The Ace Black Movie Blog

Showing posts with label Ann Dowd. Show all posts

Saturday, 27 January 2024

Movie Review: Rebecca (2020)

Genre: Romantic Drama Mystery

Director: Ben Wheatley

Starring: Lily James, Armie Hammer, Kristin Scott Thomas, Ann Dowd

Running Time: 121 minutes

Synopsis: It's the 1930s in Monte Carlo, and the personal assistant (Lily James) to Mrs. Van Hopper (Ann Dowd) meets and falls in love with wealthy widower Maxim de Winter (Armie Hammer). They marry and settle at Maxim's Manderley estate in rural England. The new Mrs. de Winter learns that her predecessor Rebecca was adored before dying in mysterious circumstances, and finds the authoritarian housekeeper Mrs. Danvers (Kristin Scott Thomas) protective of Rebecca's legacy. As Maxim grows distant, the new Mrs. de Winter has to uncover secrets of the past.

What Works Well: The inherent strength of Daphne Du Maurier's story registers first as a romance then a mysterious drama, director Ben Wheatley generally avoiding suspense. The gorgeous sets are straight out of a glossy magazine, with colours popping into images of wealth. Kristin Scott Thomas perfects the tight condescending smile and resolutely commits to Danvers as a guardian of the past, while the new Mrs. de Winter's unsettling experiences reach a peak during a costume ball that veers into a gargoylian nightmare.

What Does Not Work As Well: Compared to Hitchcock's mood-rich version, the attractive locales here remain soulless, and the two main performers struggle for depth, never rising above the status of intruders from a different era. Armie Hammer lacks the necessary darkness to convey complex grieving, and Lily James is too obviously a misfit in Manderley's world. After a careful set-up, the final act is a jumbled rush, depriving the momentous revelations of any time for reflection.

Conclusion: Enjoyable vintage imagery but lacking the corresponding substance.

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Thursday, 18 May 2023

Movie Review: Mass (2021)

Genre: Drama

Director: Fran Kranz

Starring: Martha Plimpton, Ann Dowd, Jason Isaacs, Reed Birney

Running Time: 110 minutes

Synopsis: Two couples participate in an arranged meeting: Richard and Linda (Reed Birney and Ann Dowd) are the parents of a young man responsible for a school mass shooting in which Jay and Gail (Jason Isaacs and Martha Plimpton) lost their son. Over the course of the meeting, the two couples trade frustrations, anger, and guilt.

What Works Well: This is a theatrically stark, one-room, four-people drama focused on a tragedy's aftermath. Writer and director Fran Kranz explores the mass shooting topic from multiple angles, including guns, mental health, upbringing, interventions, violent video games, bullying, shame, and pure evil. With impeccable acting from the four leads, rage emerges through unmitigated sorrow and the longing for accountability and answers.

What Does Not Work As Well: For all the talking and passion, the search for understanding remains stranded in the wilderness of a damaged society. The script is never too far away from melodrama and dutifully plods to the most obvious outcome. The content is better suited to a 90 minute duration, Kranz padding proceedings with an unnecessarily long prepare-the-room introduction.

Conclusion: A committed but also obvious dissertation on an essential topic.

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Saturday, 16 June 2018

Movie Review: Hereditary (2018)

A supernatural horror film, Hereditary takes far too long to unveil what proves to be a limp plot.

Annie (Toni Collette), her husband Steve (Gabriel Byrne), teenaged son Peter (Alex Wolff) and 13 year old daughter Charlie (Milly Shapiro) live in a secluded house in a rural setting. A miniature artist preparing models for an upcoming show, Annie is more relieved than sad when her difficult and mysterious mother Ellen passes away. Ellen was close to Charlie (Milly Shapiro), while Annie has a strained relationship with Peter.

In addition to a history of mental illness and strange deaths in her family, Annie suffers from incidents of sleepwalking. She is further unhinged when she catches glimpses of Ellen's ghostly presence, but then a shocking incident tears the family apart. Annie struggles to cope, but gets some help from the kindly Joan (Ann Dowd), a member of a support group who claims that she can teach Annie to be a medium and conjure up the dead.

Directed and written by Ari Aster, Hereditary clocks in at a laborious two hours. And while the initial investment in characters and family dynamics is promising and appreciated, eventually the film comprehensively collapses under the weight of all set-up and no pay-off. A threat of some sort has to emerge to sustain the horror, but Aster leaves it all too late, and the tension is long gone by the time the film starts to bother to explain itself.

Finally, in the closing 15 minutes, really bad things start to happen, but the mumbo jumbo that passes for an explanation barely registers, and the impact is minimal. What is supposed to be climactic horror instead evokes "whatever" shrugs and threatens to descend into unintentional laughs.

Annie's dedication to her miniature art offers interesting cinematography opportunities but is ultimately discarded as a narrative theme. A fully invested Toni Collette performance is wasted, while the rest of the cast is largely dreary, with only young Milly Shapiro able to inject a healthy dose of spookiness.

Hereditary's best horror moment occurs relatively early, an unexpected and violent loss that doubles down on Annie's agony. The distraught mother at her darkest hour should have been a powerful premise, but presented with an opportunity to genuinely frazzle, Hereditary fizzles instead.