Movie Review: Far From The Madding Crowd (1967)

An adaptation of the classic Thomas Hardy romance, Far From The Madding Crowd is visually pleasing but overlong and overinvested in folk culture.

Rural England in the 1860s. Spirited farmgirl Bathsheba Everdene (Julie Christie) rejects a marriage proposal from her neighbour, humble shepherd Gabriel Oak (Alan Bates). Instead she moves to the larger farm of her uncle, who soon dies and leaves her in charge. Gabriel loses his flock and is forced to seek employment, and is eventually hired by Bathsheba. He continues to love her from afar.

Meanwhile, rich landowner William Boldwood (Peter Finch) is infatuated with Bathsheba and proposes repeatedly, but she cannot commit to him. Instead she falls in love with soldier Frank Troy (Terence Stamp), a scoundrel who jilted his true love Fanny (Prunella Ransome) because she was late to their wedding ceremony. Bathsheba and Troy get married, but he soon reveals his true colours.

Hardy's novel is a celebration of rural farming culture, and director John Schlesinger, working from Frederic Raphael's script, is respectful of the story's cultural grounding. The film is immersed in the mud and soil of farm grounds and the people who toil the land. The secondary characters stay in the background but add salt-of-the-earth colours, and the sights and (almost) smells of hay, corn, markets, sheep, chickens, geese, and pigs pleasantly emanate from the screen.

Unfortunately, the salute to rural England extends to plenty of scenes featuring folk songs and harvest hymns being belted out, and Far From The Madding Crowd starts to strain and sag as characters with bad teeth and bad breath warble away under the influence of bad alcohol. The film extends to a numbing 169 minutes, and rarely does Schlesinger build any momentum, the chapters coming and going with natural beauty but little emotional resonance. As a further example of indisciplined editing and the pursuit of padding, a circus skit is included in its entirety.

The source material's narrative weaknesses further contribute to the fatigue. Bathsheba possess the courage to run a farm and order rough men around, but she is unfortunately inept in her assessment and treatment of suitors. She melts in front of Troy's uniform and juvenile sword play, disregarding the stench of his reputation and obvious social climbing agenda. She strings along the long-suffering Boldwood with a series of non-answers, and worst of all, she routinely mistreats Gabriel, oblivious to their natural compatibility.

In the central role Julie Christie is adequate but errs on the side of 1960s good-natured chic rather than authentic 1860s caked-on toil. Alan Bates, Peter Finch and Terence Stamp stick to single notes as the three men in her life, Stamp registering the best impression by emphasizing Troy's smarminess.

Far From The Madding Crowd is a slow walk in the beautiful countryside, with plenty of potholes on the muddy trail.



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Movie Review: Red Riding Hood (2011)

A reimagining of the children's folk tale, Red Riding Hood stumbles into a mundane who-is-it guessing game with clumsy execution and limp resolution.

In a small village at the edge of a forest, Valerie (Amanda Seyfried) is in love with dashing but penniless woodcutter Peter (Shiloh Fernandez), although her mother Suzette (Virginia Madsen) has arranged for her to marry blacksmith Henry (Max Irons). The village lives in fear of a murderous werewolf, and despite the villagers offering livestock in a monthly ritual sacrifice, Valerie's sister Lucie, who was in love with Henry, is killed by the beast.

The villagers organize a hunting party, invade the wolf's lair and claim to kill it, while Valerie visits her grandmother (Julie Christie), who lives alone inside the forest. The next day Father Solomon (Gary Oldman) and his guards arrive to proclaim that the werewolf is still alive and hiding in human form inside the village. With Valerie torn between two lovers, the werewolf bursts forth, causing carnage. Valerie is the only resident who can communicate with the beast, arousing suspicions she is a witch.

Squarely targeting the teen market enthralled by the Twilight young adult series, Red Riding Hood offers a barely interesting who-is-the-wolf mystery but otherwise reeks of a low budget theatrical production. It was maybe the intention of writer David Leslie Johnson and director Catherine Hardwicke to create an artificial milieu to channel a child's fairy tale imagination, but on the screen the film appears trapped on essentially a single set not unlike what a group of high school students would conceive.

The narrative development is equally truncated. The characters are introduced in a manic rush, Valerie's lovers and their families thrown together in a blur, two overlapping love triangles and assorted parents and a grandparent thrown onto the screen in disarray, with one character literally dead on arrival.

The scenes with special effects featuring the gigantic werewolf alternate between choppy and effective but are always dark, with the blood and gore levels kept to a minimum. The tween-appropriate breathy romance scenes between Valerie and Peter hint at a nexus between the werewolf and burgeoning sexuality, but the resolution is both more mundane and barely coherent.

With Gary Oldman given free reign to chew the limited scenery, Red Riding Hood at least commits to undisguised commentary about religion's arrival making everything worse. Father Solomon leverages fear to gain control, defines the werewolf as residing within and thereby labeling everyone guilty until proven innocent. He turns neighbour against neighbour, imposing confinement and extracting confessions, instigating witch hunts, then torturing and killing individuals in the name of the public good. The more dangerous wolf, it turns out, is the one hiding beneath clerical robes.

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Movie Review: Away From Her (2006)

A drama about dealing with life-changing dementia, Away From Her explores the emotional pain and unexpected adjustments triggered by loss of mental capacity.

In rural Ontario, Grant Anderson (Gordon Pinsent) pays an unexpected visit to a woman called Marian (Olympia Dukakis). In flashback, his story is revealed.

Grant and his wife Fiona (Julie Christie) are a retired couple married for more than forty years, and dealing with the reality of her worsening Alzheimer's disease. He is still struggling with feelings of guilt over his long-ago episode of infidelity. Together they reluctantly make the difficult decision to admit Fiona into the Meadowlake Care home, run by administrator Madeleine Montpellier (Wendy Crewson) and head nurse Kristy (Kristen Thomson).

Fiona quickly adapts to life at the care home, and to Grant's deep chagrin strikes up a close friendship with another resident, the fragile and non-talkative Aubrey (Michael Murphy). Fiona starts to regard Grant's visits as intrusions, and when her condition worsens, he has to find a way to keep her happy and maintain his own balance.

An adaptation of an Alice Munro short story adapted and directed by Sarah Polley, Away From Her is an unblinking view of the trauma caused by mental attrition. Infused with the chilly cold of rural Ontario and the subdued tones of hardy characters used to dealing with harsh elements, the film tackles the slow memory fade that steals precious memories and destroys lifelong bonds.

While it would have been easy for the film to wallow in tragedy, after setting the context Polley chooses a different track: Away From Her sparkles with pragmatism. As much as Grant and Fiona are suffering through the heartache of her disappearing ability to remember life, both deal with the situation in a matter-of-fact manner driven by their circumstance.

As dictated by her decaying brain, once Fiona settles at the care home the here and now of Aubrey's companionship becomes much more important than the fading comfort provided by the mostly forgotten past represented by Grant. And for him, finding solutions that preserve Fiona's comfort and his sanity become a primary preoccupation, superseding unhelpful feelings of guilt and abandonment. The film rises well above moping and evolves into a story of resilient coping, the self-preservation of the human spirit rising to the fore.

Both Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent are excellent. Christie is haunting as a woman aware of her decline, her moments of lucidity becoming more rare as the merciless sinkholes in her mind expand. Pinsent is a victim, support and problem solver rolled into one, his anger and frustration palpable beneath a sturdy exterior.

Away From Her is an imposed rather than chosen condition, and both Grant and Fiona will respond with unexpected yet ultimately natural actions.

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Movie Review: McCabe And Mrs. Miller (1971)

A different kind of Western, McCabe And Mrs. Miller features two flawed characters trying to carve out a better life through entrepreneurial instincts. The setting, aesthetics and grim realism create a memorable and unique visual experience.

Professional gambler McCabe (Warren Beatty) rides into a small ramshackle mining town in the dreary Northwest and senses an opportunity to make some money. Noting the near total absence of women to satisfy the frustrated men, he imports three whores and sets up prostitution tents. But McCabe, who may or may not have a background of having killed a man, is not thinking big enough. Professional prostitute and sharp businesswoman Constance Miller (Julie Christie) arrives in town and convinces him to partner with her to build a classy saloon with baths, gambling and high class rooms for a larger number of prostitutes.

Constance, who also has a love for opium, brings in a gaggle of whores from Seattle, McCabe fronts the money, and the saloon is built. The business initially struggles but eventually thrives, while McCabe and Constance become a couple of sorts, although she holds on to her sex-for-money ethos. Their success attracts the attention of a mining corporation represented by businessmen Sears (Michael Murphy) and Hollander (Antony Holland). They offer a large amount of money for McCabe to sell all his holdings, setting off a series of events that will challenge all of McCabe's skills.

Directed and co-written by Robert Altman and filmed in British Columbia, McCabe And Mrs. Miller steers clear of all traditional Western elements. There is no quest, no heroism, no revenge motive, no wrong that needs to be righted, no journey towards redemption, no sheriffs, no outlaws, and for the first two thirds of the film, not even a conflict to speak of. Instead Altman focuses on the struggle of unremarkable individuals to just live and create a business, perhaps one of the more realistic portrayals of common life in frontier territory.

Coupled with the unique subject matter, Altman and his cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond create a a washed-out aesthetic, the negative somewhere between sepia-toned and destroyed beyond repair, with the intention of creating a visual experience evocative of pictures from the era. It works. Combined with Pacific coast rain, mud, snow and general grey bleakness, McCabe And Mrs. Miller is distinctively dreary.

Not everything about the film is as successful. The lack of drama and tension takes a toll, the interesting but limited characters of McCabe and Constance only able to carry the film so far. The audio soundtrack pursues realism by featuring plenty of mumbling, simultaneous talking and a general abundance of background noise. And the secondary characters barely make an impact. Many of the men and whores populating the emerging town of Presbyterian Church are interchangeable beneath their bedraggled clothes and layers of grime. The cast includes the likes of René Auberjonois, Shelley Duvall, Keith Carradine and William Devane.

Warren Beatty and Julie Christie bring to life two enduring characters. McCabe is one of the best fits with Beatty's persona, and he keeps his sex appeal in check by underscoring the shades of dimwittedness within the character. Christie creates in Constance a no-nonsense prostitute with a nose for business, and that is all she wants to reveal. McCabe tries hard to create a meaningful relationship between them, but Constance knows enough to set hard boundaries.

McCabe And Mrs. Miller ends with the shadow of capitalism creeping across the West. Corporations move in, the big look to swallow the small, and men of modest means will have to understand their role. Finally there are good guys stripped of legends, bad guys cashing a pay cheque, and shootouts in the snow. It all takes place away from the public eye, as one difficult era draws to a close and the more surreptitious age of company dominance through questionable tactics slithers towards the ocean.

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Movie Review: Doctor Zhivago (1965)

An epic love story set against the backdrop of the communist revolution in Russia, Doctor Zhivago pits the passionate individual against the oppressive system, but is also too long, and its main protagonist is more a spectator rather than an instigator.

The film is told in flashback, and starts in the Soviet era at a hydroelectric dam with Lieutenant General Yevgraf Zhivago (Alec Guinness) questioning innocent-looking worker Tanya Komarova (Rita Tushingham) to determine whether she is the daughter of his half-brother Dr. Yuri Zhivago (Omar Sharif). Yevgraf recounts Yuri's story, starting when he was orphaned at a young age and taken in by the well-to-do Moscow-based family of the kindly Alexander Gromeko (Ralph Richardson). Yuri grows up to be a doctor and a poet, and eventually marries Gromeko's daughter Tonya (Geraldine Chaplin).

In parallel and also in Moscow, the beautiful 17 year old Lara Antipova (Julie Christie) is from a working class family and the unwilling mistress of Victor Komarovsky (Rod Steiger), a member of the elite classes with shadowy connections to both the Czarist government and the Bolshevik revolutionaries. Lara eventually marries her real love Pasha Antipov (Tom Courtenay), an idealistic young man advocating for workers' rights and actively supporting the revolution.

The Great War erupts, Pasha is lost on the battlefield and Yuri meets Lara at a front-line hospital where they work together for 6 months. The revolution interrupts the war and turns Russia upside down. Yuri returns to Tonya in Moscow, but they soon embark on an arduous train ride beyond the Ural mountains to try and start a new life. With the country gripped by civil war, Yuri will reconnect with Lara under unexpected but dangerous circumstances.

An adaptation of the celebrated Boris Pasternak novel directed by David Lean, Dr. Zhivago is epic in scale and scope. The film clocks in at close to 200 minutes and features a large cast of characters, stunning landscapes, scenes of battle, revolution, and lavish parties, and a gruelling train ride that seems to unfold in real time, complete with a surreal and irrelevant Klaus Kinski appearance. This is an impressive and engrossing experience, but it is also tiresome. It is difficult to justify the turgid running time and the slow pacing, with everything appearing to happen in slow motion.

More troublesome is the rather passive central character. Yuri Zhivago is an ultimately peripheral character who witnesses great events happening around him. On several occasions he is swept up by history, his life trajectory altered by others. Even the central theme of love and infatuation is unfulfilling. Zhivago's dubious feat is trapping himself into a love triangle, Tonya wholly undeserving of his betrayal and Lara gaining his affection through mere presence. Yuri gets a few brief scenes as a doctor, and no meaningful demonstrations of his talents as a poet.

The film succeeds better in depicting the struggle between the individual and the collective. The post-revolution scenes in Moscow are a brilliantly grey portrayal of the all the failures of communism quickly rising to the surface, the rabble believing that their time has come, oblivious that the country's functionality is grinding to a halt and intellectual starvation and physical exhaustion await. Zhivago remains consistent in expressing his doubt about communism's logic before, during and after the revolution, opinions that will force him to leave Moscow when he clearly becomes a misfit.

Omar Sharif almost sleepwalks through the film but finds a few moments of genuine emotion. Christie matches him with a docile, low-key performance that does not convince as muse. Rod Steiger delivers the most energetic role, and on more than one occasion single-handedly pumps sweat, conviction and passion to jump-start the languid proceedings. Victor Komarovsky emerges as potentially the most interesting and complex character in the story, perhaps more deserving of his own book and movie.

The film's weaknesses do not diminish Doctor Zhivago as a grand technical marvel, an ambitious and unconstrained artistic achievement, with an iconic Maurice Jarre music score used in proper doses. But it is also a film with not quite enough happening at its core to justify all the impressive packaging.

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Movie Review: Don't Look Now (1973)

A masterpiece of psychological suspense, Don't Look Now travels to the damaged recesses of two souls traumatized by a child's death. Nicolas Roeg's adaptation of the Daphne du Maurier short story is an intricately constructed visual gem, where the quick, abstract details and glances are all that matter.

In rural England, church restoration expert John Baxter (Donald Sutherland) and his wife Laura (Julie Christie) suffer a tragedy when their young daughter Christine, wearing a bright red overcoat, drowns in a stream while out playing. Some time later, John and Laura temporarily relocate to Venice where John is managing the reconstruction of an old church. They bump into Heather (Hilary Mason) and Wendy (Clelia Matania), talkative elderly sisters who are touring the city. The blind Heather claims to have the gift of second sight, and tells Laura she can see Christine and that the child is happy.

Laura is excited and rejuvenated, and wants to hear more from Heather. John is happy that Laura is moving past her grief, but much more sceptical about Heather's gift and the premise of contact with the after-life. Meanwhile, Venice is experiencing a spate of murders, with dead bodies found in the canals. The Baxter's trip takes a dark turn when they receive disturbing news from England, Heather starts to warn John his life may be in danger, and he starts to catch glimpses of a child-like figure in a bright red overcoat.

Don't Look Know is a monumental achievement, an outstanding intellectual thriller where every scene counts, each frame is composed with elaborate care, and the details at the edges of the screen are as important as the main focus, if not more so. The premise of parents grieving for a dead child, carrying dark clouds of guilt and anguish into their Venice trip, creates a chilling tableaux. Roeg builds upon it with hints of much worse to come, with Laura's damaged psyche eager to grasp at the visions of a blind woman, leaving John behind to immerse himself in the foreboding world of a dark church undergoing a restoration.

The cinematography by Anthony B. Richmond and editing courtesy of Graeme Clifford add immeasurably to the film's mood. Rarely has Venice appeared so gloomy, Roeg and Richmond finding dark alleys, narrow passages, congested, chaotic canals, nondescript doorways and cold, unwelcoming hallways for the Baxters to navigate. Rather than celebrating romance and beauty, bad things can and do happen here, and when the police start fishing dead bodies out of the canals, it is apparent that evil can and does creep into idyllic settings.

Clifford's editing is hypnotizing, with snippets of events from the past and future colliding in the present, and creating an unhinged reality where water and the colour red insist on serving as reminders of Christine's death at every turn. Roeg and Clifford collaborate on editing one of the most erotic sex scenes ever put on film, John and Laura celebrating life again in a brief moment of pure happiness. The passionate lovemaking is silently inter-cut with the couple getting dressed to prepare for a dinner outing, Roeg using the juxtaposition both to get past the censors and capture ardent intimacy within the ordinariness of married life.

Donald Sutherland delivers one of his best leading-man performances as a husband trying to tie his life back together again while accommodating the fragility of a marriage rocked by tragedy. His portrayal of John is filled with muted emotion and an imperceptibly creeping sense that the events triggered by Christine's death have not yet concluded. Julie Christie gets to provide the brighter light, allowing Laura to cheer up and smile at life once Heather assures her that Christine is happy. It's what a devastated mother wants to hear, and Christie provides the streaks of optimism that occasionally enliven the film.

Don't Look Now demands that everything be looked at. The agony of a child's loss resides in every corner of the heart, and the search for the tantalizing path to emotional recovery travels through the more sordid corners of a beautiful city.

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Movie Review: The Company You Keep (2012)

A drama about former revolutionaries approaching their twilight, The Company You Keep presents an interesting treatise but is ultimately undermined personalized simplifications.

Sharon Solarz (Susan Sarandon) is arrested in upstate New York. For over 30 years she was living a simple domestic life under a false identity, evading arrest for the murder of a Michigan bank security guard during a 1980 robbery-gone-wrong. Sharon was as a member of the revolutionary Weather Underground, a small group of idealistic students who turned to violence against symbols of the US government. After her arrest, young reporter Ben Shepard (Shia LaBeouf) is encouraged by his editor (Stanley Tucci) to explore Sharon's story. Ben's investigation leads him to Jim Grant (Robert Redford), a widower and well-respected Albany lawyer. Shepard exposes Jim's real identity as fugitive Nick Sloan, another former member of the Weather Underground.

FBI agent Cornelius (Terrence Howard) closes in, forcing Nick to flee. He deposits his young daughter with his brother Daniel (Chris Cooper) and embarks on a cross-country escape to re-connect with his old associates including lumberyard owner Donal Fitzgerald (Nick Nolte) and college professor Jed Lewis (Richard Jenkins). Nick's real objective is to flush out Mimi Lurie (Julie Christie), the only former member of the revolutionaries who can clear his name. Ben also continues his chase of the story, and starts to uncover some well-kept secrets related to the botched Michigan heist from many years ago.

The Company You Keep walks a tightrope between a serious examination of idealism in old age, and a rather opportunistic gathering of veteran actors enjoying a reunion. Director Robert Redford manages to land the film just on the right side of relevant, thanks to an earnest tone, committed performances, and a story that touches on broad societal dynamics but always retains a personal focus.

The script by Lem Dobbs presents the many different pathways to adulthood available to young revolutionaries. Sharon and Nick attempted to meld into obscurity. Mimi and her friend Mac Mcleod (Sam Elliott) kept up the subversive protests in any available form, with Mimi evolving into a marijuana trafficker. College teacher Jed never approved of violent methods, and so never forgave the likes of Nick for contaminating the movement of peaceful protesters. Lumberyard owner Donal and organic farmer Billy Cusimano (Stephen Root) moved into seemingly respectable businesses, with just a whiff of illicit dealings.

With the best years well behind them they all ask themselves questions about the value of their youthful struggle, whether the fight was won or lost, and what they could or should have done differently. In adulthood they find varying degrees of contentment, either hiding from their past or celebrating it. As parents Sharon and Nick view life through the lens of their families, a perspective that brings a desire to accept responsibility and right the wrongs of history. The Company You Keep retains its power as long as it rides the wave of social movement commentary through the retrospective and tired eyes of the individuals who influenced it.

The film falters when it starts to resemble a routine chase movie, with Nick always one step ahead of agent Cornelius. And while the focus on individuals is commendable, the ending is fumbled once it gets too personal. As the background to the ill-fated Michigan bank robbery is revealed, threads emerge to entangle Henry Osborne (Brendan Gleeson), the investigating officer of the time, into the web once inhabited by Nick and Mimi. The film gets distracted by the minutiae of shady family friendships, lost children and selfish behaviour, and the momentum built by the broader social context is all but lost.

A cast this deep in talent was only ever going to be excellent. Redford and LaBeouf get the biggest roles, with Redford showing every one of his 77 years, and LaBeouf perhaps pushing the aggressive young reporter role too hard. While it is a pleasure to see Julie Christie in a short but still meaningful role, frustratingly, stars like Sarandon, Nolte, Elliott and Anna Kendrick (as an FBI agent) get minimal screen time.

The Company You Keep does not fully engage, but does delve into essential issues in the company of outstanding talent.

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The Movies Of Julie Christie

All movies starring Julie Christie and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Doctor Zhivago (1965)

Far From The Madding Crowd (1967)

McCabe And Mrs. Miller (1971)

Don't Look Now (1973)

Shampoo (1975)

Troy (2004)

Away From Her (2006)

Red Riding Hood (2011)

The Company You Keep (2012)

The Bookshop (2017, uncredited, voice only)

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The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: Shampoo (1975)

A sex and politics farce of sorts, Shampoo is weighed down by petulant characters engaged in uniformly selfish behaviour. The lack of anyone remotely sympathetic, or halfway intelligent, sucks most of the enjoyment out of the movie.

It's the eve of the 1968 presidential election. In Los Angeles, George (Warren Beatty) works as a hairdresser. He dreams of opening his own salon, but does not have the credit or business savvy to secure a loan. Extremely popular with his lady clients who find him sexually irresistible, George is sleeping with Jill (Goldie Hawn), who is naive enough to think that she is the only woman in his life. In fact, George jumps into bed with any willing woman, including Jackie (Julie Christie), the mistress of the pompous, rich and politically-connected Lester (Jack Warden).

Jackie suggests that George approach Lester to secure a private loan. While Jackie is torn between the promise of what Lester can offer her (should he ever leave his wife) and George's raw passion, Lester is intrigued by George, but also suspicious of him. As well he should be: George is also sleeping with Lester's wife Felicia (Lee Grant). Meanwhile, Lester's daughter, Lorna (Carrie Fisher) wants in on the action with George. As Nixon is confirmed as the winner of the election, a night of stuffy political banquets and wild sex parties provides a backdrop for George, Lester and Jackie to sort out their futures.

Shampoo bids a fond adieu to the free-wheeling, sex-drenched days of the 1960s social revolution, and ushers in the era of cynicism and corruption, as marked by Nixon's election. It's an interesting seam in cultural history, but Shampoo is unable to do much with it. Bogged down by uninteresting and unlikable characters, the film is a tiresome merry-go-round of sexual obsession among a group of desperate dullards. It's rarely funny, nor does it carry any meaningful weight of drama.

Director Hal Ashby struggles to create something watchable out of the Robert Towne script, finding only so much story in the ongoing sexapades and half-hearted attempts at irony. Precious few laughs and fewer sober thoughts are generated, and none are sustained. Shampoo settles down to a series of set-piece parties and hair appointments interrupted by brief couplings that admittedly were risqué in 1975.

Warren Beatty rides around on his motorcycle from house to house and bed to bed (or just the floor will do, on some occasions) having sex with every desirous female, and he sports a serious contender for the most ridiculous hairdo in the history of motion pictures. As is typical for the Beatty persona, he mostly just is, a catalyst around which women flutter and dissolve, for no apparent reason related to ability, smarts or prospects. George is a great summary of things that women regret wasting their time on in their later years.

Jack Warden, usually confined to limited screen time, gets one of his more expansive roles. Representing a 1950s man beginning to get really lost at the end of the 1960s, Warden makes Lester the most interesting character in the movie as the man with everything but inching towards a variety of self-destruct buttons to counter the growing boredom and detachment.

The ladies of Shampoo are hampered by having no brains to overcome the sexual gravity generated in proximity to George. The characters played by Julie Christie, Lee Grant and Goldie Hawn never answer any questions related to what is attracting them to a big-haired loser stuck in a dead-end job. Hawn's Jill seems able to grab any man she wants (and indeed she tries to arouse George's jealousy); Christie as Jackie is already wrecking one home by carrying on with Lester; with George, she risks destroying her destruction, which may be quite appropriate. And Grant's Felicia is pretending to be jealous of Jackie while cheating on Lester with George. Sympathetic, these women are not.

Only Carrie Fisher as Lorna seems to get it right: she uses George to scratch an itch, and has no other agenda or expectations. Welcome to the 1970s.

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Movie Review: Troy (2004)

An epic adaptation of Homer's Iliad, Troy is a wildly enjoyable romp through ancient Greek mythology.  The mammoth scope of the Trojan War and the intriguing mix of characters involved in the siege, including kings, combatants, and their women, are brought to life with a lavish treatment enhanced by stunning cinematography and sweeping special effects.

It's the 8th century BC, and after years of warfare, king Agamemnon (Brian Cox) has almost succeeded in unifying all the Greek kings and armies under his command. The demi-god Achilles (Brad Pitt), the most fearsome warrior in the land, holds no respect for Agamemnon but does help in battles, as his destiny is to engage in constant war. King Odysseus (Sean Bean) is loyal to Agamemnon and one of the few men that Achilles respects, and acts as intermediary between the two.

Odysseus: Men are haunted by the vastness of eternity. And so we ask ourselves: will our actions echo across the centuries? Will strangers hear our names long after we are gone and wonder who we were, how bravely we fought, how fiercely we loved?

While the coastal city of Troy remains independent behind its imposing defensive walls, Agamemnon's brother king Menelaus (Brendan Gleeson) negotiates a peace treaty with Troy's two princes, Hector (Eric Bana) and Paris (Orlando Bloom). Hector is older and more mature, but the younger Paris is less experienced, more impetuous, and foolishly falls in love with Helen (Diane Kruger), Menelaus' wife. When Helen decides to join Paris on his return journey to Troy, Menelaus is personally outraged, but Agamemnon recognizes the opportunity to use the illicit love affair as an excuse to launch an all-out assault to subjugate Troy.

Agamemnon: Peace is for the women, and the weak. Empires are forged by war.

Assembling a massive army of 1,000 ships and 50,000 soldiers, including Achilles and his young cousin Patroclus (Garrett Hedlund), Agamemnon wages a vicious war against a stubborn Troy and its king Priam (Peter O'Toole). The campaign is full of bloody battles, unexpected triumphs, and setbacks for both sides, in the midst of which Achilles nurtures a romantic relationship with Hector's cousin the priestess Brisies (Rose Byrne), before the most famous ruse in warfare history is conceived by Odysseus to turn the tide of battle.

Thetis, Achilles' mother, to her son: If you stay in Larissa, you will find peace. You will find a wonderful woman, and you will have sons and daughters, who will have children. And they'll all love you and remember your name. But when your children are dead, and their children after them, your name will be lost. If you go to Troy, glory will be yours. They will write stories about your victories for thousands of years and the world will honor your name. But if you go to Troy, you will never come back, for your glory walks hand-in-hand with your doom. And I shall never see you again.

The Troy script by David Benioff is a modern-day masterpiece of cinematic literature. Deriving an elegant and relatively compact narrative out of Homer's sprawling story, and adopting a historical rather than mythological approach, Benioff successfully achieves the difficult task of introducing a large number of essential characters and events, and ensuring that they remain distinct and memorable. He also conjures up an impressive number of epic dialogue lines, which, while undoubtedly self-consciously pompous, help to capture the cross-millennial significance of ancient history's most intriguing war.

Odysseus: This war will never be forgotten, nor will the heroes who fight in it. 

With a solid screenplay to work from, director Wolfgang Petersen can focus on breaking out of his typical love of confined spaces, and he simply soars into the wide expanse of mythology. Working with cinematographer Roger Pratt, Petersen fills Troy with a succession of stunning images, including the thousand Greek ships approaching Troy's shoreline, and directs the combat scenes with brilliantly choreographed zest.

Petersen's fluid aerial cameras capture armies marching and then crashing into each other with dreadful force, the horrors of war elevated to meet the merciless standards of mythological legend. The computer-generated enhancements are seamlessly integrated, and Petersen keeps the humans at the centre of Troy, using the microchips to full advantage but never allowing them to seize control.

Odysseus, to Achilles: War is young men dying and old men talking. You know this. Ignore the politics.

It would have been easy for the actors to be swallowed up by the spectacle, but Brad Pitt delivers a surprisingly nuanced performance as Achilles, a man born for war but finding nothing worth fighting for.

Achilles: Imagine a king who fights his own battles. Wouldn't that be a sight?

A killing machine, a keen observer of the world, and a magnetic lover, Pitt creates an Achilles worthy of his exalted place in legendary history. Eric Bana almost matches Pitt, sword swing for sword swing, Hector emerging as by far the most noble character in Troy, protective of his younger brother, defender of Troy, caring for his family, respectful of his father, and an expert combat warrior.

Hector: All my life I've lived by a code and the code is simple: honour the gods, love your woman and defend your country. Troy is mother to us all. Fight for her!

The good performances continue, with Peter O'Toole a distinguished Priam, Rose Byrne feisty as Brisies in the face of prolonged physical threat, Sean Bean thoughtfully effective as Odysseus in his relatively few minutes of screen time, and Vincent Regan memorable as Achilles' faithful lieutenant Eudoros. Julie Christie gets one scene, but delivers one of the best lines in the movie (quoted above), as Thetis, Achilles' mother. Slightly less convincing are a couple of the younger actors, both Orlando Bloom and Garrett Hedlund lacking the necessary presence to hold their own amidst the overwhelming grandeur.

The James Horner music score is appropriately exalted, and employing a less-is-more philosophy, at times makes use of minimal sounds to brilliant effect, as in the drums that provide the backdrop for the battle between Achilles and Hector. Vocalist Tanja Carovska adds a few anguished passages to lament the mass slaughter of men in meat grinder battles, and to the credit of Horner and Petersen, the soundtrack is never repetitive despite the film's 162 minute running length.

Troy is an ambitious and immersive experience, a magnificent cinematic achievement worthy of representing the monumental legends that inspired it.

Odysseus: If they ever tell my story, let them say... I walked with giants. Men rise and fall like the winter wheat... but these names will never die. Let them say I lived in the time of Hector, tamer of horses. Let them say... I lived in the time of Achilles.

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