Movie Review: Jane Eyre (2011)

Genre: Romantic Mystery Drama  

Director: Cary Joji Fukunaga  

Starring: Mia Wasikowska, Michael Fassbender, Jamie Bell, Judi Dench, Sally Hawkins, Imogen Poots  

Running Time: 120 minutes  

Synopsis: In 1800s England, a distressed Jane Eyre (Mia Wasikowska) leaves the Thornfield Hall estate of Edward Rochester (Michael Fassbender) and finds shelter with clergyman St. John (Jamie Bell). In flashbacks, Jane's story is revealed. She was an orphan when her evil aunt Mrs. Reed (Sally Hawkins) dispatched her to a grim residential school. Upon graduation, she became the governess at Thornfield, where she met kindly housekeeper Mrs. Fairfax (Judi Dench) and gradually fell in love with the passionate, brooding, and wealthy Rochester. But he not only harbours a dark secret, but may also be interested in marrying Blanche Ingram (Imogen Poots).

What Works Well: Writer Moira Buffini adapts Charlotte Brontë's classic novel with elegance, and packs Jane Eyre's many adventures into a brisk two hours. Drama, romance, mystery, danger, and passion mingle as Jane navigates each hurdle on her own terms, never losing sight of her worth and the basics of right and wrong. The central romance may lack sizzle but is held together by shadows of tragic pasts, and director Cary Joji Fukunaga relies on candlelight to emphasize mystery-filled interiors loaded with the presence of the unseen. Adriano Goldman's cinematography makes excellent use of the rugged and windswept English countryside. 

What Does Not Work As Well: Jane and Edward progress from verbal sparring to thorny romance in a hurry, and as Rochester's notional counterpart, Jamie Bell struggles to find the right tone as St. John.

Conclusion: This quest for happiness goes through foreboding chambers.

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Movie Review: Film Stars Don't Die In Liverpool (2017)

A biographical drama, Film Stars Don't Die In Liverpool recounts the incongruous final days of Academy Award winning actress Gloria Grahame, far from the limelight.

The setting is England in 1981. In nondescript Lancaster, Grahame (Annette Bening) collapses in her dressing room ahead of a stage performance of The Glass Menagerie. She reconnects with her much younger former lover Peter Turner (Jamie Bell), a stage actor, and relocates to his modest family home in Liverpool to rest and recover.

Peter still lives with his parents Bella (Julia Walters) and Joe (Kenneth Cranham). As they collectively care for their unexpected guest Peter recollects in flashback his torrid love affair with Grahame. They met in 1979, quickly fell in love despite the age difference, and Grahame introduced him to her life in Los Angeles and New York, including her mother (Vanessa Redgrave). They briefly moved in together but tensions arose almost immediately. Back in the present Gloria insists she will get better on her own, but her health appears to be in serious decline.

Based on the book by Turner and directed by Paul McGuigan, Film Stars Don't Die In Liverpool is a literal example of life ending with a whimper rather than a bang. With her stardom days well behind her Grahame sees out her final hours in a cold spare bedroom in a wet and grey Liverpool, refusing to acknowledge the severity of her illness.

While her presence causes some drama among the Turner family members, McGuigan and screenwriter Matt Greenhalgh are aware not much narrative momentum can be squeezed out of a woman confined to a bedroom. So a good half of the film recounts the origins and evolution of the love affair between Grahame and Turner.

The romance elements are only modestly engaging. Grahame had already worked her way through four husbands (including to her stepson) by the time she met Turner, and the film confirms both her ability to merge staged performance with life as needed, and her struggle to differentiate real and manufactured emotions. The relationship is therefore his infatuation meeting her desire to remain young, and McGuigan does not offer other grounding commonalities. Not surprisingly, their connection is as easy to disrupt as it was to ignite.

Bening's performance is considered and mostly disciplined in finding the lingering swagger of an actress who was among Hollywood's most celebrated stars a quarter of a century prior. Jamie Bell functions within a narrow range, while Julia Waters easily finds the warmth of a housewife welcoming a relative stranger into her house despite her own worries. Vanessa Redgrave gets the one scene as Gloria's mother.

Most of the movie takes place indoors. McGuigan conveys a dreary early 1980s Liverpool aesthetic, while the scenes in Los Angeles and New York are artificial and studio-bound. Other elements hint at sloppiness or production limitations: a despondent Peter spends a night away from the mounting tensions at home, and seeks solace with an Eileen (Leanne Best) who remains contextually undefined.

Film Stars Don't Die In Liverpool does not overreach its limited source material, and settles into an obvious if still sometimes poignant posture.

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Movie Review: Billy Elliot (2000)

A drama and comedy about chasing dreams amidst economic hardship, Billy Elliot sparkles with good intentions and a mischievous glint in the eye.

It's 1984, and England is in the grips of a raucous miners' strike. In the small mining town of Everington in County Durham, eleven year old Billy Elliot (Jamie Bell) witnesses the struggle of his out-of-work father Jackie (Gary Lewis) and older brother Tony (Jamie Draven) as they join the daily picket line protests against replacement "scab" workers. Billy's mother is dead, and the family live in a cramped house with grandma (Jean Heywood) in a working class neighbourhood.

Billy loves to dance, and instead of boxing lessons he starts to sneak into the ballet class run by the seemingly jaded Sandra Wilkinson (Julie Walters). She spots potential in his enthusiasm, and encourages him to attend a Royal Ballet School audition in Newcastle. But when Jackie discovers what his son is up to, he demands that the ballet lessons stop, forcing Billy to either obey his father or pursue his burgeoning passion.

The film that spawned the hit musical, Billy Elliot is a grounded story of hope flickering within the ashes of a community's despair. Touching on themes of old-fashioned masculinity equating men dancing ballet with homosexuality, the inter-generational divide, and nondescript towns making the difficult transition from resource extraction to a more diverse future, writer Lee Hall charts a tender coming-of-age story.

Just as the adolescent Billy is a product of his environment, the film takes deep breaths from its stark and unscrubbed mining community. Director Stephen Daldry makes the bold decision to keep the language rough and real throughout, coarse words used in every sentence by everyone all the time, including the children and women.

Equally pragmatic is Billy's dancing ability. This is a boy with a natural willingness to dance and interest in learning; he is not anywhere near a prodigy or even naturally talented. As Ms. Wilkinson advises, the Royal Ballet School auditions are in search of attitude; they can teach the rest. As such, the few dance scenes feature Jamie Bell throwing himself into dance moves more with determined resiliency than fluidity, adding to the prevailing sense of authenticity.

If the first half of the film is about the discovery of dance and confronting hardened expectations, the second half is more about fatherhood. Dad Jackie steps out of the background and into the parental role, tapping the depth of love, support and willingness to sacrifice lurking within seemingly rough and ready families just below the surface layer of grimy coal dust.

The miners' strike serves as a backdrop without intruding too far into the main story. The hardship of unemployed men is worsened as some surrender and return to work, fracturing the fraternity. In some respects Billy's discovery of dance and subsequent disobedience of his dad could not come at a worse time, but elsewhere other boys are also coming out of their shell, including best friend Michael.

As it turns out, in an environment where there is nothing left to lose, both the men and their sons discover new and commendable reservoirs of fortitude.

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Movie Review: Rocketman (2019)

A musical biographical drama with fantasy elements, Rocketman captures Elton John's artistry and the gap between massive public acclaim and dark personal demons.

Dressed in an outlandish devil/angel combo performance outfit, Elton John (Taron Egerton) enters a treatment centre therapy group and admits to being an alcoholic and addicted to drugs, sex and shopping. In flashback Reggie Dwight's life story is revealed, starting with a childhood in England where he felt unloved by his cold father Stanley (Steven Mackintosh) and disinterested mother Sheila (Bryce Dallas Howard), but supported by grandmother Ivy (Gemma Jones).

Reggie's talent on the piano grants him entry to the Royal Academy of Music, and he eventually backs-up touring artists from the US. He adopts the name Elton John and gradually accepts he is gay. A record company executive connects Elton with lyricist Bernie Taupin (Jamie Bell), and their music writing partnership leads to unimagined global success. John starts a romance with business manager John Reid (Richard Madden), but as the singer desperately searches for true love and personal fulfillment, he falls into a miserable life of empty excess.

On-stage flamboyance is a cloak to hide deep-seated insecurity, and untold riches, fame, fortune and debauchery are no replacement for true love. Such is the story Sir Elton John wants to tell, and he gets to shape his legacy as the film's executive producer. Written by Lee Hall and directed by Dexter Fletcher, Rocketman is a vivid biography using John's music in no particular sequence to underline his emotional state of mind at key milestones, and adding effective fantasy elements to convey the insanity of the pop star life.

Taron Egerton takes on both acting and singing duties, and is sparkling in both contexts. Fletcher keeps the songs short and in service of the plot, and the editing is rational and coherent, with some excellent long and fluid takes to capture the dynamism of the accompanying dancers and crowds.

In adopting the eternal search for love and belonging as a central theme, Hall does not hold back in conveying John's parents as a nightmare of uncomfortable incompatibility with a child's need for affection. And so Elton goes looking for partners of either sex to fill the gap in his soul. Taupin emerges as his spiritual brother and creative partner, while Reid is the passionate but manipulative devil-lover in a business suit offering false fondness.

Meanwhile Elton's vulnerability goes hiding behind increasingly extravagant outfits, the performer wowing the crowd on the outside as he privately sinks deeper into despair.

Once John performs his first Los Angeles show Rocketman zooms quickly through the artist's upward trajectory, and then spends a hefty portion of its two hours wallowing in the unhappy and filthy rich life consumed by the decadence of sex, drugs, and booze. Fletcher almost trips towards self-pitying drama, but Taupin's timely interventions in John's life always help move things along towards more promising outcomes.

Rocketman chronicles the quest for love on and off the stage, a journey where misery accompanied artistic triumph on a most tempestuous journey.

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