Movie Review: Enola Holmes (2020)

Genre: Mystery Action  

Director: Harry Bradbeer  

Starring: Millie Bobby Brown, Sam Claflin, Henry Cavill, Helena Bonham Carter  

Running Time: 123 minutes  

Synopsis: It's England in the 1880s, and parliament is debating expansion of voting rights. 16-year-old Enola Holmes (Millie Bobby Brown) was raised as an independent thinker by her mother Eudoria (Helena Bonham Carter), after her older brothers Sherlock and Mycroft (Henry Cavill and Sam Claflin) left home. Now Eudoria disappears, and Enola is unwillingly thrust into the care of the traditionalist Mycroft. She runs away and encounters Tewksbury (Louis Partridge), a young aristocrat also running from his family. Using clues left by her mother, Enola has to find Eudoria, help Tewksbury, and evade capture.

What Works Well: The target audience of 12 to 15-year-old girls will enjoy Millie Bobby Brown's spunky performance and the can-do message of girl power. England of the 1880s is recreated with beautiful settings, including the lavish Holmes estate and the muddy bustling chaos of London.

What Does Not Work As Well: As the jumbled and overstuffed action shifts from Eudoria's disappearance to Enola's escape then Tewksbury's barely explained sub-plot, Enola breaks the fourth wall with annoying frequency. Meanwhile, the anachronistic militant feminist message (with a generous side-dish of anti-male contempt) is delivered with sledgehammer subtlety, while the caught-in-the-middle Sherlock Holmes has never been less effective. In the rush to lecture and hector, the script fails to properly discuss neither the politics nor the threat of violence that supposedly propel the plot.

Key Quote:

Tewksbury: I'm a man.

Enola: You're a man when I tell you you're a man.

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Movie Review: Love Wedding Repeat (2020)

Genre: Romantic Comedy

Director: Dean Craig

Starring: Sam Claflin, Olivia Munn, Freida Pinto

Running Time: 100 minutes

Synopsis: At a scenic Italian villa, Englishman Jack (Sam Claflin) is supporting his sister Hayley (Eleanor Tomlinson) on her wedding day. Jack is also interested in re-igniting a romance with Hayley's friend Dina (Olivia Munn), three years after they felt a spark in Rome. The wedding guests include Jack's ex-girlfriend Amanda and her new partner Chaz (Freida Pinto and Allan Mustafa), Jack's friend and aspiring actor Bryan (Joel Fry), and most disruptive of all, Hayley's admirer since high school Marc (Jack Farthing).

What Works Well: Writer and director Dean Craig aims for a Death At A Funeral madcap vibe, and partially succeeds. Enough funny shenanigans swirl around Hayley's wedding to maintain interest, including a spiked drink, an insufferable guest in a kilt (an often hilarious Tim Key), and at least one surprise revelation. Sam Claflin (the would-be lover lacking confidence), Eleanor Tomlinson (the stressed out bride), and especially Jack Farthing (the event wrecker) buy into their roles as a narrator laments the whims of fate orchestrating various outcomes. 

What Does Not Work As Well: The two different playthroughs suggest a scarcity of material to occupy a feature length film, and some characters either never get going (Vitelli the film director) or just get tiresome in a hurry (the size-obsessed Chaz).

Conclusion: The wedding is worth attending, but it's not the event of the season.



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Movie Review: Love, Rosie (2014)

A romance with tinges of both humour and drama, Love, Rosie explores an elusive love between two life-long friends.

In England, Rosie (Lily Collins) and Alex (Sam Claflin) have been best friends since childhood. Grounded and perfectly matched, they both have deeper feelings for each other but cannot properly express them. In the final year of school, Alex finds a girlfriend in the conceited Bethany (Suki Waterhouse), while Rosie has a clumsy one-night stand with jock Greg (Christian Cooke).

She ends up pregnant, disrupting her plans to attend college in Boston, where Alex pursues a medical education and finds a new live-in girlfriend. They stay in touch but apart, never quite connecting at the right time in their lives, as Greg re-enters Rosie's life and Alex has to deal with a pregnancy of his own.

A winning Lily Collins performance enlivens a sweet romance spanning over a decade between two souls stumbling in pursuit of fulfilment. Not quite a romantic comedy nor a drama, Love, Rosie strikes its own tone with a middle ground of pragmatism, director Christian Ditter and writer Juliette Towhidi allowing the obstacles of life to speak for themselves.

Setting the film apart is an absence of dumb decisions that often beset star-crossed lovers. Rosie and Alex are weighed down by their childhood pre-adolescent friendship, and find it naturally difficult to cross the threshold into purposeful adult lovers. From that foundation all their choices make sense as they set out into the world looking for an alternative, good-enough, match.

Physically separated by an ocean and emotionally in different places, the film captures the threat of erosion that can beset the closest friendships. Alex finds a succession of icy women brimming with ego and style instead of practical substance, and Rosie is preoccupied first with a baby then Greg's return offering the promise of stable fatherhood to young Katie.

Sam Claflin's Alex channels a young Hugh Grant. His rather truncated arc gives way to decent subplots favouring Rosie's evolution, including her dream to enter the hotel business and daughter Katie following in her mother's footsteps.

Rosie and Alex mature as people but still encounter more hurdles to happiness, and Towhidi does throw at least one curve too many at the would-be lovers as the years pass by. Love, Rosie could have been 10 minutes shorter, but is otherwise a romance well earned.

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Movie Review: Their Finest (2016)

A wartime drama and romance with sprinklings of comedy, Their Finest is an attractive period piece although the small story struggles for resonance.

It's 1940 in England, World War Two is raging and London is subjected to almost daily German bombing raids. Catrin Cole (Gemma Arterton) finds work as a propaganda short film script writer in the Ministry of Information. She meets fellow scribe Tom Buckley (Sam Claflin) and veteran actor Ambrose Hilliard (Bill Nighy), who is not yet accepting his days as a leading man are over. Meanwhile, Catrin's husband Ellis (Jack Huston) is a struggling artist with a physical disability, dealing with the humiliation of not being able to support his wife.

After the Dunkirk evacuation, government officials seek a morale-boosting story as a basis for a feature film. Catrin interviews two sisters who reportedly heroically sailed to the Dunkirk beaches and helped rescue soldiers, but finds the truth to be more mundane. Nevertheless to save her job Catrin embellishes the tale of nationalistic bravery, and with Buckley's help joins the team developing the film.

The fictional story of a colourful band of characters conceiving and filming a wartime propaganda movie is a pleasant enough experience. Director Lone Scherfig, adapting the book by Lissa Evans, effortlessly adds a pinch of dry humour and a dash of romance, muted as it is by the tumultuous clouds of war. The period details bring to grey life an England under siege, London's residents dusting themselves off, tending to the wounded and then carrying on with their lives until the next set of bombs rain from the sky.

With all able-bodied men off to war, Catrin represents women striding forth to join the workforce in large numbers. Their Finest includes mostly sideways but still telling references to the societal role of women past, present and future, as Catrin is increasingly empowered by the newly discovered and paycheque-triggered sense of value and independence. Gemma Arterton delivers a suitably stoic performance as a representative for both her nation's resilience and her gender's emergence.

But this is ultimately an individually-scaled story stretched perilously close to its load limit. The film runs up to two hours, and to get there Scherfig slows the pace down and includes plenty of ultimately repetitive scenes. The side story of the actor Ambrose Hilliard, his agent and the agent's dog and sister occupies a disproportionate amount of time and expands into a clumsy distraction, as does the involvement of a government minder nosing into the creative process.

The unconventional romance steadies the narrative. As Catrin unpacks her domestic situation with Ellis, her attraction to Buckley is slow to unfurl, and is constructed on a foundation of workplace banter and mutual respect. And in a world turned upside down by war, Their Finest deserves credit for charting some unexpected twists for the lovers to navigate in a unique time and place, the rules first suspended then rewritten.

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Movie Review: Adrift (2018)

A survival-at-sea adventure drama, Adrift carries an emotional punch and benefits from a terrific Shailene Woodley central performance.

The story starts with 23 year old American Tami (Woodley) waking up alone on a stricken and badly damaged yacht, adrift in the wide open ocean. As she struggles to gain control of the yacht and survive, her story is revealed in flashback. It's 1983, and Tami, originally from San Diego, lands in Tahiti as she aimlessly travels the world in search of a purpose.

Soon she meets British solo sailor and adventurer Richard Sharp (Sam Claflin). They embark on a whirlwind romance, fall deeply in love, and within months are thinking about marriage. Richard bumps into old acquaintances who ask him to sail their luxury yacht Hazana back to San Diego. Soon Richard and Tami are on their way, but a massive hurricane is in their way.

Based on true events as depicted in Tami Oldham's book Red Sky in Mourning, Adrift is part tender romance and part harrowing survival ordeal, the two streams elegantly juxtaposed by director Baltasar Kormákur. The film jumps back and forth between the flashback unfurling the blossoming romance and the present crisis at sea, and the two parts of Tami's story support each other, her perseverance in trying to will herself to survive magnified by having finally found unexpected love literally at the end of the world.

After the hurricane Tami's challenge is to tend to her injuries get the boat back to a semi-functional state, try to find and rescue a badly incapacitated Richard, and then develop a plan that could lead to a rescue. She has sailing experience but is no way an expert at navigating the Pacific ocean on her own. While survival movies are common, Kormákur finds enough challenges and opportunities at sea to keep Tami occupied and the narrative humming.

The film's greatest asset is Shailene Woodley, and during both the falling-in-love scenes and the terrifying battle against the elements in a crippled yacht, she commands events with a stirring performance full of spirit and determination mixed with self-doubt.

Adrift reaches an effective emotional crescendo with a gentle yet potent curve towards the end of Tami's journey. The film leaves its mark as a testament to the human spirit's ability to find reservoirs of strength, wherever they reside, to endure and survive desperate calamities.

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Movie Review: My Cousin Rachel (2017)

A drama, mystery and romance, My Cousin Rachel offers a study in tumultuous human emotions but is too staid and obvious to scale the heights it aims for.

In 19th century England, Philip is orphaned and raised by his loving older cousin Ambrose. As Philip (Sam Claflin) matures into a young man, Ambrose heads to Italy, leaving Philip with his godfather Nick Kendall (Iain Glen) and Nick's daughter and Philip's potential love interest Louise (Holliday Grainger). In his letters back to Philip, Ambrose describes falling deeply in love with his widowed cousin Rachel. But the letters turn dark, and a seemingly very sick Ambrose accuses Rachel of wanting him dead.

Philip rushes to Italy but learns that Ambrose is already dead. Seething, he returns to England to look after Ambrose's estate and await the visit of Rachel (Rachel Weisz). When she finally arrives, Philip is disarmed by her honesty and humility, and his rage and resentment quickly turn to infatuation and love. He learns that Ambrose may have intended to leave his fortune to Rachel. Despite Nick's protestations, Philip starts to make plans to transfer his wealth to his twice-widowed cousin.

An adaptation of the Daphne du Maurier novel directed by Roger Michell, My Cousin Rachel moves slowly but is reasonably rewarding. With lush production values enjoying the languid pace, the film is easy on the eyes. The English countryside comes to life in measured doses, and the costumes and set designs ensure there is always something to admire.

Which is helpful, because otherwise the narrative is both predictable and stretched to fill the 105 minutes of running time. Philip's journey from angry and suspicious to enraptured and beguiled plays out in Victorian time. He blows past all the signs that Rachel may be less of a victim than she lets on, and of course this being du Maurier, there is at least one twist in the tail. In revealing its secrets the film is uneven and deliberately misleading, stacking the deck of evidence first one way then another.

In the process, themes of trust, infatuation, impulsiveness and the gulf in maturity between an older woman and younger man are explored. Philip is an adolescent transitioning into an adult, looking for shortcuts to manhood and leaving plenty of room for impetuous behaviour to trump common sense. Rachel is twice married, seasoned and worldly. The film hinges on whether their relationship finds mutually beneficial common ground or the quicksand of deceit and victimization.

The film stands on the foundation of Rachel Weisz' performance, and she delivers a nuanced depiction, faithful to the character and open to the multiple interpretations demanded by the mystery. Sam Claflin, at 30 years old, struggles mightily to convince as a young man of 19. The rest of the cast is underpowered.

My Cousin Rachel is an enigmatic character worth getting to know, but this visit requires patience.

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