Molly’s Game is a refreshingly told, in your face biopic of Molly. The success of this is down to a central character and powerful portrayal by Jessica Chastain, it is also its’ Achilles heel as all the supporting characters are well, flat. If you fail to engage with Molly then the film will be 120 minutes of your life that you’ll never get back. For everyone else, it may just have upped the ante where biopics are concerned.
Molly Bloom is the girl that for two years ran the biggest, illicit poker table in the world, well in New York at least, and picked up the moniker of Poker Princess. Molly is an overachiever and was destined to be an Olympic skier until a horrific accident ended that dream. She took that determination and diligence and instead of going to law school ended up running the biggest illicit gambling table. That is until she was allowed the Russian mob to join her game and well gangsters and royalty don’t mix.
This whole tale based on Molly Bloom’s autobiography is told at a cracking pace, first person narrative under the steady guise of Aaron Sorkin who both wrote the screenplay and directed the film. Jessica Chastain dominates the screen and here is the issue, Molly’s story is extraordinary but all the other characters feel two dimensional. It may work well on the page but on screen, the supporting characters need to come to life. Kevin Costner as Molly’s dad is the only character that comes close. Even Idris Elba as the honest lawyer, yes they do exist, doesn’t really come to life. Having said that the photography is excellent, the tempo good and the script provides enough poker jargon without the viewer ever becoming bored.
What is great about the film is that this is Molly’s story told without pity or the use of sex, just a good old fashioned story about an unorthodox way of making a lot of money.
Molly’s Game opens in cinemas across the UK on New Year’s Day – 1 Jan 2018
Russian fur thief Subienkow watches as a fellow comrade is brutally tortured by a native American tribe he and his group had previously enslaved. Eager to avoid the same treatment, Subienkow enters into negotiations with the tribe’s leader, Makamuk: his life in exchange for a recipe for a powerful medicine.
Adapted from a short story of the same name by 1800s American writer Jack London, there is a lot more at stake here than a summary might suggest. The power struggle between the two characters is heightened by the presence of Yakaga, a just freed slave who begins to doubt the actions of his leader. The story was originally printed as the first chapter in a book (also called ‘Lost Face’) of 7 short stories, all of which take place in the brutal Yukon Territory in Canada. The story is adapted by the director, Sean Meehan, who manages impeccably well to retain the tension and cold but ever present hope of the book.
Meehan’s direction is simple, placing a lot of faith in the text. One interesting choice is Meehan’s decision over the subtitles. The dialogue between the tribe at the start of the film is not translated, placing us in the dark and uniting us with Subienkow, not yet knowing the exact horror of his fate.
Meehan also acts as his own cinematographer on the short, and this is where his talent truly lies. Because of the setting and subject matter, The Revenant immediately springs to mind, which seems unfortunate as this was probably not intended. Looking closer, there is far more humanity grounded into the shots. The spirituality of Iñárritu’s film is ignored here, allowing, perhaps, for a fuller investment of the audience’s emotion into the characters.
Lost Face is an intriguing insight into the lengths a person will go to in order to avoid pain. As a short film, it is intelligent, and wonderfully handles the three way struggle for power. In fact, my only real complaint about the film is that is was only 14 minutes long. Perhaps there is a future for more of Jack London’s short stories on screen – I would be interested to see one be lengthened to a feature. In any case, we should all be very interested to see Sean Meehan’s next project.
As a person I am always up for learning new things. Most of these are fairly trivial, but something that has fascinated me is culture. More accurately, different cultures to my own. I mention this because the culture shown in In Between is one that is very different from my own, yet it is interesting to see how similar it is at the same time. It’s because of this that I think that In Between is a story that could work regardless of what culture the makers decided to show.
In Between is about three young woman who live in the same flat. That is all they have in common. One woman is an independent person, with a good job and positive, if cynical attitude, but is also experimental with men and substances. Another is a lesbian with a minimum wage job, judgmental parents and personal insecurities. The third woman is jobless and eager to please her family, but is engaged to a man who she can’t stand and is very closed off. Throughout the film we follow an unspecified amount of time in these three lives, as we see how they interact with each other, and how they each attempt to grow as individuals but are tested and halted by their culture and the opinions of others.
This works extremely well, given that this culture is as it is to me. The culture itself is unfamiliar, yet I know that the same happens in my culture to those who wish to simply be who they want to be. There is a lot of potential here. Luckily director Maysaloun Hamoud manages to capture most of this potential. This is probably the most realistic film that I have seen in a very long time. There were plenty of stylistic choices that made this film feel real. I know, feeling real is ultimately the goal of any film – even the most absurd and surreal film aims to ground itself by rules to make it accessible. But I mean that this film feels like footage taken of our world. Nothing enormous, saturated, stylized or dulled. Just the world we live in today.
Because of this, In Between can be very hard to watch. This is mostly thanks to an intense scene of homophobia and an unexpected and shocking rape scene. That latter point is the most shocking moment of all because it is one of the only act of violence throughout the film. Moments like these do serve their purposes and bring to light questions and themes that have you thinking about them for hours after viewing. It must be said though that, if like me you know people who suffered from such experiences, or maybe even if not, you may find these moments to be very upsetting.
What makes this film better than its shocks and morals though is how maturely it is all handled. There is no music unless it is within the scene – such as the music from a bar or the radio in a car. This grounds the film more than if there had been a score. The writing is so natural and well delivered that it wouldn’t surprise me if it had all been improvised. The acting is superb from all points – apart from one of the boyfriends, Ziad, who was very stilted at times. The film would have fallen apart from minute one had it not been for the performances of our three leads. But most of all it’s the film’s passion. This was clearly a story that Hamoud wanted to tell and had a clear vision for how to tell it.
In Between is a raw and very real story with a lot of heart beneath its surface. It works well as a feel-bad picture with ambiguity in the right moments to make it powerful at times. Hard to watch scenes and the heavy atmosphere in general will stop me from watching it again, but I don’t feel like I need to. In Between will stay for a good while. If you feel like you can take the shocking moments and the depressing feel, then you will find yourself watching a fascinating film. Who knows, maybe you’ll learn a thing or two.
‘Rise of a Star’ is the directorial debut from James Bort, this short is based around aspiring ballerina Emma Gauthier (played by Dorothee Gilbert) and her “secret capable of undermining the achievement of her lifelong dream”. Now, I am no ballet expert and I am unable to interpret at this film in any sort of dance/technical way, however the themes are so well portrayed through Bort’s direction that they’re easy to digest.
Dorothee Gilbert’s portrayal of the confliction and secrecy Emma faces throughout the film are as elegant as they are subtle. Emma carries a weight of expectation from her ‘ballet master’ Youri (Pierre Deladonchamps) who demands “perfection” from his dancers, in particular Emma who he demands is “better than perfect” in the film’s climax. The secrecy that Emma is carrying is that of her 3 month pregnancy, which gives the film a conflicting tone between career and the idea of impending parenthood, a theme so common in the real world yet difficult to portray in a meaningful way. Director Bort’s utilisation of space and shadow to hide Emma’s stomach are impactful from the opening scene, a table on a darkened stage covering Emma from the waist down as her facial expression shows that she is not fully in the moment. The most delicate moment of the film follows this when Emma is alone in her dressing room, she caresses her stomach subtly bringing her ‘condition’ to the viewer’s attention.
Bort’s use of space to mirror Emma’s attempts of secrecy are brought to the forefront during a rehearsal scene. The camera focuses solely on the protagonist’s upper body and face until she moves back to a ‘safe’ space further back in the room where her physical appearance may not be so readily apparent, although of course at such an early stage of pregnancy her attempts to hide what is happening to her body only cast more light on the situation. This scene also introduces Mlle Jean, the owner of the ballet production and the antithesis to Youri. Her’s is the most powerful influence of the film as she realises Emma’s plight and explains that she still intends to allow her to perform. The core message of the piece dispels the idea that you must choose between the path of motherhood or a successful career, the strength of the final shot showing Emma with her arms by the side proudly displaying her full frame leaves a powerful final thought with the viewer, subverting the idea that career “perfection” cannot be attained alongside motherhood.
Gary Oldman. Winston Churchill. What could go wrong? Many things really considering how the previous movie on the notorious PM did both on charts, box office and reviews (Churchill, Jonathan Teplitzky, 2017). Fear not though, as this biopic of the polyhedral admired, hated and widely discussed about eccentric ex prime minister fulfills the expectations created by its cast and it actually exceeds them. It isn’t like we are discovering Mr. Oldman at this point, but the Academy Awards Nominee and Bafta Winner British actor performs at its best and delivers a most convincing Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour (Joe Wright, 2017).
The movie begins with the forced resignation of PM Chamberlain given its disastrous management during World War II and the consequent election of Mr. Churchill as the new Prime Minister; and it ends with the up roaring applause of the parliament after the most famous speech of the British Bulldog. It’s quite interesting how several movies this year have reflected upon the same events from very different points of view: Their Finest followed a young female screenwriter trying to come up with a movie to lift the spirits of the British population after Dunkirk’s rescue of the allied troops by a civil fleet; Dunkirk brought us to the other side of the channel before and during this operation; and now, we can glimpse on how, why and by whom it was planned and executed.
If Their Finest was a bittersweet drama, and Dunkirk a gripping and fascinating war sequence; Darkest Hour is a well crafted and performed political biopic that, even though succeeds in having a good balance between interest, entertainment and historical rigor, it kind of lacks some truthful criticism towards quite a polemic figure as Winston Churchill was.
However, Darkest Hour narrates the man’s best moment and consequently it is fair to focus on his deeds rather than on the innumerable weaknesses and morally dubious previous and later actions. This two hours and five minutes long movie is set under the phantasmagorical umbrella of war but it’s definitely not a war movie. It is a political biopic with a great rhythm and flow that, despite a couple of over-the-top sequences (like Mr. Churchill’s mingling with the plebs on a tube coach), manages to explain one of the most moving, emotional and important moments of British’s history in a truthful and appealing way.
Darkest Hour’s release date on UK and Ireland will be January 12th. Merry Christmas.
