Movie Review: Take This Waltz (2011)

Genre: Romantic Dramedy

Director: Sarah Polley

Starring: Michelle Williams, Seth Rogen, Luke Kirby, Sarah Silverman

Running Time: 116 minutes

Synopsis: Toronto-based freelance writer Margot (Michelle Williams) is married to cookbook author Lou (Seth Rogen), although they often clash due to mismatched affection levels. Margot suffers from insecurities, but blossoms when she meets free-spirited neighbour Daniel (Luke Kirby), an amateur artist and rickshaw operator. She is torn between the thrill of a potential new romance and Lou's steady love.

What Works Well: With Michelle Williams embracing Margot's fragility, writer and director Sarah Polley delves deep into the psyche of a woman at the crossroads. The classic dilemma of established but imperfect comfort challenged by the thrill of novelty is handled with organic tenderness and peppered with humour, best enjoyed during a delightfully edgy spoken seduction scene. Lou's chicken recipe obsession and his raucous family (including Sarah Silverman as a sister struggling to achieve sobriety) add an attractive mélange of smells and colour.

What Does Not Work As Well: As the bohemian would-be dreamy lover who always knows exactly what to say, Daniel is too clichéd for his own good. Compared to the thoughtful set-up, the final act unravels into a fast-forward rush. A running time closer to 100 minutes would have better suited the material.

Conclusion: A refreshingly raw romantic triangle, enlivened by honest human foibles.



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Movie Review: The Fabelmans (2022)

Genre: Coming Of Age Drama

Director: Steven Spielberg

Starring: Michelle Williams, Paul Dano, Seth Rogen, Gabriel LaBelle

Running Time: 151 minutes

Synopsis: In 1952, married couple Mitzi and Burt Fabelman (Michelle Williams and Paul Dano) are raising their family in New Jersey. Mitzi sacrificed a piano career for her family, while Burt is a computer design engineer. Both are close friends with Burt's work colleague Bennie (Seth Rogen). Their young son Sammy is dazzled by movie making, and Mitzi encourages his passion. Burt gets a new job and the family moves to Phoenix, where teenaged Sammy (Gabriel LaBelle) joins the boy scouts and develops his amateur moviemaking skills. Through the camera lens Sammy awakens to his parents as people, and another family move, this time to California, beckons.

What Works Well: Steven Spielberg's semi-autobiographical story, co-written with Tony Kushner, uses humour and pathos to chart a heartwarming journey into adulthood. A trio of personal discoveries nurture the softly glowing narrative: an awakening to the love of filmmaking, here portrayed with a wacky mix of talent and bravado; the realization that parents are fault-filled adults but no less capable of pure love; and the transformative yet understated power of astute storytelling, underlined in a third act that thrives almost as a film within a film. Spielberg sustains remarkable consistency by ensuring Sammy's experiences are tightly wound around the family unit. Michelle Williams shines as the mother hiding an ocean of unmet expectations, and newcomer Gabriel LaBelle delivers a winning performance as the budding young man. Judd Hirsch's short but wall-shaking appearance as the legendary Uncle Boris is unforgettable.

What Does Not Work As Well: As a minor quibble, Sammy's sisters could have been afforded more prominence.

Conclusion: An epic yet easily accessible achievement, projecting deeply personal episodes into universal experiences.



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Movie Review: After The Wedding (2019)

Genre: Family Drama

Director: Bart Freundlich

Starring: Julianne Moore, Michelle Williams, and Billy Crudup

Running Time: 110 minutes

Synopsis: Isabel (Michelle Williams) runs a cash-strapped orphanage in India. Successful businesswoman Theresa (Julianne Moore) summons Isabel to New York City to discuss a potential large donation. After meeting Theresa's husband Oscar (Billy Crudup) and about-to-be-married daughter Grace (Abby Quinn), Isabel realizes she has deep and painful connections with Theresa's family.

What Works Well: This remake of a 2006 Danish-Swedish film is stocked full of twists, and the continuous stream of surprises demands attention. Searing commentary on themes of parental responsibility, guilt, and the messy search for redemption and resolution surfaces through the revelations. Michelle Williams (dour) and Julianne Moore (smug) navigate emotional traumas with confidence.

What Doesn't Work As Well: Too much of a good thing - the sheer number of shocks from the past and present results in emotional overload and eventually numbs the impact. From a stand-back stance, some character motivations are dubious.

Conclusion: A rollercoaster of disclosures, with both smooth and bumpy sections.



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Movie Review: The Greatest Showman (2017)

A biographical musical, The Greatest Showman celebrates the life of circus impresario P.T. Barnum.

The son of a tailor and orphaned at a young age, Barnum dreams big and falls in love early with Charity, the daughter of his father's aristocratic client. They stay in touch through her school years, then Barnum (Hugh Jackman) and Charity (Michelle Williams) get married, settle in New York City and have two daughters. When he is laid off from an accounting job at shipping company he risks everything to open a museum of wax figures and stuffed animals.

Business is slow, and his daughters encourage Barnum to add more living things and sensations. He recruits freaks and outcasts, and the museum becomes a big hit but also draws protests and scorn from critic James Bennett (Paul Sparks). Barnum convinces respected playwright Phillip Carlyle (Zac Efron) to join him as a junior partner to help attract a more high brow audience. On a trip to London Barnum recruits Swedish singing sensation  Jenny Lind (Rebecca Ferguson) for a grand tour of the United States. He starts rubbing shoulders with society's elites, but also drift away from Charity.

Directed by Michael Gracey (with an assist from James Mangold, credited as Executive Producer), The Greatest Showman took eight years to make it to the screen but arrived just in time to unabashedly reaffirm diversity's value at a time of social division. While the story is loosely inspired by Barnum's life, the real message is that every person is a treasure, in whatever shape, size, or colour.

The circus world as a whole and Barnum's shows in particular may very well have exploited people who are different. The film skates over the questionable profit motives and instead embraces the opportunity for the outcasts of society to step forward and enjoy the spotlight. The film's feel-good energy stemming from the spirit of the underdog is irresistible.

As for Barnum's story, this is a conventional arc about a man trying to fill the gaping hole in his soul caused by childhood poverty, and stretching beyond what is necessary. Barnum's talent is such that he is successful at whatever he does, but he will need to learn that not all accomplishments equate to increased happiness.

Gracey deserves credit for delivering a relatively content-rich musical without bloat, as The Greatest Showman clocks in at a very reasonable 105 minutes. The musical numbers are surprisingly good, well-timed and short. A Million Dreams, The Other Side and showstopper This Is Me are delivered with joyous conviction, the singing powerful and the choreography simple but effective. In terms of pure artistry, the duet Rewrite The Stars allows Efron and Zendaya (playing Carlyle's potential lover, her skin colour a scandal for his social circle) to literally soar.

The performances are more about enthusiasm than craft, and Jackman does not disappoint with a  high energy portrayal of Barnum fueled by eternal optimism. Williams plays along, less convincing in the singing numbers but credible as the family anchor. Efron and Zendaya offer athletic support.

Uncomplicated, honest and well produced, The Greatest Showman may not be an accurate history lesson but it is an exuberant shout in favour of a society enriched by unique individuality.

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Movie Review: All The Money In The World (2017)

A kidnapping drama inspired by real events, All The Money In The World is a cerebral thriller set in the surreal world of the very rich.

Rome, 1973. Teenager Paul Getty (Charlie Plummer), an heir to one of the world's largest fortunes, is kidnapped by a gang of thugs, including Cinquanta (Romain Duris). The abductors hold Paul at a countryside farmhouse and demand a $17 million ransom. Paul's father (Andrew Buchan) is a good for nothing drug addict, and his mother Gail Harris (Michelle Williams) is broke and has no access to any of the family's money. Paul's grandfather is John Paul Getty (Christopher Plummer), the richest man on earth, but he has no interest in paying for his grandson's release.

With an international media circus erupting around the kidnapping case and Gail determined to rescue her son, Getty dispatches fixer and ex-CIA agent Fletcher Chase (Mark Wahlberg) to resolve the crisis. Chase and Gail form an uneasy working relationship, while Cinquanta and the captive Paul develop a mutual empathy. Soon a break in the case allows the Italian police to make their move, only for young Paul's ordeal to get much more complicated.

Written by David Scarpa and directed by Ridley Scott, All The Money In The World is a smart and character-rich crime thriller. More remarkable for being based on a true story, All The Money In The World combines the story of a physical kidnapping with the drama of multiple emotional confinements, and emerges with a layered and complex narrative. Bouncing between San Francisco, the Italian countryside, Getty's English estate and with brief sojourns to Middle East locations, Scott maintains an energetic pace and a firm grip on a story involving just a few people but carrying global implications.

All The Money In The World ventures into the warped psyche of John Paul Getty, a man obsessed with wealth creation but also mentally trapped by the title of the world's richest man - ever. John Paul views everything through the singular prism of negotiated dealmaking for the purpose of asset collection, and his essential need to emerge as the winner in every transaction. Parting with $17 million to rescue one grandson while placing all his other grandchildren at potential risk of copycat kidnappings simply does not begin to compute. John Paul is not only not interested in the deal, he is not interested in spending any mental effort on what is clearly a losing transaction.

The grandfather's intransigence leaves the mother in dire straits, and Gail Harris becomes the sole advocate and agitator to save her son's life. Caught between brutal and faceless kidnappers on one side and Getty's aloofness on the other, Gail fights a lonely battle against seemingly impossible odds. Neither rich nor greedy, Gail is the most normal person in the story and Scott places her in the middle of the film, forced to make increasingly desperate appeals for Getty's intervention as she negotiates for her son's life but possessing nothing of value to bargain with, other than her wits.

Scott further enriches All The Money In The World by spending time with young Paul in captivity, and sketching in the character of Cinquanta. The two men are essentially occupants of the same prison, and Scarpa's script gives the kidnappers a human face if not too much definition. Fletcher Chase as John Paul's go-to fixer becomes Gail's one ally. His role is the film's most uneven thread, as Scott never settles on a convincing tone for the bond between mother and troubleshooter.

Christopher Plummer was a late casting replacement brought into the film as John Paul Getty, and he delivers a dark and brooding performance as a man already transformed into a haunting presence while still alive. Michelle Williams is forceful, conveying a mother trading emotional anguish for pragmatism to deal with a crisis that no one else cares about.

All The Money In The World is a fascinating examination of confinement in all its forms, permanent and temporary, imposed and self-inflicted, behind bars and within walls adorned with masterpieces.

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Movie Review: Meek's Cutoff (2010)

A ponderous Western, Meek's Cutoff recreates life on the trail, and mostly reveals how boring it must have been.

It's 1845, in Oregon. A small group of travelers, including couples Emily and Solomon Tetherow (Michelle Williams and Will Patton) and Thomas and Millie Gately (Paul Dano and Zoe Kazan), is crossing hostile, desert-like territory, led by renowned guide Stephen Meek (Bruce Greenwood). Despite the women being confined to a subservient role, Emily begins to voice her opinion that Meek is actually lost. With the group running low on water, the sense of unease increases as day after day they move slowly through arid terrain and a succession of nondescript ridges.

The group dynamics change when they capture a lone Indian (Rod Rondeaux) who had been stalking them. The Indian cannot speak English, but may offer them a way to water, or may lead them into an ambush. Meek favours killing him, but Emily insists that he live. The travelers carry on, this time following the native, unsure of their fate.

An independent production directed by Kelly Reichardt, Meek's Cutoff is inspired by real events, and fully invests in a sense of realism. This is a slow-moving journey that starts and ends on the trail, with limited character definition and an emphasis on the physical rigours of opening up the west by walking across uncharted lands. Filmed in an old-fashioned boxy 4:3 aspect ratio, there is little plot to speak of, the people remain mostly sketches, and on-screen events consist mostly of people moving slowly across barren terrain. The six bulls pulling the three wagons are given almost as much prominence as the humans.

While there is educational value in accurately portraying the ordeals of the frontier, as a cinematic viewing experience Meek's Cutoff lacks almost everything necessary for engagement. The travelers are barely distinguishable, the repetitive drudgery is grinding, many scenes of dialogue are intentionally inaudible, and a good one third of the film takes places at night in barely-lit scenes. It's almost as though Reichardt sets out to make the 104 minutes as tiresome as possible to elicit sympathy for her group of migrants.

An indicative sequence has Emily needing to fire two musket shots into the air as a signal. This being 1845, the musket requires an elaborate procedure to reload. Emily's entire cumbersome multi-step method to load the powder, ready the gun and fire the second shot is captured by Reichardt's static camera over what seems like an eternity to make the point that firing more than one shot was no easy matter. Informative, but hardly inspirational.

Meek's Cutoff offers a few points of interest, but insufficient redeeming features to ease the slow motion agony on both sides of the screen.

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Movie Review: Manchester By The Sea (2016)

A drama about reengaging with life, Manchester By The Sea delves into ordinary lives to seek the private battles raging within.

In Boston, Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck) leads a lonely existence as a building caretaker, fixing residents' clogged toilets, shoveling snow and living in a depressing single-room basement unit. Lee is divorced from his wife Randi (Michelle Williams) and has no interests other than getting drunk and instigating fights with random bar patrons. Lee's life is turned upside down when his brother Joe (Kyle Chandler), who lives in the small coastal community of Manchester by the Sea 90 minutes away from Boston, dies from heart disease.

Joe appoints Lee as the guardian for Joe's 16 year old son Patrick (Lucas Hedges), and Lee has to fight off his internal demons just to be able to function in his new and unexpected role as the responsible adult in the young man's life. And Patrick has a surprisingly full agenda: two girlfriends, a rock band, and ambitions to follow in his father's footsteps as a fishing boat captain. Matters are further complicated when Patrick reaches out to his estranged mother Elise (Gretchen Mol).

Written and directed by Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester By The Sea drinks deeply from the world of broken families, broken dreams and lives drifting sideways. An exploration of personal battles to justify second chances set against the idyllic beauty of a small town by the ocean, the film is an outstanding multiple-character study, with various visible and invisible wounds and scars in various states of bleeding and healing.

Lonergan adopts a deliberate but steady pace. The film builds in intensity as the faults in the foundations of Lee's life are gradually revealed, and then the equivalent but different cracks in the lives of all those around him also come to light. Lonergan's masterstroke is in never succumbing to any easy answers or trite moments of sentiment. The relationship between Lee and Patrick remains thorny at best, the uncle and the nephew stumbling over a seemingly endless succession of rub points. Similarly the encounters with Lee ex-wife Randi and Patrick's damaged mother Elise are awkward, full of shame, guilt and unresolved emotions.

While none of the characters are happy, misery does not preclude self-awareness, regret and a deep sense of responsibility. Manchester By The Sea is that rare film where adults are locked into emotional prisons of their own making, and they know it. Lee, Randi and Elise are in various stages of making progress towards redemption, an uncertain journey fraught with self-doubt. Meanwhile young Patrick is unknowingly suffering from youth's illusion of indestructibility. He may already be on the path to his own serious mistakes with his casual attitude towards multiple concurrent girlfriends, but his determination in salvaging his father's boat also carries the promise of success built on grit.

Casey Affleck delivers a devastatingly affecting performance, carrying the bottled-up agony of a man having to exit his own purgatory to shoulder a new responsibility. Lucas Hedges is the surprise of the film, benefiting from a screenplay that creates a resilient 16 year old and matching Affleck in the second half of the film. Michelle Williams and Gretchen Mol make strong impressions in small but key roles.

Out of seemingly irretrievable wreckage, there are embers of hope. Manchester By The Sea goes looking for glimmers of recovery, and it's a quest both deeply satisfying and sobering in its pragmatism.

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The Movies Of Michelle Williams

All movies starring Michelle Williams and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Species (1995)

Brokeback Mountain (2005)

Blue Valentine (2010)

Shutter Island (2010)

Meek's Cutoff (2010)

Take This Waltz (2011)

My Week With Marilyn (2011)

Manchester By The Sea (2016)

The Greatest Showman (2017)

All The Money In The World (2017)

After The Wedding (2019)

The Fabelmans (2022)

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.
The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie review: Species (1995)

A science fiction horror film inspired by Alien, Species competently transforms the premise to a murderous hybrid alien on the loose in Los Angeles, but suffers from plastic characters and routine execution.

A secret government space exploration lab has made contact with a seemingly friendly superior alien race. The aliens transmit an ingenious DNA sequence, and scientists under the direction of Xavier Fitch (Ben Kingsley) mix the code with human genes to create a girl they call Sil (Michelle Williams). When she starts experiencing painful nightmares, Fitch decides to exterminate Sil with cyanide. She breaks out, escapes the facility and makes her way to Los Angeles. Killing when cornered, Sil quickly grows into a woman (Natasha Henstridge), and starts seeking men to procreate with.

Fitch assembles a team of experts to hunt down Sil. Press (Michael Madsen) is a specialist in exterminating inconvenient fugitives on behalf of the government, and he is joined by Dan (Forest Whitaker), who has special empathetic powers, while Stephen (Alfred Molina) and Laura (Marg Helgenberger) are scientists. With Fitch they track Sil to Los Angeles, where she is leaving a trail of corpses in her pursuit of the perfect man to mate with.

With the monster effects created by H.R. Giger, the similarities with the Alien universe are numerous. Here again the alien is close to indestructible, seeks to breed, and uses humans to grow. When the Species alien beneath the skin is revealed, it may as well be the close cousin of the critters battled repeatedly by Ripley and company. Even the black-green tone and spaced title font on the film poster is derivative.

Species is never less than moderately exciting as an action movie with good, yucky special effects, and the occasional gory scare. But director Roger Donaldson, working from a Dennis Feldman script, is unable to do much with the premise. A fundamental problem resides with the characters of Fitch and his team members, who are underdeveloped, quite simplistic and generally unsympathetic. With no human protagonists worth investing in, Sil herself emerges as the most compelling character. And as a half-alien in a strange world, there is plenty for her to learn and then manipulate to gain the advantage over humans, LA style. Most appropriately, she picks up most of what she needs to know by watching television.

Sil's journey from frightened child to irresistible schemer is helped by newcomer Natasha Henstridge saying little and happily trading on her looks and sex appeal. She may be an alien in heat, but she is also in frequently naked human form, and the combination of seductive vulnerability and killer instinct becomes the driving force of the film.

But too often, the film defaults to stock humans-chasing-alien. A routine, prolonged, seemingly interminable climax in cave-like sewers below Los Angeles, trying hard to simulate a distant planet environment, sucks the remaining energy out of the film. Ironically, Species is at its most compelling when the alien is above the surface, disguised as just another California blonde.

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Movie Review: Brokeback Mountain (2005)

A lifelong love story between two cowboys, Brokeback Mountain breaks new ground as a mainstream, high quality production sensitively portraying a same-sex affair. Director Ang Lee sets the societally impossible relationship against a magnificent backdrop of rugged, big country western scenery.

Wyoming, 1963. Drifting cowboys Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) are hired by gruff businessman Joe Aguirre (Randy Quaid) to herd his sheep for the summer in the valleys around the stunning peaks of Brokeback Mountain. Ennis is an orphan, a self-sufficient introvert and a man of few words. Jack is the son of a middling rodeo performer, and is more open and emotive. As the long days of summer drag on, Jack initiates physical intimacy between the two men. Although initially reluctant, Ennis eventually responds, and the men engage in a sexual relationship and develop a strong bond of love.

At the end of summer the men reluctantly go their own ways. Ennis marries Alma (Michelle Williams) and starts a family. His life is a constant struggle against poverty. Jack tries his hand on the rodeo circuit, and in Texas he meets and then marries Lureen (Anne Hathaway), the daughter of a rich farm equipment magnate. After years apart, Jack reinitiates contact with Ennis, and the two men reignite their affair on semi-regular camping trips, always keeping their affair a secret. But while Jack longs for a more committed and long-term relationship, Ennis cannot come to terms with the idea of an isolated life dedicated to Jack.

Spanning 20 years, Brokeback Mountain is a grand romance. An adaptation of the Annie Proulx novel, the film masterfully captures the aching, persistent agony of a love that can never be public, and the deep-seated conflict of carrying an illicit affair over two decades while pretending to function in a relatively loveless marriage. Lee adopts a slow, deliberate pace, allowing the love between the two men to gradually flourish in the isolated terrain, and then exploring the long lasting impact of a physical and emotional connection that will not die.

Sex between the two men is depicted in frank terms as mountainside passion erupts between Ennis and Jack. There are also honest sexual scenes between the men and their wives, although as the film unfolds Lee makes it clear that the pure joy of love only exists between the two men.

The script by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana seeks the moments of drama in real human terms. The film builds slow-burning conflict through a lack of symmetry in the relationship. Jack needs Ennis more than Ennis needs anyone, and as the years progress, the lack of full reciprocity generates building tension. Jack cannot see why the two men cannot establish a life together at an isolated cabin, away from any questioning eyes. Ennis, always emotionally reserved, cannot come to terms with a domestic and isolated life surrendered to any one endeavour.

On the family front, the challenges are also unequal. Alma cares deeply about Ennis and their children, and immediately senses his drift when Jack reemerges in their lives. Lureen is a businesswoman, her father's daughter, her marriage a box that needed to be ticked, and barely notices Jack's physical or emotional presence or absence.

Beautiful as it is, at 134 minutes the film does start to sag, with a few too many shots of valleys, mountains and thousands of sheep. The later scenes between the two men, now adults carrying the luggage of middle age, struggle to add much that is new. Lee reclaims some momentum in the final 30 minutes when the inevitable separation becomes more permanent, and love's true impact is captured in a moving visit to Jack's childhood home.

The performances by Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger are filled with subtleties, and the actors fearlessly dive into the often taboo territory of men displaying unconstrained physical lust towards each other. They only stumble slightly during the more theatrical moments of altercation, the arguments and physical scuffles often appearing marginally forced.

Brokeback Mountain is a challenging and ultimately rewarding film, a heartfelt ode to the power of love as it withstands erosive forces to stand tall and dominate life's landscape.

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Movie Review: My Week With Marilyn (2011)

Another sacrifice at the altar of Marilyn Monroe obsession, My Week With Marilyn offers a captivating Michelle Williams performance, but not much else of interest.

It's 1957, and Marilyn Monroe (Williams), the biggest movie star in the world, arrives in London to film what would become The Prince And The Showgirl, a lightweight comedy with Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh) and Sybil Thorndike (Judi Dench). Amidst the predictable media storm, young Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne) lands a job as Third Assistant Director on the production, essentially an errand boy to satisfy Olivier's whims. Clark is eager and enthusiastic, and starts a tentative relationship with wardrobe assistant Lucy (Emma Watson). Meanwhile, his position on the set provides him with a front row seat as the production stutters to a start.

Monroe is with her newly minted third husband Arthur Miller (Dougray Scott), but their relationship appears cold. She is much more dependent on her acting coach Paula Strasberg (Zoë Wanamaker), whose role is to protect Monroe's fragile self esteem. Olivier's wife Vivien Leigh (Julia Ormond) is gracious enough but keeps a wary eye on her husband. With filming in turmoil and Monroe's frequent late arrivals to the set infuriating Olivier, Miller abruptly abandons his new wife and heads back to the US. Monroe turns to Clark for comfort, the superstar and the third assistant director raising eyebrows as they start to spend time together, despite the objections of Monroe's business partner Milton H. Greene (Dominic Cooper).

My Week With Marilyn is based on two (!) books by Colin Clark chronicling his limited interaction with Monroe, and the movie cannot shake the nagging sentiment that this is one temporarily starstruck man milking a short experience for all its worth. And while there may be an interesting story here about the ease with which hypercharisma can distort reality, director Simon Curtis does not help by portraying the time that Marilyn and Clark spent together as an almost mystical ideal romance.

This may have been how a mesmerised Clark remembered events; it simply comes across as one man emotionally drowning within the allure of an incredibly beautiful but deeply troubled woman, and mistaking her ability to influence all men for something resembling a whirlwind relationship. More pointedly exploring the difference between what Clark felt and what actually happened would have made for a much more interesting movie.

Instead we get a princess and the pauper fairy tale, complete with the prolonged montage sequence of the couple touring Windsor Castle and Eton College, and then skinny dipping. At best Monroe was furious that her husband abandoned her, desperate for company, irrational due to constant pill popping, and found the most naive sap to baby sit her ego. But the Adrian Hodges script treats the week as a magical coming together of two souls, and the saccharine taste just doesn't convince.

Stretching the shallow events of one week to a respectable movie length means that every detail is prolonged past its reasonable level of importance. Ironically, the scenes revealing the struggles of filming a movie with an erratic Marilyn are more interesting, Curtis capturing the continuous tension created by an unstable star, frequently late to the set and trying to pretend that the role requires great insight and preparation, while in fact she sleeps off her latest fistful of pills.

My Week With Marilyn does offer an affecting Michelle Williams turn as Monroe, or at least she nails the mannerisms of Monroe's public persona. Williams immediately erases the line between actress and subject, and dances along all the octaves of a highly strung, enormously talented, and incredibly famous woman, struggling with self confidence at one end of the scale and effortlessly deploying her irresistible sex-drenched charms at the other.

Branagh is less successful as Olivier, never appearing at ease in the role and unable to shed the act and find the actor. Judi Dench brings plenty of class as Sybil Thorndike, but she effectively disappears halfway through the film. Redmayne is firmly stuck in family theatre territory, where the fact that he is acting - almost always with a smile! - overshadows everything else that he is trying to convey.

Williams alone makes the film worth watching, and her performance raises the production from cheap television movie to a tolerable film experience. Never mind My Week With Marilyn; the 100 minutes with Michelle are what matter.

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Movie Review: Shutter Island (2010)

A psychological drama set in a mental hospital on an isolated island off the coast of Boston, Shutter Island mixes a few too many ingredients. The meal is good, but spices compete for attention before the emergence of a dominant flavour.

It's 1954, and US Marshals Edward Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) travel to an island prison facility for severely disturbed mental patients to search for an escaped convict: Rachel Solando is convicted of drowning her three children, and was living in an alternate reality until she vanished. The prison is run by Dr. John Cawley (Ben Kingsley), who is experimenting with new treatment techniques and drugs that are more respectful than the brutal, traditional methods of dealing with mental patients.

Edward and Chuck get the uneasy sense that Dr. Cawley and his team are being less than straightforward with their investigation of Solando's disappearance. Edward starts to experience headaches, and his health is not helped by flashbacks to his war experiences and the agony of his wife's death in a car crash. As a violent storm isolates the island, Edward has to try and separate truth from fiction in a dangerous environment where little is as it seems.

Shutter Island is one of director Martin Scorsese's less focused efforts, but still provides several moments of compelling drama. Especially in its first half, Shutter Island bounces around several themes. It spends time as a criminal drama: Edward and Chuck looking for an escaped convict. Then the film probes controversial science: is Dr. Cawley doing more good or more harm with his unconventional methods. It takes a turn into Edward's head, as his past World War Two experiences and personal family tragedy intrude on his focus. Undertones of escaped Nazi scientists continuing their evil deeds on US soil are introduced. And horror elements creep in, as Edward explores the island cemetery and the mysterious wing where the most violent mental patients are locked-up, and ghoulish characters jump out of the shadows.

Despite the meandering, Shutter Island maintains the attention thanks to DiCaprio's intense, tortured magnetism and Scorsese succeeding in creating a canvass of ominous doom on the storm-battered island. After the movie's central twist becomes evident at the start of the second half, Shutter Island settles down to a more straightforward psychological drama, with the focus shifting to Edward's struggle against a wide range of demons from his past and present.

It does not quite hit its intended targets, but Shutter Island is a worthwhile destination.

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Movie Review: Blue Valentine (2010)

A study of the ups and mostly downs of a couple, Blue Valentine is a bleak relationship study, not helped by the generally unappealing two main characters. Ryan Gosling as Dean and Michelle Williams as Cindy give terrific performances; but Dean and Cindy don't do much to endear themselves.

Blue Valentine is set in Brooklyn and Pennsylvania working class neighbourhoods, and switches between scenes of the present with the marriage is falling apart, and the past when Dean and Cindy met. As a young man Dean is not doing much to improve his lot in life. He appears to have charm and musical talent, but he never finishes high school and settles for a job with a moving company. There is barely a backstory to round out his character and personality.

We know a bit more about Cindy. Despite a loveless household and a short-tempered, verbally-abusive father, she has aspirations to become a doctor, but she's also not helping her cause: sexually active at 13; 20 or more partners as a young woman; and a jerk of a boyfriend. She meets Dean, and is soon pregnant. It's never clear if Dean is the dad, but he marries her anyway.

A few years later Cindy and Dean are struggling through a marriage without joy. Living in a rural, isolated setting, Dean never stops drinking and smoking, and his job as a painter means that his clothes and skin are perpetually paint-stained. Cindy is an ultrasound technician, commuting two hours each way to her job at a small clinic. They are both good to their young daughter Frankie, but she seems to be the only common bond. The sudden added stress of the family dog getting lost and killed does not help, and an ill-conceived supposedly romantic getaway at a sordid motel pushes the relationship over the edge.

Director Derek Cianfrance, who also co-wrote the script, maintains a low-key, close to documentary style, and despite the simmering tension he keeps most of the emotional histrionics almost in control. Gosling and Williams are absorbing, and despite the questionable choices made by Dean and Cindy, the performances generate lasting empathy.

Ultimately Blue Valentine has too few moments that anchor the relationship. Early in their courtship they share a magical moment with Dean playing a toy guitar while Cindy dances on the street; and there is another bonding experience at an abortion clinic. Otherwise, the film wallows in a lot of dark clouds with too few silver linings. Without a strong foundation, it is no surprise that a marriage will crumble, and Cindy and Dean ultimately face the reality that their union best resembles a house of cards.

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