story is an intergenerational drama.  Guediguian describes the film as a homecoming of sorts, to the bay that has been his home for almost 40 years.

In this film Guediguian feels like the Aki Kaurismaki of the south. Recollections of Kaurismaki’s The Man without a Past (2002) came to me as I watched the wintery sun, sea, and a certain stilted dankness.  Combined with gravity and gloominess, the hints of happiness never quite overrode the generally morose atmosphere.

This is an intricate film. Various stories are woven into the periphery of the family core, including that of Benjamin (Robinson Stevenin), leading a life that encompasses more than his fisherman’s facade would suggest, providing both energy and light in what could have been a story dominated by melancholy and introspection.

Barry Jenkins has already established himself as a force to be reckoned with in the directing world after Moonlight’s Oscar win. This time adapting a novel instead of a play, Jenkins takes on James Baldwin’s If Beale Street Could Talk. 

The film follows Tish and Alonzo, a young couple from Harlem who are inexplicably in love. The story interjects flashbacks between the couple meeting, to present day where Tish is pregnant and Alonso is being held for a crime he didn’t commit. 

What struck me most about this film is how Jenkins seemed to take a Spike-Lee approach to film making and used stock photographs to set the scene of 70s Harlem, without highlighting the poverty and hardship of the area. Instead, melts that all away and focuses on the warm, happening undertones of Harlem and Manhattan with interlaced un-comfortableness. I particularly liked the overuse of the word ‘baby’ in the dialogue, very hip. 

My only issue with this film is that I felt the characters peaked too early. The family scenes at the beginning of this film were so well directed and acted that I felt a bit lost when there wasn’t a repetition of this somewhere in the film. 

The film is true to Baldwin’s original work and Jenkins encapsulates the world of the film perfectly. 

Regina King’s supporting actress Oscar is rightly deserved for this film – what a performance!